Russia fired a wave of missiles and drones overnight, many aimed at Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, but all were shot down, Ukrainian officials said.CreditCredit...Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Ukraine’s air defense intercepted six hypersonic Kinzhal missiles fired by Russia early Tuesday, several Ukrainian officials and one American official said. The strikes are further evidence of Ukraine’s ability to shoot down one of the most sophisticated conventional weapons in Moscow’s arsenal.
In one of the largest aerial assaults since early March, Russia also launched nine Kalibr cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea, three short-range ballistic missiles from land and a number of drones, according to the commander in chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. All of the drones and missiles were shot down, the military said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that at least one Kinzhal was used in the attack on Tuesday and claimed that a Kinzhal had hit a Patriot air defense system. Two U.S. officials confirmed that a Patriot system had been damaged in the attack but added that the Patriot remained operational against all threats.
It was not immediately clear how many Russian missiles were aimed at the capital, Kyiv, which local officials said was targeted overnight with an “exceptional” blitz of missiles and drones. The skies over Kyiv lit up around 3 a.m. with thunderous explosions as air defenses collided with the incoming missiles, raining debris across the city.
A statement from Ukraine’s Air Force about the Kinzhals came quickly. It did not specify whether an American-made Patriot air defense system was involved in shooting down the Russian missiles, but Ukraine until recently lacked the capability to intercept Kinzhals and had pressed allies for Patriot systems that it hoped would provide protection.
In an address by video link later Tuesday to the Council of Europe, the main institution governing human rights on the continent, President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “At 3 o’clock in the morning, our people woke up to explosions. Eighteen Russian missiles of different types were in our skies, in particular, ballistic ones, which the terrorist state has boasted about.”
Later, in his nightly address, Mr. Zelensky offered a more defiant stance.
“We used to hear that Patriots were supposedly unrealistic,” Mr. Zelensky said in his nightly address on Tuesday. “And now here they are, Patriots.”
It has been unclear whether even the Patriot could intercept hypersonic missiles, which were thought by many experts to be too fast to be detected by radars in time for traditional air-defense systems to respond. But on May 4, Ukraine’s air force said it had for the first time managed to intercept a Kinzhal using a Patriot, a confirmation that took more than 24 hours.
Three senior U.S. officials confirmed that shoot-down and said they had received information about the strike from the Ukrainian military through classified channels. One official added that U.S. military analysts were able to verify the claim using technical means. Nevertheless, independent analysts were reluctant at the time to confirm the interception until more information was available.
Hypersonic missiles are long-range munitions capable of reaching speeds of at least Mach 5 — five times the speed of sound, or more than a mile a second.
Some Western analysts have remained skeptical about Moscow’s claims of hypersonic capacity, calling the missiles modified versions of existing conventional munitions, “new wine in old bottles.”
The aerial assault over Kyiv early Tuesday was the eighth large-scale attack on the city this month; Ukrainian officials have said the attacks were aimed at exhausting their air defenses. Tuesday’s barrage was extraordinary in the number of attacks launched at the capital over a short period of time, said Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration.
At least three people were injured by the debris, according to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko. Several cars caught fire, a building was damaged and debris fell onto the grounds of the Kyiv Zoo, Mr. Klitschko said. None of the animals or workers were injured, the mayor said.
Image
Police officers investigated fragments of a rocket that fell into a zoo after it was shot down over Kyiv by air defense early Tuesday.Credit...Alex Babenko/Associated PressKyiv’s air defenses have been largely successful at shielding the capital from major damage in the recent spate of attacks, which followed a lull of nearly two months.
The latest bombardment took place as President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted video of himself on a train returning to Kyiv after a four-country tour in Western Europe during which he secured pledges for even more air-defense systems, attack drones and armored vehicles.
Britain promised air-defense missiles and drones in addition to the long-range cruise missiles it recently delivered. Germany said it would provide a nearly $3 billion package including 16 air-defense systems, more than 200 drones, Leopard tanks and armored fighting vehicles.
Anushka Patil contributed reporting.
— Victoria Kim, Eric Schmitt and John IsmayShow more
The State of the WarZelensky’s European Tour: President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has been promised billions of dollars in new military aid during a whirlwind tour of European allies, reflecting a striking shift in the political landscape.
