By This was CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine.
A day of mourning has been declared in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa after a Russian missile strike killed five people and left 32 other injured.
The Russian strike hit a popular seafront park where many people were relaxing or walking their dogs after work, officials said. A law academy building was pictured on fire after the attack.
“The Russians hit one of the most popular locations among Odessa residents and visitors with a ballistic missile, previously with a cluster munition, where people walked with children, dogs, played sports…
Such munitions are used to kill manpower and pose a threat primarily to people, not for machinery and buildings,” Oleg Kiper, the head of the Odesa regional military administration, said on Telegram.
In other news, a 98-year-old Ukrainian woman said she walked 10 km (6 miles) under shelling in order to leave the village of Ocheretyne in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, that’s now occupied by advancing Russian forces, as she tried to reach areas controlled by Kyiv. See below for more on the story.
Photos published via Getty Images on Tuesday showed municipal service workers in Ukraine’s capital dismantling a granite monument celebrating the country’s Soviet-era friendship with Russia.
A series of stone sculptures, the monument commemorates the 1654 signing of the Treaty of Pereyaslav.
The dismantling of the structure in a park in central Kyiv may take several days, according to the City State Administration, and the monument will be moved to the State Aviation Museum of Ukraine.
— Sam Meredith
Estonia, which shares a nearly 300-kilometer-long (182 miles) border with Russia, accused Moscow of violating international regulations by interfering with GPS signals and affecting civil aviation in the region.
Finnair on Monday said it had temporarily suspended daily flights to Tartu in eastern Estonia “so that an alternative approach solution that doesn’t require a GPS signal can be put in place at Tartu Airport.”
The Finnish airline said in a statement that two Finnair flights en route to Tartu had to be diverted back to Helsinki last week after GPS interference, which it said was “quite common” in the area.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna on Monday accused Russia of GPS interference in Estonian airspace that had affected civil aviation in the region. He did not provide any evidence to support his claim.
Tsahkna added via social media platform X that he intended to address the issue with NATO allies and European Union member states.
A spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC on Tuesday.
— Sam Meredith
Russia said it shot down six U.S.-supplied long-range missiles, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, over the past day.
In a Google-translated update on Telegram, Russia’s defense ministry said that air defense systems had, in the past 24 hours, “shot down … six ATACMS operational-tactical missiles made in the USA.” It added that Ukrainian drones and French-made “Hammer” guided bombs had also been shot down.
The ministry did not provide evidence for the claim.
The U.S. has quietly supplied the long-range missiles to Ukraine in recent weeks, enabling Kyiv to strike Russian military targets up to 300km (190 miles) away. It’s uncertain how many ATACMS missiles Ukraine was given. The missiles were used for the first time in mid-April, when a Russian airfield in Crimea was targeted. Ukraine has not commented on the latest attack.
Russia’s defense ministry did not say where the ATACMS missiles were shot down, but the Russian-installed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, commented in a Google-translated post on Telegram that ATACMS missiles were neutralized over the peninsula that Russia has occupied since 2014.
“After the ATACMS missiles were shot down, the undetonated submunitions scattered,” he said, warning civilians not to touch or approach any unspent submunitions.
CNBC was unable to verify the information in the posts.
— Holly Ellyatt
A Russian attack on Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa is being investigated, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said Tuesday.
Five people died in the attack on a busy seafront park, and 32 others were injured, with the majority of them still receiving treatment in hospital Tuesday.
Kostin said in a statement on X that by seemingly targeting civilians in the strike, Russia “cynically disregards all norms of international humanitarian law.”
“Yesterday evening, in the enemy’s insidious attack on Odesa, five people were killed and over 30 injured. Among the wounded are two children and a pregnant woman. Five of the hospitalized are in critical condition.”
“The strike was carried out with an Iskander ballistic missile equipped with a cluster munition. This is an indiscriminate weapon, the use of which can lead to significant civilian casualties. Metal fragments and missile debris were recovered within a 1.5 km radius from the attack site,” he said.
The investigation has grounds to believe that Russian forces officers decided to use this particular weapon “deliberately to kill as many Ukrainian civilians as possible,” Kostin said.
The investigation is ongoing, he said, pledging to hold those responsible to account. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians.
— Holly Ellyatt
About 30 Ukrainian men have died trying to illegally cross Ukraine’s borders and avoid fighting in the war against Russia which started in 2022, the spokesman for Ukraine’s border service told Ukrinform news agency.
“Some lost their lives while attempting to cross a mountain river or traverse mountains,” said Andriy Demchenko, according to a Ukrinform report late on Monday. “Overall, since the full-scale invasion began, about 30 people have died attempting to illegally cross the border.”
With some exceptions, Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave the country as they may be mobilised to fight, according to Ukraine’s martial law.
On Monday, the State Border Guard Service said in a statement on social media that 24 men alone have died while trying to cross the Tisa river on Ukraine’s border with Romania.
Demchenko said that since the start of the war border guards have uncovered about 450 criminal groups that have attempted to smuggle people across the border.
“Attempts to illegally cross the border occur every day,” Demchenko said. “Most of these attempts are outside of border checkpoints on the border with Moldova and Romania. The largest number with forged documents is recorded on the border with Poland.”
