May 4, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

By Jessie Yeung, Sana Noor Haq, Ivana Kottasová, Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt, Matt Meyer, Leinz Vales, Tori B. Powell and Maureen Chowdhury, CNN

Updated 12:09 a.m. ET, May 5, 2023
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7:18 a.m. ET, May 4, 2023

Ukraine Air Force says it shot down 18 drones launched by Russia

From CNN's Olga Voitovych

Ukrainian servicemen use spotlights as they search for drones in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv on Thursday.
Ukrainian servicemen use spotlights as they search for drones in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv on Thursday. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Ukraine’s Air Force destroyed 18 of 24 drones fired by Russia on Wednesday night, it said in a statement released early Thursday.

“On (Wednesday night), the enemy again attacked with Shaheds from the north (Bryansk region) and from the south - the eastern coast of the Azov Sea," the statement said. "This time, the Air Force, in cooperation with the air defense of other components of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, destroyed 18 attack UAVs.”

Intense attacks: Explosions were heard in the capital Kyiv and Odesa early Thursday morning, with air defenses activated and people told to stay in safe places until air alerts stopped ringing, according to Ukrainian officials.

The capital region's military chief said Ukrainian air defenses withstood Russia's most intense air attack on Kyiv since the start of the year overnight and into Thursday morning, and destroyed all Russian missiles and drones.

There were no civilian casualties or damage to residential buildings and infrastructure, he added.

1:33 a.m. ET, May 4, 2023

Zelensky will give a speech and visit the ICC in the Netherlands today

From CNN's Teele Rebane and Josh Pennington

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday to deliver a speech at The Hague on Thursday, according to Dutch public broadcaster NOS. 

Zelensky's speech is titled “No Peace Without Justice."

Later Thursday, he will visit the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine are being investigated, NOS reported.

Zelensky traveled to the Netherlands from Finland, where he met with his Finnish and other Nordic counterparts on Wednesday.

In a statement ahead of that meeting, the Finnish president said the prime ministers of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland planned to discuss the war in Ukraine and Kyiv's "initiative for a just peace."

12:07 a.m. ET, May 4, 2023

Kyiv denies involvement in alleged Kremlin attack as air raid sirens sound across Ukraine. Here's the latest

From CNN staff

Russian police officers guard the Red Square in front of the Kremlin on Wednesday.
Russian police officers guard the Red Square in front of the Kremlin on Wednesday. (Stringer/Getty Images)

Ukraine has vehemently denied Russia's allegation that it attempted to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin in a drone strike at the Kremlin overnight on Wednesday,

Moscow said Putin was not in the building at the time of the attack.

Meanwhile, a former Russian lawmaker linked with militant groups in the country told CNN the attack was the work of what he calls Russian partisans, not the Ukrainian military. 

Here are the latest developments:

  • Explosions and air alerts: Blasts were heard in Kyiv and Odesa early Thursday morning, with air defenses activated in Kyiv, according to a Ukrainian official and the regional military administration. Air alerts rang out in most of the eastern half of Ukraine, and civilians were warned to "stay in safe places" until the alert is over.
  • Oil refinery fire: An alleged drone attack caused a fire at an oil refinery in southwestern Russia on Thursday — the second apparent cross-border strike on a Russian fuel depot in two days, according to Russian state media.
  • Kherson attacks: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out against Russia after at least 21 people were killed by shelling in the southern Kherson region Wednesday.
  • "Heightened threat": The US embassy in Ukraine warned Wednesday there was a "heightened threat of missile attacks,” including in Kyiv. It pointed to an uptick in strikes across Ukraine, and "inflammatory rhetoric from Moscow."
  • More US assistance: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $300 million security assistance package for Ukraine Wednesday. It is the 37th drawdown of US arms and equipment for Ukraine, he said.

7:19 a.m. ET, May 4, 2023

Explosions heard in Kyiv and Odesa, Ukrainian politician says

From CNN’s Josh Pennington

Explosions were heard in Kyiv and Odesa early Thursday morning, said Oleksii Honcharenko, a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), on Telegram.

