Russian Invasion of UkraineWhat Happened on Day 79 of the War in Ukraine

The Russian leader was challenged by the prospect of an enlarged NATO, plans to get Ukrainian grain exports past a Kremlin blockade, and sanctions on his purported mistress.

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A memorial in Lviv, Ukraine, last month for those who had been killed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This week, the United Nations said more than 1,000 bodies had been recovered in suburbs north of Kyiv, the capital.Credit...Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

Follow our live news updates on the Russia-Ukraine war.

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Here’s the latest on the war in Ukraine.

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Ukrainian soldiers towing a Russian armored vehicle from a bombed out bridge in the village of Rus’ka Lozova, 15 miles north of Kharkiv, on Friday.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

KRAKOW, Poland — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia faced fresh setbacks Friday over the Ukraine invasion, as Sweden became the second neutral country in two days to move toward joining NATO and the West devised ways to reroute Ukrainian grain past a Russian naval blockade.

New signs of a Russian military retreat near Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, also added to Mr. Putin’s challenges, appearing to subvert or at least delay the Kremlin’s goal of encircling Ukrainian forces concentrated in eastern Ukraine.

But for Mr. Putin, the biggest vexation may have been the most personal: Britain slapped sanctions on his ex-wife, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, on a former Olympic gymnast long rumored to be his girlfriend, Alina Kabaeva, and on three cousins: Igor, Mikhail and Roman Putin.

“We are exposing and targeting the shady network propping up Putin’s luxury lifestyle and tightening the vise on his inner circle,” Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said.

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Alina Kabaeva, a onetime Olympic gymnast long rumored to be President Vladimir V. Putin’s romantic partner, in 2008.Credit...Giuseppe Cacace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The West faced challenges of its own. Even as Sweden signaled that it would benefit from joining NATO — one day after Finland said it was ready to join — the president of Turkey signaled his objections to an expansion of the alliance, a possible complication that could work in Russia’s favor. Foreign ministers of the alliance were meeting Saturday in Germany, and invited counterparts from Sweden and Finland to join them.

In a sign that not all diplomatic channels have been cut off, the American secretary of defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, spoke on Friday with Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, for the first time since Feb. 18 — six days before the invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Austin pushed for an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication, according to John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the call had been held “at the initiative of the American side,” which two senior U.S. officials confirmed.

Top Pentagon officials, including Mr. Austin, had repeatedly tried to contact their Russian counterparts in the aftermath of the invasion. Until Friday, those efforts had been unsuccessful.

“What motivated them to change their mind and be open to it, I don’t think we know for sure,” one senior Pentagon official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe a confidential call. He said the hourlong conversation was “professional” but broke no new ground. Mr. Austin nevertheless hoped it would “serve as a springboard for future conversations,” the official said.

It was the highest-level contact between U.S. and Russian leaders since Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, spoke with Gen. Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, on March 16, to reiterate the United States’ strong opposition to the invasion.

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A photo released by Russian state media shows Mr. Putin last week at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow.Credit...Anton Novoderezhkin/Sputnik

Russia has taken roughly 80 percent of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where its latest offensive has been concentrated. If Moscow can hold that territory, it would gain significant leverage in any future talks. Yet it has been struggling to gain more ground against Ukrainian forces wielding heavy weapons supplied by the West.

On Friday, Russian forces bombarded largely abandoned and devastated towns in Donbas while Ukrainian forces drove Russian troops further away from Kharkiv in the northeast. The Ukrainian counteroffensive there was beginning to rival the one that pushed Russian troops away from Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, last month, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington research group, said.

The British Defense Ministry said that satellite imagery confirmed that Ukrainian forces had also decimated a Russian battalion as it tried to cross pontoon bridges over a river in northeast Ukraine earlier this week. While it was not clear how many soldiers were killed, the scattering of burned-out and destroyed vehicles along the riverside suggested that Russia had suffered heavy losses.

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A Ukrainian mortar team taking cover from incoming Russian mortar and artillery rounds in a trench two miles from Russian positions on Friday in the village of Pytomnyk, 17 miles north of Kharkiv.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

In moving closer to joining NATO, Sweden contended in a report that Russian aggression in Ukraine had fundamentally altered Europe’s security and that Swedish membership in the alliance would “have a deterrent effect in northern Europe.”

“Through NATO membership, Sweden would not only strengthen its own security, but also contribute to the security of like-minded countries,” the report stated.

If Sweden joins, it would end more than 200 years of neutrality and military nonalignment and deliver another rebuke to Mr. Putin, who had invoked NATO expansion as a rationale for the invasion.

But the addition of Sweden and Finland could be complicated by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who suggested on Friday that his country, which has one of the largest armies among NATO members, would be reluctant to welcome them into the alliance.

“Right now, we are following developments regarding Sweden and Finland, but don’t have positive views,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters after attending Friday Prayer at a mosque in Istanbul.

Turkey has generally supported Western responses to the invasion, agreeing to block Russian warships from passing through the Turkish Straits.

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Maria Politaeva, 102, sitting with her daughter, Ludmila Sleta, 82, outside a hotel after fleeing from shelling in the frontline village of Lyman, in the Kharkiv region to Pokrovsk, in Donbas, on Friday.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

But Sweden and Finland would need unanimous support from NATO’s 30 members to join. Mr. Erdogan could be withholding Turkey’s approval for leverage on issues he cares about, such as Turkey’s longstanding concerns about a guerrilla group known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which launched a violent separatist movement in Turkey in the early 1980s.

“Sadly, Scandinavian countries are almost like guesthouses for terrorist organizations,” Mr. Erdogan said, naming the P.K.K.

