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The Russian Defense Ministry has accused Kiev of this morning's drone attack in Moscow, which it has branded as "terrorist" and which has only caused slight damage to buildings in the Russian capital, according to its mayor. A Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mikhailo Podoliak, has later assured that his country "has nothing to do" with that event. Kiev has also suffered an attack this morning, the seventeenth of the Kremlin forces, with 31 Iranian-made drones (29 shot down, according to the air force). One person has died and four have been injured in a residential building in the Ukrainian capital. On Monday, the city suffered the most intense bombardments (29 drones and 51 missiles) of this latest Russian campaign, aimed at wearing down its air defenses and pressuring the population.
- Ukraine, journey on the front that has the world on tenterhooks
01:06
Ukraine launches several drones against the capital of Russia
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The Country
South Africa's opposition calls for Putin to be arrested if he visits country for BRICS summit
The main opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has gone to court to have Vladimir Putin arrested if he visits the country during the BRICS summit, which brings together representatives from South Africa, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The DA has asked for "an order" stipulating that, if the Russian president were to arrive in South Africa, the government would have to arrest him, as demanded by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in mid-March. The Hague-based ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the deportations of Ukrainian children from areas he has occupied in Ukraine.
Since South Africa is a member of the ICC, it should theoretically arrest the Russian president upon his arrival in the country. However, the government maintains close diplomatic relations with Russia and insists on its "neutrality" in the conflict in Ukraine, so it has not indicated whether it will comply with the arrest warrant.
The opposition party said it had made a "preventive" judicial request to ensure the government "respects its obligations" and hands Putin over to the ICC in case he visits the country.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said only on Tuesday that Russia would be "duly represented" at the BRICS summit, without specifying whether the Russian leader planned to go. (AFP)
ACT.30 MAY 2023 - 18: 43
The Country
Belarus conducts exercises with Russian Iskander-M nuclear-capable missile system
The Armed Forces of Belarus have started on Tuesday a series of combat training with the Russian tactical-operational missile system Iskander-M, with nuclear capability. The Ministry of Defense of Belarus has indicated in a statement that these exercises seek to train its troops to "prepare and conduct combat operations" with the Iskander-M.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on 24th May the transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of the former Soviet republic, which shares a border with Ukraine. On the same day, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin signed an agreement in Minsk to organize the storage of Russia's tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.
"The deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons is an effective response to the aggressive policy of countries hostile to us," the Belarusian minister said after the signing of the agreement. Shoigu, for his part, stressed that Moscow will control the weapons as well as their eventual use. (Efe)
ACT.30 MAY 2023 - 16: 48
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov accuses West of "supporting genocide in Ukraine"
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday accused the West of "supporting genocide in Ukraine" by backing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's peace plan, which he said would "destroy everything Russian" in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Lavrov, who addressed reporters in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, where he is on an official visit, offered no evidence to back up his claim. For years, Russia has accused the West of ignoring an alleged persecution by the Ukrainian government of Russian-speakers in the historic eastern region of Donbas and elsewhere in Ukraine. That was one of the arguments put forward by the Kremlin to justify its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022.
"The conclusion is very simple: the West directly supports genocide," Lavrov said during a press conference with his Burundian counterpart. (Reuters)
ACT.30 MAY 2023 - 15: 06
Naiara Galarraga Gortázar
President Lula in a video conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodímir Zelenski, on March 2, 2023, in Brasilia. / Ricardo Stuckert / Presidency
The thorny path of Lula's diplomacy: from seeking an agreement in Ukraine to restoring Maduro's image
President Luiz Inácio Lula receives 11 of his 12 South American counterparts in Brasilia on Tuesday. He has summoned them for a frank and informal conversation on how to enhance the integration of the southern cone beyond ideological differences. But, after the warm and uncritical reception that Nicolás Maduro gave on Monday, Venezuela and its insertion in the region threaten to monopolize the debate. Lula has fulfilled his promise to return Brazil to the international stage but, to the chagrin of Western diplomacy, insists on defending a profile of his own that in the five months he has been in power has often clashed with the majority positions in the West.
