A permanent Blue Plaque marker commemorating the late Jimi Hendrix‘s last residence in London, then known as the Cumberland Hotel and now the site of the Hard Rock Hotel in the Marble Arch section of the U.K. capital, will be unveiled on June 10.
The unveiling will be presented by the Hard Rock Hotel London in partnership with Experience Hendrix L.L.C., the family company that oversees the guitar legend’s music and legacy.
The new marker will become the second Blue Plaque honoring Hendrix in London. The first, which was unveiled in 1997, is located at the building where Jimi resided in 1968 and ’69 in the city’s Mayfair section. While living at the Cumberland Hotel, Hendrix wrote lyrics to his sings “Look Over Yonder” and “Suddenly November Morning” on the hotel’s stationary.
In conjunction with the new plaque’s debut, a special ticketed event will be held at the Hard Rock Hotel that will include a screening of the 2020 documentary Music, Money, Madness…Jimi Hendrix in Maui, and a Q&A with longtime Hendrix studio engineer Eddie Kramer; the film’s director, John McDermott; and Experience Hendrix CEO Janie Hendrix, Jimi’s sister.
“I’m so proud of my brother Jimi and his being honored again in London,” says Janie. “His mission was to spread love across the world through his music, and we continue to see that come to fruition all these years later. Eddie, John and I all look forward to interacting with people on June 10, whose lives were touched by Jimi in London — a city that was so important to him and his career.”
Tickets for the screening and Q&A can be purchased at Universe.com.
Dave Stewart of Eurythmics has just released a box set titled Ebony McQueen, a 26-track collection that tells the fictional story of a teenage boy from northern England who is visited by a voodoo blues queen, setting in motion a journey of discovery.
The box set is the first of multiple Ebony McQueen projects Stewart is planning, along with a film and a stage musical.
Stewart tells ABC Audio that Ebony McQueen was inspired by his own life story, based on how he developed a passion for music as a teenager in Sunderland, U.K.
“I started to write songs and write a story [about] the [time] in my teenage life when I discovered music for the first time,” he explains. “And it was through playing a blues record [by Robert Johnson] that my cousin had sent from Memphis.”
Dave notes that while recuperating from a soccer-related knee injury, he started becoming obsessed with music, and began learning guitar and tuning in to BBC Radio at the time that The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks were becoming popular.
“In that six to nine months, you have no idea how the radio was so eclectically brilliant,” Stewart declares. “[I]t was…literally like having your mind blown.”
Stewart wound up incorporating various musical styles from that period of his life into the songs on Ebony McQueen.
The box set includes three vinyl LPs, two vinyl EPs, two cassettes featuring acoustic versions of the songs and a booklet with photos, lyrics, drawings and an early script Dave wrote for the Ebony McQueen movie.
Dave says casting has already begun for the movie, which he compares to Billy Elliott and Once, noting, “it’s that kind of film where there’s an epiphany and it changes…your life in a massive way.”
Marvel dropped the first official trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder during Monday’s NBA Eastern Conference Finals on ESPN.
The clip gives us our first good look at Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster wielding Mjölnir, while confirming reports of Christian Bale playing the heavy, Gorr the Butcher.
Narrated by Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi‘s Korg, the trailer catches us up on Thor’s life since the events of Avengers: Endgame, during which he’s gone from “dad bod to god bod.” But just when he thinks he’s ready to reclaim his title as the one and only Thor, he discovers Jane — his old girlfriend who he hasn’t seen in eight years and is clearly not over — has inherited the mantle.
We also get our first look at Bale’s scary Gorr the Butcher, decked out in white robes, white makeup and yellow eyes, and who vows that “All gods shall die.”
Additionally, we see Russell Crowe‘s Zeus, who, in a bit of comic relief, strips Thor of his “disguise” — a little too thoroughly.
Thor: Love and Thunder, also starring Tessa Thompson, Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel and Dave Bautista, opens in U.S. theaters on July 8.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, parent company of ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — When a disgruntled employee opened fire in the parking lot of a FedEx distribution facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, in April 2021, the shooter did so because he wanted to commit “suicidal murder,” an FBI report released Monday concludes.
That incident, according to the FBI, was one of deadliest mass killings that year.
As a whole, active-shooter incidents in the United States increased by more than 50% from 2020 to 2021, according to the report.
