Military unit claims to confirm report by Wagner boss that Russian brigade has been routed

A Ukrainian military unit has said it has routed a Russian infantry brigade from frontline territory near Bakhmut, claiming to corroborate an account by the head of Russia’s Wagner group that the Russian forces had fled.

Later on Wednesday, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who heads Ukraine’s ground forces, said Russian units in some parts of Bakhmut had retreated by up to 2km (1.2 miles) as the result of counterattacks. He did not give details.

Ukraine’s military says Russia increasingly relying on regular forces after heavy losses to mercenary group in eastern city

• Russia-Ukraine war at a glance

Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, offers this round-up of the latest developments overnight. It writes on its official Telegram channel:

In Bakhmut, fighters of the 3rd brigade of the armed forces of Ukraine advanced 2.6km during the storming of Russian positions for two days and defeated two companies of the 72nd brigade of the Russian Federation, said the commander of the “Azov” regiment.

Air defence forces destroyed three Russian drones over Dnipropetrovsk region on the night of 10 May. Also at night, the Russian army shelled Kherson heavily. More than 350 projectiles were fired in Kherson oblast during the day: one person was injured.

The transformation of our alliance over the last decade has been nothing short of remarkable. Since Russia illegally annexed Crimea and entered into eastern Ukraine in 2014, we have increased the readiness of our forces.

We have deployed combat troops to the east of the alliance for the first time in our history, and European allies and Canada have spent an additional $350bn extra on defence.

As we prepare for a more dangerous future, we must redouble our efforts to keep our one billion citizens safe, and to uphold the rules-based international order.

High intensity warfare is back in Europe, global competition is rising, authoritarian regimes are challenging our values, interests and security, and other threats are also multiplying – from terrorism to cyber-attacks, from nuclear proliferation to climate change. So we need to step up for this new era of strategic competition.

Ukrainian official says Russians in Bakhmut have been pushed back by up to 2km; Russia’s Transneft reports attack on oil pipeline

A Ukrainian military commander said Russian forces in Bakhmut had been pushed back by up to 2km in some areas after counteroffensives. Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who heads Ukraine’s ground forces, posted on Telegram: “In some areas of the front, the enemy could not resist the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders and retreated.”

Russia’s oil pipeline operator Transneft said a filling point on the Europe-bound Druzhba pipeline had been targeted in a “terrorist attack” near the border with Ukraine, according to the Tass news agency. Transneft said nobody was injured in the incident.

Ukraine’s military said its forces had seriously damaged Russia’s 72nd independent motorised rifle brigade near Bakhmut, made up of thousands of troops. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukrainian troops in the east, said the situation remained “difficult” in Bakhmut, but Moscow was increasingly having to use regular army units because of heavy losses among Wagner group fighters.

The Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, complained that his fighters were still not getting enough shells from the defence ministry. In an audio statement, he said the defence ministry – which has promised to ensure that all combat units have the resources they need – had been holding long meetings on the shell issue, but there had been no breakthrough. “We’re not receiving enough shells, we’re only getting 10%,” Prigozhin said, according to Reuters.

The French parliament called on the EU to formally label the Wagner group as terrorists, as the UK reportedly prepares to do the same. France’s parliament unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.

Russian forces plan to evacuate more than 3,000 workers from the town that serves the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where there is a “catastrophic lack” of qualified personnel, Ukraine’s state-owned Energoatom company said. Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of forcibly deporting its citizens from occupied Ukrainian regions to Russian Federation territory.

Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been criticised again for his links to Russia after attending a Victory Day party at the Russian embassy in Berlin. Schröder was seen at a reception on Tuesday marking the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war, along with senior figures from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party and the far-left Linke party.

Russia may formally denounce the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe, which it pulled out of in 2015, according to a decree signed by Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The decree formally appoints the deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov to represent Putin during parliamentary proceedings on denouncing the treaty, which aimed to regulate the number of forces deployed by Warsaw Pact and Nato countries.

UK foreign secretary and US secretary of state have urged Russia not to use global hunger as a tool of war. This live blog is closed

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, said Russia “will prevail” in its fight against what he described as “imperialists”, the state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday, in remarks seen to be aimed at Ukraine and its western supporters such as the US.

North Korea has forged closer ties with the Kremlin and backed Moscow after it invaded Ukraine last year, including its proclamation later of having annexed parts of Ukraine, which most UN members condemned as illegal.

Drone attacks launched on Kyiv with explosions also reported in Odesa and Kherson; Ukrainian general says ‘meat assaults’ have led to high casualties.

This live blog is closed

More from that ISW report I mentioned earlier: the analysis suggests that Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov was happy to help Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin “blackmail” the Russian defence ministry in order to reestablish his position within the circle of power in the Kremlin. The think tank writes:

Kadyrov had previously held an influential position within … Putin’s close circle … until apparently losing favor recently, likely because his forces played a limited role in active combat operations in Ukraine throughout late fall of 2022 and winter of 2023.

Putin belittled Kadyrov during their meeting on March 13 where Kadyrov appeared visibly nervous when reporting on the Chechen fighters’ role in Ukraine.

Hundreds of children among evacuees as Ukraine expected to start long-anticipated counteroffensive

Russian forces are evacuating residents from the area near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, with more than 1,600 people, including 660 children, evacuated so far, a Moscow-installed official in the region has said.

The head of the UN’s nuclear power watchdog warned on Saturday that the situation around the plant had become “potentially dangerous”. Ukraine is soon expected to start a much-anticipated counteroffensive to retake Russian-held territory, including in the Zaporizhzhia region

Yevgeny Prigozhin drops plans to withdraw from devastated city after receiving promises of extra arms

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

The head of Russia’s Wagner group appears to have ditched plans to withdraw his forces from Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, after receiving promises overnight that they would get all the arms needed to capture the devastated city.

Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on Friday that his fighters, who have spearheaded the months-long assault on Bakhmut, would pull out because he said his men had been starved of ammunition and taken “useless and unjustified” losses as a result.