Ukraine war briefing: Germany calls reports of Russian soldiers being trained in China ‘deeply worrying’ | Russia

The Chinese ambassador in Berlin has been summoned for urgent discussions over media reports that Russian soldiers are being trained in China.the German Foreign Ministry said on Friday. These “deeply disturbing” reports point to support for Russia from Chinese state actors, particularly the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, according to the statement. “Anything that allows Russia to continue its war of aggression against Ukraine also poses a threat to our security,” the ministry said. On May 20, the German daily Die Welt reported that the Chinese army had secretly trained several hundred Russian soldiers on its territory, some of whom were deployed in Ukraine, citing classified documents from European intelligence services.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that its forces had “completely” taken control of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine.⁠which Moscow ‌has long sought to capture in its advance through the Donetsk region‌. The battle for this city, which had around 78,000 inhabitants before the war, has been going on since late 2025 and is now the main Russian effort on a front more than 1,000 km long. “The city is now completely under our control,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. There has been no independent verification of the claim.

A massive Russian glide bomb strike on the center of the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Friday killed at least four people.including a child, and 27 injured, said regional governor Oleh Hryhorov. Other areas of the Sumy region and southeastern Ukraine, closer to the front lines, also suffered Russian attacks, killing a total of six people. After the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukraine’s allies to step up pressure on Russia “so that the terror can end.” The Sumy region, subject to almost constant attacks by Russian forces, is on the Russian border and Moscow is trying to extend what it describes as a buffer zone there.

Ukraine is looking for ways to reduce tensions with Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday.adding that Poland’s eastern neighbor should accept its history in order to join the European Union. Diplomatic relations between the two countries deteriorated after Polish President Karol Nawrocki deprived Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland’s highest honor because Zelenskyy named a military unit after insurgents who massacred Poles during World War II. Tusk, a political opponent of Nawrocki, is working to ease tensions and said he “received positive signals from Friday’s meeting” between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski in Warsaw. There are proposals for consultations between historians and discussions between religious leaders of the two countries, Tusk said.

Lithuania’s president said Friday his country wants to be integrated into the West’s nuclear deterrent against Russia. as he works to end the ban on the deployment of atomic weapons. Speaking at a news conference in Berlin, President Gitanas Nauseda said Lithuania was taking steps to lift the constitutional ban and added: “We would like to be an integral part of this nuclear deterrent.” “A few days ago, I initiated a constitutional amendment to remove existing restrictions on the possible deployment of nuclear weapons in Lithuania,” he added. Shortly after, a group of 50 Lithuanian MPs presented an amendment which has yet to be submitted to Parliament.

The World Athletics Council on Friday reaffirmed its decision to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competitions.four years after initially imposing sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. World Athletics voted to end the Russian Athletics Federation’s eight-year doping ban in 2023, but the separate ban linked to the invasion of Ukraine kept its athletes out. “We have presented options to the Council to consider this matter, but the initial decision remains ‘on sanctions that protect the integrity and fairness of our competitions, with no tangible movement towards peace negotiations having materialized,’ World Athletics President Seb Coe said in a statement.