Russia-Ukraine Crisis: The fighting between the Russian and Ukraine war has entered its 64th day. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is in Kyiv after his visit to Moscow where he met the Russian president Vladimir Putin. “I have arrived in Ukraine after visiting Moscow. We will continue our work to expand humanitarian support and secure the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones,” Guterres wrote on his official Twitter account.
Meanwhile, Russia will hold an informal UN Security Council meeting on May 6th to present first-hand information about the situation on the ground in Ukraine. Air defence systems were active in the Russian city of Belgorod in the early hours of Thursday; as per reports. The Belgorod province borders Ukraine’s Luhansk, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, all of which have seen heavy fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago.
The European Commission proposed suspending import duties for a year on all Ukrainian goods and exempting its steel exports from anti-dumping and safeguard measures. Middle Eastern petrostates are helping Europe make up for a drop in diesel supplies from Russia. Flows of the transport fuel from the Persian Gulf to Europe are set to rise almost 130% this month to 379,000 barrels a day, according to reports and tanker tracking data.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of lightning-fast retaliation if countries interfere in Ukraine as European leaders accused Russia of “blackmail” over its cuts to gas supplies. Russia has told the United States to stop sending arms to Ukraine, saying large Western deliveries of weapons were inflaming the conflict. Tech giant Microsoft in its latest report claimed that Russian hackers carried out at least 37 cyber-attacks against Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force has claimed that it destroyed 8 Russian aerial targets including an aeroplane, a missile and 6 unmanned aerial vehicles in the past 24 hours.