UN chief: Ukraine peace talks 'impossible' now
Peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are currently impossible as "both parties are convinced they can win," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Spanish newspaper El Pais.
"This was a Russian invasion against international law, against the UN Charter, but I do not see Russia at the moment willing to withdraw from the territories it occupies, and I think Ukraine is hoping to retake them," Guterres said in the interview published on May 9.
"What we are doing, to the extent possible, is having a dialogue with both parties to solve specific problems." The UN chief added that his organization focused on securing exports of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea as well as of Russian food products and fertilizers, which the West hasn't sanctioned.
Leaked intelligence documents suggest the U.S. believed Guterres was "too accommodating" to Russia while trying to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the BBC reported on April 13.
The UN and Turkey-brokered deal, first signed in July 2022, has allowed Ukraine to renew its grain exports after Russia blocked them in the first months of the full-scale invasion.
UK Defense Ministry: Water deficit increasingly critical for Russian-occupied Donetsk
Russia is likely building a water pipeline to alleviate the water shortage in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, an issue growing since Moscow's full-scale invasion, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on May 9.
The move aims to compensate for Russia's lack of success in securing the Siverskyi Donets canal, which supplies Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast. Still, the pipeline is "highly unlikely" to fully compensate for the limited access to water in the region's occupied part, reads the report.
The Siverskyi Donets-Donbas Canal remains mainly under Ukrainian control, but its long route has often been contested, the ministry wrote in its latest intelligence update. The canal passes through Chasiv Yar, about 6 km west of Bakhmut.
"Russia's heavy use of indirect artillery to support the capture of Bakhmut and surrounding territory has likely inflicted collateral damage to the canal and other regional water infrastructure, undermining Russia's efforts to remedy the lack of water that its invasion created," adds the update.
Ukraine's eastern Donetsk Oblast is the site of the war's fiercest fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces as Russia seeks to capture the entire region. The regional capital Donetsk has been occupied since Russia's first Donbas invasion in 2014.
Russian attacks hit 10 Ukrainian regions, and injure 17 civilians over past day
In the last 24 hours, Russian attacks were reported in ten Ukrainian oblasts – Kyiv, Sumy, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk, and Donetsk.
According to local authorities, 17 civilians were injured.
Russia struck 139 settlements using mortars, small arms, grenade launchers, tanks, artillery, multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), anti-aircraft missile systems, drones, and strategic and tactical aviation. Ukraine's Defense Ministry media center said on May 9. According to the report, 104 infrastructure facilities have been hit.
Russian forces launched 25 Kalibr and Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles overnight on May 9, the Ukrainian Air Force said in its morning update. The Ukrainian air defense destroyed 23 missiles.
According to the regional administration, missing debris damaged a household in Kyiv Oblast. Two cruise missiles hit Ukraine's central Cherkasy Oblast, damaging a communal facility, Governor Ihor Taburets reported. There were no casualties.