The governor of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region has said that Ukrainian troops defending Kharkiv have reached the state border with Russia.
Reuters said it could not independently verify the comments made by Kharkiv region governor Oleh Sinegubov on the Telegram messaging service. It was not immediately clear how many troops had reached the Russian border and where.
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has urged other members of a Russian-dominated military alliance to stand united, and accused the West of hoping to prolong the conflict in Ukraine to try to weaken Russia as much as possible.
Lukashenko, speaking at a summit of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Moscow, said “hellish sanctions” against his country and Russia could have been avoided if the group had spoken with one voice.
In March, McDonald’s closed its 850 restaurants in Russia including its site in Pushkin Square in the capital, which was the first in the country.
The Chicago-based company, owns 84% of its stores in Russia, and has said that its restaurants there and in Ukraine contributed 9% of its annual revenue, or around $2bn (£1.6bn).
As part of the exit, the company expects to record a non-cash charge of between $1.2bn (£980m) and $1.4bn.
The European Commission is set to propose a new package of financial aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, including new loans to provide immediate liquidity to Kyiv and commitments for the long-term financing of the country’s reconstruction, officials said.
The size of the short-term financial support is still being defined but two officials familiar with the discussions told Reuters they expected it to roughly cover Ukraine’s financial needs for two months, largely through loans, Reuters reports.
A third official said the money would come from the EU budget and from EU governments, dismissing earlier talk that the funds could be raised in the market with the issuance of joint bonds backed by the EU budget.
The scale of EU support will depend also on how much G7 countries are willing to contribute. A meeting of finance ministers of the Group of Seven major economies is scheduled in the second half of this week, just after the commission is expected to unveil its proposals.
