May 15, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Sunday “reiterated the unwavering US support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and security assistance efforts” with the country’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, and provided an update of his call with their Russian counterpart, according to the US Department of Defense.

Austin spoke with Reznikov “to discuss the situation on the battlefield and Ukraine’s capability needs,” according to a department readout.

Austin relayed to Reznikov his correspondence with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday “in which (Austin) urged an immediate end to the conflict in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication.”

Russian forces fired at the hospital in Severodonetsk on Sunday, Serhii Haidai, the head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, posted to his official Telegram channel. 

Nine civilians were injured and received medical treatment at the hospital, which continued to operate during shelling, he said.

“Over the past day, the orcs (a derogatory Ukrainian term for Russian troops) carried out 11 artillery attacks on Severodonetsk,” he added.

The Russians “shelled houses, a chemical plant, a school and a hospital,” he said.

Forensic workers transport the bodies of Russian soldiers in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 13.

The Ukrainian military has claimed that Russian units have “suffered significant losses in manpower and equipment” as they try to advance westwards to the borders of Luhansk and Donetsk regions, according to a spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces.

“In some areas, the staffing of [Russian] units, as a consequence of hostilities, is less than 20%, ” the armed forces general staff said late Sunday.

“In the Popasna direction, due to heavy losses and the inability to act independently, airborne troops of the armed forces of the Russian Federation are teaming up with representatives of Russian private military companies for further action,” claimed Oleksandr Shtupun, the general staff spokesman.

The ruins of Popasna fell to Russian forces earlier this month but they appear to have taken little ground in the area since.

The Russians have also been trying to push south from Izium for several weeks, and the general staff said Sunday that they were trying unsuccessfully to conduct offensive and assault operations towards two villages south of the town

The military also said that Russian forces north and east of the city of Kharkiv were trying to defend their positions to “prevent the advance of our troops to the State Border of Ukraine,” while continuing to shell towns and villages recently recaptured by Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba gives a press statement during the G7 Foreign Ministers meeting in Wangels, Germany, on May 13.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on Germany to take a lead in the process leading to Ukraine becoming part of the European Union.

In a video posted on Facebook on Sunday, Kuleba said that during his visit to Berlin earlier in the week, he had “a very rational discussion with the Germans about Ukraine becoming a part of EU.”

“I told them it is going to happen anyway. It is inevitable that Ukraine will receive a candidate status sooner or later. The German elites have a choice to lead this process and inscribe their names in the history of Europe or it will still happen but without their leadership,” he added.

The minister also discussed the Russian oil embargo, currently debated by EU member states, and the issue of a Russian gas embargo also came up during his visit.

After his meeting with German officials, Kuleba also engaged in talks with G7 foreign ministers and said that they “welcomed the idea that it is necessary to freeze Russian assets and transfer them to Ukraine to help rebuild our country. We are talking about hundreds of billions of euros here. Also, (the) G7 said they are ready to take part in rebuilding Ukraine, in the reconstruction of its cities and infrastructure. You know President of Ukraine has an idea of the countries to take charge of certain regions or cities that`s been affected by the war and our partners welcome this idea.”

Kuleba also called for “a solution to remove Russian blockade on the export of Ukrainian agro-industrial products to the world. Right now, Russian aggression is leading the world towards famine. This is why it is important to work with African countries as well. We want them to help to resolving this issue.”

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson conducts a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 27.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced her party’s support for the country to apply to join NATO.

“We Social Democrats consider that the best for Sweden and the Swedish people’s security is that we join NATO. This is a decision that we have made after very careful consideration,” Andersson said during a press conference on Sunday.

Andersson noted this decision reverses a stance the country has taken for 200 years, leaving “a political line of security policies that we have had in different shapes and forms.”

“For us Social Democrats, the military non-alliance policy has served us well. But our analysis shows that it will not serve us as well in the future,” Andersson said. “This is not a decision that we have taken lightly.”

The prime minister said the country must “adapt to reality” and make decisions based on the current climate.

“It is very clear that there is a before and after the 24th of February 2022. Europe, Sweden and the Swedish people are living in a new, dangerous reality. The European security order that Sweden has based its security policies on for centuries, that is now under attack,” Andersson said.

This expected announcement follows suit after Finland announced Sunday its decision to apply to join NATO, after both countries have previously refrained from joining for historic and geopolitical reasons.