Karen Donfried, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters in Washington on Friday that the United States was “working to clarify Turkey’s position.” She said U.S. officials do not assume that Turkey opposes NATO membership for Finland and Sweden.

“We respect the political processes that are underway in both Finland and Sweden,” she said.

In Germany, agricultural ministers from the Group of 7, representing the world’s wealthiest democracies, discussed ways to circumvent Russian warships that have blocked Ukrainian grain from reaching global markets through the Black Sea. Ukraine is the world’s fourth largest grain exporter, and the blockade has threatened to worsen a global food crisis.

Cem Özdemir, the German agricultural minister, said the G7 would seek routes to transport Ukrainian grain by road and rail, as well as via the Danube River. He called the blockade “part of Russia’s perfidious strategy to not only take out a competitor, which they’re not going to be able to do, but it’s also economic war that Russia is waging.”

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A member of a Ukrainian police explosives disposal team preparing to dislodge a Russian mine found in a field near the town of Gogolev on Friday.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

In Kyiv, Ukrainian judicial authorities began hearing a case against a Russian soldier accused of shooting a civilian, the first trial involving a suspected war crime by a Russian service member since the invasion began.

Prosecutors said the soldier, Sgt. Vadim Shysimarin, fatally shot a 62-year-old man on a bicycle in a village in the Sumy region, about 200 miles east of Kyiv, on Feb. 28, to stop the man from reporting him and his fellow soldiers to the Ukrainians.

Sargeant Shysimarin, who is 21 and faces 10 to 15 years in prison, was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs and seated in a locked glass box. Head bowed, he ignored journalists who asked him how he was feeling.

“For me, it is just work,” Viktor Ovsyannikov, a Ukrainian court-appointed lawyer, said when asked about defending Sargeant Shysimarin. “It is very important to make sure my client’s human rights are protected, to show that we are a country different to the one he is from.”

In the Russian town of Khimki, near Moscow, a court extended the pretrial detention of the American basketball star Brittney Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, until June 18, her lawyer said.

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The American basketball player Brittney Griner’s pre-trial detention in Russia has been extended for a month.Credit...Andrej Cukic/EPA, via Shutterstock

Ms. Griner has been in Russian custody since mid-February on drug charges that can carry up to 10 years in prison. The charge is based on allegations that she had vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage when she was stopped at an airport near Moscow in February.

“She is OK,” Ms. Griner’s lawyer, Aleksandr Boikov, said in an interview, adding that the court had denied his motion to have Ms. Griner transferred to house arrest. He said he expected the trial to begin in about two months.

The State Department said this month that Ms. Griner had been “wrongfully detained,” signaling that it may become more actively involved in trying to secure her release.

Marc Santora reported from Krakow, Mark Landler from London and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt and Edward Wong from Washington, Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia, Valerie Hopkins from Kyiv, Ukraine, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Cassandra Vinograd from London, Dan Bilefsky from Montreal and Steven Erlanger from Tallinn, Estonia.

Sameer Yasir
May 13, 2022, 11:58 p.m. ET

India said it was banning wheat exports, with some exceptions, because of a global rise in the price of the vital crop. The measure was designed to protect the food security of the country and that of its neighbors, the government said. Prices are high in part because wheat exports from Ukraine, a major producer, have been mostly halted since Russia’s invasion.

Alexandra Petri
May 13, 2022, 10:34 p.m. ET

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said on Friday that her office had identified 41 Russian suspects for prosecution over various war crimes. She revealed the figure the same day as the opening the first trial of a Russian soldier accused of a war crime since the start of the invasion. The office is investigating more than 11,000 suspected war crimes, Ms. Venediktova told Channel 4 News in Britain.

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Dan BilefskyAnushka Patil
May 13, 2022, 10:00 p.m. ET

Amid war and destruction, Ukraine is favored to win the wildly popular Eurovision Song Contest.

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Kalush Orchestra, Ukraine’s representatives in the Eurovision Song Contest, performed a rousing performance of the song “Stefania” during the contest’s semifinals on Tuesday in Turn, Italy.Credit...Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times

For 11 weeks, Ukrainians have been braving war, destruction and loss. But on Saturday, they could be celebrating victory: The country’s rousing, hip-hop infused song “Stefania” is favored to win the Eurovision Song Contest, the cultural phenomenon that helped launch Abba and Celine Dion and is watched annually by 200 million people.

“Stefania,” an anthemic song from Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, was originally written to honor the mother of the group’s frontman, Oleh Psiuk. But since the war, it has been reinterpreted as a tribute to Ukraine as a motherland. The song includes lyrics that roughly translate to, “You can’t take my willpower from me, as I got it from her,” and “I’ll always find my way home, even if the roads are destroyed.”

The wildly popular Eurovision Song Contest, a famously over-the-top display of kitsch, whose past winners include a Finnish heavy metal monster band fond of blowing up smoking slabs of meat onstage, has taken on particularly political overtones this year.

In February, the event’s organizers banned Russia from participating in the contest, a showcase meant to promote European unity and cultural exchange, citing fears that Russia’s inclusion would damage its reputation.

The move underlined Russia’s intensifying estrangement from the international community, including in the realm of culture. Russia began competing in the song contest, the world’s largest, in 1994, and has competed more than 20 times. Its participation has been a cultural touchstone of sorts for the country’s rebound and engagement with the world after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia came to power in the wake of the political and economic chaos of the 1990s.

In 2008, when Dima Bilan, a Russian pop star, won Eurovision with the song “Believe,” Mr. Putin weighed in promptly with congratulations, thanking him for further burnishing Russia’s image.

