(Bloomberg) —
Leaders of the Group of Seven countries pledged to ban the import of Russian oil. The U.S. announced new measures, including a ban on American accounting and consulting firms from working with Russia. Hungary continued to block the European Union’s latest package of sanctions against Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a video to mark Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to a address a military parade in Moscow and may lay out the next steps of his war. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada met with Zelenskiy in Kyiv.
An intelligence officer of the Azov regiment holed up in Mariupol’s massive Azovstal steel factory said surrender would amount to suicide. All women, children and elderly have been evacuated. In the Luhansk area, as many as 60 people may have died in a Russian strike on a school.
(See RSAN on the Bloomberg Terminal for the Russian Sanctions Dashboard.)
Key Developments
- Mariupol Steel Plant’s ‘Dead Men’ Defenders Call for Rescue Plan
- G-7 Leaders Will Commit to Ban Russian Oil Imports, Draft Says
- U.S. Bans Accounting Services to Russia in New Sanctions Package
- Ukraine’s Tiny Neighbor Suffers Economic Fallout From the War
- Hungary Continues to Block EU Oil Sanctions on Russia
- Boehly-Clearlake Group Lands $5.25 Billion Deal for Chelsea
All times CET:
Trudeau Meets Zelenskiy in Ukraine’s Capital (9:33 p.m.)
Canada will continue to support Ukraine, supplying light anti-tank weapons, known as NLAWs, and other anti-tank weaponry as well as small arms and satellite imagery, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told journalists after meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Canada will also continue to help with demining operations, Trudeau said, who also re-opened Canadian embassy in Kyiv during his unannounced Sunday trip.
Zelenskiy seeks Canada to lift import duties on Ukrainian goods and ease visa regime for Ukrainians.
Mariupol Steel Plant Defenders Call for Rescue (9:19 p.m.)
If Russia’s President Vladimir Putin hoped to mark Victory Day on Monday by celebrating the capture or surrender of Mariupol’s last Ukrainian defenders, a Zoom appearance by their commanders suggests he’ll have to wait.
Speaking in a lengthy online press conference on Sunday, an intelligence officer of the Azov regiment holed up in the southeastern port city’s massive Azovstal steel factory said surrender would amount to suicide. He said they had enough food and weapons to hold out a while yet.
Describing their increasingly grim, and likely ultimately hopeless, circumstances, Illia Samoilenko also made clear his bitterness with the Ukrainian government in Kyiv. It had, he said, failed in its defense of southern Ukraine, where Russia made much faster progress than in the north, and had abandoned Mariupol’s garrison to its fate.
Lockheed Seeks to Double Javelin Missile Production (8:03 p.m.)
Lockheed Martin Corp. is working to almost double its production capacity for Javelin missiles to 4,000 a year and achieving that goal will require the supply chain to “crank up,” the defense contractor’s top executive said.
The Ukrainian army has used Lockheed’s missiles to great effect in destroying Russian tanks and armaments, and the company is ramping up production to ensure the U.S. military’s supplies aren’t depleted. Right now Lockheed can build about 2,100 Javelins a year, Chief Executive Officer Jim Taiclet said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Pelosi Cites Urgency of Passing $33 Billion U.S. Aid Package (7:38 p.m.)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said U.S. lawmakers are aware of the urgency of approving a proposed $33 billion aid package for Ukraine, though she stopped short of predicting when Congress might pass it.
“I think we will be able to do it as quickly as possible,” Pelosi said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “We are very current on the needs and the urgency and, again, we will have bipartisanship as we go forward with it.”
G-7 Leaders Commit to Banning Imports Russian Oil (6:30 p.m.)
Leaders of the Group of Seven most industrialized countries pledged to ban the import of Russian oil in response to President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The heads of the leading economies made the commitment after holding a video call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday, the eve of Russia’s May 9 Victory Day, which commemorates Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. The date has become a touchstone of the Kremlin’s campaign to whip up public support for the invasion.
The leaders will “commit to phase out our dependency on Russian energy, including by phasing out or banning the import of Russian oil,” the G-7 said in the statement.
U.S. Bans Accounting Services to Russia (6:05 p.m.)
The U.S. banned American accounting and consulting firms from working with Russia and imposed its first sanctions on Gazprombank as part of a package of new penalties.
The latest measures also include export controls on industrial goods, limits on three of Russia’s top state-controlled television stations, and additional visa restrictions, a U.S. official told reporters.
Germany’s Scholz Sets Limits on Ukraine Policy (6:00 p.m.)
Chancellor Olaf Scholz used a rare televised address to the nation to outline limits on Germany’s efforts to help Ukraine, in a bid to reassure the country unsettled by the threat of war spilling over.
While Europe’s largest economy will continue to send Kyiv heavy weapons to help it defend against Russia, Berlin wouldn’t sacrifice its own security in the process, Scholz said.
Scholz Defends Ukraine Stance as Voters Punish Muddled Policy
After warning in recent weeks that delivering tanks and other advanced weapons to Ukraine risks triggering nuclear war, Scholz was under pressure to justify the policy reversal to the German people.
U.S. Diplomats in Kyiv for Ceremonies (5:15 p.m.)
Charge d’Affaires Kristina Kvien led a team of U.S. diplomats that traveled to Kyiv for ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, a senior State Department official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba that the return of the U.S. diplomats is a testament to Ukraine’s success in its war with Russia, according to the official.
The move stops short of reopening the embassy in Kyiv. The U.S. initially moved its diplomats to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv in the days leading up to Russia’s invasion, and then operated from Poland. Diplomats last month started making day-trips into Lviv.
