Here’s where things stand on Wednesday, May 28:
Fighting
- Russian air defences destroyed or intercepted 112 Ukrainian drones over a three-hour period, most of them over central or southern regions of the country, the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a post on Telegram early on Wednesday, as the two countries continue to trade drone attacks.
- Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said six Ukrainian drones were repelled while heading for the Russian capital. Recovery crews were examining fragments on the ground, he said.
- Russia deployed 60 drones across multiple regions of Ukraine through the night, injuring 10 people, Ukrainian Air Force officials said.
- More than 850 residents were left without power in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, after three Russian air strikes hit the city late on Monday night.
- Russia’s military said in a post on Telegram that it had begun naval drills in the Baltic Sea with more than 20 warships, boats and support vessels, 25 aircraft and helicopters, and 3,000 servicemen.
Politics
- United States President Donald Trump suggested that he has protected Russia from “really bad things”. In a post on TruthSocial, he said: “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realise is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD.”
- Responding to Trump’s remarks, Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said in a post on X: “I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!”
- Trump’s comments came after the the Kremlin said the US president may be experiencing “emotional overload” after Trump’s earlier remarks that Putin was “absolutely crazy” over the scale of Russian air attacks on Ukraine’s cities.
- Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine, told Al Jazeera that the US is waiting for a response from Russia after Trump gave Putin “some guidelines a week ago”.
- Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov accused German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of “pretentiousness” after Merz said that France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the US had lifted range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine.
Energy
- The New York Times reported that satellite images suggest Russia is building new electricity lines in occupied southeastern Ukraine, connecting the grid to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant captured by Russia.
- Ukraine’s energy regulator said in a post on Facebook that a gas import mechanism will avoid high transit fees when supplying gas through the Trans-Balkan pipeline from Greece to Ukraine.
- Ukraine’s Minister of Energy Herman Galushchenko said he hoped all participating countries would agree that the Trans-Balkan Route from Greece to Ukraine would meet “common strategic goals”, as Ukraine continues to explore gas supply routes not involving Russia.
