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2022-07-04T05:05:34Z | Europe at risk of recession amid concerns Russia could cut gas supplies | Europe faces a rising risk of recession because of rising oil and gas prices amid concerns that Russia could turn off supplies completely, economists have said.
Europe’s economy will be hit by a variety of factors including falling demand in the US – its biggest export market – the continued fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and related increases in food and energy prices, according to Nomura, a Japanese investment bank with significant operations in London.
Nomura said it expected the European economy to start contracting over the course of the second half of 2022 and for the recession to continue until the summer of 2023, with a total decline of 1.7% of GDP.
Energy prices had already surged in the second half of 2021 as leading economies lifted coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added an extra layer of difficulty, as the EU, the US and UK have sought to isolate Russia economically. Europe is still heavily reliant on Russia for its energy supply, and Vladimir Putin has responded to sanctions by slowing gas supplies.
Russia has cut gas supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany and the TurkStream pipeline to Bulgaria, and has shut off supplies to Poland via the Yamal pipeline.
Europe is struggling with “conditions that are very much global in nature (surging energy prices and inflation, rising geopolitical risks and uncertainty), which leads us to believe that European economies will suffer the same fate – recession – as the US,” wrote George Buckley, a Nomura economist. Inflation in the eurozone hit an annual rate of 8.6% in June, the highest since the bloc was created in 1999.
Analysts at JP Morgan Chase, the US investment bank, said last week that Russia could also cause “stratospheric” oil price increases if it used output cuts to retaliate against efforts to cap prices by the G7 group of large economies. Analysts including Natasha Kaneva wrote that prices could more than triple to $380 (£314) a barrel if Russia cut production by 5m barrels a day. One barrel of Brent crude oil for September delivery was worth $111 at the end of last week on futures markets.
“It is likely that the [Russian] government could retaliate by cutting output as a way to inflict pain on the west,” wrote JP Morgan’s analysts. “The tightness of the global oil market is on Russia’s side.”
Kay Neufeld and Jonas Keck, economists at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had created “a veritable pan-European crisis” and said there was a least a two in five chance of a European recession.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is particularly vulnerable because of Russia’s control over the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. The pipeline is scheduled to close for a 10-day period starting on 11 July for planned annual maintenance. The German economy minister, Robert Habeck, told German media last week that the government feared Russia would decline to reopen the pipeline, a move that could cause shortages over the winter.
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“It seems clear that in the case of European gas shortages, a severe recession will be a near certainty,” wrote Neufeld and Keck. “This is because European countries are linked to each other not only via energy interconnectors but also through highly integrated supply chains.
“A tight gas supply will lead to further increases in energy prices for consumers, adding to inflationary pressures and claiming an even greater share of households’ disposable income, which is a recession risk in itself.”
European countries that are dependent on Russian gas are racing to find alternative supplies. The German government is hoping that two floating terminals that can accept liquid natural gas will be in operation this winter.
While the UK does not directly import gas from Russia, European shortages could still exacerbate the cost of living crisis by raising the price of gas on open markets. That would force the UK to pay more, a cost likely to be reflected in bills for consumers and businesses. Nomura has forecast a UK GDP decline of 1.5% during an expected recession. |
2022-07-03T12:11:53Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 130 of the invasion | Russia claims it has taken full control of Lysychansk, the eastern Ukraine city that had become Ukraine’s last major stronghold in the Luhansk region. The defence ministry reportedly made the announcement on Sunday, after initially stating the area had been encircled.
Ukraine’s defence ministry has denied the claims, saying that the city was not under “full control” of Russia. But spokesman Yuriy Sak added that if the entire Donbas region were to fall, it would not be “game over” for Ukraine.
It comes after an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the loss of Ukraine’s last large bastion in Luhansk was “indeed a threat”. Oleksiy Arestovych added: “I do not rule out any one of a number of outcomes here. Things will become much more clear within a day or two.”
Former British army chief Lord Dannatt said “meaningful negotiations” could arise out of Russia potentially taking full control of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. His comments came before the Russian defence ministry reportedly claimed to have taken full control of Lysychansk, the last major Ukrainian stronghold in the region.
At least three people were killed and dozens of residential buildings damaged in the Russian city of Belgorod on Sunday, the region’s governor said, after reports of several blasts in the city near the Ukrainian border. Vyacheslav Gladkov said at least 11 apartment buildings and 39 residential houses were damaged, including five houses destroyed. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports and there was no immediate reaction from Ukraine. Gladkov said earlier on the Telegram messaging app: “Reasons for the incident are being investigated. Presumably, the air defence system worked.”
The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has claimed Ukraine attempted to strike military facilities on Belarusian territory. Reuters, citing the state-run Belta news agency, reported that Lukashenko said – without providing evidence – that Ukrainian armed forces tried to strike facilities in Belarus three days ago but the missiles were intercepted. He claimed Ukraine was attempting to provoke Belarus but his country did not plan to intervene in the conflict.
Rescue workers have recovered as many as 29 body fragments amid the rubble of deadly Russian missile strikes on a shopping centre in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, Ukraine’s state emergency service said. At least 19 people were killed on Monday after two Russian X-22 cruise missiles hit a crowded shopping centre in Kremenchuk, officials said.
The British government has condemned the exploitation of prisoners of war as two more British men held by Russian proxies in east Ukraine and charged with “mercenary activities” could face the death penalty. Andrew Hill of Plymouth and Dylan Healy of Huntingdon were reported to have been charged with “forcible seizure of power” and undergoing “terrorist” training, according to a state news agency in Russian-controlled Donetsk.
A series of recent assassination attempts targeting pro-Russian officials suggests a growing resistance movement against Russian-backed authorities occupying parts of southern Ukraine, according to US officials. The resistance could grow into a wider counterinsurgency that would pose a significant challenge to Russia’s ability to control captured Ukrainian territories, CNN cited officials as saying. |
2022-07-25T10:05:10Z | Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 152 of the invasion | The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has said Russia’s war against Ukraine is also a “war against the unity of Europe”. “We must not let ourselves be divided, we must not let the great work of a united Europe that we have begun so promisingly be destroyed,” he said in a speech in the western German city of Paderborn. “This war is not just about the territory of Ukraine, it is about the double shared foundation of our values and our order of peace.” |
2022-03-28T10:21:51Z | What fantasies of a coup in Russia ignore | Rajan Menon | Vladimir Putin’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine aimed at toppling the Kyiv government – based on the preposterous claim that it’s run by “neo-Nazis” – has produced Europe’s worst war in a generation, and it has taken a terrible toll on civilians. The Russian armed forces have hit hospitals, apartment buildings, a shopping center and a theater that was serving as a shelter. The immense suffering has been made worse by sieges, above all the one around Mariupol, large parts of which have also been reduced to rubble.
The war has also forced millions from their homes. The UN high commissioner for refugees reports that more than 3.7 million Ukrainians have fled their homeland and that another 6.7 million have been internally displaced. The two figures together – children account for nearly half the total – comprise 20% of Ukraine’s population.
The shock and outrage at these and other dreadful consequences of Putin’s invasion are understandable, indeed appropriate. Animus toward Putin and the desire to make him pay a steep price, without delay, are running deep in the west, so much so that some believe that war cannot end so long as he remains in power.
Some American foreign policy specialists welcomed the prospects of regime change in Russia, while others opined that it should be the objective of US policy – or said so only to backpedal once critics weighed in. Not one for subtlety, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina declared that the war in Ukraine won’t end until someone in Russia decides to “take this guy out” and followed up by saying that the only solution was for Russians to “rise up” and, referring to the 2011 uprisings in the Arab world, create a “Russian spring”. Carl Bildt, a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden, averred that peace in Europe requires regime change in Russia.
Although the Biden administration has disavowed regime change, its direct appeals to the Russian people are an obvious attempt to turn them against their government. President Biden’s off-script remark, during a visit to Poland following the 24 March Nato summit, that Putin “cannot remain in power” gave rise to speculation about his Russia policy and left his team scrambling to explain that toppling Putin was in fact not one of its goals.
Protests in Russia against Putin’s war, criticisms of it by prominent Russian tycoons and celebrities, and growing evidence that western economic sanctions are making Russians’ quotidian life much harder – because of shortages of basic necessities and rising prices – may strengthen the belief that this is the moment to bring Putin, and perhaps even his authoritarian political system, down.
Let’s assume for a moment that Putin does fall. What happens next?
One possibility: a new authoritarian leader replaces him, winds down the war in Ukraine in order to save Russia’s economy from disaster, and eventually seeks to repair the rupture with the west. Yet any successor to Putin who emerges from Russia’s current political order is more likely to share his animus toward Nato, and the west more generally, as well as his proprietorial attitude toward Ukraine. He – it’s certain to be a man – may continue the war, using different tactics, for fear that a defeat could imperil his position even before he has time to solidify it.
A second outcome might be that Russians, weary of the war and enraged by the economic pain created by western sanctions, rise up and overthrow their government, eventually clearing a path to democracy. But a rebellion could fail, so those who hope for this result must ask themselves if it’s responsible to encourage a mass revolt when they are in no position to protect protesters from the massive repressive machinery at Putin’s disposal.
There’s a third plausible scenario. Unrest in Russia segues into prolonged chaos, even a civil war pitting those who have a huge stake in the survival of the existing political order against their opponents who want to consign it to history’s rubbish heap. That could produce political turmoil, bloodletting, and a disarray in the world’s only other nuclear superpower – one that extends from Europe to the Pacific Ocean, has an area nearly twice that of the United States and land borders with 14 countries.
Theories of nuclear stability have always assumed that the countries that deter one another remain stable. We have no conceptual framework for understanding, let alone experience coping with, anarchy in a nuclear-armed country.
Can proponents of regime change in Russia be certain that the denouement will be the one they have in mind and are confident about? The dismal record of the United States and its allies in predicting the results of the regime changes they precipitated – in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya – are grounds for caution, not least because the consequences of getting this particular attempt wrong might prove disastrous. |
2022-06-10T10:10:50Z | Burger and two fries? Russia unveils logo as it replaces McDonald’s | The replacement for McDonald’s in Russia has unveiled its new logo, ahead of a grand reopening on Sunday. The reopening is timed to coincide with Russia Day, marking the creation of the federation, at the very same location in Moscow’s Pushkin Square where McDonald’s first opened in Russia in 1990.
Then it was seen as a potent symbol of the opening up of the old Soviet economy to western companies, but now more than 1,000 former McDonald’s restaurants in Russia will be part of a new chain, partly as a result of western sanctions on economic activity with Russia.
Workers use a crane to dismantle a McDonald’s ‘golden arch’ in the town of Kingisepp in the Leningrad region. Photograph: Anton Vaganov/Reuters
The new logo features a burger and two french fries in the shape of an M, although the name of the new brand is yet to be revealed.
Critics of the new logo have pointed out its similarity to that of the Marriott hotel chain, which operates in Russia. One person on social media described it as “the Marriott hotel logo crossed with the flag of Bangladesh”.
According to reports from Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, the McDonald’s app in Russia has been renamed as “My Burger”. The agency was informed that this was a temporary name, to comply with the requirement to remove the McDonald’s brand.
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In what will be seen as another sign of western economic sanctions impacting on the Russian economy, Reuters reports Russia’s industry ministry expects car sales to halve in 2022 as the country’s automobile industry grapples with supply issues.
Tigran Parsadanyan, deputy head of the ministry’s automotive and railway engineering department, said on Thursday: “We saw a sharp fall in April and May. We expect that some 750,000 cars will be sold on the market by the end of the year.”
That figure represents a 51% drop in sales year-on-year. |
2022-02-28T16:58:36Z | Switzerland adopts wholesale EU sanctions against Russia | Switzerland, a bastion of neutrality through two world wars, has decided to adopt wholesale swingeing EU sanctions against Russia, potentially freezing billions of dollars in assets and further increasing the pressure on the Russian economy. Swiss national bank data showed that Russian companies and individuals held assets worth more than $11bn in Swiss banks in 2020.
The Federal Council also announced it had banned five oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin from entering the country. Flights from Russia are being banned, although this will not apply to flights carrying diplomats.
Switzerland had until now adopted very limited measures, including barring Swiss companies from taking on new business with three Russian oligarchs named by the EU as sanctions targets last week. Switzerland is obliged by law to adopt UN sanctions but has a choice over how it responds to EU measures. Its refusal to do more last week was heavily criticised by the EU for letting neutrality and Swiss banking laws become complicity.
The Swiss president, Ignazio Cassis, said it was possible a precedent had been set, but added: “Never since the second world war has the rights of one country been so violated by another. You cannot stand aside. To play into the hands of an aggressor is not neutral.” He insisted it did not mean Switzerland’s role as an active mediator was over.
The government is not imposing a ban on commodity trading. Nearly 80% of Russian commodity trading takes place virtually via financial service centres in Switzerland. Russian energy and raw materials groups such as Gazprom and Russian state banks have major branches in Switzerland.
The new steps are qualitatively different from anything Switzerland has done previously to shackle Russia, partly because the measures adopted by the EU itself are so sweeping. It is not clear if Russia’s Central Bank holds large foreign reserves in Switzerland, but the country no longer becomes a haven for Russian cash.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Swiss-based global financial umbrella body nicknamed the “bank for central banks”, has said it will not be an avenue for any circumvention of western sanctions placed on Russia for invading Ukraine.
More than 20,000 people marched though Berne on Sunday in protest at the invasion, and the Swiss socialist party had urged the executive Federal Council to take stronger measures.
Last week, Ignazio Cassis condemned Russian aggression in a strongly worded statement, but he has been trying to balance calls for sanctions with the country’s traditional commitment to neutrality.
Formally, the measures do not undermine that widely supported neutrality principle, as Switzerland says it is acting in defence of international law, but Moscow is hardly likely to accept that explanation.
Meanwhile Finland has taken the “historic” decision to supply weapons to Ukraine, the country’s government announced. Finland is a member of the EU but not of Nato, although it does have partnership status with the US-led military alliance.
Switzerland did not adopt the EU’s sanctions after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, citing the work it was doing through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help bring about a ceasefire.
Germany and Sweden have similarly found longstanding political shibboleths challenged by Russia’s actions.
Switzerland, alongside London, is probably the single biggest home for Russian oligarchs seeking to house their cash. Attracted to the country’s strict banking secrecy laws, Russians held nearly 10.4bn Swiss francs ($11.24bn) in Switzerland in 2020, Swiss National Bank data shows.
The government said on Friday that financial “intermediaries” in Switzerland were now banned from starting new business relationships with 363 Russian people and four Russian companies. Any existing business must be reported to the Swiss economic affairs secretariat. Further steps are under consideration.
The Swiss embassy in Moscow reported last year that “Switzerland has for years been by far the most important destination worldwide for rich Russians to manage their wealth,” and that net transfers by Russian taxpayers to Switzerland totalled $2.5bn in 2020.
The Swiss government represents the interests of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in Moscow and Russia’s interests in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, under an arrangement set up after those two countries broke off bilateral ties during their conflict in 2008.
On Sunday the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked his Swiss counterpart to act as a neutral mediator between Ukraine and Russia and help work towards a ceasefire, notably in the context of a Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva opening on Monday. |
2022-07-02T00:48:09Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 129 of the invasion | The UK government has condemned the exploitation of prisoners of war after two more British men held by Russian proxies in east Ukraine and charged with “mercenary activities” could face the death penalty. Andrew Hill of Plymouth and Dylan Healy of Huntingdon were reported to have been charged with “forcible seizure of power” and undergoing “terrorist” training, according to a state news agency in Russian-controlled Donetsk. |
2022-04-22T00:07:55Z | Seven die in fire at Russia defence institute – reports | Seven people have been killed after a huge fire broke out at a key Russian defence research institute in Tver, north-west of Moscow, according to reports.
Local authorities said 25 people had also been injured in Thursday’s fire, Tass news agency reported, citing emergency services, and that at least 10 people were missing.
The death toll was initially put at five but Tass said it had increased to seven.
“We confirm a number of seven deaths at the moment,” Tass cited the source as saying. It added that the number of casualties could increase.
Firefighters hose down the burning building of the Central Research Institute of the Aerospace Defense Forces in the Russian city of Tver Photograph: Vitaliy Smolnikov/AP
The fire erupted in an administrative building of the aerospace defence forces’ central research institute, which operates under the Russian defence ministry. It quickly engulfed the building’s upper three floors, forcing those inside to jump from windows and causing the roof to cave in.
Photographs of the main building showed it completely gutted by fire. Video footage from the scene, which is about 160km (100 miles) north-west of Moscow, showed thick smoke and flames billowing from the institute’s windows.
BREAKING: Massive Fire at #Russia’s Air-Space Defense Research Institute in Tver, 110 mile/180Km NW of Moscow.
RT reporting at least one killed and 16 injured. Cause unknown: pic.twitter.com/E2xCHEkuJR — Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) April 21, 2022
The incident was followed hours later by unconfirmed reports of a fire at one of Russia’s largest chemical plants.
Images on social media purported to show a large fire at the Dmitrievsky chemical plant in Kinsehma about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Moscow.
They showed smoke billowing from the facility, which describes itself on its website as the largest producer of butyl acetate and industrial solvents in Russia and eastern Europe.
There was no official cause given for either of the fires.
Initial reports said regional military prosecutors were investigating the cause of the blaze in Tver. The state-run news agency Tass said early findings pointed to ageing wiring as a contributing factor.
The defence institute is engaged in aerospace research, including on a unified air defence system for the CIS bloc of former Soviet republics, according to the Russian defence ministry’s website. |
2022-06-10T10:10:50Z | Burger and two fries? Russia unveils logo as it replaces McDonald’s | The replacement for McDonald’s in Russia has unveiled its new logo, ahead of a grand reopening on Sunday. The reopening is timed to coincide with Russia Day, marking the creation of the federation, at the very same location in Moscow’s Pushkin Square where McDonald’s first opened in Russia in 1990.
Then it was seen as a potent symbol of the opening up of the old Soviet economy to western companies, but now more than 1,000 former McDonald’s restaurants in Russia will be part of a new chain, partly as a result of western sanctions on economic activity with Russia.
Workers use a crane to dismantle a McDonald’s ‘golden arch’ in the town of Kingisepp in the Leningrad region. Photograph: Anton Vaganov/Reuters
The new logo features a burger and two french fries in the shape of an M, although the name of the new brand is yet to be revealed.
Critics of the new logo have pointed out its similarity to that of the Marriott hotel chain, which operates in Russia. One person on social media described it as “the Marriott hotel logo crossed with the flag of Bangladesh”.
According to reports from Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, the McDonald’s app in Russia has been renamed as “My Burger”. The agency was informed that this was a temporary name, to comply with the requirement to remove the McDonald’s brand.
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In what will be seen as another sign of western economic sanctions impacting on the Russian economy, Reuters reports Russia’s industry ministry expects car sales to halve in 2022 as the country’s automobile industry grapples with supply issues.
Tigran Parsadanyan, deputy head of the ministry’s automotive and railway engineering department, said on Thursday: “We saw a sharp fall in April and May. We expect that some 750,000 cars will be sold on the market by the end of the year.”
That figure represents a 51% drop in sales year-on-year. |
2022-06-07T17:28:59Z | Pro-Russia officials open trial against Britons captured fighting in Ukraine | Russian proxy fighters in east Ukraine have said they are opening a trial against two Britons, Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, who were captured fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol.
The two men, who are serving in the Ukrainian military, and Ibrahim Saadun, a captive from Morocco, were shown sitting in a courtroom cage reserved for defendants in a video released on pro-Russian social media channels on Tuesday.
Prosecutors from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, a proxy government in east Ukraine controlled by Russia, have said that the men face the death penalty for “terrorism” and for fighting as “mercenaries” against the Russian invasion.
Aslin and his fellow defendants have said they were regular soldiers fighting in the Ukrainian military and should be treated as prisoners of war.
If the images from the courtroom are confirmed, the men would be the first Ukrainian soldiers to be tried by pro-Russian forces in what observers say could be a series of show trials meant to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Do you know the information in your indictment?” an interpreter asked Aslin, 28, from Newark, Nottinghamshire. “Tak tochno,” he replied, a military response meaning “affirmative”. Shaun Pinner, 48, from Watford and Bedfordshire, also said he understood the charges against him.
Russian officials have threatened to hold military tribunals they have called “Nuremberg 2.0”, meant to mirror war crimes trials being held in Kyiv for atrocities committed by invading Russian soldiers. Observers say the trials may be deliberately constructed to put maximum pressure on the west and to prompt prisoner exchanges for Russian soldiers captured and tried in Ukraine.
In a statement, Aslin’s family asked for privacy from the media. “This is a very sensitive and emotional time for our family, and we would like to say thank you to all that have supported us,” they said.
“We are currently working with the Ukrainian government and the Foreign Office to try and bring Aiden home. Aiden is a much-loved man and very much missed, and we hope that he will be released very soon.”
Ukraine has sentenced three Russian soldiers to prison for war crimes tied to the Russian offensive that began on 24 February. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was sentenced to life in prison for killing a 62-year-old civilian in Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region early in the war. And two soldiers, Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov, were each sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for shelling attacks on population centres that “violated the laws and customs of war”.
Prosecutors said Aslin and his co-defendants were charged with four separate offences: committing a crime as part of a criminal group; forcible seizure of power or forcible retention of power; being a mercenary; and the promotion of training in terrorist activities.
But the two men were serving in Ukraine’s marines while taking part in the defence of Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks. Aslin, who had previous volunteered with a Kurdish militia against Islamic State fighters, ran a popular Twitter account and had been pictured being sworn into the Ukrainian armed forces.
Nonetheless, both men have been paraded before television cameras since they surrendered alongside hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in May after months spent in a desperate defence of the Ukrainian steelworks.
Andrew Hill, 35, a father of four from Plymouth, was also captured during fighting in southern Ukraine. |
2022-07-02T00:48:09Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 129 of the invasion | The UK government has condemned the exploitation of prisoners of war after two more British men held by Russian proxies in east Ukraine and charged with “mercenary activities” could face the death penalty. Andrew Hill of Plymouth and Dylan Healy of Huntingdon were reported to have been charged with “forcible seizure of power” and undergoing “terrorist” training, according to a state news agency in Russian-controlled Donetsk. |
2022-04-19T10:55:24Z | Police scout for pro-Russian collaborators in eastern Ukraine | Oleksandr Malish, the patrol police chief for the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk in the Donetsk region, is reluctant to call people suspected of collaborating with Russia Ukrainians.
“I cannot even call these people Ukrainians, even though they have Ukrainian passports and were born here and lived here all their lives,” said Malish. “These are not professional spies who were trained in Moscow and sent here.”
The two cities he oversees are in the pocket of the Donetsk region still controlled by Ukraine but surrounded by Russian forces on three sides. Part of his team’s job is rooting out and detaining suspected collaborators. Pro-Russian feeling still exists, he said, especially among marginalised sections of the population.
Malish said there were pro-Russia Telegram groups with the “Z” branding that were targeting residents. The administrator of the Telegram group would put out a notice asking for coordinates or photos of a certain place in exchange for money. When a person sent the “goods” to the administrator, they received up to £500 on their bank card, Malish said.
Oleksandr Malish, patrol police chief for the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. Photograph: Ed Ram/The Guardian
He said his team had found evidence of such Telegram exchanges and bank transfers on the phones of “numerous” suspected collaborators they had detained. He said declined to say exactly how many.
The Guardian was not able to find the Telegram groups Malish described. But it did find public Telegram groups for Kramatorsk and Slovyansk with “Z” branding that carry pro-Russia messaging about the war.
The groups have about 15,000 subscribers. The Guardian was not able to confirm that they were all genuine residents of the two cities and neighbouring villages, though some appeared to be.
Malish said police were asked by residents to inspect a man on Saturday. When they searched his phone, he said, they saw he had received about £400 from a Russian bank account on 8 April. As the man was not able to explain the transfer, and the Kramatorsk railway station was hit the same day, they decided to detain him as a suspect.
More than half the cities’ populations have left. According to one lieutenant patrol officer on duty, Ihor Yunusov, this makes it easier for the police to identify suspicious behaviour. “If before there could be 500 people on the main square in the evening, now there are around 10,” Yunusov said.
Damage from a double rocket attack apparently intended for the Kramatorsk regional security services headquarters. Photograph: Ed Ram/The Guardian
Driving around Kramatorsk, the police struggled to find cars or people to inspect in the deserted city. Instead, they took the Guardian to see the damage from a double rocket attack apparently intended for the Kramatorsk regional security services headquarters.
One of the rockets was caught by Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems and exploded between the security services building and an apartment block. The second rocket, which hit in succession, landed in a children’s nursery empty because of the war.
One of the three officers on patrol that day, Volodymyr Filonenko, lived in one of the 40 buildings that were damaged in the two attacks. Filonenko had just evacuated his wife and two children from the building. |
2022-07-01T13:00:12Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 128 of the invasion | Ursula von der Leyen has told Ukraine that there is “a long road ahead” for its bid to become a European Union member, but that “Europe will be at your side every step of the way”. In a speech via video link to Ukraine’s parliament this morning, the president of the European Commission said “There is a long road ahead but Europe will be at your side every step of the way, for as long as it takes, from these dark days of war until the moment you cross the door that leads into our European Union.” |
2022-02-24T19:54:49Z | War in Ukraine: where has Russia attacked? | Russia’s attack on Ukraine began at about 5am local time, with multiple missile and air raids and a three-pronged invasion from the north, east and south that appeared to be targeting the capital, Kyiv, and the cities of Kharkiv and Kherson respectively.
Hostomel airbase
As of Thursday evening, a fierce battle for the strategic airbase close to Kyiv appeared to be continuing after Russian helicopters and airborne troops attempted to establish a bridgehead outside the city.
Videos on social media – among the most dramatic to have emerged since the invasion began – depicted a swarm of Russian Ka-52 and Mi8 helicopters descending on the Antonov military airfield.
Ukraine said it had downed three helicopters in the initial assault, but a lunchtime report from CNN showed Russian forces in control of at least some of the base. Shortly after, however, Ukraine’s armed forces chief said Kyiv’s forces were fighting back in a critical early battle.
Justin Bronk, of the Rusi thinktank, said if airborne assault troops could take and hold the airbase, the Russians could use it to rapidly build up forces ahead of heavy ground troops to put pressure on the capital. “However, it’s high risk because until ground forces link up, the airborne assault forces are deep in Ukrainian territory and dependent on aerial resupply, casualty evacuation and fire support,” he said.
Chernobyl and the north
A Ukrainian presidential adviser said Ukraine had lost control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in the north, where fighting raged after Russian troops crossed the border from Belarus. The adviser said authorities did not know the current condition of the facilities at the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Ukraine’s interior ministry warned that if artillery fire was to hit waste stored after the 1986 disaster, it could lead to “radioactive nuclear dust” being spread “over the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and the countries of the EU”.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone lies directly in the path of what western experts believe is the principal invasion route from Belarus to the west of Kyiv, where Ukraine’s presidential palace and key buildings are located.
Russian troops also advanced from the north on the city of Chernihiv. One axis of advance appears to have centred around the Senkivka border crossing to the north-east of Chernihiv. Crucial, perhaps, in this calculation is the fact that south of Chernihiv – which lies to the east of the Dnieper river – lies the E95 highway to Kyiv.
Russian military vehicles crossing at the Senkivka border crossing. Photograph: Ukraine border guard
Kharkiv and the east
A substantial attack appeared aimed towards the eastern city of Kharkiv, which has a population of more than 1 million. Multiple reports from Kharkiv described explosions nearby – while Ukraine’s defence ministry said mid-morning that “fierce fights” were taking place in that area.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defence minister, said Russian forces were trying to surround Kharkiv. “It seems like Kharkiv at the moment is the main target,” he said.
Kherson and the south
Russian forces heading north into Ukraine from Crimea were not meeting any obvious resistance, at least initially. Border guards released security camera footage on Thursday showing a line of Russian military vehicles crossing into Ukraine’s government-held territory from Russian-annexed Crimea.
Social media footage appeared to show Russian forces reaching the city of Kherson on the Dnieper, 80 miles (130km) inside Ukraine. Shortly after, around lunchtime, the presidential adviser said fierce fighting was taking place there.
Film posted online was said to show Russian helicopters over the nearby Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. Russian forces had also moved north-eastwards from Crimea to Melitopol, where the presidential adviser said they would meet resistance.
Zagorodnyuk said: “They are quite close to the city of Kherson now. The situation is really critical there.”
Missile strikes
Air and missile strikes appear so far to be mostly focused on military targets, including an air defence site in the frontier down of Mariupol, the Ukrainian naval base in Ochakiv and an arms depot in Kalynivka, 124 miles (200km) south-west of Kyiv, according to the defence intelligence specialists Rochan Consulting.
Smoke rises from an air defence base in the aftermath of a strike in Mariupol. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had destroyed 74 “objects of above-ground military infrastructure”, though this could not be confirmed. The US said it believed Russia launched 100 missiles and used 75 aircraft in the first wave of bombing.
Casualties
Information on casualties has been hard to verify, though on Thursday evening Ukraine’s health minister said 57 people had been killed and 169 injured.
Ukraine’s armed forces earlier reported that at least 40 soldiers had died. The Ukrainian presidential adviser said up to 10 civilians had been killed. The mayor of Mariupol said three civilians had been killed there and emergency services in Kharkiv said a boy had been killed after shelling struck an apartment building. The local administration in Odesa said 22 people had died in a strike on a military base.
How the militaries compare
Russia has amassed more than 150,000 combat troops on the borders of Ukraine, with a further 34,000 lightly armed separatist forces in the pro-Russian self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk. That amounts to an estimated two-thirds of Russia’s total ground forces. Half of Moscow’s air force is also deployed in the region.
Ukraine’s forces are considerably smaller. It has a regular army that numbers 125,600, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, but has mobilised reserves of at least 36,000.
Some of the Russian ambition has been aimed explicitly at demoralising Ukrainian civilians with the reach of the offensive. While much of the initial barrage was aimed at the east of Ukraine, so far, more sporadic strikes on cities in the west, from Uman to Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, seem designed to demonstrate the reach of Russian weapons. |
2022-04-19T11:01:26Z | Russia takes Donbas town but Ukrainian frontline ‘still holding’ | Russia’s large-scale offensive to seize the Donbas region was under way on Tuesday when troops overran the city of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine and began advancing towards the strategic Ukrainian military hub of Kramatorsk.
The regional governor said Ukrainian soldiers had abandoned Kreminna, a city of more than 18,000 people, after it came under ferocious Russian attack. The assault took place “from all sides”, he said. It is the first victory for Moscow since its battle for the Donbas began on Monday.
“Kreminna is under the control of the ‘Orcs’ [Russians]. They have entered the city,” Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, told a briefing. “Our defenders had to withdraw. They have entrenched themselves in new positions and continue to fight the Russian army.”
Haidai said it was “impossible” to know how many civilians had been killed: “We have official statistics – about 200 dead – but in reality there are many more.” He said that “street fighting” was taking place, with four people shot by Russians as they tried to escape by car.
The city had already been pulverised by extensive Russian shelling. It is located close to territory held by pro-Moscow separatists. Russian forces are now creeping towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, 40 miles (60km) south-east.
Meanwhile in the south, Moscow is edging closer to full control of Mariupol in what would be its biggest prize since it invaded Ukraine in February. Relentless bombardment and street fighting have left much of the city pulverised, killing at least 21,000 people by Ukrainian estimates.
On Tuesday evening, according to reports that could not be independently verified by the Guardian, the Russian defence ministry offered a ceasefire for Wednesday to the outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers holed up with thousands of civilians in the Azovstal iron and steelworks, one of Europe’s biggest metallurgical plants.
Earlier in the day, Russia called on Ukrainian forces to “immediately lay down arms” by issuing a new ultimatum for the defenders to end their resistance, after Ukrainian forces ignored a previous ultimatum on Sunday.
In a video address late on Monday night, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the second phase of Vladimir Putin’s invasion had begun – a statement Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, confirmed during a visit to India. “A significant part of the entire Russian army is now concentrated on this offensive,” Zelenskiy said.
Late last month the Kremlin gave up its violent attempt to seize Kyiv. It says its new war goal is to conquer the administrative borders of Luhansk and Donetsk regions. To do so will involve overcoming Ukraine’s experienced and well dug-in eastern army.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a Zelenskiy aide, predicted the new Russian offensive would fail because of insufficient forces to achieve a breakthrough.
Another senior adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said a hubristic Kremlin was making the same mistake as with Kyiv, which it reportedly expected to capture in 72 hours. “Russians love to tell fairytales,” he tweeted sarcastically.
So far, according to Ukrainian officials, the frontline in Ukrainian-controlled Donbas is still holding. Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov described Kreminna in the northern Luhansk region as a “weak spot”.
Moscow’s troops frequently attack Ukrainian positions from all sides, said Zhdanov, and were occupying jumping-off points on three sides of the Donbas region: north, east and south.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, said Russian forces may be able to take some territory because of superior numbers and artillery.
It stressed, however: “Russian operations are unlikely to be dramatically more successful than previous major offensives around Kyiv. The Russian military is unlikely to have addressed the root causes – poor coordination, the inability to conduct cross-country operations, and low morale – that impeded prior offensives.”
In the northern Kharkiv region, Ukrainian forces mounted several successful counterattacks. They recaptured the villages of Bairak and Bobrivka north-east of Kharkiv city, and Hurisivka, another village between Kharkiv and Izyum, where Russia has assembled a formidable attack force.
A destroyed house in the village of Yatskivka, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
On Monday, Oleksandr Motuzianyk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s ministry of defence, said Izyum was the area with the highest concentration of Russian troops.
Izyum, regarded for centuries as the gateway to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and, from there, to the Black Sea, fell fully to Russian forces on 1 April, trapping thousands of civilians in a city where as many as 80% of its residential buildings have been destroyed.
“The enemy has accumulated its forces in Izyum and, unfortunately, has a predominant number of manpower and heavy equipment,” Maksym Strelnyk, the deputy mayor, who managed to leave with thousands of fellow citizens before the town was captured, told the Guardian.
“The Russians are trying to move in the direction of Donetsk region, but there are no serious successes. They are using Izyum as a foothold for the offensive and concentrating all their forces in the city. They set up their barracks, ammunition depots, hospitals, canteens.”
Russian military vehicles on a highway near Mariupol on Monday. Photograph: Alexei Alexandrov/AP
The mayor of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol alleged that about 40,000 civilians had been forcibly moved to Russia or Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine.
“Unfortunately I have to declare that as of today they are forcibly deporting [people],” Vadym Boichenko told Ukrainian TV. “We have verified through the municipal register that they have already deported over 40,000 people.”
01:20 Smoke rises from Mariupol steel factory as Russia continues bombardment – video
The fall of Mariupol, the largest trading port in the Sea of Azov, from which Ukraine exports grain, iron and steel, and heavy machinery, would be an economic blow to Ukraine and a symbolic victory for Russia. The town is a base for Ukrainian armed forces, and serves as a land corridor from the Donbas to Crimea.
If Moscow were to capture Mariupol, it would be the first big city to fall and mark perhaps Russia’s biggest gain of the nearly two-month war. |
2022-05-13T15:55:56Z | WNBA star Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia extended by month | The lawyer for American basketball star Brittney Griner said on Friday that her pre-trial detention in Russia has been extended by one month.
Griner’s lawyer, Alexander Boikov, told the Associated Press he believed the relatively short extension of the detention indicated the case would come to trial soon.
Griner, one of the WNBA league’s biggest stars, has been detained in Russia since arriving at a Moscow airport in mid-February.
Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges that allegedly contained cannabis oil, which could carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
She had arrived in Russia to play professional basketball in the WNBA off-season.
A US embassy consular officer attended Friday’s hearing and spoke to Griner, the state department spokesperson, Ned Price, said.
“The officer was able to confirm that Brittney Griner is doing as well as can be expected under what can only be described as exceedingly difficult circumstances,” Price said.
Images of the athlete showed her at the courthouse with bowed head, her face shielded by her long hair, and wearing an orange hoodie. She had her wrists handcuffed in front of her.
Washington and Moscow have kept diplomatic channels open since Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine, despite the dire state of bilateral relations.
“I want to take a moment to reiterate the WNBA’s support for Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner,” the WNBA commissioner, Cathy Engelbert, said last month.
She added: “Please know that getting her home safely continues to be our top priority and while we are facing an extraordinarily complex challenge, there is strength in community, especially the WNBA.”
The US and Russia agreed a prisoner swap last month that saw the US marine veteran Trevor Reed freed from prison in Russia, where he had been serving a nine-year sentence on assault charges.
He was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who had been serving a 20-year sentence in the United States after being convicted of drug trafficking.
Russia continues to hold Paul Whelan, another US marine veteran who was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage in 2020.
The Biden administration says Griner, 31, is being wrongfully detained. The WNBA and US officials have worked toward her release, without visible progress. |
2022-02-24T16:40:54Z | Can anyone in Russia stop Putin now? | Angus Roxburgh | Western leaders have spent the past 20 years trying to guess what Vladimir Putin “really wants”. Very often, it’s enough just to read his words, very carefully. Because usually he means exactly what he says. And in the case of his early morning television address announcing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, his words and hints about his intentions were truly terrifying.
It would be good to start with his warning to the west not to interfere, because just as people like David Davis call for the west to provide air support to Ukraine, Putin had this to say: “Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history. All the necessary decisions in this regard have been taken.”
There can be little doubt that what he means is that he is prepared to deploy nuclear weapons against any country that takes military action to help Ukraine. He added, with great emphasis: “I hope that my words will be heard.” Apparently not by Davis.
As for Putin’s intentions in Ukraine itself, there was a strong indication that he plans to incorporate the Donbas (including the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions, most of which are still in Ukrainian hands) into the Russian Federation, just as he did with Crimea in 2014. He said that the peoples living in Ukraine (by which he meant the Russians) have the right to make a “free choice”, and added that in 2014 Russia “was obliged to protect the people of Crimea” and that those people then chose to “be with their historic homeland, Russia”. There is no other way to interpret those words than as a threat to annex the eastern regions of Ukraine.
As for his declared intention to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine, it is hard to see how this could be achieved without a wholesale occupation of the country and change of government.
True, Putin denied that his purpose was to occupy Ukraine. But there was a big “but”: there were, he said, “statements” coming from the west to the effect that there was no need any more to “abide by the documents setting forth the outcomes of world war two”. So it’s goodbye Yalta, it seems, as Putin sets about redrawing the map of Europe.
So what hope is there that Putin can be deterred from going this far? Inside Russia, opposition voices have been utterly squashed. Politicians who might have led public protests, such as Alexei Navalny, are in prison, and his entire network of activists has been outlawed. Would-be protesters in Moscow were detained as soon as they left their flats.
The editor of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, who won last year’s Nobel peace prize, put out a desperately sad statement: “President Putin has ordered our country to start a war with Ukraine. And there is nobody to stop this war. For that reason, as well as grief, I feel shame.”
