Emergency services remove rubble from an apartment blocked damaged by an overnight Russian missile attack on the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, May 31, 2024 (Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/NurPhot/ AFP)

Friday’s Coverage: Biden — Some US-Supplied Weapons Can Be Used Inside Russia

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 0946 GMT:

The European Union has seen no evidence of arms supplies from China to Russia during Moscow’s 27 1/2-month invasion of Ukraine, said EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell.

However, Borrell added in a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue forum in Singapore, “But there is no clear line between weapons and [what is not] weapons, since there are things that can have a dual purpose.”

UPDATE 0916 GMT:

The toll has risen to 19 injured from early-morning Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities.

Twelve people, including eight children, have been hospitalised after a strike close to two houses where they were sheltering in the Kharkiv region in the northeast of the country.

Ukraine’s largest private energy firm, DTEK, said two power plants were seriously damaged.

UPDATE 0804 GMT:

Posting video of the aftermath of today’s Russian strikes across Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said:

Russia’s main goal is to normalize terror, exploit Ukraine’s lack of sufficient air defense, and capitalize on Ukraine’s partners’ indecision.

Russian terrorists understand only the language of force. And the only way to stop this terror and keep it from becoming the norm is to promptly make effective decisions. Full protection for the Ukrainian sky must become the norm so that the madmen in the Kremlin understand that their terror is futile.

UPDATE 0734 GMT:

The death toll has risen to seven from Russia’s missile strikes on Kharkiv city in northeast Ukraine early Friday.

The four men and three women were in an apartment block levelled by the attack. Two women are believed to be under the rubble.

UPDATE 0649 GMT:

The European Union has sanctioned six Iranian individuals and three entities involved in the supply of attack drones for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Among those blacklisted is Defense Minister Mohammad-Reza Gharaei Ashtiani; the Revolutionary Guards’ Navy; and Central Headquarters of the Guards’ engineering branch Khatam al-Anbia.

UPDATE 0645 GMT:

Ukraine and Russia exchanged 75 prisoners of war each on Friday.

The swap was the first in three months. Ukraine returned 212 bodies and Russia returned 45.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia has launched another wave of missile and drone attacks across Ukraine, hoping to break energy infrastructure.

Air defenses downed 35 of 53 missiles and 46 of 47 Iran-made drones. But Ukraine’s national grid operator Urkenergo said sites in five regions were damaged.

Energy Minister German Galuschkeno confirmed, “Energy facilities in Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kirovograd, Ivano-Frankivsk regions were attacked.”

At least four people were injured. Among the wounded was a 7-year old girl, following a strike on Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region where a home, two buildings, and a transport bus were damaged.

Debris from a downed drone started a fire at a critical infrastructure facility in the Vinnytsia region, and 20 residential buildings and social institutions were damaged in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Russia has stepped up its “energy war” this year with assaults by hundreds of missiles and drones. The attacks have destroyed Ukraine’s largest hydroelectricity plant and damaged most of its thermal energy complexes.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on the international community to provide air defense systems to protect the country’s infrastructure and civilians.