The Battle for Bakhmut: The fight for the eastern city is now the war’s single longest and bloodiest battle. Although the Ukrainians are making small gains, Russia still controls about 90 percent of the largely ruined city.
Messages on Bombs: Ukrainians have a lot to say to Russia. Many have chosen to say it in ink on the sides of rockets, mortar shells and exploding drones.
The Ukrainian military says that it has been moving forward despite fierce resistance from Russian soldiers to the north and south of Bakhmut, putting greater pressure on Moscow’s forces to devote resources to the battle as they brace for a wider Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Bakhmut, once a city of 80,000 known for its sparkling wine and salt mines, has been the site of some of the deadliest urban combat in a generation. After nearly a year of fighting, Russian forces have seized control of about 90 percent of the ruined city. But after months on the defensive, Ukraine last week launched a series of coordinated counterattacks and, in a matter of days, reclaimed ground around the city that it took Russian forces months to seize.
Hanna Maliar, a Ukrainian deputy minister of defense, said on Tuesday that Kyiv’s forces had recaptured 20 square kilometers, or 7.7 square miles, to the north and south of Bakhmut “within a few days.”
“At the same time, the enemy is somewhat advancing in Bakhmut itself," she wrote on the Telegram messaging app about the fierce fighting within the city limits.
Just a day earlier, Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for the Ukrainian forces fighting in the east, said on national television that over the previous 48 hours Ukraine had been able to build on last week’s gains and drive forward about two kilometers in some directions.
Without going into further detail, he said that on some fronts the forward push had been slower, with battles fought over areas about the size of three football fields. Colonel Cherevaty also said Russian forces were counterattacking in some areas. While his claims could not be independently verified, Russian military bloggers also have noted Ukrainian gains around Bakhmut over the past week.
The gains are still small geographically — a few dozen square miles at most — but they represent a shift in momentum that Ukrainian commanders say they hope to build on when they launch their widely anticipated counteroffensive in other places along the 600-mile front line.
They also are presenting Russia with a difficult decision about the cost it is willing to pay to keep fighting for the devastated city, potentially drawing resources from other areas that could soon come under attack.
The looming Ukrainian counteroffensive is not a single event, according to Ukrainian commanders and military analysts. President Volodymyr Zelensky warned last week that it could be delayed without more weapons from allies, but it was not clear if that was misdirection, and Ukraine in recent weeks has stepped up its assaults on Russian positions deeper behind enemy lines.
Image
Ukrainian soldiers crossing a street in Bakhmut in December. The city has been the site of some of the deadliest urban combat in a generation.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesDespite an influx of Western weapons to aid in the counteroffensive, Ukrainian commanders do not expect the fight ahead to be easy. Andriy Biletsky, the commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, which made the initial breakthrough of Russian lines around Bakhmut last week, said in an interview over the weekend that Russian “tank units are being pulled up, fresh units are being pulled up.” As he spoke, the sound of nearby fighting echoed in the distance.
The fighting for Bakhmut is fluid, but the Ukrainian military and Russian military bloggers give a picture of where the most pitched battles are playing out.
To the south, Ukrainian soldiers and commanders have reported an advance through a pocket of forests south of the village of Ivanivske as they move in the direction of Klishchiivka, a small village that Wagner forces claimed to have captured in late January. The village is viewed as strategically important because it sits on high ground directly east of roads into Bakhmut that can serve as supply routes.
Image
Ukrainian soldiers on the outskirts of Ivanivske late last month.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesTo the north, both sides reported fighting around the highlands surrounding the Berkhovskoye reservoir. The Russian Ministry of Defense said over the weekend that its forces were regrouping around the reservoir to “increase the strength of the line of defense.”
The Russian military blogger Gray Zone, who is associated with Wagner, reported on Friday that newly won Ukrainian positions give them “an advantageous tactical position, which allows them to conduct reconnaissance and effectively use any type of weapons” on Russian troops in the valley below and into the city itself.
But as Russian forces have lost ground around the city, Ukrainian officials say the onslaught against Ukrainian fighters inside the city has only intensified.