Over the past five years, active shooter incidents have steadily increased, the FBI said, with the most recent in Buffalo, New York, on May 14 when a gunman killed 10 Black people at a local supermarket.
That shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
The new report, titled “Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2021,” says there were 61 mass shooting incidents in the U.S. in 2021, representing a nearly 100% increase in active shooter incidents from 2017, which saw 31.
The FBI defines an active shooter as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. Implicit in this definition is the shooter’s use of a firearm.
The shootings occurred in 30 states, which saw 103 die and 140 wounded, according to the FBI, which says 12 of the shootings met the “mass killing” definition.
The FBI defines a mass killing as three or more killings in a single incident.
John Cohen, the former acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, told ABC News that the United States is seeing a trend with active shooters.
“The U.S. is in the midst of a multiyear trend where we are experiencing an increase in mass shooters who are seeking to advance their ideological beliefs or based on a perceived personal grievance,” Cohen, now an ABC News contributor, said. “A growing subset of our population believes that violence is an acceptable way to express one’s ideological beliefs or seek redress for a perceived personal grievance.”
Nearly all of the shooters were male, and half the accused shooters were arrested by law enforcement. The FBI says 55% of the shootings took place in the afternoon and evening hours.
More than half of the shootings took place in areas of commerce.
“The locations range from grocery stores to manufacturing sites,” the FBI said.
The youngest shooter was 12 and the oldest was 67.
“For 2021, the FBI observed an emerging trend involving roving active shooters; specifically, shooters who shoot in multiple locations, either in one day or in various locations over several days,” the FBI concluded.
(WASHINGTON) — Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, she announced Monday.
“I’m experiencing mild symptoms and will be working remotely from home per CDC guidance,” she tweeted. “I am thankful to the @StateDept MED team for taking excellent care of me and all our colleagues around the world during this pandemic.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sherman were together for a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of defense in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.
Blinken, who recently recovered after testing positive for the virus earlier this month, is currently abroad with President Joe Biden in Asia.
It was initially unclear how frequently Sherman is testing, or if she is considered a close contact by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards to anyone currently in the delegation overseas.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Monday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
St. Louis 7, Toronto 3
Arizona 9, Kansas City 5
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Baltimore 6, NY Yankees 4
Minnesota 5, Detroit 4
Cleveland 6, Houston 1
Seattle 7, Oakland 6
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Pittsburgh 2, Colorado 1
Chi Cubs 7, Cincinnati 4
LA Dodgers 10, Washington 1
Philadelphia 7, Atlanta 3
NY Mets 13, San Francisco 3
San Diego 3, Milwaukee 2
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Boston 102, Miami 82
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
Tampa Bay 2, Florida 0
Colorado 6, St. Louis 3
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Las Vegas 104, Los Angeles 76
Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — With seven people in the U.S. now confirmed or presumed to have monkeypox, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the risk remains low and there’s no evidence the virus has evolved to be more transmissible.
“This is not COVID,” Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology at the CDC, said during a media briefing Monday.
There is one confirmed positive case in Massachusetts. There is one presumptive positive case in New York, one in Washington state, two in Utah and two in Florida.
The CDC said Monday that the government is in the process of releasing some vaccines from its national stockpile. There is no need to vaccinate the general public against monkeypox, officials said. Rather, those vaccines will be used among a small number people who have been exposed.
Still, CDC officials cautioned that more cases are likely, and the agency is now raising awareness among men who identify as gay or bisexual.
“I think that we need to pay close attention to the communities in which this might be circulating, so that we can communicate effectively with them and help bring this outbreak under control,” McQuiston said.
Monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted infection, and anyone can become infected regardless of sexual orientation.
The virus, a less-transmissible cousin of smallpox, is passed through close contact with another person, including hugging, touching or prolonged face-to-face contact.
An early cluster of monkeypox cases in London was among a nuclear family who lived in the same household.
But health officials say many early clusters in Europe and Canada happened among groups of men who have sex with men, with some ongoing transmission reported in this community.
“Anyone — anyone can develop and spread monkeypox infection,” Dr. John Brooks, medical epidemiologist, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC, said. “But, many of those affected in the current global outbreak identify as gay and bisexual men. We want to help people make the best-informed decisions to protect their health.”
Specifically, the CDC is now warning people to watch out for a distinctive rash in the genital region, which could be confused with an STI.
Stevie Nicks is one of the many artists confirmed to appear on the soundtrack to Elvis, the upcoming biopic about rock ‘n’ roll icon Elvis Presley by Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet director Baz Luhrmann.
