Russians returned to international judo competition on May 7 for the first time in nearly a year at the world championships in Qatar as Ukraine boycotted the key Olympic qualifier. The Russians competed under the name of “Individual Neutral Athletes.” Seventeen judokas from Russia and two from its ally Belarus were listed as competing at the world championships despite several of them having apparent ties with the Russian military. Ukraine removed its team from the event last week in protest. To read the original story by AP, click here.

Belarusian blogger Mikalay Klimovich, who was imprisoned for posting an online caricature of the country’s authoritarian ruler, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, has died in a penal colony in the Vitebsk region, the Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) human rights center reported on May 7. Klimovich had suffered a stroke and had heart surgery before being sentenced to one year in prison on February 28. Lukashenka’s regime instituted a crackdown on dissent following a disputed presidential election in August 2020 that handed him a sixth term in office. Opposition leaders and Western governments have said the poll was rigged. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Belarus Service, click here.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told The Washington Post that the world’s expectations for the country’s anticipated counteroffensive are “overestimated” and that it could lead to “emotional disappointment.”

“The expectation from our counteroffensive campaign is overestimated in the world,” Reznikov said in an interview published late on May 6 and conducted earlier in the week. “Most people are…waiting for something huge.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the Post in a separate interview that Ukraine will be ready to launch the counterattack “as soon as the weapons that were agreed with our partners are filled.”

A former judge has been shot dead by unknown gunmen in Afghanistan’s central province of Ghor, local media reported on May 7. Two men riding a motorbike targeted Mohammad Nazir Manawi in the provincial capital, Firozkoh, as he was returning home from the local mosque, local broadcaster Salam Watandar reported. The men managed to escape. The motive behind the incident was initially unclear. Following their return to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities replaced all former judges. Some of the judges desperately tried to flee the country, while the situations of those who remain are insecure.

North Macedonia's Interior Ministry said on May 7 that it prevented a Bulgarian member of the European Parliament and four others from entering the country a day earlier because they were "potential violators of public order," as relations between the Balkan neighbors continue to simmer over national and historical differences. MEP Andrey Kovachev was en route to an event in eastern North Macedonia to honor Bulgarians who died during the Balkan Wars early last century. Bulgaria quickly expressed its "strong disappointment" at the snub. Kovachev has stirred the pot before on Sofia-Skopje and other regional relations. To see the original story by RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service, click here.

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has arrived in Moscow for bilateral meetings with President Vladimir Putin and to attend a victory parade in the Russian capital to mark the end of World War II, likely making him the only foreign head of state to be at the May 9 events.

Japarov's press service announced the official visit and arrival on the presidential website, saying the Kyrgyz leader was met at Vnukovo Airport by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin.

Attendance by foreign officials at commemorations of what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War has waned since Moscow's illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

All five Central Asian republics were part of the Soviet Union at the time of World War II but declared independence along with nine other countries as the Russian-led, nominal union collapsed in 1991.

Putin has called the dissolution of the Soviet Union the "greatest geopolitical tragedy" of the last century, and his efforts during two decades of increasingly authoritarian leadership, including the invasion of Ukraine, have evoked comparisons with the former Russian and Soviet empires.

In 2021, longtime Tajik President Emomali Rahmon was the only head of state to attend the Victory Day parade.

Last year, a little over two months after Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, no foreign leaders came to the WWII celebrations in Moscow.

Putin once again invited Rahmon to this year's commemoration events, according to the Tajik side.

Rahmon's office did not say whether he had accepted the invitation.

Japarov's office said the Kyrgyz head of state would be a "guest of honor" at the victory parade.

It also said Japarov would hold a bilateral meeting with Putin to discuss "current issues on the bilateral and multilateral agenda, as well as the future of further development of mutually beneficial cooperation."

Kyrgyzstan experienced a so-called Tulip Revolution in 2005 amid street protests demanding political reforms that made it a beacon of fledgling democracy in a region more routinely stocked with postcommunist authoritarians.

Putin dismissed pro-democracy events there and in other post-Soviet republics including Georgia and Ukraine as "color revolutions" fomented by Western meddling.

Kyrgyzstan is part of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance in Eurasia that also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.

But Japarov was a surprise no-show at a gathering last year of the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in St. Petersburg on Putin's 70th birthday.

Kyrgyzstan then abruptly canceled CSTO training drills in a move that hawkish Russian lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin suggested was a reflection of Bishkek indulging in a "game" and wishing "not to fall under any spread of Western sanctions."