Anyone who watched Monday’s meeting of Putin with his security council will understand Muratov’s despair. This was a gathering of those who in theory advise the president, whose job is to assess options and their outcomes. Not one of them dared step out of line. They knew what Putin wanted them to say and they said it. When the foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, fluffed his lines, he got a tongue-lashing (shown on TV) from the president. A couple of officials did suggest giving diplomacy a few days longer, but they were ignored. Dmitry Medvedev was seen as a flickering light of reason when he swapped the presidency with Putin in 2008-12, but on Monday he too fell into line.
There is, literally, nobody in Russia who can stop this war, because Putin has total control. The ostensibly elected parliament – the Duma and the Federation Council – is full of his placemen. The presidential administration and the foreign ministry almost certainly contain doubters, people who might want to point out that invasion is hardly compatible with the president’s statements about Ukrainians and Russians being “one people”. But I would be astonished if any of them offered to resign.
Can the west stop him? The history of sanctions, ever tougher and more far-reaching, is ignominious. Putin sneers at them, because he will always put his version of what Russia needs for its security above economic considerations. He also has a huge reserve fund to soften the blow.
All wars end in either victory for one side or in a negotiated settlement. Today, the prospect of the latter appears bleak. I find it hard to comprehend why it would have been so wrong to agree to the negotiations Putin wanted last year, to seriously review Europe’s security system, if that had a chance of avoiding the war that has now begun. Surely a neutral Ukraine, safe between its neighbours, would be preferable to war. But the time for that is gone. Putin is now hell-bent on revenge for what he perceives as years of western slights. He alone will decide his neighbour’s fate. |
2022-02-24T06:24:27Z | Thursday briefing: Russia launches attack on Ukraine | Top story: Kremlin invokes ‘demilitarisation’ as excuse
Hello – Warren Murray introducing the news on a day we feared would come.
Russian forces have attacked Ukraine on the orders of Vladimir Putin, who announced what he called a “special military operation” at dawn. Explosions and airstrikes have been heard this morning near major Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, and air raid sirens went off. Our correspondent Luke Harding reported earlier: “At least seven ‘powerful’ airstrikes on Vasilkovsky airport outside Kyiv, where Ukraine’s military fighter bombers are kept, Kyiv command says.” The Ukraine foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, confirmed what he called the “full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes.”
00:54 Ukraine: Russian missile strikes reported in Kharkiv and Kyiv – video
In a bid to justify the invasion, Putin branded Ukraine an “anti-Russia … created on our historic lands” and claimed the campaign was for the “demilitarisation and denazification” of Russia’s neighbour – echoing a false theme of Kremlin propaganda that the Kyiv government is controlled by the far right. Joe Biden said: “The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces. President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.” Boris Johnson said: “I am appalled by the horrific events in Ukraine and I have spoken to President Zelenskiy to discuss next steps. President Putin has chosen a path of bloodshed and destruction by launching this unprovoked attack on Ukraine. The UK and our allies will respond decisively.” Here’s what we know so far about the Russian invasion. Make sure you keep up with the rapid developments in Ukraine at our live blog.
00:43 Russia-Ukraine crisis: Putin orders military operation in Ukraine – video
As Putin was speaking and the first detonations were reported, the UN security council was holding an emergency session, chaired by Russia itself, which holds the rotating presidency, and at which the Russian and Ukrainian representatives traded barbs. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, earlier put out an address appealing directly to the Russian people to “listen to the voice of reason”. Russia’s leadership, he said, was “telling you that this flame will liberate the people of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people are free”. He warned: “If someone attempts to take away our land, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. By attacking, you will see our faces, not our backs, but our faces.”
01:26 'We will defend ourselves' from Russia, says Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in speech– video
With international condemnation growing, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, the commanders-in-chief of the Russian air force and Black Sea fleet, leading state “propagandists” and 351 Duma deputies are expected to be identified in EU sanctions that go further than the US, and further still than Boris Johnson’s Russia sanctions. Larry Elliott thinks that targeting Putin’s regime economically has mixed prospects: “Putin has been actively seeking to insulate Russia from the west ever since the invasion of the Crimea in 2014 … [and] Russia has used the money from its oil and gas exports to build up substantial financial defences. Moscow is sitting on foreign currency reserves of about $500bn (£369bn) and, by international standards, has extremely low levels of national debt.” The latter has a bearing on sanctions that stop Russia issuing or trading its sovereign debt in London and New York: the amount of bonds Russia needs to sell is relatively small.
Europe’s dependence on gas from Russia looms large in all of this, of course. According to calculations by the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne shared with the Guardian, current levels of gas held in European reserves “could compensate for a loss of Russian deliveries” over the next six weeks unless temperatures were to drop dramatically in February or March. The US and other countries have said they are ready to step in with supplies of gas if Russia cuts Europe off.
Another 10 years of debt – Students in England will have to continue paying back university loans over 40 years instead of 30. The number of graduates repaying in full is expected to double from under a quarter to more than half. They will face repayments sooner as the government cuts the wage threshold from £27,295 to £25,000 for new borrowers from September 2023. Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, said: “It’s effectively a lifelong graduate tax for most.” Larissa Kennedy, president of the UK National Union of Students, said ministers were “saddling young people with unimaginable debt for the next 40 years of their lives”.
Student loan repayments for students in England will be extended from 30 to 40 years. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA
In a concession, interest rates on student loans will be slashed for new borrowers and set no higher than the rate of inflation from next year – but Labour’s shadow education secretary accused the government of delivering a stealth tax that hits those on low incomes hardest. The government is also launching consultations on introducing minimum eligibility requirements to access student loans; and a lifelong loan entitlement for the equivalent of four years of post-18 education.
Meat and cancer – Vegetarians have a 14% lower chance of developing cancer than meat eaters, according to a large study by Oxford researchers. Compared with people who eat meat more than five times a week, those who consumed small amounts had a 2% lower risk of cancer. The authors made clear that their findings did not conclusively prove regular meat-eating increased the risk of cancer. Smoking and body fat could also help explain the differences found, they said. Low meat eaters in the study had a 9% lower risk of developing bowel cancer than regular meat eaters. Vegetarian women were 18% less likely than those who ate meat regularly to develop postmenopausal breast cancer, though that may be due to their lower body mass index. Vegetarian men had a 31% lower risk of prostate cancer, while among males who still ate fish it was 20% lower.
Starmer v Sunak – Keir Starmer will today pledge to “reimagine the role of government” as a partner to the private sector and take advantage of the opportunities of Brexit. Speaking in Huddersfield, the Labour leader will promise to value private companies as a partner to the state, and lay into Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives for “increasing taxes more than any other chancellor in half a century”. Labour’s strategy is for Starmer to drill issues such as tax and the cost of living to inflame Tory divisions and put Sunak in the spotlight given his ambitions to succeed Johnson as leader. Sunak will be delivering the annual Mais lecture at Bayes business school, in which he will say he wants to cut taxes “sustainably” and downgrade the role of the state as an engine of growth – aiming to quell concern among Tory backbenchers about the tax burden rising to its highest level in 70 years.
Ikea but it’s Lidl – Today, Ikea’s £170m experiment on the former Kings Mall in Hammersmith will be tested with the opening of Livat, its first city centre shopping mall globally and the first to be refurbished rather than built from scratch.
Ikea’s new shopping centre in Hammersmith. Photograph: Ikea
Ikea has 47 other shopping centres worldwide, but Livat is just over a third of the size of its typical site, and its first in the UK. It houses Ikea’s only high street store in the UK, a quarter the size of a typical store, as well as a Lidl, a Library of Things, and Sook, a rent-by-the hour retail or events space.
Today in Focus podcast: Covid gets free rein
Today marks the first day in nearly two years that no laws will be in place in England to deal with the spread of Covid-19. But is the government still following the science?
Today in Focus Covid gets free rein Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp3 00:00:00 00:26:08
Lunchtime read: One person’s influence is someone else’s profit
More and more young people are enticed by the glittering promises of a career as an influencer – but it’s usually someone else getting rich.
Composite: Alamy/Guardian design
Sport
Ralf Rangnick admitted Manchester United’s plan was in the “dustbin” after Atlético Madrid scored on seven minutes before Anthony Elanga’s second half equaliser snatched a draw for the interim manager’s team in the Champions League last-16 first leg. Antonio Conte has questioned whether he is the right manager to turn Tottenham’s fortunes around after Burnley inflicted their fourth defeat in five games. England manager Sarina Wiegman said her side have taken “lots of information” from their 3-1 victory against Germany and inaugural Arnold Clark Cup win but will not get carried away before the European Championship in the summer.
In the Premier League, Liverpool hammered Leeds 6-0 at Anfield, with two goals each for Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané and one apiece for Joël Matip and Virgil van Dijk. England coach Eddie Jones is expected to deploy Manu Tuilagi at centre for the Six Nations encounter with Wales, who have dropped Louis Rees-Zammit. After four Olympic Games, seven gold and two silver medals, Sir Jason Kenny, Britain’s most decorated Olympian, has announced his retirement. Joe Root has declined to divulge his role in the decision to drop Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad for the West Indies tour but said it does not shut the door on their record-breaking careers. And Lewis Hamilton has accused Formula One stewards of potential bias towards specific drivers and teams as old wounds were reopened on the first day of pre-season testing in Barcelona on Wednesday.
Business
Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has wreaked havoc on already-wobbly financial markets this morning with shares falling precipitously in Asia Pacific overnight. Hong Kong was the worst hit, down more than 3%, and the FTSE100 is set to shed around 2.5% at the opening bell. Brent crude soared past $100 a barrel in a sign of increasing nerves about the impact on supplies, the Russian rouble hit a record low and the Moscow stock exchange suspended trading on all markets. The US dollar strengthened on all the uncertainty and left the pound at $1.349 and €1.201.
The papers
The print editions were slightly overtaken by events today. The Guardian’s splash is “State of emergency in Ukraine as US warns Putin ready to invade”. “Welcome to hell” – the Mirror says that is the “warning from Ukraine” to Russian soldiers if they invade. But the Express says Putin is “Hell-bent” and has “gone full tonto” – the latter having been said by the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, and the former by Liz Truss, the foreign secretary. Wallace clearly had the better line: “Putin’s gone ‘full tonto’” is the Metro’s page one headline.
Guardian front page, 24 February 2022.
The Financial Times says “Brussels hits Putin’s inner circle as US hardens invasion warning”. The i has a front-page Ukraine picture overlaid with “State of emergency declared as nation feels ‘knot of fear’”. Its splash though is “Students to face ‘lifelong graduate tax’”, the same story that leads the Times: “Students set to shoulder £100k bill for degrees”. “Sunak vows to slash tax burden” says the Telegraph, while at this moment the Mail is most worried about Britain’s spies being told, as it puts in its own words, to “go woke” by an internal guide to diversity and inclusion. The Sun says mock royal jewels from TV show The Crown have been stolen.
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2022-06-05T11:04:22Z | Russia claims to have targeted western-supplied tanks in Kyiv airstrikes | Russia launched airstrikes on Kyiv for the first time in five weeks on Sunday, claiming it had targeted western-supplied tanks – while the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warned more targets would be struck if weapons deliveries continued.
Several explosions were heard around the eastern Kyiv suburbs of Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi early on Sunday morning, wounding one person. The strikes represented a change of tack on the part of the invading forces.
Russia’s ministry of defence said the strikes had destroyed T-72 tanks that had been provided to Ukraine by European countries that were being stored in the buildings of a car repair business, although the claim could not immediately be verified.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, the chair of the board of Ukrainian Railways, said the Russian claims were false. “There are no such tanks at the plant, as well as no military equipment. There are only cars that we repair. These carriages we need for export – these are, in particular, grain carriages,” he said.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said “one victim was hospitalised” in the incident. Sergei Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian railway company’s supervisory board, added that its facilities had been struck.
They were the first bombing raids on any part of the capital since the end of April and appear to represent an attempt to strike supply lines from Kyiv to the east, where both sides are embroiled an intense battle for control of Donbas.
Perhaps signalling the new approach, Putin told Rossiya state television that Russia would hit fresh targets in Ukraine if the US delivered the longer-range rockets that it had promised to Kyiv last week.
01:11 Russia will strike harder if Ukraine is supplied with longer-range missiles, says Putin – video
If such missiles were supplied, “we will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting”, said Putin, who is believed to be closely involved in military decision-making. The Russian leader did not specify what would be struck, although logistics points would be amongst the most logical targets.
Russia has been irritated by the US decision to supply Ukraine with Himars truck-mounted multiple-launch rocket systems, with missiles that have a range of about 20 to 40 miles, greater than anything in Kyiv’s armoury.
“All this fuss around additional deliveries of weapons, in my opinion, has only one goal: to drag out the armed conflict as much as possible,” Putin said in his TV interview.
Ukraine and the west believe the rockets could help Kyiv prevent Russian forces massing behind the frontlines for future attacks, but Putin argued it would not bring on any significant change to the military balance.
“We understand that this supply [of advance rocket systems] from the United States and some other countries is meant to make up for the losses of this military equipment,” Putin said. “This is nothing new. It doesn’t change anything in essence.”
Ukraine’s nuclear energy company Energoatom also warned that a Russian cruise missile had come dangerously close to the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, in the south of the country, at about 5.30am, apparently heading for Kyiv.
It said the missile “flew critically low” over the site and that Russian forces “still do not understand that even the smallest fragment of a missile that can hit a working power unit can cause a nuclear catastrophe and radiation leak”.
The last time Kyiv was hit was on 28 April, when a Russian missile killed a producer for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Since then Moscow has ignored the capital as it tries to push Ukraine out of Donbas.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said that Ukrainian forces had counterattacked in Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, “likely blunting the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained” – but offered no assessment whether the effort was pushing the invaders back.
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On Saturday, Serhiy Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk province, said his country’s forces had regained about 20% of the Donbas city, which had been under days of sustained attack by concentrated Russian shelling and airstrikes.
Haidai repeated that claim on Sunday, adding that eight Russians had been taken prisoner and that the occupiers had “lost a huge number of personnel”. A humanitarian headquarters in neighbouring Lysychansk had been struck with 30 shells overnight, the governor said.
01:00 Ukrainian police document shelling aftermath in Lysychansk – video
Ukrainian forces were “successfully slowing down Russian operations” in Donbas and were making “effective local counterattacks in Sievierodonetsk”, said the Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, overnight.
The research group, which closely monitors the fighting, said that Russia “may still be able to capture Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk” and that it appeared that “Ukrainian defences remain strong in this pivotal theatre”.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Russia was relying on “poorly equipped and trained” separatist forces from Luhansk to conduct the clearance of the city, a tactic it said had been previously employed by Moscow’s forces in Syria. “This approach likely indicates a desire to limit casualties suffered by regular Russian forces,” it added.
One Ukrainian presidential adviser urged European nations to respond with “more sanctions, more weapons” to the missile attacks – and appeared to criticise the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who had said in an interview on Friday that Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine so that a diplomatic solution could eventually be found.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the President’s Office, tweeted: “While someone asks not to humiliate Russia, the Kremlin resorts to new insidious attacks. Today’s missile strikes at Kyiv have only one goal – kill as many Ukrainians as possible.” |
2022-06-29T14:55:32Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 126 of the invasion | In an interview with the NBC network in the US, Zelenskiy has compared scenes he saw at Bucha to a war movie, saying “It was just so quiet, everything was destroyed, dead people, destroyed army equipment. There was this sense of death. When they found people in the bottom of wells, hands bound, raped, and murdered – they’d done everything to them. I just didn’t know that this could be done by people who, 30 years previously, we had lived together in the Soviet Union, in one country. I just never had thought that humanity could be capable of this, and this changes how you look at people.” |
2022-06-27T11:00:10Z | Letting Russia win in Ukraine would be ‘absolutely chilling’, says Boris Johnson | Boris Johnson has argued that continued international support for Ukraine is a price worth paying, saying that to let Russia prevail would be “absolutely chilling” for nearby countries and usher in a period of global anxiety.
Likening the need to oppose Russia to the situation in the second world war, Johnson said that while opposing fascism brought enormous costs, it then created decades of prosperity and stability.
The need for long-term support for Ukraine is one of Johnson’s key messages at the G7 summit of world leaders in Bavaria, Germany. The issue was set to be discussed on Monday with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukraine president, due to address the gathering virtually.
Speaking to BBC News, Johnson said there was a need for “strategic endurance”, predicting that even if the war continued, “the economic impacts on the UK will start to abate”.
He said: “But just in terms of staying the course, imagine if we didn’t. Imagine if we allowed Putin to get away with the violent acquisition of huge chunks of another country, a sovereign independent territory – the lessons for that would be absolutely chilling in all of the countries of the former Soviet Union.
“In terms of the economic effects, that would mean long-term instability, and anxiety across the world.”
Overall, the prime minister argued, “the price of freedom is worth paying”. He said: “Just remember, it took the democracies in the middle of the last century a long time to recognise that they had to resist tyranny and aggression. It was very expensive.
“But what it bought in the end, with the defeat of the dictators, particularly of Nazi Germany, it bought decades and decades of stability, a world order that relied on a rules-based international system. And that is worth protecting, that is worth defending, and that delivers long-term prosperity.”
Johnson has said G7 leaders are united on the issue, although it remains to be seen if the summit, which ends on Tuesday, will deliver any notable concrete achievements in areas such as new sanctions, or efforts to get millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain out of a Russian blockade.
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At the gathering, Johnson has warned against a temptation to push Zelenskiy into potentially accepting a deal that would bring peace in exchange for Russian control of eastern areas in Ukraine, saying no other countries could make such a choice.
“You can’t be more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians,” he told the BBC. “And I think it is for Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his people to decide what they want. And what they want is their land, they want their country to be able to live in peace and freedom.
“And I totally support that. And so I think the difficulty is that no one here at the G7 can really see any alternative to simply supporting them in regaining their sovereignty.” |
2022-06-06T08:38:30Z | Zelenskiy visits Ukrainian troops on frontline as Russia pushes them back | The Ukrainian president has visited the frontline close to the fiercest fighting between his country’s troops and Russian forces in the east, where a regional official said the situation had worsened for Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the beleaguered city of Lysychansk on Sunday, just a few kilometres south from Sievierodonetsk, the main battlefield in the east where Russia has concentrated its forces.
Ukrainian troops had a slight reversal of fortunes after managing to retake half of Sievierodonetsk, Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk province where the city is located, told national television.
Haidai did not go into details but said Ukrainian troops were still holding their positions in the city’s industrial zone. “The fiercest fighting is in Sievierodonetsk. Fast-moving fighting is happening right now,” he said.
The fight to push Russian forces back received a boost on Sunday when the UK government said it would supply long-range rocket artillery to Ukraine, despite a threat on Sunday from Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to bomb fresh targets if similar weapons from the US were delivered to Kyiv.
Zelenskiy also visited the Donbas city of Soledar in a rare outing by the Ukrainian president outside the capital Kyiv since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February that could be his closest yet to the frontline.
“I went with the head of [my] office to the east. We were in Lysychansk and Soledar,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, adding he would not elaborate on the visit.
In two videos released later, Zelenskiy was shown talking to troops in confined, bunker-like structures, presenting some with awards and addressing others.
“What you all deserve is victory – that is the most important thing. But not at any cost,” Zelenskiy said in one of the videos.
Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk are in the Luhansk region and Soledar is in the Donetsk region. Both regions make up the broader Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, which Russia claims is on a mission to “liberate”.
Earlier on Sunday, Zelenskiy said he had also visited frontline troops in the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhia, whose governor claims that 60% of the area is under Russian occupation.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy signs the arm of a supporter in Zaporizhzhia in images released on Sunday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
The UK will send a handful of tracked M270 multiple launch rocket systems, which can hit targets up to 50 miles (80km) away, in the hope they can disrupt the concentrated Russian artillery that has been pounding cities in eastern Ukraine.
Spain is also increasing its support for Ukraine, according to government sources cited by El País newspaper. Spain is to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and Leopard battle vehicles along with training for the equipment. Spain had previously sent only ammunition, individual protection equipment and light weapons to Ukraine.
The additional military support for Ukraine came after Nato began almost two weeks of naval exercises led by the US in the Baltic Sea on Sunday.
More than 7,000 sailors, airmen and marines from 16 countries will take part, including two aspiring to join the military alliance, Finland and Sweden, in the annual Baltops (Baltic operations) exercise that has been running since 1972.
Nato said with Sweden and Finland participating, it was “seizing the chance in an unpredictable world to enhance its joint force resilience and strength”.
The US warship Kearsarge docked in Stockholm. Photograph: Jonas Gratzer/Getty Images
Finland and Sweden have a long history of military non-alignment before their governments applied to join Nato in May, a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the past years, Moscow has repeatedly warned Helsinki and Stockholm against joining the western military alliance and warned of retaliatory measures if they did.
“It is important for us, the United States and the other Nato countries to show solidarity with both Finland and Sweden in this exercise,” the US general Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, said on Saturday during a news conference aboard the large amphibious warship USS Kearsarge, which was moored in central Stockholm.
Milley, speaking to the Swedish prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, stressed that the Baltic was a strategically important body of water and “one of the great seaways of the world”.
He said from Moscow’s perspective, Finland and Sweden joining Nato would be “very problematic” and leave Russia in a difficult military position as the Baltic’s coastline would be almost completely encircled by Nato members, except for Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad and the Russian city of St Petersburg and its surrounding areas.
As Nato’s close partners, Finland and Sweden have participated in the naval drill since the mid-1990s. This year’s Baltops exercise is scheduled to end in the German port of Kiel on 17 June.
Reuters contributed to this report
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2022-03-21T17:24:14Z | Russia bans Facebook and Instagram under ‘extremism’ law | A Russian court has banned Facebook and Instagram in the country, labelling its parent company Meta as “extremist” amid the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown on western social media giants.
Access to Facebook and Instagram had already been restricted earlier this month after Meta confirmed it was relaxing its policies on hate speech towards Russian soldiers and Vladimir Putin in relation to the country’s war in Ukraine. Meta later said the laxer rules would only apply to people posting from inside Ukraine.
The court in Moscow said that Facebook and Instagram –both of which are widely used among Russians – were “carrying out extremist activities”. But it said that Meta’s WhatsApp messenger service would not be prohibited because it “was means of communication, not a source of information”.
During Monday’s hearing in Moscow, Russia’s FSB security service accused Meta of creating an “alternative reality” in which “hatred for the Russians was kindled”.
“The activities of the Meta organisation are directed against Russia and its armed forces,” FSB representative Igor Kovalevsky told the court, the Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Previously, groups such as the Taliban, Jehovah’s Witnesses and an organisation led by the jailed Kremlin opponent Aleksei Navalny have been targeted under the same extremism law.
Russian prosecutors said in court they would not seek to charge Russian citizens and organisations that access the two banned platforms, as hundreds of thousands of Russians have sought to circumvent the social media ban using a VPN.
“The use of Meta’s products by individuals and legal entities should not be considered as participation in extremist activities,” Kovalevsky told the court on Monday. “Individuals will not be held liable for using Meta’s services,” he added.
It was not immediately clear if Russians and foreign companies that purchase ads on Facebook and Instagram could be prosecuted under the Russian law of “financing an extremist organisation”.
According to TASS, Meta’s lawyer, Victoria Shagina had said in court that the corporation opposed any type of Russophobia and was not carrying out extremist activities.
The move to label Meta as “extremist” comes as Russia continues its unprecedented crackdown on protesters, independent news outlets and foreign social media networks.
Russian parliament earlier this month passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military.
“Since the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the authorities have sought to fully control the information sphere in the country. We should be prepared for more censorship,” said Alexander Isavnin, a Russian internet privacy advocate and member of the Pirate Party of Russia.
“The move to ban Meta is also a final warning sign to YouTube, the last major remaining western platform in the country,” Isavnin added, pointing to the recent criticism YouTube received from Russia’s communications regulator and politicians.
Russia’s communication watchdog last Friday slammed YouTube for engaging in acts “of a terrorist nature” by allowing ads on the video-sharing platform to be used that could “harm Russian citizens”.
“The actions of the YouTube administration are of a terrorist nature and threaten the life and health of Russian citizens,” the regulator said in a statement. |
2022-06-26T15:03:47Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 123 of the invasion | Kyiv has come under attack for the first time since 5 June, with Russian missiles striking at residential buildings and a Kindergarten in the Shevchenkivskyi district of the capital. At least five people were injured, including a seven-year-old girl. There are unconfirmed reports that her father was killed in the attack. A Russian woman was among the injured.
Another civilian was killed in a missile attack on Cherkasy south-east of the capital. A bridge over the Dnipro river was also hit.
Both the attacks on Kyiv and Cherkasy are being seen message of defiance by Russia to G7 leaders gathering at a summit in Bavaria, Germany. Russia said it hit military targets in Chernihiv, Zhytomyr and Lviv. Joe Biden condemned the Russian attacks as “more barbarism”. Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz said they showed the importance of G7 unity.
Members of the G7 have confirmed a ban on imports of Russian gold. The move by Britain, the United States, Japan and Canada is part of efforts to tighten the sanctions squeeze on Moscow. Gold exports were worth $15.2bn to Russia in 2021, and their importance has increased since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The UK and France have agreed to provide more support for Ukraine, according to Downing Street. Leaders of the G7 have spoken of their solidarity for Ukraine. “We have to stay together,” Joe Biden said.
Russian forces are trying to cut off the strategic twin city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine, having reduced Sievierodonetsk to rubble. Lysychansk is set to become the next main focus of fighting, as Moscow has launched massive artillery bombardments and airstrikes on areas far from the heart of the eastern battles. Ukraine called its retreat from Sievierodonetsk a “tactical withdrawal” to fight from higher ground in Lysychansk on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river.
Russian news footage has showed defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s visiting troops involved in the Ukraine war. It is unclear if he visited Ukrainian territory, but the footage appeared to confirm that colonel-general Gennady Zhidko is now commanding troops in Ukraine.
The mayors of several European capitals have been duped into holding video calls with a deepfake of their counterpart in Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko. The mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey, took part in a scheduled call on the Webex video conferencing platform on Friday with a person she said looked and sounded like Klitschko. “There were no signs that the video conference call wasn’t being held with a real person,” her office said in a statement. |
2022-07-01T00:06:21Z | A new ‘iron curtain’ is descending between Russia and the west, Russia’s foreign minister says – as it happened | From 30 Jun 2022 17.43 New ‘iron curtain’ already descending between Russia and the west, says Lavrov Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said, a new “iron curtain” was descending between Russia and the west, and that Moscow would not trust Washington and Brussels “from now on”.
Speaking to reporters, Lavrov said: As far as an iron curtain is concerned, essentially it is already descending. The process “has begun”, he said after talks with his counterpart from Belarus, AFP reports. Lavrov accused the EU of not being “at all” interesting in understanding Russia’s interests, adding: It is interested in what has been decided in Brussels. And what has been decided in Washington has been decided in Brussels.
30 Jun 2022 00.32 Satellite images shows smoke rising from Snake Island, off the coast of Ukraine, on Thursday. Ukrainian forces say they pushed Russian forces from the strategic Black Sea island. A satellite image shows smoke rising from Snake Island, off the coast of Ukraine. Photograph: Planet Labs Pbc/Reuters A general view of Snake Island purportedly taken by Ukraine Operational Command South. Photograph: Ukraine Operational Command South/Reuters
30 Jun 2022 23.52 Eva Corlett New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has assured Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy of her continued support in the country’s fight against Russia, just days after turning down an invitation to visit the country. Eva Corlett reports to us from New Zealand. Ardern had been invited to visit Kyiv during her trade mission in Europe but was unable to accept due to timing constraints. Instead, Ardern called Zelenskiy from Brussels on Thursday morning following the Nato Leader’s Summit in Spain: I passed on New Zealand’s solidarity, and our commitment to keep standing with Ukraine as they fight the illegal invasion of their country.” A spokesperson from the prime minister’s office says Ardern had also assured the president of New Zealand’s continued support through sanctions on those connected to the Russian government. In a statement on Twitter, Zelenskiy thanked New Zealand for its support and solidarity, particularly in security: Discussed further strengthening of sanctions on Russia and ways of bringing the aggressor to justice. Invited to join the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.”
30 Jun 2022 23.37 Erdoğan warns Turkey may still block Nordic Nato drive Just two days after agreeing to lift deal-breaking objections to Sweden and Finland’s Nato accession, Turkey’s president has warned that Ankara could still block the process if the two countries fail to fully meet his expectations. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at the close of the alliance’s summit in Madrid that the 10-article agreement with the Nordic pair was a victory for Ankara and addressed all its “sensitivities”. He particularly stressed the satisfying of Turkey’s demand for Sweden and Finland to extradite terror suspects with links to outlawed Kurdish groups or the network of an exiled cleric accused of a failed 2016 coup in Turkey. But Erdoğan added that if the two Nordic countries renege on their promises, Turkey’s parliament could refuse to ratify the deal reached on Tuesday. Nato accession must be formally approved by all 30 member states, which gives each a blocking right. This business will not work if we don’t pass this in our parliament,” Erdoğan said. First, Sweden and Finland must fulfil their duties and those are already in the text … But if they don’t fulfil these, then of course there is no way we would send it to our parliament.”
30 Jun 2022 23.27 US president, Joe Biden, accidentally announced that he had called the leader of Switzerland to discuss abandoning two centuries of neutrality to join Nato — before quickly correcting himself to say he actually meant Sweden. Speaking at a press conference in Madrid following a Nato summit, he let slip: Some of the American press will remember when I got a phone call from the leader of Finland saying could he come and see me, then he came the next day and said, ‘Will you support my joining — my country joining Nato?’ We got the telephone. He suggested we call the leader of Switzerland,” Biden said. Biden quickly clarified: Switzerland, my goodness, I’m getting really anxious here about expanding Nato — of Sweden.”
Updated at 00.05 BST
30 Jun 2022 23.02 Summary It’s 1am in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand: Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced the finalization of the agreement to transfer 39 armored combat support vehicles to Ukraine. At the conclusion of the Nato summit in Madrid, Trudeau said that the ACVSs were originally supposed to be for the Canadian army and were in the process of being delivered but will instead be redirected to Ukraine.
At the conclusion of the Nato summit in Madrid, Trudeau said that the ACVSs were originally supposed to be for the Canadian army and were in the process of being delivered but will instead be redirected to Ukraine. A five-year-old Ukrainian refugee died Thursday after being hit by an electric scooter in Nice, French police said. The child and his mother were crossing the Promenade des Anglais, the famous palm-lined street overlooking the Mediterranean, at a pedestrian crossing when the accident happened on Wednesday.
The child and his mother were crossing the Promenade des Anglais, the famous palm-lined street overlooking the Mediterranean, at a pedestrian crossing when the accident happened on Wednesday. Estonian and Latvian defense ministers signed a letter of intent on Thursday at the Nato summit in Madrid for joint procurement of medium-range anti-aircraft systems. “The aggression of Russia in Ukraine clearly shows the need for air defence systems,” Latvian defence minister Artis Pabriks said in a statement.
“The aggression of Russia in Ukraine clearly shows the need for air defence systems,” Latvian defence minister Artis Pabriks said in a statement. The situation in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk is “extremely difficult” as Russian forces’ continous shelling makes it impossible for civilian evacuation, the regional governor of Lugansk said on Thursday. “There is a lot of shelling and from multiple directions. The Russian army is approaching from different directions towards Lysychansk,” Serhiy Haidai said, adding that Russian forces remain on city outskirts where there is currently no street fighting.
“There is a lot of shelling and from multiple directions. The Russian army is approaching from different directions towards Lysychansk,” Serhiy Haidai said, adding that Russian forces remain on city outskirts where there is currently no street fighting. The United States on Thursday blocked a US-based company worth more than $1 billion linked to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, saying the ally of President Vladimir Putin used it to funnel and invest shadowy funds. The Treasury Department said that Kerimov, a billionaire active in Russian politics, secretly managed the Delaware-based Heritage Trust which put its money into a number of large public companies.
The Treasury Department said that Kerimov, a billionaire active in Russian politics, secretly managed the Delaware-based Heritage Trust which put its money into a number of large public companies. French president Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will deliver six CAESAR howitzers and armored vehicles to Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports. Macron added that the Nato allies meeting in Madrid “unanimously decided” to boost humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine as it attempts to fight of Russian forces. That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as I hand the blog over to my colleagues in Australia who will bring you the latest updates. I’ll be back tomorrow, thank you.
Updated at 00.20 BST
30 Jun 2022 22.30 Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced the finalization of the agreement to transfer 39 armored combat support vehicles to Ukraine. At the conclusion of the Nato summit in Madrid, Trudeau said that the ACVSs were originally supposed to be for the Canadian army and were in the process of being delivered but will instead be redirected to Ukraine. “The light armoured vehicles we will be sending over will be extremely effective,” Trudeau told summit reporters. “We’re just glad to help and we’re going to continue to look and respond to things that they need.” He reassured reporters that the Canadian army will continue to remain stocked, saying, “Stocks for the Canadian military will be replenished as quickly as possible... We need to make sure that the women and men of the Canadian Forces have the equipment they need to continue their mission and step up as necessary.” Trudeau added, “We also recognize that the best use, right now, of things like howitzers and sniper rifles and all of the other equipment we’ve been sending to Ukraine — the best use for Canadian security, for geopolitical stability — is to put them in the hands of Ukrainians.” Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference after the NATO Summit at the IFEMA Convention Center in Madrid, Spain on June 30, 2022. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Updated at 00.20 BST
30 Jun 2022 21.51 A five-year-old Ukrainian refugee died Thursday after being hit by an electric scooter in Nice, French police said. The child and his mother were crossing the Promenade des Anglais, the famous palm-lined street overlooking the Mediterranean, at a pedestrian crossing when the accident happened on Wednesday. The boy “was holding a bag that his mother was also holding, but was walking a bit ahead of her”, police said, adding they were “hidden by street furniture”. A 40-year-old on an electric scooter who was going “at excessive speed” could not avoid the child, they said. “Despite being injured and having fallen, the rider of the electric scooter immediately cared for the child,” they added. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi, on Twitter, expressed his “deep emotion” over the incident and opposition to self-service scooters. “We are studying all possible solutions for avoiding these tragedies,” he said. Immense émotion suite au décès du petit garçon renversé hier soir par une trottinette électrique à #Nice06. J'adresse mes pensées à sa famille et ses proches et leur souhaite beaucoup de courage dans cette terrible épreuve. https://t.co/FaNVWmmZIv — Christian Estrosi (@cestrosi) June 30, 2022 The boy’s family had arrived in France at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the head of a French-Ukrainian association in the Riviera, Iryna Podyriako, told the Nice-Matin regional daily.
Updated at 00.21 BST
30 Jun 2022 21.27 Estonian and Latvian defense ministers signed a letter of intent on Thursday at the Nato summit in Madrid for joint procurement of medium-range anti-aircraft systems. “The aggression of Russia in Ukraine clearly shows the need for air defence systems,” Latvian defence minister Artis Pabriks said in a statement. He added that the move would support regional cooperation and common defense among Baltic countries as the region reacts to to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The Nato summit has sent a clear message that help will be given to those who are ready also to defend themselves,” added Pabriks’ Estonian counterpart Kalle Laanet.
Both Estonia and Latvia are EU and Nato members. A specific proposal on the procurement of the systems is expected to be unveiled at the end of July, but no details have yet been made public about the cost or delivery dates.
Updated at 00.22 BST |
2022-06-28T14:09:32Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 125 of the invasion | German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said there can be no return to prewar ties with Russia. Scholz said that with its attack on Ukraine, Russia has broken “all the rules, all the agreements we have made with each other on countries’ cooperation” after the G7 summit. He said G7 leaders agree that it has led to long-term changes “which will mark international relations for a very, very long time. So it is clear that, in relations with Russia, there can be no way back to the time before the Russian attack on Ukraine.” |
2022-05-02T04:42:11Z | Russia-Ukraine war: South Korea set to reopen embassy in Kyiv; Lavrov says Russia working to prevent nuclear war – as it happened | From 2 May 2022 01.55 Around 100 civilians were on Sunday evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, the last holdout of Ukrainian forces in the city. Around 1,000 civilians and 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are thought to be sheltering in bunkers and tunnels underneath the plant, enduring a weeks-long siege with little food or water. One of the civilians evacuated spoke to Reuters, telling the news agency, “We didn’t see the sun for so long”: Cowering in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers far beneath the vast Azovstal steel works, Natalia Usmanova felt her heart would stop she was so terrified as Russian bombs rained down on Mariupol, sprinkling her with concrete dust. Usmanova, 37, spoke to Reuters on Sunday after being evacuated from the plant, a sprawling complex founded under Josef Stalin and designed with a subterranean network of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attack. “I feared that the bunker would not withstand it – I had terrible fear,” Usmanova said, describing the time sheltering underground. “When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that: I was so worried the bunker would cave in.” “We didn’t see the sun for so long,” she said, speaking in the village of Bezimenne in an area of Donetsk under the control of Russia-backed separatists around 30 km (20 miles) east of Mariupol. She recalled the lack of oxygen in the shelters and the fear that had gripped the lives of people hunkered down there. Usmanova was among dozens of civilians evacuated from the plant in Mariupol, a southern port city that has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks and left a wasteland. Usmanova said she joked with her husband on the bus ride out, in a convoy agreed by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), that they would no longer have to go to the lavatory with a torch. “You just can’t imagine what we have been through - the terror,” Usmanova said. “I lived there, worked there all my life, but what we saw there was just terrible.” Azovstal steel plant employee Natalia Usmanova, 37, who was evacuated from Mariupol, as she arrived at a temporary accommodation centre in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk Region, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
2 May 2022 05.42 US first lady Jill Biden is set to visit Romania and Slovakia on Thursday for five days to meet with US service members and embassy personnel, displaced Ukrainian parents and children, humanitarian aid workers, and teachers, her office has said. On Sunday, celebrated as Mother’s Day in the United States, Biden will meet with Ukrainian mothers and children who have been forced to flee their homes because of Russia’s war against Ukraine, her office said according to Reuters. The wife of president Joe Biden will meet with US military service members at Mihail Kogalniceau Airbase in Romania on Friday, before heading to Bucharest to meet with Romanian government officials, US embassy staff, humanitarian aid workers, and teachers working with displaced Ukrainian children. The trip also includes stops in the Slovakian cities of Bratislava, Kosice and Vysne Nemecke, where Biden will meet with government officials, refugees and aid workers, her office said. Biden’s visit is the latest show of support for Ukraine and neighbouring countries that are helping Ukrainian refugees by top US representatives.
2 May 2022 04.52 South Korean ambassador Kim Hyung-tae has returned to Kyiv along with some embassy staff, the news agency Yonhap has reported citing the Foreign Ministry in Seoul. The South Korean embassy was evacuated at the beginning of the Russian invasion and staff had been working at a temporary office in the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi since March. The ministry said Kim would start working from Kyiv on Monday and that it was considering the phased return of remaining staff in accordance with the future security situation there. [They] plan to carry out tasks on diplomatic affairs and protecting [South Korean] nationals under closer cooperation with the Ukrainian government. More than 20 embassies, including those of the EU, UK, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, have already reopened in the Ukrainian capital. US secretary of state Antony Blinken said US diplomats would gradually begin returning to the country during a visit to Kyiv last week.
