Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow troop build-up near Kharkiv ‘still not enough for large-scale offensive’ | Ukraine

France could soon send military trainers to Ukraine despite the concerns of some allies and criticism by Russia, and may announce its decision next week during a visit by the Ukrainian president, three diplomatic sources said.

The diplomats said Paris hoped to forge and lead a coalition of countries offering such assistance to Kyiv’s war effort even though some of its EU partners fear it could make a direct conflict with Russia more likely.

According to Reuters, France would initially send a limited number of personnel to assess the modalities of a mission before dispatching several hundred trainers, two of the diplomats said.

Training would centre around de-mining, keeping equipment operational and technical expertise for warplanes to be provided by the west, they said. Paris would also finance, arm, and train a Ukrainian motorised brigade.

“The arrangements are very advanced and we could expect something next week,” said one of the sources.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is due in France on 6 June, the 80th anniversary of D-day, when Allied soldiers landed in Normandy to drive out Nazi German forces during the second world war. He will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris the next day.

Ukraine’s top commander said on Monday he had signed paperwork allowing French military instructors to visit Ukrainian training centres soon.

Ukraine’s Defence Ministry, in a “clarification”, said Kyiv had been expressing interest in a project involving receiving foreign instructors since February.

Russian president Vladimir Putin portrayed the presence of regular French military in Ukraine as a step towards global conflict.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that the US, Nato and some European countries were encouraging Ukraine to continue what it called Kyiv’s “senseless war” with Russia and accused them of escalating tensions in recent weeks.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 in what it called a special military operation, and Kyiv says it is defending itself – with western help – in an effort to expel all Russian forces from its territory.

It says Russia is working hard to try to undermine its morale and will to fight.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, on Thursday accused some western countries of raising tensions in recent weeks by allowing Ukraine to use weapons they had supplied against targets inside Russia, something the US has not publicly agreed to do yet.

Peskov told reporters:

The member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance – the United States in particular, other European capitals – have in recent days and weeks embarked on a new round of escalation.

They are doing this deliberately. We hear a lot of bellicose statements. … They are encouraging Ukraine in every possible way to continue this senseless war.

This will all, of course, inevitably have consequences and will ultimately be very damaging to the interests of those countries that have taken the path of escalation.

Russia is building up forces near the northern part of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region where it launched an offensive this month, but it still lacks the troop numbers to stage a major push in the area, Ukraine’s top commander said on Thursday.

According to Reuters, Ukraine says it has stabilised the front in the north-eastern Kharkiv region where Russian forces launched a cross-border assault on 10 May that opened a new front in the 27-month-old war and stretched Kyiv’s outnumbered troops.

Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia was continuing to send additional regiments and brigades from other areas and from training grounds to bulk up its troops on two main lines of attack in Kharkiv region’s north.

That includes the Strilecha-Lyptsi area between two small villages and the vicinity of the border town of Vovchansk where there has been street fighting.

In a statement on Telegram, Syrskyi said:

These forces are currently insufficient for a large-scale offensive and breakthrough of our defence.

He said Ukraine’s “creation of an ammunition reserve” had also reduced the offensive capabilities of Russian forces.

The remark suggested Kyiv’s acute shortages of artillery ammunition had eased since the United States finally approved a major aid package in April after months of delay.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Wednesday that American weapons being delivered were helping to stabilise the Ukrainian frontlines.

Russia has concentrated most of its offensive pressure in Ukraine’s east where its troops have been able to make slow incremental advances since capturing the town of Avdiivka in Donetsk region in February.

Italy will never send any troops to Ukraine and any weapons it has supplied to Kyiv should not be used on Russian territory, the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said on Thursday.

“All the weapons leaving from Italy [to Ukraine] should be used within Ukraine,” Tajani said in a TV interview with public broadcaster RAI.

Under prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Italy has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, but Rome has never disclosed any details about its military aid, Reuters reports.

Tajani also dismissed the possibility that former Italian prime minister and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi could become the next EU Commission President.

“Draghi is not an [official] candidate and does not belong to any [European] political family … I see it as a complicated matter,” he said.

Nato foreign ministers will meet in Prague on Thursday in the face of growing calls for leading allies to lift restrictions stopping Kyiv from using western weapons to strike inside Russia.

The two-day gathering in the Czech capital is meant to focus on efforts to hammer out a package of support for Ukraine at Nato’s summit in Washington in July.

But the swirling debate over whether to let Kyiv use arms sent by western backers to strike inside Russia risks overshadowing the meeting.

Ukraine has been pressing its supporters – chiefly the United States – to allow it to use the longer-range weaponry they supply to hit targets inside Russia.

The US and Germany have so far refused to permit Kyiv to strike over the border out of fear that it could drag them closer to direct conflict with Moscow.

Ahead of the Nato meeting – which starts with a dinner on Thursday – alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said repeatedly it was time for members to reconsider those limits as they hamper Kyiv’s ability to defend itself.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, appeared to shift the dial on Tuesday when he said Ukraine should be allowed to “neutralise” bases in Russia used to launch strikes.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has previously warned there would be “serious consequences” if western countries give approval to Ukraine.

Overnight, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, criticised the US for aiding Ukraine, saying Washington has become “an accomplice in the crimes of the Kyiv regime”. He said, in particular, that Russia regarded the planned supplies of nuclear-capable F-16 fighters to Ukraine as a “signal action” by Nato.

In other news:

• Lavrov also reportedly told Russia’s RIA news agency that China could arrange a peace conference in which Russia and Ukraine would participate. Russia has repeatedly called for talks with a precondition that Kyiv and the West recognise its territorial gains in Ukraine. Kyiv has rejected those proposals.

• Security services around Europe are on alert to a potential new weapon of Russia’s war – arson and sabotage – after a spate of mystery fires and attacks on infrastructure in the Baltics, Germany and the UK. Security services believe several incidents could be part of a systemic attempt by Moscow to destabilise the west, which has backed Ukraine.

• Russia’s defence ministry on Thursday said it neutralised 13 Ukrainian aerial drones in the southern Krasnodar region and close to the annexed Crimean peninsula. On Thursday morning, “five Ukrainian aerial drones were shot down by anti-aircraft defence systems in the Krasnodar region,” the ministry said. Another eight drones were intercepted during the night “over the Black Sea, close to the Crimean coast”, the statement added.

• Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed seven Russia-launched missiles and 32 drones overnight, its air force commander said on Thursday. On the Telegram messaging app the air force official said Russia had launched a total of 51 missiles and drones. The commander said Russian forces attacked “military facilities and critical infrastructure in Ukraine” but did not provide additional details.