The album also will include “original songs and recordings” from Elvis himself, as well as contributions from Chris Isaak, Rufus Thomas, Jack White, Gary Clark Jr., Kacey Musgraves, Jazmine Sullivan, Tame Impala, Doja Cat, Måneskin, Eminem and CeeLo Green, and Elton John collaborators Pnau.
A track list for the soundtrack has yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, a second official trailer for Elvis debuted May 23 at Warner Bros. Pictures’ YouTube channel.
Elvis stars Austin Butler in the title role and Tom Hanks as his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. The film premieres in theaters on June 24.
(NEW YORK) — Trevor Reed, the former U.S. Marine recently released after nearly three years in Russian captivity, has called on the U.S. government to negotiate a prisoner swap like the one that freed him to bring Americans Paul Whelan, a former Marine, and WNBA player Brittney Griner, who are both being detained in Russia.
Reed and his parents, Joey and Paula Reed, told ABC News if it meant freeing Whelan and Griner, the United States should trade the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence, and who Russia has floated as a possible candidate for a swap.
“I think that the United States should make any type of agreement to get Paul out. And if that includes an exchange, I think they should absolutely do that,” the 30-year-old Reed said in a lengthy interview with ABC News on Saturday, one of the first he has given since being freed.
Bout, dubbed the “Merchant of Death” by the media and a notorious weapons trafficker, was pursued for over a decade by Western governments and is widely believed to have ties to Russian intelligence. He was finally captured during a sting operation led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Thailand and extradited to the U.S.
He was convicted in 2012 on federal narco-terrorism charges for agreeing during the sting to sell millions of dollars in weapons to Colombian terrorists who were purportedly targeting Americans. In reality, the supposed Colombian arms buyers were part of the DEA undercover sting.
From the moment of his arrest, Russia has sought to return Bout, attempted to block his extradition in 2008 and Russian state media and officials for years have pressed for his release. Since Whelan was seized in 2018, Bout has repeatedly been suggested by Russian state media as a possible trade for him and Reed and last week for Griner.
“Viktor Bout has already been in prison for 15 years,” said Reed, adding that any value he had for Russian intelligence was long since blown. “He’s no longer a threat. He’s paid for that crime. Maybe not as long as, you know, the U.S. government would have liked him to, but he has paid for that.”
Reed said the United States should try to get the two Americans, who are both facing long sentences in Russia, freed in exchange for a man who will likely be released from prison in a few years.
“Fifteen years is not a joke in prison. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that Paul has another 13 years left in prison. And Brittney, who knows how long she’s gonna be sentenced for? She may have ten years in prison. So you’re getting two Americans who are going to have a huge amount of time left on their sentences for a guy who is getting out soon — who has already been in prison for 15 years,” he said.
“And I think that they need to do that,” he said. “If that’s for Viktor Bout, I don’t care. I don’t care if it’s 100 Victor Bouts. They have to get our guys out.”
Whelan was arrested in December 2018 while visiting Moscow for a friend’s wedding and charged with espionage by Russian intelligence officials. He is being held on espionage charges that the U.S. government says were also fabricated to take him as a bargaining chip. Whelan is in a prison camp in Mordovia, sentenced to 16 years.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, was visiting Russia to play basketball in the off-season and was arrested in February at a Moscow area airport for allegedly having vape cartridges in her luggage that contained hashish oil — an illegal substance in Russia.
The U.S. government considers Griner to be “wrongfully detained” in Russia, the State Department said.
“With this determination, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens will lead the interagency team for securing Brittney Griner’s release,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told ABC News this month.
Reed was released from a Russian prison on April 27 when the Biden administration orchestrated a prisoner exchange with the Russian government for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot from Russia who was sentenced in 2011 to 20 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States.
American administrations are traditionally reluctant to make prisoner exchanges, fearing that it sets a precedent that encourages hostile governments to seize more Americans.
Reed rejected that position, saying such governments would continue to target Americans regardless and were already doing so.
“That’s completely inaccurate. That’s not a concern at all, because, you know, countries like, you know, Russia, China, Venezuela, Rwanda, Iran, Syria, places like that need absolutely no incentive to kidnap Americans,” he said.
“Even if they didn’t get anything out of it, just for the simple fact that they could show the United States that we have your citizens here and that we’re not scared of you,” he said.
