Live blog: ++ Wagner boss: counter-offensive “inevitable” ++

According to Wagner boss Prigozhin, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is imminent. Several members of the Bundestag are calling for the release of Kremlin opponent Kara-Mursa. All developments in the live blog.

According to the authorities, one person was killed and 23 others injured in new Russian attacks in southern Ukraine. Four Kalibr rockets hit the city of Mykolaiv. It was the heaviest blow in four months, it said.

Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir has called on Russia to continue the agreement on grain exports from Ukraine. “Russia must live up to its commitment to the world community,” said the Green politician to the news portal “t-online”. For Ukraine, the income from the grain trade is vital. “Ukrainian grain must arrive where it is needed – namely in the countries of the Global South,” says Özdemir.

Members of the Bundestag from the Ampel parties and the CDU are campaigning for the release of the Kremlin opponent Vladimir Kara-Mursa, who has been imprisoned in Russia. According to the editorial network Germany, a joint letter to the Russian ambassador in Berlin, Sergey Nechaev, said: “We, as members of different parliamentary groups in the German Bundestag, therefore call on you to contact the Russian government for the immediate release of Vladimir Kara-Mursa to use.”

The verdict against the seriously ill 41-year-old was “draconian”, the “core of the Putin regime” was “deeply inhuman”. Kara-Mursa was sentenced on April 17 to 25 years in a prison camp with particularly harsh prison conditions. It is the highest penalty ever imposed on an opposition figure in Russia. The EU Parliament had previously called for Kara-Mursa’s immediate release.

According to the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Ukrainian counter-offensive is imminent. “Today, well-trained enemy units are already marching into Bakhmut… A counteroffensive by the Ukrainians is inevitable,” says Prigozhin in a video message. His forces would advance at all costs to “crush” the Ukrainian army.

Separately, spokesman for Army Group East of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Serhiy Cherevatyy said that Russian forces had attacked 324 times in the past 24 hours with artillery and multiple rocket launchers. “The Russians are destroying buildings in Bakhmut to prevent our soldiers from using them as defenses.” The Ukrainian military has not yet commented on a renewed counter-offensive.