Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine repels ‘massive’ drone attack on Kyiv; Biden to meet Zelenskiy at G7 summit | Ukraine

Joe Biden “looks forward” to meeting Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Hiroshima, the White House has said, confirming the US and Ukrainian presidents would meet on the sidelines of the G7 summit.

“It’s a safe bet that President Biden will meet him,” the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Saturday, without offering details on when the talks would happen, Agence France-Presse reports.

Sullivan said:

The president looks forward to the opportunity to be able to sit down face-to-face.

The Ukrainian president was expected to arrive in Japan on Saturday after an earlier stop in Saudi Arabia, according to local media.

Zelenskiy’s surprise appearance at the G7 meeting comes right after the White House announced it would permit allied countries to supply Ukraine with American-built F-16 fighter aircraft.

Kyiv’s air defences successfully repelled a new Russian drone attack overnight but falling debris caused some damage in the Ukrainian capital, the military said on Saturday.

Agence France-Presse reports that the head of Kyiv’s civil and military administration, Serhiy Popko, said in an update on Telegram:

This night, the aggressor again carried out a massive drone attack. All detected air targets were destroyed by the forces and means of our air defence. No strikes on Kyiv were performed!

Falling debris caused a fire in a residential building in Darnytskyi district but it was extinguished without casualties, he said.

Debris also caused some damage in three other districts, he said, but there was no immediate report of casualties.

Popko said it was the 11th air attack on Kyiv since the start of May.

At 12.45am on Saturday local time, the Ukrainian army said drones were heading towards the Kyiv region.

Explosions were reported there by authorities and also in the city of Chernihiv, north-east of Kyiv. The exiled council of Russian-occupied Mariupol also reported explosions in the city on the Sea of Azov.

Air defence systems were active in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, according to the Ukrainian military.

Welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine. I’m Adam Fulton and here’s a run through the latest developments.

Russia renewed air attacks on the Ukrainian capital overnight, with authorities reporting falling debris in three districts of Kyiv and a fire on the roof of a residential building.

Explosions were also reported in Chernihiv, north-east of Kyiv, and in Mariupol in the country’s south-east.

Meanwhile, the White House has said President Joe Biden “looks forward” to meeting Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Tokyo.

More on those stories shortly. In other news:

• The US has said it will back a joint international effort to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 and other modern fighter jets, marking a significant boost to western support for Kyiv as it prepares a major counteroffensive. The news was welcomed by Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, whose RAF will be involved in the initiative.

• Zelenskiy has addressed Arab League leaders in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and asked them not to turn a blind eye to what is happening in Ukraine. After the visit, the Saudi foreign minister declared the country to be neutral in the conflict.

• The US has halted exports of a slew of consumer goods to Russia including clothes dryers, snow plows and milking machines out of concern the goods may be repurposed to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The list of banned consumer goods came as the Biden administration also added 71 companies to a trade blacklist.

• Ukraine said on Friday it had repelled attacks by Russian forces trying to recapture land they had lost around Bakhmut, where Kyiv says it has inflicted heavy Russian casualties. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group leading the assault on the devastated eastern Ukrainian city, said in a Telegram message that “heavy, bloody battles” were continuing and claimed his men were close to completing the capture of Bakhmut itself.

• Russia has sanctioned former US president Barack Obama in response to the US sanctioning 300 individuals, companies and institutions. The US measures are largely targeted at energy production.

• Western leaders at the Group of Seven summit in Japan have urged Russia to stop its objection to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and told it to halt “threatening global food supplies”.

• The UK unveiled a swathe of new sanctions ahead of the G7 meeting in Hiroshima. Sunak announced a UK ban on imports of Russian diamonds and Russian-origin copper, nickel and aluminium. Sunak also has a self-declared mission to push India into showing greater support for Ukraine.

• Hungary has stepped up threats to block further EU funds for weapons to aid Ukraine, marring a show of unity from western nations at the G7 summit.

• Australia has imposed a new set of sanctions and an export ban on Russia. The sanctions will target 21 entities and three individuals, with entities including the major Russian oil company Rosneft, gold company Polyus PJSC, steel company Severstal PJSC and five banks.

• The Russian government has put the British prosecutor of the international criminal court, Karim Khan, on a wanted list in an act of retribution after the Hague-based court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for allegedly overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children.

• Ukrainian air defence claimed it destroyed 19 drones and missiles out of 28 launched on Friday morning. “Three Kalibr missiles launched from the Black Sea and 16 drones were shot down. Shelling continues on an almost daily basis,” a Ukrainian air force spokesperson, Yuriy Ihnat, told Ukrainian television. Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, posted to Telegram to say five drones had been shot down overnight above his western Ukrainian region.

• Vladimir Putin has said the west is trying to break up Russia into different states based on ethnic and national lines. In a speech on Friday the Russian president said the sanctions were helping unite the Russian people rather than divide them. “There are attempts to drive a wedge between peoples of our country. They say Russia should be divided up into tens of different states.”

• The Russian security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, has claimed the US was involved in the killing of a pro-war military blogger in a bomb blast in St Petersburg in April, and the car bombing of a nationalist writer and politician earlier in May.

• Five members of a Belarusian regiment fighting with Ukrainian forces have been killed in Bakhmut, a Belarusian opposition leader living in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has said on Twitter.

• Russia had refused the latest US request for consular access to detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March on suspicion of spying.
  With Reuters