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Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin visits occupied Kherson region; US journalist appears in Moscow court | Russia

Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin visits occupied Kherson region; US journalist appears in Moscow court | Russia

Putin attends military meeting in Kherson

Russian president Vladimir Putin has attended a military command meeting in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region which is partly held by Russia, the Kremlin has said.

Putin heard reports from commanders of the airborne forces and the “Dnieper” army group as well as other senior officers who briefed him on the situation in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, both of which Moscow has proclaimed part of Russia, Reuters reported.

Russian troops retreated from Kherson, the regional capital, last November, and have been reinforcing their positions on the opposite bank of the Dnipro river in anticipation of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Kremlin did not say when Putin attended the military command meeting.

Key events

Switzerland has condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine in the strongest terms, it is very much committed to humanitarian aid for Ukraine and is doing everything possible to seriously implement sanctions against Russia, its president has said today.

At a joint news conference with Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, Alain Berset said: “We adopted the (EU) sanctions and of course we take this completely seriously and we are simply doing everything that can be done in order to enforce them seriously”.

Romania’s ruling Social Democrat Party (PSD) has said that it will ask the coalition government to approve an emergency decree enforcing a temporary ban on Ukrainian grain imports, mirroring similar moves by countries in central and eastern Europe.

Reuters reports:

On Monday, Slovakia joined Poland and Hungary in banning grain imports from Ukraine as even Kyiv’s staunchest allies come under domestic pressure to shield their agriculture markets.

“PSD will ask the governing coalition to make a political decision to enable … the government to issue the decree,” the party, to which the agriculture minister belongs, said in a statement.

“At the same time, Romania must continue to support Ukraine by facilitating the transit of farm products to other European Union states or to Black Sea commercial routes.”

Summary of the day so far …

  • Vladimir Putin has visited military headquarters in Russian-occupied areas Ukraine, the Kremlin has said. Putin was shown on Russian state television disembarking a military helicopter in Russian-held Ukraine and greeting senior military commanders. It was not stated when the visit took place.

  • The Kremlin said Putin attended a military command meeting in the Kherson region. He heard reports from commanders of the airborne forces and the “Dnieper” army group and other senior officers on the situation in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, both of which Moscow has proclaimed part of Russia. The Russian president also visited national guard headquarters in Ukraine’s Luhansk region in the eastern Donbas, which Moscow also claims to have annexed along with adjacent Donetsk region.

Putin visits Russian troops in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson and Luhansk regions – video

  • Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has appeared in court to appeal on Tuesday against his detention in Moscow on charges of espionage. The court will hear a complaint filed by Gershkovich against the decision to keep him in custody in Lefortovo prison while the case is being investigated. The hearing is essentially procedural covering how Gershkovich should be detained as he awaits trial, not about the substance of the charges.

US journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested on espionage charges, stands inside a defendants' cage before a hearing to consider an appeal on his arrest at the Moscow City Court.
US journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested on espionage charges, stands inside a defendants’ cage before a hearing to consider an appeal on his arrest at the Moscow City Court. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images

  • Poland and Ukraine will resume negotiations early on Tuesday to try to reopen the transit of food and grains, the Polish agriculture minister told public radio station PR1. The two countries held talks on Monday over bans by central eastern European countries seeking to shelter their farmers from the impact of an influx of cheaper Ukrainian grain.

  • Russian forces are stepping up their use of heavy artillery and air strikes in the devastated eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces said on Tuesday.

  • Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told his Chinese counterpart on Tuesday that their countries’ military cooperation was a “stabilising” force in the world and helped to reduce the chances of conflict.

  • The Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, held a meeting with the Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, on Tuesday.

The FT’s Max Seddon has published some video from inside the court, noting that “media are allowed to take photos and videos of Evan [Gershkovich] in the cage, but not speak to him. He can’t say anything back either.”

Media are allowed to take photos and videos of Evan in the cage, but not speak to him. He can’t say anything back either.

At right, @usembru ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracey, in the blue jacket. She visited Evan in prison yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Gn9jlwubb0

— max seddon (@maxseddon) April 18, 2023

Here is the first picture that has come through of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in court in Moscow.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in March while on a reporting trip stands behind a glass wall of an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing to consider an appeal against his detention, in Moscow.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in March while on a reporting trip stands behind a glass wall of an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing to consider an appeal against his detention, in Moscow. Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy is also present.

US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy waits in a hall of the Moscow City Court.
US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy waits in a hall of the Moscow City Court. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images

Max Seddon, the FT’s Moscow bureau chief, has tweeted:

The first proper picture of Evan Gershkovich, the WSJ reporter arrested in Russia on absurd charges, in court ahead of his appeal against his jailing today. So surreal to see Evan, who’s covered so many Kafkaesque hearings as a reporter, in the cage

Reuters has just snapped that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has appeared in person in a Moscow court, where he is appealing against being detained while awaiting trial.

More details soon …

Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told his Chinese counterpart on Tuesday that their countries’ military cooperation was a “stabilising” force in the world and helped to reduce the chances of conflict. The Chinese defence minister, Li Shangfu, is in Moscow as the countries look to deepen their military cooperation.

Reuters cites Interfax quoting Shoigu saying: “The coordination of our efforts in the international arena has a stabilising effect on the global situation and helps to reduce the potential for conflict.”

Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass is carrying further details of the meeting between the Belarusian leader Alexander, Lukashenko, and the Russian-imposed leader of the occupied Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, in Minsk.

Tass quotes Lukashenko saying:

I would like, as they say, first-hand, to hear the situation in the Donetsk People’s Republic, if possible. How are we doing there at the front? There are very intense battles going on. Both to the north and to the south. Yes, and in the direction of Donetsk. Shelling, it’s hard for people. And in this situation, what can Belarus do for Donetsk, how can we help? There is a lot of work ahead. We need to recover, we need to revive industrial enterprises, agriculture. In the end, people will live there. This is 100{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502}. And people need to be fed.

Ukraine says Russian claim Black Sea grain shipments have resumed is untrue

Luke Harding

Luke Harding

Luke Harding reports for the Guardian from Ukraine:

Ukraine says Russia’s claim that grain shipments in the Black Sea had resumed was “a lie” and said Moscow was continuing to block inspections.

Officials said a statement by Russia’s RIA news agency that the UN-brokered initiative was working were categorically untrue.

They said Russia, for the second time, stopped inspections yesterday of Ukrainian ships waiting to return to port. Inspections had not yet resumed today.

Under the deal signed by Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, Ukraine submits names of bulk carriers each day to be inspected. Last week, and again on Monday, Russia scrubbed up the names, meaning no inspections were carried out and the grain corridor didn’t function.

“It’s unacceptable,” one official told the Guardian on Tuesday

Here is some of the video released by the Kremlin of Vladimir Putin’s visit to occupied Ukraine.

Putin visits Russian troops in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson and Luhansk regions – video

A quick snap from Reuters, citing the state-run Belta news agency, reports that the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, held a meeting with the Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, on Tuesday.

Russia’s ministry of defence has posted to its official Telegram about Vladimir Putin’s visit to occupied Ukraine. It said:

The situation in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia directions was discussed during a meeting at the Dniepr group of forces headquarters. The president received reports from Col Gen Mikhail Teplinsky, the commander of the airborne troops, Col Gen Oleg Makarevich, the commander of the Dniepr group of forces, and other military commanders.

At the Vostok National Guard headquarters in Luhansk People’s Republic, Putin received reports from Col Gen Aleksandr Lapin and other high-ranking officers on the situation there.

Evan Gershkovich will appeal against arrest in Russian court today

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will appeal on Tuesday against his arrest and detention in Moscow on charges of espionage, according to court documents, Reuters reports.

According to a public Russian judicial document, a Russian court will hear on Tuesday a complaint filed by Gershkovich against the decision to keep him in custody in Lefortovo prison while the case is being investigated.

The court documents gave nothing more than basic details about the case. The court said it was forbidden to publish some documents. A Russian lawyer for Gershkovich did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

The hearing is essentially procedural covering how Gershkovich should be detained as he awaits trial, not about the substance of the charges as investigators are still working on the details of the case.

Russia increases shelling, air strikes in Bakhmut – Ukrainian general

Russian forces are stepping up their use of heavy artillery and air strikes in the devastated eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces said on Tuesday.

Fighting in and around Bakhmut has for months been the focus of the war in Ukraine.

“Currently, the enemy is increasing the activity of heavy artillery and the number of airstrikes, turning the city into ruins,” Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a statement, Reuters reports.

He said Russia remained committed to taking Bakhmut “at any cost” but was suffering significant losses in the battle for the city.

It has been difficult to independently verify the battlefield situation on the ground. The head of the Wagner mercenary group, which has spearheaded Russia’s attempt to take Bakhmut, said this month that its fighters controlled more than 80{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502} of the city. Ukraine denied this, saying it still controlled considerably more than 20{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502} of the city.

Here are some of the images of Vladimir Putin visiting occupied Ukraine, which have come from a video released by the Kremlin this morning. They appear to show the Russian president in occupied Kherson and occupied Luhansk, two of the regions of Ukraine which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed.

In this still image taken from a handout video from the Kremlin Russian President Vladimir Putin disembarks a helicopter as he visits the headquarters of the “Dnieper” army group in the occupied Kherson Region.
In this still image taken from a handout video from the Kremlin Russian President Vladimir Putin disembarks a helicopter as he visits the headquarters of the ‘Dnieper’ army group in the occupied Kherson Region.
 Photograph: Kremlin/Reuters
This screen grab taken from Kremlin footage shows Putin attending a meeting in the occupied Kherson region of Ukraine.
This screen grab taken from Kremlin footage shows Putin attending a meeting in the occupied Kherson region of Ukraine. Photograph: Russian presidential press office/AFP/Getty Images
Putin presents an Orthodox icon to military commanders in occupied Kherson.
Putin presents an Orthodox icon to military commanders in occupied Kherson. Photograph: Kremlin/Reuters
In this picture, Putin visits the national guard headquarters in the occupied Luhansk region.
In this picture, Putin visits the national guard headquarters in the occupied Luhansk region. Photograph: Kremlin/Reuters

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted on his official Telegram channel to state that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, over 2,000 Ukrainian service personnel have been returned from captivity. Ukraine’s president posted:

Since 24 February, Ukraine has returned 2,235 Ukrainian men and women from Russian captivity. We remember everyone. We will bring back each and every one.