Kyrgyzstan is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, a trading bloc dominated by Russia that also includes Belarus, Armenia, and Kazakhstan.

The Moscow-installed head of the Russian authorities in annexed Crimea's biggest city, Sevastopol, claimed on May 7 that more than 10 drone attacks targeted the peninsula overnight, but nothing in the city itself was damaged. Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram that air-defense and electronic-warfare units repelled the attack. An adviser to Razvozhayev, Oleg Kryuchkov, claimed a day earlier that Russian air-defense forces downed two Ukrainian Grom-2 ballistic missiles over Crimea. RFE/RL could not confirm the veracity of the reports, which have accompanied Russian accusations of airborne attacks inside Russia, including at the Kremlin, this week. To see the original story by Current Time, click here.

The governor of Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region said on May 7 that the war-backing writer and political activist Zakhar Prilepin is awake and "stable" following an induced coma after his car was hit by an explosion a day earlier, killing the driver and injuring Prilepin. Governor Gleb Nikitin said Prilepin was "conscious" and "his mood is cheerful" at the Semashko Regional Hospital where he is being treated. It is unclear who committed the attack. Once a left-wing dissident, Prilepin has become one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken supporters on the right of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

A Russian combat jet intercepted and came dangerously close to a Polish plane conducting a patrol for the European Union's Frontex border protection agency, Polish border protection officials reported in Warsaw on May 7. The Let L-410 plane was patrolling in international airspace in the Romanian deployment region on May 5 when it was approached by a Russian Sukhoi Su-35, the Polish border protection agency said. It accused the Russian combat plane of conducting "aggressive and dangerous maneuvers."

The Memorial human right group says the head of its branch in the Russian city of Perm, Aleksandr Chernyshov, has been ordered to serve 15 days in jail on a hooliganism charge stemming from his appearance in a Khimki court after his detention this week at a Moscow airport. Memorial quoted Chernyshov as saying he couldn't have acted out as he was in security custody the whole time. Memorial, a veteran group that has worked as a nonregistered entity since its official closure under pressure, has said Chernyshov's detention may be linked to a probe into Memorial's archive materials in Perm. To see the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here. To see the original story by Current Time, click here.

BELGRADE -- Serbian Education Minister Branko Ruzic announced on Twitter that he had handed his resignation to Prime Minister Ana Brnabic in the wake of a mass shooting at a Belgrade school that killed eight pupils and a security guard.

"At the end of three days of national mourning, as a responsible and educated man, professional in performing all previous public duties, as a parent and citizen of Serbia, I made the only rational and honorable decision in these circumstances," Ruzic said on May 7, referring to the shooting that occurred on May 3.

Ruzic, who expressed condolences to the families of the victims, said he would carry the dramatic images of events from the school for the rest of his life.

Ruzic is an official of the Socialist Party of Serbia, a junior coalition partner of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party led by President Aleksandar Vucic.

The announcement came as shocked Serbians continued to mourn those killed at the school and in a second, separate mass shooting the following day that killed eight other people and raised calls by the opposition for government resignations. A protest march is scheduled for May 8 in Belgrade.

The 13-year-old suspect -- identified by the initials K.K. -- in the country's first-ever mass shooting at a school is thought by authorities to have used two guns owned by his father to kill eight fellow students and a security guard and seriously injure six more students and a teacher at the Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School in Belgrade on May 3.

He is in custody under psychiatric evaluation, and his father has been detained for up to 30 days. The youth is under the age of criminal responsibility in Serbia.

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State television said on May 6 that the suspect in the second series of shootings, identified as a 21-year-old man with the initials U.B., has acknowledged using an automatic rifle and a handgun during what authorities describe as a partly random rampage around Mladenovac and Smederevo outside Belgrade on May 4.

Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) quoted information from the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Smederevo as saying U.B. had also said his motives included terrorizing the community.

Eight people were killed and 14 more injured in that shooting spree.

The Interior Ministry released video of that adult suspect's arrest in the central Serbian town of Kragujevac early on May 5 after a massive manhunt.

SEE ALSO:

After Two Mass Shootings In Serbia, Grief, Blame, And A Search For Answers

The rare mass shootings have evoked outrage nearly three decades after bitter conflicts that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, in a country and region where gun ownership remains high.

Vucic and his governing allies have responded with pledges to impose new controls on gun access and possession, particularly of handguns.