It is not the first time that politics have encroached on the contest, which premiered in 1956. In 2005, Ukraine’s entry song was rewritten after being deemed too political because it celebrated the Orange Revolution. When Dana International, an Israeli transgender woman, won in 1998 with her hit song “Diva,” rabbis accused her of flouting the values of the Jewish state.

Several bookmakers have said that Ukraine is by far the presumptive favorite to win the competition this year. Winners are determined based on votes from national juries and viewers at home.

Ukraine’s entry “Stefania” comes from a band that blends traditional Ukrainian folk music with rap and hip-hop. Kalush Orchestra brought the semifinal audience in Turin, Italy, to its feet on Tuesday with a spirited performance that sent them through to Saturday’s Grand Final.

The band traveled for Eurovision with special permission to bypass a martial law preventing most Ukrainian men from leaving the country, according to the Ukrainian public broadcasting company Suspilne.

War has necessitated other adjustments. The Ukrainian commentator for the show, Timur Miroshnychenko, has been broadcasting from a bomb shelter.

A photo posted by Suspilne showed the veteran presenter at a desk in a bunkerlike room, surrounded by computers, wires, a camera and eroding walls that revealed patches of brick underneath. It was not clear what city he was in.

The bunker had been prepared to prevent disruptions from air raid sirens, Mr. Miroshnychenko told BBC Radio 5 Live. He said Ukrainians love the contest and were “trying to catch any peaceful moment” they could.

“Nothing is going to interrupt the broadcast of Eurovision,” he said.

Finbarr O’Reilly
May 13, 2022, 9:06 p.m. ET

Mechanics in a Kharkiv warehouse do their part to try to turn the tables on the Russian military.

Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

In a warehouse in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday, a collection of battle-damaged Russian tanks and a cache of weapons, along with some Ukrainian vehicles, waited to be put back into commission.

A small team of a half-dozen Ukrainian mechanics ran around refurbishing and repairing the captured trophies and the other equipment, aiming to return them to the battlefield.

“This is where we bring the Russian tanks we pulled from the bogs, fix them up, and use them against the Russians,” said one mechanic, who did not want to be identified by name.

Three of the mechanics were changing batteries on a Ukrainian tank, while others were rooting through captured Russian hardware to scavenge secrets. Other mechanics were recycling parts to repair charred and broken tanks.

Nearby, another mechanic was firing up a tank draped in homemade camouflage netting, its engine roaring to life like a jet’s. After a short test drive around the parking lot, spinning the treads and making sure everything was in working order, it was time to prepare for its redeployment.

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Alexandra Petri
May 13, 2022, 6:29 p.m. ET

In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that efforts and negotiations remain underway to evacuate the scores of people who are still trapped at the Azovstal steel factory and elsewhere in Mariupol, including civilians, medics and wounded soldiers. “It is a large number of people,” Mr. Zelensky said, adding that the government is doing everything it can to get every last person out.

Alexandra Petri
May 13, 2022, 8:00 p.m. ET

Zelensky also emphasized some of the blows to the Russian military — especially aircraft, tanks, helicopters and other equipment. He focused on those losses on the same day that the British Defense Ministry said that satellite imagery confirmed that Ukrainian forces had decimated a Russian battalion as it tried to cross pontoon bridges over a river in northeast Ukraine earlier this week.

Eric Schmitt
May 13, 2022, 5:20 p.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

The Pentagon is rotating troops in Europe, a sign that the buildup of U.S. forces may become permanent.

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John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the U.S. would send fresh troops to replace the 10,500 additional forces that had been sent to Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.CreditCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The Pentagon announced on Friday that fresh U.S. Army troops would be sent to replace the 10,500 additional forces the United States has sent to Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to bolster NATO’s eastern flank and the Baltics, signaling that the temporary troop buildup will likely become permanent.

The overall number of American troops in Europe will remain at about 100,000 as a result of the one-for-one rotation of forces over the coming weeks and months, John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said.

With the commitment to bolstering NATO’s forces, U.S. military officials are indicating that while the United States is staying out of the war in Ukraine, it will not hesitate to act if President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia turns his eye toward a member of the Atlantic alliance.

Several thousand troops and commanders from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., will replace troops from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., who will head home after having spent the past several months in Poland and Germany, Mr. Kirby said.

Troops from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, will replace troops from the 3rd Infantry Division.

Alan RappeportEmily Flitter
May 13, 2022, 5:05 p.m. ET

Treasury warns foreign banks against helping Russia evade sanctions.

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Adewale Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, in Washington last month. “If you provide material support to a sanctioned individual or a sanctioned entity, we can extend our sanctions regime to you and use our tools to go after you as well,” he said in an interview on Friday.Credit...Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

The Biden administration is urging international banks not to help Russia evade sanctions, warning that firms risk losing access to markets in the United States and Europe if they support Russian businesses or oligarchs that are facing financial restrictions as a result of the war in Ukraine.

The admonition by a senior Treasury official highlights U.S. efforts to exert pressure on the Russian economy through American financial power and underscores the broad view that the Biden administration is taking of its ability to enforce sanctions as it looks to isolate Russia from the global economy.

In private meetings on Friday with representatives of international banks in New York, Adewale Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, laid out the consequences of helping Russians flout sanctions. He pointed to the “material support provision” that dictates that even if a financial institution is based in a country that has not imposed sanctions on Russia, the company can still face consequences for violating U.S. or European restrictions, including being cut off from those financial systems.

“If you provide material support to a sanctioned individual or a sanctioned entity, we can extend our sanctions regime to you and use our tools to go after you as well,” Mr. Adeyemo said in an interview on Friday. “I want to make that very clear to these institutions that are domiciled and other countries that may not have taken sanctions actions: that the United States and our allies and partners are prepared to act if they do things that violate our sanctions.”