Here is a little more on what appears to have been a visit to occupied areas of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin, his second in two months.

Associated Press reports that the Kremlin video, broadcast by Russian state television showed Putin visiting the command post for Russian forces in the occupied southern Kherson region. It showed Putin arriving by helicopter to receive reports from the top military brass about the combat situation.

The Russian leader then moved by helicopter to the headquarters of the Russian National Guard of the occupied eastern Luhansk region to hear report from commanders.

In both locations, Putin congratulated the military on the Orthodox Easter that was celebrated Sunday, and presented them with icons.

The exact location and time the released footage of Putin in Ukraine was taken has not been independently verified.

Last month, Putin visited the Russian-held Sea of Azov port city of Mariupol, which was captured by Russian troops in May after two months of fierce fighting. It was interpreted as a show of defiance, coming days after the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for him on war crimes charges.

Patrick Wintour

Patrick Wintour

Patrick Wintour, the Guardian diplomatic editor, reports on the thorny issue of corruption in Ukraine:

A fierce debate has broken out in Ukraine over allegations that a clampdown on corruption is being used to frame high profile business advocates of state reform, raising wider doubts about Ukraine’s internal political trajectory – and its ability to absorb billions in European reconstruction funds once the war ends.

The concerns have been expressed to the US Department of State and UK Foreign Office, and are shared in part by Ukrainian anti-corruption campaigners.

The issue is diplomatically sensitive since critics are wary of playing into a Russian narrative that Ukraine is endemically corrupt, or suggesting that anti-corruption institutions, which western allies and Ukrainian civil society played a large part in establishing, have gone off the rails.

Katya Ryzhenko, from Transparency International Ukraine, called for a review of the anti-corruption authority of Ukraine (known by its Ukrainian acronym Nabu).

“It is a good sign that despite being in the middle of a war, Ukraine’s anti-corruption ecosystem is not afraid to go after the big names and to have these cases transparently adjudicated by independent judges.” But, she added “the cases have highlighted serious problems in how Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies operate”.

A former Ukrainian official who was instrumental in campaigning for the establishment of Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies said that officials appeared to be targeting people for corporate governance breaches, rather than overt corruption . “This is a tragedy in which there will be no winners,” the former official said.

Read more of Patrick Wintour’s report here: High stakes for Ukraine as clampdown on corruption comes under scrutiny

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Bakhmut counteroffensive starts soon, says Ukrainian ground forces commander | Ukraine

Russia-Ukraine war live: Bakhmut counteroffensive starts soon, says Ukrainian ground forces commander | Ukraine

Counteroffensive starts soon, says Ukrainian ground forces commander

Ukraine’s top ground forces commander, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said his forces would soon begin a counter offensive after withstanding Russia’s brutal winter campaign.

He said Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, who have been at the frontline of Moscow’s assault on eastern and southern Ukraine, “are losing considerable strength and are running out of steam”.

“Very soon, we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliia and Kupiansk,” he said, listing Ukrainian counteroffensives last year that recaptured swathes of land.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top ground forces commander.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top ground forces commander. Photograph: Donetsk Regional Military-Civil Administration/Reuters

Key events

Summary of the day so far …

  • Ukraine’s top ground forces commander, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said his forces would soon begin a counter offensive after withstanding Russia’s brutal winter campaign.

  • The overnight death toll in Kostyantynivka has risen to five. Three women and two men were killed in an attack which hit one of Ukraine’s “invicibility points”, humanitarian support centres where resident can charge their phones on generators and access other services.

  • Emergency services reported that rubble is being dismantled after a night shelling on Bilopillya in the Sumy region, during which it is claimed Russian planes dropped several aerial bombs on the city. One of them hit the police building, and a local school was also damaged. A policeman and a school guard were killed, nine more people were injured.

  • In Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk oblast, it is reported that overnight there were five hits by “Shahed” drones, and that air defence forces managed to shoot down one.

  • Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that the use of depleted uranium shells in Ukraine would harm Ukrainian troops, the wider population and negatively affect the country’s agriculture sector.

  • A Russian security officer who fled the country and entered Kazakhstan because he objected to the invasion of Ukraine has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in high-security prison.

  • Estonia’s foreign ministry said on Friday it had decided to expel one Russian diplomat working at Moscow’s embassy in Tallinn.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Léonie Chao-Fong will be here shortly to take you through the next few hours of our live coverage.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that the use of depleted uranium shells in Ukraine would harm Ukrainian troops, the wider population and negatively affect the country’s agriculture sector, Reuters reports, citing the Interfax news agency.

Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has shared on Twitter a video which shows the aftermath of the attack in Bilopillya.

Білопілля. Сумщина. Після нічного обстрілу російськими авіабомбами триває розбір завалів. pic.twitter.com/muBPOkOFa3

— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) March 24, 2023

More details are being reported of the overnight attack on Bilopillya, with Suspilne posting a video and writing:

Rubble is being dismantled after a night [of] shelling, during which Russian planes dropped several aerial bombs on the city. One of them hit the police building, and a local school was also damaged. A policeman and a school guard were killed, nine more people were injured.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that according to emergency services in Kherson, “pyrotechnicians neutralised 31 explosive objects in the de-occupied settlements of Kherson region”.

Reuters has a quick snap saying that Estonia’s foreign ministry said on Friday it had decided to expel one Russian diplomat working at Moscow’s embassy in Tallinn.

Death toll in Kostyantynivka rises to five

Agence France-Presse reports, citing local emergency services, that the overnight death toll in Kostyantynivka had risen to five.

In addition to the three women known to have died earlier, AFP states that two additional men were killed in a strike that hit what it described as a “humanitarian support centre”.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, earlier said an “invincibility point” had been struck. Many such points have been set up around Ukraine which provide generators for charging mobile phones and other services.

A Russian security officer who fled the country because he objected to the invasion of Ukraine has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in high-security prison, Reuters reports, citing Tayga Info, a news website based in Novosibirsk.

Federal protective service Maj Mikhail Zhilin, 36, fled to Kazakhstan last year when Russia announced a conscription campaign, illegally crossing the border through woods while his wife and children drove through a checkpoint.

Zhilin sought refugee status in the former Soviet republic but his request was denied and authorities stopped him from leaving for Armenia.

Kazakhstan handed him over to Russia late last year, leading to the rare conviction of an officer for desertion.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers this news summary of overnight developments to subscribers of its official Telegram channel:

At night, Russian troops shelled a “point of invincibility” in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk region. Three resettled women from other settlements of the region died under the rubble, and two more people were injured.

Sumy district came under massive fire at night: the Russian Federation used about 10 fighter jets, artillery and “Shahed” drones. Two people were killed in the city of Bilopillya, nine others were injured.

In Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk oblast, there were five hits by “Shahed” drones. Air defence forces managed to shoot down one.

The claims have not been independently verified.

The UK Ministry of Defence has issued its daily intelligence briefing on Ukraine, in which it suggests Russia has been training troops in Belarus for both practical and political reasons. It writes:

As of mid-March 2023, Russia had likely redeployed at least 1,000 troops who had been training at the Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground in south-western Belarus.

Although no new rotation of troops has been noted, Russia has highly likely left the tented camp in place, suggesting it is considering continuing the training programme.

The fact that Russia has resorted to training its personnel under the much less experienced Belarusian army highlights how Russia’s “special military operation” has severely dislocated the Russian military’s training system – instructors have largely been deployed in Ukraine.

Russia likely also views Belarus’s continued indirect support to the operation as important political messaging.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that about 300 households were left without electricity overnight in Velyka Pysarivka in the Sumy region after Russian shelling damaged power lines. Citing the regional energy company, it reports that “emergency crews are working to restore electricity supply, and some consumers have already been reconnected”.

This morning we have a piece telling the story of Olha, who fled Kherson a year ago this week and has faced many challenges in relocating to the UK, including enrolling her children in school:

Last February, I was preparing to shoot a short film about Kherson’s streets. A rehearsal was scheduled – but it never took place.

That was the day they bombed airports simultaneously across the country. Public transport stopped running from our city. The frontline ran straight to our city and a week later we found ourselves under occupation. One morning changed our lives, and that of every Ukrainian family, for ever.

We are refugees now, even our cat, Venera. When we arrived in Britain, we never expected such kind support. When people find out we are from Ukraine, they often say: “I’m sorry,” or “Ukraine will win.” Some of them tell how they felt when Russia first invaded and how they bought humanitarian aid, such as food and diapers.

I have found a safe space in London, at a project for women and refugees. There we reveal our experience, do drama exercises and put on shows. For me it’s a kind of healing and I am happy to be a part of that community.

My children have had to abruptly switch to learning in a foreign language. For the first six months at school, my daughter did not understand anything at all. Struck by the difference in the curriculum, the gap only increased.

Read more here: ‘We are refugees now, even our cat’: a Kherson mother’s UK diary

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has posted to Telegram video clips of himself being interviewed by journalists and social media users. Yesterday he threatened to attack any state that allowed the current president, Vladimir Putin, to be arrested. Today, Tass is carrying quotes from him about the stability of the Russian economy despite western sanctions. It quotes him saying:

If something similar [to the current anti-Russian sanctions of the west] happened in the Soviet period, it would be very difficult for us, it would not be clear at all how it would cope.

But now we have created our own modern, competitive agricultural sector. I am very proud of it. Therefore, we can feed ourselves. We are now feeding others. Now we are not turning to anyone, they are turning to us.

And civil industry lives. Some things are faster, some things are slower, but on the whole everything is going on quite normally.

Medvedev made the point that the official inflation figure in Russia is lower than in some European countries, saying: “Feel the difference. They ignited this campaign, they began to fight us, and now inflation is 15-20{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502} in some countries. Well, that’s what they need.”

Credit Suisse AG and UBS group AG are under scrutiny in a US Department of Justice probe into whether financial professionals helped Russian oligarchs evade sanctions, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

The DOJ also sent subpoenas to employees of some major US banks, the Bloomberg report said, adding that the Swiss banks were included in a wave of subpoenas sent before Credit Suisse’s takeover by UBS.

