Russia says it destroyed US, Europe military stockpile in Kharkiv – Russia’s defense ministry says it has destroyed a large stockpile of military equipment from the United States and European countries near the Bohodukhiv railway station in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
The ministry said Saturday it has hit 18 Ukrainian military facilities overnight, including three ammunition depots in Dachne, near the port city of Odesa.
Western nations have imposed broad economic sanctions on Russia and have been shipping increasing quantities of weapons to confront Russian forces.
Earlier in May, Russia’s defense ministry said it had carried out a missile strike on a military airfield near the port city of Odesa, destroying a runway and a hangar containing weapons and ammunition supplied to Ukraine by the US and European countries.
Pentagon denies role in sinking Moskva
The Pentagon denied reports that it helped Ukrainian forces sink the Russian warship Moskva in the Black Sea last month in a stunning setback for Moscow’s military operation.
“We were not involved in the Ukrainians’ decision to strike the ship or in the operation they carried out,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby in a statement.
“The Ukrainians have their own intelligence capabilities to track and target Russian naval vessels, as they did in this case,” he said.
US media have reported in recent days that the United States has helped Ukraine identify and target the Moskva as well as Russian generals while they are in the field.
Meanwhile, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that there was hostile rhetoric coming out of Poland, and that Warsaw could be “a source of threat”.
We will remain in southern Ukraine ‘forever’: Russian official
“Russia is here forever. There should be no doubt about this. There will be no return to the past,” said Andrey Turchak, a senior official from the Russian parliament, according to a statement from the ruling United Russia party.
“We will live together, develop this rich region, rich in historical heritage, rich in the people who live here,” Turchak added.
UK ambassador summoned by Russia over new sanctions
The British ambassador to Moscow, Deborah Bronnert, has been summoned to the Russian foreign ministry to be warned over new UK sanctions imposed on Russian media outlets, in a move seen as likely to presage reprisals on British press operations in Russia.
In a statement late on Friday, the ministry said Russia would continue to react “harshly and decisively” to all sanctions imposed by London.
The UK earlier this week announced sanctions against the state-owned television station Channel One, accusing it of “spreading disinformation in Russia, justifying Putin’s illegal invasion as a ‘special military operation’”.
Britain also imposed sanctions on a group of Russian journalists embedded with the Russian army in Ukraine, including Evgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, and Dmitry Steshin, a special correspondent for the same outlet.
Russia rejects stealing grain from Ukraine
Information that Russia is stealing grain from Ukraine is likely to be fake, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, after a UN food agency official said there were signs that Russia had been trucking grain out of occupied regions of its neighbor.
“We have no information, it appears to be fake,” Peskov said.
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