Russia-Ukraine crisis live updates | Zelensky says Russia hopes for famine crisis

Here are the latest developments from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict

European Union leaders agreed on May 30 to embargo most Russian oil imports into the bloc by year-end as part of new sanctions on Moscow worked out at a summit focused on helping Ukraine with a long-delayed package of new financial support.

Russian and Ukrainian troops traded blows in fierce close-quarter combat on May 29 in an eastern Ukrainian city as Moscow’s soldiers, supported by intense shelling, attempted to gain a strategic foothold to conquer the region. Ukraine’s leader also made a rare frontline visit to Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, to assess the strength of the national defense.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is suggesting that there are no plans for the U.S. to send long-range rocket systems to Ukraine, amid reports that the move is being considered. Mr. Biden told reporters outside the White House on May 30 that “we are not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia.”

Read more news on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the Russian blockade of Ukrainian seaports prevents Kyiv from exporting 22 million tons of grain. In his nightly address on May 30, Mr. Zelensky said the result is the threat of famine in countries dependent on the grain and could create a new migration crisis. He charges that “this is something the Russian leadership clearly seeks.”

Mr. Zelensky accused Moscow of “deliberately creating this problem so that the whole of Europe struggles and so that Ukraine doesn’t earn billions of dollars from its exports.” He called Russia’s claims that sanctions don’t allow it to export more of its food “cynical” and a lie. - AP

Russian forces have seized control of about a third of the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, but their assault was taking longer than they had hoped, according to a Moscow-backed separatist leader quoted in a TASS news agency report.