The Interior Ministry said on May 4 that extensive controls will be conducted "in order to determine whether owners keep weapons in accordance with current regulations, separate from ammunition, and locked in adequate cabinets and safes."

Satellite images analyzed on May 7 by the Associated Press show two oil tankers recently seized by Iran off the coast of one of its key port cities on the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The photos from Planet Labs PBC showed the Advantage Sweet and the Niovi anchored just south of Bandar Abbas, near a naval base in the port city in Iran's Hormozgan Province. Their capture represents just the latest ship seizure conducted by Iran amid tensions with the West over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, though it appears the two ships may have been taken for different reasons. To see the original story by AP, click here.

A wildfire has spread to a gunpowder depot in Russia's Ural Mountains, setting it ablaze and forcing the evacuation of a small village in the Sverdlovsk region, local officials said late on May 6. According to preliminary information, there have been no casualties in the fire that has spread across 960 square meters, Sverdlovsk's Emergency Situations Ministry said on its Telegram messaging channel. A state of emergency was introduced in the Rezhevsky administrative district of the region to avoid the threat of the fire spreading to other nearby villages. To see the full story by Reuters, click here.

Russians kept up pressure on eastern Ukraine on May 7 with claims of more ammunition for mercenaries in Bakhmut and Ukrainians sought shelter from possible air attacks, as UN nuclear officials expressed intense concern over risks to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, at Zaporizhzhya in southern Ukraine.

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The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said he was "extremely concerned" as Ukrainian forces stepped up shelling to dislodge Russian forces near the Zaporizhzhya plant, which was captured early in the 14-month-old invasion.

"The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous," Grossi said in a statement. "I'm extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant."

Air-raid alerts sounded overnight on May 6-7 in many regions of Ukraine amid unpredictable Russian bombardments and ongoing fighting for Bakhmut ahead of a patriotic anniversary in Russia.

Late on May 7 and early May 8, Ukrainian media reported explosions in the southern port city of Odesa and that air-raid sirens were again blaring in Kyiv and other cities.

Earlier, in its morning update on May 7, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces cautioned that "the likelihood of missile and air strikes across Ukraine remains quite high."

It said Russian troops were focusing their "main efforts" in the districts of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, and Maryinka, in the eastern Donetsk region, with "heavy fighting for the cities of Bakhmut and Maryinka."

Ukrainian General Oleksandr Syrskiy, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces, said the situation in the east was "tense but under control."

Syrskiy said Russian forces have intensified their shelling and have attempted to reorganize troops in the region in recent days.

"This indicates that the enemy will not change its plans and is doing everything to gain control of Bakhmut and continue its offensive," he said.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar has said that Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries look to be doing their utmost to capture Bakhmut in a "symbolic" push by May 9, when Moscow celebrates World War II Victory Day.

On May 7, the head of the Wagner group supplying mercenaries to fight alongside regular Russian forces in Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, also claimed that he had been promised adequate supplies of weapons and ammunition for the ongoing Bakhmut offensive.

Months into Russian forces' furious offensive to capture Bakhmut with an apparently heavy toll in casualties, Prigozhin this week issued graphic, expletive-filled video appeals threatening to pull his fighters out of the area. He blamed failures on the military leadership and its perceived unwillingness to provide sufficient ammunition.

Prigozhin also suggested he would pass control of the occupied areas to troops under pro-Kremlin Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov immediately after the May 9 anniversary.

In his latest comments on May 7, Prigozhin did not specifically say he was reversing his plans to pull his forces from the city but said he had been given permission to “act in Bakhmut as we see fit.”

Ukrainian authorities announced air alerts after 10 p.m. local time on May 6 for most regions of eastern, southern, and central Ukraine and urged citizens to hide in shelters.

The Moscow-installed leader of Russian-annexed Crimea's biggest city, Sevastopol, claimed at least 10 drone attacks had targeted the peninsula overnight in the latest accusation by Russians of a rash of airborne attacks, including on Russian territory that included the Kremlin in Moscow.

Concerns meanwhile mounted around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant as Russian and international officials cite a Ukrainian push to recapture territory.

Moscow has already ordered families with children and elderly members to evacuate Russian-occupied areas near Zaporizhzhya.

SEE ALSO:

'The Whole Army Must Move Forward': Fighting Rages In Bakhmut As Momentum Builds For Ukraine's Counteroffensive  

Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of the town of Melitopol, in Zaporizhzhya Oblast, said he was not sure "how voluntary this relocation is."

