War in Ukraine. The minute-by-minute chronicle, day 457

The US has urged Turkey and Hungary to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO before the Atlantic Alliance summit in Vilnius in July. This was reported by Dereck Hogan, interim deputy secretary of state for European affairs.

US President Joe Biden said he had an “extremely negative” reaction to news of an agreement between Moscow and Minsk to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has announced that the armaments are being transferred.

“We are convinced that an agreement is possible only if the Ukrainian armed forces stop Western combat operations and arms supplies,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said in an interview with the Russian news agency Tass, “ To achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace, Ukraine must return to the status of neutrality and non-alignment, enshrined in the 1990 declaration of sovereignty, and refuse to join NATO and the EU,” Galuzin stressed.

Ukrainian military intelligence claims that the Russian occupation forces at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are preparing a large-scale provocation “in the next few hours”. “To achieve this, an attack will be carried out directly on the territory of the plant. After that, an announcement will be made about a catastrophic release of radioactive substances. Ukraine will naturally be blamed for the incident,” a statement quoted by the Kyiv Independent. The purpose of this provocation would be to induce “the international community to conduct a detailed investigation during which all hostilities will be stopped”, hindering the Kiev counter-offensive.