9 injured in Kharkiv amid Russian drone attack
Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated.
Nine were injured in Kharkiv overnight on May 30 amid a Russian drone attack on the city, local authorities reported.
"Specialized services are heading to the scene of the incidents," Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov said in a Telegram post.
Two 16-year-olds were injured, Syniehubov said, adding that residential buildings have been damaged in the drone attack.
Russia has intensified drone and missile attacks against Ukraine despite peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul on May 16.
The talks in Turkey were largely inconclusive. Russia reiterated maximalist demands that Ukraine hand over Crimea and eastern oblasts.
The two sides were able to agree to a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner exchange, which was carried out between May 23 and 25.
Russian President Vladimir Putin refused President Volodymyr Zelensky's invitation to meet face-to-face in Istanbul. Instead, Russia sent a delegation of lower-level officials led by Putin's aide, Vladimir Medinsky.
Russia has refused a ceasefire and instead insisted it would provide Ukraine with a peace memorandum shortly after the May 16 talks. Ukraine and Russia are slated to hold another round of peace talks on June 2.
Meanwhile, Kyiv is still awaiting Russia's proposed ceasefire memorandum, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on May 28.
Kharkiv Oblast in Ukraine's northeast is a regular target of Russian missile, drone, and glide bomb attacks from across the border or Russian-occupied territories.
Russia has regularly targeted civilian infrastructure in aerial attacks against Ukraine since the start of its full-scale war in February 2022.
Read also: Infighting around EU rearmament undermines grand ambitions for European defense
We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

18 minutes ago
Trump and Putin hint at US-Russia trade revival, but business environment remains hostile
Hundreds of foreign companies left Russia after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, including major U.S. firms like Coca-Cola, Nike, Starbucks, ExxonMobil and Ford Motor Co. But after more than three years of war, President Donald Trump has held out the prospect of restoring U.S.-Russia trade if there's ever a peace settlement. And Russian President Vladimir Putin has said foreign companies could come back under some circumstances. 'Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic 'bloodbath' is over, and I agree,' Trump said in a statement after a phone call with Putin. 'There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED.' The president then shifted his tone toward Putin after heavy drone and missile attacks on Kyiv, saying Putin 'has gone absolutely crazy' and threatening new sanctions. That and recent comments from Putin warning Western companies against reclaiming their former stakes seemed to reflect reality more accurately — that it's not going to be a smooth process for businesses going back into Russia. That's because Russia's business environment has massively changed since 2022. And not in ways that favor foreign companies. And with Putin escalating attacks and holding on to territory demands Ukraine likely isn't going to accept, a peace deal seems distant indeed. Here are factors that could deter U.S. companies from ever going back: Russian law classifies Ukraine's allies as 'unfriendly states' and imposes severe restrictions on businesses from more than 50 countries. Those include limits on withdrawing money and equipment as well as allowing the Russian government to take control of companies deemed important. Foreign owners' votes on boards of directors can be legally disregarded. Companies that left were required to sell their businesses for 50% or less of their assessed worth, or simply wrote them off while Kremlin-friendly business groups snapped up their assets on the cheap. Under a 2023 presidential decree the Russian government took control of Finnish energy company Fortum, German power company Unipro, France's dairy company Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg. Even if a peace deal removed the U.S. from the list of unfriendlies, and if the massive Western sanctions restricting business in Russia were dropped, the track record of losses would remain vivid. And there's little sign any of that is going to happen. While the Russian government has talked in general about companies coming back, 'there's no specific evidence of any one company saying that they are ready to come back,' said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. consultancy. 'It's all at the political narrative level.' Russia's actions and legal changes have left 'long-lasting damage' to its business environment, says Elina Ribakova, non-resident senior fellow at the Bruegel research institute in Brussels. She said a return of U.S. businesses is 'not very likely.' In a meeting at the Kremlin on May 26 to mark Russian Entrepreneurs Day, Putin said that Russia needed to throttle large tech firms such as Zoom and Microsoft, which had restricted their services in Russia after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, so that domestic tech companies could thrive instead. 'We need to strangle them,' Putin said. 'After all, they are trying to strangle us: we need to reciprocate. We didn't kick anyone out; we didn't interfere with anyone. We provided the most favorable conditions possible for their work here, in our market, and they are trying to strangle us.' He reassured a representative from Vkusno-i Tochka (Tasty-period) — the Russian-owned company that took over McDonald's restaurants in the country — that Moscow would aid them if the U.S. fast food giant tried to buy back its former stores. Asked for comment, McDonald's referred to their 2022 statement that 'ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable.' On top of Russia's difficult business environment, the economy is likely to stagnate due to lack of investment in sectors other than the military, economists say. 