(Reuters) – Russia launched its biggest wave of drone strikes on Ukraine for months on Monday, escalating attacks in the run-up to its May 9 Victory Day holiday celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany, which Kyiv marked a day earlier in a new break with Moscow.
CONFLICT
* Kyiv’s mayor said Russia had fired 60 Iranian-made kamikaze drones at Ukrainian targets, including 36 at the capital, all of which had been shot down. However, debris hit apartments and other buildings, injuring at least five people on the ground.
* A food warehouse was set ablaze by a missile in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, where officials reported three people wounded.
* The military said 16 rockets had hit the Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions in the last 24 hours, in addition to 61 strikes and 52 rocket salvos on Ukrainian positions and populated areas.
* Russia has intensified shelling of Bakhmut hoping to take it by Tuesday – Russia’s Victory Day holiday, Ukraine’s top general in charge of the defence of the besieged city said, vowing to do everything to prevent it.
* In a new break with Moscow, Ukraine marked the anniversary of the World War Two victory over Nazi Germany on Monday, rather than Tuesday, in line with the practice of its Western allies. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had signed a decree to officially change the date in future.
* Russia’s Wagner mercenary group appeared to ditch plans to withdraw from Bakhmut, saying it had been promised more arms and suggesting it may keep up the assault on what Russia sees as a stepping stone in the Donbas region.
* Some 1,679 people, including 660 children, have been evacuated from areas near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, a Moscow-installed official in the Russia-controlled parts of the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine said.
EU WEIGHS SANCTIONS ON CHINA
* The European Union has proposed sanctions on Chinese firms accused of selling equipment that could be used in weapons to support Russia’s war machine, the Financial Times said.
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(Edited by Clarence Fernandez and Mark Heinrich)