“The enemy above all is trying to capture the town itself, undertaking desperate efforts to this end,” Colonel Cherevaty said.
Nataliia Novosolova and Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed research.
— Marc SantoraShow more
“I very much believe in the mission of PEN, but I had to step down from leadership in order to not be implicated in what I think was a mistaken decision,” Masha Gessen said.Credit...Krista Schlueter for The New York Times
The journalist Masha Gessen has resigned from the board of the free expression group PEN America, after a panel at the organization’s World Voices Festival featuring Russian writers was canceled in response to objections by Ukrainian writers.
The concerns were raised by Artem Chapeye and Artem Chekh, Ukrainian writers who are also active-duty soldiers in the Ukrainian army and who were set to appear on a panel about writers as combatants on May 13. After arriving in New York last week, the Ukrainians noticed that a separate panel — about writers in exile, to be moderated by Gessen — included two Russians.
The Ukrainians told organizers that they could not participate if that panel (which also included the Chinese novelist Murong Xuecun) went forward, citing prohibitions against Ukrainians appearing at events with Russians, according to Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of PEN America. After efforts to present the panel outside the festival failed, Nossel said, it was canceled.
Gessen, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said in a text message that they remained committed to the work of PEN, but could no longer stay on the board, where they served as vice president.
“I very much believe in the mission of PEN, but I had to step down from leadership in order to not be implicated in what I think was a mistaken decision,” Gessen said. Their resignation was first reported by The Atlantic.
Boycotts of Russian artists and culture have been a topic of debate across the cultural world since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. But Nossel, who has spoken out against such boycotts, said the question had yet to fully reach PEN until now.
At last spring’s festival, she noted, Andrey Kurkov, a novelist and the president of PEN Ukraine, had given the annual Freedom to Write lecture, after which he had an onstage conversation with the Russian American novelist Gary Shteyngart. But there were no Russian writers in the festival, which was smaller than usual due to Covid concerns.
Ukrainian writers’ concerns about appearing with Russians had been raised earlier this year, Nossel said, when discussions about the festival began. But she said PEN did not realize until the Ukrainian delegation had arrived in New York that they would object to participating not just on a panel with Russians, but in a broader festival that included Russians in any of the nearly four dozen events.
Reached by email, Chapeye said he believed that “a Ukrainian soldier cannot be seen under the same ‘umbrella’ with Russian participants for political / public image reasons.”
Asked about consequences for appearing, he said, “I think the only consequence would have been my guilt before all the people murdered and tortured by the Russian army.”
Gessen, who immigrated from the former Soviet Union as a teenager in 1981 and holds both Russian and American citizenship, has been a prominent critical voice in Russia, where they returned in 1991 to work as a journalist. Their books include “The Man Without a Face,” a 2012 biography of Vladimir Putin, and “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” which won the National Book Award in 2017. In 2013, Gessen moved back to the United States with their family, citing growing persecution of L.G.B.T.Q. people.
The two Russians on the canceled panel, Ilia Veniavkin and Anna Nemzer, left Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine. Both are collaborators on the Russian Independent Media Archive, a joint project by PEN America and Bard College, which preserves the past two decades of work by independent outlets, most of which have been shuttered or blocked by the Putin government. (Veniavkin and Nemzer could not immediately be reached for comment.)
In an interview, Nossel praised Gessen’s “tremendous contributions” to PEN America, where they have been on the board for nine years. “It’s a big loss,” Nossel said. “But it felt like a no-win situation.”
Gessen emphasized that they remained a member of PEN, and remained committed to the Russian Independent Media Archive, which they spearheaded. The decision to cancel the panel, Gessen said, “was a mistake, not a malicious act.”
“My objection is not to the Ukrainian participants’ demand,” Gessen said. “They are fighting a defensive war by all means available to them. My issue is solely with PEN’s response.”
Semen Kryvonos, left, and Oleksandr Klymenko, directors of separate anti-corruption bodies in Ukraine, on Tuesday in Kyiv announcing the detention of the head of the country’s Supreme Court.Credit...Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
The chair of Ukraine’s Supreme Court was removed from his post after being arrested in a bribery investigation, two anti-corruption bodies said on Tuesday.
The agencies did not identify the chair by name, but said it was the Supreme Court chief. On Tuesday, Vsevolod Knyazev was dismissed as chief justice after an overwhelming majority of the court’s judges voted to strip him of the position, according to local news reports.
The authorities accused the justice of accepting $2.7 million in bribes.
“This is a dark day in the history of the court,” the court’s judges said in a joint statement. “We must be worthy and withstand such a blow.”
Image
Vsevolod Kniaziev was dismissed as chief justice after a majority of the court’s judges voted to strip him of the position.Credit...Leah Millis/ReutersThe judges added that they would fully cooperate with investigations, and that the court must “act on the principle of self-purification, taking all necessary measures.”
Mr. Knyazev remains a Supreme Court judge; a separate body, the High Council of Justice, has the power to remove him, according to Ukrinform, a state news agency.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine posted photos on Facebook that included piles of American dollars stacked on a table and a sofa. The agency’s chief, Semen Kryvonos, said a bribe was paid for ruling in favor of the Finance and Credit financial group, which is owned by a prominent businessman, according to Reuters.
The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said on Telegram that it and the bureau had “caught the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a lawyer red-handed while receiving an illegal benefit.”
Corruption, and Ukraine’s long struggle against it, had mostly receded in the public’s attention after the Russian invasion last February, as Ukrainians rallied around the army and government at a time of national peril.
But this year, President Volodymyr Zelensky has retrained his focus on fighting corruption, aimed at maintaining Ukrainians’ trust in the wartime government after several officials were fired in January amid a major corruption scandal.
And as Ukraine seeks fast-track entry to the European Union, the country’s inability to suppress graft and corruption has concerned its Western allies.
Anastasia Kuznietsova and Matt Surman contributed reporting.
In a photo from the South Korean Presidential Office, President Yoon Suk Yeol meets with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday.Credit...South Korea's Presidential Office/via Reuters
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, met with President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea on Tuesday to request nonlethal military aid, using a visit to Seoul to stress the need for “something more radical” than just humanitarian support to end Russia’s invasion of her country.
Ms. Zelenska thanked Mr. Yoon for the humanitarian and economic help that South Korea has already provided and asked for nonlethal military equipment, including tools for mine detection and removal, a spokesman for Mr. Yoon’s office, Lee Do-woon, told reporters.
Ms. Zelenska said on Telegram that she and other Ukrainian officials, including the first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, also discussed Ukraine’s need for stronger air-defense systems.
Mr. Yoon vowed that South Korea would coordinate with NATO and other nations to “actively support the Ukrainian people,” his spokesman said, but did not offer specific details on what that would entail.
On Wednesday, South Korea agreed to provide $130 million in low-interest loans to Ukraine through the country’s economic development fund, the Finance Ministry said.
While it was not the military assistance that Ms. Zelenska had asked for, the fund is meant to support economic and social infrastructure projects abroad. Choo Kyung-ho, South Korea’s deputy prime minister, said that South Korea wished to help Ukraine rebuild after the war, signing the agreement during a meeting with Ms. Svyrydenko on Wednesday.
Previously, South Korea pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine last year. In February, it said it would provide an additional $130 million in financial aid to be used to help remove mines, restore the power grid and support reconstruction projects.
Seoul has so far resisted calls to send its artillery shells to Ukrainian forces, who need more ammunition ahead of a long-awaited counteroffensive intended to retake Russian-occupied territory. Mr. Yoon indicated for the first time only last month that Seoul might be willing to consider sending military aid to Kyiv, telling Reuters that it would be difficult to insist exclusively on humanitarian or financial support in the event of a large-scale attack on civilians.
The South Korean president’s shift on the matter was “a wise decision,” Ms. Zelenska told the Yonhap News Agency in an interview published Tuesday.
“Indeed, when there is a criminal in the house, the owners clearly need not only humanitarian aid, food and medicine, but something more radical to drive the criminal out,” she said, adding that peace was possible only through a Ukrainian victory, not through negotiations with a “murderer who has no regrets.”
Ms. Zelenska has become a prominent emissary for her husband’s administration since becoming a wartime first lady, championing mental health recovery and children’s welfare while traveling aboard to advocate for support from Kyiv’s allies. Earlier this month, she met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain in London before attending the coronation of King Charles III.