Air defenses have been activated in Kyiv, the city's regional military administration said. Air alerts have been activated in most of the eastern half of the country, according to a map posted by Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.

Yuri Malashko, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, called for people to “stay in safe places” until the air alert is over.

7:19 a.m. ET, May 4, 2023

Russian state news agency says oil refinery in Krasnodar on fire following drone attack

From CNN's Josh Pennington and Hira Humayun

Firefighters work at the site of an oil refinery near Taqman, in the Krasnodar region, Russia, on Wednesday.
Firefighters work at the site of an oil refinery near Taqman, in the Krasnodar region, Russia, on Wednesday. (Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service/AP)

A fire broke out in the reservoir of Russia’s Ilsky oil refinery in the southwestern Krasnodar region, state-run news agency Tass reported early Thursday.

Citing emergency services, Tass said the fire was caused by a drone strike.

“Due to an attack by an unknown drone, a fuel tank at the Ilsky Oil Refinery in the urban-type settlement of Ilsky in the Seversky district caught fire," Tass quoted emergency services, adding that firefighters have been dispatched to the site.

There were no casualties, according to Krasnodar Gov. Veniamin Kondratiev, who said in a Telegram post that residents are no longer in danger.

“It's been a second turbulent night in a row for our emergency services. A tank of petroleum products at the Ilsky Oil Refinery in the Seversky District has now been confirmed to be on fire. Fire brigades and MES staff of 48 people and 16 vehicles are already at work,” he said.

Fuel to the fire: It comes after Russian state media on Wednesday said a drone strike ignited a fire that engulfed an oil storage facility in the port of Volna in Krasnodar.

Videos published on social media and geolocated by CNN show the oil storage tanks burning.

That facility is close to the Kerch bridge that was set ablaze by Ukrainian forces in October 2022. It is unclear how the fuel storage tank caught fire and Ukraine has not commented on the incident.

2:51 a.m. ET, May 4, 2023

Former Russian lawmaker claims partisan group behind Kremlin drone attack

From CNN's Matthew Chance and Katharina Krebs in London

A former Russian lawmaker linked with militant groups in Russia claims an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin on Wednesday was the work of what he calls Russian partisans, not the Ukrainian military. 

In an exclusive interview, Ilya Ponomarev told CNN’s Matthew Chance that "it's one of Russian partisan groups," adding that "I cannot say more, as they have not yet publicly claimed responsibility."

Ponomarev, who lives in exile in Ukraine and Poland, was the only Russian MP to vote against the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 and has since been included on a list of terrorist suspects, according to the Russian authorities. 

On Wednesday, the Kremlin accused Ukraine of being responsible for two drone attacks on the Kremlin. 

In a statement, the Kremlin said, “We view these actions as a planned terrorist attack and an assassination attempt,” adding that “Russia reserves the right to take countermeasures wherever and whenever it deems appropriate."

Ukraine has denied any involvement in the alleged drone strike.

More on partisans: According to Ponomarev, members of partisans group inside Russia are usually "youngsters, students, residents of large cities. I am aware of the partisan activity in approximately 40 cities across Russia," he told CNN. 

"All partisan groups have their own focus, their speciality, their core knowledge. Some of them are focused on railroad sabotages, some of them are doing arson of military recruitment posts. Some of them are doing attacks on pro-war activists, some of them are doing hacking attacks," he said. 

According to Ponomarev, the alleged drone attacks inside Russia are a "new line of operation" for the groups, which he says pose a “real threat."

"What Putin is selling to the nation and especially to the elites is the feeling of invulnerability and security. And partisans are ruining both. They are actually saying the war is here and you guys, you personally, are not safe," Ponomarev said.
7:21 a.m. ET, May 4, 2023

Zelensky on deadly Russian shelling of civilians in Kherson: "The world needs to see and know this"

From CNN's Yulia Kesaieva and Vasco Cotovio

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out at Russia after he said at least 21 people were killed by shelling in the southern Kherson region. 