Reed’s father, Joey Reed, who spent more than a year in Russia trying to free his son and picketed the White House, said he believed the government needed to move with more urgency.
“Don’t get me wrong; we’re super thankful that President Biden made the decision to trade for Trevor. And what we want is we want that to continue,” Joey Reed said. “If there’s no other way to bring an American citizen home, do it. Don’t wait until they’ve been there 20 years. Don’t wait until they’re near death.”
In an interview with ABC News earlier this month, Paul Whelan’s brother, David, said Paul spoke with his parents after Reed’s release and said the news hit him hard.
“He asked, ‘Why was I left behind?'” David Whelan said. “And we still don’t really have a good answer for that.”
Trevor Reed told ABC News that he’s speaking out “in order to make the American people aware that this is not an isolated situation.”
“We have political prisoners all over the world who are suffering and who need our help,” Reed said.
Speaking of Whelan, Reed became emotional.
“He was in some worse prisons than I was. His situation is a lot worse than mine and we need to do everything possible to get him out at any cost,” Reed said.
Reed said that when he found out his release was part of a prisoner exchange, he assumed Whelan would be freed, too. But Whelan was left behind.
“I thought that that was wrong, that they got me out and not Paul,” Reed said. “I knew that as soon as I was able to that I would fight for him to get out and I would do everything I could to get him out of there. The United States got me out, but they left him there. I can’t describe to you how painful that feeling is.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 23, 4:49 pm
Russian troops have 20 times the military equipment of Ukraine: Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is outgunned 20-to-1 on the eastern front in a virtual speech to the Ukraine House in Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum is currently taking place.
“We do not have enough technical supplies because we are fighting against such a big country with a big army,” Zelenskyy said. “They have 20 times more equipment. Just imagine, now in Donbas, we have 1 to 20. You can just imagine what kind of people we have, how strong they are, what strong warriors we have.”
Zelenskyy has continuously pushed Western countries to increase the amount of military aid coming into the country to stave off the attack from Russia. He sent special thanks over the weekend to President Joe Biden for approving $40 billion in additional aid last week.
“I just don’t want hundreds of thousands of people to die, so we need weapons that will allow us to fight at a great distance,” Zelenskyy added in his speech to the Ukraine House.
Zelenskyy said over the weekend that 50 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers are dying every day in the fighting.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
May 23, 4:24 pm
Russian UN diplomat resigns over Ukraine war: ‘Never have I been so ashamed of my country’
Boris Bondarev, Russia’s counselor to the United Nations in Geneva, has resigned, becoming the Kremlin’s most senior diplomat to defect since his country’s invasion of Ukraine began in February, according to a report from U.N. Watch, a nongovernment organization based in Geneva.
“Never have I been so ashamed of my country,” Bondarev wrote in a statement shared with diplomats in Geneva and published by U.N. Watch.
He said he started his diplomatic career in Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs in 2002 and began his most recent role at the U.N. in 2019.
“I regret to admit that over all these twenty years the level of lies and unprofessionalism in the work of the Foreign Ministry has been increasing all the time,” Bondarev said in his statement. “However, in most recent years, this has become simply catastrophic.”
He added, “Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred. It serves interests of few, the very few people thus contributing to further isolation and degradation of my country. Russia no longer has allies, and there is no one to blame but its reckless and ill-conceived policy.”
ABC News has not independently verified the statement’s authenticity with Bondarev. The Associated Press spoke with him by phone and he confirmed his statement.
Kira Yarmysh, a spokesperson for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, shared the statement on her verified Twitter account and wrote, “It seems that there was one honest person in the entire Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
-ABC News’ Josh Margolin
May 23, 2:55 pm
Canadian artist turns bullet holes into beautiful flowers in Bucha
Canadian artist Ivanka Siolkowsky is trying to restore some beauty to the war-ravaged Ukrainian city of Bucha.
A former school teacher, Silokowsky has been painting flowers and butterflies around bullet holes she finds in fences, walls of buildings and homes, frequently soliciting children and other local residents to help her.
“The project began a few weeks ago. I only painted 5 fences, but my hope is that the people of Bucha and other formerly occupied cities in Ukraine will continue this project further,” Siolkowsky recently wrote on her Instagram page.
Bucha, which is northwest of Kyiv, is one of the most heavily bomb cities in Ukraine, where residents have told ABC News of witnessing numerous killings and torture at the hands of Russian forces.