The DOJ inquiries are to identify which bank employees dealt with sanctioned clients and how those clients were vetted over past years, Bloomberg reported.

The bankers may then be further investigated to determine if they broke any laws, the report added.

Here is some analysis of what is happening in Bakhmut, via Reuters:

A slowdown by Russia in Bakhmut could mean it is diverting its troops and resources to other areas. Britain said on Thursday that Russian troops had made gains farther north this month, partially regaining control over the approaches to the town of Kreminna. Intense battles were also under way farther south.

The Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov agreed with that assessment. He said on YouTube that Russia’s attacks on Bakhmut were decreasing, and it was shifting its efforts south to the town of Avdiivka.

Russia’s forces have become more active in areas to the north in the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions as well as central Zaporizhzhia and southern Kherson regions, he said.

Any shift in momentum in Bakhmut, if confirmed, would be remarkable given the city’s symbolic importance as the focus of Russia’s offensive, and the scale of the losses on both sides there in Europe’s bloodiest infantry battle since the second world war.

On the ground in Ukraine, frontlines have largely been frozen since November. Ukraine had looked likely to pull out of Bakhmut weeks ago but decided to fight on.

Russian forces may have to advance as far as Kyiv or Lviv in Ukraine, Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview to Russian news agencies.

“Nothing can be ruled out here. If you need to get to Kyiv, then you need to go to Kyiv, if to Lviv, then you need to go to Lviv in order to destroy this infection,” RIA Novosti quoted Medvedev as saying on Friday.

There was no immediate response from Moscow to suggestions its forces in Bakhmut were losing momentum, but Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin issued statements in recent days, warning of a Ukrainian counterassault.

On Monday, Prigozhin published a letter to the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, saying Ukraine aimed to cut off Wagner’s forces from Russia’s regular troops.

Reuters journalists near the frontline north of Bakhmut saw signs consistent with the suggestion that the Russian offensive in the area could be waning. At a Ukrainian-held village west of Soledar, on Bakhmut’s northern outskirts, the intensity of the Russian bombardment noticeably lessened from two days earlier.

“It was really hot here a week ago, but in the last three days it has been more quiet,” said a Ukrainian soldier who used the call sign Kamin (Stone).

“We can see this in the enemy’s airstrikes. If before there were five-six air raids in a day, today we had only one helicopter attack,” said the soldier.

Counteroffensive starts soon, says Ukrainian ground forces commander

Ukraine’s top ground forces commander, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said his forces would soon begin a counter offensive after withstanding Russia’s brutal winter campaign.

He said Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, who have been at the frontline of Moscow’s assault on eastern and southern Ukraine, “are losing considerable strength and are running out of steam”.

“Very soon, we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliia and Kupiansk,” he said, listing Ukrainian counteroffensives last year that recaptured swathes of land.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top ground forces commander.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top ground forces commander. Photograph: Donetsk Regional Military-Civil Administration/Reuters

Opening summary

Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.

Our top story this morning: Ukrainian troops, on the defensive for four months, will soon launch a counterassault, Ukraine’s top ground forces commander has said, as Russia’s winter offensive weakens without capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut.

We’ll have more on this shortly. In the meantime here are the key recent developments:

  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy has renewed his call for more long-range weapons from western allies on Thursday. Speaking to an EU summit via video link, the Ukrainian president recounted the “devastating” scenes he had witnessed close to the frontlines, where fighting has been fiercest. The EU leaders endorsed a plan – agreed by foreign ministers on Monday – to send a million artillery shells to Ukraine over the next year.

  • Zelenskiy visited the southern region of Kherson, where he toured infrastructure and promised to rebuild following Russia’s invasion. Ukraine’s military said Russian forces had left the Kherson town of Nova Kakhovka but a Russian-installed official there denied it.

  • The EU leaders held talks on Thursday with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, focused on global food security and sanctions imposed on Russia. Guterres’ participation came after the renewal of a deal brokered by the UN and Turkey on the safe export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea – seen as crucial to overcoming a global food crisis.

  • The EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU would work to find 16,200 Ukrainian children deported to Russia. Calling it a reminder of “the darkest times in our history”, she said only 300 had been returned so far.

  • Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s security council, said Moscow’s relations with the west had hit an all-time low. Asked whether the threat of a nuclear conflict had eased, he said: “No, it hasn’t decreased, it has grown. Every day when they provide Ukraine with foreign weapons brings the nuclear apocalypse closer.” Medvedev said any attempt to arrest Vladimir Putin a would amount to a declaration of war against Russia.

  • Hungary would not arrest Putin if he entered the country, said prime minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff said.

  • Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, signed legislation to make his country part of the Nato. Last year, Finland applied to join in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Legislation incorporating Nato’s founding treaties was passed in parliament in Helsinki on 1 March.

  • The UN nuclear agency’s chief has said the situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia power plant “remains perilous” after a Russian missile strike disconnected it from the grid. Europe’s largest nuclear power plant needs a reliable electricity supply to operate pumps that circulate water to cool reactors and pools holding nuclear fuel.

  • Ukraine’s state emergency service said on Thursday that it had ended rescue attempts in Rzhyshchiv, Kyiv region, where nine people died in a Russian drone attack in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

  • Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that on Wednesday shelling in the Donetsk region killed two people and injured four others, while one person was killed and two were wounded in Kherson.

  • British military intelligence said Russia had partially regained control over the approaches to the eastern Ukrainian town of Kreminna after its troops were pushed back earlier this year.

  • Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said he will discuss a peace plan for Ukraine with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, during an official visit to China next week.

  • The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has reversed his position on Ukraine after facing widespread criticism for calling the Russian invasion a “territorial dispute”. The likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination said his remark had been “mischaracterised”.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: war crimes dominate agenda at UN in Geneva; US warns China against arming Russia | Ukraine

Russia-Ukraine war live: war crimes dominate agenda at UN in Geneva; US warns China against arming Russia | Ukraine

Key events

Summary of the day so far …

  • Air raid alerts sounded across Ukraine’s Kyiv region late on Sunday night as Kyiv’s regional military administration confirmed the country’s air defences were at work. The nearby northern city of Chernihiv also reported shooting down Iranian-made Shahed drones, according to its regional governor, Vyacheslav Chaus.

  • Ukraine’s ministry of defence claimed in total to have shot down 11 of 14 drones deployed, including nine over Kyiv. Two emergency service workers were killed and three other people injured during a drone attack on Khmelnytskyi, according to city’s mayor.

  • Belarus’s exiled opposition has claimed partisans destroyed a Russian plane at an airstrip near the capital Minsk on Sunday. “Partisans … confirmed a successful special operation to blow up a rare Russian plane at the airfield in Machulishchy near Minsk,” tweeted Franak Viacorka, a close adviser of opposition figurehead Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. “This is the most successful diversion since the beginning of 2022.” The two Belarusians who carried out the operation had used drones, he said, adding that they had already left the country and were safe.

  • Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Monday that talks with Sweden and Finland regarding their Nato membership bids would resume on 9 March, after a delay in January in the wake of a Qur’an-burning protest. The meeting will take place in Brussels and will include discussion on the implementation of the memorandum signed between the countries. It later emerged that the Qur’an-burning incident in Stockholm was funded by a far-right journalist with links to Kremlin-backed media.

  • Respect for human rights has gone into reverse, the United Nations chief warned Monday, calling for a renewal of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 75 years after its signing. Pointing to the war raging in Ukraine, and threats to rights from soaring poverty, hunger and climate disasters, António Guterres said the declaration was “under assault from all sides”. He said the “Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most massive violations of human rights” being witnessed in the world today. “It has unleashed widespread death, destruction and displacement,” he said.

  • The UK’s ministry of defence has claimed that “Russia will likely be concerned that unexplained explosions are occurring” in and around Mariupol, a location “at least 80km away from the frontline … [which] it had probably previously assessed as beyond the range of routine Ukrainian strike capabilities.”

  • The US is “confident” that China is considering providing lethal equipment to support Russia in Ukraine, according to the CIA director, William Burns. In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Burns said he was “confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment” but noted “we also don’t see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don’t see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment”.

  • China has always maintained communication with all sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including Kyiv, a foreign ministry spokesperson told a regular news briefing on Monday.

  • Russia’s former president said in remarks published on Monday that the continued arms supply to Kyiv risks a global nuclear catastrophe, reiterating his threat of nuclear war over Ukraine. Dmitry Medvedev’s apocalyptic rhetoric has been seen as an attempt to deter the US-led Nato military alliance and Kyiv’s western allies from getting even more involved in the war.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Léonie Chao-Fong will be with you for the next few hours.

Jennifer Rankin

Jennifer Rankin

A Ukrainian Nobel peace laureate has called for the swift creation of a special tribunal to try Vladimir Putin and his associates for the crime of aggression, arguing that it could have “a cooling effect” on atrocities committed by the Kremlin’s invading forces.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, the head of the Centre for Civil Liberties, also said a speedy start to war crimes trials against the Russian president and soldiers could save people’s lives by deterring Russian forces from committing further crimes.

Starting legal proceedings could have “a cooling effect” on the brutality of human rights violations that Russian troops were committing daily in Ukraine, she told the Guardian in an interview.

Oleksandra Matviichuk at the Council of Europe in January.
Oleksandra Matviichuk at the Council of Europe in January. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Some troops, perhaps not all, would realise that Putin’s authoritarian regime had an end date, Matviichuk said, if they knew they would be held to account. The possibility of justice would help them realise “I will not be able to hide under abstract Putin and maybe I will have to be responsible for every thing which I commit by my own hands,” she said.

Read more of Jennifer Rankin’s interview and report here: Ukrainian Nobel peace laureate calls for special tribunal to try Putin

Here is a recent view of the military cemetery in Dnipro that has just been sent to us over the news wires.

A view of a military cemetery amid the Russia-Ukraine war in Dnipro.
A view of a military cemetery amid the Russia-Ukraine war in Dnipro. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The Kremlin said on Monday it was worried about the state of affairs in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region, where it said Ukraine and other European countries were stirring up the situation.