Fedorov also said it sparked "a mad panic and no less mad queues" at a checkpoint into Russian-annexed Crimea, with buses leaving every half-hour or so and gasoline in short supply, according to AFP. He said he feared Russia might be "preparing for provocations" in the area.

The Ukrainian General Staff said of the Zaporizhzhya events and the Russian-ordered evacuation that "the first to be evacuated are those who accepted [R]ussian citizenship in the first months of the occupation."

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

An angry mob lynched a local cleric in northwestern Pakistan on May 6 after what locals claimed was a blasphemous reference during a political rally of ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan's party in the district of Mardan. The chief minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region said an investigation was under way. Video on social media showed the victim, identified as Maulana Nigar Alam, being beaten by a mob. Locals said he had referred to a political candidate being as "pious as the Prophet," but that could not be confirmed. A student was similarly killed by a mob in Mardan in 2017. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, click here.

Ukrainian and Russian authorities separately disclosed an apparent exchange of prisoners on May 6, with Kyiv saying 45 of its personnel were being returned while Moscow said three of its pilots were brought back to Russia. Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, wrote on Telegram that 42 of the soldiers being returned were defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol city, the scene of a long siege that ended in May 2022. The Russian Defense Ministry said the return of the pilots was “a result of a complex negotiation process." To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, click here. To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Russian Service, click here.

Funeral services were held on May 6 in Belgrade for Dragan Vlahovic, a security guard who was killed along with eight pupils at an elementary school near the Serbian capital three days ago. Police said a 13-year-old pupil, identified only as K.K., was being held after the shooting. The killings, followed the next day by a second mass shooting near the capital that killed eight people, shocked the people of the Balkan nation. President Aleksandar Vucic has promised tough new anti-gun measures in the wake of the killings. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, click here.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry congratulated the United Kingdom on the coronation of King Charles III and thanked the country for its crucial support during its war with Russia. In a Twitter post, the ministry said, “We'd like to thank our British friends for your friendship. We are grateful for your unwavering support and partnership, especially in the past year!” The post included a video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s meeting with British leaders. Charles was crowned on May 6 at Westminster Abbey.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino urged Kyrgyzstan on May 5 to build a national football stadium to host international games and address the lack of infrastructure. The former Soviet republic has no modern stadiums built to international standards that can host FIFA-level matches, and its national team's FIFA ranking has fluctuated between positions 201 and 75, currently standing at 96th. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Pakistan is hosting talks on May 6 with China and Taliban-led Afghanistan. The Taliban administration's interim foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, who has long been subjected to a UN travel ban, asset freeze, and arms embargo, was granted an exemption to travel to Pakistan by a UN Security Council committee on May 1. The talks in Islamabad with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari are expected to focus on regional security and economic issues. To read the original story by Radio Mashaal, click here.

The pro-Kremlin writer and political activist Zakhar Prilepin was wounded in a car bombing in the city of Nizhny Novgorod on May 6, the state-run TASS news agency reported.

According to reports, Prilepin’s driver died in the explosion which occurred in the region of Nizhny Novgorod, about 400 kilometers east of Moscow.

Once a left-wing dissident, Prilepin has become one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken supporters on the right and backers of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. It is the third explosion involving prominent pro-Kremlin figures since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In August 2022, a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of prominent Kremlin-connected far-right ideologue Aleksandr Dugin. Russian authorities alleged that Ukraine was behind the blast.

Last month, an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg killed a popular military blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky. Officials once again blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies for orchestrating it.

TASS quoted Prilepin's spokespeople as saying that he was “OK.” No details were given about the extent of his injuries.

Gleb Nikitin, the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, later said on his Telegram channel that Prilepin had “minor fractures” and that “there is no threat to his health.”

Quoting unnamed sources, Russian news outlet RBC reported that Prilepin was traveling back to Moscow on May 6 from Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions and stopped in the Nizhny Novgorod region for a meal.

Police are investigating the incident, the report said.

Prilepin became a Putin supporter in 2014, after Putin illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. He was involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine on the side of Russia-backed separatists. Last year, he was sanctioned by the European Union for his support of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In 2020, he founded a political party, For the Truth, which Russian media reported was backed by the Kremlin. A year later, Prilepin's party merged with the nationalist A Just Russia party that has seats in the parliament.