2 May 2022 04.08 Associated Press has filed a story saying that the Ghost of Kyiv, an unnamed fighter pilot who was praised for supposedly shooting down several Russian planes, is in fact a myth. Ukrainian authorities admitted that the legendary pilot was a myth. “The Ghost of Kyiv is a super-hero legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!” Ukraine’s air force said in Ukrainian on Facebook. The statement came after multiple media outlets published stories wrongly identifying Major Stepan Tarabalka as the man behind the moniker. Tarabalka was a real pilot who died on March 13 during air combat and was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force said last month. But he was not the Ghost of Kyiv, the force said in Saturday’s statement. “The information about the death of the The Ghost of #Kyiv is incorrect,” Ukraine’s air force wrote in a separate post Saturday on Twitter. “The #GhostOfKyiv is alive, it embodies the collective spirit of the highly qualified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who are successfully defending #Kyiv and the region.”
2 May 2022 03.52 Adam Schiff, chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, has told CNN “it’s only a matter of time” before US president Joe Biden visits Ukraine. I have to think that a presidential visit is something under consideration, but only a question of how soon that will be feasible.
On Sunday US House speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest ranking US official to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv since the start of Russia’s invasion at the end of February. The House delegation had discussed Zelenskiy’s priorities for the next phase of the war, which is concentrated in the east of the country after Russian forces withdrew from around the capital, and Biden’s request for a $33bn aid package for Ukraine, Schiff said: We wanted to discuss with him, within that really vast sum, what is the priority in terms of what weapons that he needs, what other assistance that he needs,” Schiff said. “We went through a detailed discussion of the next phase of the war. It’s moving from a phase in which Ukrainians were ambushing Russian tanks -- it was close-quarters fighting -- to fighting more at a distance using long range artillery, and that changes the nature of what Ukraine needs to defend itself.
2 May 2022 03.19 Report: Russia's top uniformed officer visited Ukraine last week Russia’s top uniformed officer, General Valery Gerasimov, visited dangerous frontline positions in eastern Ukraine last week in a bid to reinvigorate the Russian offensive there, the New York Times has reported citing Ukrainian and US officials. The Guardian was unable to verify the report. During the visit, Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff, narrowly escaped a deadly Ukrainian attack on a school being used as a military base in the Russian-controlled city of Izium late Saturday, the Times reported. Around 200 soldiers including at least one general were killed in the strike, a Ukrainian official told the paper, but Gerasimov had already departed for Russia. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, earlier said that Ukrainian forces had “likely conducted a rocket artillery strike on a Russian command post in Izyum on April 30 that struck after Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov had left but killed other senior Russian officers.” US officials could not confirm the attack and the Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Our working assumption is that he was there because there’s a recognition they haven’t worked out all their problems yet,” one of the US officials told the Times. The Russian offensive has been slow, with widespread disarray and poor morale reported among Russian forces.
The Kremlin appears to be focusing its operations around the city of Izium as part of renewed efforts to seize the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Gerasimov has reportedly been put in command of the push. Russian chief of the general staff General Valery Gerasimov (L) with defence minister Sergei Shoigu. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/AP
2 May 2022 02.37 Explosions reported in Russian city of Belgorod Two explosions have taken place in the early hours of Monday in Belgorod, the southern Russian region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor has written in a social media post. “There were no casualties or damage,” Gladkov wrote, according to Reuters. On Sunday Gladkov had said one person was injured in a fire at a Russian defence ministry facility in Belgorod, while seven homes had been damaged. Posts on social media said fighter jets and loud explosions had been heard above the city overnight. The Guardian was unable to verify the reports. Russia last month accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, for which Kyiv denied responsibility, as well as shelling villages and firing missiles at an ammunition depot. Russian air defense units are targeting unknown targets (possible UAVs?) above #Belgorod:
pic.twitter.com/oKhTYRxz5C — Justin Peden 🦀🇺🇦 (@IntelCrab) May 1, 2022 Possible explosion, or sonic boom from aircraft overhead in Belgorod. pic.twitter.com/lwwaeuPHxk — Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) May 2, 2022 3 hours after Belgorod enters a state of emergency, fighter jets storm over and 2 loud explosions are heard. pic.twitter.com/TrDtB1LiJO — spook (@spook_info) May 2, 2022
Updated at 03.22 BST
2 May 2022 02.17 A few more images captured by Reuters of the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, showing emotional scenes as people were reunited with family members in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk region: Azovstal steel plant employee Maxim, last name withheld, hugs his son Matvey, who had left the city earlier with some relatives. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters Natalia Usmanova sits with children. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters Civilian evacuees enter a tent at a temporary accommodation centre in Bezimenne. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters Valeria, last name withheld, hugs her son Matvey, who had left the city earlier with some relatives. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
2 May 2022 01.55 Around 100 civilians were on Sunday evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, the last holdout of Ukrainian forces in the city. Around 1,000 civilians and 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are thought to be sheltering in bunkers and tunnels underneath the plant, enduring a weeks-long siege with little food or water. One of the civilians evacuated spoke to Reuters, telling the news agency, “We didn’t see the sun for so long”: Cowering in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers far beneath the vast Azovstal steel works, Natalia Usmanova felt her heart would stop she was so terrified as Russian bombs rained down on Mariupol, sprinkling her with concrete dust. Usmanova, 37, spoke to Reuters on Sunday after being evacuated from the plant, a sprawling complex founded under Josef Stalin and designed with a subterranean network of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attack. “I feared that the bunker would not withstand it – I had terrible fear,” Usmanova said, describing the time sheltering underground. “When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that: I was so worried the bunker would cave in.” “We didn’t see the sun for so long,” she said, speaking in the village of Bezimenne in an area of Donetsk under the control of Russia-backed separatists around 30 km (20 miles) east of Mariupol. She recalled the lack of oxygen in the shelters and the fear that had gripped the lives of people hunkered down there. Usmanova was among dozens of civilians evacuated from the plant in Mariupol, a southern port city that has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks and left a wasteland. Usmanova said she joked with her husband on the bus ride out, in a convoy agreed by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), that they would no longer have to go to the lavatory with a torch. “You just can’t imagine what we have been through - the terror,” Usmanova said. “I lived there, worked there all my life, but what we saw there was just terrible.” Azovstal steel plant employee Natalia Usmanova, 37, who was evacuated from Mariupol, as she arrived at a temporary accommodation centre in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk Region, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
1 May 2022 00.36 Hello, this is Helen Livingstone taking over the blog from Maanvi Singh to bring you the latest from the war in Ukraine. First a bit more from Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s interview with Italy’s Mediaset broadcaster. He said that Russia was not demanding the “surrender” of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a condition for peace. We do not demand that he surrender. We demand that he give the order to release all civilians and stop the resistance. Our goal does not include regime change in Ukraine. This is an American speciality. They do it all over the world. We want to ensure the safety of people in the east of Ukraine, so that they are not threatened by either the militarisation or the nazification of this country, and that there are no threats to the security of the Russian Federation from the territory of Ukraine. He also denied that Russia would attempt to claim victory in Ukraine by 9 May – when Russia marks the end of the second world war with Victory Day – saying that the Russian military would not “artificially adjust their actions to any date, including Victory Day.”
The pace of the operation in Ukraine depends, first of all, on the need to minimise any risks for the civilian population and Russian military personnel.
Asked about recent rumours concerning the health of president Vladimir Putin, he did not answer directly, saying instead: Ask the foreign leaders who spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin recently, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. I think you will understand what is at stake.
Updated at 01.34 BST
1 May 2022 00.01 Catch up Civilians are being evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, where about 1,000 people are thought to be sheltering. The effort is being led by the Red Cross and UN, and coordinated with Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy said that evacuations from Mariupol will continue tomorrow if “all the necessary conditions” are met. “Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vital corridor has started working,” he said. “For the first time there were two days of real ceasefire on this territory.”
US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has become the highest-ranking US official to visit Ukraine since the outbreak of war, where she met president Zelenskiy. In a press conference afterwards, Pelosi said that the US would not be bullied. “If they are making threats, you cannot back down,” she said. Pelosi was presented with the order of Princess of Olga medal by Zelenskiy. German chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to continue supporting Ukraine with money, aid and weapons, saying a pacifist approach to the war is “outdated.”
His remarks to a May Day rally in Dusseldorf were an implicit rebuke to a group of intellectuals, lawyers and creatives who condemned Russia’s war of aggression in an open letter, but urged Scholz not to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. Pope Francis described the war in Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him “suffer and cry”, in a Sunday noon address in St Peter’s Square. “My thoughts go immediately to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city of Mary, barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” he said of the mostly Russian-controlled south-eastern port city, which is named after the Virgin Mary. Russia’s latest strikes, including on grain warehouses and residential neighbourhoods, “prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army,” Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, asking, “What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war?” The “The ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia,” he continued. Russia’s defence ministry has confirmed an attack on an airfield near Odesa on Saturday. It said its forces had destroyed a runway and hangar at an airfield, which contained weapons supplied by the US and EU. The governor of the north eastern city of Kharkiv has urged people not to leave shelters on Sunday due to intense shelling. Posting on Telegram, Oleh Synyehubov said: “In connection with the intense shelling, we urge residents of the northern and eastern districts of Kharkiv, in particular Saltivka, not to leave the shelter during the day without urgency.” The European Union could phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year, under the latest set of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine being discussed in Brussels.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said for weeks that the EU is working on sanctions targeting Russian oil, but the key question is how and when the commodity is phased out. Russia’s online trolling operation is becoming increasingly decentralised and is gaining “incredible traction” on TikTok with disinformation aimed at sowing doubt over events in Ukraine, a US social media researcher has warned. Darren Linvill, professor at Clemson University, South Carolina, who has been studying the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) troll farm operation since 2017, said it was succeeding in creating more authentic-seeming posts. A Russian defence facility near the border with Ukraine was on fire.Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor, posted on Telegram that there were no details yet about damage or casualties at the building in the southern region of Belgorod. Images on social media showed a large funnel of smoke rising above the ground.
– Jennifer Rankin, Harry Taylor, Maanvi Singh, Rob Booth
Updated at 01.39 BST
1 May 2022 23.36 In Kherson, the first major city to fall, Russia is replacing Ukrainian currency with Russian rubles. Per AFP, Kirill Stremousov, a civilian and military administrator of Kherson said that “beginning 1 May, we will move to the ruble zone,” according state news agency RIA Novosti. It is a tactic to legitimize Russia’s “control of the city and surrounding areas through installing a pro-Russian administration,” according to an intelligence update released by Britain’s Defense Ministry. The move is “indicative of Russian intent to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term,” the Defense Ministry said.
1 May 2022 22.59 Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that the county is working to prevent nuclear war, Reuters reports. In an interview with Italian TV, Lavrov said: “Western media misrepresent Russian threats. Russia has never interrupted efforts to reach agreements that guarantee that a nuclear war never develops”. Lavrov also doubled down on Russian conspiracy theories and propaganda about Nazism in Ukraine. This week, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called Russia’s justification for the war in Ukraine “BS”. “It’s hard to square [Vladimir Putin’s] … BS that this is about Nazism in Ukraine, and it’s about protecting Russians in Ukraine, and it’s about defending Russian national interests, when none of them, none of them were threatened by Ukraine,” Kirby said. “It’s brutality of the coldest and the most depraved sort.”
Updated at 23.19 BST
1 May 2022 21.50 Eight have died after Russian attacks on Donetsk and Kharkiv, according to the governors of those regions. AFP reports: The deaths came as the Russian army refocuses its efforts on eastern Ukraine, notably the Donbas region, which incorporates Donetsk and Lugansk. Four were killed in shelling in the town of Lyman in Donetsk, the regional governor said. “On May 1, four civilians were killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk region, all in Lyman. Eleven other people were injured,” governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. Another person had died of his injuries in a town near Lyman, he added. Lyman, a former railway hub known as the “red town” for its redbrick industrial buildings, is expected to be one of the next places to fall to the Russian army after Ukrainian forces withdrew. Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces appeared to have made notable advances around the town, advancing on their positions by several kilometres, an AFP team in the area said. Another three people were killed in shelling on residential areas in and around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, the regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram. “As a result of these shellings, unfortunately, three people were killed and eight civilians were injured.” The Ukrainian army has also withdrawn from Kharkiv, its troops now in outlying positions, according to AFP journalists who recently visited the city.
1 May 2022 20.59 Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy said that evacuations from Mariupol will continue tomorrow if “all the necessary conditions” are met. “Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vital corridor has started working,” he said. “For the first time there were two days of real ceasefire on this territory.” In his latest address, he said: We will continue to do everything to evacuate our people from Azovstal, from Mariupol in general. The organization of such humanitarian corridors is one of the elements of the ongoing negotiation process. It is very complex. But no matter how difficult it was, more than 350,000 people were rescued from the areas of hostilities... Today, Russian troops continued to strike at the territory of our state. The targets they choose prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army. They targeted the warehouses of agricultural enterprises. The grain warehouse was destroyed. The warehouse with fertilizers was also shelled. They continued shelling of residential neighborhoods in the Kharkiv region, Donbas, etc. They are accumulating forces in the south of the country to try to attack our cities and communities in the Dnipropetrovsk region. What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war? Honestly, I do not know. The ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia. It will only increase the toxicity of the Russian state and the number of those in the world who will work to isolate Russia.
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2022-06-27T15:15:36Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 124 of the invasion | A number of civilians have died and dozens were injured after a missile strike hit a crowded shopping centre in Kremenchuk, a city in central Ukraine on the banks of the Dnipro river. Zelenskiy has said that over 1,000 civilians were in the shopping centre at the time of the strike, where a fire remains raging.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has virtually addressed the meeting of world leaders at the G7 summit in Germany. He told them he wants the war to be ended by the end of the year before winter sets in, and asked for anti-aircraft defence systems, further sanctions on Russia and security guarantees, as well as help to export grain from Ukraine and for reconstruction aid.
Russian-backed separatists said they were pushing into Lysychansk, the last major city still held by Ukrainian troops in eastern Luhansk province. Lysychansk’s twin city of Sievierodonetsk fell on Saturday in a victory for Moscow’s campaign to seize the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk on behalf of pro-Russian separatists. Serhai Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, has called on civilians to evacuate Lysychansk, saying that the situation is “very difficult”.
Russia stepped up air strikes on Ukraine over the weekend, including on the capital of Kyiv, while the strategic eastern city of Sievierodonetsk fell to pro-Russian forces. There had been no major strikes on Kyiv since early June.
Zelenskiy said a wounded seven-year-old girl was pulled from the rubble of a nine-storey apartment block in Kyiv. The girl’s father was killed in the strike, he said. “She was not threatened by anything in our country. She was completely safe, until Russia itself decided that everything was equally hostile to them now - women, children, kindergartens, houses, hospitals, railways,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly address.
Russia’s defence ministry said that a missile hitting a Kyiv residential building over the weekend could have been the result of a failure of Ukraine’s air defence system. In a statement, the Russian defence ministry said it believes a Ukrainian Buk missile system intercepted a S-300 air defence missile which then “fell down to a residential building”. Russia said all four of its missiles launched against an arms factory in Kyiv hit their target. Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilian areas.
A 21-year-old woman and a 57-year-old woman died in the Kharkiv region as a result of Russian shelling, according to an update from the regional governor Oleh Synyehubov.
Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since 1998, according to reports, further alienating the country from the global financial system after sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine. The country missed a deadline of Sunday night to meet a 30-day grace period on interest payments of $100m on two Eurobonds originally due on 27 May, Bloomberg reported. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia had made the bond payments due in May but the fact they had been blocked by Euroclear because of western sanctions on Russia was “not our problem”.
UK environment secretary George Eustice has said the UK is supporting Ukrainian attempts to form a land bridge to facilitate the export of grain from Ukraine. He also said the UK was investing £1.5m in determining the origins of grain supplies to prevent stolen Ukrainian grain reaching world markets.
State and private institutions in Lithuania have been hit by a denial-of-service cyber attack, the Baltic country’s National Cyber Security Centre said in a statement released by the defence ministry.
Moldova’s president said during a visit to Ukraine that her country was “fragile and vulnerable” and needed help to remain “part of the free world”. President Maia Sandu visited three towns where Ukraine suspects Russian forces of committing atrocities. “This shouldn’t happen. And, you know, it is heartbreaking to see what we see here and to hear the stories. Ukraine and Moldova need help. We want this war to stop, this Russian aggression against Ukraine to be stopped as soon as possible. We want to stay part of the free world.”
The US is likely to announce this week the purchase of an advanced medium- to long-range surface-to-air missile defence system for Ukraine. Washington is also expected to announce other security assistance for Ukraine, including additional artillery ammunition and counter-battery radars to address needs expressed by the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said G7 countries should respond to the latest missile strikes by imposing further sanctions on Russia and providing more heavy weapons to Ukraine.
Zelenskiy urged Belarusians to stand in solidarity with Ukraine. “Russian leadership wants to drag you into the Ukraine-Russian war because it doesn’t care about your lives. But you aren’t slaves and can decide your destiny yourself,” Zelenskiy said in a video address to Belarusians. |
2022-06-24T17:07:49Z | Ukraine must agree a peace deal with Russia. But at what price? | Letters | Jonathan Powell’s call for readiness for negotiations with Russia when the time comes (Putin is not yet ready to end the Ukraine war. When he is, we must be prepared, 23 June) is starkly complemented by your report of the murderous exploitation of Aiden Aslin (British man facing death sentence in Donetsk told: ‘Time is running out’, 22 June). Our leaders have – at least publicly – failed to confront Russia’s propagandistic calling of the tune. We fail to challenge the medieval tactic of razing cities and the cynically calculated mass murder of civilians.
Putin cites Russia’s history in justification of his war, talking of Nuremberg-style processes to menace prisoners of war and please his supporters at home. He, and they, should be less selective in their recall, and remember those who were condemned under Nuremberg protocols for failure to protect prisoners from execution under the infamous commando and commissar orders.
Why is no representative of our government telling them this? Why are we not hammering home to Russian field officers that “following orders” will be no defence against being thrown under the bus when Putin finds it expedient to de-escalate via the Colombian-style transitional justice that Powell refers to?
Peter Millen
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
Jonathan Powell is absolutely right to point out that a lasting peace cannot be achieved in Ukraine if Russia feels humiliated, as Germany did after the first world war. Ukraine, by definition, cannot defeat Russia – therefore, however unpalatable it may be, it will have to make some territorial concessions, probably in the pro-Russian areas that were de facto Russian territory before the invasion.
But this choice is not Ukraine’s alone. The US-led western powers have pumped defensive weapons into the country to hurt Russia and slow its advance. These will not change the outcome, only delay it, and the more pain that is inflicted on Russia, the more it will press a hard bargain for peace.
If the west really wants to see peace in Ukraine and an end to the suffering of its people, it must press Volodymyr Zelenskiy to negotiate and agree concessions, with the lever of stopping military supplies. We are driving the agenda by prolonging the conflict, and it is within our power to bring it to an end, if we want to.
Des Senior
Aylesbeare, Devon
Jonathan Powell argues, quite rightly, that a negotiated settlement is necessary in Ukraine. If this happens, however, it will still be after tens of thousands have been killed and millions have been made refugees, and countless houses and other buildings have been destroyed.
Would it not have been better to have accepted the Russian invasion when it started and used peaceful methods to resolve the situation? Could Russia really expect to govern a country with most of the population against it? Although painful, would this really have been worse than all the death and destruction so far?
Countries are rearming and generals all over the world are licking their lips at the extra resources coming their way. Arms manufacturers are delighted at the forthcoming new orders. Meanwhile, even as people in the UK are short of accommodation and food and our NHS is struggling, there will be demands for more expenditure on our armed forces.
Humans must come up with alternatives to wars as ways of settling differences. I am sorry to see that not even the Guardian is reporting the alternative ideas coming from organisations like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War Coalition.
Martin Wright
Otley, West Yorkshire
Jonathan Powell says “even ‘winners’ have to negotiate, as at Versailles in 1919”. But in 1919 the winners negotiated with themselves. Germany was excluded from the conference until the treaty terms were settled. After a couple of weeks to study the treaty, on 28 June the German delegation was made to sign it, unaltered, under the threat of resumed warfare. Not much negotiation there.
George Baugh
Much Wenlock, Shropshire |
2022-06-25T01:20:58Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 122 of the invasion | German consumers could face a tripling of gas prices in the coming months after Russia’s throttling of deliveries to Europe, a senior energy official has said. Moscow reduced the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 40% last week, citing technical reasons that Berlin dismisses as a pretext, prompting a four- to sixfold rise in market prices, said the head of Germany’s federal network agency, Klaus Müller. Such “enormous leaps in price” were unlikely to be passed down entirely to consumers, he said, but German citizens had to brace for dramatically rising costs. “A doubling or tripling is possible,” he told public broadcaster ARD.
Ukrainian forces are preparing to retreat from the strategic eastern city of Severodonetsk after weeks of fierce fighting. Sergiy Gaiday, governor of the Lugansk region that includes Severodonetsk, said Ukrainian military forces in the city had received the order to withdraw and remaining in the positions “just doesn’t make sense”, adding that 90% of the industrial city had been damaged. Severodonetsk’s military administration head, Roman Vlasenko, told Radio Svoboda that the Ukrainian army was still in the city and it would “take them some time to retire”.
The European Council has approved €9bn of financial aid to Ukraine. In a statement made by the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, at the European Council summit in Brussels on Friday, he said: “There is a war in Ukraine and there is nothing to pay nurses, teachers, police, border guards or many other public services.”
Russia has condemned the European Union’s decision to accept Ukraine and Moldova as membership candidates. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, said: “With the decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidate countries, the European Union has confirmed that it continues to actively exploit the CIS on a geopolitical level, to use it to ‘contain’ Russia,” referring to Russia’s sphere of influence within the Commonwealth of Independent States, consisting of former Soviet countries.
Canada will be able to seize and dispose of assets sanctioned as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, following the Canadian Senate’s passage of the budget of the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on Thursday. The government will then be able to use the funds from seized assets to support Ukraine.
Ukraine’s main domestic security agency said on Friday it had uncovered a Russian spy network involving Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, who was previously accused by the US of being a Russian agent. The state security service said Derkach, whose whereabouts were not made clear, set up a network of private security firms to use them to ease and support the entry of Russian units into cities during Moscow’s 24 February invasion.
More than 3,000 dolphins in the Black Sea have died as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian scientists working in the “Tuzlovsky Lymans” reserve, a national nature park. Nexta reports that the “work of sonar and explosions prevent them from finding food” and that dead dolphins have been increasingly found on the coasts of Bulgaria and Romania, in addition to Ukraine.
Mass kidnappings have been occurring in Melitopol, the mayor of the south-eastern Ukrainian city said. “More than 500 people have been abducted in the last four months,” Ivan Fedrov said, adding that mass kidnappings resumed in the Russian-occupied territory last week.
It would require Ukraine a decade to rebuild infrastructure of its Black Sea ports, whose blockade by Russia is preventing global grain exports, according to Ukraine’s deputy agriculture minister. “For alternative routes, it would take 10 years of investment to try to build the necessary infrastructure to replace this Black Sea port infrastructure, which we spent about 20 years building, starting in 2000,” Taras Vysotskiy said on Friday. |
2022-06-24T14:07:47Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 121 of the invasion | The last Ukrainian forces fighting in the heavily contested eastern city of Sievierodonetsk have been ordered to withdraw in order to avoid being encircled, as fears grow that the neighbouring city of Lysychansk could also fall to Russia within days. The anticipated loss of Sievierodonetsk is the latest battlefield reverse for Kyiv after its defeat in the port city of Mariupol. According to some estimates about 12,000 civilians remain in Sievierodonetsk, out of a prewar population of 160,000. All three bridges offering escape routes west over the Siverskyi Donets River to the twin city of Lysychansk have been destroyed in fighting, and the mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, says the humanitarian situation is critical. |
2022-07-16T00:48:18Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 143 of the invasion | At least three people were killed and 15 injured following a missile attack on Friday on Dnipro in central Ukraine, the country’s fourth-largest city with more than 1 million inhabitants. “The rockets hit an industrial plant and a busy street next to it,” the regional governor, Valentyn Rezynchenko, said on his Facebook page.
The UK said the Kremlin was “fully responsible” for the death of a British captive in east Ukraine as rescue workers in Vinnytsia scoured debris for missing people after devastating Russian rocket attacks. The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said: “I am shocked to hear reports of the death of British aid worker Paul Urey while in the custody of a Russian proxy in Ukraine. Russia must bear the full responsibility for this.” Rescue workers were still clearing debris in the wake of strikes in Vinnytsia, central Ukraine, that killed at least 23 people.
A top Ukrainian official has accused Russia of deliberately escalating its deadly attacks on civilian targets. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told the Guardian that monitoring of Russian strikes suggested an increased emphasis in recent weeks on terrorising Ukraine’s civilian population. “That’s not my emotions but what our monitoring is telling us.”
A wounded soldier who returned from Russian captivity has recounted how Russian forces would threaten Ukrainian soldiers with the death penalty if they refused to cooperate. Denys Piskun, an Azov soldier, told Azov Media: “They said that if you don’t testify, if you don’t cooperate, there will be the death penalty. You all have the death penalty on trial as a Nazi terrorist organisation.”
Ukrainian officials have confirmed that the US House of Representatives approved $100m in funding to train Ukrainian pilots to operate American aircraft as part of the National Defence Authorisation Act. The pilots will be trained on F-15 and F-16 jets, according to Andriy Yermak, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff.
Ukraine’s military losses peaked in May, the defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said in a new interview aired on Friday. Speaking to the BBC, Reznikov said: “The biggest peak of our losses was in May,” with up to 100 soldiers being killed a day.
Europe has “shot itself in the lungs” with sanctions aimed at Russia over its war in Ukraine, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said on Friday. Orbán, a nationalist who has ruled Hungary since 2010 and frequently clashes with Brussels, has been a fierce critic of European Union sanctions on Russian oil. In an address on national radio, Orbán urged EU leaders to change the sanctions policy.
Ukrainian rocket strikes have destroyed more than 30 Russian military logistics centres in recent weeks and significantly reduced Russia’s attacking potential, Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesperson said on Friday. The official, Oleksandr Motuzianyk, emphasised the role played by US Himars (high mobility artillery rocket systems) rocket systems, one of several types of long-range weapon supplied by the west to assist Ukraine in the war. |
2022-06-24T15:23:14Z | Russia ‘turning wave of food crises into tsunami’ by blocking grain exports | Russia has transformed an existing life-threatening wave of food crises into a tsunami by blocking the export of 25m tonnes of grain from Ukraine’s ports, the Germany’s foreign minister has said.
Speaking at the start of an inter-ministerial food conference in Berlin, a precursor to the G7 meeting in Germany starting this weekend where aid groups will demand a big financial commitment to help Africa, Annalena Baerbock said 345 million people worldwide were currently threatened by food shortages.
She said the hunger crisis was building “like a life-threatening wave before us” but it was Russia’s war that had “made a tsunami out of this wave”, and she said Russia was using hunger as a weapon of war.
In an international blame game playing out across Africa, Russia claims it is western sanctions that are slowing the flow of Russian food.
As many as 25 African countries, including many of the least developed, import more than one-third of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia, and 15 of them more than half.
Her remarks led Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and prime minister, to make a reference to the German starvation tactics in the second world war. He said: “German officials are accusing Russia of using hunger like a weapon. It is amazing to hear this from officials whose country kept Leningrad in blockade for 900 days, where almost 700 thousand people died of starvation.”
But Baerbock’s criticism of Russia was backed by Arif Husain, the chief economist at the UN World Food Programme, who said it was not sanctions that were causing the food crisis but war. “We tend to address the symptoms and forget the root cause, and the root cause is war,” he said.
He said more than 40 countries were now facing food inflation of over 15%, and upwards of 30 economies had seen depreciation of their currency of more than 25%.
“The numbers do not lie. Pre-Covid we were looking at about 135 million people in crisis or the worst type of food security situation. Today, including Ukraine’s impact, that number is 345 million. There are about 50 million people in the world who are what we call in hunger emergencies, meaning one step away from famine. That is not in one, two or five countries, but upwards of 45 countries. That’s the magnitude, that’s the scale of the problem you’re talking about.”
He also said the “affordability crisis” caused by high prices could turn into an “availability crisis” next year largely because fertilisers are not moving at the rates required. He said funding shortfalls caused by rising costs and demand meant the WFP was “having to cut rations left right and centre”.
Speaking at a Chatham House conference, he rejected suggestions that the loss of Ukraine exports by sea could be substituted by road and rail. He said UN estimates showed only 1.5m to 2m tonnes of grain a month could be transported by road and rail routes, compared with the 5m to 6m a month normally exported through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. He said the road routes would require 9,000 trucks a day.
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“Think about the dynamic of 9,000 trucks on the road in a war zone. It would be prohibitively expensive by road even if you could do it. The premium for the grain would put you out of the market on the global stage. It is not about getting 1-2m tonnes out – that will not make a dent on world market prices.”
The talks between Russia, the UN, Turkey and Ukraine centre on the terms for safe passage of grain convoys out of Odesa, as well as Russian claims that western sanctions are restricting its shipment of fertilisers. The EU insist it has exempted foodstuffs from sanctions, and says the Russian position is a diversion from its refusal to give guarantees that it will not attack Odesa.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said: “A combination of Covid, climate and now conflict is creating an even graver crisis of food insecurity. Let us be very, very clear: the only reason for this now is the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the Russian blockade of grain and foodstuffs moving out.”
On Sunday during the Economic Forum in Saint-Petersburg, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin channel RT, seemed to be betting on famine changing westerners’ attitudes towards Moscow. “The famine will begin and they will lift the sanctions,” she said. |
2022-04-14T21:46:28Z | Russia: journalist arrested for ‘fake news’ about armed forces | A criminal case has been opened against a Siberian journalist whose news website published content critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian media reported on Thursday.
Mikhail Afanasyev, chief editor of Novy Fokus in the Russian region of Khakassia, was arrested by security forces on Wednesday over the website’s reporting on 11 riot police who allegedly refused deployment to Ukraine.
Afanasyev was accused Thursday of disseminating “deliberately false information” about the Russian armed forces, an offence that carries a maximum 10-year jail sentence under a law passed last month.
The charges come amid an unprecedented crackdown on independent media and anti-war dissent. Last month, the Russian parliament passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military.
Afanasyev has published numerous investigations into sensitive issues in Khakassia, such as organised crime and alleged abuses of power by local officials.
In 2009, he was accused of libel after publishing stories that criticised the Russian government’s response to an explosion at the country’s largest hydroelectric plant that year. And in 2016, he reportedly faced death threats from a criminal gang active in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, after he detailed the group’s illegal activities and suspected ties to local police.
Another Siberia-based journalist was also arrested Wednesday on suspicion of breaching Russia’s new laws on media coverage of the situation in Ukraine. Sergei Mikhailov, founder of the LIStok weekly newspaper, based in the republic of Altay, was reportedly placed in pre-trial detention over the outlet’s alleged “calls for sanctions against Russia”.
LIStok’s website has been blocked since March for “promoting” activities opposing Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
Four student journalists were sentenced on Wednesday to two years’ “corrective labour” over an online video in which they defended young Russians’ freedom of assembly.
Former Doxa journalists Armen Aramyan, Natasha Tyshkevich, Alla Gutnikova and Volodya Metelkin had been under house arrest for almost a year after they were detained in April 2021 for posting a three-minute video on YouTube in which they said it was illegal to expel and intimidate students for participating in rallies in support of the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
A Moscow court on Tuesday said the video had encouraged “the involvement of minors” in anti-Kremlin protests. |
2022-07-15T14:38:29Z | Russia confirms it carried out Vinnytsia strike as fears grow in east Ukraine | Russia has confirmed it carried out a missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, the latest in a string of deadly attacks on civilian areas, as worries in Ukraine grow that Russia is preparing a new assault in the east.
The Russian defence ministry claimed in a military briefing on Friday that Thursday’s cruise missile attack was directed at a building where top officials from Ukraine’s air forces were meeting foreign arms suppliers.
“The attack resulted in the elimination of the participants,” the ministry said.
Ukraine has rejected Russian claims that any military target was hit, saying the attack, which took place hundreds of kilometres from the frontlines, killed at least 23 people – including three children – and struck a cultural centre used by retired veterans.
Among the horrific images from the scene posted by Ukrainian officials was one of a dead child in a buggy next to a severed foot. The child’s mother is in critical condition in hospital, Serhiy Borzov, an official in Vinnytsia, said.
Ukrainian rescuers on Friday continued search operations in the city, where 18 people were still missing, according to the president’s office. In his nightly address to the nation on Thursday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death toll was likely to rise.
Russia has repeatedly denied it is targeting civilians in Ukraine, despite mounting evidence collected by independent journalists and human rights groups that contradict these claims.
Moscow on Friday continued to shell infrastructure across Ukraine. At least 10 missiles hit two major universities in the southern city of Mykolaiv, the regional governor, Vitali Kim, said.
Kim said four S-300 missiles hit the National University of Mykolaiv and five hit the National University of Shipbuilding in central Mykolaiv. Two floors of the National University were destroyed, Kim said, adding that it was “impossible to restore the premises before the beginning of the academic year”.
Local authorities did not immediately release an official tally of casualties. Footage posted online in the aftermath of the strikes showed heavily damaged classrooms and destroyed laboratories filled with debris and research equipment.
In eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s “operational pause largely continued”, with small-scale offensives on Thursday centred on the Ukraine-controlled Donetsk cities of Slovyansk, Siversk and Bakhmut, according to a report published by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. The ISW also assessed that Russia “will likely launch a larger-scale and more determined offensive along the Slovyansk-Siversk-Bakhmut line soon”.
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Last week, Putin ordered his senior generals to carry on their advance towards western parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk province after the Russian army seized the country’s far eastern Luhansk area following months of heavy fighting.
Ukraine’s military in a Facebook post on Friday said Russian forces were regrouping in the direction of Kramatorsk, in order to resume the offensive towards Siversk.
Moscow-backed separatists said on Friday they were surrounding Siversk, claiming that Ukrainian troops were pulling out of the town.
“The Ukrainian command has decided to gradually pull out its units out of the town of Siversk,” Andrey Marochko, a spokesman for the separatist forces, told Russian state news agency Tass. The Guardian could not independently verify these claims. |
2022-06-24T05:00:08Z | US accuses UK of exploiting Russia tensions to fish highly prized species | A diplomatic row has broken out between the UK and the US over efforts to conserve a deepwater species of fish near Antarctica, as Russia obstructs attempts to set catch limits.
Last year, amid tensions with the west over Ukraine, Russia rejected catch limits for Patagonia toothfish – also known as Chilean seabass – set by a 26-member fishing regulatory body, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).
This spring, the UK responded by issuing licences to four British flagged vessels to fish for the species off the coast of South Georgia, a remote uninhabited island controlled by the UK, almost 1,000 miles (1,600km) east of the Falkland Islands.
The Patagonia toothfish, also called Chilean seabass (Dissostichus eleginoides). Illustration: Wildlife GmbH/Alamy
US officials say the UK’s actions breach the commission’s rules, rendering the catch illegal. The feud has also sparked fears it could threaten wider international cooperation over the fishery and risks reviving Britain’s tensions with Argentina, which invaded South Georgia in 1982 as part of its war with the UK over the Falklands.
It is the first time in the 40 years since CCAMLR was set up to protect Antarctic marine life that deepsea fishing of Patagonia toothfish, one of the world’s highest-priced wild-caught fish, is going ahead without any catch limits from the commission.
Will McCallum, head of oceans at Greenpeace, fears the UK’s actions set a risky precedent in one of the world’s best-managed fisheries.
The fishery has been held up as a positive example of international cooperation between powers such as Russia, China and the US to protect the Southern Ocean against increasing commercial interest in Antarctic krill – a key component of the marine ecosystem – and other marine resources.
McCallum said: “Russia’s willingness to abuse the process cannot excuse unilateral action by other members. We’re worried that the precedent the UK has set, by acting in its national interest, could be used by other countries like China, that is building krill vessels.”
US officials have privately told their UK counterparts that their actions are likely to bar imports of any toothfish caught near South Georgia, according to correspondence between US fisheries managers and members of Congress, seen by the Associated Press.
Krill are transferred from a fishing vessel to a reefer. The crustaceans are a key part of the marine ecosystem. Photograph: Andrew McConnell/Greenpeace
The row risks a breakdown in carefully negotiated limits for the fishery. “It sets a dangerous precedent,” Evan Bloom, who led the US delegation to the CCAMLR until 2020, told AP.
“What the Russians did clearly violates the spirit of science-based fisheries management,” said Bloom, now an expert on polar issues at the Wilson Center in Washington. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the UK can act unilaterally.”
Three of the four vessels authorised by the UK to fish near South Georgia belong to Argos Froyanes, a British-Norwegian company that pioneered techniques credited with dramatically reducing seabird mortality in the south Atlantic.
Barry Markman, the CEO of one of Argos Froyanes’ customers, New-York based Mark Foods, the largest US supplier of seabass certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, said his company would not import any product deemed illegal by US authorities.
Bags of krill aboard a fishing vessel. The fishery has been hailed as an example of international cooperation to protect against increasing commercial interest in krill. Photograph: Andrew McConnell/Greenpeace
Chilean seabass from South Georgia is sold at Whole Foods and Orlando-based Darden Restaurants. Neither company responded to a request for comment from AP.
An official from the government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which issued the licences in coordination with the UK Foreign Office, said it took action so as not to give in to obstructionist tactics by Russia that it does not expect to see an end to soon.
Before CCAMLR was set up, the population of the Patagonia toothfish, a bottom-dwelling species that lives up to 50 years, almost collapsed because of poaching, but it has recovered.
The financial hit for the seafood industry from any import ban could be significant, as US imports of the MSC-certified fish are worth about $50m (£40m).
Under US law, fishing in a way that disregards conservation measures adopted by international fishery organisations to which the US is a party – including catch limits – is considered illegal. Vessels engaging in such activity can be denied access to US ports and blacklisted within the Antarctic commission framework.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “Russia egregiously blocked the agreed catch limits citing spurious scientific concerns not recognised by any other member of the CCAMLR. The UK will continue to operate the toothfish fishery within the framework agreed by all CCAMLR members.” |
2022-07-15T08:22:30Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 142 of the invasion | At least 23 people, including three children, were killed and up to 66 others wounded after Russian missiles struck civilian buildings and a cultural centre in the city of Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine. The attack on Vinnytsia, far from the war’s front lines, occurred mid-morning on Thursday when the streets were full of people. Ihor Zhovkva, deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine, said that “more than 70 people are still in hospital” and “18 people are missing, and the rescue operation is going on”. Eleven bodies, including two children, remain unidentified. |
2022-05-31T19:01:36Z | Most of Sievierodonetsk has fallen to Russia, says governor of Luhansk | Russian forces have taken control of most of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk but have not surrounded it, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk province has said as heavy fighting continued in and around the key city and civilians were told to stay underground.
Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post late on Tuesday that Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies or evacuate people.
Earlier, the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, said artillery bombardments were threatening the lives of the thousands of civilians still sheltering in the ruined city, with evacuations not possible.
“Half of the city has been captured by the Russians and fierce street fighting is under way,” Striuk said. “The situation is very serious and the city is essentially being destroyed ruthlessly block by block.
“The Ukrainian military continues to resist this frenzied push and aggression by Russian forces. Unfortunately … the city has been split in half. But at the same time the city still defends itself. It is still Ukrainian,” he said, advising those still trapped inside to stay in cellars.
Striuk estimated that about 13,000 people remained in the city out of a prewar population of about 100,000 but said it was impossible to keep track of civilian casualties amid round-the-clock shelling.
He said more than 1,500 people in the city who died of various causes have been buried since the war began in February. “Civilians are dying from direct strikes, from fragmentation wounds and under the rubble of destroyed buildings, since most of the inhabitants are hiding in basements and shelters,” he said.
The leader of the pro-Moscow self-proclaimed republic of Luhansk earlier admitted that Russian and pro-Moscow forces were moving more slowly than they hoped. “We can say already that a third of Sievierodonetsk is already under our control,” Russia’s Tass state news agency quoted Leonid Pasechnik as saying.
Amid mounting concern for the civilians still trapped in the city Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency, which had long operated out of Sievierodonetsk, said he was “horrified” by its destruction.
“We fear that up to 12,000 civilians remain caught in crossfire in the city, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine or electricity. The near-constant bombardment is forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, with only few precious opportunities for those trying to escape.”
The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, on Tuesday evening reiterated calls for residents to stay in shelters after he said a Russian airstrike had hit a nitric acid tank, risking the release of toxic fumes. In a post on the Telegram app he added a photograph of a large pink cloud over residential buildings.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, there were few reports of major action on Tuesday.
In the east, Ukraine says Moscow is trying to assault other areas along the main front, including pressing towards the city of Sloviansk.
In the south, Ukraine claimed in recent days to have pushed back Russian forces on a bank of the Inhulets River that forms a border of Russian-held Kherson province.
After having failed to capture Kyiv, been driven out of northern Ukraine and made only limited progress elsewhere in the east, Moscow has concentrated the full force of its armed might in recent days on Sievierodonetsk.
Victory there and in adjoining Lysychansk would let Moscow claim control of Luhansk province, one of two eastern regions it claims on behalf of separatist proxies, partly achieving one of President Vladimir Putin’s stated war aims.
But the huge battle has come at a massive cost, which some western military experts say could hurt Russia’s ability to fend off eventual Ukrainian counterattacks elsewhere, regardless of who wins the battle for Sievierodonetsk.
“Putin is now hurling men and munitions at the last remaining major population centre in [Luhansk], Sievierodonetsk, as if taking it would win the war for the Kremlin. He is wrong,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War thinktank wrote this week.
“When the Battle of Sievierodonetsk ends, regardless of which side holds the city, the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will likely have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back.”
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The latest fighting came as Russia said on Tuesday that it will hand over the bodies of 152 Ukrainian soldiers found underneath the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, now under Moscow’s control.
Russia’s defence ministry said its troops found “152 bodies of dead militants and servicemen of Ukraine’s armed forces” that it claims were stored inside a cooling unit and that “four mines” were found underneath the bodies.
“The Russian side plans to hand over the bodies of Ukrainian militants and servicemen found on the territory of the Azovstal plant to representatives in Ukraine,” the ministry added.
News agencies contributed to this report |
2022-06-23T00:45:30Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 120 of the invasion | Russia’s Tass news agency is carrying a report that British citizens Sean Pinner and Aiden Aslin, alongside Moroccan Saadoun Brahim, are preparing an appeal against their death sentences. Tass quotes Pinner’s lawyer Yulia Tserkovnikova saying “my colleagues and I are preparing the full text of the appeal against the verdict in the interests of our clients”. British authorities have described the trial as a “sham”, with one MP saying the men were essentially being held as hostages. The men argue that they were part of Ukraine’s armed forces, and should be subject to the Geneva convention on prisoners of war. |
2022-05-31T19:01:36Z | Most of Sievierodonetsk has fallen to Russia, says governor of Luhansk | Russian forces have taken control of most of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk but have not surrounded it, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk province has said as heavy fighting continued in and around the key city and civilians were told to stay underground.
Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post late on Tuesday that Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies or evacuate people.
Earlier, the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, said artillery bombardments were threatening the lives of the thousands of civilians still sheltering in the ruined city, with evacuations not possible.
“Half of the city has been captured by the Russians and fierce street fighting is under way,” Striuk said. “The situation is very serious and the city is essentially being destroyed ruthlessly block by block.
“The Ukrainian military continues to resist this frenzied push and aggression by Russian forces. Unfortunately … the city has been split in half. But at the same time the city still defends itself. It is still Ukrainian,” he said, advising those still trapped inside to stay in cellars.
Striuk estimated that about 13,000 people remained in the city out of a prewar population of about 100,000 but said it was impossible to keep track of civilian casualties amid round-the-clock shelling.
He said more than 1,500 people in the city who died of various causes have been buried since the war began in February. “Civilians are dying from direct strikes, from fragmentation wounds and under the rubble of destroyed buildings, since most of the inhabitants are hiding in basements and shelters,” he said.
The leader of the pro-Moscow self-proclaimed republic of Luhansk earlier admitted that Russian and pro-Moscow forces were moving more slowly than they hoped. “We can say already that a third of Sievierodonetsk is already under our control,” Russia’s Tass state news agency quoted Leonid Pasechnik as saying.
Amid mounting concern for the civilians still trapped in the city Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency, which had long operated out of Sievierodonetsk, said he was “horrified” by its destruction.
“We fear that up to 12,000 civilians remain caught in crossfire in the city, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine or electricity. The near-constant bombardment is forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, with only few precious opportunities for those trying to escape.”
The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, on Tuesday evening reiterated calls for residents to stay in shelters after he said a Russian airstrike had hit a nitric acid tank, risking the release of toxic fumes. In a post on the Telegram app he added a photograph of a large pink cloud over residential buildings.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, there were few reports of major action on Tuesday.
In the east, Ukraine says Moscow is trying to assault other areas along the main front, including pressing towards the city of Sloviansk.
In the south, Ukraine claimed in recent days to have pushed back Russian forces on a bank of the Inhulets River that forms a border of Russian-held Kherson province.
After having failed to capture Kyiv, been driven out of northern Ukraine and made only limited progress elsewhere in the east, Moscow has concentrated the full force of its armed might in recent days on Sievierodonetsk.
Victory there and in adjoining Lysychansk would let Moscow claim control of Luhansk province, one of two eastern regions it claims on behalf of separatist proxies, partly achieving one of President Vladimir Putin’s stated war aims.
But the huge battle has come at a massive cost, which some western military experts say could hurt Russia’s ability to fend off eventual Ukrainian counterattacks elsewhere, regardless of who wins the battle for Sievierodonetsk.
“Putin is now hurling men and munitions at the last remaining major population centre in [Luhansk], Sievierodonetsk, as if taking it would win the war for the Kremlin. He is wrong,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War thinktank wrote this week.
“When the Battle of Sievierodonetsk ends, regardless of which side holds the city, the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will likely have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back.”
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The latest fighting came as Russia said on Tuesday that it will hand over the bodies of 152 Ukrainian soldiers found underneath the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, now under Moscow’s control.
Russia’s defence ministry said its troops found “152 bodies of dead militants and servicemen of Ukraine’s armed forces” that it claims were stored inside a cooling unit and that “four mines” were found underneath the bodies.
“The Russian side plans to hand over the bodies of Ukrainian militants and servicemen found on the territory of the Azovstal plant to representatives in Ukraine,” the ministry added.
News agencies contributed to this report |
2022-07-14T14:29:43Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 141 of the invasion | The global economic outlook has “darkened significantly” following the consequences of the war in Ukraine, according to the head of the International Monetary Fund. Kristalina Georgieva said the global outlook remains “extremely uncertain” with an increased risk of recession. “The human tragedy of the war in Ukraine has worsened. So, too, has its economic impact … and it’s only getting worse,” she said. G20 finance ministers and central bank governors are preparing to meet in Bali this week. |
2022-07-13T17:35:44Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 140 of the invasion | Russia has launched a criminal case against one of the last opposition figures remaining in the country, for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Ilya Yashin, 39, a Moscow city councillor, was sentenced to 15 days in jail last month for disobeying police. He had been set to be released in the early hours of Wednesday. |
2022-04-12T11:58:26Z | Pro-Russia cavalcade provokes shock and anger in Ireland | A pro-Russian cavalcade in Dublin led by a car with the Z symbol has provoked astonishment and condemnation in Ireland.
About 10 cars with Russian and Irish flags drove in a convoy down the M50 motorway last Sunday afternoon in an apparent display of support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The bonnet of the lead vehicle, a green Jeep-style 4x4, bore the Z symbol that Russian forces use in Ukraine.
The rally is believed to have been organised through a private Facebook group for Russians living in Ireland. Pro-Russia rallies were held in Germany on the same day, including a motorcade rally in Hanover.
Seen them all on the M50 today pic.twitter.com/pufC97xnzZ — Dave (@JustDave87) April 10, 2022
“It’s absolutely disgusting that these Russians living in Ireland demonstrate their complete disrespect for [their] country of residence and the Irish people who stand against Russia’s war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian embassy in Dublin said in a tweet that included video footage of the rally. The embassy said Z symbolised killings and atrocities and should be banned.
The cavalcade occurred three days after Irish legislators gave a standing ovation to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who thanked Ireland for its support for Ukraine in a video address to both chambers of parliament.
It’s absolutely disgusting that these russians living in🇮🇪demonstrate their complete disrespect for country of residence&the Irish people who stand against russia’s war in Ukraine. 🇷🇺“Z”, the symbol of killings & atrocities, must be prohibited by law in every democratic state pic.twitter.com/ttGwbYReNF — UKR Embassy in Ireland (@UKRinIRL) April 10, 2022
The Irish government has called for tougher sanctions on Russia and supports Ukraine’s ambitions to become a member of the EU. Ireland is hosting more than 20,000 Ukrainian refugees, many of them staying with Irish families.
The cavalcade reportedly set out from near Dublin airport and made its way down the M50, Ireland’s busiest motorway, bearing Russian, Soviet and Irish flags.
Many people on social media condemned the pro-Moscow display as an affront to the victims of Russia’s invasion and an insult to Ireland’s solidarity with Ukraine. Others expressed disapproval but defended the right of people to show support for Russia. |
2022-06-22T00:17:26Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 119 of the invasion | Members of the Russian delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have been denied British visas to attend the next session, according to Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy head of Russian upper house’s international affairs committee. A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “There are currently no restrictions or limitations for Russian nationals to work in the UK on long-term work visas.” The spokesperson said the UK was prioritising applications from Ukrainians, and that applications for study, work and family visas were taking longer to process.
The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, visited Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss Russia’s war crimes, a justice department official said. Garland met with Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, and announced a war crimes accountability team to identify and prosecute perpetrators. “There is no hiding place for war criminals,” Garland said. |
2022-05-06T19:02:26Z | Russia summons UK ambassador over new sanctions on media outlets | The British ambassador to Moscow, Deborah Bronnert, has been summoned to the Russian foreign ministry to be warned over new UK sanctions imposed on Russian media outlets, in a move seen as likely to presage reprisals on British press operations in Russia.
In a statement late on Friday, the ministry said Russia would continue to react “harshly and decisively” to all sanctions imposed by London.
The UK earlier this week announced sanctions against the state-owned television station Channel One, accusing it of “spreading disinformation in Russia, justifying Putin’s illegal invasion as a ‘special military operation’”.
Britain also imposed sanctions on a group of Russian journalists embedded with the Russian army in Ukraine, including Evgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, and Dmitry Steshin, a special correspondent for the same outlet.
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The UK also acted against the websites of RT and Sputnik, claiming: “For too long RT and Sputnik have churned out dangerous nonsense dressed up as serious news to justify Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
An Ofcom ban already existed on RT’s UK broadcasting licence after it was the subject of repeated complaints for breaching the terms of its licence .
The Russian foreign ministry has been taking a harder line with diplomats from liberal democracies in the past weeks, partly in response to the expulsion of a large number of Russian diplomats from Europe.
The UK has been one of the few western diplomacies not to expel Russian diplomats in the past two months, but it has been at the forefront of countries imposing sanctions on oligarchs. |
2022-06-21T12:37:57Z | US volunteer fighters captured in Ukraine could face death penalty, says Russia | The Kremlin has said that two captured US volunteers are not covered by the Geneva conventions and could face the death penalty.
“We are talking about mercenaries who threatened the lives of our service personnel,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said. “And not only ours, but also the service personnel of the DPR and LPR,” he added, referencing the Russian-controlled self-proclaimed peoples’ republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russian media has claimed that two of three US volunteers missing in Ukraine have been captured and are being held by pro-Russian separatist forces.
The Kremlin, however, denied that it knew the location of the two men.
Asked whether the Americans could be put on trial in Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk and sentenced to death, Peskov said: “We cannot exclude anything because these are decisions for the court. We never comment on them and have no right to interfere in court decisions.”
The two men were taken into detention by Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk after being captured last week, according to Russian state media.
Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, both from Alabama, were filmed on Russia’s RT channel at a detention centre in the DPR on Friday.
The threat of the death penalty against the two men follows the sentencing to death of two Britons and a Moroccan who surrendered in Mariupol after fighting with Ukrainian forces, amid some suggestions that Russia may use the men to bargain for the release of captured Russians.
While Russia has a moratorium on the death penalty, that moratorium does not extend to the DPR, despite being a proxy of Moscow.
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The two Americans went missing earlier this month during a battle north of Kharkiv.
Despite claims by Russia and its allies in Ukraine that the Geneva conventions do not cover captured foreign fighters – who it characterises as “mercenaries” – all of those being threatened with the death penalty were serving with the Ukrainian armed forces, which means they should be treated as prisoners of war.
The Geneva conventions also forbid the prosecution of captured combatants for lawful participation in conflict as opposed to illegal acts committed as combatants.
A State Department spokesperson told CNN on Friday they “have seen the photos and videos of these two US citizens reportedly captured by Russia’s military forces in Ukraine” and were “closely monitoring the situation”.
“We are in contact with Ukrainian authorities, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and with the families themselves. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment on these cases.”
On 9 June – the day the two US volunteers were captured – a Donetsk court sentenced British citizens Sean Pinner and Aiden Aslin, and the Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim to death. Concern over the men’s welfare has been raised further by a statement by the head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, that he did not plan to swap them for Russian prisoners of war.
“The exchange of the British men sentenced to death in the DPR is not under discussion, there are no grounds for pardoning them,” Pushilin told independent Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta last week.
A third American missing in action in Ukraine has been identified as the former US Marine veteran Grady Kurpasi, who has been out of contact with his family since late April.
The State Department also confirmed on Tuesday that US citizen Stephen Zabielski was killed in mid-May, apparently by a landmine, fighting with Ukrainian forces. “We can confirm the death of US citizen Stephen Zabielski in Ukraine,” a spokesperson said.
Zabielski is the second American citizen to have died after Willy Joseph Cancel, a 22-year-old ex-Marine, was killed fighting in late April. |
2022-07-13T00:10:53Z | Russia ‘doesn’t have the courage’ to admit defeat, says Zelenskiy – as it happened | From 12 Jul 2022 22.37 Zelenskiy: Russia 'doesn't have the courage' to admit defeat Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat in Ukraine, and is warning the occupying military force that it is not safe “anywhere on our land”. Ukraine’s president delivered the remarks in a blistering video address to the nation on Tuesday night, the 139th day since Moscow’s invasion, and posted to his official website. ⚡️Zelensky: Russia does not have courage to admit defeat.
“They no longer have strategic power, character, or understanding of what they are doing here, on our land. There is not an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from the Ukrainian territory,” Zelensky said. — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 12, 2022 Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”: The occupiers have already felt very well what modern artillery is, and they will not have a safe rear anywhere on our land. They have felt that the operations of our reconnaissance officers to protect their homeland are much more powerful than any of their ‘special operations’. Russian soldiers, and we know this from interceptions of their conversations, are truly afraid of our armed forces. The so-called second army of the world is afraid of Ukrainians and is able to do something only on the basis of bottomless stocks of old Soviet weapons. They no longer have strategic strength, character, or understanding of what they are doing here on our land. They also don’t have even an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from Ukrainian territory. Ukraine, he said, will “be able to defend itself, rebuild itself, and realise all its foreign policy goals”: When millions of people work sincerely for this, each and every one at their own level, the result will be certain. Zelenskiy’s remarks came as fierce fighting continues for control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and Russia appears to be stepping up its attacks on civilians, with at least 45 people now known to have died in a weekend missile strike on a block of flats in Chasiv Yar. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Polish defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak meet in Kyiv Tuesday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters The president also revealed he had met Poland’s deputy prime minister and defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak in Kyiv on Tuesday, and discussed cooperation over defence. He said: “It is important not only what we talked about, but also how we talked. With absolute confidence in the Ukrainian future, in the Ukrainian-European future”. Zelenskiy added: A really difficult road is ahead. Unfortunately, it is impossible to do otherwise when you are protecting your home from a terrorist assault. But it is also clear that what lies ahead is the success of our state.
13 Jul 2022 01.10 Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. We will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning. In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below. The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, rose to at least 45 on Tuesday. Saturday’s strike destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city. Nine people have been pulled out alive, with a rescue operation still ongoing. At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson, in a strike attributed to recently acquired US weapons. The explosion hit a warehouse close to a key railway line and a dam on the Dnipro River. Footage on social media showed a large explosion lighting up the night, burning ammunition and towering smoke. Russia has reportedly heavily shelled the eastern town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region overnight in response to the Nova Kakhovka strike. Kyiv Independent reporter Illia Ponomarenko tweeted alongside footage purportedly of the assault: “Meanwhile, Russia responds by sweeping Bakhmut off the earth with artillery in the night.” Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat. In a nationally televised address, Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”. Grain shipments via the Danube River have increased with the reopening of the Bystre canal. The number of foreign ships reaching Ukraine ports to help with grain exports has doubled to 16 within the last 24 hours, according to Ukraine deputy infrastructure minister, Yuriy Vaskov. Ukraine has restored the long-decommissioned ports to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade, and expects to increase monthly exports to 500,000 tons. The US treasury announced on Tuesday it was sending an additional $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services”. The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May. Russian president Vladimir Putin is set to visit Tehran next week to hold talks with Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The meeting comes as the US has accused Iran of preparing to supply Russia with hundreds of weapons-capable drones for use in Ukraine. Military delegations from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey will meet UN officials in Istanbul on Wednesday to discuss a possible deal to resume safe exports of Ukraine grain from the major Black Sea port of Odesa as a global food crisis worsens. The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday that more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, adding that the real toll was probably much higher. The European Union has so far frozen €13.8bn (£11.7bn) worth of assets held by Russian oligarchs, other individuals and entities sanctioned for Moscow’s war against Ukraine, the bloc’s top justice official said on Tuesday. Russia has claimed to have killed a significant number of foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine in the last three weeks, including 23 from Great Britain. The appeals over the death sentences of captured Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Saaudun Brahim will be dealt with within a month, an official from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said. UK foreign secretary Liz Truss has said she “utterly condemns” the sentencing, stating: “They are prisoners of war. This is a sham judgement with absolutely no legitimacy.” Brazil is looking to buy as much diesel as it can from Russia and the deals closed “as recently as yesterday,” Brazilian foreign minister Carlos Franca said on Tuesday, without giving further details.
12 Jul 2022 00.50 The Virgin Mary seen hanging on the wall of a destroyed church due to Russian shelling in the south of Ukraine. Photograph: Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock An Ukrainian serviceman of Khartia battalion rests after patrolling at the frontline near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday, July 12. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
12 Jul 2022 00.15 Russia shelling east Ukrainian town of Bakhmut - reports Russia has reportedly responded to an earlier Ukrainian strike on the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka by shelling the eastern town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region overnight. Kyiv Independent reporter Illia Ponomarenko tweeted alongside footage purportedly of the assault: “Meanwhile, Russia responds by sweeping Bakhmut off the earth with artillery in the night.” According to multiple reports, Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, is currently under heavy shelling. pic.twitter.com/dTi0aU2FGi — Oleksiy Sorokin (@mrsorokaa) July 12, 2022
12 Jul 2022 00.00 Ships begin to pass through Danube to export Ukraine grain Here is a little more detail regarding an increase in Ukraine’s grain exports as ships reportedly begin to pass through an important mouth of the Danube river. Deputy infrastructure minister Yuriy Vaskov was quoted as a saying in a ministry statement: In the last four days, 16 ships have passed through the Bystre rivermouth. We plan to maintain this pace.” The ministry said the 16 vessels were now waiting to be loaded with Ukrainian grain for export to foreign markets, while more than 90 more vessels were awaiting their turn in Romania’s Sulina canal. Only four ships could be received per day along the Sulina route, he said, while a rate of eight per day was needed. But Ukraine was negotiating with Romanian colleagues and European Commission representatives about increasing the rate of crossings, he added. If such conditions were met, and with the opening of the Bystre, he said Ukraine expected this ship congestion would end within a week and that monthly exports of grain would increase by 500,000 tonnes.
12 Jul 2022 23.04 Summary It’s 1am in Kyiv and Moscow, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 140th day. Here’s what we’ve been following: Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat, and that the occupying forces are not safe anywhere in the country. In a nationally televised address, Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”.
In a nationally televised address, Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”. The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, rose to at least 45 on Tuesday. Saturday’s strike destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city. Nine people have been pulled out alive, the Kyiv Independent reported, with a rescue operation ongoing.
Saturday’s strike destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city. Nine people have been pulled out alive, the Kyiv Independent reported, with a rescue operation ongoing. Footage from social media appears to show a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson. The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont in Kyiv reports that at least seven people were killed, and that the missile used in the strike was among a batch of recently acquirted weapons from the US.
The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont in Kyiv reports that at least seven people were killed, and that the missile used in the strike was among a batch of recently acquirted weapons from the US. The US treasury announced on Tuesday it was sending an additional $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services”. The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May.
The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May. The number of foreign ships reaching Ukraine ports on the Danube to help with grain exports has doubled to 16 within the last 24 hours, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing the country’s infrastructure ministry. Ukraine has restored the long-decommissioned ports to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade, and expects to increase monthly exports to 500,000 tons.
Ukraine has restored the long-decommissioned ports to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade, and expects to increase monthly exports to 500,000 tons. Russian president Vladimir Putin will visit Iran next week, the Kremlin said, a day after the US warned that Tehran could provide Moscow with drones for its action in Ukraine.
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday that more than 5,000 civilians had been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, adding that the real toll was probably much higher.
The European Union has so far frozen €13.8bn (£11.7bn) worth of assets held by Russian oligarchs, other individuals and entities sanctioned for Moscow’s war against Ukraine, the bloc’s top justice official said on Tuesday.
Russia has claimed to have killed a significant number of foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine in the last three weeks, including 23 from Great Britain.
An official at the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic says that the appeals over the death sentences of Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Saaudun Brahim will be dealt with within a month. UK foreign secretary Liz Truss has said she “utterly condemns” the sentencing, stating: “They are prisoners of war. This is a sham judgement with absolutely no legitimacy.” That’s it from me, Richard Luscombe, in the US. My colleagues in Australia will be along shortly to guide you through the rest of the day’s developments in Ukraine.
12 Jul 2022 22.48 Ukraine’s air force has carried out about 1,700 attacks on Russian forces since the start of the war on 24 February, the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda is reporting, citing military officials. Air force command spokesman Yuriy Ignat told the outlet that Ukraine’s pilots had been able to overcome strong air defence systems employed by the “temporary” occupiers, and “continue to provide air support to ground troops in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine” using Su-25 attack aircraft and Su-24M bombers: In total, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia, air force strike aircraft have conducted 1,700 group airstrikes against the positions, warehouses, equipment and manpower of the Russian occupying forces on the front lines... despite the large number of enemy air defenses that the occupiers have concentrated in the temporarily occupied territories.
12 Jul 2022 22.37 Zelenskiy: Russia 'doesn't have the courage' to admit defeat Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat in Ukraine, and is warning the occupying military force that it is not safe “anywhere on our land”. Ukraine’s president delivered the remarks in a blistering video address to the nation on Tuesday night, the 139th day since Moscow’s invasion, and posted to his official website. ⚡️Zelensky: Russia does not have courage to admit defeat.
“They no longer have strategic power, character, or understanding of what they are doing here, on our land. There is not an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from the Ukrainian territory,” Zelensky said. — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 12, 2022 Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”: The occupiers have already felt very well what modern artillery is, and they will not have a safe rear anywhere on our land. They have felt that the operations of our reconnaissance officers to protect their homeland are much more powerful than any of their ‘special operations’. Russian soldiers, and we know this from interceptions of their conversations, are truly afraid of our armed forces. The so-called second army of the world is afraid of Ukrainians and is able to do something only on the basis of bottomless stocks of old Soviet weapons. They no longer have strategic strength, character, or understanding of what they are doing here on our land. They also don’t have even an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from Ukrainian territory. Ukraine, he said, will “be able to defend itself, rebuild itself, and realise all its foreign policy goals”: When millions of people work sincerely for this, each and every one at their own level, the result will be certain. Zelenskiy’s remarks came as fierce fighting continues for control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and Russia appears to be stepping up its attacks on civilians, with at least 45 people now known to have died in a weekend missile strike on a block of flats in Chasiv Yar. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Polish defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak meet in Kyiv Tuesday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters The president also revealed he had met Poland’s deputy prime minister and defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak in Kyiv on Tuesday, and discussed cooperation over defence. He said: “It is important not only what we talked about, but also how we talked. With absolute confidence in the Ukrainian future, in the Ukrainian-European future”. Zelenskiy added: A really difficult road is ahead. Unfortunately, it is impossible to do otherwise when you are protecting your home from a terrorist assault. But it is also clear that what lies ahead is the success of our state.
12 Jul 2022 21.25 The number of foreign ships reaching Ukraine ports on the Danube to help with grain exports has doubled to 16 within the last 24 hours, the Kyiv Independent reports, citing the country’s infrastructure ministry. The Guardian reported on Saturday that Ukraine was restoring and expanding some of its long-decommissioned river ports on the Danube to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade. The Kyiv Independent said Tuesday that 16 vessels have now entered through the Danube-Black Sea Canal to load Ukrainian grain, with the assistance of the Ukraine navy. More than 90 ships are currently waiting for their turn, the ministry said, as Ukraine expects to increase the monthly export of grain by 500,000 tons. The use of the canal opened up after Ukraine liberated Snake Island from Russian forces on 30 June.
12 Jul 2022 20.36 Chasiv Yar death toll rises to 45 The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, rose to at least 45 on Tuesday, according to the Kyiv Independent. The newspaper reported that the state emergency service said it had now pulled 45 bodies out of the rubble, including a child. Saturday’s missile attack destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city. Nine people have been rescued, the newspaper says, and the rescue operation is ongoing.
12 Jul 2022 19.55 US and EU send billions more in Ukraine aid The United States treasury announced on Tuesday it was sending an additional $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services”. The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May. #UPDATE The United States Treasury announced Tuesday it will send an additional $1.7 billion in economic aid to Ukraine to help fund the country's recovery from Russia's invasion pic.twitter.com/JQYoaSPGMO — AFP News Agency (@AFP) July 12, 2022 Like the European money, the US payment is also part of a wider package, $7.5bn (£6.3bn) in aid signed off by Joe Biden in May, and brings to almost £2.5bn the amount approved in aid for Ukraine from both sides of the Atlantic in just the last 24 hours. In a statement, the US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said the money was intended to directly help those suffering from Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine: This latest contribution of economic assistance for Ukraine is part of President Biden’s commitment to support the government of Ukraine as it defends Ukraine’s democracy against Russia’s unprovoked and unjustifiable war. This aid will help Ukraine’s democratic government provide essential services for the people of Ukraine. The funds will go towards critical operations in Ukraine, such as paying health care worker salaries, according to the treasury statement. Yellen is currently in Tokyo, where she met Japanese finance minister Shunichi Suzuki on Tuesday to discuss strengthening economic sanctions against Russia. According to AFP, Zbynek Stanjura, finance minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the European money would be immediately beneficial, as EU member nations debate a timetable for the release of the rest of the approved package. He said: This will give Ukraine the necessary funds to cover urgent needs and ensure the operation of critical infrastructure.
Updated at 19.59 BST |
2022-04-11T18:21:17Z | E-scooter scheme could close over ‘dubious’ Russia links | A metro mayor has threatened to halt a popular e-scooter scheme if the Swedish company behind it does not do more to sever links with Russia.
The west of England mayor, Dan Norris, said he is deeply concerned that Stockholm-based Voi still has two major Russian shareholders who own millions of pounds of stock in the company.
Labour politician Norris met the CEO of Voi Technology, Fredrik Hjelm, in Bristol, where the scheme operates, to “grill” him about the shareholders.
He warned he would look elsewhere for e-scooter providers if he was not satisfied the company was doing everything in its power to distance itself from the investors.
Speaking after the meeting, Norris said: “The people of western England want to know that Voi is not linked with the bad things we are hearing about in Ukraine.
“Voi has got a difficult call to make. For me it’s very clear – I want the west of England to have minimum links with the Russian regime. I accept in this joined-up world it is difficult to have zero involvement with Russia but it’s my job, knowing the strength of feeling, that we minimise those dubious links wherever they are.”
Since the invasion of Ukraine, the investments in Voi of the Russian businessmen Alexander Eliseev and Ilya Yushaev have come under the spotlight.
Mayor of the west of England Dan Norris (left) and Voi Technology’s Fredrik Hjelm in Bristol on 11 April 2022. Photograph: Tess De La Mare/PA
Norris said: “I’m not happy with these people being shareholders in Voi. I’m not happy there is that connection and I want it severed.”
The men have not been placed under sanctions, but Norris said: “I believe that if you become fabulously wealthy as these people are, that is because the [Russian] state allows it and presumably Mr Putin allows it and that makes me concerned.
“I hope they sell [their shares] quickly. But they probably want to hold out for as much money as they can get. That’s how capitalism works. But my view is, the sooner they leave the better. Ultimately other e-scooters are available.”
Voi e-scooters can be found in British cities including Birmingham, Cambridge, Oxford and Liverpool, and also across Europe.
Speaking at the same press conference, Hjelm said the Bristol scheme was by far the biggest in the UK. There have already been 4m trips on the scooters and 250,000 unique users.
He said the two Russians, who together owned just under 4% of the company, had transferred their voting rights to him, adding: “We are exploring what we can do while respecting Swedish law and shareholder right. You can’t just take shares from an investor, they own the shares.”
Hjelm, who learned Russian in the Swedish armed forces and has lived and worked in Russia, characterised the regime as “Putin and his bandits” and said the day after Moscow invaded Ukraine, Voi had cut its ties and would not take any future investments from Russians. But he added: “We cannot rewrite history.”
He said he was regularly talking to the two investors and said that privately they had made their opposition to Putin and the invasion clear. Hjelm also warned Norris that he might find that other e-scooter companies had links to Russia or other regimes that the mayor might not like.
The e-scooter trial in Bristol is due to run until November at which point it is to be evaluated to see if it should continue. Norris said that if he was not satisfied with Voi’s actions he would look for other providers. |
2022-07-12T14:14:46Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 139 of the invasion | At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson. The claims of fatalities were made by the Russian-installed administration in the town and could not be immediately verified, though footage on social media showed a large explosion lighting up the night, burning ammunition and towering smoke. Pro-Russia officials and some Ukrainian commentators were quick to suggest that the explosion was the result of a strike by Ukraine’s newly supplied US Himars missile system. A number of recent strikes on ammunition warehouses and Russian command centres have been attributed to Himars. |
2022-07-12T13:33:59Z | Putin due in Tehran as US says Iran to supply drones to Russia | The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is set to visit Tehran next week as the US has accused Iran of preparing to supply Russia with hundreds of weapons-capable drones for use in Ukraine.
Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told reporters the US had information indicating Tehran was “preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, on an expedited timeline”.
“Our information further indicates that Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use these UAVs, with initial training sessions slated to begin as soon as early July.”
Sullivan added that the information received by the US supported views that Russia’s heavy bombardments in Ukraine, which have led it to consolidate gains in the country’s east in recent weeks, were “coming at a cost to the sustainment of its own weapons”.
Sullivan said it was not clear whether Iran had yet delivered any of the drones to Russia. He noted that Iran’s drones had been used by the Houthi rebels in Yemen to attack Saudi Arabia.
Sullivan’s claim comes as the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Putin would travel to Iran’s capital next week to hold talks with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Erdoğan, who has positioned himself as the main mediator between the two countries at war, on Monday held calls with Putin as well as his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to discuss the situation in Ukraine and grain shipments.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian state media also reported that Putin would visit Tehran next week to discuss deepening economic ties.
Drones have played a crucial role on both sides of the war in Ukraine, for everything from firing missiles from a distance, to dropping small bombs on targets, to conducting reconnaissance for artillery forces and ground troops.
Ukraine’s forces have had particular success in using Turkish-made Bayraktar armed combat UAVs, and the US and other allies have supplied Kyiv with many types of smaller drones.
“From our perspective, we will continue to do our part to help sustain the effective defence of Ukraine and to help the Ukrainians show that the Russian effort to try to wipe Ukraine off the map cannot succeed,” Sullivan said.
The Guardian has previously reported that Russia was receiving munitions and military hardware sourced from Iraq with the help of Iranian weapons smuggling networks.
Tehran has repeatedly expressed readiness to sign long-term economic agreements with Russian businesses that have come under unprecedented western sanctions since the start of the war.
The Iran-Russia Joint Chamber of Commerce has claimed that Iran’s exports to Russia have increased since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden will travel to Israel and Saudi Arabia this week – two regional foes of Iran – where Tehran’s nuclear programme and malign activities in the region will be a key subject of discussion.
The US decision to publicly blame Iran for planning to rearm Russia also comes as both Israel and Saudi Arabia have resisted joining western efforts to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed to this report |
2022-06-21T00:21:21Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 118 of the invasion | Putin fears the “spark of democracy” spreading to Russia, according to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who said the Russian president was trying to divide Europe and return to a world dominated by spheres of influence. “The Russian President must accept that there is a community of law-based democracies in his neighbourhood that is growing ever closer together. He clearly fears the spark of democracy spreading to his country,” Scholz told the Muenchner Merkur newspaper.
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2022-04-11T10:32:16Z | First Thing: Austrian chancellor to meet Putin in Russia | Good morning.
Austria’s chancellor is to meet Vladimir Putin on Monday, the Russian president’s first face-to-face meeting with an EU leader since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, amid warnings of a fresh offensive and shelling in the east.
Karl Nehammer said the meeting would take place in Moscow and that Austria had a “clear position on the Russian war of aggression”, calling for humanitarian corridors, a ceasefire and full investigation of war crimes.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser in Washington, has warned that the appointment of a new general in command of Russia’s military campaign is likely to usher in a fresh round of “crimes and brutality” against civilians. Alexandr Dvornikov, 60, came to prominence at the head of Russian troops in Syria in 2015-16, when there was particularly brutal bombardment of rebel-held areas, including civilian populations, in Aleppo.
What might Russia do next? The UK Ministry of Defence warned on Monday morning that Russian forces may resort to using phosphorous weapons in Mariupol as fighting for the city intensifies. It cited the previous use of the munitions by Russian soldiers in Donetsk.
What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 47 of the invasion.
Liz Cheney disputes report January 6 panel split over Trump criminal referral
Liz Cheney. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
A key Republican on the House January 6 committee disputed a report that said the panel was split over whether to refer Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal charges regarding his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, leading to the Capitol attack.
“There’s not really a dispute on the committee,” the Wyoming representative Liz Cheney told CNN’s State of the Union.
The New York Times said otherwise on Sunday, in a report headlined: “January 6 panel has evidence for criminal referral of Trump, but splits on sending.”
“The debate centers on whether making a referral – a largely symbolic act – would backfire by politically tainting the justice department’s expanding investigation into the January 6 assault and what led up to it,” the paper said.
Citing “members and aides”, the Times said such sources were reluctant to support a referral because it would create the impression Democrats had asked the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to investigate Trump.
What did Cheney say? “We have not made a decision about referrals on the committee … [but] it’s actually clear that what President Trump was dealing with, what a number of people around him were doing, that they knew it was awful. That they did it anyway.”
France faces bruising runoff after Macron and Le Pen top first-round vote
Projected results in the first part of the presidential race put Macron (pictured) on 27.6% and his far-right rival, Le Pen, on 23.4%. Photograph: Alfonso Jimenez/Rex/Shutterstock
France faces a brutal two-week campaign over the country’s future, as the centrist incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, faces the far-right Marine Le Pen for the presidency, positioning himself as a pro-European “progressive” against what he calls her anti-Muslim, nationalist programme and “complacency” about Putin.
Macron topped Sunday’s first round of the French presidential election with 27.6% of the vote, ahead of Le Pen’s 23.4%, according to initial projected results by Ipsos for France Télévisions.
He scored higher than his result in the first round five years ago, and clearly gained support in the final hours of the campaign after his harsh warnings to voters to hold back the far right and protect France’s place on the international diplomatic stage during the war in Ukraine. But Le Pen’s score was also higher than five years ago.
Why is Le Pen doing better this time? She had steadily gained support after campaigning hard on the cost of living crisis and inflation, which had become voters’ biggest concerns.
What has Macron said? He told reporters: “When the far-right, in all its forms, represents that much in France, you can’t consider things are going well, so you must go out and convince people with a lot of humility, and respect for those who weren’t on our side in this first round.”
In other news …
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump during a rally in Commerce, Georgia, last month. Photograph: Alyssa Pointer/Reuters
A federal judge has indicated that an attempt to stop the far-right Republican congress person Marjorie Taylor Greene running for re-election will be allowed to proceed . The challenge from a group of Georgia voters says Greene should be disqualified because she supported insurrectionists on 6 January 2021.
After dozens of botched, evidently painful lethal injections in recent years, prisoners in at least 10 states have been making a surreal argument: they would prefer the firing squad . As more “technological” methods have proved grisly, some states are considering shooting prisoners instead.
Elon Musk has performed a U-turn on joining Twitter’s board despite becoming the social media company’s largest shareholder with a 9.2% stake . He was due to become a board member on Saturday but Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal, said on Monday morning that Musk had declined the offer.
The British chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has written to the prime minister to ask for an investigation into his own affairs after days of criticism over his wife’s “non-dom” tax status. Sunak has also been criticised over his decision to keep a US green card conferring permanent residency months while chancellor.
Don’t miss this: What happens when a group of Fox News viewers watch CNN for a month?
