Russia-Ukraine war: Russia to make further bid to carve out ‘buffer zone’ in coming weeks, warns US defence secretary – as it happened

• US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said Russian forces will try to make further advances in the “weeks ahead” and try to carve out a “buffer zone” along the Ukrainian border. “This is a hard and dangerous fight but Ukraine’s defenders are showing extraordinary courage and skill,” Austin said as he delivered the opening remarks at the 22nd Ramstein-format summit of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. The military support being delivered includes 155mm artillery rounds, ammunition for himars rockets, air defence capabilities and anti-armour systems. Austin said the US will continue to approve “substantial” security assistance packages to Ukraine, meaning a “steady flow” of aid will be given to Kyiv “week after week”.

• Ukraine still controls about 60% of Vovchansk, an almost deserted town in its northeastern Kharkiv region, despite a relentless Russian offensive, according to deputy governor Roman Semenukha. He said: “The enemy continues to try, especially inside Vovchansk, to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of the town. About 60% of the city is controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces, meaning that the assaults do not stop.”

• The Russian military has taken full control of the village of Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region of Ukraine and has taken up better positions there, Russia’s defence ministry said. The ministry said in a statement its forces had also been involved in fierce clashes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region near Vovchansk, Starytsia and Hlyboke where it said they had repelled two counterattacks.

• Russian shelling killed one person in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, regional authorities said. “Another resident of Kherson was killed by Russian shelling,” the region’s governor Oleksandr Prokudin, wrote on Telegram, adding that a 72-year-old man had also been injured in the attack. Zaporizhzhia region head Ivan Fedorov, meanwhile, said Russian forces shelled the village of Stepnogirsk, killing one man.

• A Ukrainian rocket attack targeted a Russian military base in occupied Luhansk’s suburb of Yuvileine on Monday, according to regional governor Artem Lysohor. According to Lysohor, Luhansk’s residents said Russian forces had set up a military camp near civilian buildings in the village.

• The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, will call on Tuesday for Europe and the US to stand together against Russian aggression, including finding a way forward to unlock the value of frozen Russian sovereign assets to aid Ukraine.

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The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, will call on Tuesday for Europe and the US to stand together against Russian aggression and Iranian “support for terrorism”, including finding a way forward to unlock the value of frozen Russian sovereign assets to aid Ukraine.

Yellen, in excerpts of her planned speech on the transatlantic alliance released on Monday, said US and European support for Ukraine has been essential for Kyiv’s resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Yellen said in the excerpts:

And let me be clear: It is also critical for the security of the American and European people.

If we stand by as dictators violate territorial integrity and flout the international rules-based order, they have no reason to stop at their initial targets. They will keep going.

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She also said that the US and Europe must show that Russia cannot outlast their resolve to defend a rules-based order that took them decades to shape.

The debate on how to make the frozen Russian state assets available to Ukraine has been deadlocked for more than a year, with advocates of complete asset seizure, as opposed to freezing, unable to persuade central bank governors or gain enough support inside the G7 group.

US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said Russian forces will try to make further advances in the “weeks ahead” and try to carve out a “buffer zone” along the Ukrainian border.

Russian forces, which had made only moderate advances in recent months, launched a surprise assault in Kharkiv region on 10 May that has resulted in their biggest territorial gains in a year-and-a-half.

“This is a hard and dangerous fight but Ukraine’s defenders are showing extraordinary courage and skill,” Austin said as he delivered the opening remarks at the 22nd Ramstein-format summit of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group.

“And they are putting the capabilities that this contact group has provided to good use.”

Austin added that Vladimir Putin’s new offensive in Kharkiv has added to the urgency of the west’s support for Ukraine, saying the US is delivering much needed assistance to Kyiv.

The military support being delivered includes 155mm artillery rounds, ammunition for himars rockets, air defence capabilities and anti-armour systems.

Austin said the US will continue to approve “substantial” security assistance packages to Ukraine, meaning a “steady flow” of aid will be given to Kyiv “week after week”.