'Russia has one of the lowest projected long-term growth rates and one of the highest levels of country risk in the world,' says Heli Simola, senior economist at the Bank of Finland in a blog post. 'Only Belarus offers an equally lousy combination of growth and risk.' Most of the opportunity to make money is related to military production, and it's unlikely U.S. companies would work with the Russian military-industrial complex, said Ribakova. 'It's not clear where exactly one could plug in and expect outsize returns that would compensate for this negative investment environment.' Some companies, including Renault and Ford Motor Co., left with repurchase agreements letting them buy back their stakes years later if conditions change. But given Russia's unsteady legal environment, that's tough to count on. The Russian purchasers may try to change the terms, look for more money, or ignore the agreements, said Weafer. 'There's a lot of uncertainty as to how those buyback auctions will be enforced.' Multinational oil companies were among those who suffered losses leaving Russia, so it's an open question whether they would want to try again even given Russia's vast oil and gas reserves. US.. major ExxonMobil saw its stake in the Sakhalin oil project unilaterally terminated and wrote off $3.4 billion. Russia's major oil companies have less need of foreign partners than they did in the immediate post-Soviet era, though smaller oil field services might want to return given the size of Russia's oil industry. But they would have to face new requirements on establishing local presence and investment, Weafer said. According to the Kyiv School of Economics, 2,329 foreign companies are still doing business in Russia, many from China or other countries that aren't allied with Ukraine, while 1,344 are in the process of leaving and 494 have exited completely. The Yale School of Management's Chief Executive Leadership Institute lists some two dozen U.S. companies still doing business in Russia, while some 100 more have cut back by halting new investments. U.S. sanctions are considered the toughest, because they carry the threat of being cut off from the U.S. banking and financial system. But the EU is still slapping new rounds of sanctions on Russia. Even if U.S. sanctions are dropped, EU sanctions would continue to present compliance headaches for any company that also wants to do business in Europe.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump and Putin hint at US-Russia trade revival, but business environment remains hostile
Hundreds of foreign companies left Russia after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, including major U.S. firms like Coca-Cola, Nike, Starbucks, ExxonMobil and Ford Motor Co. But after more than three years of war, President Donald Trump has held out the prospect of restoring U.S.-Russia trade if there's ever a peace settlement. And Russian President Vladimir Putin has said foreign companies could come back under some circumstances. 'Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic 'bloodbath' is over, and I agree,' Trump said in a statement after a phone call with Putin. 'There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED.' The president then shifted his tone toward Putin after heavy drone and missile attacks on Kyiv, saying Putin 'has gone absolutely crazy' and threatening new sanctions. That and recent comments from Putin warning Western companies against reclaiming their former stakes seemed to reflect reality more accurately — that it's not going to be a smooth process for businesses going back into Russia. That's because Russia's business environment has massively changed since 2022. And not in ways that favor foreign companies. And with Putin escalating attacks and holding on to territory demands Ukraine likely isn't going to accept, a peace deal seems distant indeed. Here are factors that could deter U.S. companies from ever going back: Risk of losing it all Russian law classifies Ukraine's allies as 'unfriendly states' and imposes severe restrictions on businesses from more than 50 countries. Those include limits on withdrawing money and equipment as well as allowing the Russian government to take control of companies deemed important. Foreign owners' votes on boards of directors can be legally disregarded. Companies that left were required to sell their businesses for 50% or less of their assessed worth, or simply wrote them off while Kremlin-friendly business groups snapped up their assets on the cheap. Under a 2023 presidential decree the Russian government took control of Finnish energy company Fortum, German power company Unipro, France's dairy company Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg. Even if a peace deal removed the U.S. from the list of unfriendlies, and if the massive Western sanctions restricting business in Russia were dropped, the track record of losses would remain vivid. And there's little sign any of that is going to happen. While the Russian government has talked in general about companies coming back, 'there's no specific evidence of any one company saying that they are ready to come back,' said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. consultancy. 'It's all at the political narrative level.' Russia's actions and legal changes have left 'long-lasting damage' to its business environment, says Elina Ribakova, non-resident senior fellow at the Bruegel research institute in Brussels. She said a return of U.S. businesses is 'not very likely.' 'We need to strangle them' In a meeting at the Kremlin on May 26 to mark Russian Entrepreneurs Day, Putin said that Russia needed to throttle large tech firms such as Zoom and Microsoft, which had restricted their services in Russia after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, so that domestic tech companies could thrive instead. 'We need to strangle them,' Putin said. 'After all, they are trying to strangle us: we need to reciprocate. We didn't kick anyone out; we didn't interfere with anyone. We provided the most favorable conditions possible for their work here, in our market, and they are trying to strangle us.' He reassured a representative from Vkusno-i Tochka (Tasty-period) — the Russian-owned company that took over McDonald's restaurants in the country — that Moscow would aid them if the U.S. fast food giant tried to buy back its former stores. Asked for comment, McDonald's referred to their 2022 statement that 'ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable.' Not much upside On top of Russia's difficult business environment, the economy is likely to stagnate due to lack of investment in sectors other than the military, economists say. 'Russia has one of the lowest projected long-term growth rates and one of the highest levels of country risk in the world,' says Heli Simola, senior economist at the Bank of Finland in a blog post. 'Only Belarus offers an equally lousy combination of growth and risk.' Most of the opportunity to make money is related to military production, and it's unlikely U.S. companies would work with the Russian military-industrial complex, said Ribakova. 'It's not clear where exactly one could plug in and expect outsize returns that would compensate for this negative investment environment.' Repurchase agreements Some companies, including Renault and Ford Motor Co., left with repurchase agreements letting them buy back their stakes years later if conditions change. But given Russia's unsteady legal environment, that's tough to count on. The Russian purchasers may try to change the terms, look for more money, or ignore the agreements, said Weafer. 'There's a lot of uncertainty as to how those buyback auctions will be enforced.' But what about the oil and gas? Multinational oil companies were among those who suffered losses leaving Russia, so it's an open question whether they would want to try again even given Russia's vast oil and gas reserves. US.. major ExxonMobil saw its stake in the Sakhalin oil project unilaterally terminated and wrote off $3.4 billion. Russia's major oil companies have less need of foreign partners than they did in the immediate post-Soviet era, though smaller oil field services might want to return given the size of Russia's oil industry. But they would have to face new requirements on establishing local presence and investment, Weafer said. Some never left According to the Kyiv School of Economics, 2,329 foreign companies are still doing business in Russia, many from China or other countries that aren't allied with Ukraine, while 1,344 are in the process of leaving and 494 have exited completely. The Yale School of Management's Chief Executive Leadership Institute lists some two dozen U.S. companies still doing business in Russia, while some 100 more have cut back by halting new investments. EU sanctions could remain even if US open U.S. sanctions are considered the toughest, because they carry the threat of being cut off from the U.S. banking and financial system. But the EU is still slapping new rounds of sanctions on Russia. Even if U.S. sanctions are dropped, EU sanctions would continue to present compliance headaches for any company that also wants to do business in Europe.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
EU member Bulgaria faces protests over adopting the euro
Bulgaria is expected to get a green light from Brussels in June to adopt the euro -- but the prospect is unsettling many citizens. "If Bulgaria joins the eurozone, it will be like boarding the Titanic," Nikolai Ivanov, a retired senior official, told AFP at a recent protest calling for the country's currency -- the lev -- to be maintained. Since January, opponents of Bulgaria adopting the common European currency have launched demonstrations and demanded a referendum on the issue, amid a torrent of disinformation. Memories of a 1996-1997 economic crisis that saw 14 banks go bankrupt and hyperinflation of more than 300 percent also resurfaced, fuelling the opposition. Several recent surveys showed nearly half of those questioned said they were opposed to Bulgaria joining the eurozone. The debate has reignited anti-EU propaganda, and many of those opposed to adoption of the euro have taken to waving Russian flags. Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, is the poorest nation in the bloc. And "the poor are afraid of becoming even poorer", said Boriana Dimitrova, director of the Alpha Research institute. That, coupled with a mistrust of institutions after years of instability, has created fertile conditions for the population of 6.4 million to fear economic change. That fear has been stoked by some political groups, including the far-right Vazrazhdane party, which called for a new anti-euro rally on Saturday in the capital. The country's pro-Russian president, Rumen Radev, made a surprise announcement in early May also calling for a referendum on the matter. This week, he accused the government of not implementing needed measures to allow the "most vulnerable" to withstand the shock of euro adoption. - Pro-EU voices struggling - A third of Bulgarians faced the threat of poverty or social exclusion last year, according to Eurostat figures. People particularly in small towns and rural areas are reluctant to adopt the single currency, with some of them having never travelled abroad and not used to international transactions. Disinformation widely shared on social networks claims, falsely, that with the introduction of the euro, "Brussels will confiscate your savings to finance Ukraine". Dimitrova told AFP that Radev was making "a well-calculated political move", appealing to a disillusioned segment of the electorate. But his referendum proposal, deemed "unconstitutional", sparked an outcry from legal experts, and from Assembly Speaker Natalia Kiselova, who refused to put it to a vote. Meanwhile, pro-European voices are struggling to be heard. "In Sofia and the larger cities, the population -- wealthier, better educated and younger -- sees it as a logical next step in the European integration process," Dimitrova said. Institutions and banks are already prepared, and the coins' design has been chosen, with the local two-euro coin showing off the inscription "God protect Bulgaria". But in a sign of the lack of information and a feeling of inferiority that is still widespread in the country, "some people still ask me if the Bulgarian euro will even be valid in France or Germany", Dimitrova said. str-rb-anb/jza/rmb/sco