The Biden administration has placed sweeping restrictions on Russian financial institutions, oligarchs and its central bank. It has coordinated with allies in Europe and Asia to crack down on sanctions evasion; the direct warning to foreign banks was part of that effort.

Financial institutions from China, Brazil, Ireland, Japan and Canada were at the meeting, which was hosted by the Institute of International Bankers.

Mr. Adeyemo said that U.S. banks had been careful to avoid violating American sanctions, but that Russian individuals and businesses were looking to set up trusts and use proxies as workarounds. He also pointed to firms that might be providing support to oligarchs who are subject to sanctions and trying to move their yachts to different ports to avoid seizure.

Most jurisdictions have been complying with the sanctions, but some, such as the United Arab Emirates, have continued to provide havens for Russian assets. The yachts of several Russian oligarchs have been docked in Dubai.

“You’ve seen a number of Russian yachts move from ports, countries that have extended sanctions to countries that haven’t,” Mr. Adeyemo said. “We want to make clear to people that if you’re a financial institution, and you have a business that is a customer that is providing material support to one of these yachts, you, that business, could be subject to our material support provision.”

Referring to his message to foreign banks, he added: “You need to make sure that not only are you making sure that you’re watching flows into your financial institution, but you need to also help by reminding the businesses that you support that they, too, you don’t want them to be providing material support to Russian oligarchs or Russian businesses as well.”

Banks and financial institutions around the world have been grappling with how to remain in compliance with the waves of new sanctions against Russia.

Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank in Russia, with about 3,000 employees there, was in “active dialogue” to sell its Russian consumer and commercial-bank businesses, Jane Fraser, its chief executive, told Bloomberg this month.

Citigroup trimmed its exposure in Russia to $7.9 billion in March, down from $9.8 billion at the end of last year, according to a filing. “This weaponization of financial services is a very, very big deal,” Ms. Fraser said at a conference this month. She said she expected global capital flows to splinter as nations developed new financial systems to avoid being too reliant on Western firms.

Foreign banks with U.S. operations can find themselves caught between conflicting demands. In some cases, U.S. sanctions have required them to cut off longtime customers. Those who resisted doing so learned how serious the authorities could be about tracking down violators and hitting them with big fines.

In 2019, for instance, the British bank Standard Chartered paid $1.1 billion to settle cases brought by the Justice Department, Treasury, New York’s state banking regulator and state prosecutors over transactions it had carried out for Cuba, Syria, Iran and Sudan in violation of U.S. sanctions. Two years earlier, Deutsche Bank paid $630 million after it was caught helping Russian investors sneak $10 billion into Western financial centers. The international giants HSBC and BNP Paribas have also paid billions in the past 10 years to settle sanctions violations cases.

Lananh Nguyen contributed reporting.

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Julian E. Barnes
May 13, 2022, 4:31 p.m. ET

After underestimating Ukraine, U.S. spy agencies will review how they gauge an army’s will to fight.

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Destroyed Russian military vehicles with references to the Azov Battalion painted on them blocking a road east of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday. Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

Senior intelligence officers are conducting a review of whether America’s spy agencies underestimated Ukraine’s will to fight before Russia’s February invasion, the top intelligence official announced this week.

In recent months, lawmakers have raised the issue of how well spy agencies can predict the will to fight, in the face of fiercer than expected fighting from Ukraine’s military this year, and the more rapid than expected collapse of the Afghan military last summer.

The new review is being conducted by the National Intelligence Council and will look at both how the United States evaluates a military’s will to fight and its capacity to wage war. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, said the issues of both will and capacity are “quite challenging to provide effective analysis on.”

There is no timeline for the review to be completed, American officials said. The intelligence council will examine analyses of Ukraine and Afghanistan as well as other examples, like the Iraqi military’s partial collapse in the face of the Islamic State’s offensive in 2014. Ms. Haines said that as part of the review, intelligence officers would look at different methodologies that could be used to gauge a military’s will to fight.

Some American officials believe the idea that the intelligence community misjudged the Ukrainian will to fight has been overstated. Many analysts, including at the State Department and elsewhere, did predict that the Ukrainian military would resist fiercely, but what was less clear at the time was how well the Russians would fight and how quickly Ukraine could take advantage of Western military aid and intelligence to thwart Russian attacks.

Nevertheless, the track record of the military in assessing how well other forces will fight is poor, said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine. In an interview Friday, Mr. King said intelligence agencies needed to consider other methods of assessing how well armies will perform. Had the United States had a better sense of the Ukrainian military’s will to fight, perhaps more aid would have been sent sooner.

“It’s much easier to count tanks,” Mr. King said. “That’s pretty straightforward. It’s very hard to assess something like the will to fight, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, because it’s an important piece of information.”

After the hearing, Ms. Haines’s office received a partially classified letter from the Senate Intelligence Committee. While the letter praised the intelligence agencies for accurately predicting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it said they had underestimated the Ukrainian military and overestimated the Afghanistan’s army. The letter, according to people familiar with it, raised questions about the methodology used by the intelligence agencies in gauging will to fight.

The classified letter, and the review by the intelligence community, was earlier reported by CNN.

Cassandra Vinograd
May 13, 2022, 4:20 p.m. ET

The Ukrainian defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, said that heavy weapons have begun to arrive but warned that “we are entering a new, long phase of the war.” “Extremely tough weeks are ahead,” he said in a statement posted on the defense ministry’s website. “No one can say for sure how many of them there will be.”