Earlier on Sunday, Sweden’s Social Democratic Party had released a statement on its website saying it has decided the country should work toward a Swedish application to join NATO.

The statement continues to say that the party should, in case the application is granted by NATO, work to state unilateral conditions against the placement of nuclear weapons and permanent bases on Swedish territory.

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde called it “a historic decision” in a tweet.

Earlier Sunday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that “NATO’s door is open” to Sweden and Finland.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomes US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP senators to Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 14. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Sunday, after leading a GOP delegation to Kyiv this weekend to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that most Republicans support Ukraine’s efforts to combat the brutal invasion from Russia.

He held the call in Stockholm, Sweden, where he is currently holding with GOP Sens. Susan Collins, John Barrasso and John Cornyn after their trip to Ukraine. The group is planning to meet with Finland’s president on Monday.

When asked about Republicans who are criticizing the spending to help Ukraine, he responded “it’s in our interest to help Ukrainians.”

“This is not some handout,” he said about the spending. “The first place to stop (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is in Ukraine. And that’s what we’re determined to do.”

When asked about Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul blocking the fast-track process to pass the $40 billion Ukraine supplemental, McConnell dismissed any concerns.

“Well, it’s no secret Rand and I have a different worldview about the importance of America’s role around the world. So that was not surprising and it won’t create a problem,” he said. “We’ll get the job done by Wednesday.”

He also said President Joe Biden should declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, saying “I think it’s a good idea.”

“Territorial integrity is the goal,” he said about Ukraine’s goal during this invasion.

He also said he plans to speak to Biden when he’s back in the United States. “I’ll give President Biden a rundown on the visit once I’m back.”

Yulia Bondarenko travels in a convoy of drivers trying to leave Kherson, Ukraine. 

Every day, hundreds and even thousands of people are trying to flee the Russian-occupied region of Kherson in southern Ukraine, gathering up whatever they can cram into their cars, or even piling onto tractors.

And every day, they run into a gauntlet of harassment and worse from Russian troops. 

They are leaving for many reasons: to avoid being detained or to escape the heavy-handed actions of Russian forces, or because of the chronic shortages of medicine and other basics in Kherson, which fell under Russian control soon after the invasion. 

One of the nearly 5,000 people trying to leave was Arkadiy, who had been previously detained by the occupying forces. CNN is not publishing his last name for his safety.

Last week, he was a part of a convoy of no fewer than 1,000 vehicles trying to leave Kherson. The Russians ultimately let the convoy move in batches — but only after holding it in one place for most of the day. 

He had heard stories of extensive checks, phones being examined and property stolen. 

Yulia Bondarenko was also in the convoy, and she also expected the Russians to take things.

“Evacuated people know about this from Telegram chats and don’t even take anything valuable with them,” she said. “Russians almost always ask for cigarettes and lighters.”

Electronics were often confiscated too — power-banks and memory cards, for example. But “smartphones are generally not taken away by Russians,” Bondarenko said. “Although they are closely inspected: they check messages and photo galleries.”

The convoy leaving Beryslav had some 200 vehicles — one minibus for a dozen people were crammed with double that number, Arkadiy said.

The journey was through open, flat countryside on minor roads. But just after it passed the final Russian checkpoint the column of some 200 vehicles came under fire near a place called Davydiv Brid, where Russian control ends. 

Arkadiy said two shells landed simultaneously. Vehicles ahead of him were peppered with shrapnel - tires shredded and windshields shattered. Seven or eight cars were badly damaged but trees at the side of the road absorbed some of the impact.

“Everyone immediately began to hide behind the cars. Everyone was scared, people with children in their arms. The children screamed, even the men were panicking.”

Yulia Bondarenko was in the same convoy. She also told CNN that they’d just cleared the last Russian checkpoint. “People started running and hiding. But we stayed in the car, we had a lot of animals. We couldn’t take them all out at once.”

Yulia’s menagerie included dogs, cats and two meerkats that were rescued after a petting zoo in Kherson was shelled.

Yulia Bondarenko travelled with dogs, cats and two meerkats that were recused after a petting zoo in Kherson was shelled.

It’s still unclear where the shelling came from. Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the Kryvyi Rih military administration, said on Thursday that Russian artillery had fired on the column and two people had received shrapnel wounds.

Others have related similarly harrowing escapes from Kherson. Katerina Torgunova lived with her husband and three-year old daughter in the town of Oleshky.