Earlier in April, Demchenko told Ukraine’s state broadcaster that on average about 10 men are stopped each day trying to illegally leave Ukraine. Last week, Ukraine suspended consular services for military-age male citizens until May 18, criticising Ukrainians abroad who it said expected to receive help from the state without helping it battle for survival in the war against Russia.
— Reuters
Russia has targeted the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in a missile strike, local officials said Tuesday.
Oleh Synehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional state administration, said on Telegram that two people were killed and six were injured in the strike. He said 18 settlements in the wider Kharkiv region were targeted with artillery and mortar attacks.
“The occupiers hit the city of Kharkiv with two anti-aircraft guns [anti-aircraft guided missiles], the hits to the ground were recorded in the Kyiv district. In one of the residential buildings, the facade and glazing of the windows of the building were damaged,” Synehubov said.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov commented on Telegram that explosions were heard in the city earlier this morning in the Kyiv and Kholodnohirsky districts of the city. Russia denies targeting civilians in the war.
It’s widely believed that Russian forces are aiming to recapture the city of Kharkiv in their forthcoming summer offensive. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has signaled that seizing Kharkiv, which is near the border with Russia, is a key objective for Moscow.
— Holly Ellyatt
Russian forces used an Iskander missile armed with a cluster warhead to carry out the deadly strike on a crowded seaside area of Odesa on Monday, an official said.
Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Defense Forces, told national media late Monday that early information suggested Russia had targeted the area with an Iskander-M ballistic missile equipped with a cluster munitions warhead.
“Preliminarily, that it was an Iskander, preliminarily a cluster one. But until all relevant expert measures are taken, I will not say 100%. However, judging by the holes on the walls, it had just cluster munitions inside, such as shrapnel, and the detonation was airborne,” he said, according to the Ukrainian News Agency.
He noted that cluster bombs were primarily used to hurt civilians rather than infrastructure, noting, “as you can see, Russians see civilian residents of the city of Odesa … as a military force.”
CNBC was unable to verify the information commented on by Pletenchuk.
Five people were killed and a further 32 injured — some seriously — in an attack on the seafront park in Odesa Monday. The attack came when many people were enjoying the park after work or walking their dogs, officials said. A local landmark, a law academy, was seen on fire with its roof missing.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians in the war against Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine have used cluster munitions in the conflict. The weapons are controversial as they’re known to pose a high threat to civilians.
— Holly Ellyatt
A day of mourning has been declared in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa after a Russian missile strike killed five people and left 32 other injured.
The Russian strike hit a popular seafront park where many people were relaxing or walking their dogs after work, officials said. A law academy building was pictured on fire after the attack.
“The Russians hit one of the most popular locations among Odessa residents and visitors with a ballistic missile, previously with a cluster munition, where people walked with children, dogs, played sports…
Such munitions are used to kill manpower and pose a threat primarily to people, not for machinery and buildings,” Oleg Kiper, the head of the Odesa regional military administration, said on Telegram.
In an update Tuesday, Kiper said a number of people remain in a serious or extremely serious condition in hospital.
Gennadiy Trukhanov, Odesa’s mayor, described the attack as deplorable on Telegram: “Inhumans target peaceful people who were just resting after a day’s work. Walked with small children. With pets. There are no words that can express our attitude towards those creatures that bombard our cities. Russia is a terrorist country.”
Russia says it does not deliberately target civilians in the war against Ukraine, although thousands have died in attacks on residential and civilian infrastructure since the war started in February 2022.
— Holly Ellyatt
A 98-year-old Ukrainian woman said she walked 10 km (6 miles) under shelling, supporting herself with sticks and sleeping on the ground, leaving Ocheretyne in Donetsk, now occupied by Russia, and trying to reach areas controlled by Kyiv.
In a video posted by Ukraine’s police on social media on Monday, the woman, identified as Lidia Stepanivna, said she had walked without food or water, and fell several times but her “character” kept her going.
“I survived that war (World War Two), and I am surviving this war,” Stepanivna said in the video, which shows her sitting on a bed in a shelter, dressed in an oversized coat and a scarf tied on her head, a wooden stick still in her hand. “I’m left with nothing. But I left my Ukraine on feet.”
She said the war that now Russia is waging against her country is nothing like World War Two.
“Houses are burning and trees are being uprooted,” she said.
Ukraine’s interior ministry said in a statement on its website that the woman was discovered by Ukraine’s military in the evening and handed her to the police, who took her to a shelter for evacuees.
“Law enforcement officers are looking for the woman’s relatives,” the ministry said.
It was not immediately clear when the woman was discovered. The war, now in its third year and with no end in sight, has killed thousands, turned Ukrainian cities and villages into rouble and displaced millions of people.
— Reuters
Tajikistan’s foreign ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador on Monday to protest over what it described as unfair treatment of its citizens by Moscow, in a rare dispute between post-Soviet allies.
It said it was seriously concerned with frequent cases where Tajik citizens were treated in a deliberately negative way.
The ministry made no mention of Russia’s arrest of several men that Moscow said were from Tajikistan following a deadly attack on a concert hall on the edge of the capital on March 22.