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, as well as leaders from Egypt, Zambia, Senegal, Uganda and the Republic of Congo, will visit Moscow and Kyiv in an attempt to end the war in Ukraine.Credit...Esa Alexander/Reuters
JOHANNESBURG — As South Africa faces increasing pressure over its close ties to Russia, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said on Tuesday that leaders from six African countries would visit Moscow and Kyiv on a “peace mission” in a bid to end the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Ramaphosa said both President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed the initiative — which includes Egypt, Zambia, Senegal, Uganda and the Republic of Congo — in separate phone calls over the weekend. Mr. Ramaphosa’s announcement makes South Africa the latest in a string of outsiders aiming to step in as a mediator. An envoy from China, Li Hui, the government’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, is expected in Ukraine and Russia this week in an attempt to help negotiate an end to the war. And Pope Francis has said the Vatican was involved in a secret “mission” to establish peace.
Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Putin did not immediately comment or confirm Mr. Ramaphosa’s statements, and the time frame for the visits was still unclear. Mr. Zelensky has made clear that he would reject any calls for peace talks that do not include a demand that the Russian military first withdraw from all of Ukraine’s territory. Mr. Putin has shown no signs of wanting to make concessions.
Tensions between the United States and South Africa, which has officially said it would not take sides in the conflict, have escalated in recent days. Last week, the United States ambassador to South Africa accused the government of providing weapons and ammunition via a sanctioned Russian ship that was allowed to dock in a South African naval base last December. South African officials have denied the allegations and appointed a judge to investigate the incident.
“The conflict in that part of the world, much as it does not affect Africa directly in the form of deaths and destruction to our infrastructure, it does have an impact on many Africans,” Mr. Ramaphosa told journalists during a joint media briefing with the visiting Singaporean prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, in Cape Town. The war has led to food insecurity in Africa, with the price of fertilizers and fuel going up, he added.
Mr. Ramaphosa wrote in his weekly newsletter on Monday that the war in Ukraine had brought “extraordinary pressure on the country to abandon its non-aligned position and take sides in what is in effect a contest between Russia and the West.”
South Africa in February hosted a naval drill with Russia and China and allowed two sanctioned Russian vessels to use its military facilities. This week, South Africa’s Army chief visited Moscow for a bilateral meeting with his Russian counterpart.
South African officials have also had to face questions over whether they will honor an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court to apprehend Mr. Putin if he attends a meeting of BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — that will be held in South Africa in August.
The issue has triggered a public debate over South Africa’s membership in the court, pitting the governing African National Congress’ historic ties with Russia against the country’s economic ties with the United States and Europe.
German and Danish military personnel trained Ukrainians crews on how to operate and maintain Leopard tanks, in Kleitz, Germany, this month.Credit...Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The new long-range missiles, attack drones and tanks and other armored vehicles that President Volodymyr Zelensky has secured from allies in recent days will fulfill many, but not all, of the demands for weapons that Ukraine said it needs for a counteroffensive against Russia.
Military analysts believe at least some of the latest tranche of Western weapons will be quickly sent to the front lines to cut off Russian supply routes and to strike at their artillery systems and command centers in Ukraine’s south and east. Others may be delivered later, including in the autumn or beyond, to help Mr. Zelensky plan for future operations should the war continue to drag on.
But the robust package — announced as Mr. Zelensky visited four European capitals over the last three days — may signal that Western officials now believe Ukraine could retake significant swaths of territory in the counteroffensive, said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a former Danish army intelligence officer.
“We wouldn’t be committing this amount of weapons to Ukraine at this point, if the thinking was that it was not likely that they would succeed,” said Mr. Kirkegaard, who is now a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund research group in Brussels.
Some Western officials hope that if the Ukrainians make substantial gains of territory, they would have more leverage in any peace negotiations.
Just last week, Mr. Zelensky had warned that the anticipated counteroffensive against Russia that was expected to begin this spring or early summer could be delayed unless Kyiv quickly received more weapons.
European allies responded in a matter of hours.