Siolkowsky conceded that her paintings are not masterpieces and said someone commented on one of the Instagram posts, writing, “the paintings aren’t even good.”
“Believe me, I’m aware,” she wrote on Instagram. “But the point of this wasn’t to create masterpieces — it was to bring joy back into a city filled with darkness after the Russian occupation.”
May 23, 12:32 pm
Defense Secretary Austin convenes 2nd Ukraine Contact Group meeting
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin convened the second monthly meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group Monday morning, during which more than 40 nations participated virtually.
“This gathering is virtual, but our efforts together are making a very concrete difference on the battlefield,” Austin told the group as he faced two large monitors showing the virtual participants. “We’re all here today because of the extraordinary valor and resilience of Ukraine soldiers and citizens.”
The group was formed last month to help coordinate international efforts to support Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invaders.
“For three months, Ukraine has been fighting with grit and tactical ingenuity against an entirely unprovoked invasion by its far larger neighbor,” Austin said. “And we’re here to help Ukraine for the long haul.”
Defense leaders from 44 countries and representatives of NATO and the European Union participated in the meeting. Several new nations joined the group since its first meeting, including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Ireland and Kosovo.
Ukrainian officials, including Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, also logged on to the virtual meeting.
“My friends, we’ve got your back — all of us,” Austin told the Ukrainian representatives. “President Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s leaders have made history, and your forces have inspired the free world with their courage and skill.”
May 23, 12:06 pm
Starbucks announces complete withdrawal from Russia
Starbucks announced on Monday its decision to exit the market in Russia.
“We continue to watch the tragic events unfold and, today, we have decided to suspend all business activity in Russia, including shipment of all Starbucks products,” Starbuck CEO Kevin Johnson said in a statement. “Our licensed partner has agreed to immediately pause store operations and will provide support to the nearly 2,000 partners in Russia who depend on Starbucks for their livelihood.”
The announcement comes after the company suspended all business activity in Russia on March 8. Going forward, Starbucks said it will continue to pay its employees in Russia for six months.
Starbucks is one of multiple major U.S. and international companies that have put operations on hold in Russia because of the invasion of Ukraine. Other companies that have suspended operations there include Pfizer, Apple, FedEx, McDonald’s and Amazon.
May 23, 11:26 am
Russian soldier sentenced to life in prison in first war crimes trial in Ukraine
A Ukrainian court in Kyiv sentenced a 21-year-old Russian soldier to life in prison in the first war crimes trial since Russia’s invasion began in February.
Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty and confessed in court last week to killing a 62-year-old Ukrainian man a few days into the Russian invasion.
During the trial, the widow of the man Shishimarin killed testified that her husband meant everything to her and said she believes the Russian soldier deserves life in prison.
However, the widow said she would support exchanging Shishimarin for any of the Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoner this month by Russia at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine.
“I feel very sorry for him,” the widow testified. “But for a crime like that I can’t forgive him.”
May 23, 10:08 am
Zelenskyy calls for preventative sanctions in virtual address at World Economic Forum
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke Monday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, calling on the West to recognize as a mistake the refusal to impose preventive sanctions on Russia and take decisive steps in that direction.
“We must not react, but act preventively,” Zelenskyy told the forum in a virtual address. “And not only adapt what we have to the new realities, but create new tools. … Do not wait for fatal shots. Do not wait for Russia to use chemical, biological or, heaven forbid, nuclear weapons. Do not give the aggressor the impression that the world allegedly will not offer sufficient resistance. Protect immediately to the maximum freedom and a normal, useful world order.”
Zelenskyy said there are still no such sanctions against the Russian Federation, and listed them:
Complete embargo on Russian oil.
Complete blocking of all Russian banks.
Complete rejection of the Russian IT sector.
And complete cessation of trade with the aggressor.
Zelenskyy also called for freezing and confiscating Russian assets around the world and sending them to a special fund to pay compensation and restore Ukraine.
“There should be a precedent for punishing the aggressor. … Russian assets scattered across different jurisdictions should be found, arrested or frozen, and then confiscated and sent to a special fund, from which all victims should receive compensation,” Zelenskyy said.
He warned it will not be easy, but added that various aggressors will definitely not be motivated to do what Russia has done and continues to do in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said he believes the world is at a turning point and that the future of not only Ukraine, but the whole world, depends on the resistance to brutal force.