The Tajik ministry said in a separate statement on Sunday almost 1,000 of its citizens trying to enter Russia had been stranded in Moscow’s Vnukovo airport since April 27 “without appropriate sanitary conditions being provided to them”.
It said 27 Tajiks have been deported and 306 more have been put on a list of people to be deported from Russia.
— Reuters
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday said that supplies of U.S. military hardware were starting to trickle into Ukraine but added that deliveries needed to be faster, as Russia was looking to make the most of Kyiv’s shortages.
In a joint press conference in Kyiv alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Zelenskyy said the dynamics on the battlefield would be directly affected by the delivery of supplies.
“Timely support for our army. Today I don’t see anything positive on this point yet. There are supplies, they have slightly begun, this process needs to be sped up,” he said, in comments reported by Reuters.
Ukraine is eagerly awaiting military supplies — ranging from artillery shells and ammunition to long-range missiles — that were promised in the U.S.’ latest $61 billion aid package, which was approved last week.
“The Russian army is now trying to take advantage of a situation when we are waiting for supplies from our partners… and that is exactly why the speed of deliveries means stabilising the front,” Zelenskyy said, adding that, “Russia is preparing for offensive actions.”
Russian forces claimed to have captured two villages in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, over the last 48 hours, with the advances coming after Ukrainian troops were withdrawn from several settlements in a bid to prevent casualties.
— Holly Ellyatt
Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed Monday that its forces had captured the village of Semenivka (named “Semenovka” by Russia) in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk.
The village was one of three that Ukraine’s army chief said he had withdrawn his forces from on Sunday in order to reduce the number of casualties in intense battles in the area to the west of Avdiivka, a town captured by Russian forces in February.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Monday that its central group of forces took control of the village by defeating “the formations of the 68th Infantry, 23rd, 115th Mechanized Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 109th Terrorist Defense Brigade and the Foreign Legion mercenaries,” news agency Interfax reported.
The ministry claimed Ukraine lost up to 370 military personnel, two armored personnel carriers and an array of artillery in the process.
CNBC was unable to verify the claims and Ukraine has not commented on the report.
Nonetheless, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Telegram Sunday that he had moved his forces “to new frontiers” west of the villages of Berdychi, Semenivka and Novomykhailivka in a bid to prevent casualties. He described the situation on the front line in eastern Ukraine as having “worsened.”
Ukraine’s president said Sunday that the country is still waiting for vital weaponry supplies from the U.S., having been outmanned and outgunned in the east for several months.
Russia’s defense ministry announced the capture of the village of Novobakhmutivka, just north of Semenivka, on Sunday.
— Holly Ellyatt
North Korea reportedly criticized the U.S. for supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine, state media KCNA reported on Monday.
Citing a statement from a defense ministry official, the KCNA news agency quoted the official as saying the U.S. had “adopted such a mean policy as offering even long-range missiles for attacking the Russian territory to their lackeys in a bid to turn the tide of the war recently running against them.”
“Long-range missiles offered by the U.S. will never tip the scale in favor of Ukraine,” the director of the Department of Foreign Military Affairs of North Korea’s Ministry of National Defense was quoted as saying in the statement, which was translated by NBC News.
“It is a matter of time for the world to see the U.S. getting more vulnerable and Washington’s defeat on the Ukrainian battlefield,” the statement continued, adding that “the U.S. can never defeat the heroic Russian army and people with any latest weaponry or military support.”
The comments come after officials said that the U.S. had provided Ukraine with powerful long-range ballistic missiles for the first time earlier this month. The U.S.-provided Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, has since been used to strikes targets in Russian-occupied territory. A National Security Council spokesperson confirmed that the U.S. has provided them but said the supplies had not been revealed earlier for operational security reasons.
Read more from NBC News here: Ukraine uses long-range ATACMS against Russia for the first time
Russia and North Korea have deepened their political and military ties, with Moscow procuring missiles and artillery shells from Pyongyang, according to U.S. officials. They have both denied any arms transfers have taken place.
— Holly Ellyatt
The number of Ukrainian civilians who have been killed in the war has increased in recent months, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Monday, as Russia has intensified its strikes on Ukraine.
In an intelligence update on X, the British defense ministry noted recent data from the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, which found that 604 civilians were killed or wounded in March 2024.
“This equates to a 20% increase over the previous month,” the U.K. said, noting that “these deaths are attributed to missile and aerial-munitions strikes throughout Ukraine and increased bombardment at the frontlines.”
The report highlighted “the increased coordinated strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure with 20 destroyed or damaged sites. There were 57 children reported killed, double the previous month, and this was attributed directly to Russian use of aerial munitions,” the ministry noted.
The U.N. stated that, in total, there have been 31,366 civilian casualties in Ukraine (including Ukrainian-controlled and Russian-controlled territories) since Feb. 24 2022; the true number is likely to be far higher, with the collection of such data often difficult and inaccurate at a time of war.
“These figures highlight the tremendous cost of life sustained from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine,” the U.K. said.
— Holly Ellyatt
Russia says it has captured another Donetsk village after Ukraine pulls back forces in the east
