May 23, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has visited troops on his country’s eastern frontline to mark the Day of Marines – an annual national holiday to celebrate the Ukrainian Navy.

A post on the presidency’s website said Zelensky visited service personnel on the Vuhledar-Maryinka defense line in the Donetsk region and presented several state awards for courage and bravery to fighters there.

Zelensky’s trip to Ukraine’s east comes after a series of whirlwind trips abroad last week, when he secured pledges to boost Ukraine’s military arsenal during stops in Italy, Germany, France and the United Kingdom and travelled to the G7 summit in Japan to appeal to the world’s major industrial democracies to remain united against Russian aggression.

The Donetsk region is also home to the embattled city of Bakhmut, which Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on Saturday to have captured in its entirety. However, his claims have been contested by Ukrainian officials – including Zelensky, who told the G7 summit on Sunday that “we are keeping on, we are fighting” in Bakhmut.

Fighting in Bakhmut has "decreased," and Ukraine's forces retain a small foothold in the flashpoint eastern city, Kyiv's deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar claimed on Telegram.

Ukrainian troops had made “a slight advance” on the flanks to the north and south of the city, she claimed.

“Fighting continues in the suburbs. The enemy is trying to take advantageous positions, but fails. In certain areas, the enemy is on the defensive. It suffers heavy losses,” she said.  

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly claimed that Bakhmut has not fallen entirely into Russian hands after private military group Wagner and Moscow officials said they had seized the eastern city at the weekend.

A "counter-terrorist operation" was ongoing in southwestern Russia's Belgorod region, its governor said Tuesday, a day after a town bordering Ukraine was attacked in an incursion claimed by pro-Ukraine Russian nationals.

Earlier, Gladkov said Belgorod was hit by drone attacks overnight, following an incursion Monday claimed by Russians partisans aligned with the Ukrainian army.

The Freedom of Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps earlier said they had "fully liberated the settlement of Kozinka" and "entered Grayvoron," after crossing from Ukraine into Belgorod on Monday.

On Tuesday, Gladkov urged Grayvoron residents not to return to their homes until the operation was completed.

Belgorod in southwestern Russia was hit by drone attacks overnight, its governor said, as the border region reels from an incursion claimed by anti-Putin Russians aligned with the Ukrainian army.

In a series of Telegram post late Monday and early Tuesday, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said two homes were struck by drones in the town of Grayvoron — the site of an earlier attack claimed by pro-Ukraine Russian volunteers.

In the village of Borisovka, Gladkov said explosive devices were dropped from drones onto an administrative building and a house in two separate attacks.

No casualties were reported in any of the drone incidents, the governor said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the alleged drone attacks.

Russian partisans: Earlier Monday, Gladkov said most of Grayvoron's residents had evacuated the town after eight people were injured in an attack by a "sabotage group" linked to the Ukrainian army.

The Freedom for Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps earlier claimed they had "fully liberated the settlement of Kozinka" and "entered Grayvoron," after crossing from Ukraine into Belgorod on Monday.

A Ukrainian official said the group was made up of Russian nationals and insisted they were acting independently.

A group of anti-Putin Russians aligned with the Ukrainian army have claimed responsibility for an attack in Russia's southwestern Belgorod region.

The Russian region's governor said at least eight people were injured near the border by a Ukrainian "sabotage" group. A Ukrainian official said the group was made up of Russian nationals and insisted they were acting independently.

Meanwhile, in the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, the leader of the Russian mercenary company Wagner claimed his men had captured the town — a claim Ukraine has denied.

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It will take “several months at best” to get F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday.

The administration has provided few details of the plan to equip the Ukrainian Air Force with the US-made jets or other fourth-generation aircraft after President Joe Biden announced on Friday the US would support a joint training effort, such as who will provide the aircraft or where it will take place. US personnel will participate in the training alongside allies and partners in Europe. 