Putin said during a trip to China last week the north-eastern offensive was in retaliation for Ukraine’s shelling of border regions and that Moscow was trying to create a “security zone”.

Kyiv has experienced difficult shortages of reserves and weaponry, the latter partly caused by months of wrangling in Congress that delayed a huge US military aid package.

Ukraine’s leading mobile operator Kyivstar has allocated $90m (£70.9m) to deal with a suspected Russian cyber-attack on its service.

The hack, described by its CEO as the biggest cyber-attack on telecoms infrastructure in the world, struck Kyivstar in December, damaging infrastructure and disrupting mobile phone signals for millions of Ukrainians.

“Before the cyber-attack, we were moving with an increase of 11%-12% quarter-on-quarter in 2023. The cyber-attack ate up about 3% of annual growth,” CEO Oleksandr Komarov told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

Komarov said the mobile operator allocated 3.6 billion hryvnia ($90.76m) to deal with the aftermath of the attack. It went towards repairing damage as well as on strengthening the system and funding a loyalty program for clients.

Last January, Viktor Zhora, who was a senior figure in Ukraine’s cybersecurity agency, said the country had suffered a threefold growth in cyber-attacks in the past year, with Russian hacking at times deployed in combination with missile strikes.

Zhora said the attacks from Russia had often taken the form of destructive, disk-erasing wiper malware.

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group, also known as the Ramstein format, is meeting today.

The group coordinates assistance from Ukraine’s partners.

“We are grateful to our partners for their staunch support in our fight against Russian aggression,” the Ukrainian defence ministry said.

• Ukraine still controls about 60% of Vovchansk, an almost deserted town in its northeastern Kharkiv region, despite a relentless Russian offensive, deputy governor Roman Semenukha told national television. He said: “The enemy continues to try, especially inside Vovchansk, to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of the town. About 60% of the city is controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces, meaning that the assaults do not stop.”

• The Russian military has taken full control of the village of Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region of Ukraine and has taken up better positions there, Russia’s defence ministry said. The ministry said in a statement its forces had also been involved in fierce clashes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region near Vovchansk, Starytsia and Hlyboke where it said they had repelled two counterattacks.

• Russian shelling killed one person in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, regional authorities said. “Another resident of Kherson was killed by Russian shelling,” the region’s governor Oleksandr Prokudin, wrote on Telegram, adding that a 72-year-old man had also been injured in the attack. Zaporizhzhia region head Ivan Fedorov, meanwhile, said Russian forces shelled the village of Stepnogirsk, killing one man.

• A Ukrainian rocket attack targeted a Russian military base in occupied Luhansk’s suburb of Yuvileine on Monday, according to regional governor Artem Lysohor. According to Lysohor, Luhansk’s residents said Russian forces had set up a military camp near civilian buildings in the village.

Zaporizhzhia region head Ivan Fedorov said Russian forces shelled the village of Stepnogirsk, killing one man.

Vladimir Putin has held a phone call with Iran’s interim president Mohammad Mokhber, with the two leaders declaring their “mutual intention to further strengthen Russian-Iranian interaction”, the Kremlin said.

Mokhber was appointed interim president after former president Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in mountains near the Azerbaijan border on Sunday.

The Russian military has taken full control of the village of Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region of Ukraine and has taken up better positions there, Russia’s defence ministry said.

The ministry said in a statement its forces had also been involved in fierce clashes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region near Vovchansk, Starytsia and Hlyboke where it said they had repelled two counterattacks. These claims have not yet been independently verified.

A Ukrainian rocket attack targeted a Russian military base in occupied Luhansk’s suburb of Yuvileine on Monday, according to regional governor Artem Lysohor.

According to Lysohor, Luhansk’s residents said Russian forces had set up a military camp near civilian buildings in the village.

Until 2014, the Academy of Internal Affairs worked in this area, he wrote on Telegram. These claims have not yet been independently verified.

Luhansk – effectively controlled by Russia since 2014 – had been relatively peaceful since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion two years ago.