Eric Schmitt
May 13, 2022, 2:57 p.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

The Pentagon chief spoke to his Russian counterpart for the first time since Ukraine’s war began.

WASHINGTON — The American secretary of defense on Friday spoke with his counterpart in Moscow for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine in February and plunged Europe into its most dangerous crisis since World War II.

The defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, had last talked with Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, on Feb. 18 — six days before the invasion. The call comes as fighting in Ukraine seems to have settled into what one American intelligence official described as “a bit of a stalemate.”

In Friday’s call, Mr. Austin pushed for an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication, according to John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman.

Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement that the call between Mr. Austin and Mr. Shoigu was “at the initiative of the American side,” which two senior U.S. officials confirmed. Top Pentagon officials, including Mr. Austin, had repeatedly tried to contact their Russian counterparts in the aftermath of the invasion.

“What motivated them to change their mind and be open to it, I don’t think we know for sure,” one senior Pentagon official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe a confidential call. He said the hourlong conversation was “professional,” but broke no new ground.

“The call itself didn’t specifically solve any acute issues or lead to a direct change in what the Russians are doing or saying,” the official said, adding that Mr. Austin nevertheless hoped it would “serve as a springboard for future conversations.”

The conversation between Mr. Austin and Mr. Shoigu was the highest-level contact between U.S. and Russian officials since March 16, when President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, spoke with the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Gen. Nikolay Patrushev, and reiterated the United States’ strong opposition to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

It comes three days after Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, told a Senate panel that the next month or two of fighting in Ukraine will be significant, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia tries to reinvigorate his plodding military campaign. But even if Russia were successful in seizing the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, she said, it would not end the war.

Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the same Senate committee that the war was at “a bit of a stalemate.”

“The Russians aren’t winning, and the Ukrainians aren’t winning,” General Berrier said.

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Finbarr O'Reilly
May 13, 2022, 1:42 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kharkiv, Ukraine

A Ukrainian mortar team alternated between shooting ordnance and sheltering in trenches from responding Russian fire in the village of Pytomnyk, near Kharkiv. The unit was part of a Ukrainian effort that has pushed back Russian forces from areas surrounding the northeast city of Kharkiv.

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Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
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Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
Cassandra Vinograd
May 13, 2022, 1:14 p.m. ET

President Sauli Niinisto of Finland said he discussed Russia's war in Ukraine and also his country’s “next steps” for NATO membership in a phone call with President Biden and Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson. “Finland deeply appreciates all the necessary support from the US,” he said on Twitter. Sweden has signaled it might follow Finland’s lead in joining the alliance.

Dan BilefskySteven Erlanger
May 13, 2022, 12:49 p.m. ET

Turkey’s president signals his disapproval of Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in Ankara this week.Credit...Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey suggested on Friday that his country would be reluctant to openly welcome Finland and Sweden into NATO, underscoring that their potential accession to the alliance might not be as swift and smooth as expected.

“Right now we are following developments regarding Sweden and Finland, but don’t have positive views,” he told reporters after attending Friday Prayer at a mosque in Istanbul.

Sweden and Finland’s potential entry into NATO would strengthen the alliance, a blow to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has invoked its expansion as a reason for his decision to invade Ukraine.

Turkey, which has one of the largest armies among NATO members, has generally supported Western responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, agreeing to block Russian warships from passing through the Turkish Straits. But Sweden and Finland need unanimous approval from all 30 member states to join, and Mr. Erdogan may be signaling he intends to use Turkey’s approval as a bargaining chip.

Turkey has, at times, liked to exert its heft and influence in the alliance. Mr. Erdogan created strains around the nomination of Jens Stoltenberg as NATO’s general secretary in 2014, but those were resolved through diplomacy.

Turkey has also stoked tensions in NATO through its purchase of a sophisticated Russian surface-to-air missile system, the S400.

Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Putin have had a sometimes close, sometimes contentious relationship, with both leaders fond of projecting their strength as regional powers. The Turkish leader has cultivated links with Moscow, partly as leverage against the West, but also out of necessity, since Turkey has a number of difficult issues it must navigate with Russia. For example, Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan have in recent years found themselves on opposite sides of conflicts in Azerbaijan, Libya and Syria.

The Turkish leader might have been trying on Friday to get more attention — and possibly concessions — on issues he cares about, including Turkey’s longstanding concerns about Kurdish separatists and the long, simmering dispute with Greece over the divided island of Cyprus.

“Sadly Scandinavian countries are almost like guesthouses for terrorist organizations,” he said, naming the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the P.K.K., which launched a violent separatist movement in Turkey in the early 1980s.

“At this point, it’s impossible for us to regard this positively,” he added.

Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat who is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, a Brussels-based research organization, said Mr. Erdogan has long been concerned about Sweden allowing members of the P.K.K. network or people linked to the P.K.K. to operate in the country.

“Erdogan is trying to use this opportunity to put pressure on Sweden and gain concessions on the issue,” he said.

Asli Aydintasbas, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a leading European research organization, added that Mr. Erdogan was upset with Sweden because it was one of the main countries in the European Union pushing Turkey over human rights issues. Mr. Erdogan was also reluctant to intensify hostilities with Russia.

“Erdogan knows his hand is strong now and he is using his leverage to get what he wants in his relations with the West,” she said.

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Eric Schmitt
May 13, 2022, 11:17 a.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke on Friday with Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia's defense minister, for the first time since Feb. 18 — before the invasion of Ukraine. In Friday's call, Austin urged an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication, according to John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman.

Eric Schmitt
May 13, 2022, 11:48 a.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement that the call between Austin and Shoigu was “at the initiative of the American side.” Top Pentagon officials, including Mr. Austin, had repeatedly tried to contact their Russian counterparts in the aftermath of the invasion. Until Friday, those efforts had been unsuccessful.

Marc Santora
May 13, 2022, 10:58 a.m. ET

Ukraine decimated Russian forces trying to cross a river in the east, Britain’s defense ministry says.

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An aerial photograph shared by the Ukrainian Airborne Forces showed smoke rising above a bridge across the Seversky Donets River in eastern Ukraine.Credit...Ukrainian Airborne Forces Command

The British defense ministry on Friday said satellite imagery has confirmed that Ukrainian forces decimated a Russian battalion as it tried to cross a series of pontoon bridges over a river in northeast Ukraine earlier this week, a dramatic setback for Russian forces already struggling to make significant progress along the eastern front.

While it was not clear how many soldiers were killed trying to cross the Seversky Donets River, the numbers of burned-out and destroyed vehicles scattered along the riverside suggested that Russian forces suffered heavy losses.

The British assessment came after Ukraine’s military released drone images on Wednesday of what it said were the remains of a Russian battalion. The pictures showed at least two bridges submerged in the river west of Sievierodonetsk and dozens of destroyed Russian military vehicles scattered on both sides of the river bank and the surrounding area.

The 650-mile-long river originates in Russia and meanders southeast through the eastern Donbas region before re-entering Russian territory, forming oxbow lakes, floodplains and swamps. Its winding path cuts through the heart of the region where Russian forces are battling Ukrainian defenders — around the cities of Izium, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Sievierodonetsk — creating major obstacles to Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine.

Russian troops are deployed across the front line in a crescent moon stretching from Izium in the north to Donetsk in the south and have been trying to encircle tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.

So far, however, Russia has failed to make significant advances, and its troops have been repeatedly thwarted trying to cross the Seversky Donets, leading to heavy losses and slowing their already plodding advance, according to Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts.

“Conducting river crossings in a contested environment is a highly risky maneuver and speaks to the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine,” the British Ministry of Defense said on Friday.

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Burnt vehicles on the banks of the Seversky Donets River, in a photo supplied by the Ukrainian Airborne Forces Command.Credit...Ukrainian Airborne Forces Command

It said Russia had lost “significant armored maneuver elements of at least one Battalion Tactical Group,” while trying to cross the river. While the ministry said satellite imagery confirmed the loss of Russian equipment, it did not address Ukrainian claims that as many as 1,000 Russian soldiers were killed, which have been impossible to verify. Russian battalion groups generally have between 700 and 1,000 men.

Whatever the casualty count, Russia’s losses crossing the river underscored its army’s broader struggles to carry out its limited objective of taking more territory in eastern Ukraine after retreating from the capital, Kyiv, in the north.

More recently, Ukrainian forces also have driven Russian troops back from the area around the northern city of Kharkiv, making it possible for them to threaten Russian supply lines to Izium, which Russia is using as a staging area for its offensive.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said there has been a “notable decline in the energy” in Russia’s advance from Izium, suggesting that Moscow may eventually abandon efforts for a wide encirclement of Ukrainian troops. Instead, the analysts said, Russia may seek to build on marginal gains and attempt “shallow” encirclements of Ukrainian troops in the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Ivan Nechepurenko
May 13, 2022, 9:00 a.m. ET

Reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia

Russian court extends Brittney Griner’s pretrial detention, her lawyer says.

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Brittney Griner, a W.N.B.A. star for the Phoenix Mercury, has been detained in Russia on drug charges since Feb. 17. Her pretrial detention has been extended to June 18, according to her lawyer.CreditCredit...Christian Petersen/Getty Images

A court in Russia on Friday extended the pretrial detention of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner until June 18, her lawyer said.

Ms. Griner, one of the most decorated athletes in women’s basketball, has been in Russian custody since mid-February on drug charges that can carry up to 10 years in prison. The charge is based on allegations that she had vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage when she was stopped at the Sheremetyevo airport near Moscow in February.

Ms. Griner appeared in court in the town of Khimki near Moscow for a procedural hearing on Friday, according to her lawyer, Aleksandr Boikov.

“She is OK,” Mr. Boikov said in an interview, adding that the court denied his appeal to have Ms. Griner transferred to house arrest. He said he expects the trial to begin in about two months.

While Ms. Griner was arrested one week before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities did not reveal her detention until days after the war began, raising fears she could be used as a bargaining chip in the overall crisis.

The U.S. State Department has said it had determined Ms. Griner was “wrongfully detained,” signaling its intention to get more actively involved in the situation.

At the end of April, Russia released Trevor R. Reed, an ailing former American Marine who had been sentenced to nine years in prison for assault, in a prisoner swap with the United States. That raised hopes that Ms. Griner might also be released.

It is typical of Russian courts to extend detention until trial, which then can take weeks to complete. Mr. Reed’s release, for instance, happened after he was convicted and had spent years in a Russian prison.

Ms. Griner’s team and family have been relatively quiet about her situation.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, Ms. Griner is one of several American players who compete for international teams in the off-season period to supplement their W.N.B.A. paychecks. She has played for the UMMC team in Yekaterinburg, Russia, since 2014.

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Ivan Nechepurenko
May 13, 2022, 8:51 a.m. ET

Reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia

A court in Russia on Friday extended the pretrial detention of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner by one month, her lawyer said. Ms Griner, one of the most decorated athletes in women’s basketball, has been held in custody in Russia since mid-February on drug charges, raising fears that she will be used as a bargaining chip in high-profile diplomacy between Russia and the United States.

Mark Landler
May 13, 2022, 7:28 a.m. ET

Britain places new sanctions on Putin’s inner circle, including his ex-wife and reputed girlfriend.

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The British government announced new sanctions on members of President Vladimir V. Putin’s family and inner circle on Friday.Credit...Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Britain imposed new sanctions on the family and inner circle of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Among those blacklisted: Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, Mr. Putin’s former wife; and Alina Kabaeva, a retired Olympic gymnast, with whom he has long been rumored to be romantically involved.

The measures also hit Igor Putin, a first cousin, and two more distant relatives, Mikhail Putin and Roman Putin. All are businesspeople who the British government says have benefited from their ties to the president.

“We are exposing and targeting the shady network propping up Putin’s luxury lifestyle and tightening the vise on his inner circle,” said the foreign secretary, Liz Truss. Britain has imposed sanctions on more than 1,000 people since the invasion, including oligarchs with an aggregate net wealth of 117 billion pounds, or $142 billion.

Marc Santora
May 13, 2022, 7:10 a.m. ET

Sweden says joining NATO would ‘have a deterrent effect’ for military conflict.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised broader European security concerns. Sweden, dragged along by Finland, is expected to apply to join NATO.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

The Swedish government said on Friday that joining the NATO military alliance would provide a strong deterrent to further Russian attacks beyond its borders.

“Swedish NATO membership would raise the threshold for military conflicts and thus have a deterrent effect in northern Europe,” according to an analysis presented by Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde. “If both Sweden and Finland were NATO members, all Nordic and Baltic countries would be covered by collective defense guarantees. The current uncertainty as to what form collective action would take if a security crisis or armed attack occurred would decrease.”

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The Swedish government released a report arguing that joining the NATO military alliance would be a deterrent to further Russian aggression in northern Europe.CreditCredit...Tt News Agency/Via Reuters

The report did not explicitly recommend that Sweden join the alliance, instead offering an overview of the security concerns that the nation faces.

“The foremost consequence of a future membership in NATO is that Sweden would be a part of NATO’s collective security and as a result have a conflict-dampening effect in Europe,” Ms. Linde said at a news conference on Friday.

Sweden’s defense minister, Peter Hultqvist, said that NATO membership would make the response of Sweden’s allies more predictable.

“With a future Swedish NATO membership, the uncertainty that there is currently over what behavior would be seen in a security crisis or armed attack would be reduced,” he said.

The Swedish report found that Russia was becoming “increasingly totalitarian” and that the repression of civil society and that the political opposition “is extensive and growing.”

“The mutually reinforcing relationship between Russia’s internal repression and external aggression has thus been made clear,” the Swedish report stated.

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Dan Bilefsky
May 13, 2022, 6:35 a.m. ET

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine.

Western nations on Friday deepened their efforts to combat Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Sweden signaled that it might join NATO; the world’s wealthiest democracies sought ways to circumvent a Russian blockade of Ukrainian wheat; and Britain imposed new sanctions on the Russian president’s inner circle.

The move that might sting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia the most was Britain’s imposition of sanctions on his former wife, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, and a former gymnast long rumored to be his girlfriend, Alina Kabaeva.

Sweden’s suggestion that it could join NATO came a day after Finland’s leaders declared that their nation would also join NATO. If Sweden does become part of the alliance, that would end more than 200 years of its neutrality and military nonalignment, and strengthen the group that Mr. Putin has been seeking to contain. But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey suggested that he might be reluctant to welcome Finland and Sweden into NATO. But the Turkish leader might have been trying to get more attention — and possibly concessions — on other issues.

At the same time, top officials from the world’s wealthiest democracies — the G7 — were meeting in Stuttgart, Germany, trying to find new routes for Ukrainian grain exports blocked by Russian forces, which is having a wide impact around the world on food and energy prices.

“It is very important at this time that we keep up the pressure on Vladimir Putin by supplying more weapons to Ukraine, by increasing the sanctions,” Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said on Friday before the meeting.

In other developments:

  • Russia continued to bombard largely abandoned and physically devastated towns in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine but failed to make any major gains. Ukrainian forces were also driving Russians from the area to the north around the city of Kharkiv.

  • The United Nations human rights chief said on Thursday that the bodies of more than 1,000 civilians — including some who had been executed — had been recovered in areas north of Kyiv that Russian forces had occupied.

Erika Solomon
May 13, 2022, 6:17 a.m. ET

Seeking to avoid a global food crisis, officials look for new routes for Ukrainian grain exports blocked by Russian forces.

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A farmer working a field on Monday near Lviv, Ukraine. The Group of 7 is discussing new ways to get Ukrainian harvests to international markets while Ukraine’s ports remain under Russian blockade.Credit...Mykola Tys/EPA, via Shutterstock

Agricultural ministers from the Group of 7 major economies and Ukraine met on Friday in Stuttgart, Germany, to discuss new routes for getting Ukrainian harvests to world markets as the country’s main seaports remain under Russian blockade.

Cem Özdemir, the German agricultural minister, said ministers would be seeking routes by land and rail, as well as via the Danube River. He called the blockade “part of Russia’s perfidious strategy to not only take out a competitor, which they’re not going to be able to do, but it’s also economic war that Russia is waging.”

Russian warships on the Black Sea coast have prevented cargo ships from leaving major ports like Odesa, halting most exports shipped from Ukraine, the world’s fourth largest grain exporter, and raising fears of a global food crisis. Before Russia’s invasion, nearly all Ukrainian grain shipments were exported by sea.