A study that paid viewers of the rightwing cable network to switch shed light on the media’s influence on people’s views. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA
In an unusual and labor intensive project, two political scientists paid a group of regular Fox News viewers to instead watch CNN for a month. At the end of the period, the researchers found surprising results; some of the Fox News watchers had changed their minds on a range of key issues, including the US response to coronavirus and Democrats’ attitude to police. The findings suggest political perspectives can be changed – but also reveals the influence partisan media has on viewers’ ideology, writes, Adam Gabbatt.
… or this: Jack White on the White Stripes, bar brawls and fame
Jack White … ‘Seven Nation Army might be the biggest multicultural hit of all time.’ Photograph: Paige Sara
As one half of the White Stripes, the Detroit musician conquered the world. His supercharged garage rock duo was a global phenomenon, and he has barely paused since. He fronted the Raconteurs and played drums in the Dead Weather, worked with the country singer Loretta Lynn and has been a producer and video-maker, while his eclectic Third Man operation takes in everything from a record label and record shops to a publishing imprint. After a busy lockdown, he is back with two new solo albums.
Climate check: Putin’s war shows autocracies and fossil fuels go hand in hand. Here’s how to tackle both
‘Autocrats are often directly the result of fossil fuel.’ Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images
The world of money is at least as unbalanced and unfair as the world of political power – but in ways that may make it a little easier for climate advocates to make progress. Putin’s grotesque war might be where some of these strands come together. It highlights the ways that fossil fuel builds autocracy, and the power that control of scarce supplies gives to autocrats. But we’ve got years, not decades, to get the climate crisis under some kind of control. We won’t get more moments like this.
Last Thing: Connecticut mechanic finds art worth millions in dumpster at abandoned barn
Francis Hines attends the SLAG Gallery opening on 12 June 2008 in New York City. Photograph: Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
Paintings and other artwork found in an abandoned barn in Connecticut turned out to be worth millions of dollars. Notified by a contractor, Jared Whipple, a mechanic from Waterbury, retrieved the dirt-covered pieces from a dumpster that contained materials from a barn in Watertown. Whipple later found out the works were by Francis Hines, an abstract expressionist who died in 2016 at 96 and had stored his work in the barn, Hearst Connecticut Media Group reported.
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2022-08-05T17:59:21Z | Russia ‘ready to discuss’ prisoner swap but will resist pressure to free Brittney Griner | Russia is ready to discuss a prisoner swap for imprisoned Americans, said its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, but added that the Kremlin would resist public pressure to free US basketball star Brittney Griner and others being held in Russian prisons.
Lavrov’s remarks came a day after Griner received a nine-year prison sentence on drug charges that were seen as a gambit to demand an exchange for high-profile Russians in prison in the US, including the arms trafficker Viktor Bout.
“We are ready to discuss the issue [of a swap], but this should be done via the channel approved by the presidents, Putin and Biden,” Lavrov said during a press conference in Cambodia.
He referred to a backchannel that had been set up by Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, saying “no matter who says what in public, this channel remains relevant”.
That backchannel appeared to have been successful in arranging the release of Trevor Reed, an ex-marine who had been detained in Russia for more than two years before he was exchanged in April for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who had been held for more than a decade on drug smuggling charges.
But Lavrov also warned that Russia would not respond to “megaphone diplomacy”, demanding that any negotiations be carried out discreetly.
“If this is another case of the Americans resorting to public diplomacy and loud statements on their pending steps, it’s their business or I would even say their problem, because the Americans often fail to honour the agreement on doing calm, professional work,” he said.
On Friday afternoon at the White House, Joe Biden said he was “hopeful” about the prospects for the basketball star.
When asked after a bill-signing if he had a comment about Griner, the US president said, before leaving the event: “I’m hopeful. We are working hard.”
"I'm hopeful," Biden says on returning WNBA star Brittney Griner home.
The basketball player was just sentenced to 9 years in a Russian prison for drug charges on Thursday https://t.co/x2XmYCGpnu pic.twitter.com/75HRFNdzIJ — Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) August 5, 2022
Griner and her legal team tried to steer clear of politics during her trial. “I know everybody keeps talking about ‘political pawn’ and ‘politics’, but I hope that is far from this courtroom,” Griner said in a closing statement on Thursday.
Lavrov said that he had not discussed the issue of a swap with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who also attended the Asean conference in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on a possible swap for Bout, the arms trafficker. “These swaps will never happen if we start discussing any nuances of the exchange in the press,” he told reporters on Friday.
Griner’s US teammates at the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury were in tears as they watched on television, pre-match, their star player receive her sentence and plead for clemency.
Then they headed out to play their scheduled match against the Connecticut Sun, but not before the sports players and officials stood arm in arm on court for 42 seconds – Griner’s team number is 42 – while fans called “we are BG” and “bring her home”, the New York Times reported. |
2022-06-20T00:13:55Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 117 of the invasion | Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he expects Russia will intensify attacks on Ukraine and possibly other European countries after the EU Commission proposed it as a candidate for EU membership. “Obviously, this week we should expect from Russia an intensification of its hostile activities,” he said in a nightly video address. “And not only against Ukraine, but also against other European countries. We are preparing. We are ready. We warn partners.” |
2022-07-11T14:06:39Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 138 of the invasion | At least 24 people have died and dozens more were injured after a Russian missile attack hit a five-storey apartment building in the town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine. Emergency crews worked to pull people trapped in the rubble. Rescuers are still combing the rubble and nine people have been rescued. The strike destroyed three buildings in a residential quarter of town, inhabited mostly by people who work in nearby factories. Zelenskiy accused Moscow of purposely targeting civilians in the Chasiv Yar attack and promised “punishment is inevitable for every Russian murderer”. |
2022-05-27T17:45:42Z | Russia is guilty of inciting genocide in Ukraine, expert report concludes | Russia is guilty of inciting genocide and having the intent to commit genocide in Ukraine, legally obliging other countries to stop it, according to a new report by more than 30 internationally recognised legal scholars and experts.
The report, compiled by two thinktanks, the New Lines Institute in Washington and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal, found that there were “reasonable grounds to conclude” that Russia is already in breach of two articles of the 1948 Genocide Convention, by publicly inciting genocide, and by the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia, which the report notes is itself a genocidal act under article II of the convention.
The report concludes there is “a serious risk of genocide in Ukraine, triggering the legal obligation of all states to prevent genocide” under the convention. States will not be able to say they were unaware of the risk, it warns, but neither the report nor the 1948 convention stipulates what actions foreign governments should take. The report just notes “a minimum legal obligation on states to take reasonable action to contribute toward preventing genocide and protecting vulnerable Ukrainian civilians from the imminent risk of genocide”.
Joe Biden labelled Russian atrocities in Ukraine as genocide in April, and some other governments have followed suit, though the state department said it was ultimately up to a court to determine. The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court, Karim Khan, is leading an investigation of war crimes and has the authority to bring charges of genocide if he feels there is evidence of intent to “destroy, in whole or in part”, the Ukrainian people.
“I’ve never seen anything like this report this early during a conflict,” said Tanya Domi, one of the expert contributors to the report, and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. “I think the documentation of crimes in Ukraine outstrips anything that we’ve seen in the recent past.”
The report finds ample evidence of incitement to genocide, noting the Kremlin leadership and Russian state media commentators have consistently denied the existence of a distinct Ukrainian identity, “implying that those who self-identify as Ukrainian threaten the unity of Russia or are Nazis, and are therefore deserving of punishment”.
“Denial of the existence of protected groups is a specific indicator of genocide under the United Nations guide to assessing the risk of mass atrocities,” the report said.
It also looked at the language used by Russian officials depicting Ukrainians as somehow subhuman, with terms like “zombified”, “bestial” or “subordinate”, or as diseased or contaminated, using words like “scum” and “filth”.
“What they’re saying is: if you’re Ukrainian you’re a Nazi, and therefore we’re going to kill you,” Domi said. “They are saying this is a Nazi regime and that means that they are pursuing Ukrainians and the Ukrainian state for the purposes of elimination and destruction.”
By issuing blanket denials of the atrocities and by rewarding soldiers suspected of mass killings, as Putin did with the units that were in Bucha at the time of the mass killings of civilians there, the Kremlin is enabling Russian forces to commit more war crimes and conditioning the Russian public to condone them, the report said.
The public incitement at the time of the invasion points towards a genocidal plan, the experts argue, as does the pattern of atrocities committed: the mass killings, the shelling of shelters and evacuation routes, and the indiscriminate bombardment of residential areas.
In that category, the report points to the sieges of cities such as Mariupol, the 248 attacks on Ukraine’s healthcare system documented by the World Health Organization, and the destruction or seizure of basic necessities, humanitarian aid and grain.
A systematic pattern of rape and sexual violence is also part of an overall picture of atrocities that point towards genocidal intent, the experts said, as is the forcible transfer of over a million people to Russia, including more than 180,000 children. The report cites Ukrainian officials as pointing to planned reforms in Russian legislation to accelerate adoption procedures for children from the Donbas, while abducted Ukrainian children have been forced to take Russian classes.
“I think the forced transfers of people is just one of the most egregious crimes because that shows intent to remove them from their country. There is no ability of those individuals to resist,” Domi said.
The international court of justice ruled in 2007 that state parties to the Genocide Convention had an obligation to take preventive action when they learn of, or should have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed.
“Each state then will determine whether it has the means to help deter those suspected of preparing genocide and take action as the circumstances permit,” David Scheffer, a former US ambassador at large for war crimes issues and now a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, said. “There are many options: provision of military weaponry, humanitarian and refugee aid, economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and even military intervention, that complies with the UN Charter.” |
2022-05-04T00:22:52Z | Russia steps up Azovstal siege as freed civilians reach Zaporizhzhia | Russian forces have shelled and attempted to storm the Azovstal steelworks, the last holdout of Ukrainian troops defending the southern port city of Mariupol, as a first convoy of refugees from the plant reached the city of Zaporizhzhia.
Video footage showed thick smoke in the sky above the site where officials said up to 200 civilians, including children, remained trapped in a network of underground bunkers and tunnels with up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers.
The Red Cross (ICRC) said more than 100 civilians had managed to escape in a convoy of buses and ambulances accompanied by ICRC and UN teams, joined by families and individuals in private vehicles.
The convoy, including some injured, safely reached Ukrainian-held Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230km) to the west, on Tuesday, the ICRC said. Others from the plant “went elsewhere” under their own steam and unaccompanied, it said.
01:49 Ukrainian evacuee describes months of horror inside Azovstal bunker – video
On Tuesday night, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, confirmed the evacuees had reached safety and that Russian troops were trying to storm the steelworks.
“We finally have the result, the first result of our evacuation operation from Azovstal in Mariupol, which we have been organising for a very long time. It took a lot of effort, long negotiations and various mediations,” he said.
“Today 156 people arrived in Zaporizhzhia. Women and children. They have been in shelters for more than two months. Just imagine! For example, a child is six months old, two of which are underground, fleeing bombs and shelling. Finally, these people are completely safe. They will get help.”
Exhausted-looking people, including young children and pensioners laden with bags, clambered off buses in the car park of a shopping centre. “I can’t believe I made it, we just want rest,” said Alina Kozitskaya.
One middle-aged woman walked away from the evacuation bus sobbing and comforted by an aid worker. A few women greeting the convoy held up handmade signs, calling on Ukrainian authorities to evacuate the soldiers – their relatives and loved ones – who are trapped in Azovstal and encircled by Russian forces.
Evacuees from Mariupol and its surrounds arrive in Zaporizhzhia. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/EPA
“We’re scared … the guys will be left there. We don’t see any sign of help,” said Ksenia Chebysheva, 29, whose husband is among Azov battalion troops there. She had heard that her husband was still alive on 26 April, but had had no news since.
The UN confirmed the “successful evacuation” of 101 civilians in the five-day operation. “Women, men, children and older persons could finally leave the bunkers below the steelworks and see the daylight after two months,” said Osnat Lubrani, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine.
“Over the past days, travelling with the evacuees, I have heard mothers, children and frail grandparents speak about the trauma of living day after day under unrelenting heavy shelling and the fear of death, and with extreme lack of water, food, and sanitation,” Lubrani said.
“They spoke of the hell they have experienced since this war started, seeking refuge in the Azovstal plant, many being separated from family members whose fate they still don’t know.” She said another 58 people had joined the convoy from the city of Mangush, outside Mariupol.
Pascal Hundt of the ICRC said the organisations “had hoped more people would have been able to join” and that “similar agreements are urgently required to alleviate the immense suffering of civilians trapped in hostilities”.
Mariupol’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, had earlier said the column of evacuees should reach Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday, adding that 200 more civilians were still trapped under the complex and about 100,000 remained in the rest of the city.
Hospitals had been stocked up and medical staff reinforced by volunteers in preparation for the arrival of the convoy, Dorit Nitzan, the World Health Organization (WHO) incident manager for Ukraine, told Reuters.
“We are ready for burns, fractures and wounds, as well as diarrhoea, respiratory infections. We are also ready to see if there are pregnant women, children with malnutrition. We are all here and the health system is well prepared,” she said, adding that mental health was the “big issue”.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces and pro-Moscow separatists were targeting the Azovstal plant with heavy artillery and aircraft fire, accusing its defenders of taking up new fighting positions during the weekend ceasefire that allowed the partial civilian evacuation.
The deputy commander of the Azov regiment, which is holed up in the plant, said Russian forces were storming the site, while another Ukrainian officer confirmed the assault on public television.
“The enemy is trying to storm the Azovstal plant with significant forces, using armoured vehicles. Our fighters are repelling all attacks,” said Denys Shlega, commander of the 12th operational brigade of Ukraine’s national guard.
Having failed to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has switched the invasion’s focus to the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as Donbas, parts of which have been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014.
Fresh attacks in the Donetsk region killed 21 civilians and injured 27, the regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Tuesday. He said the figure was the highest daily death toll in the region since an attack on a railway station in Kramatorsk in April that killed more than 50 people.
“There are no safe cities in Luhansk region,” he said on Telegram.
Three more civilians were killed in the town of Vuhledar, and another three in Lyman, Kyrylenko said. Some other areas of Donetsk were under constant fire and regional authorities were trying to evacuate civilians from frontline areas, the Ukrainian president’s office said.
Attacks and shelling also intensified in Luhansk, with the most difficult area being Popasna, where it was impossible to organise evacuations, said the regional governor, Serhiy Haida.
Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, again came under heavy bombardment on Tuesday, the country’s military command said.
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It said its forces were defending the approach to Kharkiv from Izium, a town on the Donets river, about 75 miles to the south-east, adding that Russian forces were also trying to take the frontline town of Rubizhne and heavy clashes were taking place around Popasna, in Luhansk. |
2022-06-19T00:41:23Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 116 of the invasion | Russia’s war in Ukraine could take years, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said. “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” he said. “Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices.”
Russia was sending a large number of reserve troops to Sievierodonetsk from other battle zones to try to gain full control of the besieged eastern city, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region said on Sunday. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, they will throw in all the reserves they have … because there are so many of them there already, they’re at critical mass,” Serhiy Gaidai said on national television.
Two top commanders of fighters who defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol have been transferred to Russia for investigation, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported. Citing an unnamed Russian law enforcement source, TASS said late on Saturday that Svyatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of the Azov battalion, and Serhiy Volynsky, the commander of the 36th Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, were moved to Russia.
A big explosion rocked an area near Sievierodonetsk on Saturday. Rodion Miroshnik, an official in the self-styled separatist administration of the Luhansk People’s Republic, posted a video of what he said was the cloud on the Telegram messaging app.
Five civilians were killed on Saturday in Ukrainian strikes on the eastern separatist city of Donetsk, according to local authorities. “As a result of the bombardment by Ukrainian forces, five people were killed and 12 others were wounded in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the authorities said in a statement posted on Telegram.
Several Russian missiles hit a gasworks in the Izium district in eastern Ukraine, Kharkiv region governor Oleh Synehubov said on Saturday. “A large-scale fire broke out, rescuers localised the fire,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Reuters reported him adding that some other buildings had also been damaged.
Russian missiles destroyed a fuel storage depot in Novomoskovsk, a town in eastern Ukraine, on Saturday. According to the head of the regional administration, three people have been sent to the hospital.
The Pentagon is considering sending four additional rocket launchers to Ukraine, Politico reports. According to US defence department officials, speaking to the outlet on anonymity, the US may likely send four more high mobility artillery rocket systems, making their total number about eight. The decision would be “based on Ukrainian immediate needs,” the official told Politico.
Russia and Ukraine have carried out a prisoner exchange, the Kyiv Independent reports. Five captured Ukrainian individuals were returned to Ukraine on 18 June in exchange for five captured Russian individuals, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry’s intelligence directorate.
Yuliia Paievska AKA “Taira”, the Ukrainian captured paramedic who was freed from Russian captivity during the week, released a video thanking Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy for her release. “I always believed that everything would be exactly this, and everyone who is now on the other side, they know everything will work out,” she said. |
2022-07-10T00:49:19Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 137 of the invasion | Canada has granted a sanctions exemption to allow a repaired Russian turbine to be sent back to Germany for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. The Canadian government said the “time-limited and revocable permit” would support “Europe’s ability to access reliable and affordable energy as they continue to transition away from Russian oil and gas”. Canada also announced it would expand sanctions against Russia’s energy sector to include industrial manufacturing. Kyiv urged the Canadian government not to return the part to Germany, but Germany, which is facing severe gas shortages, is being threatened with a further squeeze on Russian gas by Moscow if the turbine isn’t returned.
Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa regional military administration, said Russian forces were “purposefully” destroying crops in the Kherson region. He said fires occurred in the fields every day from shelling, and added: “Russian troops do not allow locals to put out fires, destroying granaries and equipment.”
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has fired his ambassadors to Germany, India, the Czech Republic, Norway and Hungary, without giving further details as to why. Zelenskiy has urged his diplomats to drum up international support and high-end weapons to slow Russia’s advance. It was not immediately clear whether the envoys would be handed new jobs.
Zelenskiy said on Saturday night the Russian army had attacked the cities of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kryvy Rih, and communities of Zaporizhzhia region, covering a broad swathe of the country.
Russia is moving forces across the country and assembling them near Ukraine for future offensive operations, according to the UK ministry of defence. The latest intelligence update said a large proportion of the new infantry units were “probably” deploying with MT-LB armoured vehicles taken from long-term storage.
The governor of the Luhansk region said Russian forces were creating “hell” in shelling the eastern region of Donetsk. Serhiy Haidai said Russian forces fired eight artillery shells, three mortar shells and launched nine rocket strikes overnight.
At least five people were killed on Saturday, and seven others injured, by renewed Russian shelling in Donetsk, Ukraine officials said. A missile attack in Druzkivka, northern Donetsk, tore apart a supermarket.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said his country’s “commitment to the people of Ukraine is resolute” while announcing more than $360m in additional aid.
The United Nations said Ukraine’s armed forces bore a large, and perhaps equal, share of the blame for an assault at a nursing home in Luhansk, where dozens of elderly and disabled patients were trapped inside without water or electricity. At least 22 of the 71 patients survived, but the exact number killed remains unknown. A few days before the attack, Ukrainian soldiers took up positions inside the nursing home, making the building a target, the UN said.
Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian MP with the centrist Golos party, said rockets struck central Kharkiv, injuring and hospitalising four civilians, including a child. |
2022-06-18T01:08:04Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 115 of the invasion | A Ukrainian paramedic has been released from Russian captivity, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced on Saturday. He said Ukraine had been able to secure the release of Yulia Payevska, a civilian parademic who was captured by Russian forces in Mariupol on 16 March.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted that the bravery of Ukrainians had created the opportunity for Europe to “create a new history of freedom, and finally remove the grey zone in Eastern Europe between the EU and Russia”. In his nightly video addrees, Zelenskiy hailed Brussels’ support for Ukraine’s European Union bid as a “historic achievement”. “Ukrainian institutions maintain resilience even in conditions of war. Ukrainian democratic habits have not lost their power even now.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin said Moscow has “nothing against” Ukraine’s possible membership of the European Union. He made the comments on Friday after the European Commission recommended granting Kyiv candidate status of the 27-member bloc. “We have nothing against it,” Putin told Russia’s annual economic forum in St Petersburg. “It’s their sovereign decision to join economic unions or not … It’s their business, the business of the Ukrainian people.”
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said it was “absolutely necessary” for leaders to speak directly with Putin in attempts to end the war. Speaking to German news agency DPA on Friday, Scholz said: “It is absolutely necessary to speak to Putin, and I will continue to do so, as the French president will also.”
Four civilians died and six were wounded on Friday in Russian bombing in the Donetsk region of the Donbas, governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram.
Dozens of Ukrainian civilians performed military exercises on Friday in fortified positions left by Russian troops in Bucha, a town synonymous with war crimes blamed on Moscow’s forces. A sergeant known as Ticha said: “Most of those who are here aren’t soldiers, they’re just civilians who want to defend their country – 50% of them have never held a weapon until today.”
Lithuania has told the Russian region of Kaliningrad it will block the import and export of a large number of goods by rail because of western sanctions, the regional governor said on Friday. The region is home to the Russian Baltic fleet and a deployment location for nuclear-capable Iskander missiles. Governor Anton Alikhanov said the clampdown was “a most serious violation” to free transit and would affect 40-50% of the products imported to and exported from Russia through Lithuania.
Ukraine received a $733m loan from Canada. In a statement released on Friday, Ukraine’s finance ministry said the funds, which were “raised in accordance with the loan agreement between Ukraine and Canada”, would be “directed to the state budget to finance priority expenditures – in particular, to ensure priority social and humanitarian expenditures”.
The Biden administration’s plan to sell four large, armable drones to Ukraine has been paused over the fear its sophisticated surveillance equipment might fall into enemy hands, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. The objection to the export of the drones arose due to concerns the radar and surveillance equipment on the drones could create a security risk for the US if it fell into Russian hands.
Russian media has supposedly shown images of two US citizens captured in Ukraine. On Friday, the Izvestia newspaper showed footage of what it said was an interview with Andy Huynh, 27. The Russian channel RT also posted a photo of a man it identified as Alexander Drueke, 39. Drueke’s mother, Lois Drueke, told the Guardian she believed the clip was authentic and it gave her “great hope”.
US Republican senators on Friday asked TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew about reports the social media site had allowed Russian state-approved media content but barred other videos. The senators said they were “deeply concerned” that TikTok “is enabling the spread of pro-war propaganda to the Russian public”. TikTok said in a statement the company was looking forward to continuing to engage with members on these issues and answer their questions.
A group of international investigators and experts have visited war-torn areas near Kyiv, including a burnt-out school, as part of Ukraine’s ongoing investigation into alleged war crimes. One expert told Reuters: “The scale of these crimes, the systematic nature of them, it very clearly appears to be crimes against humanity … It runs the whole gamut of violations of international humanitarian law.” |
2022-07-09T00:45:30Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 136 of the invasion | Luhansk’s governor said Russian forces were indiscriminately shelling populated areas on Friday, Reuters reports. “They are not stopped even by the fact that civilians remain there, dying in houses and yards,” Serhiy Gaidai said.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister has asked all residents in the Russian-occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to “evacuate by all possible means”. There would be “harsh battle” as the Ukrainian army would be “de-occupying these territories”, he said.
Belgium will reopen its embassy in Kyiv and send a new ambassador, the Belgian prime minister confirmed. The embassy would open next week and ambassador Peter Van De Velde, whom Alexander De Croo met before he was sent to Ukraine, will represent Belgium.
Ukraine’s military says it has destroyed two Russian command posts near Kherson, according to Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the joint southern command of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The Ukrainian foreign minister criticised Russia at the G20 summit in Bali, saying it prefers to follow its own rules instead of cooperating multilaterally with the international community. “I am strong supporter of multilateralism,” Dmytro Kuleba said. “But it lacks tools to protect itself from those who disrespect other nations, who prefer to play with common rules instead of playing by the rules. We have such a country at this table today – Russia.”
The Ukrainian parliament adopted a set of new laws on Friday during its plenary session. The new laws include safety guarantees for journalists working in battle areas, improved social protection for rescuers, and postponed transitioning to keep records of the gas volumes in units of energy. |
2022-07-08T14:44:45Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 135 of the invasion | The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warned Moscow had barely started its campaign in Ukraine and dared the west to try to defeat it on the battlefield. Putin said the prospects for any negotiation would grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on, during a speech to parliamentary leaders. “Everyone should know that, by and large, we haven’t started anything yet in earnest,” he said. “The further it goes, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us.” |
2022-06-17T00:31:37Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 114 of the invasion | Vladimir Putin described western sanctions against Russia as “reckless and insane” and of trying to “crush the Russian economy in one go by force”. The European Union has “completely lost sovereignty” he said, and is “dancing to someone else’s tunes”. He accused the EU of “taking everything that is dictated to them and dealing harm” to its population, business and economy. The Russian president was addressing the St Petersburg Economic Forum almost two hours behind schedule after a “denial of service” cyber-attack. |
2022-07-08T11:13:23Z | Lavrov walks out of G20 talks after denying Russia is causing food crisis | The Russian foreign minister left the G20 meeting of leading economies early after telling his counterparts that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not responsible for a global hunger crisis and that sanctions designed to isolate Russia amounted to a declaration of war.
The gathering on Friday was Sergei Lavrov’s first direct confrontation with leaders from the west since Russia mounted its attack on Ukraine, and he accused the west of frenzied criticism of what he claimed were Moscow’s justified actions.
In a stern if brief lecture at the meeting in Bali hosted by Indonesia, this year’s chair of the G20, Lavrov said: “If the west doesn’t want talks to take place but wishes for Ukraine to defeat Russia on the battlefield – because both views have been expressed – then perhaps there is nothing to talk about with the west.”
The veteran Russian diplomat, sitting between Saudi Arabia and Mexico at the meeting, also accused the west of pressing Ukraine to “use its weapons” in the fighting. He walked out when the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, started to speak.
Later Baerbock said: “The fact that [Lavrov] spent a large part of the negotiations not in but outside the room underlines that there is not a millimetre of willingness to talk on the Russia side.” She claimed the mood in the room was 19 to 1 against Russia’s invasion, even if disagreements existed on sanctions.
Lavrov claimed he had come to Bali to get an impression “of how the west breathes”. It had been obvious that the west did not use the G20 for the purposes for which it was created, Lavrov said. Participants from developing countries did not support this approach, he claimed.
“Aggressors, invaders, occupants. We’ve heard quite a few such things today,” he said while describing the speeches made by his western counterparts. He said some of the speeches were made for theatrical effect, citing Boris Johnson as a prime example. “Well, he resigned, and so be it,” Lavrov said. “Everyone said Russia must be isolated. But so far his own party has isolated Boris Johnson.”
Much of the meeting and discussions on the sidelines were taken up with efforts to persuade Russia to allow the export of stockpiles of Ukrainian grain through an independently policed safe naval corridor in the Black Sea. But talks, largely led by Turkey and the UN, have been continuing for weeks with no breakthrough.
Lavrov said: “Ukraine should end the blockade of its ports, demine them or ensure passage through the minefields.”
After that, Russia and Turkey would ensure the safety of the cargo ships outside Ukrainian sovereign territory so they could proceed further into the Mediterranean, he said. But a meeting in Bali between Lavrov and the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, did not lead to any immediate breakthrough.
Lavrov denied the dispute was a central factor in the broader global grain shortage, saying the blockaded grain accounted for 1% of global supply.
Western diplomats say Russia sees stealing Ukrainian grain and blocking its exports as measures designed to weaken the Ukrainian economy and increase the cost for the west of subsidising the struggling country. At a plenary session, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, urged Moscow to let Ukrainian grain out to the world.
An official said Blinken addressed Russia directly, saying: “To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Its grain is not your grain. Why are you blocking the ports? You should let the grain out.”
Lavrov again said Russia could not export its own grain because of western sanctions, for example because ships were not insured or could not call at foreign ports.
The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, hit back by saying EU sanctions “do not prohibit the import of Russian goods or fertilisers, nor payment for such Russian exports”. Russia, he said, had invaded a breadbasket of the world and turned the shipping lanes of the Black Sea into a war zone.
Western leaders refused to join a group photo with Lavrov but said their presence at the meeting, as opposed to a complete boycott, showed a greater willingness to make their argument rather than assume other neutral states side with them.
Baerbock, for instance, said before the meeting: “I am here as German foreign minister with my European colleagues to demonstrate that we will not leave the international stage to Russia.”
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Lavrov will have been most closely noting the attitude not of the west but of the other major powers such as China, Saudi Arabia and India. Lavrov met the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, telling him about “the implementation of the main missions of the special military operation” in Ukraine and repeating the Kremlin’s rhetoric that its aim was to “denazify” the country.
Lavrov’s visit to Bali was also intended to prepare for a possible trip by Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in November. It is unclear whether Putin will attend in person or via video.
The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, left the meeting early to return to London to campaign for the premiership. She left a Foreign Office official, Sir Tim Barrow, to represent the UK. |
2022-07-08T00:12:28Z | Putin says Russia is only just getting started in Ukraine – as it happened | From 7 Jul 2022 18.14 Putin warns Russia is just getting started in Ukraine Vladimir Putin has said “everyone should know that” Russia was just getting started in Ukraine and has not “started anything yet in earnest”. Any prospects for peace negotiations will grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on, the Russian leader said in a hawkish speech to parliamentary leaders. He said if the west wanted to defeat Russia on the battlefield, it was welcome to try.
Putin said: Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can you say, let them try. We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is heading towards this. He added: Everyone should know that, by and large, we haven’t started anything yet in earnest. At the same time, we don’t reject peace talks. But those who reject them should know that the further it goes, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us.
Updated at 18.36 BST
7 Jul 2022 00.51 Russia taking 'operational pause', analysts say Foreign analysts say Russia may be temporarily easing its offensive in eastern Ukraine as the Russian military attempts to reassemble its forces for a new assault. Russian forces made no claimed or assessed territorial gains in Ukraine on Wednesday “for the first time in 133 days of war,” according to the Institute for the Study of War. The Washington-based think tank suggested Moscow may be taking an “operational pause,” but said that does not entail “the complete cessation of active hostilities.” Russian forces will likely confine themselves to relatively small-scale offensive actions as they attempt to set conditions for more significant offensive operations” and rebuild the necessary combat power, the institute said. Russia’s Defence Ministry seemed to confirm that assessment, saying in a statement Thursday that Russian soldiers had been given time to rest. “The units that performed combat missions ... are taking measures to recover their combat capabilities. The servicemen are given the opportunity to rest, receive letters and parcels from home,” read the statement, quoted by Russian state news agency Tass.
7 Jul 2022 00.29 UN warns of ‘looming hunger catastrophe’ due to Russian blockade Patrick Wintour A looming hunger catastrophe is set to explode over the next two years, creating the risk of unprecedented global political pressure, the director of the UN World Food Programme has warned. Calling for short- and long-term reforms – including an urgent lifting of the blockade on 25m tonnes of Ukrainian grain trapped by a Russian blockade – Patrick Beasley said the current food affordability crisis is likely to turn into an even more dangerous food availability crisis next year unless solutions are found. The number of people classed as “acutely food insecure” by the UN before the Covid crisis was 130 million, but after Covid this number rose to 276 million. Writing a preface to a new pamphlet from the Blair Institute on the looming hunger crisis, Beasley says: “This number has increased to 345 million due to the Ukraine crisis. And a staggering 50 million people in 45 countries are now just one step from famine. “The international community must act to stop this looming hunger catastrophe in its tracks – or these numbers will explode. “Global food markets have been plunged into turmoil, with soaring prices, export bans and shortages of basic foodstuffs spreading far from Ukraine’s borders. Nations across Africa, the Middle East, Asia and even Latin America are feeling the heat from this conflict.” UN warns of ‘looming hunger catastrophe’ due to Russian blockade Read more
7 Jul 2022 00.13 Russian prosecutors have called for prison sentences for a prominent opposition activist and for a Moscow city council member who opposes the invasion of Ukraine. Prosecutors asked that Andrei Pivovarov, former head of the Open Russia organisation, be given a five-year sentence for “directing an undesirable organisation,” according to his lawyer, Sergei Badamshin, as reported by the Associated Press. Pivovarov was pulled off a Warsaw-bound plane at St. Petersburg’s airport just before takeoff in May 2021. He was taken to the southern city of Krasnodar, where he was accused of supporting a local candidate on behalf of an “undesirable” organisation. The criminal charge is based on a his social media posts supporting independent candidates in Krasnodar’s municipal elections, according to AP. A Russian prosecutor has also asked for a seven-year sentence for a Moscow city council member who spoke up against Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Alexei Gorinov, who was detained in April, is the first Russian elected representative to face prison for spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Gorinov criticised Moscow’s military actions in Ukraine at a city council meeting in March, a recording of which is now available on YouTube. The video shows him voicing skepticism over a planned children’s art competition in his constituency while “every day children are dying” in Ukraine. At a court hearing last month, Gorinov was photographed holding up a sign saying “I am against the war” as he sat in the defendant’s cage.
7 Jul 2022 23.33 Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, has said the economic sanctions imposed by the west against Russia have not worked. “The economic barriers that the United States and Europe imposed against Russia did not work,” Bolsonaro told supporters on Thursday, adding that his position towards Putin and the war “was one of balance.” Bolsonaro said that stance had allowed him to acquire fertilisers, a key input for Brazil’s vast agricultural sector, from Russia. He also said Russia shared Brazil’s concerns over “sovereignty” of the Amazon. Earlier on Thursday, Putin said it was obvious that western sanctions were creating difficulties, “but not at all what the initiators of the economic blitzkrieg against Russia were counting on.”
7 Jul 2022 23.02 Summary of the day so far It’s 1am in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand: A Reuters exclusive report has revealed that Ukraine opposes Canada’s handing over a turbine to Russia’s Gazprom that Moscow says is critical for supplying natural gas to Germany. According to a Ukrainian energy ministry source, Ukraine believes that doing so would defy sanctions against Russia.
According to a Ukrainian energy ministry source, Ukraine believes that doing so would defy sanctions against Russia. Images have emerged of fields of grain in Ukraine set on fire allegedly by Russian forces. According to Ukrainian serviceman Ihor Lutsenko, the “flame sometimes reaches a height of 5 metres, a strip of hundreds of metres in width. Black smoke flies up and spreads across the sky for many kilometers.” The dry stalks of grain are set ablaze “like matches” from incendiary munitions, he added.
According to Ukrainian serviceman Ihor Lutsenko, the “flame sometimes reaches a height of 5 metres, a strip of hundreds of metres in width. Black smoke flies up and spreads across the sky for many kilometers.” The dry stalks of grain are set ablaze “like matches” from incendiary munitions, he added. Canada will send 39 General Dynamics-made armored vehicles to Ukraine later this summer in attempts to assist the war-torn country in its fight against Russian forces. On Thursday, Canadian defense minister Anita Anand said that the armored vehicles deal is on top of a separate multi-billion dollar contract for 260 vehicles for the Canadian armed forces which was negotiated with General Dynamics Land Systems in 2019.
On Thursday, Canadian defense minister Anita Anand said that the armored vehicles deal is on top of a separate multi-billion dollar contract for 260 vehicles for the Canadian armed forces which was negotiated with General Dynamics Land Systems in 2019. A Russian prosecutor on Thursday requested a seven-year prison term for a Moscow city councillor accused of criticising Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. Alexei Gorinov, a 60-year-old lawyer by training, was arrested in late April for spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army and is now on trial. Gorinov is the first elected member of the opposition to face jail for criticising Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.
Alexei Gorinov, a 60-year-old lawyer by training, was arrested in late April for spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army and is now on trial. Gorinov is the first elected member of the opposition to face jail for criticising Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine. Andriy Zagorodnyuk - Ukraine’s former defence minister - says Russian claims that Ukrainian servicemen were killed on Snake Island are untrue. Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday it had eliminated Ukrainian troops who installed a huge national flag on the island after regaining control.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday it had eliminated Ukrainian troops who installed a huge national flag on the island after regaining control. The European parliament has endorsed a proposal that allows Ukrainian refugees to continue using their driver’s license without needing to switch it out for a European driver’s license. The European Union council will now formally adopt the draft rules.
Updated at 23.05 BST
7 Jul 2022 22.41 A Reuters exclusive report has revealed that Ukraine opposes Canada’s handing over a turbine to Russia’s Gazprom that Moscow says is critical for supplying natural gas to Germany. According to a Ukrainian energy ministry source, Ukraine believes that doing so would defy sanctions against Russia. A senior Ukrainian energy ministry source told Reuters that Ukraine opposed the move and that its energy minister had lobbied Canada in June not to hand over the turbine being serviced by Germany’s Siemens Energy in Canada. “The sanctions forbid the transfer of any equipment related to gas,” the energy ministry source said. “If, God forbid, this decision is approved, we will undoubtedly appeal to our European colleagues that their approach must be reassesed. Because if countries do not follow decisions they have agreed about sanctions, how can we talk about solidarity?”
7 Jul 2022 22.19 Images have emerged of fields of grain in Ukraine set on fire allegedly by Russian forces, Euromaidan Press reports. According to Ukrainian serviceman Ihor Lutsenko, the “flame sometimes reaches a height of 5 meters, a strip of hundreds of meters in width. Black smoke flies up and spreads across the sky for many kilometers.” The dry stalks of grain are set ablaze “like matches” from incendiary munitions, he added. Russians purposefully burn Ukrainian grain
The dry stalks go up in fire "like matches" from incendiary munitions
The fire advances like a wall, as a single front; sometimes it reaches 5 m in height, 100's of meters in length.
📷 Serviceman Ihor Lutsenko https://t.co/o4XQNLpCd2 pic.twitter.com/oxuqhPi697 — Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) July 7, 2022
7 Jul 2022 21.44 Canada will send 39 General Dynamics-made armored vehicles to Ukraine later this summer in attempts to assist the war-torn country in its fight against Russian forces. On Thursday, Canadian defense minister Anita Anand said that the armored vehicles deal is on top of a separate multi-billion dollar contract for 260 vehicles for the Canadian armed forces which was negotiated with General Dynamics Land Systems in 2019. “Those 39 vehicles will begin to ship this summer, and the remaining 360 will continue to be delivered over the next number of months as well,” she said. The vehicles can be used as ambulances, maintenance and recovery vehicles, in addition to carrying troops.