Moscow last week told the west that it would view any actions that threatened Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria as an attack on Russia itself, a warning that came amid increased concerns in Moldova, a small ex-Soviet republic located between Romania and Ukraine, of a possible Russian threat.

Moldova’s pro-European president, Maia Sandu, this month accused Moscow of plotting a coup, something Russia denied.

“Naturally, the situation in Transnistria is the subject of our closest attention and a reason for our concern,” Reuters reports Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the media. “The situation is unsettled, it is being provoked, provoked from outside.

“But we know that our opponents in the Ukrainian regime, the Kyiv regime, as well as those in European countries, are capable of various types of provocation.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed Moscow’s assertion that Ukraine wants to take over the region, while Moldova said there was no truth to the allegations.

Vadim Krasnoselsky, the self-styled president of Transnistria, had earlier described the situation in the region as tense, but urged people to remain calm and said that citizens would be informed immediately should any threat of danger arise.

Respect for human rights has gone into reverse, the United Nations chief warned on Monday, calling for a renewal of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 75 years after its signing.

Pointing to the war raging in Ukraine, and threats to rights from soaring poverty, hunger and climate disasters, AFP reports António Guterres as saying the declaration was “under assault from all sides.”

“Some governments chip away at it. Others use a wrecking ball,” he told the opening of the UN Human Rights Council’s main annual session, describing the disregard and disdain seen for human rights around the world as “a wake-up call”.

He said the “Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most massive violations of human rights” being witnessed in the world today.

“It has unleashed widespread death, destruction and displacement,” he said.

AFP reports that a second person has died as a result of Russian drone attacks overnight.

It quotes Oleksandr Symchyshyn, mayor of Khmelnytskyi, saying “Unfortunately, we have another hospital death. Doctors failed to save the life of another hero, a rescuer”. Earlier, the mayor and Ukraine’s ministry of defence reported that someone from the emergency services had been killed. Ukraine claims to have shot down 11 of 14 drones deployed by Russian forces.

Nine were downed over the capital, Kyiv, the head of the city’s military administration said, and there were no reported casualties or damage to infrastructure.

The official, Sergiy Popko, said Russian forces were trying “to exhaust our air defences”, and said the attack had come in two separate waves.

Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Ukraine.

A Russian military helicopter flies near a church in occupied Donetsk.
A Russian military helicopter flies near a church in occupied Donetsk. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
A Ukrainian serviceman rests in the frontline city of Bakhmut.
A Ukrainian serviceman rests in the frontline city of Bakhmut. Photograph: RFE/RL/SERHII NUZHNENKO/Reuters
A general view shows the frontline city of Bakhmut.
A general view shows the frontline city of Bakhmut. Photograph: RFE/RL/SERHII NUZHNENKO/Reuters
57-year-old Tatyana sits in her home as she describes her injuries following her dog stepping on a butterfly landmine which sent shrapnel into her own leg and killed the dog in Izyum, Ukraine.
57-year-old Tatyana sits in her home as she describes her injuries following her dog stepping on a butterfly landmine which sent shrapnel into her own leg and killed the dog in Izyum, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Ramon Antonio Vargas has spoken to Randi Thompson, president of Los Angeles-based nonprofit Kidsave, who is calling on Americans to aid efforts to place Ukrainian children orphaned by the Russian invasion in new families within their country.

Read more here: Ukrainian children orphaned by war ‘need a tremendous amount of help’

Just to add to that report from the Ukraine ministry of defence that an emergency service worker was killed in Khmelnytskyi overnight, AFP is reporting that the mayor of Khmelnytskyi, Oleksandr Symchyshyn, has said: “For now, we know of one dead and four injured” after the drone attack on the city.

Ukraine’s ministry of defence has claimed that overnight its forces shot down 11 Iranian-made Shahed drones. It also confirmed that an officer of Ukraine’s emergency services was killed in Khmelnytskyi.

Last night, enemy attacked Ukraine with Iran-made Shahed drones.
11 of them were shot down.
A @SESU_UA officer was killed in Khmelnytskyi; he was on duty at that time.

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) February 27, 2023

The claims have not been independently verified.

China has always maintained communication with all sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including Kyiv, a foreign ministry spokesperson told a regular news briefing on Monday.

Reuters reports Mao Ning was answering a question on Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying he would welcome talks with China.

In another question on Zelenskiy saying that he planned to speak to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, Mao said: “China’s position on the Ukraine crisis is consistent and very clear.”

“The core is to call for peace and promote dialogue and promote a political solution to the crisis. We have always maintained communication with the sides involved including Ukraine,” Mao said.

Turkey’s talks with Sweden and Finland over Nato bid to resume 9 March

Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Monday that talks with Sweden and Finland regarding their Nato membership bids would resume on 9 March, after a delay in January in the wake of a Qur’an-burning protest.

Reuters reports that speaking in Ankara, Çavuşoğlu said the meeting would take place in Brussels and would include discussion on the implementation of the memorandum signed between the countries.

It later emerged that the Qur’an-burning incident in Stockholm was funded by a far-right journalist with links to Kremlin-backed media.

In its latest daily intelligence briefing on the war, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has raised the issue of explosions in occupied Mariupol. It writes:

Since 21 February 2023, pro-Russian officials have reported at least 14 explosions around the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol. Sites of the incidents have included an ammo cache at the airport, two fuel depots, and a steel works that Russia uses as a military base. Mariupol lies at least 80km away from the frontline.

Russia will likely be concerned that unexplained explosions are occurring in a zone it had probably previously assessed as beyond the range of routine Ukrainian strike capabilities. Although widely devasted earlier in the war, Mariupol is important to Russia because it is the largest city Russia captured in 2022 that it still controls, and sits on a key logistics route.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, has reported on the Telegram app that trams and trolleybuses in the port city of Odesa have stopped this morning because of a shortage of electricity.

Russia’s former president said in remarks published on Monday that the continued arms supply to Kyiv risks a global nuclear catastrophe, reiterating his threat of nuclear war over Ukraine.

Dmitry Medvedev’s apocalyptic rhetoric has been seen as an attempt to deter the US-led Nato military alliance and Kyiv’s western allies from getting even more involved in the war.

The latest comments by Medvedev, an ally of President Vladimir Putin who serves as deputy chairman of Putin’s security council, follow Putin’s nuclear warning last week and his Sunday remarks casting Moscow’s confrontation with the west as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people.

Of course, the pumping in of weapons can continue …. and prevent any possibility of reviving negotiations,” Medvedev said in remarks published in the daily Izvestia.

Our enemies are doing just that, not wanting to understand that their goals will certainly lead to a total fiasco. Loss for everyone. A collapse. Apocalypse. Where you forget for centuries about your former life, until the rubble ceases to emit radiation.”

Partisans destroy Russian plane in Belarus, officials claim

Belarus’s exiled opposition has claimed partisans destroyed a Russian A-50 surveillance military aircraft in a drone attack at an airstrip near the capital Minsk on Sunday.

Franak Viacorka, a close adviser of opposition figurehead Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, tweeted:

Partisans … confirmed a successful special operation to blow up a rare Russian plane at the airfield in Machulishchy near Minsk.

This is the most successful diversion since the beginning of 2022.”

The two Belarusians who carried out the operation had used drones, he said, adding that they had already left the country and were safe.

Reuters reported Aliaksandr Azarov, leader of Belarusian anti-government organisation BYPOL, as saying on the organisation’s Telegram messaging app and on the Poland-based Belsat news channel:

Those were drones. The participants of the operation are Belarusian … They are now safe, outside the country.”

The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the reports.

Front and central parts of the aircraft as well as the radar antenna were damaged as a result of two explosions in the attack at the Machulishchy air base near Minsk, BYPOL reported.

The Beriev A-50 aircraft, which has the Nato reporting name of Mainstay, is a Russian airborne early warning aircraft, with airborne command and control capabilities, and the ability to track up to 60 targets at a time, according to Reuters.

As battles continue to rage across Ukraine’s eastern front here are some of the latest images to come through our newswires.

Ukrainian servicemen fire a howitzer towards Russian positions in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, 26 February 2023
Ukrainian servicemen fire a howitzer towards Russian positions in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, on Sunday. Photograph: Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA
Ukrainian servicemen fire an SPG anti-tank rocket launcher in the Donetsk region
Ukrainian servicemen fire an SPG anti-tank rocket launcher in the Donetsk region. Photograph: Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA
A SPG anti-tank rocket launcher being prepared in the Donetsk region
A SPG anti-tank rocket launcher being prepared in the Donetsk region. Photograph: Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA
A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a trench on a frontline position at an undisclosed location in eastern Ukraine
A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a trench on a frontline position at an undisclosed location in eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA
A Ukrainian serviceman sits in the trench on the frontline position in Donetsk
A Ukrainian serviceman sits in the trench on the frontline position in Donetsk. Photograph: Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA
Destroyed buildings and a car as a result of shelling in the village of Kamenka, Kharkiv region
Destroyed buildings and a car as a result of shelling in the village of Kamenka, Kharkiv region. Photograph: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images

UN human rights council to meet, will extend war crimes investigation

The UN human rights council is set to meet today in a united call to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and extend its investigation into war crimes in the conflict.

Days after the United Nations general assembly in New York voted overwhelmingly to demand Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine, the war is expected to dominate the opening of the top UN rights body’s main annual session in Geneva.

We’re looking for this session to show, as the UN general assembly showed … that the world stands side-by-side with Ukraine,” British ambassador Simon Manley said at an event Friday marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The meeting, which is due to last a record six weeks, will be the first presided over by new UN rights chief Volker Turk, who kicks the session off early Monday.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, will also address the council on the first day, while nearly 150 ministers and heads of state and government will speak, virtually or in person, during the four-day high-level segment.

Among them will be the top diplomats of the US, China, Ukraine and Iran.

Moscow will send deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov to address the council in person on Thursday.

One key resolution will be on extending a high-level investigation into crimes committed in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The so-called Commission of Inquiry, which has already determined that Russia is committing war crimes on a “massive scale” in Ukraine, is due to present a comprehensive report to the council in late March.

The commission must “continue its important work, which is of paramount importance for the principles of accountability and justice”, Yevheniia Filipenko, permanent representative of Ukraine to the United Nations office in Geneva, told reporters on Friday.