The day they left, she said, “We passed the first two checkpoints relatively calmly, and at the third checkpoint we had huge problems. The Russians started firing flash flares into the air as we approached them.”

“Then we were pulled out of the car, they started to curse us. My husband was searched for a long time.”

Others speak of being on the road for two days trying to find a way out of Kherson.

Julia Kartuzova and her two children had to sleep overnight in a kindergarten as they tried to find an escape route.

Then came what she and others call the ‘grey zone’ — the no-man’s land between Russian and Ukrainian control. “There are fights going on. It was very dangerous there, because the shells fell right there, a hundred meters from our car.”

“We lost count of how many checkpoints we had to go through. There must have been more than a hundred in total.”

Arkadiy says the main routes out of Kherson to Mykolaiv, which is still in Ukrainian hands, are heavily damaged and often impassable.

Hennadii Lahuta, head of the Kherson regional military administration, says the Russians have not approved a single evacuation corridor from Kherson since the beginning of the occupation. For a week at the beginning of May, Lahuta said, the Russians had blocked the route taken by Arkadiy and others. 

On May 11, the Russians allowed people to use that route again, which explains the sudden mass exodus.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna speaks during a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, on January 10.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna said she hopes Ukraine’s application to join the EU is considered fast and there are lessons learned following Finland and Sweden considerations to join NATO.

“We will see with the now position of Sweden and Finland, who have decided to apply for NATO membership, and the response from the allies that this application will be considered and fulfilled immediately,” she said. “It only serves one very obvious argument that NATO has learned on the mistakes and the political mistakes which has been done back in 2008 by making promises without delivering on decisions in terms of membership which has basically led to three wars, two of which are now happening on Ukrainian territory.”

“We hope that now when it comes to the concentration of Ukrainian application to EU, it would happen also much faster,” she added.

Earlier on Sunday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he hopes that the ascension process for Sweden and Finland into NATO is “faster than we have seen before.”

“My intention is still to have a quick and swift process,” he said, adding that while the ratification process will take time — as it is standard when going through 30 parliaments — “this is a historic opportunity we need to seize.”

Correction: A previous version of this post misstated comments made by Deputy Prime Minister Stefanishyna. She was referring to the EU when she said she hopes Ukraine’s application to join the body is considered fast.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a military parade in Moscow, Russia, on May 9.

Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine “showed that they are ready to attack an independent neighboring country,” Finnish President Sauli Niinistö told CNN as he explained Finland’s decision to apply for NATO membership, a US-led military alliance.

While he does not believe that Russia could attack Finland now or in the future, Niinistö said the divided political landscape of Europe and the world does not leave much room for the non-aligned.

While informing Russia of Finland’s decision to apply for NATO membership, Niinistö said he was surprised at President Vladimir Putin’s calm reaction.

“Actually, the surprise was that he took it so calmly,” he told CNN. “But in security policy, especially talking with Russia, you have to keep in mind that what he said doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be all the time quite well aware.”

“But so far, it seems that there’s no immediate problems coming,” he added.

Niinistö also said that while he was “astonished” at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s comments, he is “not worried” about Turkey blocking Finland’s membership into NATO.

“I believe that there will be a lot of discussion still and I’m not that worried about that,” he told CNN.

Turkey has made it clear that their intention is not to block membership, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday.

During a video news conference, he expressed confidence that NATO will be able to address Turkey’s concerns and that the ascension process for Sweden and Finland into NATO is “faster than we have seen before.”

On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he is not looking at Finland and Sweden joining NATO “positively,” accusing both countries of housing Kurdish “terrorist organizations.”

“Unfortunately, Scandinavian countries are like guesthouses of terror organizations. PKK and DHKPC have taken shelter in Sweden and Netherlands. They have even taken place in their parliaments. At this stage, it is not possible for us to see this positively.” Erdogan had said. 

Following this, the NATO secretary general said, “I’m confident that we will be able to address the concerns that Turkey has expressed in a way that doesn’t delay the membership or the accession process, so my intention is still to have a quick and swift process,” he said.

The ratification process will take time, as it is standard when going through 30 parliaments, he added, but emphasized the need to move quicker.

Stoltenberg added NATO will work with Sweden and Finland on any potential threats from Russia “to provide assurance measures is in the intermediate.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg holds a press conference in Brussels, Belgium on April 28.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, “Ukraine can win this war,” while speaking to reporters via a video link on Sunday.

“Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow have planned. It failed to take Kyiv,” Stoltenberg said, “They’re pulling back from around Kharkiv, their major offensive in Donbass has stalled. Russia is not achieving its strategic objectives.”

Allies expressed strong support for Ukraine and “further strengthening of NATO’s deterrence on defense and the longer-term implications of the war including on our future stance towards Russia,” he added.

Moreover, he said, “NATO’s door is open” to Sweden and Finland, calling their decision to apply “historic.”

A sports hall inside the Merihaka bunker.

As Finland edges closer to joining NATO, Russia has warned that it “will be forced to take retaliatory steps” in order to “stop the threats to its national security.”

But it seems Finland has been preparing for a potential conflict with its neighbor to the east for decades.

Since the 1960s, the Finnish government has built more than 50,000 bunkers across the country, which are enough to shelter 80% of the country’s 5.5 million people.

A CNN team visited two of the 5,500 or so shelters in Helsinki, the capital.

The Itäkeskus Swimming Hall, in the city’s northeast, can be converted into a shelter in less than a day by draining its Olympic-sized swimming pool of water.

Itäkeskus Swimming Hall.

Meanwhile, about 20 meters (60 feet) below a parking garage, the Merihaka bunker is cut into the bedrock of the city. An emergency shelter with capacity for 6,000 people can be set up within 72 hours in case of crisis.

Parts of the space are already in use, to help offset the costs — children play hockey inside sports halls and enjoy play areas, while members of the public use the cafes.

“We are a half-star hotel,” Tomi Rask, who works for the Helsinki City Rescue Department, tells CNN.

However, the bunker is not just fit for recreational use.

The 2 billion-year-old bedrock is blast-proof and could absorb the radiation from a nuclear bomb, while the curved tunnels that run through the shelter “take most of the hit,” according to Rask.

Merihaka bunker.

Rask adds that despite the city’s preparations, he can’t predict how things will turn out “when this many people get put in a small space and it’s tight and you close the doors.”

Finland declared independence from Russia in 1917, refusing to align itself with the Soviet Union or the United States. Even after it joined the European Union in 1995 and gradually aligned its defense policies with the West, it still avoided joining NATO outright due to the geopolitical threat from Russia, with whom it shares an 830-mile border.

But the Mayor of Helsinki, Juhana Vartiainen, said the city had “never had any illusions about the Soviet Union, nor its follower, Russia.”

“I have been more (and) more surprised by the fact that such shelters do not exist in all European countries,” he said.

Take a look inside Helsinki’s extensive bunkers:

Video Ad Feedback

c9c8b8cb-59a5-4aab-849b-638155bba3bc.mp4

03:32 - Source: cnn

CNN’s Luke McGee contributed reporting to this post.

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö gives a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, on May 15.

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö has said he is “confused” over comments from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he is not looking at the possibility of Finland and Sweden joining NATO “positively.”

“To be frank, I’m a bit confused, because I had a telephone discussion with the President Erdogan approximately a month ago. And actually, he took up himself before I had the possibility to do that, that you’re applying for NATO membership, and we will assess it favourable,” Niinistö told CNN’s Nic Robertson during a press conference Sunday in Helsinki.

“I think that what we need now is a very clear answer. I’m prepared to have a new discussion with President Erdogan about the problems he has raised.”

Erdogan said Friday he was not looking at Finland and Sweden joining NATO “positively,” accusing both counties of housing Kurdish “terrorist organizations.”

Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin and Finland's President Sauli Niinistö give a press conference to announce that Finland will apply for NATO membership at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, on May 15.

Finland’s government announced Sunday it will apply to join NATO, ditching decades of wartime neutrality and ignoring Russian threats of possible retaliation as the Nordic country attempts to strengthen its security following the onset of the war in Ukraine.

The decision was announced at a joint press conference on Sunday with President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who said the move must be ratified by the country’s parliament before it can go forward.

“It will be based on a strong mandate, with the President of the Republic. We have been in close contact with governments of NATO member states and NATO itself,” Marin added.

The move would bring the US-led military alliance up to Finland’s 830-mile border with Russia, but could take months to finalize as the legislatures of all 30 current NATO members must approve new applicants.