Ukraine’s minister of agriculture, Mykola Solskyi, warned that grain exports would be much lower this year because of war affecting wheat-farming regions in the east, but he still expected “very large quantities” for export should alternative routes be found. About 20 million tons from the previous harvest remain, he said, and he anticipated an additional 30 million to 40 million tons could be exported from harvests this year.

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Valerie HopkinsMatthew Mpoke Bigg
May 13, 2022, 6:15 a.m. ET

Ukraine begins a trial of a Russian soldier accused of a war crime, a first since the conflict began.

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Sgt. Vadim Shysimarin, 21, at a court hearing in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday. He is accused of shooting a civilian on a bicycle in Chupakhivka four days after the invasion began.Credit...Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine— The Ukrainian judicial authorities on Friday began a case against a Russian soldier accused of shooting a civilian, the first trial involving a suspected war crime by a Russian service member since the invasion began in February.

The soldier, Sgt. Vadim Shysimarin, is accused of shooting a 62-year-old man on a bicycle in the village of Chupakhivka in the Sumy region, about 200 miles east of Kyiv. The man was killed on Feb. 28, four days after the full-scale invasion began, and his body left on the side of the road.

Sgt. Shysimarin, part of a tank division from the Moscow region, was subsequently captured, although details of how that transpired remain unclear. The indictment will be read on May 18. He faces 10 to 15 years in prison.

He was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs and seated before the judicial authorities on Friday, locked in a glass box. Wearing a blue and gray hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, Sgt. Shysimarin kept his shaved head bowed for the duration of the proceedings and did not respond to journalist questions about how he was feeling.

According to an investigation by Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the S.B.U., and the General Prosecution, the sergeant and four other servicemen stole a car at gunpoint while fleeing Ukrainian forces and drove into the village, where they saw an unarmed 62-year-old resident biking on the roadside and talking on a phone.

Sgt. Shysimarin was ordered to kill the civilian so that he would not report his group of soldiers, prosecutors say. He fired a Kalashnikov rifle out of the car window at the man’s head and killed him on the spot — just a few dozen yards from his home, the investigation said. Prosecutors said they were able to identify the exact weapon that Sgt. Shysimarin used.

Sgt. Shysimarin is being defended by Viktor Ovsyannikov, a Ukrainian court-appointed lawyer.

“For me it is just work,” he said when asked how he felt about defending someone accused of being a war criminal. “It is very important to make sure my client’s human rights are protected, to show that we are a country different to the one he is from.”

Ukraine’s general prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova, and Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, assisted by international experts, have been meticulously compiling evidence of war crimes. What makes this case rare is that the suspect is in Ukrainian custody.

War crimes trials typically stem from violations of international laws related to conflict. The best-known trials, such as those in the German city of Nuremberg at the end of World War II, have largely taken place once a conflict has finished.

Russian forces in Ukraine are accused of atrocities in areas they seized, many of which likely fall under the category of war crimes. Publicity surrounding these atrocities has served to galvanize international opinion against Moscow. The Russian authorities have denied all responsibility for civilian killings and abuse.

On Thursday, the United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said that the bodies of more than 1,000 civilians had been recovered in areas north of Kyiv that Russian forces had occupied, including several hundred who were summarily executed and others who were shot by snipers. Ms. Bachelet said the figure would likely increase.

Amid ongoing efforts to document each killing, the Ukrainian government published the names and photos of 10 Russian soldiers who it said had committed war crimes in Bucha, a suburb north of Kyiv.

Valerie Hopkins
May 13, 2022, 5:36 a.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Ukraine’s judicial institutions on Friday began processing the first war crimes trial of a Russian soldier since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February. The defendent, Vadim Shysimarin, 21, is accused of killing a civilian in a village of the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine and faces up to 15 years in prison.

Monika Pronczuk
May 13, 2022, 4:14 a.m. ET

Reporting from Brussels

The European Union will provide additional €500 million ($521 million) in military support to Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said on Friday on the sidelines of a G7 meeting in northern Germany, bringing the total E.U. military aid for Ukraine to €2 billion. Asked whether the bloc would provide fighter jets that the Ukrainian authorities repeatedly asked for, Mr. Borrell said: “No, you cannot provide a lot of fighter jets with €500 million,” adding that the extra funding would be spent on heavy weapons.

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Andrew E. Kramer
May 13, 2022, 4:05 a.m. ET

Reporting from Pryvilla, Ukraine

With a Ukrainian unit, the shout of ‘Air!’ means about three seconds to find cover.

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A soldier shouldering a U.S.-made Stinger missile.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Through binoculars, the Ukrainian soldiers can see the Russian position far in the distance. But the single artillery weapon they operate at a small, ragtag outpost on the southern steppe has insufficient range to strike it.

These circumstances have imposed a numbingly grim routine on the Ukrainians, who are pounded daily by Russian artillery salvos while having no means to fight back. Every few hours, they dive into trenches to escape shells that streak out of the sky.

As President Volodymyr Zelensky makes almost daily pleas to the West for heavier artillery, it is positions like the one here on the west bank of the Dnipro River that best illustrate how critical that weaponry is for Ukraine. Military analysts say the battle now is riding not so much on the skill or bravery of Ukrainian soldiers, but on the accuracy, quantity and striking power of long-range weapons.

The artillery capability of the two armies near Pryvillia is so lopsided in Russia’s favor that Ukrainian officials have specifically highlighted the region to Western officials and members of the U.S. Congress in their appeals for more military support.

In response, Western allies have been trying to rush artillery systems and associated equipment into Ukraine, and it is starting to arrive. But not as quickly as Ukrainian officials have wanted.

For now, at the outpost of Ukraine’s 17th Tank Regiment, in a tree line between two fields, the most soldiers can do is try to survive.

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