Russia-Ukraine war: Top developments on May 4

Russian Defence Miner Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday the Russian military would consider Nato transport carrying weapons in Ukraine as targets to be destroyed, RIA news agency quoted him as saying. Shoigu also said that the Ukrainian fighters holed up in the sprawling Azovstal plant in Mariupol were kept under a secure blockade after President Vladimir Putin ordered that they be hermetically sealed off.
Road accident kills 26 in western Ukraine: Interior minry
Twenty-six people were killed in a collision in the Rivne region of western Ukraine involving a bus, a minibus and a fuel truck that exploded after the crash, the interior minry said on Wednesday. The bus had been heading to Poland, the minry said on Facebook. It did not say whether it was carrying any people fleeing the war in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.
Russia’s war has been brutal, but Putin has shown some restraint. Why?
Russia’s war against Ukraine has levelled cities, killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions of others from their homes. But quietly, some military analysts and Western officials are asking why the onslaught has not been even worse. Russia could be going after Ukrainian railways, roads and bridges more aggressively to try to stanch the flow of Western weapons to the front line. And it could be doing far more to inflict pain on the West, whether cyberattack, sabotage or more cutoffs of energy exports to Europe. Read here.
Here are the key updates on the war and its impact across the world:
➡️ The European Union’s chief executive proposed a phased oil embargo on Russia, as well as sanctions on its top bank and a ban on Russian broadcasters, in its toughest measures yet to punish Moscow for its war in Ukraine.
➡️ The armed forces of Belarus began sudden large-scale drills to test their combat readiness, the defence minry of Ukraine’s neighbour said.
➡️ Russia’s defence minry said it had disabled six railway stations in Ukraine used to supply Ukrainian forces with Western-made weapons in the country’s east. Two cruise missiles were fired at Ukraine from a submarine in the Black Sea, the minry was quoted Interfax as saying.
➡️ Russia has deployed 22 battalion tactical groups near Ukraine’s eastern city of Izium in an apparent effort to capture the cities of Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk in the Donbas region, Britain said.
➡️ A convoy of buses left Mariupol in a new attempt Ukraine, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross to evacuate civilians from the besieged city, the regional governor said.
➡️ Russia’s foreign minry announced sanctions against 63 Japanese officials, journals and professors for engaging in what it called “unacceptable rhetoric” against Moscow.
➡️ The European Union is considering additional military support to Ukraine’s western neighbour Moldova, EU Council President Charles Michel said on a visit to Chisinau on Wednesday.
(Compiled from Reuters and Associated Press updates)