7 Jul 2022 20.57 A Russian prosecutor on Thursday requested a seven-year prison term for a Moscow city councillor accused of criticising Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. Agence France-Presse reports: Alexei Gorinov, a 60-year-old lawyer by training, was arrested in late April for spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army and is now on trial. Gorinov is the first elected member of the opposition to face jail for criticising Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine. The charges come under new legislation that allows prison time for discrediting the Russian military and is part of Moscow’s increasing efforts to snuff out the last vestiges of dissent. Speaking in Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court, the prosecutor accused Gorinov of undermining the “authority of the armed forces” and being guided by “political hatred,” an AFP journalist said. Gorinov spoke up against Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine during a work meeting in March that was recorded on video and is available on YouTube. During his speech, he questioned plans for an art competition for children in his constituency while “every day children are dying” in Ukraine. On Thursday, he once again spoke out against what the Kremlin has termed a “special military operation”. “No matter what you call it, war is the dirtiest, vilest thing there is,” he said. “Why are many of my compatriots feeling ashamed and guilty? Why did so many leave?” he added, referring to an exodus of liberal-minded Russians from the country. Several dozen people came out to support Gorinov, including his wife and sister. Dmitry Fyodorov, a 50-year-old programmer, said that the charges against Gorinov were “unlawful” and described him as a “kind man and a good lawyer”. Russian society is reeling from a historic crackdown on dissent which has intensified since President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24. Criticism of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine has essentially been banned in the country. In March, Russia passed into law prison sentences of up to 15 years for spreading false information aimed at discrediting its military forces. On Wednesday, parliament introduced harsh prison terms for calls to act against national security and criminal liability for maintaining “confidential” cooperation with foreigners.
7 Jul 2022 20.15 Luke Harding Andriy Zagorodnyuk – Ukraine’s former defence minister – says Russian claims that Ukrainian servicemen were killed on Snake Island are untrue. Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday it had eliminated Ukrainian troops who installed a huge national flag on the island after regaining control. “I spoke to these guys. They say they all came back intact,” Zagorodnyuk told the Guardian. According to a report by Ukrainskaya Pravda, combat swimmers from the 73rd marine centre of Ukraine’s special forces took part in the operation. They set off for the island during the night using underwater vehicles. An advance team surveyed the coastal zone for mines and gave a signal for boats from the main group to approach, the newspaper said. Engineers clambered on the island, also known as Zmiiny, and swept for mine barriers and other traps. They logged abandoned Russian equipment and weapons, and raised Ukrainian flags in several areas. The report added: “While our soldiers were performing their tasks, Russian ships began maneuvering in the direction of Zmiiny. Having completed the task, the combined group left the island. “After that, the Russians launched a missile attack on Snake Island, hitting the pier. The group of Ukrainian soldiers returned unscathed in its entirety to the base.” Russia’s defence ministry has said it killed Ukrainian servicemen who were trying to raise Ukraine’s flag on the recently retaken island. Authorities in Odesa appeared to confirm that missiles had struck the island, and that Russians had also destroyed two grain hangars in the region which contained “about 35 tonnes of grain”. Ukrainian military released footage showing troops installing a huge national flag on Snake Island after regaining control.
Updated at 22.15 BST
7 Jul 2022 19.20 The European parliament has endorsed a proposal that allows Ukrainian refugees to continue using their driver’s license without needing to switch it out for a European driver’s license, the Kyiv Independent reports. The European Union council will now formally adopt the draft rules. Wir haben heute im @Europarl_DE eine Übergangsregelung für 🇺🇦 ukrainische Führerscheine verabschiedet. Damit können Ukrainer, die vorübergehenden Schutz in der EU 🇪🇺 suchen, ihren ukrainischen Führerschein unbürokratisch weiter benutzen.#StandWithUkraine#WeStandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/oGeLdfgrl6 — CDU/CSU in Europa (@CDU_CSU_EP) July 7, 2022
Updated at 19.59 BST |
2022-07-07T14:16:56Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 134 of the invasion | The British prime minister Boris Johnson has announced he is to resign, telling Ukraine “we in the UK will continue to back your fight for freedom for as long as it takes”. Defence secretary Ben Wallace had already said he would not be stepping down from office, due to national security issues, which include the UK’s contributions to Ukraine’s war effort. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said reports that Johnson would shortly resign as prime minister were of little concern for the Kremlin, saying “he doesn’t like us, we don’t like him either.” |
2022-06-16T00:01:33Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 113 of the invasion | Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday allies would continue to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons and long-range systems, with an agreement on a new package of assistance to Kyiv expected at the summit in Madrid later this month. The agreement would help Ukraine move from old Soviet-era weaponry to “more modern Nato standard” gear, he said. Stoltenberg was speaking before a meeting in Brussels of defence ministers from Nato and other countries to discuss and coordinate help for Ukraine. |
2022-07-27T18:00:08Z | Russia will not take Donbas in ‘immediate future’, say western officials – as it happened | From 27 Jul 2022 17.47 Russia will not manage to take Donbas in 'immediate future', say western officials Russia has “definitively” lost the initiative in the battle for the Donbas in Ukraine, according to western officials. Moscow will not take the eastern industrial heartland in the “immediate future”, one official said, but “they are not just going to give up and go home”. They said there has been “wax and wane” in the war in Ukraine, and Russia has the capacity to “adapt and adjust what they are doing”, according to a Press Association report. Earlier this month, western officials said the sustainability of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine was “challenging”, with Moscow making “genuine headway” on the objective it claimed was the rationale for the invasion - the supposed liberation of the Donbas. But a western official said on Wednesday that Russia has “definitively lost the initiative” in the battle for the region. They said it is believed that securing the full extent of Donetsk Oblast remains the “minimum political objective of the Donbas campaign”, but it looks “increasingly unlikely” that Russia will achieve this in the next several months.
Updated at 17.50 BST
27 Jul 2022 19.00 Summary The time in Kyiv is now 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s top headlines: Russia has “definitively” lost the initiative in the battle for the Donbas in Ukraine, according to western officials. Moscow will not take the eastern industrial heartland in the “immediate future”, one official said, but “they are not just going to give up and go home”. Ukraine’s navy confirmed on Wednesday that work had started at three Ukrainian Black Sea ports aimed at preparing for the resumption of grain exports. “In connection with the signing of the agreement on the unblocking of Ukrainian ports for the export of grain, work has been resumed in the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdeny,” the navy said on Facebook. Russia cannot be trusted to honour an agreement to allow the export of Ukrainian grain from Odesa, the Polish prime minister said on Wednesday, after Moscow launched a missile strike on the Black Sea port. “The day after the signing [of the agreement], the Russian armed forces ... attacked Odesa,” Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference. Ukrainian parliament approved the appointment of lawmaker Andriy Kostin as the country’s prosecutor general on Wednesday, the prosecutor general’s office said. Some 299 deputies in the 450-seat parliament endorsed Kostin’s appointment, it said on the Telegram messaging app. A key Russian-held bridge into the occupied southern city of Kherson has been hit with a barrage of rocket fire by Ukrainian forces, who appeared to be stepping up operations to isolate the city. Video and witness accounts showed up to 18 detonations on the Antonivskiy Bridge over the Dnieper river, one of the main Russian resupply routes into Kherson, with Russian anti-missile air defences apparently failing to intercept the strikes. There were also reports that a railway bridge was targeted. Germany has accused Moscow of engaging in “power play” over energy exports, as Russian state-run Gazprom further throttled gas supplies into Europe. As announced two days earlier, the energy giant on Wednesday reduced the gas flow through Nord Stream 1 to 33m cubic metres a day – about 20% of the pipeline’s total capacity and half the amount it has been delivering since resuming service last week after 10 days of maintenance work. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign affairs minister, was in Uganda on Tuesday for bilateral talks with President Yoweri Museveni, on his third stop of an African tour that ends in Ethiopia today. The trip comes against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is having devastating consequences on food supply across Africa. The war has fuelled food shortages in east Africa, which was already hard-hit by climate change and disruptions to the food supply due to Covid-19. One person has been killed and four wounded in a Russian attack on a hotel in Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, according to local emergency services and the regional governor. A bipartisan group of three US senators urged Meta’s Facebook, Twitter and Telegram to do a better job of stopping Russian efforts to spread Spanish-language disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine. Senators Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent the letters, dated Wednesday, along with Senators Tim Kaine, also a Democrat, and Bill Cassidy, a Republican. A tongue-in-cheek petition to give the outgoing British prime minister, Boris Johnson, Ukrainian citizenship and make him the country’s prime minister has garnered over 2,500 signatures hours after being put up on Ukraine’s official petitions site on Tuesday. The European Union had understood how “essential” to Russia the issue of goods transit to the country’s Kaliningrad exclave is, according to Moscow. Reuters reported that the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said developments around the exclave were “positive”, after a deal with the EU to unblock transit to Kaliningrad. That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for tonight. Thanks for following along. The latest news from Russia’s war on Ukraine can be found here.
27 Jul 2022 18.50 A bipartisan group of three US senators urged Meta’s Facebook, Twitter and Telegram to do a better job of stopping Russian efforts to spread Spanish-language disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine. Senators Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent the letters, dated Wednesday, along with Senators Tim Kaine, also a Democrat, and Bill Cassidy, a Republican. In particular, the lawmakers asked the companies to better moderate Russia’s RT en Espanol and Sputnik Mundo, Reuters reported. “We ... know that disinformation campaigns by Russian state media’s Spanish-language outlets targeted at Latin American and Caribbean audiences regularly reach Spanish-speaking communities in the United States, directly harming our national interests,” they said in the three letters. The letters were sent to Telegram Chief Executive Pavel Durov, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO. Representatives of Facebook and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment while Telegram could not be reached. A group of 21 US lawmakers sent a similar letter to Facebook in April.
27 Jul 2022 18.08 The British foreign secretary Liz Truss has said Vladimir Putin is holding the rest of the world to ransom over gas prices and said allowing him to succeed would cause “untold misery” across Europe. Asked by broadcasters whether she believed “Vladimir Putin is effectively holding the rest of the world to ransom” by “cutting off supplies to Germany,” she replied:
That is exactly what he is trying to do and it’s vitally important that we stay strong in the face of his appalling aggression. If we allow Vladimir Putin to succeed, it will cause untold misery across Europe. We know that he wouldn’t just stop at Ukraine the east of Europe is under threat and democracy is under threat.
27 Jul 2022 17.47 Russia will not manage to take Donbas in 'immediate future', say western officials Russia has “definitively” lost the initiative in the battle for the Donbas in Ukraine, according to western officials. Moscow will not take the eastern industrial heartland in the “immediate future”, one official said, but “they are not just going to give up and go home”. They said there has been “wax and wane” in the war in Ukraine, and Russia has the capacity to “adapt and adjust what they are doing”, according to a Press Association report. Earlier this month, western officials said the sustainability of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine was “challenging”, with Moscow making “genuine headway” on the objective it claimed was the rationale for the invasion - the supposed liberation of the Donbas. But a western official said on Wednesday that Russia has “definitively lost the initiative” in the battle for the region. They said it is believed that securing the full extent of Donetsk Oblast remains the “minimum political objective of the Donbas campaign”, but it looks “increasingly unlikely” that Russia will achieve this in the next several months.
Updated at 17.50 BST
27 Jul 2022 16.34 Germany accuses Russia of ‘power play’ as gas pipeline supply drops by half Philip Oltermann Germany has accused Moscow of engaging in “power play” over energy exports, as Russian state-run Gazprom further throttled gas supplies into Europe. As announced two days earlier, the energy giant on Wednesday reduced the gas flow through Nord Stream 1 to 33m cubic metres a day – about 20% of the pipeline’s total capacity and half the amount it has been delivering since resuming service last week after 10 days of maintenance work. According to network data from the gas transfer station in Lubmin, north-east Germany, only about 17m kilowatt hours of gas arrived between 8am and 9am, compared with more than 27m kWh between 6am and 7am. Germany accuses Russia of ‘power play’ as gas pipeline supply drops by half Read more
Updated at 16.54 BST
27 Jul 2022 16.03 A tongue-in-cheek petition to give the outgoing British prime minister, Boris Johnson, Ukrainian citizenship and make him the country’s prime minister has garnered over 2,500 signatures hours after being put up on Ukraine’s official petitions site on Tuesday. Despite losing domestic popularity and eventually having been forced to announce his resignation after dozens of ministerial departures in early July, Johnson remains a cult figure in Kyiv for his vocal support of Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion. The Reuters news agency reported: The petition, addressed to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, lists Johnson’s strengths as “worldwide support for Boris Johnson, a clear position against the military invasion of Ukraine, (and) wisdom in the political, financial and legal spheres.” The petition, however, does acknowledge one negative side of such an appointment: its non-compliance with Ukraine’s constitution. In an apparent coincidence, several hours after the petition was put up on Tuesday, Johnson presented Zelenskiy with the Sir Winston Churchill Leadership award for what his Downing Street office described as “incredible courage, defiance, and dignity” in the face of Russia’s invasion. Zelenskiy did not mention the new petition when accepting the award, but he will be obliged to officially respond if it receives 25,000 signatures. Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelenskiy visit an exhibition of destroyed Russian military vehicles and weapons in Kyiv. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
Updated at 16.09 BST
27 Jul 2022 15.39 The Czech government has backed allowing its fighter jets to protect neighbouring Slovakia’s air space from September, the defence ministry said on Wednesday. Slovakia has sought help from its Nato allies as it looks to ground its Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets in August under long-standing plans to modernise the military. Slovak government officials have said the old jets could be sent to neighbouring Ukraine to help Kyiv defend itself against Russia’s invasion, Reuters reported. From September, the Czech army’s Gripen JAS-39 fighter jets will provide air policing for Slovakia until at least the end of 2023, the Czech Defence Ministry said. Poland is also expected to take part, it said. More details will come as part of a joint declaration from the countries to be signed in the near future.
27 Jul 2022 15.13 Russia cannot be trusted to honour an agreement to allow the export of Ukrainian grain from Odesa, the Polish prime minister said on Wednesday, after Moscow launched a missile strike on the Black Sea port. “The day after the signing [of the agreement], the Russian armed forces ... attacked Odesa,” Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference. “It follows that such agreements cannot be considered fully credible, because unfortunately that is what Russia is like.”
27 Jul 2022 14.48 Peter Beaumont In response to the attack on the Antonivskiy Bridge, Russian military bloggers, some of whom have become more critical of the Kremlin’s conduct of the war, underlined the problems facing Russian forces in the Kherson area. Among them was the Voennyi Osvedomitel (military informant) Telegram channel, which has a following of 450,000 people. “The repeated attacks by the armed forces of Ukraine have led to – so far – a temporary failure of the Antonivskiy Bridge, forcing the construction of ferry and pontoon crossings as an alternative.
“There are exactly two problems here. First, the consequences of shelling the bridge have a cumulative effect, that is, each subsequent one does more damage than the previous one … The second is that alternatives in the form of pontoons / ferries are much more vulnerable to enemy fire.
“We are forced to conclude that the problem with the ongoing attempts of the armed forces of Ukraine to cut off the right-bank grouping of [Russian forces] from supplies is not being resolved.” Map of the Kherson region The bridge has come under repeated attack in the past week as Ukraine has tried to cut off the handful of routes Russia can use to move heavy weapons in and around Kherson, including a road over the dam at nearby Nova Kakhovka.
27 Jul 2022 14.42 Gazprom says turbine used for Nord Stream 1 has not arrived from Canada Gazprom’s deputy CEO, Vitaly Markelov, has said the company has still not received a Siemens turbine used at Nord Stream 1’s Portovaya compressor station that has been undergoing servicing in Canada.
Reuters reports Markelov blamed Siemens, which is servicing the turbine, for the delay, saying that there were sanctions risks associated with the machinery. Yesterday energy ministers from the 27 EU member states, except Hungary, backed a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, a target that could become mandatory if the Kremlin ordered a complete shutdown of gas to Europe.
Updated at 15.11 BST
27 Jul 2022 14.40 Here are some pictures of the newly opened joint coordination centre (JCC) in Istanbul which will oversee the export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in a deal brokered by Turkey. Military delegations of Turkey, Russia and Ukraine sit at the opening of the coordination centre for Ukrainian grain exports. Photograph: Ozan Köse/AFP/Getty Images A general view of the JCC in Istanbul. Photograph: Erdem Şahin/EPA Reuters reports that a Turkish official close to the matter said that prior to last week’s agreement the Ukrainian and Russian sides initially did not talk to each other during the negotiations, but then they softened. “The Ukrainian and Russian representatives are staying here at the joint centre. The parties have social conversations with each other in this campus. They are eating together here,” he said. A Ukrainian official attends the opening of the JCC. Photograph: Ozan Köse/AFP/Getty Images Russian military delegation during the opening ceremony. Photograph: Erdem Şahin/EPA
Updated at 14.42 BST |
2022-06-15T00:37:22Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 112 of the invasion | Zelenskiy repeated his call for the west to step up the provision of heavy weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar said the country had received only 10% of what it asked for and there was no path to victory without the aid: “No matter how hard Ukraine tries, no matter how professional our army is, without the help of western partners we will not be able to win this war”. Zelenskiy added that Ukraine does not have enough anti-missile systems to shoot down Russian projectiles targeting its cities. “Our country does not have enough of them ... there can be no justification in delays in providing them.” |
2022-07-06T15:51:00Z | Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 133 of the invasion | The battle for Sloviansk is likely to be the next key contest in the struggle for Donbas as Russian forces approach within 10 miles (16km) of the Donetsk town, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday. Russian forces from the eastern and western groups of forces are likely now about 16km north of Sloviansk as central and southern groups of forces also pose a threat to the town, according to the latest British intelligence report. |
2022-03-10T10:31:04Z | Tui Group terminates branding deal with Tui Russia | Tui, Europe’s largest holiday company, has cancelled a deal allowing the Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov to use its name after the billionaire was hit by EU sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Tui Russia was established in 2009 as a joint venture with Mordashov’s Severgroup to expand the business in Russia and Ukraine. Mordashov had invested in Tui and joined its supervisory board but he was forced to resign last week after the sanctions were revealed.
Tui had sold its stake in the joint venture at the end of March 2021 to KN-Holdings LLC, a company then wholly owned and controlled by Mordashov’s sons, Kirill and Nikita. However, Mordashov recently took back control of the company.
The brand licence agreement allowed Tui Russia to continue using the name in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It is thought that the Russian business is planning to announce a new brand name as soon as Thursday.
Fritz Joussen, the chief executive of Tui Group, said: “Tui condemns Russia’s attack and war against Ukraine. Our position is clear. The Tui brand must no longer be used by Tui Russia for its business and the company’s presence.”
Tui’s links with Mordashov have come under close scrutiny since the invasion of Ukraine, and Italian authorities last week reportedly seized a 65m yacht said to belong to him. Mordashov controls about a third of Tui’s shares via different investment vehicles.
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Mordashov’s shares in Tui have been frozen, meaning he cannot sell them to realise any profits. He also resigned from Tui’s board as soon as the sanctions were announced.
Mordashov, one of Russia’s richest men, owns Severgroup, which includes the vast Severstal steel producer and a Tui stake.
The EU’s announcement of sanctions on Mordashov said he was, through Severgroup’s banking, media and industrial interests, “responsible for supporting actions and policies that undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”.
In a statement on Monday, Mordashov said he had “absolutely nothing to do with the emergence of the current geopolitical tension” and did not understand why the EU had imposed sanctions on him.
Vladimir Lukin, another Russian with links to Severgroup, also resigned from Tui’s board this week. |
2022-07-27T00:29:03Z | Zelenskiy accuses Russia of using rising gas prices to terrorise Europe – as it happened | From 26 Jul 2022 21.35 Zelenskiy accuses Russia of using rising gas prices to terrorise Europe Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday said Russia was deliberately cutting supplies of natural gas to impose a “price terror” against Europe, and he called for more sanctions on Moscow, Reuters reports. “Using Gazprom, Moscow is doing all it can to make this coming winter as harsh as possible for the European countries. Terror must be answered - impose sanctions,” he said in a late-night video address. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaking yesterday during a joint press conference with President of Guatemala Alejandro Giammattei. Photograph: Alexey Furman/Getty Images Meanwhile, a deal agreed by EU states to curb their gas use should yield enough gas savings to last through an average winter, if Russia were to fully cut supplies in July, the bloc’s energy chief Kadri Simson said. The Kremlin said a repaired gas turbine for Nord Stream 1, Russia’s biggest gas pipeline to Europe, had not yet arrived after maintenance in Canada, and that a second turbine was showing defects. Russian gas giant Gazprom has sharply increased pressure in the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline that delivers Russian gas to Europe without prior notice, the Ukrainian state pipeline operator company said. Such pressure spikes could lead to emergencies including pipeline ruptures, according to the Ukrainian company. The Guardian’s Jennifer Rankin reports from Brussels and has written an explainer tackling the question ‘How does the EU plan to cut gas usage by 15% this winter?’ EU member states have agreed a plan for gas savings to avoid a winter energy crisis, but loaded with exemptions. Said to be overwhelming consensus in favour, but one member state objected — Hungary. — Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) July 26, 2022
Updated at 22.02 BST
27 Jul 2022 01.23 Summary Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. We will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning. In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below. The strategic Antonivskiy bridge in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson has reportedly been struck by Ukrainian forces hoping to disrupt Russia’s main supply route into the southern Ukrainian city. Multiple, yet unconfirmed, suggest Ukrainian forces conducted new strikes late on Tuesday night. “Explosions in the Antonivskiy Bridge area,” Ukraine’s armed forces said in a Telegram update just before midnight alongside a video purportedly showing the strikes. Russian forces continued to strike civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and the surrounding region in the country’s northeast. Regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said the strikes on the city resumed around dawn Tuesday. “The Russians deliberately target civilian infrastructure objects hospitals, schools, movie theatres. Everything is being fired at, even queues for humanitarian aid,” Syniehubov told Ukrainian television. Russia’s defence ministry plans to hold strategic military exercises in the east of the country from 30 August to 5 September. Interfax reported that the militaries of unspecified other countries will be taking part in the regular ‘Vostok’ exercises, citing the defence ministry. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will hold a one-day visit to the Russian resort of Sochi on 5 August, his office announced. It is anticipated that he will meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The EU has been forced to water down its plan to ration gas this winter in an attempt to avoid an energy crisis generated by further Russian cuts to supply. Energy ministers from the 27 member states, except Hungary, backed a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter. Ministers agreed opt-outs for island nations and possible exclusions for countries little connected to the European gas network. Zelenskiy has accused Russia of deliberately cutting supplies of natural gas to impose a “price terror” against Europe. “Using Gazprom, Moscow is doing all it can to make this coming winter as harsh as possible for the European countries. Terror must be answered - impose sanctions,” he said in a late-night video address. A joint coordination centre (JCC) for Ukrainian grain exports under a UN-brokered deal will be opened in a ceremony in Istanbul on Wednesday, Turkey’s defence ministry said. Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations signed the accord last week to resume Ukraine’s grain exports. Insurance uncertainty poses the biggest obstacle to grain ships leaving Ukraine’s Black Sea ports this week, exporters say. Questions remain over whether insurance companies will be willing to insure the vessels as they navigate the mined waters, while buyers are hesitant to make new orders given the risk of Russian attacks. The first train with sanctioned goods has arrived from Russia to Kaliningrad via Lithuania in the first such trip since the EU said Lithuania must allow Russian goods across its territory. Russian news agency Tass cited regional governor Anton Alikhanov as saying: “It is indeed the first train to have arrived after the EU decision ... [it is] quite an important achievement.” The train reportedly consisted of 60 freight cars with cement. Russia will pull out of the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost, the country’s space chief said. Yuri Borisov said Russia would fulfil its obligations to its partners on the ISS before leaving the project. “The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made,” Borisov said, to which Putin responded: “Good.” Ukraine aims to strike a deal for a $15-$20bn programme with the International Monetary Fund before year-end to help shore up its war-torn economy, the country’s central bank governor, Kyrylo Shevchenko, told Reuters. The Russian economy appears to be doing better than expected despite western sanctions. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund upgraded Russia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimate for this year by 2.5%, although its economy is still expected to contract by 6%. “That’s still a fairly sizeable recession in Russia in 2022,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told AFP, adding that rising energy prices are “providing an enormous amount of revenues to the Russian economy”. Boris Johnson compared Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s leadership of Ukraine to the war-time exploits of Sir Winston Churchill. The British prime minister said he believed “Churchill would have cheered and probably have wept too” when the Ukrainian president insisted he needed “ammunition, not a ride” out of Kyiv when Russia invaded in February. A British citizen who video blogs pro-Kremlin material from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine has been added to a UK government sanctions list. Graham Phillips – the first UK citizen to be added to the growing sanctions list – has been accused of being a conduit for pro-Russian propaganda, receiving medals from the Russian state for his reporting.
Updated at 01.29 BST
26 Jul 2022 00.40 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has defended his country’s relationship with Russia, as Moscow’s top diplomat toured Africa to rally support over the war in Ukraine. “How can we be against somebody who has never harmed us,” the Ugandan leader said alongside Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference in the town of Entebbe, according to Agence France-Presse. “If Russia makes mistakes, we tell them. When they have not made mistakes, we can’t be against them,” he added, hailing Russia for backing anti-colonial movements in Africa. Uganda was one of 17 African nations to abstain during a vote in March on a UN resolution that overwhelmingly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 🇷🇺🇺🇬 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni held a meeting in Entebbe.#RussiaUganda #RussiaAfrica pic.twitter.com/aAojBveWLl — MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) July 26, 2022 As Russia’s relations with the west have collapsed over the conflict, Lavrov said Africa would play a greater role in Russia’s foreign policy.
Museveni also said Uganda would cooperate with Moscow in a range of fields including space, energy, agriculture and vaccines. “Our interest with Russia is when there is progress with Russia, we (Africa) benefit,” he added. Lavrov continued in Ethiopia later on Tuesday on the latest leg of his four-day trip.
26 Jul 2022 00.22 Ukraine shells Kherson's Antonivskiy bridge - reports In the Russian-occupied region of Kherson in southern Ukraine, there are multiple, yet unconfirmed, reports of Ukrainian forces conducting new strikes on the strategic Antonivskiy bridge across the Dnieper River. “Explosions in the Antonivskiy Bridge area,” Ukraine’s armed forces said in a Telegram update just before midnight alongside a video purportedly showing the strikes. Kviv Independent defence reporter, Illia Ponomarenko, tweeted late Tuesday night: “Reportedly, we have another heavy Ukrainian strike upon the Antonivsky Bridge, the key Russian supply line in occupied Kherson.” Pending official confirmation: the Russian-held Antonivsʹkyy Bridge next to Kherson has been reportedly destroyed by the #Ukrainian #army. #HIMARSoCLOCK. — KyivPost (@KyivPost) July 26, 2022 The Antonivskiy Bridge is the main supply route for Russian troops and if damaged, Moscow’s forces would potentially be trapped in Kherson with little ammunition and little supplies - part of Ukraine’s plan to re-take the city. Kherson is accessed by four key bridges. Kherson is accessed by four key bridges. Kherson, captured in early March, has long been a focus for the Ukrainians, with the defenders making limited gains in the countryside between Mykolaiv and the target city since April. But, apparently helped by the longer-range weapons, with an effective firing distance of up to 50 miles (80km), the Ukrainians are growing more confident. The city is accessed by four key bridges. Ukraine’s goal appears is not want to destroy the bridges as food supplies are still needed to cross into the city but rather to damage them to the point where the Russians cannot transport heavy equipment across them. Can Ukrainian forces recapture Kherson from Russia? Read more
26 Jul 2022 23.58 Ukraine aims to strike a deal for a $15-$20bn programme with the International Monetary Fund before year-end to help shore up its war-torn economy, the country’s central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko told Reuters. Battered by Russia’s invasion, Ukraine faces a 35%-45% economic contraction in 2022 and a monthly fiscal shortfall of $5bn and is heavily reliant on foreign financing from its western partners. Shevchenko, 49, speaking during his visit to London, also said he hoped to agree on a swap line with the Bank of England “within weeks”, though he did not specify the amount. Kyiv had already submitted its request to the IMF, the governor said, and was now in consultation with the fund over the new financing that he hoped would provide as much as $20bn over two or three years in form of a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) or an Extended Fund Facility (EFF). It was the first time Ukraine has put a number on the fresh financing it needs from the Washington-based lender. A $20bn programme would be the second largest currently active loan from the IMF after Argentina. “The IMF has always acted as Ukraine’s partner during the war,” Shevchenko told Reuters. “My hope is to start the programme this year.”
26 Jul 2022 23.36 First Russian train reaches Kaliningrad, governor says The first train with sanctioned goods has arrived from Russia to Kaliningrad via Lithuania in the first such trip since the European Union said Lithuania must allow Russian goods across its territory, according to the regional governor. Russian news agency Tass cited regional governor Anton Alikhanov as saying: It is indeed the first train to have arrived after the EU decision ... [it is] quite an important achievement.” The train reportedly consisted of 60 freight cars with cement. Wedged between Lithuania and fellow EU and Nato member Poland, Russia’s heavily militarised exclave of Kaliningrad depends on mainland Russia for a sizeable portion of its supplies. But these must transit through Lithuanian territory. The region has found itself increasingly isolated since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February.
Updated at 23.40 BST
26 Jul 2022 23.26 Russia to pull out of International Space Station Russia will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost, the country’s new space chief has confirmed. The announcement throws into question the future of the 24-year-old space station, with experts saying it would be extremely difficult to keep it running without the Russians. Nasa and its partners had hoped to continue operating it until 2030. “The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made,” Yuri Borisov, head of Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. He added: “I think that by that time we will start forming a Russian orbiting station.” Nasa officials said they had yet to hear directly from their Russian counterparts on the matter. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson issued a statement saying that the agency was “committed to the safe operation” of the space station through 2030 and continues “to build future capabilities to assure our major presence in low-Earth orbit.” US state department spokesman Ned Price called the announcement “an unfortunate development” given the “valuable professional collaboration our space agencies have had over the years.” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the US is “exploring options” for dealing with a Russian withdrawal.
26 Jul 2022 23.00 Summary The time in Kyiv is around 1am on Wednesday July 27. Here is a round-up of the day’s top headlines: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia was deliberately cutting supplies of natural gas to impose a “price terror” against Europe, and he called for more sanctions on Moscow. “Using Gazprom, Moscow is doing all it can to make this coming winter as harsh as possible for the European countries. Terror must be answered - impose sanctions,” he said. Despite damaging Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy appears to be weathering the storm better than expected as it benefits from high energy prices, the International Monetary Fund said. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook upgraded Russia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimate for this year by a remarkable 2.5%, although its economy is still expected to contract by 6%. EU member states have agreed to ration gas this winter, in an attempt to avoid an energy crisis generated by further Russian cuts to supply. Energy ministers from the 27 member states mostly backed a plan for a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, but added in several opt-outs for island nations and countries unconnected or little connected to the European gas network, which will blunt the overall effect. Russia’s defence ministry plans to hold strategic military exercises in the east of the country from 30 August to 5 September, news agencies reported on Tuesday. Interfax reported that the militaries of unspecified other countries will be taking part in the regular “Vostok” exercises, citing the defence ministry. A British citizen who video blogs pro-Kremlin material from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine has been added to a UK government sanctions list. Graham Phillips, who has been accused of being a conduit for pro-Russian propaganda, is one of 42 new designations added to the UK’s Russia sanctions list. Boris Johnson has compared Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s leadership of Ukraine to the war-time exploits of Sir Winston Churchill. The British prime minister said he believed “Churchill would have cheered and probably have wept too” when the Ukrainian president insisted he needed “ammunition, not a ride” out of Kyiv when the Russian invasion was renewed in February. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will hold a one-day visit to the Russian resort of Sochi on 5 August, his office has just announced. Reuters reports that no further details were immediately available, but it is anticipated that he would meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Worries over insurance are the biggest obstacle to grain ships leaving Ukraine’s Black Sea ports this week, exporters say. Questions remain over whether insurance companies will be willing to insure the vessels as they navigate the mined waters, while buyers are hesitant to make new orders given the risk of Russian attacks. A joint coordination centre (JCC) for Ukrainian grain exports under a UN-brokered deal will be opened in a ceremony in Istanbul on Wednesday, Turkey’s defence ministry said. Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations signed the accord last week to resume Ukraine’s grain exports, which had stalled after Russia’s invasion of its neighbour. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it believes former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is in Moscow and did not rule out possible contact with him. “As far as we know, he is in Moscow,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked if the Kremlin was aware of reports that Schroeder had travelled to Moscow on Tuesday. Russia’s armed forces destroyed eight Ukrainian missile and artillery arms depots in the southern Mykolaiv region and in the eastern Donetsk region, the defence ministry said in its daily briefing on Tuesday. Ukrainian officials said earlier on Tuesday that Russia launched a “massive missile strike” against the south of the country overnight, including hits against infrastructure in the black sea port of Mykolaiv. A major fire broke out at an oil depot in the Budyonnovsky district of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine after Ukrainian troops shelled the province, according to local media reports. No casualties or injuries have been reported so far, but the occupying forces of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic issued photographs which showed train tank cars on fire. Your United States blogger today now hands over the war news baton to Australia, where our colleagues will continue to bring you developments as they happen.
26 Jul 2022 22.09 Russian forces continued to strike civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and the surrounding region in the country’s northeast, the Associated Press writes. Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said the strikes on the city resumed around dawn Tuesday and damaged a car dealership. The Russians deliberately target civilian infrastructure objects hospitals, schools, movie theaters. Everything is being fired at, even queues for humanitarian aid, so we’re urging people to avoid mass gatherings,” Syniehubov told Ukrainian television.
Here are some images from the region. Chuhuev, Kharkiv oblast, Jul.26. Cat sitting in the rubble of his house ruined by a russian missile.
Photo: Vyacheslav Madievsky#russiaisateroriststate #RussianWarCrimes pic.twitter.com/RHrvVBHjbf — Stratcom Centre UA (@StratcomCentre) July 26, 2022 More damage. Consequences of a Russian missile hitting a private house in Chuhuyiv, Kharkiv region on July 26. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Some of the people affected in the region. A group of elderly women sit outside their apartment building on Tuesday, which has suffered months of shelling in Saltivka, Kharkiv. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images More. A rescuer hugs a man who helped find his wife’s body under the rubble of the cultural center of the city of Chuhuiv, under which two more people have been found. Russia shelled the city on Monday night. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Sorting through rubble, where people were trapped. Ukrainian rescuers and local residents are sorting through the rubble of the cultural center of the city of Chuhuiv, hit on Monday night. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images More from the bombed Chuhuiv cultural centre. For the second day, rescuers have been sorting through the rubble in order to get three people out from under the destroyed cultural centre in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv region. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
26 Jul 2022 21.35 Zelenskiy accuses Russia of using rising gas prices to terrorise Europe Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday said Russia was deliberately cutting supplies of natural gas to impose a “price terror” against Europe, and he called for more sanctions on Moscow, Reuters reports. “Using Gazprom, Moscow is doing all it can to make this coming winter as harsh as possible for the European countries. Terror must be answered - impose sanctions,” he said in a late-night video address. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaking yesterday during a joint press conference with President of Guatemala Alejandro Giammattei. Photograph: Alexey Furman/Getty Images Meanwhile, a deal agreed by EU states to curb their gas use should yield enough gas savings to last through an average winter, if Russia were to fully cut supplies in July, the bloc’s energy chief Kadri Simson said. The Kremlin said a repaired gas turbine for Nord Stream 1, Russia’s biggest gas pipeline to Europe, had not yet arrived after maintenance in Canada, and that a second turbine was showing defects. Russian gas giant Gazprom has sharply increased pressure in the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline that delivers Russian gas to Europe without prior notice, the Ukrainian state pipeline operator company said. Such pressure spikes could lead to emergencies including pipeline ruptures, according to the Ukrainian company. The Guardian’s Jennifer Rankin reports from Brussels and has written an explainer tackling the question ‘How does the EU plan to cut gas usage by 15% this winter?’ EU member states have agreed a plan for gas savings to avoid a winter energy crisis, but loaded with exemptions. Said to be overwhelming consensus in favour, but one member state objected — Hungary. — Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) July 26, 2022
Updated at 22.02 BST
26 Jul 2022 21.09 Russian economy better than expected despite sanctions - IMF Despite damaging Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy appears to be weathering the storm better than expected as it benefits from high energy prices, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday, Agence France Presse reports. The sanctions were meant to sever Russia from the global financial system and choke off funds available to Moscow to finance the war. But the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook upgraded Russia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimate for this year by a remarkable 2.5%, although its economy is still expected to contract by 6%. That’s still a fairly sizable recession in Russia in 2022,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told AFP in an interview. He explained a key reason that the downturn was not as bad as expected: The Russian central bank and the Russian policymakers have been able to stave off a banking panic or financial meltdown when the sanctions were first imposed , [while rising energy prices are] providing an enormous amount of revenues to the Russian economy,” he said.
After starting the year below $80 a barrel, oil prices spiked to nearly $129 in March before easing back to under $105 on Tuesday for Brent, the key European benchmark, while natural gas prices are rising again and approaching their recent peak. Major economies including the United States and China are slowing, the report said. But Russia’s economy is estimated to have contracted during the second quarter by less than previously projected, with crude oil and non-energy exports holding up better than expected [but] there is no rebound [ahead]. In fact [IMF is] revising down the Russian growth in 2023,” he said, 1.2 points lower than the April forecast, for a contraction of 3.5%. The penalties already in place, as well as new ones announced by Europe, mean: The cumulative effect of the sanctions is also growing over time,” he said. Gourinchas noted overall that the world may soon be on the edge of recession. World may soon be on edge of recession, says IMF's top economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas @moneycontrolcom https://t.co/NXRgD7AwUe — Shounak Banerjee (@shounak1985) July 26, 2022 Appeal for IMF funds: LONDON, July 26 (Reuters) - Ukraine aims to strike a deal for a $15-$20 billion programme with the International Monetary Fund before year-end to help shore up its war-torn economy, the country's central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko told Reuters. — Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) July 26, 2022
Updated at 22.21 BST |
2022-03-10T06:31:27Z | Thursday briefing: Fears Russia may use chemical weapons | Top story: Moscow ‘setting stage for false flag’
Hello, Warren Murray with enough to get you started.
Western officials have warned of “serious concern” that Vladimir Putin could use chemical weapons on Kyiv as Russian propagandists spread what the US has called “false claims about alleged US biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine”. “We should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them,” wrote the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki. Experts have pointed to the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, where Russia is involved. The Kremlin has produced no evidence to support its weapons lab claims, which were called “preposterous” by Psaki and have been dismissed by Ukraine’s government.
01:26 Zelenskiy accuses Russia of genocide in hospital bombing – video
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called a Russian strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol “the ultimate evidence of genocide”. Zelenskiy said children were buried under rubble and the regional governor said 17 people were wounded when the hospital was destroyed by a Russian airstrike on Wednesday afternoon. We have made a series of slider images from satellite photos to show how Mariupol has been hit. The UK is gearing up to send state-of-the-art Starstreak anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine, as well as Javelin anti-tank missiles, and will continue to supply NLAW anti-tank weapons, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said.
In the last few hours, the US has moved to drastically bolster support to war-ravaged Ukraine with a $13.6bn aid package. The House of Representatives voted to rush through the package that would increase military and humanitarian support. Senate approval is expected within days. It includes $6.5bn for the US costs of sending troops and weapons to eastern Europe and equipping allied forces there, and $6.8bn to care for refugees and provide economic support to allies. The House also passed a bill banning Russian oil imports. Make sure to keep up with further developments at our live blog.