A co-chair of the newly formed party, Prilepin won a seat in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, in the 2021 election, but gave it up.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the United States and NATO were to blame for the alleged car bombing but did not provide any proof to back that claim.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told Ukrainian media that it cannot confirm or deny involvement in the attack or other incidents inside of Russia.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Ukraine has claimed it has shot down a Russian hypersonic missile and suggested a U.S. Patriot air-defense missile system was used to do it. Writing on Telegram on May 6 , Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, said: “Yes, we have intercepted the ‘unmatched’ Kinzhal,’” adding the word “Patriot” and an emoji of the Ukrainian flag. The Kh-47 Kinzhal is a hypersonic ballistic missile. Ukraine has received at least two Patriot systems, one from the United States and one from Germany. To read the original story from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here.

Iran has executed a Swedish-Iranian dissident who went missing from a Turkish airport two years ago before turning up in Iranian custody accused of terrorism, state media reported on May 6.

Habib Chaab, a founder and former leader of a separatist group called the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), had been sentenced to death for being "corrupt on earth,” a capital offense under Iran’s strict Islamic laws.

Iranian officials accused Chaab of leading a "terrorist group" called Harakat al-Nidal and organizing and carrying out bombings and terrorist operations in the southwestern Khuzestan Province.

The group was blamed for a bomb attack on an annual military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz in 2018 that killed at least two dozen people and injured scores more.

The execution was carried out in Tehran, state media reported, after the Iranian Supreme Court upheld the death sentence on March 21.

At the time of the court ruling Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom blasted the death sentence, saying it was "an inhumane and irreversible punishment and that Sweden, together with the rest of the EU, condemns its use in all circumstances.”

Chaab, also known as Habib Asyud, went missing during a visit to Turkey in October 2020.

A month after his disappearance, he was shown in a video on Iranian state television in which he claimed responsibility for launching an attack and working with Saudi intelligence services.

Former prisoners and rights groups say Iran systematically uses torture and forced, televised confessions against alleged criminals and political detainees.

Iran's foreign minister at the time of the Ahvaz attack, Mohammad Javad Zarif, later blamed that bombing on foreign enemies and their "U.S. masters."

Chaab's former wife, Hoda Havashemi, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda in January 2022 that she didn't believe he was involved in the Ahvaz bombing and feared he wouldn't get a fair trial.

She said Swedish authorities were not being granted access to Chaab. Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.

ASMLA is primarily based in the Netherlands and Denmark. Its leadership has been accused by Danish authorities of financing and promoting terrorism in Iran with Saudi Arabia's backing.

In late October 2018, the Danish intelligence service accused the Iranian intelligence service of plotting to assassinate at least one of the three leaders of the group's Danish branch, which Tehran denied.

In November 2017, a leader of the ASMLA was shot dead in The Hague in an attack that the Dutch government said was linked to Iran.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN were unable to reach an agreement on the continuation of Ukrainian grain exports from Black Sea ports, a UN spokesman said on May 5.

The parties failed to authorize any new ships under a deal allowing safe Black Sea exports of Ukrainian grain, though daily inspections of previously authorized ships continue.

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Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the United Nations urged all parties to “continue discussions, overcome operational challenges and work towards the full implementation and continuation of the initiative.”

He said Guterres had forwarded to all parties a proposal for further actions aimed at improving and expanding the initiative, taking the positions of all parties into account.

The United Nations and Turkey brokered the grain export deal in July to help tackle a global food crisis worsened by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Under the deal, officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the UN make up a Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul that implements inspections and other provisions of the deal.

The current extension of the deal expires on May 18, and Russia has said it will not extend the pact beyond that date unless its list of demands is met to remove obstacles such as restrictions on payments, logistics, and insurance.

Russia told its JCC counterparts last month that it will not approve any new vessels to take part in the exports of Ukrainian grain unless their operators guarantee the transits will be completed by May 18, according to a letter quoted by Reuters.

Ukraine has been putting forward daily a list of ships to be authorized. Once approved those ships are then inspected by the JCC before traveling to a Black Sea port to collect Ukrainian grain and return to Turkish waters for a final inspection. The inspections provide assurance to Russia that no weapons are being shipped into Ukraine.

The agreement also provided for the lifting of restrictions on the export of Russian agricultural products.

Top UN trade official Rebeca Grynspan met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin in Moscow on May 5 to discuss UN efforts to "to facilitate the unimpeded export of Russian food and fertilizer, including ammonia," Haq said.

Talks between Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey are to continue next week when the countries’ deputy defense ministers meet to discuss the grain export agreement.