Perhaps the most significant commitment came from Germany, which on Saturday announced — just before Mr. Zelensky landed in Berlin — that it would send Ukraine 30 additional Leopard tanks and 20 armored fighting vehicles, 16 air defense systems, more than 200 drones and a slew of other arms and ammunition. The leaders of France and Italy also gave vaguer promises to send light tanks, ammunition and air defense systems.
Image
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, left, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, in Berlin on Sunday.Credit...Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesThe additional Leopards and infantry fighting vehicles that Germany is sending as part of its package worth 2.7 billion euros, or nearly $3 billion, will be most useful on Ukraine’s southern steppe, where the Russian-controlled terrain, Mr. Kirkegaard said, is well suited “for tank or maneuver warfare.”
But Max Bergmann, the director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, noted that it was not clear that all of the newly pledged German tanks would arrive soon. (Berlin has already delivered 18 Leopard tanks to Ukraine.)
However, he said, the commitment “helps give Ukraine a degree of confidence” as military planners prepare for a drawn-out battle.
As of early March, only 31 percent of tanks and 76 percent of other armored fighting vehicles had been delivered to Ukraine for the coming counteroffensive, according to classified U.S. military assessments that were recently leaked, although American officials have said far more have been delivered in the months since. The Biden administration has also pledged to send 31 American-made Abrams tanks to Ukraine, but they are not expected to arrive until fall at the earliest.
The new air defense systems that were promised may help ease American worries that Ukraine did not have enough to protect itself as the counteroffensive neared. Four of the 16 air defense systems that Germany has newly pledged are considered among the most sophisticated on the market.
The newly promised long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which Britain pledged on Thursday, help answer a longstanding request from Ukraine. The United States has so far resisted sending American long-range missiles to Ukraine, in part to avoid potentially escalating the war with weapons that Ukraine could use to reach into Russian territory.
Mr. Kirkegaard said the long-range drones that Britain pledged on Monday are of particular threat to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol and other sites in and near Crimea, including the Kerch Strait Bridge that connects occupied Crimea to Russia.
Crimea has been a key staging ground for the Russians operating in captured territory in southern Ukraine.
An entrance to the Lefortovo Prison in Moscow. Tass, the Russian state news agency, said a former U.S. Embassy employee identified as Robert Shonov was being held there. Credit...Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
Robert Shonov, identified as a former employee of the U.S. Embassy in Russia, was arrested in the Russian city of Vladivostok and charged with conspiracy, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. The report did not identify his nationality.
Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, told reporters at a briefing on Monday that he had seen the report but that “I don’t have anything additional to offer at this time.”
Tass, quoting an anonymous law enforcement official, said that Mr. Shonov was accused of “collaboration on a confidential basis with a foreign state or international or foreign organization.” He has been taken to Lefortovo Prison in Moscow, Tass reported, and no court date has been set.
Being held in isolation is commonplace at Lefortovo, a notorious high-security prison whose inmates currently include Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal correspondent who was accused of espionage in March, charges that his employer and American officials have strongly denied. It is also where Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who is serving a 16-year sentence on what the United States has said are fabricated charges of espionage, was held for 20 months until his trial in 2020. He is now at a forced labor camp several hundred miles away.
In the Soviet era, the K.G.B. kept Soviet dissidents at the prison, and it has been used more recently to isolate opponents of the Kremlin.
Corrections were made on
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed a nationality to the former U.S. embassy employee detained in Vladivostok. It is not known whether the person is an American; the Tass report did not identify the person’s citizenship.
An earlier version also incorrectly stated the whereabouts of Paul Whelan. He is not currently being held at Lefortovo Prison in Moscow; he is now at a forced labor camp in Mordovia, several hundred miles to the southeast of Moscow.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
President Alexander G. Lukashenko at the Victory Day military parade in Moscow last week, in a photo from Russian state media.Credit...Pool photo by Gavriil Grigorov
Amid swirling rumors about the health of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, state news media on Monday released photographs of him, an apparent attempt to tamp down speculation that he was seriously ill.
Mr. Lukashenko, a key Kremlin ally who usually receives fawning daily coverage from state-controlled news media featuring photos and videos, had not been shown since last Tuesday, when he attended events in Moscow and the Belarusian capital, Minsk, celebrating the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945.