Summary and welcome

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments as they unfold.

The UN human rights council is set to meet today in Geneva in a united call to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and extend a probe into war crimes in the conflict.

Days after the United Nations general assembly in New York voted overwhelmingly to demand Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine, the war is expected to dominate the opening of the top UN rights body’s main annual session.

US officials have also warned China against providing lethal aid to support Russia’s war on Ukraine. CIA director William Burns said he is “confident” that Beijing is considering providing the equipment to Moscow’s forces but a final decision has not been made yet and there has been no evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment.

It’s 7.30am in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

  • The US is “confident” that China is considering providing lethal equipment to support Russia in Ukraine, according to the CIA director, William Burns. In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Burns said he was “confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment” but noted “we also don’t see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don’t see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment”. The US has made clear behind closed doors that such a move would have serious consequences. The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said in an interview with CNN’s State of the Union programme: “Beijing will have to make its own decisions about how it proceeds, whether it provides military assistance, but if it goes down that road, it will come at real costs to China.”

  • Vladimir Putin has accused the west of seeking to “dismember” Russia and to turn the vast country into a series of weak mini-states. In an interview with the state TV channel Rossiya on Sunday, the Russian president claimed the US and its Nato allies wanted to “inflict a strategic defeat on us”. The aim, he said, was to “make our people suffer”.

  • Putin has claimed Russia had no choice but to take into account the nuclear capabilities of Nato as the US-led military alliance was seeking the defeat of Russia. “In today’s conditions, when all the leading Nato countries have declared their main goal as inflicting a strategic defeat on us, so that our people suffer as they say, how can we ignore their nuclear capabilities in these conditions?” Putin told Rossiya 1 state television, according to Tass. “They tried to reshape the world exclusively on their terms. We had no choice but to react,” he said, adding that the west was complicit in Ukraine’s “crimes”.

  • Ukraine’s military has dismissed claims by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group that it had captured Yahidne, a village on Bakhmut’s northern outskirts. It said intense fighting was going on across the whole frontline. On Saturday the founder of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his forces had taken Yahidne and the nearby village of Berkhivka. The latest Ukrainian update cited “unsuccessful” Russian offensives in the two settlements and four others. All were subject to heavy shelling, it said.

  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy fired a senior military commander in charge of fighting Russian troops in Ukraine’s east. The Ukrainian president dismissed Eduard Moskalyov as commander of the joint forces of Ukraine, which are engaged in battles in the Donbas region, but gave no reason for the move on Sunday.

  • Belarus’s exiled opposition has claimed partisans destroyed a Russian plane at an airstrip near the capital Minsk on Sunday. “Partisans … confirmed a successful special operation to blow up a rare Russian plane at the airfield in Machulishchy near Minsk,” tweeted Franak Viacorka, a close adviser of opposition figurehead Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. “This is the most successful diversion since the beginning of 2022.” The two Belarusians who carried out the operation had used drones, he said, adding that they had already left the country and were safe. The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the reports.

  • Joe Biden has said the prospect of China negotiating peace between Ukraine and Russia is “just not rational”. Speaking on ABC News about China’s peace plan, the US president said: “I’ve seen nothing [that] would indicate there’s something that would be beneficial to anyone other than Russia. The idea that China is gonna be negotiating the outcome of a war that’s a totally unjust war for Ukraine is just not rational.”

  • The German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said he expected the contracts for the backfilling of howitzers that Berlin rushed to Ukraine last year to be signed by the end of March – months earlier than originally planned – “if everything works out”. Talking to German public broadcaster ARD on Sunday, he did not specify the number of weapons to be reordered. Pistorius also said it was up to Kyiv to decide when, and under what conditions, to enter talks with Moscow. He suggested the same was true for any decision on recapturing the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

  • Washington is reportedly in talks with Berlin and Warsaw to hold joint military manoeuvres in Poland in response to Russia’s threat to the eastern border of the Nato alliance. Exercises were being “considered”, Pistorius told Germany’s ARD, without confirming or adding any details “for now”. He said military manoeuvres in a country bordering Ukraine – invaded one year ago by Russia – would send a “very clear” signal to Nato allies “but also to Putin”.

Ukrainian servicemen seen on Ukraine’s eastern front.
Ukrainian servicemen seen on Ukraine’s eastern front. Photograph: pr

Posted on

Russia-Ukraine war live: UK warns conflict could last another year; Russian general ‘under intense pressure in Donetsk’ | Russia

Russia-Ukraine war live: UK warns conflict could last another year; Russian general ‘under intense pressure in Donetsk’ | Russia

Russian general probably under intense pressure to take Vuhledar, says UK

The town of Vuhledar, in southern Donetsk oblast, has experienced heavy shelling again, according to the MoD’s latest defence intelligence update.

“There is a realistic possibility that Russia is preparing for another offensive effort in this area despite costly failed attacks in early February and late 2022,” the update on Thursday morning said.

Colonel General Rustam Muradov, commander of Russia’s Eastern Group of forces, is likely to be under intense pressure to improve results in Vuhledar after harsh criticism from the Russian nationalist community, according to the MoD.

“However, it is unlikely that Muradov has a striking force capable of achieving a breakthrough,” it said.

Key events

Summary

Hello and welcome to those now following today’s live coverage on the war in Ukraine. It’s 1pm in Kyiv.

On the eve of the anniversary of the start of the war, Vladimir Putin has threatened to strengthen Russia’s nuclear forces. His comments were released before an address to mark Thursday’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday.

And Nato’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, says the military alliance has seen “some signs” that China may be planning to support Russia in its war in Ukraine, and strongly urged Beijing to desist from what would be a violation of international law.

The UN general assembly is expected to endorse a broad resolution demanding Russia unconditionally and immediately withdraw from Ukraine’s territory by a massive majority. But China, South Africa, India and many countries in the global south are likely to continue to abstain, underlining their alienation from what they regarded as the west’s war.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:

  • Russia is intensifying hostilities in Ukraine a year after its invasion in a deliberate attempt to deplete Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian military said on Thursday.The fiercest fighting remained around the eastern city of Bakhmut, Brigadier general Oleksiy Gromov said, according to Reuters.

  • Finland will send three Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, the country’s defence ministry said according to Reuters. The announcement comes after Sweden’s defence minister said it was open to sending some of its Leopard battle tanks, and the Czech government announced a further military aid shipment to Ukraine.

  • The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has said much-needed ammunition for his troops has been dispatched, after a public row in which he accused the military leadership of treason. In an audio clip on Thursday, Prigozhin said he felt the pressure he and others had put on the ministry had paid off, and he had been told that ammunition was now on its way.

  • A Russian fighter plane crashed on Thursday and the pilot was killed in Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. The cause of the incident is not yet known, the Russian defence ministry said. The cause of the crash was a “technical malfunction”, according to preliminary information and crashed in an uninhabited area and there were no reports of other damage.

  • Sweden is open to sending some of its Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine as it prepares to present another package of aid to help Kyiv fight off the Russian invasion, the Nordic country’s defence minister said.

  • Moldova dismissed an accusation by Russia’s defence ministry on Thursday that Ukraine planned to invade the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria after staging a false-flag operation, and called for calm.

  • The US Treasury secretary stepped up calls for increased financing support to Ukraine, as the US readies an additional $10bn in economic assistance in the coming weeks. Janet Yellen said it was critical for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to “move swiftly” towards a fully financed loan programme for Ukraine.

  • ‘I think he is not going to stop’: UK defence secretary on Putin’s war. Ben Wallace has said the conflict in Ukraine could last another year. PA news also reported that Wallace stressed that the war was “not a Nato conflict”.

  • Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has arrived in Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches. Arriving in the Ukrainian capital, Sánchez said: “I’m back in Ukraine a year after the start of the war. We will stay by Ukraine’s side until peace returns to Europe.”

  • The town of Vuhledar, in southern Donetsk oblast, has experienced heavy shelling again, according to the UK MoD’s latest defence intelligence update. “There is a realistic possibility that Russia is preparing for another offensive effort in this area despite costly failed attacks in early February and late 2022,” the update on Thursday morning said.

  • The Chinese government did not consult with Kyiv when preparing its peace plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official said on condition of anonymity. “China did not consult with us,” the official told reporters.

  • Vladimir Putin will use an address to mark Thursday’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday to threaten to strengthen the country’s nuclear forces. Putin said that for the first time, Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles – a weapon able to carry multiple nuclear warheads – would be deployed this year.

  • Joe Biden has said Putin made a “big mistake” by suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US. The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US will not increase the risk of a nuclear war. Russia’s parliament on Wednesday approved Putin’s move to suspend the treaty.

  • The Biden administration is considering releasing intelligence it believes shows that China is weighing whether to supply weapons to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

  • The UN secretary general, António Guterres, condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “an affront to our collective conscience”, at a two-day meeting of the general assembly. Friday’s anniversary is “a grim milestone for the people of Ukraine and for the international community”, he said in New York.

  • Two civilians were killed in Russian shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, according to regional officials. Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional military administration, said an 81-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man were killed during shelling of the village of Novotyahinka, about 40km (25 miles) from Kherson city. A Russian missile strike on the north-eastern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning left two civilians wounded, Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv region, has said.

  • Biden vowed that the US would defend “literally every inch of Nato” territory, ahead of talks with Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a collection of nations on the most eastern parts of the Nato alliance and closest to Russia.

  • All members of the B9 have jointly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Polish presidential adviser said. Biden and the B9 leaders “reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and underscored their shared commitment to stand with the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes” according to a White House account of Wednesday afternoon’s meeting in Warsaw.

  • China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as China and Russia reaffirm their close bilateral relationship. Wang told Putin that Beijing would play a “constructive” role in reaching a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, the Russian state-owned Tass news agency reported.

  • Earlier on Wednesday, Wang met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, where he said he expected to reach a “new consensus” on advancing the relationship between the two allies. Xi Jinping, China’s president, is expected to visit Putin in Russia in the coming months.

  • Vladimir Putin has praised soldiers who are “fighting heroically, courageously, bravely” to “defend the fatherland”, in a speech at a rally in Moscow to mark a year of war in Ukraine. Thousands gathered at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow for a concert marking Defenders of the Fatherland Day.