With reporting by Reuters

Six explosives experts with Ukraine’s emergency services were killed by Russian shelling while conducting a demining operation in the Kherson region, the head of the State Emergency Service (SES) said on May 6, as air-raid sirens blared throughout much of Ukraine, including in the capital, Kyiv.

“While performing demining tasks in the Kherson region, our pyrotechnicians came under fire. Six of our specialists were killed,” SES chief Serhiy Kruk said on Twitter.

“Terrorists continue to violate all norms of international law.... This is unforgivable!" he added.

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Kruk also said that two others, including a female paramedic, had been injured and were being treated at a hospital. Photos of the six slain staffers were included with the online post.

Further details were not immediately available.

Elsewhere, Reuters reported that authorities issued air-raid alerts for much of eastern Ukraine on the evening of May 6. The area affected stretched from Vynnytsya in the west to all eastern regions and south to the Kherson region and Russia-annexed Crimea.

Meanwhile, Russian invading forces continued their assault on Bakhmut, the Ukrainian military reported on May 6, a day after the head of the Russian Wagner mercenary force threatened to pull his fighters out of the besieged Ukrainian city in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that Russia has been trying to seize for months amid reportedly rising casualties.

In its daily report on May 6, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Ukrainian forces repelled some 50 attacks in Bakhmut and elsewhere in the Donetsk region, including Maryinka and Avdiyivka.

Russia also launched seven drone strikes at Ukraine overnight with Ukrainian air defenses destroying all of them, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said early on May 6.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said that Russian troops, spearheaded by mercenaries from the private Wagner group, are making every effort to capture Bakhmut by May 9, the date when Moscow celebrates its World War II Victory Day.

"To achieve this, they are bringing in Wagner forces from other battlefields who are being replaced with paratrooper assault units that are currently fighting in the Bakhmut direction," Malyar said on Telegram on May 5.

"The Russians are inclined towars symbolism and their key historic myth is May 9 and they really have established the objective of taking control of Bakhmut by this date," Malyar said separately on Ukrainian television.

Malyar's statement contradicted an apparent threat by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who earlier on May 5 claimed he would withdraw his fighters from Bakhmut in what looked like an escalation of his ongoing feud with Russian Defense Ministry over supplies and support.

SEE ALSO:

'The Whole Army Must Move Forward': Fighting Rages In Bakhmut As Momentum Builds For Ukraine's Counteroffensive  

In a video posted by his press service on May 5, Prigozhin said he would pull out Wagner forces from Bakhmut by May 10 -- the day after the Kremlin’s planned World War II Victory Day commemorations.

"We were supposed to take Bakhmut by May 9, but pseudo-military bureaucrats, who knew about it, literally cut us off from artillery ammunition," Prigozhin said in the video, as he addressed the camera with a group of apparent Wagner soldiers in the background.

AFP reported on May 6 that Prigozhin had asked the Kremlin to allow him to relinquish his positions in Bakhmut to Kremlin-backed authoritarian Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov.

"I ask you to issue a combat order before 00:00 on May 10 concerning the transfer of the positions of the Wagner paramilitary units in Bakhmut and its periphery, to the units of the Akhmat battalion," Prigozhin said in a letter to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, referring to Chechen units under Kadyrov’s control.

Reuters quoted Kimberly Marten, a Russia specialist at Barnard College and Columbia University, as saying Prigozhin and the Wagner mercenaries are "essential elements of Russian military intelligence, so we don't believe anything he says."

"This is all smoke and mirrors, so we are just guessing," said Marten, who added that it would be dangerous for a military commander to "broadcast" battlefield moves in advance.

SEE ALSO:

The Rise Of Prigozhin: 'Putin's Chef' Steps Further Into The Limelight

Earlier this week, the White House estimated that since December, Russia’s overall casualty tally in Ukraine --- killed and wounded – total at least 100,000. That includes 20,000 Russians killed in action, of which about half of that number were Wagner mercenaries.

“The majority of [that figure] were Russian convicts fighting in Bakhmut,” White House spokesman John Kirby said on May 2.

The Kremlin declined to comment on Prigozhin's remarks, as did the Defense Ministry.

In another video statement released on May 4, Prigozhin was shown standing next to dozens of corpses-- what he called "freshly killed Wagner fighters.” In an expletive-filled rant, he accused Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, the chairman of Russia’s General Staff, of complicity in their deaths, because he said Wagner’s forces aren’t getting enough ammunition.