Chancellor’s spring dilemma – Rishi Sunak is facing intense pressure from Conservatives to take action in this month’s spring statement to alleviate the cost of living crisis, which has been exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sunak’s February package of a £200 energy bill cut, to be paid back over five years, and a £150 council tax rebate have been criticised as too meagre to cushion the blow significantly for many households. Anti-poverty campaigners and thinktanks are calling on the chancellor to uprate benefits by more than the planned 3.1%, and many backbench Tories would love him to ditch the 1.25 percentage point increase in national insurance contributions, proceeds of which are earmarked to fix health and social care. Robert Halfon, the chair of the education select committee, has called on ministers to follow Ireland’s approach of cutting fuel duty.
Bad drainage doomed train – A drainage system wrongly built by Carillion and unchecked by Network Rail led to the Stonehaven train crash. Three people died on 12 August 2020 in the worst fatal event on the UK railways in 18 years, when a Scotrail passenger train from Aberdeen to Glasgow derailed at Carmont, near Stonehaven, after hitting debris washed by heavy rain on to the track. The Rail Accident Investigation Branch also noted the outdated “crashworthiness” of the 1970s-built HST model involved. The train drivers’ union Aslef called for moves to immediately start to take the HST train type out of service. A separate report on the crash is due in coming months from the rail regulator, ORR, in conjunction with Scottish police and British Transport police.
Covid rise in over-55s – Covid cases appear to be rising in older people as increased socialising, waning immunity and the more transmissible BA.2 Omicron variant threaten to fuel a resurgence of the virus. One in 35 people tested positive between 8 February and 1 March, with cases either level or rising in those aged 55 and over. Scientists on Imperial College’s React-1 study said the R value – the average number of people an infected person passes the virus to – remained below 1 for those aged 54 and under, meaning cases were in decline. But for those aged 55 and over, R stood at 1.04. Latest government figures show that as of this Tuesday there were 11,639 confirmed UK Covid-19 patients in hospital.
Shrewsbury report delayed again – Families have voiced frustration after publication of the final report into the Shrewsbury and Telford maternity scandal was delayed for a second time. The Ockenden review investigated 1,862 maternity cases at the NHS trust in which mothers and babies may have been harmed over almost 20 years. It was delayed from December 2021 until this month, but this week families were told publication had been delayed again due to “parliamentary processes” that need to take place. Rhiannon Davies, whose daughter Kate Stanton-Davies died under the care of the trust shortly after she was born in 2009, said: “We’ve had this date ahead of us, everyone’s lives are on hold and we’re holding our breath to finally get this report.” A new date for the report’s delivery has yet to be confirmed.
‘Anti-feminist’ wins – South Korea has a new president: the conservative candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, who narrowly defeated the ruling party’s Lee Jae-myung with 48.6% of the vote to 47.8%. As an avowed “anti-feminist” he has pledged to abolish the ministry for gender equality, claiming South Korean women do not suffer systemic discrimination – despite voluminous evidence to the contrary.
Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s incoming president. Photograph: Getty Images
Yoon will be sworn in as president on 10 May, taking over from Moon Jae-in. South Korean presidents get a single five-year term.
Today in Focus podcast: Could Nato be doing more?
Nato has refused to intervene militarily in the Ukraine war. Dan Sabbagh explains what more the world’s most powerful military alliance could do – and why full intervention is off the table for now.
Today in Focus Could Nato be doing more? Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp3 00:00:00 00:32:50
Lunchtime read: Hack your happy hormones
Can we really harness our brain chemicals to give ourselves a blast of positivity? Researchers share their shortcuts to boosting oxytocin, serotonin and more.
Illustration: Adam Higton/The Guardian
Sport
Karim Benzema scored a 17-minute hat-trick in an epic comeback as Real Madrid overturned a 2-0 aggregate deficit to dump PSG out of the Champions League, while Manchester City made it through to the quarter-finals after a 0-0 second-leg draw with Sporting gave them a 5-0 aggregate win. England began life on the road without Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad on a stop-start second day of the first Test against West Indies.
Novak Djokovic cannot enter the US while he remains unvaccinated from Covid-19 and will not be allowed to compete at the Indian Wells and Miami ATP Masters 1000 tournaments this month. The sacked Formula One driver Nikita Mazepin has been included on a list of people who face sanctions from the European Union over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. England’s netball captain, Serena Guthrie, has announced her retirement from the sport after revealing she is pregnant with her first child. And Eddie Jones will hold a crucial training session on Thursday morning before finalising his England team to face Ireland with Kyle Sinckler understood to be among the players hampered by injury or illness this week.
Business
Asian markets have surged after oil prices dropped, easing fears of accelerating inflation. Wall Street’s S&P 500 index rose 2.6% for its biggest daily gain in 12 years as prices swung wildly amid uncertainty about the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine. This morning the FTSE is pegged to open higher, going by futures trading. The pound is worth $1.317 and €1.190 at time of writing.
The papers
The Guardian print edition’s splash today is “‘An atrocity’: Russia bombs Ukraine children’s hospital” about which there is opprobrium everywhere. “Barbaric” says the Mirror which uses the same picture as the Guardian of a pregnant woman being stretchered out of the ruins. The Metro has “A new low for Putin – Russians hit baby hospital”.
The Times underpins the same picture with “Aiming at mothers and babies” while the Daily Mail accompanies it with “Depraved” while the Express deplores “The ultimate in depravity”. The Financial Times says “Zelenskiy accuses Russians of hospital ‘atrocity’ in plea for world’s assistance”.
“Evil upon evil” – the Sun shows a bloody-faced woman leaving the scene wrapped in a quilt. The same patient is shown on the front of the i picking her way down a mangled stairwell – that paper says “Putin bombs children’s hospital”. The Telegraph uses pictures of both the aforementioned victims while headlining its front-page lead “Russia ‘plotting chemical attack’”.
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2022-04-29T10:03:01Z | First Thing: Russia strikes Kyiv during UN visit to Ukraine | Good morning.
Russia hit Kyiv with cruise missile strikes hours after Joe Biden announced the US would double its military and economic aid to Ukraine.
The attacks took place while the UN secretary general was visiting the city, leading the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to call for a “strong response”, saying the strikes “say a lot about Russia’s true attitude to global institutions”.
At least 10 people were injured, Ukrainian state emergency officials said. Zelenskiy said the attacks on Kyiv and other cities “prove that we cannot let our guard down”.
Thursday’s strikes came hours after Biden asked Congress to grant immediate approval for spending that would include more than $33bn in military aid, $8.5bn in economic aid to Kyiv and $3bn in humanitarian relief.
The UK is sending 8,000 troops to take part in exercises across eastern Europe – one of the largest deployments since the cold war.
Zelenskiy said Russian forces came close to capturing or assassinating him within hours of the invasion.
Capitol attack panel to issue letters to key Republicans
Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader. The scope and subjects of the letters are not yet finalized. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is expected to issue letters asking significant Republican figures, including the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and about a dozen others, to appear before the panel voluntarily, sources close to the matter said.
The list has not yet been finalized, but two sources said that Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks, Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, as well as some Republican senators, are being considered.
The panel is understood to be particularly interested in McCarthy after it emerged this week he had told the Republican leadership that days after the Capitol attack Donald Trump admitted at least partial responsibility to him.
When will the letters be sent? Either this week or next week, according to the sources. The list is expected to be authorized as soon as this week.
Have they been asked to testify before? It would be the second time McCarthy, Jordan and Perry are requested to appear.
What if the figures don’t cooperate? The panel will then consider ways to compel them to: subpoenas are no longer off the table.
British Virgin Islands premier arrested on cocaine charges in US sting operation
Andrew Fahie, the premier of the British Virgin Islands. Photograph: Ricki Richardson/Handout
The premier of the British Virgin Islands, Andrew Fahie, has been arrested in Miami on charges of conspiring to import cocaine into the US and money laundering during a sting operation.
The BVI governor, John Rankin, confirmed Fahie had been arrested on Thursday morning and called for calm. Fahie was involved in conspiracy to import at least 5kg of cocaine and money laundering from 16 October last year, court papers filed in Florida alleged.
Were others arrested? Oleanvine Maynard, the manager director of the BVI’s port authority, and her son Kadeem were also detained.
How were they caught? Fahie and Maynard were arrested at a Miami airport after being invited by undercover agents to see the $700,000 that BVI officials expected to receive.
In other news …
A meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower in August 2021. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
Dozens of people in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi reported seeing a remarkably bright meteor on Wednesday after hearing loud booms. It was first sighted 54 miles above the Mississippi River, near Alcorn, Mississippi, Nasa said.
Elon Musk has sold nearly $4bn-worth of Tesla shares since reaching his $44bn Twitter deal. The sales, on Tuesday and Wednesday, came as Tesla’s share price nosedived amid investor fears Musk would sell to finance the deal.
An American family flying back from Israel caused a bomb scare after they showed security an unexploded bombshell they were planning to bring back as a souvenir. Panicked passengers fled the area, with one man hospitalized for his injuries.
The number of Algerians reaching Spain in small boats in 2021 rose by a fifth. Residents such as 65-year-old Nouara are considering this dangerous route if the legal option is closed to them: “If plan A doesn’t work, illegal migration will be my last refuge.”
Stat of the day: Nearly 5bn medications are prescribed annually in the US
Two fishers are seen in the ocean as a bonefish swims across, Florida, US. Photograph: Jose Azel/Getty Images/Aurora Open
Almost 5bn medications are prescribed annually in the US, and Americans on average have about 12 prescriptions a year. This may be having an impact on marine populations: when Dr Jennifer Rehage, a fish ecologist and associate professor at Florida International University, set out to learn why bonefish numbers are dropping, her team found all 93 fish they sampled tested positive for at least one drug.
Don’t miss this: the Texan revolt against giant new highways
Residents are voicing fury over highway expansions Photograph: Arturo Olmos/The Guardian
The seemingly endless expansion of highways in Texas has provoked anger from residents, who last week protested against plans for roads that will displace residents as well as as churches, schools and businesses. While highways are expanded, the state is obstructing local initiatives encouraging cycling and walking, and residents say public transport options are limited. Could the state’s “car-centric status quo” be beginning to shake?
Climate check: Climate crisis, not military tensions, is biggest threat to Pacific, say former leaders
Pacific elders say the climate crisis is the primary threat to the region. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Former leaders of Pacific nations have warned that the climate crisis – not rising military tensions – pose the biggest threat to their region. Pacific nations are often seen as acting as a bellwether for the climate emergency, which is already causing migration away from some island groups.
Last Thing: ‘I bake recipes I find on gravestones’
‘So far, the recipes have all been on women’s graves’: Rosie Grant at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC. Photograph: TJ Kirkpatrick
During the strange early days of lockdown, many got into baking, along with other hobbies that fell by the wayside within months (if not weeks). Rosie Grant, who is studying to be an archivist, did too – but with something of a twist. She began baking recipes she found on gravestones, which has led her to research the lives of the women behind the recipes.
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2022-06-14T00:09:36Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 111 of the invasion | Pope Francis has said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was “perhaps somehow provoked” as he recalled a conversation in the run-up to the war in which he was warned that Nato was “barking at the gates of Russia”. In an interview with the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, conducted last month and published on Tuesday, the pontiff condemned the “ferocity and cruelty of the Russian troops” while warning against what he said was a fairytale perception of the conflict as good versus evil. |
2022-06-13T17:15:04Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 110 of the invasion | River crossing operations are likely to be among the most important determining factors in the course of the war over the coming months, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest report. Ukrainian forces have often managed to demolish bridges before they withdraw from territory, while Russia has struggled to put in place the complex coordination necessary to conduct successful, large-scale river crossings under fire, the report added. |
2022-04-28T17:08:06Z | Russia increasing speed of attack in south-east, says Ukraine | Russia has stepped up the pace of its offensive in eastern and southern Ukraine, and is preventing the evacuation of wounded Ukrainian fighters from a steelworks in Mariupol because it wants to capture them, Ukrainian officials have said.
“The enemy is increasing the pace of the offensive operation. The Russian occupiers are exerting intense fire in almost all directions,” Ukraine’s military command said of the situation on the main front in the east.
According to the officials, the focus of Russia’s main attack was near the towns of Slobozhanske and Donets, along a strategic frontline highway linking Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, with the Russian-occupied city of Izium.
The Kharkiv regional governor said Russian forces were intensifying attacks from Izium, but Ukrainian troops were holding their ground. Kharkiv regional prosecutors said two civilians were killed and seven wounded in Russian shelling of the village of Pokotilovka. Russia denies targeting civilians.
Although Russian forces were pushed out of northern Ukraine last month, they are heavily entrenched in the east and still hold a swathe of the south that they seized in March.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of planning to stage a fake independence referendum in the occupied south. Russian state media quoted an official from a self-styled pro-Russia “military-civilian commission” in Kherson on Thursday as saying the area would start using Russia’s rouble currency from 1 May.
Ukrainian troops are still holed up in a steelworks in Mariupol, the ruined south-eastern port where thousands of people have died under two months of Russian siege and bombardment.
Russian forces have been pummelling the factory, but the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said the plant need not be stormed. Kyiv has pleaded for a ceasefire to let civilians and wounded soldiers escape.
“They [want to] use the opportunity to capture the defenders of Mariupol, one of the main [elements] of whom are the … Azov regiment,” Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the eastern region of Donetsk, told a briefing, referring to a group of fighters that Moscow has vilified. “Therefore the Russian side is not agreeing to any evacuation measures regarding wounded [Ukrainian] troops.”
Capt Svyatoslav Palamar, the deputy commander of the Azov regiment, told Reuters in a video link from an undisclosed location beneath the complex: “As long as we’re here and holding the defence … the city is not theirs. The tactic [now] is like a medieval siege. We’re encircled, they are no longer throwing lots of forces to break our defensive line. They’re conducting airstrikes.”
01:45 Azovstal evacuation possible with UN help, says Zelenskiy – video
Mariupol city council said about 100,000 residents were “in mortal danger” because of Russian shelling and unsanitary conditions. It said the shortage of drinking water and food was “catastrophic”.
More than 5 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its “special military operation” on 24 February. Moscow says its aim is to disarm its neighbour and defeat nationalists there. The west calls that a bogus pretext for a war of aggression.
In another indication that Russia might be planning to expand the scope of its conflict, Kremlin officials again weighed in to denounce “acts of terrorism” in Moldova’s Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transnistria which borders southern Ukraine.
“We are alarmed by the escalation of tensions in Transnistria,” the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said during her weekly briefing, pointing to reports of shootings and explosions.
“We regard these actions as acts of terrorism aimed at destabilising the situation in the region and expect a thorough and objective investigation,” Zakharova said. |
2022-04-27T22:00:42Z | Russia doubles fossil fuel revenues since invasion of Ukraine began | Russia has nearly doubled its revenues from selling fossil fuels to the EU during the two months of war in Ukraine, benefiting from soaring prices even as volumes have been reduced.
Russia has received about €62bn from exports of oil, gas and coal in the two months since the invasion began, according to an analysis of shipping movements and cargos by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
For the EU, imports were about €44bn for the past two months, compared with about €140bn for the whole of last year, or roughly €12bn a month.
The findings demonstrate how Russia has continued to benefit from its stranglehold over Europe’s energy supply, even while governments have frantically sought to prevent Vladimir Putin using oil and gas as an economic weapon.
Even though exports from Russia have been reduced by the war and sanctions, the country’s dominance as a source of gas has meant cutting off supplies has only increased prices, which were already high because of tight supply as global economies recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. Crude oil shipments from Russia to foreign ports fell by 30% in the first three weeks of April, compared with rates in January and February, before the invasion, according to the CREA data.
But the higher prices Russia can now command for its oil and gas mean its revenues, which flow almost directly to the Russian government through state-dominated companies, have risen even while sanctions and export restrictions bite. Russia has effectively caught the EU in a trap where further restrictions will raise prices further, cushioning its revenues despite the best efforts of EU governments.
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst for CREA, said the cash propped up Putin’s war effort, and the only way to disable his war machine was to move rapidly away from fossil fuels. “Fossil fuel exports are a key enabler of Putin’s regime, and many other rogue states,” he said. “Continued energy imports are the major gaps in the sanctions imposed on Russia. Everyone who buys these fossil fuels is complicit in the horrendous violations of international law carried out by the Russian military.”
Russia in recent days has moved to cut off fossil fuel supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, which has provoked outrage.
Louis J Wilson, senior adviser at campaigning group Global Witness, said Russia’s willingness to violate its own contracts meant businesses now had no excuse for continuing to trade with Russia. “Fossil fuel majors and commodity traders who have continued trading in Russian fossil fuels, claiming that they are forced to do so by their long-term contracts, should take note of the value of the agreements they hold with Russian entities. Russia is willing to tear up these contracts to support their own war effort, yet European companies supposedly feel compelled to continue financing war crimes out of respect for them,” he said.
“The corporate enablers of this deadly trade have shown they will stop at nothing to continue profiting from Russia’s blood oil.”
CREA’s data found that many fossil fuel companies continued to do high volumes of trade with Russia, including BP, Shell and ExxonMobil.
Germany was the biggest importer in the last two months, despite repeated avowals by the government that halting dependence on Russian oil was a priority. The country paid about €9bn for imports during the period. Italy and the Netherlands were also big importers, with about €6.8bn and €5.6bn respectively, but as those countries operate major ports, which take in products for refining and use in the chemical industries as well as for domestic consumption, many of those imports were probably used elsewhere.
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A spokesperson for Shell told the Guardian that the company had taken decisive action in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. “We have announced our intent to exit our joint ventures with Gazprom and related entities and to phase out all Russian hydrocarbons, in consultation with governments. Since we announced this intent, we have stopped all spot purchases of Russian crude, liquefied natural gas and of cargos of refined products directly exported from Russia.”
And a spokesperson for Exxon said: “We support the internationally coordinated efforts to bring Russia’s unprovoked attack to an end, and we are complying with all sanctions. We have not made any new contracts for Russian products since the Russian invasion, and there are no deliveries of Russian crude or refined products currently scheduled for the UK. We will not invest in new developments in Russia.”
“Two months after Putin invaded Ukraine, Germany is still funding the Russian war chest to the tune of €4.5bn a month. Berlin is the largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels,” Bernice Lee, a research director at the Chatham House thinktank, told the Guardian. “The world is looking to Germany to demonstrate strength and determination towards Russia, but instead they’re bankrolling the war and blocking a European embargo on Russian oil.” |
2022-07-04T00:19:42Z | Ukrainian forces retreat from Lysychansk as Russia claims strategic city | From 3 Jul 2022 19.09 Ukrainian forces withdraw from Lysychansk The Ukrainian army retreated from the strategic city of Lysychansk on Sunday as Russia claimed a major victory by seizing control of the entire eastern Luhansk region. Agence France-Presse reports: The Ukrainian withdrawal followed weeks of fierce fighting and marked a decisive breakthrough for Moscow’s forces more than four months after their invasion and after turning their focus away from the capital, Kyiv. Lysychansk had been the last major city in the Luhansk area of the eastern Donbas region still in Ukrainian hands and its capture frees up Moscow’s forces to advance on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in neighbouring Donetsk. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had earlier denied Russian claims of Lysychansk’s fall before the Ukrainian army announced the retreat on Sunday evening. “The continuation of the defence of the city would lead to fatal consequences” in the face of Russia’s superiority in numbers and equipment, the army said in a statement. “In order to preserve the lives of Ukrainian defenders, a decision was made to withdraw. “Unfortunately, steel will and patriotism are not enough for success – material and technical resources are needed.” Russian forces seized Lysychansk’s twin city of Sievierodonetsk last week after weeks of intense fighting. The latest blow to Ukrainian resistance came after the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Sunday pledged further military support including armoured vehicles and drones during a meeting with Zelenskiy in Kyiv.
Updated at 19.22 BST
4 Jul 2022 01.15 Summary Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. We will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning. In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below. Ukrainian forces have retreated from Lysychansk as Russia claims it is now in control of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region. The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said Moscow’s forces had established “full control” over Lysychansk and several nearby settlements. Ukraine’s military command confirmed on Sunday evening that its troops had been forced to pull back from the city, saying there would otherwise be “fatal consequences”. Lysychansk was the last Ukrainian-controlled city in the Luhansk region. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, vowed to regain Lysychansk with the help of long-range western weapons. “We will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons. Ukraine does not give anything up,” he said in an evening address. The eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region was hit by powerful shelling from multiple rocket launchers on Sunday, killing six people and injuring 20 others, the city’s mayor Vadim Lyakh said. In the post-2014 regional capital of Kramatorsk, a missile destroyed a hotel, according to its mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko. He said three rockets hit the town on Sunday and that there were no reported victims so far. At least three people were killed and dozens of residential buildings damaged in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border on Sunday, the region’s governor said. Vyacheslav Gladkov said at least 11 apartment buildings and 39 private residential houses were damaged, including five houses destroyed. Australia will send more than $100m in new aid to Ukraine including military equipment, as well as levelling sanctions on 16 new Russian officials, following prime minister Anthony Albanese’s secret trip to Kyiv. Albanese visited Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, three towns in the Kyiv region where evidence of mass killings and torture was uncovered after the withdrawal of Russian forces. Britain will host a 2023 recovery conference to help Ukraine rebuild from the damage caused by Russia’s invasion. The Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2022) will begin on Monday in Lugano, Switzerland, to discuss how to rebuild Ukraine, bringing together a Ukrainian delegation with representatives of other countries, international organisations and civil society, the UK foreign office said. The UK may follow the example of Canada and seize the assets of Russians in Britain in order to give them to Ukraine. Foreign secretary, Liz Truss, told MPs she was supportive of the idea that the government could seize frozen Russian assets in the UK and redistribute them to victims of Russia’s war in Ukraine. A new New York Times investigation has revealed that Nazism references spiked to record-high levels the day Russia invaded Ukraine. The outlet surveyed eight million articles about Ukraine collected from over 8,000 Russian websites since 2014, and found that since 2014, references to Nazism were “relatively flat for eight years and then spiked to unprecedented levels on February 24” of this year. The president of Belarus and Vladimir Putin’s closest ally has said his ex-Soviet state stands fully behind Russia, adding that the country’s “have practically a unified army”. Alexander Lukashenko said he had thrown his weight behind Putin’s campaign against Ukraine “from the very first day” in late February. “We are being criticised for being the only country in the world to support Russia in its fight against Nazism,” a video on the state BelTA news agency showed Lukashenko telling a gathering. “We will remain together with fraternal Russia.” Turkish customs authorities have detained a Russian cargo ship carrying grain allegedly stolen from Ukraine, the Ukrainian ambassador to the country has said. “We have full co-operation. The ship is currently standing at the entrance to the port, it has been detained by the customs authorities of Turkey,” ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said on Ukrainian national television.
Updated at 01.19 BST
3 Jul 2022 00.53 The president of Belarus and Vladimir Putin’s closest ally says his ex-Soviet state stands fully behind Russia in its military drive in Ukraine as part of its longstanding commitment to a “union state” with Moscow. Addressing a ceremony marking the anniversary of the World War Two liberation of Minsk by Soviet troops, Alexander Lukashenko said he had thrown his weight behind Putin’s campaign against Ukraine “from the very first day” in late February. Today, we are being criticised for being the only country in the world to support Russia in its fight against Nazism. We support and will continue to support Russia,” a video on the state BelTA news agency showed Lukashenko telling the gathering. And those who criticise us, do they not know that we have such a close union with the Russian Federation?…That we have practically a unified army. But you knew all this. We will remain together with fraternal Russia.” Lukashenko has allowed Russian troops to use his country’s territory in invading Ukraine. Some Ukrainian officials suggest Belarus could soon become directly involved in the conflict. Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the Belarusian leader’s statement amounted to a “signal”, with his actions to be watched carefully. Zelenskiy, quoted by Ukrainian media, told reporters in Kyiv that Lukashenko’s comments were a “dangerous” development. Lukashenko’s statement about a unified army with Russia is, above all, dangerous for the Belarusian people. He must not drag Belarus into a Russian war of invasion against Ukraine. I believe this is a dangerous signal. And I believe that we will all see the results of this signal.”
3 Jul 2022 00.21 Patrick Wintour The UK wants to follow the example of Canada and seize the assets of Russians in the UK in order to give them to Ukraine, foreign secretary Liz Truss has said. It comes as Truss is due to give a speech on Monday to a Ukraine reconstruction conference in Lugano, Switzerland, which will be attended either in person or virtually by most of Ukraine’s senior political leadership. It is estimated that more than 120,000 homes in Ukraine have been destroyed during the Russian invasion, creating the need for billions in income to restore the country economically and make it a Europe-faced economy. Truss told MPs last week she was supportive of the idea that the government could seize frozen Russian assets in the UK and redistribute them to victims of Russia’s war in Ukraine. She said: “I am supportive of the concept. We are looking at it very closely. The Canadians have in fact just passed legislation This is an issue that we are working on jointly with the Home Office and the Treasury, but I certainly agree with the concept. We just need to get the specifics of it right.” She said the initiative would “most probably” need legislation but not necessarily. Liz Truss mulls seizure of Russian assets in UK to give to Ukraine Read more
3 Jul 2022 23.50 Australia will send more than $100m in new aid to Ukraine including military equipment, as well as levelling sanctions on 16 new Russian officials, following prime minister Anthony Albanese’s secret trip to Kyiv. Albanese tacked on a day visit to Ukraine at the end of his European trip for the Nato summit, where he met the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and toured parts of the country devastated by Russia’s aggression. Albanese visited Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, three towns in the Kyiv region that became synonymous with the brutality of Vladimir Putin’s invasion when evidence of mass killings and torture was uncovered after the withdrawal of Russian forces. The PM said in a statement following his trip:
Russia’s brutal invasion is a gross violation of international law. I saw first-hand the devastation and trauma it has inflicted on the people of Ukraine ... My visit to Kyiv and recent visits by other world leaders sends a clear message that democratic nations like Australia will stand side by side with the Ukrainian people in their time of need.
01:24 Russian attacks on Irpin are war crimes, says Australian prime minister – video Albanese committed $99.5m in military assistance, including 14 armoured personnel carriers, 20 Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles and other military equipment; a contribution to Nato’s Ukraine Comprehensive Assistance Package Trust Fund; and $8.7m to assist Ukraine’s Border Guard Service to upgrade border management equipment, cybersecurity and border operations in the field.
Australia will also impose new financial sanctions and travel bans on 16 further Russian ministers and oligarchs, as well as plans to intervene at the international court of justice in support of Ukraine in its case against Russia. The government will also allow duty-free access to Australia for Ukrainian imports, and prohibit the import of Russian gold. Albanese said the new contributions bring Australia’s total military assistance to Ukraine to approximately A$388m. Zelenskiy acknowledged Albanese’s visit as a “historical moment”. Australia is one of the top countries in terms of its level of support. We have already received significant defence assistance from it.” Australian PM visits sites of alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine Read more
3 Jul 2022 23.26 Zelenskiy vows to regain Lysychansk Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, earlier vowed to regain the eastern city of Lysychansk after Ukrainian troops were forced to withdraw. In an address broadcast shortly before midnight, local time, he said: And if the command of our army withdraws people from certain points of the front where the enemy has the greatest fire superiority, in particular this applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing: we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons. Ukraine does not give anything up. And when someone over there in Moscow reports something about the Luhansk region - let them remember their reports and promises before February 24, in the first days of this invasion, in the spring and now. Let them really evaluate what they got over this time and how much they paid for it. Because their current reports will turn into dust just as the previous ones. We are gradually moving forward - in the Kharkiv region, in the Kherson region and at sea: Zmiinyi is a good example of this. There will be a day when we will say the same about Donbas.”
3 Jul 2022 23.00 Summary It’s 1am in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand: Britain will host a conference next year focused on helping Ukraine recover from the damage caused by Russia’s invasion, the foreign office said, as nations gather in Switzerland for this year’s event. The Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2022) beginning on Monday in Lugano will discuss how to rebuild Ukraine, bringing together a Ukrainian delegation with representatives of other countries, international organisations and civil society.
The Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2022) beginning on Monday in Lugano will discuss how to rebuild Ukraine, bringing together a Ukrainian delegation with representatives of other countries, international organisations and civil society. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has met with the president of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach on Sunday. The meeting comes as at least 89 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed and 13 have been captured since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
The meeting comes as at least 89 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed and 13 have been captured since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. A new New York Times investigation has revealed that out of eight million articles about Ukraine collected from over 8,000 Russian websites since 2014, Nazism references spiked to record-high levels the day Russia invaded Ukraine. According to the outlet, since 2014, references to Nazism were “relatively flat for eight years and then spiked to unprecedented levels on February 24” of this year.
According to the outlet, since 2014, references to Nazism were “relatively flat for eight years and then spiked to unprecedented levels on February 24” of this year. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk in Donbas, but vowed to restore control over the area thanks to the army’s tactics and the prospect of new, improved weaponry. “If the commanders of our army withdraw people from certain points at the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in fire power, and this also applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing,” Zelenskiy said in his evening video address.
“If the commanders of our army withdraw people from certain points at the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in fire power, and this also applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing,” Zelenskiy said in his evening video address. The French region of Île-de-France has offered to rebuild the destroyed Ukrainian city of Borodyanka as an ecological city, Euromaidan Press reports. “ Borodyanka should become an ecological city with “systems working on modern energy-saving technologies,” said the president of the region.
Borodyanka should become an ecological city with “systems working on modern energy-saving technologies,” said the president of the region. Ukraine received 17 border guards released during a prisoner exchange on 29 June, Euromaidan reports. In a video released by Ukraine’s State Border Service, the guards, said to have serious injuries, are shown leaving ambulances and entering hospitals.
In a video released by Ukraine’s State Border Service, the guards, said to have serious injuries, are shown leaving ambulances and entering hospitals. The Ukrainian army retreated from the strategic city of Lysychansk on Sunday as Russia claimed a major victory by seizing control of the entire eastern Luhansk region. The Ukrainian withdrawal followed weeks of fierce fighting and marked a decisive breakthrough for Moscow’s forces more than four months after their invasion and after turning their focus away from the capital, Kyiv.
The Ukrainian withdrawal followed weeks of fierce fighting and marked a decisive breakthrough for Moscow’s forces more than four months after their invasion and after turning their focus away from the capital, Kyiv. Germany is one of the countries that is doing the most to provide military aid to Ukraine, said the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, while defending his country’s delays in delivering weapons. The long delays for German weapons, compared with the speedy deliveries of American ones, are because of the need to train Ukrainian soldiers in Germany, Scholz told CBS News on Sunday.
The long delays for German weapons, compared with the speedy deliveries of American ones, are because of the need to train Ukrainian soldiers in Germany, Scholz told CBS News on Sunday. Volodymyr Zelenskiy has cast doubt on Russia’s claim that Russian forces have captured and taken over Lysychansk, a strategic eastern city in Ukraine. “We cannot say today that Lysychansk is under [Russian] control. There is fighting on the outskirts,” Zelenskiy said on Sunday at a press conference with the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese. That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as I hand the blog over to my Australian colleagues who will bring you the latest updates. Thank you.
3 Jul 2022 22.53 Britain will host a conference next year focused on helping Ukraine recover from the damage caused by Russia’s invasion, the foreign office said, as nations gather in Switzerland for this year’s event. Reuters reports: The Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2022) beginning on Monday in Lugano will discuss how to rebuild Ukraine, bringing together a Ukrainian delegation with representatives of other countries, international organisations and civil society. Britain said it was working with Ukraine and others to host next year’s conference, and it would sit on a supervisory board to help coordinate between Ukraine and its allies on recovery measures. An office will be set up in London. “We have led on support for Ukraine during the war and will continue to lead in supporting the Ukrainian Government*s Reconstruction and Development Plan,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement. “Ukraine’s recovery from Russia*s war of aggression will be a symbol of the power of democracy over autocracy. It will show [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that his attempts to destroy Ukraine have only produced a stronger, more prosperous and more united nation.” Russia says what it calls a “special military operation” aims to protect Ukraine’s Russian-speakers from nationalist or neo-Nazi persecution. Ukraine and its Western allies say this is a baseless pretext for a war of imperial conquest. The Foreign Office said Britain had been asked by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to champion the recovery of Kyiv and the surrounding region. Britain pledged to use its financial sector expertise to help draw investment into Ukraine.
3 Jul 2022 22.32 Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has met with the president of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach on Sunday. The meeting comes as at least 89 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed and 13 have been captured since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. “Many Ukrainian athletes joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to defend our country, to defend it on the battlefield. Some 89 athletes and coaches have been killed in hostilities. Thirteen were captured and are in Russian captivity,” Zelenskiy said. He added that over 100,000 athletes have been unable to train and multiple sports facilities have been destroyed. “Russia’s invasion has become a cruel blow to Ukrainian sports. More than 100,000 Ukrainian athletes do not have the opportunity to train today. Many infrastructure facilities have been destroyed. These are large objects of sports infrastructure and objects at our schools and Ukrainian universities, at sports clubs,” Zelenskiy said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and President of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach shake hands before a meeting, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, during a parliament session in Kyiv, Ukraine July 3, 2022. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
3 Jul 2022 21.57 A new New York Times investigation has revealed that out of eight million articles about Ukraine collected from over 8,000 Russian websites since 2014, Nazism references spiked to record-high levels the day Russia invaded Ukraine. According to the outlet, since 2014, references to Nazism were “relatively flat for eight years and then spiked to unprecedented levels on February 24” of this year. “News stories have falsely claimed that Ukrainian Nazis are using noncombatants as human shields, killing Ukrainian civilians and planning a genocide of Russians,” the outlet said. According to Larissa Doroshenko, a Northeastern University disinformation researcher who spoke to the New York Times, the strategy was most likely to intended to justify the Kremlin’s goal of a quick ouster of the Ukrainian government. “It would help to explain why they’re establishing this new country in a sense...Because the previous government were Nazis, therefore they had to be replaced,” she said.
3 Jul 2022 21.20 President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk in Donbas, but vowed to restore control over the area thanks to the army’s tactics and the prospect of new, improved weaponry. “If the commanders of our army withdraw people from certain points at the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in fire power, and this also applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing,” Zelenskiy said in his evening video address. “That we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons,” he added.
Updated at 21.21 BST
3 Jul 2022 20.40 The French region of Île-de-France has offered to rebuild the destroyed Ukrainian city of Borodyanka as an ecological city, Euromaidan Press reports. Borodyanka should become an ecological city with “systems working on modern energy-saving technologies,” said the president of the region. Experts from France will conduct an official assessment of the area and participate in the development of the master plan, the president added. The French region of Île-de-France offered to rebuild the destroyed Borodyanka as an ecological city
According to the President of the region, Borodyanka should become an ecological city with "systems working on modern energy-saving technologies" https://t.co/yIoTfavsHq pic.twitter.com/jctbtDh6hB — Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) July 3, 2022
3 Jul 2022 19.56 Ukraine received 17 border guards released during a prisoner exchange on 29 June, Euromaidan reports. In a video released by Ukraine’s State Border Service, the guards, said to have serious injuries, are shown leaving ambulances and entering hospitals. Ukraine met 17 border guards released during the largest exchange of prisoners on June 29th.
They all have serious injuries, currently under medical supervision.
🎥: 🇺🇦 State Border Service pic.twitter.com/rTU1ppTBvh — Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) July 3, 2022 “There was hope. There was always hope, I knew that I had to return, I knew for whom, for my wife, for my daughter, that they are waiting for me and I need to return,” one border guard said.
Updated at 20.07 BST
3 Jul 2022 19.09 Ukrainian forces withdraw from Lysychansk The Ukrainian army retreated from the strategic city of Lysychansk on Sunday as Russia claimed a major victory by seizing control of the entire eastern Luhansk region. Agence France-Presse reports: The Ukrainian withdrawal followed weeks of fierce fighting and marked a decisive breakthrough for Moscow’s forces more than four months after their invasion and after turning their focus away from the capital, Kyiv. Lysychansk had been the last major city in the Luhansk area of the eastern Donbas region still in Ukrainian hands and its capture frees up Moscow’s forces to advance on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in neighbouring Donetsk. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had earlier denied Russian claims of Lysychansk’s fall before the Ukrainian army announced the retreat on Sunday evening. “The continuation of the defence of the city would lead to fatal consequences” in the face of Russia’s superiority in numbers and equipment, the army said in a statement. “In order to preserve the lives of Ukrainian defenders, a decision was made to withdraw. “Unfortunately, steel will and patriotism are not enough for success – material and technical resources are needed.” Russian forces seized Lysychansk’s twin city of Sievierodonetsk last week after weeks of intense fighting. The latest blow to Ukrainian resistance came after the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Sunday pledged further military support including armoured vehicles and drones during a meeting with Zelenskiy in Kyiv.
Updated at 19.22 BST |
2022-06-11T23:55:12Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 109 of the invasion | The EU executive will this week make a recommendation on whether Ukraine should be given candidate status, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen has said. In a joint press conference with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during a surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday, Von der Leyen said: “We want to support Ukraine in its European journey.” Such a recommendation would be a step on a long road to full membership. Speaking alongside Von der Leyen, Zelenskiy said that the EU’s decision on Ukraine would “determine” the future of Europe.
The US president, Joe Biden, has said that Volodymyr Zelenskiy “didn’t want to hear” warnings of the Russian invasion. Speaking at a fundraising reception in Los Angeles, Biden said “there was no doubt” Vladimir Putin had been planning to “go in”. “Nothing like this has happened since world war two,” he told donors. “I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating. But I knew we had data to sustain [Putin] was going to go in, off the border. There was no doubt … and Zelenskiy didn’t want to hear it.”
The family of a British man sentenced to death for fighting Russian forces have said they are “devastated” and called for “urgent cooperation” to secure his release. Shaun Pinner, 48, received the death penalty, along with fellow Briton Aiden Aslin, in what the UK government has branded a “sham” sentencing. The pair were captured in April while fighting as part of the Ukrainian army to defend the southern port city of Mariupol against invading Russian troops.
Rolls-Royce Germany has provided two superpower generators to Ukraine, the country’s ministry of health announced on Saturday. In a statement, the ministry of health said, “One such generator is capable of providing the work of not only one building, but all the buildings, if it is a large regional hospital.”
The US has announced that it will be boycotting the St Petersburg International Forum that is set to take place in Russia later this month. “We urge governments and companies to join our boycott and send a clear message that there is no ‘business as usual’ while Russian forces brutalise Ukraine,” said Ned Price, the US state department spokesperson.
Russia’s military has set up another field hospital due to heavy casualties, Kyiv Independent reports. It is in the village of Shebekino in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, according to the general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Ukraine remains in control of the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk where hundreds of civilians are sheltering, the region’s governor has said. Ukraine has said about 800 people were hiding in several bomb shelters underneath the Azot plant, including about 200 employees and 600 residents of Sievierodonetsk. A Russia-backed separatist claimed 300 to 400 Ukrainian fighters were also trapped there.
A United Nations commission arrived in Ukraine on Saturday to investigate war crimes. The deputy speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Olena Kondratyuk, said the commission’s goal was to record war crimes and human rights violations.
