The general of Ukraine’s ground forces has said that his troops will not surrender the eastern city of Bakhmut while preparing for a counteroffensive against Russian occupation forces. The United States plans to announce as early as Wednesday a $300 million military aid package for Ukraine that will include a short-range missile for the first time, two U.S. officials said.

Basic information about the war in Ukraine, day 434, TEXT:

08:00A large fire broke out early Wednesday at a fuel depot near a key bridge connecting mainland Russia to Crimea, a Russian official said, days after Moscow accused Ukraine of attacking an oil facility from Sevastopol.

07:40In an interview with The Washington Post, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Monday that he did not discuss with the White House the large-scale leak of top-secret documents of the American special services, calling the revelations harmful for both Washington and Kyiv.

07:20Russia launched its third round of nighttime attacks on Kyiv in six days, city authorities said Wednesday morning, but air defense systems destroyed all the drones, with no reports of casualties or damage.

06:35Eight new Ukrainian military brigades have been formed to take part in the upcoming counteroffensive amid increasing speculation about its timing and ability to inflict a major defeat on the Russian occupiers, The Guardian reports.

05:50The European Commission will propose on Wednesday a financial instrument that will stimulate the production of ammunition in the European Union up to one million shells per year in order to restore national stocks and also to help Ukraine, reports AFP.

Zelenskyi: May and the following months will be very active

01:45Volodymyr Zelenskyi in his message on Tuesday evening: “May and the following months will be very active for Ukraine in the international arena, there will be a lot of negotiation work”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyi told Ukrainians on Tuesday evening that May and the following months will be very active for Ukraine in the international arena, with negotiations and other international events that will strengthen the country’s defense capabilities. Most likely, he is referring to the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, where Kyiv wants firm security guarantees and an accession date, during which Ukraine hopes to recapture the occupied territories thanks to an imminent counteroffensive.

01:31 In a rare gesture, the White House is praising House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. “I support aid to Ukraine. I do not support what your country is doing,” McCarthy replied to a Russian journalist.

The White House on Tuesday praised House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, in a rare gesture toward a political rival that came after he gave a strong response to a Russian journalist, saying he supported aid to Ukraine and blaming Russian atrocities after the invasion of Ukraine. February 2022.

01:14The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation actively informs about missile strikes on the territory of Ukraine in order to reduce the level of anxiety in the Russian information space about the future Ukrainian counteroffensive – the analysts of the Institute for the Study of War (IWV) are convinced.

The institute reported on the reports of the Ukrainian and Russian sides regarding the latest massive missile strike by Russia on the night of April 30 to May 1.

01:03The Russian Embassy in the United States said that “the democratic slogans of the United States are not worth the paper they are written on.”

The statement came after Russia accused the US of not “condemning the atrocities committed today by Ukrainian hooligans in Odesa.”

S-300 missile systems were dropped in the direction of Zaporizhzhia

00:51A pro-Russian official was injured in an explosion in Melitopol / Last week, another police chief was killed in a bomb explosion in a city occupied by Russia

The pro-Russian deputy chief of the district police department in Zaporizhzhia, a region in southern Ukraine partially occupied by Russians, was hospitalized on Tuesday after an explosive device detonated as he tried to open the gate of his home in Melitopol.

This incident happened after a similar explosion that happened last week, when on April 27, another head of the Melitopol police, Oleksandr Mishchenko, was killed by an improvised explosive device near the entrance of the apartment building where he lived.

00:34Putin was not invited to the coronation of King Charles

Britain did not send invitations to the coronation ceremony of King Charles on May 6 to the heads of state of Russia, Belarus, Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Afghanistan and Venezuela, a British source told Reuters.

According to the source, even high-ranking diplomats from North Korea and Nicaragua received invitations to the ceremony.

00:15S-300 missile systems were dropped in the direction of Zaporizhzhia

In Russian-occupied Mariupol, five trucks with S-300 missile systems were spotted, which were headed for Ukraine-controlled Zaporizhzhia, Mariupol Mayor Petro Andryushchenko wrote in Telegram on Tuesday.

S-300 are Soviet missile systems designed for air defense. However, Russia used refurbished S-300s to strike targets in Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports.

A brief summary of recent events:​

• Sabotages are multiplying in Russia: the second train derailed after detonation of explosives. A freight train in Bryansk, Russia, on the border with Ukraine, derailed for the second day in a row due to the detonation of an “explosive device” on the tracks, the local governor said on Tuesday, citing AFP.
• Weapons that Kyiv receives for the first time from the USA. The Hydra-70 missile is used by air-to-ground systems. It can be equipped with a variety of warheads, and in the latest versions, the missiles have guidance systems for point attacks
• Putin was not invited to the coronation of King Charles. Britain did not send invitations to the coronation ceremony of King Charles on May 6 to the heads of state of Russia, Belarus, Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Afghanistan and Venezuela, a British source told Reuters.
• What do ordinary Ukrainians think about the long-awaited counteroffensive. Perhaps it has already begun; it could be in a few weeks. We don’t know, but the Ukrainians CNN spoke to in Kyiv are pinning their hopes on this long-awaited counteroffensive.
• S-300 missile systems were dropped in the direction of Zaporizhzhia. In Russian-occupied Mariupol, five trucks with S-300 missile systems were spotted, which were headed for Ukraine-controlled Zaporizhzhia, Mariupol Mayor Petro Andryushchenko wrote in Telegram on Tuesday.
• “Warsaw’s move is so daring”: the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Poland’s Chargé d’affaires. The chargé d’affaires of the Polish embassy in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday after the Polish authorities seized the building of the Russian gymnasium in Warsaw on Saturday.
• China should put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine, the US ambassador said. The United States wants China to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine, US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said on Tuesday.
• The Kremlin accuses the USA of “masking” the losses of Russian troops in Ukraine. “Absolutely unexpected,” commented the spokesman of the Russian president, Dmytro Peskov, quoted by the Interfax agency, on the assessment based on secret US information (according to which 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine since December 2022). for today).

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The events of Monday, the 433rd day of the Russian invasion, were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro