Russia

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: Russia is confident that Ukraine is complicit in attacks on Russians, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Rossiya-1 television on Friday.

He was responding to a statement by Kirill Budanov, the head of the main intelligence directorate at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, that Kiev was ready to kill Russians around the world.

May 14 (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry said on Sunday that two of its military commanders were killed in eastern Ukraine, as Kyiv's forces renewed efforts to break through Russian defences in the embattled city of Bakhmut.

In a daily briefing, the ministry said that Commander Vyacheslav Makarov of the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade and Deputy Commander Yevgeny Brovko from a separate unit were killed trying to repel Ukrainian attacks.

13 May 2023; AA: The Ukrainian armed forces attacked the city of Luhansk with UK-supplied cruise missiles Storm Shadow Friday, injuring a Russian lawmaker, according to Russian media.


Two Storm Shadow and one US ADM-160B MALD missiles were fired at residential buildings in the city of Luhansk, an administrative center of the Luhansk region, state news agency TASS claimed.

Russian lawmaker Viktor Vodolatsky was injured in one of the attacks, it added.

MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/: A helicopter has caught on fire and crashed in the Bryansk Region, a source in the emergency services told TASS.

"A helicopter has crashed in the city of Klintsy, according to preliminary data due to an inflamed engine," the source said.

"The wreckage of the helicopter has been found by now. As a result of the crash a fire started that was knocked out swiftly," the source in the taskforce told TASS.

According to a source in the emergency services, two people died as a result of a crash of Mi-8 helicopter in the city of Klintsy.

MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/: Russian assault teams have liberated one quarter in the northwestern part of the city of Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine), Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Saturday.

"The assault teams have liberated one quarter in the northwestern part of the city of Artyomovsk," he said.

ST. PETERSBURG, May 13. /TASS/: Over 80 Union State programs to the tune of 56.7 bln rubles (over $734 mln) have been implemented within the framework of the Union State Treaty, Dmitry Mezentsev, State Secretary of the Union State, said at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum on Saturday.

May 13 (Reuters) - The head of Russia's federal crime agency on Saturday suggested that key sectors of the economy should be returned to state ownership to support Moscow's war in Ukraine.

Moscow has already seized assets or acquired them at a heavy discount from some Western firms that have quit Russia or scaled back their activities since the invasion.

MOSCOW, May 13 (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry said on Saturday that Ukrainian aircraft had struck two industrial sites in the Russian-held city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles supplied by Britain.

Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.

Britain on Thursday became the first country to say it had started supplying Kyiv with long-range cruise missiles, which will allow it to hit Russian troops and supply dumps far behind the front lines as it prepares a major counteroffensive.

MOSCOW, May 12. /TASS/: The European Union has proposed formalizing a halt of supplies of Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline to Germany and Poland that refused to purchase it earlier at the national level, within the framework of the 11th package of sanctions, Bloomberg said on Friday citing documents seen by the agency.

Meanwhile, exemptions allowing flows through the southern branch of the oil pipeline, which supplies Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, will remain in place.

MOSCOW, May 12. /TASS/: The only chance of the grain deal being extended is if the Russian part of the agreement is implemented, regardless of any phone conversations that take place between the Russian and Turkish presidents, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday.