– Call to annex Kherson –
The Moscow-installed authorities in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region say they plan to ask President Vladimir Putin to make it part of Russia.
Kherson was the first major city to fall to Russian forces after they invaded Ukraine.
“There will be a request to make Kherson region a full subject of the Russian Federation,” Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of Kherson’s administration, said on May 11.
The Kremlin says residents of Kherson should “determine their own fate”.
– One said dead in attack in Russia –
One person has died and three more have been injured in southwestern Russia as a result of shelling from Ukraine, the governor of the southwestern region of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Hladkov, said on messaging app Telegram.
– Russia imposes energy sanctions –
Russia says it has imposed sanctions on more than 30 EU, US and Singaporean energy companies in a retaliatory move following Western penalties over Ukraine.
The list contains 31 companies, most of which belong to the Gazprom Germania group of subsidiaries of Russian energy giant Gazprom.
The sanctions also affect Poland’s EuRoPol GAZ S.A., the owner of the Polish part of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline as Russia hits back at massive Western sanctions.
– German gas supplies hit –
Ukraine pipeline operator GTSOU says the stoppage of Russian gas flows through a key transit point in Ukraine’s war-torn east has caused German gas supplies to dip by 25 percent.
Company data show flows through Sokhranivka, the transit point for a third of Russian gas supplies heading to Europe, have dropped to zero.
The move stokes long-held fears Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have serious implications for Europe, which is struggling to source alternative supplies.
– War’s effects to last ‘100 years’ –
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Ukrainians will feel the effects of the war “for 100 years” because of unexploded ordnance in their cities but vows that Ukraine’s allies will help it rebuild.
“Those who live in Germany know that bombs from World War II are still frequently discovered,” Scholz told reporters. “Ukraine should brace itself to battle with the consequences of this war for 100 years.
“That is why we will also have to work together on the reconstruction.”
– Russians lose ground near Kharkiv –
President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russian forces are being driven back from the northeastern city of Kharkiv as a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the area near the Russian border gains traction.
“The occupiers are gradually being pushed away,” he says.
The governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegubov, confirms that Ukraine has retaken several villages northeast of the country’s second-biggest city.
– 30 percent of Ukraine jobs lost: UN –
Thirty percent of jobs in Ukraine — 4.8 million in total — have been lost since the Russian invasion, the United Nations says.
“Economic disruptions, combined with heavy internal displacement and flows of refugees, are causing large-scale losses in terms of employment and incomes,” the UN’s International Labour Organization says in its first report on the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
– Pussy Riot rocker leaves Russia –
A member of Russia’s Pussy Riot punk political activist group Maria Alyokhina left Russia disguised as a food delivery courier, she tells the New York Times.
The 33-year-old faced jail for protesting in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
Thousands of Russians have fled their country over a crackdown on dissent and sanctions imposed on the country over its war in Ukraine.
– Bodies found in Russian-held town –
Residents have found the bodies of 44 civilians under the rubble of a destroyed building in the eastern town of Izyum, which is under Russian control, Kharkiv’s governor says.
The town acts as a gateway to the Donbas region, which Russia has vowed to “liberate.”