  • EU countries have failed to agree on a new set of sanctions against Russia meant to be in place for the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, four diplomatic sources in Brussels have told Reuters. More talks among Brussels representatives of EU member countries were due on Thursday afternoon, said the sources.

Russia is intensifying hostilities in Ukraine a year after its invasion in a deliberate attempt to deplete Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian military said on Thursday.

Brigadier general Oleksiy Gromov said Russia had set the goal of capturing all the territory it does not control in the two regions that make up the industrial Donbas area of eastern Ukraine by summer, Reuters reports.

The fiercest fighting remained around the eastern city of Bakhmut, he told a military briefing on the eve of Friday’s anniversary of the invasion on Feb. 24 last year.

Gromov said:

The enemy, having an advantage in the resource of human mobilisation, is deliberately intensifying hostilities in an effort to deplete the units of the armed forces of Ukraine…In the short term, it is important for the Kremlin to capture the key settlements in the Donetsk region, and in the future to capture (all of) the Donetsk and Luhansk regions before the summer.

Finland will send three Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, Reuters cites the country’s defence ministry as saying on Thursday.

The announcement comes after Sweden’s defence minister said it was open to sending some of its Leopard battle tanks.

As reported earlier, the Czech government has announced a further military aid shipment to Ukraine.

Here are some of the latest images from Ukraine:

A city worker cleans along the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine near Mykhailivska Square, Kyiv
A city worker cleans along the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine near Mykhailivska Square, Kyiv. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA
A damaged business tower in Kyiv
A damaged business tower in Kyiv. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA
Bags containing aid including food and hygiene products at a day centre in Kyiv
Bags containing aid including food and hygiene products at a day centre in Kyiv. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

The Czech government has approved a further military aid shipment to Ukraine and will continue to send equipment from stocks, the defence minister, Jana Černochová, said on Thursday.

Černochová did not disclose details of specific equipment being shipped, reports Reuters, but said the country had so far sent 38 tanks, 55 armoured vehicles, four aircraft and 13 self-propelled howitzers from its military reserves, alongside larger shipments from the private sector.

The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has said much-needed ammunition for his troops has been dispatched, after a public row in which he accused the military leadership of treason.

On Wednesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin published a grisly image of dozens of men who he said had been killed because commanders including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, had withheld ammunition to spite him, Reuters reports. Neither man commented but the defence ministry rejected the charge.

In an audio clip on Thursday, Prigozhin said he felt the pressure he and others had put on the ministry had paid off, and he had been told that ammunition was now on its way.

“So far it’s all on paper but, so we have been told, the principal documents have already been signed,” Prigozhin said.

A Russian fighter plane crashed on Thursday and the pilot was killed in Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine.

The cause of the crash was a “technical malfunction”, according to preliminary information, the TASS news agency cited the ministry as saying. The plane crashed in an uninhabited area and there were no reports of other damage, it said.

In a post on the Telegram messenger app, Belgorod’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said the emergency services and investigators were on the scene near the town of Valyuki, and the reason for the crash was being established.

Mikhail Afanasyev wants your letters, write Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer. The Russian journalist from Abakan in Siberia was jailed last year for writing about a small group of national guardsmen who had refused to fight in Ukraine. But Afanasyev remains defiant, while local supporters crowdfund thousands of dollars to pay off his legal fines.

“It is the duty of every person to expand the horizon of freedom by his actions, so that light pours in and overcomes the darkness,” Afanasyev wrote from pre-trial detention in a letter to his supporters this month.

“I really ask you to write to me, very much! It helps me a lot … I just want to be a journalist, faithful to my profession to the end and defend its values.”

Read more of the story here:

Sweden is open to sending some of its Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine as it prepares to present another package of aid to help Kyiv fight off the Russian invasion, its defence minister told the local news agency TT.

The latest instalment Sweden has delivered to Ukraine since the invasion includes armoured infantry fighting vehicles, which the defence minister, Pal Jonson, told Reuters would be the country’s main contribution to Ukraine in terms of equipment for ground warfare.

Sweden is also preparing to send Ukraine the advanced Archer artillery system to Ukraine, and support has been growing in the Swedish parliament for additionally contributing some of the country’s around 120 Leopard tanks.

“We are open to that and we are in close dialogue with above all Germany about it,” Jonson was quoted by TT as saying.

Moldova dismisses Russia accusation of Ukraine planning to invade Transnistria

Moldova has dismissed an accusation by Russia’s defence ministry on Thursday that Ukraine planned to invade the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria after staging a false-flag operation, and called for calm, Reuters reports.

Earlier we reported on Russia’s defence ministry accusing Ukraine of planning to invade Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region after a false-flag operation, citing reports from the RIA news agency.

The ministry said Ukraine planned to stage an attack purportedly by Russian forces from Transnistria as a pretext for the invasion, according to RIA.

Separately, the Tass news agency quoted the Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Galuzin as saying the west had instructed the Chisinau government to stop all interaction with the Moscow-backed Transnistrian administration.

Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, accused Moscow earlier this month of planning a coup to overthrow the government and drag Transnistria into its war.

The mainly Russian-speaking region broke away from the then Soviet Moldova in 1990. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, pro-Russia separatists fought a bloody war with the Moldovan government forces.

The US Treasury secretary has stepped up calls for increased financing support to Ukraine, as the US readies an additional $10bn in economic assistance in the coming weeks.

In remarks prepared for delivery to a news conference as G20 finance leaders gathered on the outskirts of the Indian technology hub of Bengaluru, Janet Yellen said it was critical for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to “move swiftly” towards a fully financed loan programme for Ukraine, Reuters reports.

As President Biden has said, we will stand with Ukraine in its fight – for as long as it takes. Continued, robust support for Ukraine will be a major topic of discussion during my time here in India.

Yellen added:

Our economic assistance is making Ukraine’s resistance possible by supporting the home front: funding critical public services and helping keep the government running. In the coming months, we expect to provide around $10bn in additional economic support for Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian founder of the Wagner mercenary group, was able to pass UK anti-money laundering checks by submitting a utility bill in the name of his elderly mother, the FT reports.

Leaked emails seen by the Financial Times show that the law firm Discreet Law in 2021 requested identification documents from Prigozhin, who has been placed under sanctions and accused of human rights abuses around the world, before taking him on as a client.

As part of anti-laundering checks, Prigozhin’s Russian lawyers forwarded the London-based law firm a copy of his passport and a gas bill in the name of his then 81-year-old mother, Violetta, for an address in St Petersburg, the FT reports.

Discreet Law’s founder, Roger Gherson, said the firm “cannot comment on confidential communications with [its] former clients”.

Here are some of the latest images from Ukraine:

Destroyed Russian military equipment is displayed in Kyiv’s Mykhailivska Square
Destroyed Russian military equipment is displayed in Kyiv’s Mykhailivska Square. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA
The Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine near Mykhailivska Square, Kyiv.
The Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine near Mykhailivska Square, Kyiv. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA
A damaged residential building in the town of Lyman, Donetsk region
A damaged residential building in the town of Lyman, Donetsk region. Photograph: Ihor Tkachov/AFP/Getty Images

Summary

Hello and welcome to those now following today’s live coverage on the war in Ukraine. It’s 10am in Kyiv.

On the eve of the anniversary of the start of the war, Vladimir Putin has threatened to strengthen Russia’s nuclear forces. His comments were released before an address to mark Thursday’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday.

And Nato’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, says the military alliance has seen “some signs” that China may be planning to support Russia in its war in Ukraine, and strongly urged Beijing to desist from what would be a violation of international law.

The UN general assembly is expected to endorse a broad resolution demanding Russia unconditionally and immediately withdraw from Ukraine’s territory by a massive majority. But China, South Africa, India and many countries in the global south are likely to continue to abstain, underlining their alienation from what they regarded as the west’s war.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:

  • ‘I think he is not going to stop’: UK defence secretary on Putin’s war. Ben Wallace has said the conflict in Ukraine could last another year. PA news also reported that Wallace stressed that the war was “not a Nato conflict”.

  • Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has arrived in Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches. Arriving in the Ukrainian capital, Sánchez said: “I’m back in Ukraine a year after the start of the war. We will stay by Ukraine’s side until peace returns to Europe.”

  • The town of Vuhledar, in southern Donetsk oblast, has experienced heavy shelling again, according to the UK MoD’s latest defence intelligence update. “There is a realistic possibility that Russia is preparing for another offensive effort in this area despite costly failed attacks in early February and late 2022,” the update on Thursday morning said.

  • The Chinese government did not consult with Kyiv when preparing its peace plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official said on condition of anonymity. “China did not consult with us,” the official told reporters.

  • Vladimir Putin will use an address to mark Thursday’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday to threaten to strengthen the country’s nuclear forces. Putin said that for the first time, Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles – a weapon able to carry multiple nuclear warheads – would be deployed this year.

  • Joe Biden has said Putin made a “big mistake” by suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US. The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US will not increase the risk of a nuclear war. Russia’s parliament on Wednesday approved Putin’s move to suspend the treaty.

  • The Biden administration is considering releasing intelligence it believes shows that China is weighing whether to supply weapons to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

  • The UN secretary general, António Guterres, condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “an affront to our collective conscience”, at a two-day meeting of the general assembly. Friday’s anniversary is “a grim milestone for the people of Ukraine and for the international community”, he said in New York.

  • Two civilians were killed in Russian shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, according to regional officials. Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional military administration, said an 81-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man were killed during shelling of the village of Novotyahinka, about 40km (25 miles) from Kherson city. A Russian missile strike on the north-eastern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning left two civilians wounded, Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv region, has said.

  • Biden vowed that the US would defend “literally every inch of Nato” territory, ahead of talks with Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a collection of nations on the most eastern parts of the Nato alliance and closest to Russia.

  • All members of the B9 have jointly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Polish presidential adviser said. Biden and the B9 leaders “reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and underscored their shared commitment to stand with the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes” according to a White House account of Wednesday afternoon’s meeting in Warsaw.

  • China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as China and Russia reaffirm their close bilateral relationship. Wang told Putin that Beijing would play a “constructive” role in reaching a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, the Russian state-owned Tass news agency reported.