“It’s been in the works, and there’s obviously been interest from Ukraine in getting that kind of capability,” Kendall told reporters at the Defense Writers Group. He said there are “a lot of open possibilities, including our partners.”

Kendall said it would take at least “several months” before Ukraine would have the capability to operate F-16s, and a number of details have to be worked out before Ukraine’s air force will be able to fly Western jets in large numbers. 

But it’s still a relatively rapid timeline, since it normally takes more than two years to train a new US pilot on the aircraft, according to an Air Force official. Even a refresher course for an F-16 pilot who has stepped away from flying the jet for a period can take up to five months. 

Publicly, the US had argued for months that fighter jets were not at the top of the priority list and would quickly drain the available funding for Ukraine aid instead of more important weapons like Abrams tanks and Patriot missiles. Kendall described what appeared to be a sudden about-face for the Biden administration as a decision that it was the right time to begin preparing Ukraine’s military for the future.

The Freedom for Russia Legion — a group that has claimed responsibility for an apparent incursion inside Russian territory in Belgorod — posted a video on Monday evening that appears to show the so-called flag of free Russia flying over Moscow State University. 

In the video of the incident, which the Legion did not directly claim responsibility for, balloons appear to lift the blue-and-white-striped flag above the university's main building.

Other videos posted by The Freedom for Russia Legion appear to show another Russian opposition flag flying over various areas of Moscow, carried by blue and white balloons.  

CNN could not independently verify the reports. 

The blue and white flag has been used by several anti-Putin Russian opposition groups and has become more widely used since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The eastern Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Marinka continue to be the "epicenter of fighting," according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Monday. 

Twenty-five "combat engagements" took place around Kupyansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka, the update said.

Russian attacks hit apartment buildings, houses, a kindergarten and other civilian infrastructure facilities, injuring some civilians, according to Ukraine's Armed Forces.

"They continue to destroy civilian infrastructure near the contact line" in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions, according to the update. The daily report also highlighted the "massive missile and air attack at Ukraine’s civil and critical infrastructure facilities," which struck the city of Dnipro, the city of Zaporizhzhia, and settlements in the Kharkiv region. 

Earlier on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the Ukrainian forces who are defending the country's skies.

"From last night to this morning, they have shot down 25 Shaheds (drones). Twenty-five out of 25. An excellent result," Zelensky said in his daily address. "Each such downing means saved lives, saved infrastructure."

The Freedom for Russia Legion — a group that has claimed responsibility for an apparent incursion inside Russian territory — has one ambition. As “Caesar” says in a video statement he recorded with his comrades before joining a cross-border raid into his motherland: “Russia will be free.”

The group numbers a few hundred of diehard, battle-hardened Russian volunteers fighting their own people as part of the Ukrainian armed forces. Caesar is a former teacher, a father and has a wife living in Kyiv. He told CNN last year that he had dedicated his life to toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin and marching into Red Square and the Kremlin itself. 

Caesar is a devoted member of the Orthodox Church and is nostalgic for the Tsarist era that predated the Soviet Union. His unit is well-equipped with modern armored vehicles, gunsights and the latest automatic weapons. 

Previously engaged in bitter fighting south of Bakhmut, the Freedom for Russia Legion now claims to have crossed into Russia itself and, as of late afternoon on Monday, was continuing combat operations against Russian forces in areas close to the frontier.

In a Telegram post, the group said it had “liberated” a settlement in Russia's Belgorod region.

Ukrainian officials acknowledged that the unit crossed into Russia, but insist that members of the legion were operating independently as "Russian citizens."

The Legionnaires themselves have admitted that they’re often treated with suspicion by Ukrainian soldiers but hope to win them over with gallantry on the battlefield.

Their apparent incursion along a border that’s frequently used by Russian mortar teams and artillery as a firebase for attacks inside Ukraine will help further cement their reputation.

It also serves as part of ongoing psychological operations intended to undermine support for the war in Russia and the fighting spirit of Russian soldiers themselves — signaling that they could be attacked at any time and even by their own countrymen.