He skipped an annual ceremony on Sunday in Minsk for Belarus’s flag day, an event at which he usually speaks, leaving his prime minister to read a statement.
Europe’s longest serving leader and an avid sportsman, Mr. Lukashenko, 68, has since 1994 ruled Belarus, a former Soviet republic that depends on Moscow for financial aid and security assistance, with a firm grip. In the past he has relished showing off his robust good health in public by rollerblading, playing ice hockey, and giving long speeches outdoors, regardless of the weather.
But the official Belarusian news agency, Belta, and state television had for the past week recycled old photographs and film clips of him.
Ukrainian officials and media fed a swirl of gleeful rumors around the health of Mr. Lukashenko, who is widely reviled in Ukraine for allowing Russia to use Belarus, which borders both nations, as a staging ground for its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
An opposition news outlet, Euroradio, reported that Mr. Lukashenko had been taken by motorcade to a Minsk clinic on Saturday, but the country has not officially commented on his health.
In what could be the most conclusive sign that he was ill, though perhaps not gravely, Russia’s tightly controlled news media — which rarely comment on leaders’ health — have in recent days reported that Mr. Lukashenko is unwell, citing Konstantin Zatulin, a senior Russian legislator who works closely with Belarus and other former Soviet republics.
Mr. Zatulin was quoted as saying of Mr. Lukashenko that “he just got sick but it is not Covid.” He gave no details and downplayed the severity of Mr. Lukashenko’s condition.
On Monday, Belta said that Mr. Lukashenko visited an air force command post and published what it said were photos of the leader that day. It was not immediately possible to independently confirm whether the photos were taken on Monday.
The intense secrecy of closed countries like Belarus and Russia allows wild rumors about their leaders to take flight. For instance, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is regularly rumored to have multiple fatal diseases.
The secrecy also makes it difficult to explain the deaths of apparently healthy officials, like Vladimir Makei, the veteran Belarusian foreign minister whose sudden death in November set off feverish speculation of possible foul play.
Nataliia Novosolova and Riley Mellen contributed reporting.
A satellite image captured on May 3 showed water cresting over the top of the Kakhovka dam.Credit...Planet Labs
Water levels at a reservoir that supplies southern Ukraine with drinking water have reached a 30-year high, increasing the possibility of flooding in the area and signaling a lack of regulation. The sudden increase in levels at the Kakhovka reservoir appears in altimetry data — which uses satellites to measure height — published on Friday by Theia, a French earth data provider.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service has not recorded water levels that high at the dam since at least 1992, when the service began publishing data. Russian forces control the dam and the nearby power plant, which are vital to managing water levels in the reservoir.
A New York Times analysis of satellite imagery over a period of several months also showed that the water level has risen significantly, and now covers sandbars that line the waterway. In recent days, the reservoir has reached more concerning levels, appearing to actually crest over the top of the dam.
The development is a dramatic turnabout, coming only a few months after water levels in the reservoir had reached a historic low. At the time, Ukrainian officials raised concerns about a lack of water for drinking, agriculture and the cooling of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant nearby. By the end of February, the water level was sitting at nearly two meters below its usual average.
Recent videos and satellite imagery from late last year show that at least three of the gates that control the flow of water through the dam were opened — apparently by Russian forces in control of the Kakhovka power plant. That, in turn, allowed water to rush through at an alarming rate over the winter, despite relatively little water entering the reservoir from upstream.
It is unclear exactly how the water level rose so significantly since then. But David Helms, a former U.S. Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist who researches the dam, said that Russian forces seem to have kept too few gates open to control the flow of winter snowmelt and spring rains. Likening the effect to a leaky bucket, Mr. Helms said that too much water has been entering the reservoir.
“What the river is doing is dumping a lot of water in,” Mr. Helms said. “And it’s far exceeding the discharge rate.”
The dam, which lies along the front line, has been a point of tension throughout the war. In August, a Ukrainian artillery strike targeted a bridge along the dam, though the dam avoided sustaining any damage. Then, in November, Russian forces deliberately destroyed part of the road directly above the dam’s gates, carrying out an explosion dangerously close to vital dam infrastructure.
No comments:
Post a Comment