  • Earlier on Wednesday, Wang met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, where he said he expected to reach a “new consensus” on advancing the relationship between the two allies. Xi Jinping, China’s president, is expected to visit Putin in Russia in the coming months.

  • Vladimir Putin has praised soldiers who are “fighting heroically, courageously, bravely” to “defend the fatherland”, in a speech at a rally in Moscow to mark a year of war in Ukraine. Thousands gathered at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow for a concert marking Defenders of the Fatherland Day.

  • EU countries have failed to agree on a new set of sanctions against Russia meant to be in place for the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, four diplomatic sources in Brussels have told Reuters. More talks among Brussels representatives of EU member countries were due on Thursday afternoon, said the sources.

On Thursday 2 February, my friend Pete Reed died as he tried to evacuate civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, writes Cengiz Yar.

Based on footage we now have of the incident, his vehicle was hit by a Russian anti-tank missile. He was killed in the blast, and others in his team were severely injured. Reports suggest it was likely a double-tap strike, a technique used frequently by Russia in Syria, where an attack is made to draw in additional support and recovery operations before a second attack is made.

Pete was one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met. You should know a bit about the good he did in this world.

I met him in the spring of 2016 over some drinks in Iraq, where I worked as a photographer. He was loud, a bit goofy, and trying to do some good. What good? He hadn’t quite figured that out yet.

Read more by Cengiz Yar here:

Sam Jones

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has arrived in Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches.

Arriving in the Ukrainian capital, Sánchez said:

I’m back in Ukraine a year after the start of the war. We will stay by Ukraine’s side until peace returns to Europe.

Sánchez, who last visited Ukraine in April, is understood to have travelled to Ukraine at Zelenskiy’s invitation.

Pedro Sánchez arriving in Kyiv
Pedro Sánchez arriving in Kyiv this morning, where he was met by the deputy foreign minister, Yevhen Perebyinis. Photograph: Spanish government handout

Vuelvo a Kyiv un año después del inicio de la guerra.

Estaremos al lado de Ucrania y de su gente hasta que la paz regrese a Europa.

Сьогодні повертаюся до Києва.

Ми будемо з Україною та її народом, поки до Європи не повернеться мир. pic.twitter.com/9ekUL9Lmfl

— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) February 23, 2023

Posted on

February 17, 2023 – Russia-Ukraine news

February 17, 2023 – Russia-Ukraine news
Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a bilateral meeting with Moldovan President Maia Sandu during the Munich Security Conference on February 17.
Secretary of Point out Antony Blinken attends a bilateral conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu all through the Munich Protection Conference on February 17. (Petr David Josek/AFP/Getty Images)

Secretary of Condition Antony Blinken said Friday that the US has “deep concern” about Russia’s initiatives to destabilize the govt of Moldova.

This comes as Moldova President Maia Sandu stated before this week that Russia was plotting a coup in Moldova.

“We have deep issue about some of the plotting that we have noticed coming from Russia to try to destabilize the federal government,” Blinken said at a meeting with Sandu in Germany on the sidelines of the Munich Protection Convention. “We stand strongly with Moldova in aid of its security, its independence, its territorial integrity, the pretty significant reform endeavours that the president and the federal government are generating.”

Sandu described 2022 as an “incredibly tough 12 months for Moldova” and thanked the US for its help with its myriad troubles, which includes with energy, the financial system and protection.

Why Moldova is essential: Moldova, positioned amongst Ukraine and Romania, was earlier element of the Soviet Union at the conclusion of Entire world War II. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a handful of “frozen conflict” zones in japanese Europe emerged, such as a slither of land together Moldova’s border with Ukraine acknowledged as Transnistria.

The territory declared alone a Soviet republic in 1990, opposing any try by Moldova to turn into an unbiased condition or to merge with Romania. When Moldova grew to become impartial the subsequent 12 months, Russia swiftly inserted alone as a so-known as “peacekeeping force” in Transnistria, sending troops in to back again professional-Moscow separatists there.

This meant “peacekeeping” presence, which has in observe seen the Kremlin prop up a puppet point out that seeks to undermine Moldova’s sovereignty, has also mirrored Moscow’s pretext for invasions in Ga and Ukraine.

Alarm bells in Moldova and the West grew louder subsequent common refrains from the Kremlin that the legal rights of ethnic Russians ended up remaining violated in Transnistria – yet another argument made use of by Putin to justify his February 2022 invasion of Luhansk and Donetsk in jap Ukraine, which contained two breakaway Russian-backed statelets.

In the context of the war now, the Russian-backed separatist enclave at the southwestern edge of the region could now current a possible bookend to any Russian assault westwards from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas location.

Posted on

Russia-Ukraine war live: world leaders meet in Munich; grain deal negotiations will start next week | Russia

Russia-Ukraine war live: world leaders meet in Munich; grain deal negotiations will start next week | Russia

Key events

Summary of the day so far …

  • The Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, will be the opening speaker on Friday at the three-day Munich security conference as the west faces urgent calls to speed up ammunition production and supplies to Kyiv in the face of mounting fears that Russia is planning a new offensive. The conference is expected to be attended by more than 100 world leaders, and diplomats, including the US vice-president Kamala Harris, and the event will be seen as a key test of the west’s resolve to fight out a grinding, prolonged, expensive war.

  • Negotiations will start in a week on extending a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia after its invasion, a senior Ukrainian official said on Friday. Yuriy Vaskov said “I think common sense will prevail and the corridor will be extended.”

  • Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reports that the energy grid is working without consumption restrictions today across all of Ukraine, with the exception of Odesa, where “due to damaged infrastructure there are still restrictions” and “power outage schedules are applied.”

  • Finland’s parliament will vote on 28 February to approve the necessary legislation that will allow the country to eventually become a member of Nato, Reuters reports the Finnish parliament’s head of foreign affairs committee said on Friday.

  • Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said that the US is inciting Ukraine to strike directly at Russian territory, after comments by US under secretary of state Victoria Nuland about Crimea. Zakharova said “[The US] supply weapons in huge quantities, provide intelligence, simply participate directly in the planning of military operations, train Ukrainian armed formations. Now the American warmongers have gone even further: they are inciting the Kyiv regime to further escalate, simply to transfer the war to the territory of our country.”

  • Nuland had told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington the US considers that Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, should be demilitarised at a minimum and Washington supports Ukrainian attacks on military targets on the peninsula.

  • Facebook allowed exiled Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor with ties to the Kremlin to run ads calling for protests and uprisings against the pro-western government, even though he and his political party were on US sanctions lists.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Léonie Chao-Fong will be with you shortly.

Ahead of the Munich security conference, Mykhailo Podolyak, a political adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has reiterated Kyiv’s position that Russia must withdraw from Ukraine as a pre-condition for peace talks.

Reuters reports Podolyak tweeted “For decriminalization of global politics and real global security, the war must end with Ukraine’s victory. Negotiations can begin when Russia withdraws its troops from the territory of Ukraine. Other options only give Russia time to regroup forces and resume hostilities at any moment.”

Finland’s parliament will vote on 28 February to approve the necessary legislation that will allow the country to eventually become a member of Nato, Reuters reports the Finnish parliament’s head of foreign affairs committee said on Friday.

Turkey and Hungary are yet to approve the bids by Sweden and Finland to join the alliance.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said that the US is inciting Ukraine to strike directly at Russian territory, after comments by US under secretary of state Victoria Nuland about Crimea. [See 8.43 GMT]

Tass reports that in her weekly press briefing, Zakharova said:

Once again, we have to state the involvement of the US in the conflict in Ukraine. They supply weapons in huge quantities, provide intelligence, simply participate directly in the planning of military operations, train Ukrainian armed formations.

Now the American warmongers have gone even further: they are inciting the Kyiv regime to further escalate, simply to transfer the war to the territory of our country. Like this, direct strikes. This is what we warned about before, and what we were because of forced to launch a special military operation. Now they, US officials, are talking about it openly.

Nuland had said that the US supported Ukraine striking at targets in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move which is not widely recognised by the international community.

Zakharova said “Crimea is reliably protected”, according to the Tass report.

Ukrainian official: Negotiations to extend Black Sea grain export deal will begin next week

Negotiations will start in a week on extending a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia after its invasion, a senior Ukrainian official said on Friday.

“Negotiations on extending the grain corridor will begin in a week and then we will understand the positions of all parties,” Ukrainian deputy infrastructure minister Yuriy Vaskov said during a grain conference in Kyiv organised by the ProAgro agriculture consultancy.

“I think common sense will prevail and the corridor will be extended,” he said.

Reuters reports he said that pressure was being exerted on Russia not only to extend the corridor but also to improve the way it works. “We see that the enemy is starting to put forward new conditions. We understand that it will be difficult – as it was in November,” Vaskov said.

A grain terminal at the seaport in Odesa.
A grain terminal at the seaport in Odesa. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

The Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July allowed grain to be exported from three Ukrainian ports.

The agreement was extended by a further 120 days in November and is up for renewal again in March, but Russia has signalled that it is unhappy with some aspects of the deal and has asked for sanctions affecting its agricultural exports to be lifted.

Patrick Wintour

Patrick Wintour

The Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour reports from Munich:

The Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, will be the opening speaker on Friday at the three-day Munich security conference as the west faces urgent calls to speed up ammunition production and supplies to Kyiv in the face of mounting fears that Russia is planning a new offensive.

The conference is expected to be attended by more than 100 world leaders, and diplomats, including the US vice-president Kamala Harris, and the event will be seen as a key test of the west’s resolve to fight out a grinding, prolonged, expensive war. Few are expected to hold out hope of early peace negotiations.

The MSC has had a tradition going back decades of inviting senior leaders from states hostile, or ambivalent, towards the west, but this year has taken the unusual decision to exclude any representatives from Iran or Russia. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has responded to his exclusion by setting a Moscow foreign policy goal of ending the diplomatic monopoly of the west.

The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, however, will be speaking at the conference and his speech will be watched closely to see how far he is willing to go both in distancing himself from Russia’s invasion and in seeking out a post-Covid new trading relationship with the west. He is expected to meet the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who is likely to urge him to do more to criticise the invasion of Ukrainian sovereign territory. A planned trip by Blinken to Beijing was cancelled over the Chinese spy balloon controversy.

