Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin heads to China summit just days after Xi and Trump meetingnewsline24

A Russian drone hit a civilian vessel under a Guinea-Bissau flag that was heading to Ukraine’s port hub of Greater Odesa, the Ukrainian seaport authority has said.

A small fire broke out on the vessel, which the crew quickly extinguished, it said on Monday.

According to preliminary information, no one was injured in the attack and the vessel resumed its journey, it added.

Kyiv has condemned nuclear weapons drills in Belarus, saying that deployment of tactical weapons in the country constituted an “unprecedented challenge” to global security.

“By turning Belarus into its nuclear staging ground near Nato borders, the Kremlin is de facto legitimising the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide and setting a dangerous precedent for other authoritarian regimes,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Kyiv also urged its Western allies to tighten sanctions against Moscow and Minsk: “Such actions must face unequivocal and resolute condemnation from all states that respect the nuclear non-proliferation regime.”

Explosives have been found near the debris of a suspected Ukrainian military drone that crashed in Lithuania, and they will be disposed of through an explosion at the scene as the materials are too dangerous to remove, Lithuanian police said.

The drone was not detected when it entered Lithuania, Vilmantas Vitkauskas, chief of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre, told reporters on Sunday.

It was found crashed in the village of Samane, the centre said, which is 40 km (25 miles) from the Latvian border and 55 km from Belarus. Kyiv has not yet commented on the issue.

Separately, the Latvian army said a drone alert was issued on Sunday morning along its border with Russia.

One drone entered Latvia for a short time during the alert, the army said.

Ukraine has observed attempts by Russia to export grain from the occupied Crimea region which involved companies from the United States, president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.

“In particular, we have recorded attempts to organise the export of grain from the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea – and, regrettably, other forms of economic exploitation of the peninsula involving entities from the United States,” he said on X.

Mr Zelensky said Moscow was also trying to bring investment from “democratic countries” into Russia’s Arctic oil and gas projects.

Transatlantic unity between Washington and Europe must survive a difficult moment in history, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said on Monday.

Mr Tusk was stressing the importance of Warsaw’s ties to Washington after the Pentagon cancelled plans to deploy 4,000 US-based troops to Poland.

“The task of all of us here in Poland, in Europe, across the Atlantic, in the US, in Canada, is to ensure that transatlantic cooperation, regardless of various political variables, survives this difficult period,” Mr Tusk told reporters.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on a two-day trip to Beijing next week, the Kremlin said Saturday.

The announcement comes less than 24 hours after U.S. President Donald Trump finished his own state visit to China, where he also met Xi to discuss trade and the U.S. and Israel’s war in Iran.

In a statement, the Kremlin said that Putin’s trip, planned for May 19-20, had been scheduled to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship.

It said that the two leaders would discuss bilateral relations as well as “key international and regional issues” and economic cooperation.

Relations between China and Russia have deepened in recent years, particularly since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 left Moscow shunned on the global stage and heavily reliant on Beijing for trade due to Western sanctions.

The situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine is rapidly reaching the “point of no return”, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom was quoted as saying by Russian state news agencies on Monday.

Alexei Likhachev laid the blame for the situation on Ukrainian attacks – although Russian forces have occupied Europe’s largest power plant since 2022.

Mr Likhachev said there was approximately 2,600 tonnes of nuclear fuel still at the plant, which is under Russian control, according to the TASS state news agency.

Ukraine’s finance minister Serhii Marchenko said there was a need to increase sanctions against Russia, at the meeting of G7 ministers in Paris on Monday.

He expects the first disbursement to Ukraine from a previously agreed 90 billion euros (£78billion) EU loan in the beginning of June.

“We are finalising all necessary agreements. Probably it will be at the beginning of June,” Marchenko told reporters.

“We need to continue to pressure Russia, to put additional sanctions on Russia,” he added.

European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said on Monday that the G7 finance ministers’ meeting would discuss the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, and he reaffirmed the need to open the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible.

The meetings are currently underway in Paris – here are some images: