SNAPSHOT-Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Kremlin says US behind drone attack

Russia said on Thursday that the United States was behind what it says was a drone attack on the Kremlin that aimed to kill President Vladimir Putin, while Moscow's forces fired more combat drones at Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv.

Russia said on Thursday that the United States was behind what it says was a drone attack on the Kremlin that aimed to kill President Vladimir Putin, while Moscow's forces fired more combat drones at Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv. FIGHTING

* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine would launch a counteroffensive soon against occupying Russian forces. * Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia's Wagner Group mercenary force, said the counteroffensive had already begun and his forces were observing heightened activity along the front.

* Russia fired two dozen combat drones at Ukraine early on Thursday, striking a university campus in the Black Sea city of Odesa and attacking the capital Kyiv for the third time in four days. * Russian shelling killed 23 people in and near the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Wednesday, hitting a hypermarket, a railway station and residential buildings, the regional governor said.

* A drone attack

set ablaze product storage facilities at one of the largest oil refineries in southern Russia, but emergency services extinguished the fire just over two hours later, and the plant was working normally, TASS news agency reported. DIPLOMACY/POLITICS

* Putin must be brought to justice for his war in Ukraine, Zelenskiy said on Thursday during a visit to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court (ICC) is based. * German police said Zelenskiy would travel to Berlin on May 13, though a security source later said public disclosure of the visit was premature and it was now unclear if it would go ahead.

* U.S. military aid for Ukraine includes for the first time the Hydra-70 short-range air-launched rocket, taken from U.S. excess stocks. * The Kremlin said on Thursday that it was aware Pope Francis was thinking about ways to end the conflict in Ukraine, but that it was not aware of any detailed peace plans from the Vatican.

* Russia has complained to Finland about vandalism at a Russian consulate on the Aland islands in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday. ECONOMY

* Russia said it will keep talking to the United Nations about the future of a deal that allows the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, but would not do anything to harm its own interests. * Zelenskiy said Russia did not appear to be interested in extending the agreement beyond May 18.

* Car sales in Russia leapt by 170.4% year-on-year in April, analytical agency Autostat said on Thursday, with the country's bruised car market staging a partial recovery from the soaring prices and reduced deliveries of the same month last year. * A Russian-U.S. joint venture has said it has abandoned plans to build large-capacity gas turbines in Russia under licence from General Electric Co

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