TOP HEADLINES

• Russian forces seized control of half of the eastern Ukraine city of Severodonetsk, a senior official said. "Unfortunately, the front line divides the city in half. But the city is still defending itself, the city is still Ukrainian, our soldiers are defending it," said Oleksandr Stryuk, the head of Severodonetsk's military and civil administration. READ MORE BELOW

• Western countries "created a lot of artificial problems by closing their ports to Russian ships, disrupting logistics and financial chains," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a visit to Bahrain. "They need to seriously consider what is more important for them: to do PR on the issue of food security or to take concrete steps to solve this problem," he added. 

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed a sixth package of European Union sanctions against Russia but criticized what he called an "unacceptable" delay in the bloc agreeing the latest measures. EU leaders played down the prospects of getting a ban on Russian gas in a next round of sanctions. READ MORE BELOW

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had agreed a deal with Greece that would see Athens send Soviet-era military vehicles to Ukraine in exchange for more modern armor from Berlin. "We will provide German armored personnel carriers," Scholz said after an EU summit in Brussels. 

• French President Emmanuel Macron said that he and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had urged Vladimir Putin to end Russia's blockade of the Ukrainian port of Odesa under the terms of a UN resolution. READ MORE BELOW

• On a visit to The Hague, Ukraine's prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova says some 15,000 cases of alleged war crimes have been reported countrywide since the start of the conflict.

• Russia's largest bank Sberbank said it was not affected by fresh EU sanctions that excluded it from the SWIFT financial messaging system. SWIFT's messaging system allows banks to communicate rapidly and securely about transactions, and cutting the bank off makes it difficult to receive or make international payments.

• The chairman of the African Union warned EU leaders that their decision to expel Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system risks hurting food supplies to the continent.

• Two Russian soldiers were handed jail terms of more than 11 years each Tuesday following a trial in central Ukraine, the Ukrainian Interfax news agency reported. The servicemen, Alexander Bobykin and Alexander Ivanov, were both handed sentences of 11 years and six months under legislation against "violating the laws and customs of war," for firing on two villages in the early days of Moscow's offensive. READ MORE HERE

• Danish energy company Orsted said Russian gas company Gazprom would cut gas supplies to Denmark on June 1 after the Danish company refused to pay in rubles.

IN DETAIL

Macron and Scholz urge Putin to end Odesa blockade

French President Emmanuel Macron said that he and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had urged Vladimir Putin to end Russia's blockade of the Ukrainian port of Odesa under the terms of a UN resolution.

"I proposed, in the discussion we had with Olaf Scholz last Saturday, to President Putin that we take the initiative for a resolution at the United Nations to give a very clear framework to this operation," he declared after a European summit in Brussels.

Macron and Scholz called Putin on Saturday, and neither has since referred to a proposed UN resolution, although diplomatic efforts are underway to lift the Russian threat to Odesa, the last major Black Sea port in Ukrainian hands.

Russia's offensive in Ukraine has effectively taken its huge grain harvest off the world market, sending world food prices soaring and threatening to exacerbate humanitarian emergencies in Africa and the Middle East.

The port's Ukrainian defenders have laid mines, and the Russian fleet is preventing cargo traffic from arriving in Ukraine.

Under Macron's proposal, a UN resolution would set up a framework in which the port could be de-mined and grain shipments resume.

Macron paid tribute to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres's role in searching for a solution and said Russia had been in "promising" talks with its Black Sea neighbor Turkey.

That has led to hopes the situation could be resolved in the "coming days, coming weeks", he said.

"The decision does not depend on us, but it does indeed depend on an agreement from Russia - and guarantees provided by Russia - so that, faced with the de-mining which is essential - security guarantees are provided to the Ukrainians to prevent them from being attacked," he added.

Viktor Orban: 'Families can sleep peacefully tonight'

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hailed the exemption in an EU Russian oil ban that allowed his country to keep receiving cheap crude from Moscow.

After weeks of negotiations between EU and Budapest, bloc leaders struck a compromise deal late on Monday that banned Russian oil imports delivered by tankers, but left in place those received via pipelines – which is how landlocked Hungary gets the Russian crude key to its economy.

"Families can sleep peacefully tonight, we kept out the most hair-raising idea," Orban said in a video message posted on his Facebook page.

"We have reached an agreement that states that countries that receive oil through pipelines can continue to operate their economies under the previous conditions," he said.

Orban had threatened to veto the deal and warned that halting supplies would wreck his country's economy.

A blanket import ban "would have been unbearable for us... like an atomic bomb, but we managed to avoid this," said Orban.

Budapest, which under Orban sought close ties to Moscow until the start of the conflict in Ukraine, said banning Russian oil would spark recession, shortages and rocketing prices, and undermine Hungary's energy security. 

Landlocked Hungary receives around 65 percent of its oil needs via the Russian Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline.

Severodonetsk: 'The situation is extremely complicated'

Russian forces have taken partial control of the east Ukraine city of Severodonetsk, the Ukrainian official in charge of the region said on Tuesday, as Moscow's army pushed deeper into the Donbas region.

"The situation is extremely complicated. Part of Severodonetsk is controlled by the Russians," Luhansk Regional Governor Sergiy Gaiday said in a statement on social media.

He said Ukrainian forces still retain some areas within the east Ukraine industrial city and that Moscow's troops "cannot move freely through the city".

Gaiday also claimed "the enemy is planning an operation to clear the surrounding villages".

After failing to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in the early stages of the conflict, Russia has shifted its focus to the eastern Donbas region and is attempting to consolidate areas under its control.

Severodonetsk, which had a pre-conflict population of around 100,000 people, is one of several important urban hubs that lie on Russia's path to capturing the entire Luhansk region and east Ukraine's de-facto administrative center, Kramatorsk.