It also risks provoking the ire of Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin told his Finnish counterpart Niinistö on Saturday that abandoning military neutrality and joining the bloc would be a “mistake.”

CNN’s Joshua Berlinger contributed reporting to this post.

Read the full story:

Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin (L) and Finland's President Sauli Niinistö give a press conference to announce that Finland will apply for NATO membership at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland on May 15, 2022. Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has swung political and public opinion in Finland and neighbouring Sweden in favour of NATO membership as a deterrent against Russian aggression.

Related article Finland will apply to join NATO, ditching decades of neutrality despite Russia's threats of retaliation

NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Germany, while Finland and Sweden consider joining the US-led military alliance.

Here are the latest headlines from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Finland set to seek NATO membership: Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Saturday that the Nordic nation will decide “to seek NATO membership in the next few days,” Niinistö’s office said in a statement. Putin called such a move a “mistake” as Russia suspended its power exports to Finland. Germany has “prepared everything to do a quick ratification process” if Sweden and Finland apply to join NATO, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Sunday.

Where the fighting is happening: In the country’s north, Ukraine continues to press on with a counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, where its troops have made significant advances to the north and east towards the Russian border. The aim of the Ukrainian offensive is to cut Russia’s supply lines to its forces trying to advance into the eastern Donetsk region. The pullback of Russian forces from areas around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has revealed new evidence of atrocities. Ukrainian officials say there were further air strikes on the Chernihiv and Sumy regions of northern Ukraine.

Several industrial towns in the east have seen relentless bombardment for weeks as Russian forces try to break down Ukrainian defenses. One is Severodonetsk, where a chemical plant and high-rise buildings have been hit, according to Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration, who warns “Russians are gathering equipment and manpower closer to Severodonetsk and preparing to attack it.”

On the southern front, Ukrainian regional authorities say the Russians have begun digging trenches in some front-line positions, while in the country’s west, four missiles hit a military infrastructure facility in the Yavoriv district, Ukrainian officials said.

Russian losses: Russia may have lost as much as one third of the ground force it committed when it invaded Ukraine, according to an intelligence assessment from Britain’s defense ministry. It added that Russian forces had sustained heavy losses in their Donbas offensive and that “under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.” It is unclear how the ministry has arrived at that assessment. Russia is thought to have committed about 100 battalion tactical groups to the offensive in eastern Ukraine, but Western officials say many of these groups are under strength.

Mariupol convoy: A convoy of 500 to 1,000 cars containing people evacuated from Mariupol entered the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, Petro Andryushchenko, aide to Mariupol’s mayor, said on his telegram channel.

Zelensky meets US delegation: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met a congressional delegation led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kyiv on Saturday, and called for Russia to be officially recognized as a “terrorist state.”

Ukraine wins Eurovision: Ukraine’s folk-rap group Kalush Orchestra has won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, surfing a wave of goodwill from European nations to clinch the country’s third win at the glitzy event. The band’s song “Stefania,” written about the frontman’s mother, beat competition from main rivals the United Kingdom and Spain at the competition in the Italian city of Turin.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Sunday that he’d met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Germany and that “more weapons and other aid (are) on the way to Ukraine.”

Kuleba and Blinken met in the German capital, Berlin, where NATO foreign ministers are holding an informal meeting over the weekend. Finland is expected to make a decision Sunday on whether it will make a formal application to join the bloc. It’s widely anticipated that Sweden will follow the move.

“We agreed to work closely together to ensure that Ukrainian food exports reach consumers in Africa and Asia. Grateful to Secretary Blinken and the U.S. for their leadership and unwavering support,” Kuleba’s tweet read.

A destroyed pontoon bridge is seen on the Siverskyi Donets River near Bilohorivka, Ukraine on May 12.

Russia may have lost as much as one third of the ground force it committed when it invaded Ukraine, according to Britain’s defense ministry.

In its latest defense intelligence update, the ministry said Russian forces had sustained heavy losses in their Donbas offensive and that “under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.”

The ministry assessed that the offensive has “fallen significantly behind schedule. Despite small-scale initial advances, Russia has failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month whilst sustaining consistently high levels of attrition.”

It is unclear how the ministry has arrived at that assessment. Russia is thought to have committed about 100 battalion tactical groups to the offensive in eastern Ukraine, but Western officials say many of these groups are under strength.

The UK intelligence assessment says delays in Russian operations will “almost certainly be exacerbated by the loss of critical enablers such as bridging equipment and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones.”