Read more here: Zelenskiy to open Munich summit amid fears of new Russian offensive

In Russia, Tass is reporting some reaction to those comments by US under secretary of state Victoria Nuland about Crimea. She said the US supported Ukrainian strikes on Crimea as legitimate military targets, and that Crimea should be demilitarised at least as part of any solution to the war. [See 8.43 GMT]

Tass quotes Dmitry Novikov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on international affairs saying:

Each such statement serves as a pretext for escalation not only in Ukraine, but also around it. An increasing number of states are forced to determine their position in relation to what is actually happening in the centre of Europe. Nevertheless, the more provocative statements are heard, and Nuland’s statement is pure provocation, the further we are from resolving the conflict.

Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reports that the energy grid is working without consumption restrictions today across all of Ukraine, with the exception of Odesa, where “due to damaged infrastructure there are still restrictions” and “power outage schedules are applied.”

The United States considers that Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, should be demilitarised at a minimum and Washington supports Ukrainian attacks on military targets on the peninsula, under secretary of state Victoria Nuland has said.

“No matter what the Ukrainians decide about Crimea in terms of where they choose to fight etcetera, Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is at a minimum, at a minimum, demilitarised,” Nuland told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Asked about the dangers of escalation in the Ukraine war, Reuters reports Nuland said Russia had a host of military installations crucial for the conflict. “Those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them and we are supporting that,” Nuland said.

Reuters has a quick snap that a Ukrainian official has said negotiations on extending the Black Sea corridor grain export deal will begin next week.

More details soon …

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports on Telegram that two people were killed in the Beryslav district of Kherson in the last 24 hours. Citing Volodymyr Litvinov, head of the Beryslav district administration, it reported:

During the day, the Russian army shelled four communities of the Beryslav district. Residents’ residential buildings and outbuildings were damaged. Two people were killed in the village of Zmiivka, and one was injured in Tyahynka.

Facebook allowed an exiled Moldovan oligarch with ties to the Kremlin to run ads calling for protests and uprisings against the pro-western government, even though he and his political party were on US sanctions lists, Associated Press reports.

The ads featuring exiled opposition politician Ilan Shor were ultimately removed by Facebook but not before they were seen millions of times in Moldova.

Seeking to exploit anger over inflation and rising fuel prices, the paid posts from Shor’s political party targeted the government of pro-western president, Maia Sandu, who earlier this week detailed what she said was a Russian plot to topple her government using external saboteurs.

“Destabilisation attempts are a reality and for our institutions, they represent a real challenge,” Sandu said Thursday as she swore in a new government led by pro-western prime minister, Dorin Recean, her former defence and security adviser.

The ads reveal how Russia and its allies have exploited lapses by social media platforms – like Facebook, many of them operated by US companies – to spread propaganda and disinformation that weaponises economic and social insecurity in an attempt to undermine governments in eastern Europe.

Moldova borders Ukraine, and the pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria is sandwiched between the two.

China’s President Xi Jinping will deliver a peace speech on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Italy’s foreign minister said on Friday, citing top diplomat Wang Yi.

Wang Yi “told me that Xi will make a peace speech on the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine” on 24 February, Reuters reports minister Antonio Tajani told Italian radio RAI, the day after he met the top Chinese diplomat in Rome.

The UK Ministry of Defence says that as many as 60,000 Russian forces may have been killed just under a year of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and that the casualty rate “has significantly increased since September 2022 when ‘partial mobilisation’ was imposed”.

Convict recruits used by Wagner may have has a casualty rate of one in every two men.

Wagner chief blames ‘bureaucracy’ for slowing military gains

The head of Russia’s mercenary outfit Wagner said on Thursday it could take months to capture the embattled Ukraine city of Bakhmut and slammed Moscow’s “monstrous bureaucracy” for slowing military gains.

Russia has been trying to encircle and capture the battered industrial city ahead of 24 February, the first anniversary of what it terms its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“I think it’s [going to be in] March or in April,” Wagner head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said in one of several messages posted online.

“To take Bakhmut you have to cut all supply routes. It’s a significant task,” he said, adding: “Progress is not going as fast as we would like.

“Bakhmut would have been taken before the New Year, if not for our monstrous military bureaucracy.”

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in his nightly video address on Thursday that his priority at the moment is to hold off Russian attacks and get ready for an eventual Ukrainian counter-offensive.

“Holding the situation at the front and preparing for any enemy steps of escalation – that is the priority for the near future,” he said.

Nato alliance officials this week discussed the need for more military hardware for Kyiv, and Britain and Poland agreed after their leaders met on Thursday that support should be stepped up.

US officials have advised Ukraine to hold off with any counter-offensive until the latest supply of US weaponry is in place and training has been provided.

Last year’s gathering took place days before the war began. As Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders, western leaders in Munich urged President Vladimir Putin not to invade and warned of dire consequences if he did.

This year, leaders will grapple with the consequences of Putin’s decision to ignore their pleas and unleash the most devastating war in Europe since the second world war that has killed countless thousands and forced millions to flee.

Russian leaders will be notable by their absence at the conference, which runs until Sunday, but senior Ukrainian officials are expected to address it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address his priority was to hold off Russian attacks and get ready for an eventual Ukrainian counter-offensive.

“Holding the situation at the front and preparing for any enemy steps of escalation – that is the priority for the near future,” he said.

Nato alliance officials this week discussed the need for more military hardware for Kyiv, and Britain and Poland agreed after their leaders met on Thursday that support should be stepped up.

US officials have advised Ukraine to hold off with any counter-offensive until the latest supply of US weaponry is in place and training has been provided.

The Ukraine military’s general staff, in a Thursday evening report, said Russia had also shelled more than two dozen eastern and southern settlements.

There was no word from Russia on the missile strikes or shelling, and Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield reports.

World leaders meet in Munich for security conference

Senior politicians and military leaders from around the world are meeting today in Germany, with Ukrainian officials expected to address the security conference.

Bolstered by tens of thousands of reservists, Russia has intensified ground attacks across southern and eastern Ukraine, and, as the first anniversary of its 24 February invasion nears, a major new Russian offensive appears to be taking shape.

US vice-president Kamala Harris arrives at Munich Airport on 16 February 2023 in Freising, Germany.
US vice-president Kamala Harris arrives at Munich Airport on 16 February 2023 in Freising, Germany. Photograph: Hannes Magerstaedt/Getty Images

Russia rained missiles across Ukraine on Thursday and struck its largest oil refinery. Of at least 36 missiles that Russia fired about 16 were shot down, the air force said, a lower rate than normal.

Ukraine said the barrage included missiles that its air defences cannot shoot down, which will only add urgency to its appeals for more western military support.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and US vice-president Kamala Harris are among many top officials attending the Munich Security Conference.

Summary and welcome

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next while.

Senior politicians and military leaders from around the world will meet today in Germany for the Munich Security Conference, with Ukrainian officials expected to address gathering.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and US vice-president Kamala Harris are among many top officials attending the meeting.

In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:

  • Russia fired Grad rockets and barrel artillery at a residential district in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Thursday, killing three men and two women and wounding nine more, Ukraine’s prosecutor general said. Blurred images of the victims were shared on Telegram by the office of the prosecutor, who said the attack was being investigated as a war crime. “Criminal proceedings have been initiated.”

  • Russia launched a total of 36 air- and sea-based cruise missiles, guided air-to-surface missiles and anti-ship missiles at Ukraine overnight into Thursday, according to Ukrainian officials. At least 16 missiles were shot down by Ukrainian forces, the air force said. Among them, air defences in the south downed eight Kalibr missiles fired from a ship in the Black Sea, the officials said.

  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy has ruled out giving up any Ukrainian territory in a potential peace deal with Russia. In an interview with the BBC, Ukraine’s leader said conceding land would mean Russia could “keep coming back”. Zelenskiy said a predicted spring offensive had already begun but he believed his country’s forces could keep resisting Russia’s advance until they were able to launch a counter-offensive.

  • Bakhmut will fall within a couple of months, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has predicted. In an interview with a pro-war military blogger, Yevgeny Prigozhin forecast Bakhmut would be seized in March or April, depending on how many soldiers Ukraine commits to its defence and how well his own troops are supplied.

  • Russia’s overnight bombardment did not have a major impact on power, Ukraine’s energy minister said. German Galushchenko said Ukraine was meeting consumer demand for the fifth successive day. The national power grid operator, Ukrenergo, said it saw no need to introduce emergency power outages to conserve supplies.

  • Critical infrastructure was damaged in Russian strikes on the Lviv region in Ukraine’s west, the regional state administration’s head, Maksym Kozytskyi, reported on Telegram, adding there were no casualties.

  • Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine had returned 101 prisoners of war to Russia following talks, state-run media reported. Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said 100 troops and one civilian had been returned to Ukraine. Nearly all had been defending the southern city of Mariupol before it fell to Russian forces, he said.

  • Russia has “definitely changed tactics” by using decoy missiles without explosive warheads and deploying balloons to fool Ukraine’s air defences, according to a senior Ukrainian official. The goal of the decoy missiles was to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defence systems by offering too many targets, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told Associated Press.

  • Russian sortie rates have increased over the past week following several weeks of quieter activity, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has reported. Air activity is “now roughly in line with the average daily rate seen since summer 2022”, its latest intelligence update reads.

  • Russia “continues to introduce large numbers of troops” on to the battlefield in Ukraine, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said. Those troops were “ill-equipped and ill-trained” and, as a result, Russian forces were “incurring a lot of casualties and we expect that that will continue”, he told reporters in Estonia.

  • Neither Russia nor Ukraine is likely to achieve their military aims, according to Gen Mark Milley, chair of the US joint chiefs of staff. In an interview with the Financial Times, Milley said he believed the war would end at the negotiating table. The Pentagon was re-examining its weapons stockpiles and may need to boost military spending after seeing how quickly ammunition has been used during the war in Ukraine, he added.

  • Belarus will fight alongside ally Russia if another country launches an attack against it, President Alexander Lukashenko has said, adding that he planned to meet the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Friday.