Politics
Turkey’s presidential election will head to a run-off on May 28th, after Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the incumbent, fell just shy of 50% in the first round of voting. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of an opposition alliance of six parties, got 45%. Mr Kilicdaroglu may now struggle to unseat Turkey’s strongman, who has presided over rampant inflation. In a bad night for the opposition Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party retained a comfortable majority in parliament.
Volodymyr Zelensky paid brief visits to Britain, France, Germany and Italy to drum up support for a “jets coalition”. France said it would train Ukrainian pilots to use combat aircraft. Germany promised €2.7bn ($2.9bn) in military aid and is to build a tank-repair factory in Ukraine. Britain pledged more air-defence systems and Storm Shadow missiles, Ukraine’s first long-range cruise weapons. Mr Zelensky also met Pope Francis in Rome.
Russia launched more intense waves of missile attacks against Ukraine. One assault was described by officials as being “exceptional in density”. They said six hypersonic missiles had been shot down. Russia is increasing its bombardments ahead of an expected Ukrainian offensive.