Norway’s Gharahkhani Meets With Zelenskiy (5:03 p.m.)
Ukraine’s president met with Masud Gharahkhani, president of Norway’s parliament, thanking the Norwegian people for their support and for weapons donations. The pair discussed cooperation in energy security and ways to strengthen sanctions against Russia. Zelenskiy invited Norway to join the effort to restore Ukraine after the war.
Senior Russian Infrastructure Official Visits Mariupol (4:30 p.m.)
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, whose portfolio includes construction, visited occupied areas of Ukraine including the recently captured city of Mariupol, according to a statement posted to his Telegram channel.
Khusnullin, who was sanctioned by the European Union in February for his role in undermining Ukrainian sovereignty, said Russia would help the seized territories rebuild and provide humanitarian support.
Jill Biden Crosses Into Ukraine From Slovakia, Meets Zelenska (3:30 p.m.)
U.S. first lady Jill Biden crossed into western Ukraine from Slovakia for an unannounced visit and met with Ukrainian counterpart Olena Zelenska. Biden’s motorcade drove through the town of Uzhorod to a public school now being used as temporary housing for displaced Ukrainians.
Zelenska hasn’t appeared in public since Feb. 24, the day of Russia’s invasion, a U.S. official said. She and Biden exchanged hugs, and the U.S. first lady presented the Ukrainian with flowers.
“I wanted to come in Mother’s Day. I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine,” Biden said. Speaking in Ukrainian, Zelenska praised Biden for her courage.
Vitol Says It’ll Get Harder to Trade Russian Oil From Mid-May (2:30 p.m.)
Commodity firms will find it much harder to buy and sell Russian oil from the middle of this month, according to the world’s biggest independent crude trader, as Europe tightens sanctions on Moscow.
Russia’s exports of crude and oil products have probably dropped by about 1 million barrels a day from 7.5 million before the attack in late February, Mike Muller, head of Asia at Vitol Group, said Sunday. They could fall further after May 15, he said, because many trading houses interpret EU regulations as prohibiting them from dealing with Russian state energy companies beyond then. “There will be a “different reality.”
U2’s Bono, the Edge Perform in Kyiv Metro (2:26 p.m.)
Bono and the Edge, members of Irish rock band U2, performed in a Kyiv metro station on Sunday at the invitation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a “show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people,” the band said on Twitter.
In a video posted by Ukrainian politician Serhiy Leshchenko, the pair were seen with Taras Topolia, frontman of the local band Antytila, performing the Ben E. King standard, “Stand by Me.”
Hungary Continues to Block EU Oil Sanctions Against Russia (2:16 p.m.)
Hungary continued to block a European Union proposal that would ban Russian oil imports, holding up the bloc’s package of sanctions meant to target President Vladimir Putin over his war in Ukraine, according to people familiar with the talks.
A meeting of the EU’s 27 ambassadors ended on Sunday without an agreement, with talks expected to resume in the coming days, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private.
The EU had been pushing to have the process concluded by Russia’s Victory Day military parade on Monday, at which Putin is expected to speak about the invasion of Ukraine.
Zelenskiy Tells Fox Some Countries Trying to Buy Stolen Grain (10:15 a.m.)
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says some countries are attempting to buy grain taken from Ukraine by Russia. His comments to Fox News came days after Ukraine’s Ministry of Agriculture said that farmers have reported Russians in occupied territory “stealing their grain en masse.”
“I don’t want to name specific countries who behind our backs are making deals to buy our grain from Russia,” Zelenskiy told Fox News. “If they will do it, of course we’ll tell.”
The United Nations World Food Program has called for the urgent reopening of Ukraine’s grain export seaports, which have been shut by Russian blockades.
Zelenskiy Marks Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance in Video (8:44 a.m.)
Volodymyr Zelenskiy released a 15-minute video to mark Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation. The black and white footage shows the president speaking in front of a bombed-out apartment building in Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv.
Ukraine’s president mused on the post-World War II vow of “never again,” saying that decades later, “darkness returned” to Ukraine “in a different uniform, under different slogans, but for the same purpose.”
“All nations who have been branded ‘third-class,’ slaves without the right to their own state or to exist at all, hear statements that exalt one nation and erase others with ease,” he said. “They claim that you don’t really exist, you are artificially created, and therefore you have no rights.”
Official Says Many Feared Dead in School Shelter Bombing (6:45 a.m)
As many as 60 people may have died in a Russian strike on a school in Bilohorivka, a village in the Luhansk area, according to regional head Serhiy Haiday on Telegram.
Russian forces on Saturday bombed a school building where most residents of the village had been sheltering, he said earlier. About 30 people were rescued from within the rubble and two were found dead. The final number of victims will be known once the debris is cleared, Haiday said.
Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Said to Make Progress Near Kharkiv (7:30 a.m.)
Pushback from Kyiv’s forces northeast of Kharkiv “is making significant progress and will likely advance to the Russian border in the coming days or weeks,” according to the Institute for the Study of War.
The U.S.-based think tank said the offensive “likely intends to push Russian artillery away from Kharkiv city and drive to the border” of Belgorad oblast in Russia.
Moscow’s forces may be conducting a limited withdrawal in the face of successful Ukrainian attacks, and reportedly destroyed three bridges to slow Ukraine’s advance, ISW said, adding, “Armies generally only destroy bridges if they have largely decided they will not attempt to cross the river in the other direction anytime soon.”
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