“This year, the words ‘turning point’ are not just a rhetorical figure of the speech,” Zelenskyy said. “Now is really such a moment when it is decided whether brutal force will dominate the world. If it dominates, then our thoughts are not interesting to it, and we can no longer gather in Davos. For what? Brutal force is looking for nothing but subjugation of those whom it wants to subdue, and it does not debate, but kills immediately, as Russia is doing in Ukraine right now — at this time when we are talking to you.”
May 22, 3:21 pm
Lithuania becomes first EU country to suspend all Russian energy imports
Lithuania is suspending all imports of Russian oil, natural gas and power, the country’s energy minister Dainius Kreivys announced in a statement Sunday, making it the only country in the European Union to suspend all imports on Russian energy.
Lithuania is now receiving liquified gas from the U.S. after becoming the first EU country to suspend Russian gas imports in April, Kreivys said. The country is now generating electricity via local power generation and local EU imports via existing connections with Sweden, Poland and Latvia.
It is unclear what alternate source of oil Lithuania will rely on, but Kreivys’ statement indicates that its sole importer of oil, Orlen Lietuva, refused to import Russian oil more than a month ago, Kreivys said.
The move is an expression of solidarity with Ukraine, Kreivys said, adding that it cannot allow its money to finance a Russian war machine.
The EU stated in March that it would end its dependency on fossil fuels imports from Russia and made plans to phase out Russian oil, gas and coal. The European Commission presented details on how it plans to achieve that last week.
May 22, 2:54 pm
50 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers killed every day, Zelenskyy says
While Ukraine has rarely reported on its combat losses since the Russian invasion began in late February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced during a press briefing Sunday that 50 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed every day.
The last time Zelenskyy revealed military death toll figures was in April, when he said that around 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in action and around 10,000 wounded. Zelenskyy did not provide a total figure for combatants killed in action on Sunday.
Since the start of the invasion, most Ukrainian men ages 18 to 60 have been banned from leaving the country. On Friday, a petition calling for the government to cancel the ban was registered with the president’s office.
The petition surpassed the 25,000-signature threshold that requires the president to address it on Sunday. Zelenskyy acknowledged the petition during Sunday’s briefing.
“How would I explain that to relatives of our defenders who are fighting at the most difficult positions in the East, where 50 to 100 troops lose their lives every day?” he said.
Ukraine’s parliament voted to extend martial law through Aug. 23. Zelenskyy’s office has a few weeks to consider the petition.
May 22, 12:41 pm
Zelenskyy welcomes president of Poland amid Ukraine’s bid to join EU
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy extended a warm welcome to Polish President Andrzej Duda on Sunday amid his bid to have his country join the European Union.
During a parliamentary session, Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to all Poles for their support, making it clear that he’s pushing full steam ahead to ensure Ukraine is granted candidate status.
“I am sure that all the necessary decisions will be made first for the status of a candidate for Ukraine, and then for full membership,” he said. “In particular, thanks to Poland’s many years of protection of Ukrainian interests on the European continent.”
Shortly after Zelenskyy and Duda addressed lawmakers, the parliament session was briefly interrupted when air sirens sounded in Kyiv, and members of parliament were moved to a shelter. The Ukrainian regional military administration later confirmed a Russian missile was intercepted over the Kyiv region.
France’s Minister for European Affairs Clément Beaune in his interview with France TF1 radio said on Sunday that it could take 15 to 20 years for Ukraine to become an EU member state, adding that Kyiv could enter the European political community proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron in the meantime.
May 22, 12:07 pm
Recent attacks have killed more than 200 Ukrainians, Russian military claims
The Russian Defense Ministry provided updates to what it described as the “special military operation in Ukraine” on Sunday, saying that hundreds of Ukrainians were killed in recent attacks.
High-precision air missiles and other attacks launched in Donetsk, Lugansk and Krasnyi on Sunday hit command posts, areas where Ukrainian manpower and military equipment are concentrated and ammunition depots, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The attacks killed more than 210 Ukrainian nationals and destroyed as many as 38 armored motor vehicles, the ministry claimed.
Russian air defense also shot down 11 Ukrainian aircraft and intercepted “multiple launch rockets” in the Kharkov region, according to the defense ministry.
The ministry claimed that, in total, 174 Ukrainian aircraft and 125 helicopters, 977 unmanned aerial vehicles, 317 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,198 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 408 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,622 field artillery and mortars and 3,077 units of special military vehicles were destroyed during the operation.