“Russian bridging equipment has been in short supply throughout the conflict, slowing and restricting offensive manoeuvre. Russian UAVs are vital for tactical awareness and directing artillery but have been vulnerable to Ukrainian anti-air capabilities,” it adds.

“Many of these capabilities cannot be quickly replaced or reconstituted and are likely to continue to hinder Russian operations in Ukraine.”

Some background: In the past week, Russia has lost substantial bridging equipment while trying to cross the Siverskyi Donets river. The Russians have tried and apparently failed to put several pontoons across the river in an effort to encircle Ukrainian troops. Satellite imagery analyzed by CNN shows at least three bridges were destroyed this week and the Russians sustained heavy losses. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military claimed to have substantially degraded Russian drone capabilities. 

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, right, talks to Mircea Geoana, Nato Deputy Secretary General prior to an informal meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Foreign Ministers' session in Berlin on Sunday, May 15.

Germany has “prepared everything to do a quick ratification process” if Sweden and Finland apply to join NATO, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said as she arrived for talks with NATO counterparts in Berlin on Sunday.

Baerbock said it was important not to have an in-between “gray zone,” but that if these two countries decide to join the US-led military alliance, “they can join very quickly.”

Germany’s top diplomat added that if Sweden’s and Finland’s parliaments and societies decided to join NATO, their integration into the alliance would “make us even stronger, defense-wise but also with our values as democratic partners.”

“NATO was always an alliance for defense. It will stay always an alliance for defense, but before February 24, it was for some countries, not the most important thing to join,” Baerbock told reporters.

“This has changed especially for our friends in Nordic Europe or Sweden and Finland. People didn’t want to join NATO but now they are being pushed into NATO,” she added. 

Some context: The Finnish government is planning to issue a second white paper on Sunday proposing that the country joins NATO, Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters on Thursday. The proposal would then be put to a parliamentary vote with a plenary scheduled for Monday morning.

Russia has warned of retaliatory countermeasures, with Russian President Vladimir Putin telling his Finnish counterpart that ending decades of Finland’s military neutrality would be a “mistake.”

Ukrainian special task force police officers deliver bread to people living inside a basement bomb shelter in Severodonetsk, Ukraine on Friday, May 13.

Ukrainian officials have reported missile attacks and shelling in several regions, as Russian forces focus their efforts on the frontlines in Luhansk. But they claim further successes in the Kharkiv region. 

A rare missile strike was reported in the western Lviv region.

Severodonetsk is one of several industrial towns in the east that have seen relentless bombardment for weeks as Russian forces try to break down Ukrainian defenses.

Hayday said the city’s chemical plant and high-rise buildings had been hit.

Several settlements to the south and west of Severodonetsk were also hit — including Vrubivka and Komyshuvakha — Hayday said. 

Russian forces are expected to advance further west if they can secure Severodonetsk, where 15,000 people are still living. Most residents have been evacuated. 

Ukraine has provided few details about its counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region, where its troops have made significant advances to the north and east towards the Russian border. The aim of the Ukrainian offensive is to cut Russian supply lines to its forces trying to advance into the Donetsk region.

The armed forces General Staff said Sunday only that “in the Kharkiv direction, enemy units did not conduct active hostilities.” 

This is partly because the city is now beyond the reach of many Russian artillery and rocket systems.

But further south, according to Syniehubov, several towns had come under fire. 

He said that “the enemy is constantly checking the positions of our armed forces near Barvinkove, trying to break through but has no success. The enemy suffered heavy losses of manpower and equipment.”

Elsewhere, the General Staff reported further air strikes on the Chernihiv and Sumy regions of northern Ukraine. Dmytro Zhyvytskyy, head of the Sumy region military administration, said rockets and airstrikes overnight had damaged border villages but there had been no casualties.

On the southern front, regional authorities say the Russians have begun digging trenches in some front-line positions. 

The Zaporizhzhia regional military administration said the Russians “are digging trenches along the Molochna River” while continuing to shell towns in the area. 

In the western Lviv region, close to the Polish border, Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv regional military administration, said “four enemy missiles hit a military infrastructure facility in the Yavoriv district, near the border with Poland. The object is completely destroyed.”

Kozytskyi did not specify the target, but a previous missile attack in Yavoriv targeted training grounds where some foreign fighters were present.