May 5 (Reuters) – Civilians will need to be dug from bunkers under a steel works that is the last holdout of resistance in Ukraine’s Mariupol, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, after a Russian bombardment that has littered the area with concrete debris.
FIGHTING
* The Kremlin denied a Ukrainian claim that its forces were storming the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters and civilians remain trapped, and said humanitarian corridors were currently operating there.
* More than 300 civilians have been evacuated from Mariupol and other areas in southern Ukraine as part of a joint U.N.-Red Cross operation, the United Nations said.
* Russia said its artillery struck multiple Ukrainian positions and strongholds overnight, killing 600 fighters. Reuters could not independently verify the claim.
* Russian shelling killed five civilians in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours, governor Serhiy Gaidai said.
* At least 25 civilians were wounded as Russian forces shelled the town of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, its governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
* A Ukrainian presidential adviser said he did not expect Russia’s offensive to produce “significant results” before it holds the annual May 9 Victory Day in Moscow to mark the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany.
* The Kremlin said the United States and other NATO countries were “constantly” feeding intelligence to Ukraine but this would not stop Russia achieving its military goals there. This followed a New York Times report that U.S. intelligence had helped Ukraine to kill some 12 Russian generals.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Ukraine has enough food stocks on territory it still controls in war zones to feed its population in those areas and has enough fuel to meet farmers’ daily needs, deputy agriculture minister Taras Vysotskiy said.
* Oil prices jumped on the proposed EU ban on Russian oil imports, which needs approval by member states. The Kremlin said it was looking into various options in response.
* U.S. President Biden said he would speak with leaders from the G7 advanced economies this week about more sanctions.
DIPLOMACY
* Sweden has received U.S. assurances that it would receive support during the period a potential application to join NATO is processed by the 30 nations in the alliance, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in Washington.
QUOTES
“My position is simple: every euro paid to Russia for gas, oil or other goods ends up as rounds of ammunition in Ukraine to kill my compatriots,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Austrian TV channel Puls 4.