Brazil boasts of being a non-aligned country. That is why, because of his defense of non-interference and peaceful solutions to conflicts and because he is a middle power, the president of Brazil has the privilege of delivering every year the first speech before the General Assembly since 1947 until today. But staying true to that position is increasingly difficult in a world of increasing complexity and highly interconnectedness. It is enough to look at the balances of the South American power (among other traditionally non-aligned countries) to avoid choosing sides in open conflicts such as the pulse between the United States and China or the war in Ukraine.
Read the full story at this link
ACT.30 MAY 2023 - 14: 56
Russia has delivered 1.5 million Russian passports in the Ukrainian regions it intends to annex
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said Tuesday that nearly 1.5 million people from the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow considers annexed to its territory - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson - have already received Russian passports.
Russia sanctioned the annexation of these four regions last September, after referendums that the United Nations defined as "farces" and that the international community did not recognize. Kremlin forces do not fully control any of them. Moscow had also illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014.
The Ukrainian authorities denounced last weekend that the inhabitants of the area of Kherson under Russian occupation were being forced to replace their Ukrainian identity and travel documents - identity card, passport and car registration certificate, among others - with similar Russian documents, on pain of being threatened and having their property confiscated. The issuance of Russian passports and the imposition of the ruble as currency are some of the measures imposed by Moscow in its policy of Russification of the Ukrainian areas that it intends to annex. (Reuters / EL PAÍS)
ACT.30 MAY 2023 - 14: 48
Javier G. Cuesta
Ukraine has several drone models to attack Russia
Moscow experienced this morning an attack with eight drones, according to the calculations of the Russian Ministry of Defense, which, although it was almost innocuous - only caused slight damage to a building - opens a new chapter in the war. The Russian Defense Ministry blamed Kiev for the attack, an accusation the Ukrainian government has denied, and details about the aircraft Moscow claims to have shot down in the country's capital are still unknown.
Ukraine has several drone models to hit Russia. According to several Russian military analysts, the aircraft used on this occasion could be "duck" type drones, with stabilizers in front of the wings and capable of reaching a radius of 1,000 kilometers. Specifically, the Israeli IAI Harop.
The head of the Russian Center for the Development of Transport Technologies and aviation expert, Alexei Rogozin, told the Ria Novosti news agency that the same model was used in another attack in Krasnodar on May 26.
For their part, some users of social networks highlighted the similarity of the images of the remains of one of these devices shot down in Moscow with a Ukrainian-made drone.
This is the UJ-22 model, with a range of 800 kilometers and a speed of between 90 and 160 kilometers per hour. Despite their slowness and low explosive charge, they are capable of flying at low altitude and thus evading missile defenses.
Russian authorities found three drones of this type at the end of April in the Moscow region, two of them with cameras and another with half a kilo of explosives, and it is believed that these devices could have been used in the attack on the Kremlin on May 3. That attack, like Tuesday's, caused only slight material damage.
"The UJ-22 Airborne is a multi-role unmanned aircraft capable of flying between electronic countermeasures at any time of the day and year in adverse visibility and weather conditions," says its manufacturer, the Ukrainian company UKRJET.
This drone, capable of carrying up to 20 kilos of explosives, can be controlled from the ground within a radius of 100 kilometers. His team requires four people to be deployed in an average time of three minutes.
ACT.30 MAY 2023 - 14: 25
Russian Defense Minister says West is delivering more weapons to Ukraine but it won't change outcome of conflict
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that the West is increasing the delivery of weapons and other military equipment to Kiev, ahead of a "large-scale" Ukrainian offensive, but that those "Western weapons" will not change the outcome of the "special military operation," the euphemism with which the Russian authorities call their invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking to state television, Shoigu also alluded to this morning's drone attack on Moscow, which caused only slight damage to a building. The minister again blamed "the Kiev regime" for that "terrorist attack against civilian targets," something he said "has taken note."
Shoigu also boasted that Russia is inflicting "effective fire damage on the enemy," alluding to the alleged reduction of Ukrainian military capability due to Russian attacks. (Reuters)
ACT.30 MAY 2023 - 14: 07