“The world needs to see and know this,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram on Wednesday. “A railway station and a crossing, a house, a hardware store, a grocery supermarket, a gas station — do you know what unites these places? The bloody trail that Russia leaves with its shells, killing civilians in Kherson and Kherson region.”

Zelensky added that at least 48 people were also wounded and sent his condolences to the families and friends of those affected. 

“We will never forgive the culprits,” he vowed. “We will defeat evil state and hold all the perpetrators to account."
8:43 p.m. ET, May 3, 2023

Analysis: Russia and Ukraine seek to weaken each other in cross-border attacks ahead of expected offensive

Analysis from CNN's Nick Paton Walsh in Dnipro, Ukraine

For days now, the blasts have echoed the condition each country’s military is in.

Ukraine is apparently striking at fuel depots in Russian-occupied areas and inside Russia itself — seemingly precise attacks but ones to which Kyiv is making no overt claim.

Russia has been lashing out at what often seem to be civilian targets in Ukraine, either in rage or through ineptitude. In Uman, more than 20 people died; in Pavlohrad, there were two dead and many injured.

In Kherson on Wednesday, three were killed when a crowded hypermarket was hit at 11 in the morning. And in Zaporizhzhia, two rockets slammed into a quiet residential garden that same overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, leaving a crater in a genteel, freshly sculpted lawn.

Nobody died in this last strike, but perhaps only because the first missile sent two families rushing for cover before the second struck.

During the night, the city of Zaporizhzhia was blasted with repeated air raid sirens — a familiar noise in the past months, but this time accompanied by explosions, suggesting Moscow’s escalation, as Russian forces apparently send S300 missiles into cities, according to local officials and accounts.

We don’t often know when Russia hits a military target in Ukraine, but the number of strikes on civilian targets suggests either extreme negligence and inaccuracy, or a tactic of intentionally terrifying ordinary people.

A pattern is forming, outside of Moscow’s repeated disregard for human life. Night by night, each side appears to be trying to weaken the other.

The Ukrainian strikes have hit obvious infrastructure targets — railroad tracks, huge fuel depots — which suggest both how researched their coming campaign is, and how poorly prepared Russia is. It is still, for the most part, doing things in the same old, obvious way.

The signals ahead of Ukraine’s long-heralded counteroffensive are getting louder. For two weeks, a slight uptick in clashes has been reported by pro-Russian officials along the Zaporizhzhia front lines, through which Kyiv’s forces will likely have to push if they are to separate the occupied peninsula of Crimea from the rest of occupied Ukraine — a key strategic goal. It is unclear if this uptick is Ukraine probing, or business as usual — and that is entirely the point.

Read the full analysis here.

8:38 p.m. ET, May 3, 2023

The US announced a new $300 million security assistance package for Ukraine. Here's what is in it

From CNN's Jennifer Hansler and Betsy Klein

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $300 million security assistance package for Ukraine Wednesday.

“This latest package will help Ukraine continue to bravely defend itself in the face of Russia’s brutal, unprovoked, and unjustified war. Russia could end its war today. Until Russia does, the United States and our allies and partners will stand united with Ukraine, for as long as it takes,” Blinken said.

The top US diplomat said it is the 37th drawdown of US arms and equipment for Ukraine.

Here's what's in the package:

  • Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
  • 155mm Howitzers
  • 155mm artillery rounds
  • 120mm, 81mm, and 60mm mortar rounds
  • Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles
  • AT-4 and Carl Gustaf anti-armor weapon systems
  • Hydra-70 aircraft rockets
  • Small arms and small arms ammunition
  • Demolition munitions for obstacle clearing
  • Trucks and trailers to transport heavy equipment
  • Testing and diagnostic equipment to support vehicle maintenance and repair
  • Spare parts and other field equipment

Earlier Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the package comes after "extensive work by the US government over the past few months to fulfill Ukraine's requests ahead of its planned counteroffensive and ensure they have the weapons and equipment they need."

The White House said it will continue to work with allies to support Ukraine.

Previewing this aid package earlier this week, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby suggested the new package would be "very much focused on ammunition and clearing capabilities" to give Ukraine "what they need to break through Russian defenses."

"They will be ready," Kirby said.