Passengers stranded in an airport in Moscow amid Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian military targets, May 7, 2025

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Are There Any US “Adults in the Room” Over Ukraine-Russia?

Wednesday’s Coverage: Russia Kills 2, Injures 8 in Kyiv; Murders Child near Sumy

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1530 GMT:

At least 209 Ukrainian civilians were killed and 1,146 injured by Russian attacks in April, in the deadliest month since September 2024, says the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission.

April’s toll included 19 children killed and 78 injured, the highest verified number of child casualties in a month since June 2022.

“One of the main reasons for the sharp rise in civilian casualties was the intensified use of ballistic missiles in major cities across the country,” said Mission head Danielle Bell.

Between January and April 2025, 664 civilians were killed and 3,425 injured, a 59% increase compared to the same period in 2024.

UPDATE 1450 GMT:

Ukraine’s Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has ratified the minerals deal with the US by a 338-0 vote.

Signed on April 30, the agreement establishes a joint investment fund between Kyiv and Washington and grants the US special access to projects developing Ukraine’s natural resources.

See also EA on TVP World and Channel News Asia: Ukraine-US Minerals Deal — Will There Be Support for Security?

UPDATE 1058 GMT:

Russia is carrying out a factory expansion in Siberia to increase production of a powerful explosive used in artillery shells and other munitions in its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has had an advantage in shells of up to 10:1 as it tries to seize territory, particularly in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. However, with stocks running low, it is importing large quantities from North Korea.

Using documents and satellite imagery, Reuters establishes that a new production line is being built at a factory owned by State defense company Ya. M. Sverdlov Plant. The facility could start making the high explosive RDX or HMX.

The new facility is expected to produce 6,000 metric tons of high explosive annually and is scheduled for completion this year. That is enough to fill the warheads of 1.28 million OF-29 152-mm artillery shells.

In 2024, Russia produced around 2 million 122-mm and 152-mm artillery rounds. Moscow imported around 2.7 million from North Korea.

Analysts say the North Korean shells have mostly been of poor quality.

UPDATE 0822 GMT:

Vladimir Putin greets Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a photo opportunity in the Kremlin:

UPDATE 0753 GMT:

Two workers of the Prevail Together charity have been killed and another critically injured in an incident near Izyum in northeast Ukraine.

One of the slain men is British bomb disposal specialist Chris Garrett from the Isle of Man.

Garrett, 40, was a volunteer with the Ukraine National Guard between 2014 and 2017, returning just after Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Speaking to the BBC in 2022, Garrett said that while he had cleared mines, he could be of more use training other people, “taking groups of 10, 20, 30, 50 guys at a time and teaching them basic awareness”.

UPDATE 0701 GMT:

Ukraine’s Health Ministry says Russia’s full-scale invasion has destroyed or damaged more than 2,300 medical facilities.

The Ministry said 305 facilities were demolished and 2,020 damaged. The Kharkiv, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions were the most affected.

UPDATE 0652 GMT:

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, a supporter of the Kremlin, says Estonia refused airspace for his plane to fly to Moscow for Friday’s Victory Day military parade.

Fico said Slovakian and Russian officials are “doing everything possible to find another alternative route”.

Latvian authorities also reportedly refused permission for Fico’s plane to cross.

Serbian media say Latvia and Lithuania denied airspace to the plane of Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic. He reached Russia on Wednesday after diverting via Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.

UPDATE 0646 GMT:

Germany has announced a new military package for Ukraine, including missiles for the IRIS-T air defense system, artillery ammunition, drones, engineering support equipment, armored and mine-clearing vehicles; radar stations; and other weapons and auxiliary equipment.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine has disrupted Vladimir Putin’s declaration of a “ceasefire” for Russia’s Victory Day ceremonies marking the defeat of Germany in World War II.

Ukrainian and Russian officials confirmed a series of strikes since Tuesday disabling or disrupting key facilities supporting Moscow’s 38-month invasion of Ukraine.

Among them are the Kubinka military airfield, a base for MiG-29 and Su-27 fighter jets; Russia’s only drone fiber optic plant, located in Saransk, more than 600 km (372 miles) east of Moscow; a manufacturer of missiles and rocket systems in Tula, 182 km (113 miles) south of the capital; and the Bazalt plant, in Krasnoarmeysk near Moscow, making weapons and ammunition.

Internet outages were reported in at least 30 cities and towns in western and central Russia, including St. Petersburg and Moscow. Banks, shops, and taxis warned that services could be interrupted.

An estimated 60,000 passengers are waiting several hours for flights in Moscow airports which have been shut or limited in operations since Monday morning.

In his nightly address to the nation, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky noted Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian civilians, with four ballistic missiles and 142 drones launched early Wednesday. At least two civilians were killed and eight injured, including four children, in Kyiv.

Then he explained:

It is entirely fair that the Russian sky — the sky of the aggressor — is not calm either today. Ukraine’s proposal for a ceasefire of at least 30 days still stands, we are not withdrawing it, as it offers a real chance for diplomacy. But it is Russia that the world sees giving no answer — no response except for new strikes. This clearly and obviously shows who is the source of this war.

At 10:50 p.m., just over an hour before Putin’s “ceasefire” began, at least 12 civilians were injured in a Russian airstrike on Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

The Russians hit a high-rise apartment building with an FAB-250 bomb. Rescue efforts continue, with one woman possibly trapped under the rubble.

Ukraine’s air force said Russian warplanes fired guided air bombs on the Sumy region in northeast Ukraine early Thursday, breaking the “ceasefire”.

Kremlin: “All Necessary Measures” to Protect Foreign Leaders

The Kremlin declared it is taking “all necessary measures” to ensure the safety of foreign leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, due to attend the Victory Day parade in Moscow on Friday.

Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said authorities were jamming the Internet because of the drone threat.

Ukrainian partisans claimed they disrupted communication at several Russian military facilities, destroying equipment at a transformer substation in the Moscow region on Thursday.

An agent of the Atesh movement successfully carried out sabotage in the village of Mogiltsy (Moscow Oblast), destroying equipment at a transformer substation that provided the region’s electrical and telecommunications infrastructure.

(Communication interruptions occurred at a number of important military facilities, including: the 629th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment (military unit 51857), the 21st Separate Operational Purpose Brigade (military unit 3641), as well as the military town where military units 20007, 03523, and 51084 are located.