Approximately 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s invasion of the country in February, according to a military adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He added that in terms of daily Ukrainian casualties, around “200 to 300 die, no less”.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency says 2.5 million Ukrainians have returned there since the war started in February. The agency said 5.5 million Ukrainians have fled to the EU since the war began.
Russia is attempting to repeat the Holodomor, a deliberately induced famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of people under the Soviet regime, the head of the office of the Ukrainian president has said. On Saturday, Andriy Yermak, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office head, said: “Russians shell Ukrainian fields with firebombs. Those creating global food crisis attempt to reconstruct Holodomor.”
The armed forces of Ukraine have received new Starlink satellite communication systems from SpaceX. The Ukrainian defence ministry said the Starlinks would be used for intelligence missions. |
2022-06-13T17:15:04Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 110 of the invasion | River crossing operations are likely to be among the most important determining factors in the course of the war over the coming months, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest report. Ukrainian forces have often managed to demolish bridges before they withdraw from territory, while Russia has struggled to put in place the complex coordination necessary to conduct successful, large-scale river crossings under fire, the report added. |
2022-05-19T17:11:07Z | Govor agrees to buy all McDonald’s in Russia and rebrand them | McDonald’s has reached a deal to sell all its restaurants in Russia to one of its licensees in the country, the businessman Alexander Govor, who will operate them under a new name.
The fast food company temporarily closed hundreds of outlets across Russia in March after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, a decision that has cost McDonald’s about $55m (£44m) a month.
On Monday, it announced it would sell those stores and leave Russia, saying the humanitarian crisis caused by the war and the unpredictable operating environment meant continuing running restaurants there was “no longer tenable” or “consistent with McDonald’s values”.
Govor, who operates 25 restaurants in Siberia, has agreed to buy its 850 Russian restaurants and run them under different branding, McDonald’s said on Thursday.
McDonald’s did not disclose how much the outlets were sold for. Last year, its Russian operations contributed 9% of the company’s total annual sales, or about $2bn.
Govor, a licensee since 2015, has agreed to retain McDonald’s 62,000 Russian employees for at least two years on equivalent terms and to fund existing liabilities to suppliers, landlords and utilities. He also agreed to pay the salaries of McDonald’s corporate employees until the sale is completed.
The sale is subject to regulatory approval but is expected to close within a few weeks, McDonald’s said.
Govor is also half-owner of Neftekhimservis, a construction investor that owns an oil refinery in Siberia, and is a board member of another firm that owns projects in Siberia including Novokuznetsk’s Park Inn hotel and private clinics.
McDonald’s was among the first western consumer brands to enter Russia in 1990. Its large, gleaming store near Pushkin Square in Moscow, which opened shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, signalled a new era of optimism in the wake of the cold war.
It’s the first time the company has “de-arched,” or exited a major market. It plans to start removing golden arches and other symbols and signs with the company’s name. McDonald’s said it will will maintain its trademarks in Russia and take steps to enforce them if necessary.
It’s unclear if other US chains will follow McDonald’s lead and leave Russia. McDonald’s owned 84% of its Russian stores, which gave it more control over operations than many of its rivals whose stores are owned by franchisees.
Starbucks’ 130 Russian stores have been closed since early March. Its franchisee in the country, Kuwait-based Alshaya Group, is continuing to pay its 2,000 Russian employees.
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Papa John’s suspended corporate operations in Russia and is no longer accepting royalty payments from its 185 stores there. But the stores, which are owned by Colorado-based entrepreneur Christopher Wynne, remain open. A message was left Thursday with one of Wynne’s companies.
McDonald’s left open the possibility that it could one day return to Russia.
“It’s impossible to predict what the future may hold, but I choose to end my message with the same spirit that brought McDonald’s to Russia in the first place: hope,” the chief executive, Chris Kempczinski, wrote in a letter to employees. “Thus, let us not end by saying, ‘goodbye.’ Instead, let us say as they do in Russian: until we meet again.” |
2022-06-11T15:00:23Z | Sanctions are hitting hard enough to hurt Russia, if not stop it | Sanctions have affected many aspects of life in Russia, but one particular shortage has sent the wealthy elite into a spin: beauty clinics are running out of Botox.
The business daily newspaper Kommersant reported this month that Botox imports saw a threefold drop to 74,500 units in the period between January and March compared with the same time last year, after one western manufacturer stopped exporting to Russia.
While the beauty industry is a small cog in the machine, the decision by western allies to sever financial and trade ties with Russia has plunged the country’s economy into a deep recession, with the OECD forecasting a 10% contraction this year and a fall of more than 4% in 2023.
Sanctions have not halted the military assault, but some are now asking whether a promise to lift them could bring Russia to the negotiating table: a return to global markets, in exchange for peace in Ukraine. The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, held out such a prospect in March, when she suggested Britain could lift sanctions if Russia commits to a full ceasefire and withdrawal, with a promise of “no further aggression”.
Some of the allies have closer links to Russia than others. Last week, Germany’s former premier Angela Merkel defended her decision to increase trade links with Russia, and Germany’s reliance on Russian hydrocarbons, after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. “It is a great tragedy that it didn’t work, but I don’t blame myself for trying,” she said. But Tim Ash, a Russia expert at the Chatham House thinktank, says Germany underestimated Putin for a long time. He says sanctions, which should have been tougher in response to Crimea, are working and should remain in place.
“The sanctions have exceeded most people’s expectations and they have exceeded Putin’s as well,” he says. “The self-sanctioning by the likes of McDonald’s has also hit the Russian economy, with around 1,000 major businesses pulling out of the country when they didn’t need to. They weren’t on any sanctions list.”
Output in industries from aviation to automotive has crashed. In May, the number of cars sold across Russia tumbled by 83% from the previous month, to 24,000. Rewind to May 2021 and monthly sales were nearer 150,000. Likewise, Russian plane makers are in a fix now that US, Japanese, EU and UK sanctions have blockaded the industry.
Russia’s transport ministry, forecasting a successful outcome to hostilities from Moscow’s perspective, believes it will take until 2030 for air passenger traffic to reach pre-pandemic levels. A “pessimistic” forecast based on sanctions continuing for years concluded that more than half of the Russian aircraft fleet could be dismantled for parts by 2025 to keep the remainder in the sky.
The high-end machine tools and sophisticated components needed to run major IT systems in Russia’s major cities come from countries robustly supporting the sanctions regime
At the beginning of the invasion, many people believed the west would impose only weak sanctions and that Moscow would find allies to circumvent the most damaging ones. Ash says neither assumption has proved to be true.
When Russia was booted out of the international payments network Swift, for example, China was expected to step in and build an alternative in alliance with Moscow’s central bank.
But, says Ash, “President Xi is angry because Putin lied about his intentions towards Ukraine. Now the invasion has gone ahead, it has triggered a cost-of-living crisis in China that makes worse Xi’s other economic problems.” Also, he adds, “Xi doesn’t want to upset the US too much.”
Yakov Feygin, a Russia expert at the Berggruen Institute in the US, agrees that China has rejected Putin’s overtures to circumvent sanctions. India is also likely to be wary of sanctions-busting, he says. “It was a major flaw in Putin’s strategy to think China would bail him out. It was a colossal delusion.”
There will be countries that buy Russian oil rejected by Europe, and there is also likely to be a market for stolen Ukrainian grain, but the high-end tools and sophisticated components needed to run IT systems in Russia’s major cities come from countries robustly supporting the sanctions regime. “You can smuggle in components and raw materials” says Feygin. “And Russia will probably do what it can to import goods by the back door. But they cannot do it on a large scale or dependably. And that will force Russian companies to ration how much they produce. It will also limit how much the Russian military can replenish the hardware it needs to fight in Ukraine.”
Critics of sanctions tend to believe that Putin’s aims are limited to eastern Ukraine and sanctions detract from diplomatic efforts to secure a peace. Robert Skidelsky, the economist and Labour peer who until last year was a board member of a Russian company, argues against the use of wide-ranging sanctions during the current war in a new pamphlet, Economic Sanctions: A Weapon Out of Control.
There is no evidence that sanctions trigger regime change, he says. Instead, citizens blame the sanctioners for their hardships. Accusing governments of wasting sanctions for decades in the pursuit of incoherent aims, he says they “should be used only after diplomatic efforts at peaceful solutions have been exhausted, never as an alternative to them”.
Some analysts have argued that the recovery in Russia’s currency since last month and recent reductions by the central bank in previously sky-high interest rates shows that Moscow is coping with the sanctions regime.
Feygin says the increase in the rouble can be explained by the collapse in imports while exports, primarily of oil and gas, have continued unabated. “When you have more exports than imports your currency appreciates, but that is not really a guide to the health of the nation or its financial situation. The rouble is not really a currency at the moment. It is more like funny money,” he says.
At the moment, peace seems a distant prospect. Sanctions, with their boomerang effect on wheat and gas, restricting shipments and raising prices, will remain in place for many more months. |
2022-04-26T09:55:30Z | Russia accuses Nato of ‘proxy war’ in Ukraine | First Thing | Good morning.
Russia’s foreign minister has accused Nato of fighting a proxy war by supplying military aid to Ukraine, as defence ministers gathered in Germany for US-hosted talks on supporting Ukraine through what one US general called a “very critical” few weeks.
Sergei Lavrov told Russian state media: “Nato, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”
He also warned that the risks of nuclear conflict were now “considerable” – a claim Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said showed Moscow had lost its “last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine”.
When asked about the importance of avoiding a third world war, Lavrov said: “I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it.”
Where are the talks happening? The US talks, hosted in Germany by the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, are expected to see more than 40 countries and the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, gather at Ramstein airbase south-west of Frankfurt.
What will be discussed? Gen Mark Milley, chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, said a key goal of the talks was to coordinate mounting security assistance to Kyiv that included heavy weaponry, such as howitzers, as well as armed drones and ammunition.
What else is happening? Here is what we know on day 62 of the invasion.
Elon Musk, world’s richest man, reaches deal to buy Twitter for $44bn
Elon Musk has described himself as a ‘free speech absolutist’. Photograph: Patrick Fallon/Reuters
Elon Musk has reached a $44bn deal to buy Twitter in a takeover that will give the world’s richest man control of a social network with more than 200 million users.
The sale will put the Tesla chief executive in charge of a company that he has frequently criticized, saying it has not lived up to its potential as a platform for “free speech”.
The deal yesterday comes after a dramatic few weeks of speculation about Twitter’s future, triggered by Musk’s emergence as the platform’s largest single shareholder on 4 April. He then declared a takeover bid on 14 April, offering to buy all Twitter’s shares for $54.20 each.
At first, Twitter’s board seemed opposed, enacting an anti-takeover measure known as a poison pill that could have made a takeover attempt prohibitively expensive. But its initial reluctance appeared to fade after Musk confirmed a funding package for the deal – including $21bn of his own money, alongside debt funding from Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions – and shareholders warmed to it.
What has Musk said? “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said. “Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and users to unlock it.”
What has Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal, said? “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important,” he said in a tweet.
Marjorie Taylor Greene texted Trump chief of staff urging martial law to overturn 2020 election
Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘The only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law.’ Photograph: Getty Images
Days before Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, a text by the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to the then-White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, appeared to press for Donald Trump to overturn his 2020 election defeat by invoking martial law, new messages show.
The message – one of more than 2,000 texts turned over by Meadows to the House select committee investigating the 6 January storming of the Capitol, and first reported by CNN – shows that some of Trump’s most ardent allies on Capitol Hill were pressing for Trump to return himself to office even after the Capitol attack.
“In our private chat with only Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law,” Greene texted. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.”
When was the message sent? The message about Trump potentially invoking martial law was sent on 17 January and came a month after the idea had been raised in a heated Oval Office meeting , where Trump considered ways to overturn the 2020 election.
In other news …
An image released by the Santa Fe county sheriff’s office shows Alec Baldwin being processed after the death of Halyna Hutchins. Photograph: Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office/AFP/Getty Images
The actor Alec Baldwin is seen practising drawing his revolver on the set of the Rust movie in footage released by the Santa Fe county sheriff’s office . The department has released all files relating to its ongoing investigation into the fatal shooting of the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming.
Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce a new prime minister in the coming days as he turns his focus to legislative elections in June after his defeat of Marine Le Pen . Analysts suggest Macron may name Élisabeth Borne as prime minister, only the second woman in France to hold the post.
The Texas court of criminal appeals has issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, the Mexican-American woman who was scheduled to be judicially killed within 48 hours , ordering a lower court to consider new evidence of her innocence in the death of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah.
One of the most senior US officials in the Pacific has refused to rule out military action against Solomon Islands if it were to allow China to establish a military base there, saying that the security deal between the countries presented “potential regional security implications” for the US and other allies.
Stat of the day: Can a $100m clean-up operation save Mead, Nebraska, from putrid pesticide-laced waste?
Stan and Evelyn Keiser’s farm pond in Mead, Nebraska, has been heavily contaminated with toxic pesticides. Photograph: Brian Bell
It has been just over a year since state regulators stepped in to close down the AltEn LLC ethanol plant on the outskirts of Mead, Nebraska. The plant was found to be the source of huge quantities of toxic, pesticide-laced waste, which was accidentally spilled and intentionally spread throughout the area. A monumental cleanup is under way that could cost 100m or more, according to Bill Thorson, the village board chair. “The stench would be so bad your eyes would burn here in town,” Thorson said.
Don’t miss this: Bennifer and the couples who get back together
Laying the groundwork … Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in 2003. Composite: Patrick McMullan/Getty Images/Guardian Design
It is the latest revival from the carefree early 00s to brave the fire-scorched hellscape of the 21st century, writes Zoe Williams. The relationship between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, AKA Bennifer, has roared back with a vengeance, with Lopez announcing their re-engagement this month, almost 19 years after they called off their wedding. They are not the only ones. Why do some pairings work better the second time around?
Climate check: too many new coal-fired plants planned for 1.5C climate goal, report concludes
‘There is simply no carbon budget left to be building new coal plants. We need to stop now.’ Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The number of coal-fired power plants under development around the world fell last year but far too much coal is still being burned and too many new coal-fired power plants are planned for the world to stay within safe temperature limits. The authors of the report concluded that “coal’s last gasp is not yet in sight”, despite countries agreeing at the Cop26 UN climate summit last November to a “phasedown” of coal.
Last Thing: trucker convoy driven out after being egged by kids in California
Beat it: about 20 drivers were pelted with eggs. Photograph: RapidEye/Getty Images
A convoy of trucks that had gathered outside a California lawmaker’s house over the weekend to protest against her support of an abortion rights bill was forced to leave the area after crossing paths with a group of young people armed with eggs. The people’s convoy had gathered outside lawmaker Buffy Wicks’s house to protest against her support of an abortion rights bill. The convoy, however, drew fierce opposition from neighbors, and children and local residents began throwing eggs to the cheers of the crowd.
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2022-06-11T00:21:00Z | Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 108 of the invasion | The world’s chemical weapons watchdog says it is keeping a close eye on Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, monitoring “threats of use of toxic chemicals as weapons”. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons chief, Fernando Arias, met Ukraine’s parliamentary chairman, Ruslan Stefanchuk, to discuss “the implementation of the chemical weapons convention”, the Hague-based organisation said on Friday.
Russia has demolished 1,300 high-rise buildings in the city of Mariupol without removing dead bodies of residents, according to Vadym Boichenko, mayor of Mariupol. He said cholera and other deadly diseases could kill thousands of people in the southern Ukrainian city as the corpses lie uncollected and summer brings warmer weather.
Ukrainian forces were holding their positions in intense street fighting and under day and night shelling in Sievierodonetsk, officials said. It came amid Ukrainian appeals for more help from the west as Russia pushes to control the key frontline city in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Russia has labelled a non-governmental organisation that fights for investigations into torture allegations as a “foreign agent”. On Friday, the Russian justice ministry updated its website list of blacklisted entities to include the Committee Against Torture, a United Nations-linked human rights treaty body.
Moscow announced its withdrawal on Friday from the UN World Tourism Organisation after it suspended Russia in April as a result of its military invasion of Ukraine. The Russian government said that it “accepted a proposal from the foreign ministry ... concerning the withdrawal of Russia” from the organisation, according to a decree signed by the prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin.
Thirty-seven thousand women are in the Ukrainian army and more than 1,000 women have become commanders, the Ukrainian first lady, Olena Zelenskam said on Friday. “Most of our doctors are women, as well as 50% of our entrepreneurs who work to support the economy at war.”
Ihor Zhovka, diplomatic adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said that Ukraine will not “cede an inch” of territory to Russia. Speaking to Bloomberg, Zhovka said, “We are not going to give away territory, we won’t cede an inch - especially not in Donbas. Russia has thrown everything at it – I won’t get tired of saying Ukraine needs immediate supply of heavy weapons.”
Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, appeared on Friday to reject calls from the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for Serbia to join the European Union in imposing sanctions on Russia. Vučić said he did not believe sanctions were “efficient” and that his country was in a complicated position, given the longstanding special relationship between Serbia and Russia.
A video of one of many mass graveyards in Ukraine has emerged online, Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security under the ministry of culture and information policy tweeted on Friday.
Ukraine has conducted its 11th prisoner swap with Russia since the start of Moscow’s invasion in February, exchanging four Russian captives for five Ukrainians, the Mykolaiv region governor, Vitaliy Kim, wrote on Telegram. Reuters reported him saying one of the freed Ukrainians was a local village head who had been “kidnapped” by Russian forces on 10 March. |
2022-04-25T17:10:15Z | Russia bombs five railway stations in central and western Ukraine | Five railway stations in central and western Ukraine were hit by Russian airstrikes in the space of an hour on Monday, as the war ground on relentlessly in the south and east of the country.
Oleksander Kamyshin, the head of Ukrainian Railways, said five train stations came under fire, causing an unspecified number of casualties, as most of Ukraine was placed under an unusually long air raid warning for two hours on Monday morning.
Kamyshin said one of the attacks took place at about 8.30am in Krasne, near Lviv in western Ukraine, at what the governor of the region described as a “traction substation” that handled power supply to other lines. He said emergency workers were at the scene.
Maksym Kozytskyi, the head of the regional government in Lviv, said that during the attack Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems destroyed another missile fired at the region.
Ukraine’s military command said Russia was trying to bomb rail infrastructure to disrupt arms supplies from foreign countries. “They are trying to destroy the supply routes of military-technical assistance from partner states. To do this, they focus strikes on railway junctions,” it wrote in a Facebook post.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed six railway facilities used to supply Ukrainian forces with foreign weapons.
Officials look at shards of twisted metal from a Russian rocket in undergrowth near a train line near Lviv. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
Meanwhile, a government building in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria was shelled from a hand grenade launcher on Monday, the press service of the Russian-backed unrecognised state said on its Telegram channel.
According to Transnistrian officials, a building belonging to the ministry of state security was hit in the region’s capital, Tiraspol, on Monday evening. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
A number of images circulating on social media appeared to show smoke coming out of broken windows of the government building. It was not immediately clear who was behind the apparent attack.
Last week a senior Russian commander said the goal of Russia’s new offensive was to seize control of southern Ukraine and to gain access to Transnistria, which lies on the southern Ukrainian border.
While military experts have said it was unlikely that Russian forces would be able to stage an offensive towards the border with Moldova at this moment, the statements nevertheless raised fears in Moldova over Russia’s intentions.
With Moscow’s support, Transnistria fought a war against Moldova in the 1990s that left the territory with de facto independence and a garrison of about 1,500 Russian troops.
If confirmed to be linked to the war, it would be the first spillover of the conflict into another European country.
The train station attacks in Ukraine were not the first of the war. On 8 April in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, two ballistic missiles exploded over the railway station building, dropping deadly cluster munitions that killed 59 people and injured hundreds more.
On Sunday Russian missile strikes on an oil refinery and power plant in Kremenchuk killed one person and wounded seven, according to officials. Moscow said it had destroyed oil production facilities there. Serhiy Borzov, the governor of the Vinnytsia region in central Ukraine, said Moscow fired rockets at two towns, causing an unspecified number of deaths and injuries.
Russian shelling and assaults continued on Monday along most of the front in the east, including missile and bomb attacks on a huge steelworks in Mariupol where 1,000 civilians are holed up along with about 2,000 Ukrainian fighters.
Serhiy Volyna, the commander of Ukraine’s 36th marine brigade forces in Mariupol, said in an interview with an opposition lawmaker posted on YouTube on Sunday that Russia was targeting the complex with air and artillery bombardments.
“We are taking casualties, the situation is critical … we have very many wounded men, [some] are dying, it’s a difficult [situation] with guns, ammunition, food, medicines … the situation is rapidly worsening,” Volyna said, speaking from the plant.
The Russian defence ministry said it was opening a humanitarian corridor at 2pm (11am GMT) on Monday for all civilians to leave the besieged plant.
Shards of twisted metal from a Russian rocket are in undergrowth near a train line near Lviv. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
“The armed forces of the Russian Federation and the formations of the Donetsk people’s republic from 2pm Moscow time on 25 April 2022 unilaterally cease any hostilities, units are withdrawn to a safe distance and ensure the withdrawal of the specified category of citizens in any directions they choose,” the defence ministry said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of not holding fire during previous attempts to establish humanitarian routes out of the city.
The Russian defence ministry on Monday repeated its claims that “nationalists” were holding civilians hostages as “human shields” at the Azovstal plant. It said: “If civilians are still at the metallurgical plant, then we demand that the Kyiv authorities immediately give the appropriate order to the commanders of nationalist formations for their release.”
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, have returned to Poland after a visit to Kyiv, the highest-level US visit to the capital since Russia invaded in February.
During talks, Blinken and Austin told Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that the US would provide more than $300m (£235m) in military financing and had approved a $165m sale of ammunition, bringing total US security assistance since the invasion to about $3.7bn. More than $400m will also be split among 15 other nations in central and eastern Europe and the Balkans.
Russia told the US to stop sending arms to Ukraine, with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington warning that large western deliveries of weapons were inflaming the conflict and would lead to more losses.
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Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US, said such arms deliveries were aimed at weakening Russia but that they were escalating the conflict in Ukraine while undermining efforts to reach some sort of peace agreement.
“What the Americans are doing is pouring oil on the flames,” Antonov told the Rossiya 24 TV channel. “I see only an attempt to raise the stakes, to aggravate the situation, to see more losses.”
Antonov, who has served as ambassador to Washington since 2017, said an official diplomatic note had been sent to Washington expressing Russia’s concerns. No reply had been given, he said.
“We stressed the unacceptability of this situation when the United States of America pours weapons into Ukraine, and we demanded an end to this practice,” Antonov said. The interview was replayed on Russian state television throughout Monday.
Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report |
2022-06-10T15:59:34Z | Liz Truss speaks to Ukraine about Britons’ death sentences for fighting Russia | The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has raised the case of two Britons sentenced to death for fighting against Russian forces in a phone call with her Ukrainian counterpart.
Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, have been convicted of taking action towards violent seizure of power at a court in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk.
Truss said she had called the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, on Friday to “discuss efforts to secure the release of prisoners of war held by Russian proxies”.
No 10 has said the men are entitled to combatant immunity as prisoners of war.
Downing Street has also said that while Boris Johnson was “appalled” at the sentences, there were no plans for direct interventions with Russia, with the emphasis being on their status as members of Ukrainian forces.
“The judgment against them is an egregious breach of the Geneva convention,” Truss said. “The UK continues to back Ukraine against Putin’s barbaric invasion.”
An adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister said on Friday that Russia had the men sentenced to death in order to gain leverage in its negotiations with Ukraine and its western allies.
“The trial of the foreigners raises the stakes in the Russian Federation’s negotiation process. They are using them as hostages to put pressure on the world over the negotiation process,” Vadym Denysenko said.
He said Ukraine would coordinate its position on the sentences with Britain, the US and the EU. Ukraine has already sentenced several Russian soldiers to long prison terms for war crimes and Russia may seek to trade the prisoners to get them back.
‘I utterly condemn the sentencing of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner,’ said Truss. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
Russia has claimed it had no influence on the proceedings, which took place in a Russian-occupied territory in east Ukraine. “I’d rather not hinder the operation of the judiciary and law enforcement authorities of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” said the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, referring to the proxy government.
The MPs who represent the two men as constituents, Robert Jenrick, the MP for Newark, and Richard Fuller, the MP for North East Bedfordshire, have called for Russian officials to be summoned to answer for their proxies’ actions in the Ukrainian region.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Jenrick said: “I’ve urged the foreign secretary to raise this immediately at the highest levels with the Russian government. The UK needs to be clear you can’t treat British nationals in this way. This really is the most egregious breach of international law.”
He added: “Aiden and Shaun are not mercenaries, they are combatants, who are prisoners of war now and should be treated in accordance with the Geneva conventions, and the Geneva convention is being breached in the most egregious manner by Russia in holding this kangaroo court and now this sentence to death.”
Jenrick said the men were being “hooked out and used in a Soviet-era show trial as a way of taking hostages or taking revenge against the UK”.
He said a prisoner exchange could be a solution but that required Russia to “play ball, take this issue seriously and start living up to their international obligations”.
02:14 UK officials condemn Russian 'show trial' that sentenced two Britons to death – video
Fuller said the men needed access to healthcare and legal advice. He said it was fair to argue they had exposed themselves to risk, but added: “What’s at the centre of this is the recognition by the Russian authorities and their proxies in this region that Shaun and Aiden were members of the Ukrainian military, they are prisoners of war, and that the Geneva convention applies. There appears to be no recognition of that.”
On Friday morning the school standards minister, Robin Walker, said the government would use all diplomatic channels to raise the case. He told Sky News: “We utterly condemn the approach that’s been taken here and we will use every method at our disposal to take this issue up.”
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A Moroccan national, Saaudun Brahim, was convicted alongside Aslin and Pinner. The men were accused of being mercenaries after fighting with Ukrainian troops.
The Russian news agency Interfax claimed the men would be able to appeal against their convictions. The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has described the British reaction to the sentences against the men as “hysterical” and said a UK appeal should be directed at the self-proclaimed Donetsk republic, a Russian-occupied territory internationally recognised as part of Ukraine.
Aslin is originally from Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, and Pinner is from Watford, but his mother lives in Fuller’s constituency. They were both members of regular Ukrainian military units fighting in Mariupol, the southern port city that has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Concerns were also raised in Ukraine about the status of Andrew Hill, 35, who was captured in fighting in southern Ukraine. Unlike the other two Britons, Hill is a member of the International Legion, the group of several thousand volunteer soldiers who have agreed to fight as part of Ukraine’s army during the war.
A spokesperson for the Legion said they were worried about Hill’s welfare, who local reports had suggested was also going to be put on trial alongside Aslin and Pinner. “Then the trial came and went and it turned out that Andrew Hill was not among those sentences, which raises the question of what has happened to him. What’s his status? Is he even alive?”. |
2022-04-27T15:09:55Z | Russia attacks infrastructure in western Ukraine to slow supply lines | While tanks and troops exchange fire in Donbas, Ukraine faces another escalating battle on another invisible front line – one that may be equally crucial to determining the outcome of the war.
Russia is stepping up attacks on infrastructure deep into western parts of the country that Moscow has admitted for now it cannot capture, striking targets that keep both the war effort and the national economy running, including the railway network, a critical bridge and fuel depots.
The aim of Russian attacks is likely to slow the rapidly expanding delivery of weapons from Nato allies to the eastern front, while also hindering exports of grain and other commodities that help Kyiv pay for the war. With the country’s Black Sea ports are closed to shipping, overland routes are even more vital.
“It is my opinion that they didn’t believe the west will give Ukraine the necessary heavy weapon supplies so now the process is started, they feel they need to do something about that,” said one Ukrainian military official monitoring the infrastructure attacks. “Because western weapons and Ukrainian combat experience combined give us a big advantage.”
On Monday, five railway stations were hit by Russian missiles. The head of Ukraine’s railways company, Oleksandr Kamyshin, said it was the heaviest assault on his system since the war began. “The repair of all infrastructure damage will take months,” he acknowledged in a news conference.
Fuel depots have been another regular target, along with a critical bridge that provides the only overland link on Ukrainian territory to the southern Bessarabia region.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s defence staff said infrastructure was being hit to stop western arms shipments. “Russians are attacking military and civilian infrastructure to prevent getting weapons from our partners,” Oleksandr Shtupun told a press conference.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in a broadcast on state TV: “These weapons will be a legitimate target for Russia’s military. Storage facilities in western Ukraine have been targeted more than once. How can it be otherwise?”
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It is not a one-sided battle. A series of destructive explosions and fires at strategic locations inside Russian territory and neighbouring Belarus – fuel depots and railways – are widely considered the work of Ukrainian forces, although none have been claimed officially by Kyiv.
In the early weeks of the war, Ukrainian forces were highly effective at damaging Russian logistics in areas that were contested or recently seized. But in this round of attacks both countries are targeting infrastructure deep inside enemy-held territory.
Senior presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak in a tweet about “self-destructing” Russian infrastructure appeared to hint broadly at his country’s role; on the list of destroyed assets he gave was the Moskva ship, widely acknowledged to have been sunk by a Ukrainian missile.
“How can we not believe in karma for the murder of [Ukrainian] children? Many are still willing to turn a blind eye to financing terrorism by buying Russian oil. But should the European Union depend on a country where everything is self-destructing?” he said.
The operations on Russian territory have often been bold and spectacular, boosting morale as much as hindering the enemy’s capacity. They include a daring helicopter raid on the border town of Belograd and Sunday night’s attack on oil storage facilities near a critical crude pipeline junction in Bryansk.
The same night another blast near Bryansk took out a military rail spur used to bring rockets and other munitions from storage onto the main railway network, a Ukraine security source said.
And a powerful radio control tower destroyed in Transnistria, part of Moldova controlled by Russian-backed separatists, was broadcasting propaganda across the region and may also have been used for military communications.
The battle over infrastructure deep inside enemy-held territory is an area where Ukraine may be more vulnerable than Russia because of the size of the country, the extent of Russia’s military resources and the battle for the air.
While not dominant in the skies, it is still easier for Russian planes, drones and helicopters to fly over Ukraine than the reverse and its own skies are largely open, while the government in Kyiv relies entirely on land transport for its military and economic lifelines.
“Rail has always been important [in Ukraine] for exporting things like coal, grain and steel, but it no longer has access to sea ports so a lot more has been going by rail out of the country,” said Tracey German, professor in conflict and security at King’s College London.
“So potentially this isn’t just a way of disrupting the military effort but also of putting pressure on the country economically.”
Russians perhaps did not move strongly against these targets at the start of the war because President Vladimir Putin anticipated a quick victory and perhaps the Russian military thought they would be using the infrastructure themselves.
They also expected to control the skies, which would have made it easier to deny access to roads and railways, said Niklas Masuhr at the Center for Security Studies thinktank in Switzerland. Now there are strong military incentives for a campaign behind front lines.
“The focus has shifted towards the Donbas and there are two underlying drivers of attacks on infrastructure, particularly in western Ukraine. They are potentially trying more to cut off supplies into the Donbas, create a battle of attrition in that part of Ukraine.”
“With strikes on Lviv and Kyiv they may also be trying to hit targets throughout the country, to force them to disperse air defence systems throughout the country, so they don’t have them where needed in the Donbas.”
For Ukraine to win this battle, it needs more air defences for the west, in addition to the heavy weapons and short range air defence systems heading east, the Ukrainian military source said.
“Ukraine on its own cannot protect any inch of its territory from the threat from the air, because Ukraine uses very old aerial defence systems,” the source said.
“Britain is sending short-range things that work great in Donbas. But the strategic thing really necessary for Ukraine is heavy and long-range defence systems to close the skies over [relatively] peaceful areas of the country.” |
2022/06/23 | For a Kyiv Techno Collective, ‘Now Everything Is About Politics’ | When Slava Lepsheiev founded the Ukrainian techno collective Cxema in 2014, “I thought it should be outside politics and just a place where people can be happy and dance,” the D.J., 40, said in a recent video interview from Kyiv.
Until the pandemic, the biannual Cxema (pronounced “skhema”) raves were essential dates in the techno calendar of Ukraine, which has become an increasingly trendy destination for club tourists over the past decade. These parties — in factories, skate parks and even an abandoned Soviet restaurant — united thousands on the dance floor to a soundtrack of experimental electronic music.
But as the Cxema platform grew bigger, and Ukraine’s political climate grew more tense, “I realized I had a responsibility to use that influence,” Lepsheiev said, and to look beyond escapism on the dance floor. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February deepened that commitment, and the war has transformed how Lepsheiev and his team think about their priorities and work. |
2022/06/21 | After a Pivotal Period in Ukraine, U.S. Officials Predict the War’s Path | Several military analysts say Russia is at peak combat effectiveness in the east, as long-range artillery systems promised to Ukraine from NATO countries are still trickling in. Ukraine is hugely outgunned, they say, a stark fact that President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged last week.
“The price of this battle for us is very high,” he said in a nightly address. “It’s just scary. And we draw the attention of our partners on a daily basis to the fact that only a sufficient number of modern artillery for Ukraine will ensure our advantage and finally the end of Russian torture of the Ukrainian Donbas.”
President Biden on Wednesday announced an additional $1 billion in weapons and aid for Ukraine, in a package that includes more long-range artillery, anti-ship missile launchers, and rounds for howitzers and for the new American rocket system. Overall, the United States has committed about $5.6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.
Mr. Zelensky and his aides have appealed to the West to supply more of the sophisticated armaments it has already sent. They have questioned their allies’ commitment to the Ukrainian cause and insisted that nothing else can stop Russia’s advance, which even by conservative estimates has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers. |
2022/06/13 | The Corpse of a Russian Soldier, and the Cold but Human Urge to Look | The Russians have abandoned the bodies of many of their troops, a startling practice that flouts a common code among combatants. Does it signal disarray? Low morale? Or was it, in this case, something more personal?
Maybe if he had been popular in the platoon, the guy who picked you up from the bar at 4 a.m. no questions asked, they would have fought to put out the flames. Or at least to get his body, so he could be buried under a familiar sky.
Or maybe it was so catastrophic that by the time the survivors made it to safety and looked around and realized, good god, he’s missing, they knew there was nothing they could do. He was still in there. Trapped.
I’m looking at him, thinking about all this, trying to figure out if that’s his rib cage, listening to the artillery in the distance and wondering if it’s getting closer or farther away.
Husarivka was a speed bump in a Russian advance that failed, leaving the village of dairy farms, and little else, briefly occupied by Russian soldiers — and saturated with Ukrainian artillery fire in response — until the Ukrainians advanced at the end of March. |
2022/06/11 | Biden Races to Expand Coalition Against Russia but Meets Resistance | A month later, Mr. Ramaphosa lamented the impact that the conflict was having on “bystander” countries that he said “are also going to suffer from the sanctions that have been imposed against Russia.”
Brazil, India and South Africa — along with Russia and China — are members of a group of nations that account for one-third of the global economy. At an online meeting of the group’s foreign ministers last month, Moscow offered to set up oil and gas refineries with its fellow partners. The group also discussed expanding its membership to other countries.
Other nations that abstained from the United Nations vote, including Uganda, Pakistan and Vietnam, have accused the U.S.-led coalition against Russia of shutting down any chance of peace talks with its military support of Ukraine. U.S. and European officials maintain that the weapons and intelligence it has provided serves only to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s military.
The growing urgency in the Biden administration is embodied in the president’s plans to visit Saudi Arabia, despite his earlier denunciations of its murderous actions and potential war crimes. Mr. Biden’s effort, which is already being criticized by leading Democrats, is partly aimed at getting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to help on the margins with Ukraine. One goal is to have those nations coordinate a substantial increase in oil production to help bring down global prices while the United States, Europe and others boycott Russian oil.
U.S. officials have been disappointed by the proclaimed neutrality of the two Gulf Arab nations, which buy American weapons and lobby Washington for policies against Iran, their main rival.
Israel, which also buys American weapons and is the United States’ closest ally in the Middle East, has expressed solidarity with Ukraine. At the same time, however, it has resisted supporting some sanctions and direct criticism of Russia. |
2022/06/13 | As China Rattles Sabers, Taiwan Asks: Are We Ready for War? | Underlying Taiwan’s defense dilemma is a question left unanswerable by design: Will the United States send military forces to Taiwan’s aid? In May, President Biden suggested he would, but the United States offers no explicit security guarantees, a strategy it hopes will avoid either provoking Beijing or emboldening Taiwan to declare formal independence.
Mr. Xi has said he seeks a peaceful unification with Taiwan, and he may be deterred by the huge economic and diplomatic blowback China would suffer for an invasion. But China has also been pointed in its warnings. Its defense minister, Gen. Wei Fenghe, said over the weekend that Beijing would “fight to the very end” for Taiwan. It is sending fighter jets toward the island almost daily — including 30 aircraft in one day last month alone.
The concern is that such maneuvers could, intentionally or otherwise, be a prelude to conflict.
“We cannot wait; we are competing with time,” said Michael Tsai, a former defense minister of Taiwan. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine happened in an instant — who knows when the P.L.A. might choose to invade Taiwan.”
The ‘Porcupine Strategy’
Several military drills conducted in January were intended as a show of force to China — to demonstrate how Taiwan planned to stop invaders from intruding on its airspace, landing on its beaches and, in the worst case, taking over its cities.
At an air base in central Taiwan, a siren wailed, and within minutes pilots were taking off in F-16 fighter jets to ward off intruders. Off the northern coast, the navy debuted new mine-laying craft as two small warships fired live ammunition. In a southern city, smoke filled the air as soldiers practicing urban combat shuffled past fake storefronts of bubble tea shops and cafes, exchanging gunfire with combatants. |
2022/06/08 | U.S. Lacks a Clear Picture of Ukraine’s War Strategy, Officials Say | Of course the U.S. intelligence community collects information about nearly every country, including Ukraine. But American spy agencies, in general, focus their collection efforts on adversarial governments, like Russia, not current friends, like Ukraine. And while Russia has been a top priority for American spies for 75 years, when it came to the Ukrainians, the United States has worked on building up their intelligence service, not spying on their government.
The result, former officials said, has been some blind spots.
“How much do we really know about how Ukraine is doing?” said Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official. “Can you find a person who will tell you with confidence how many troops has Ukraine lost, how many pieces of equipment has Ukraine lost?”
Even without a complete picture of Ukraine’s military strategy and situation, the Biden administration has pushed forward new capabilities, like the rocket artillery systems President Biden announced last week. Ukraine is awaiting the arrival of more powerful Western weapons systems as both sides in the war suffer heavy losses in the eastern Donbas region of the country.
Pentagon officials say they have a robust process for sending weapons in place, which begins with a request from the Ukrainians and includes a U.S. assessment of what kind of equipment they need and how quickly it can be mastered. |
2022/06/02 | U.S. Technology, a Longtime Tool for Russia, Becomes a Vulnerability | Technology restrictions have harmed other Russian industries as well, U.S. officials say. Equipment for the oil and gas industry has been degraded, maintenance for tractors and heavy equipment made by Caterpillar and John Deere has halted, and up to 70 percent of the commercial airplanes operated by Russian airlines, which no longer receive spare parts and maintenance from Airbus and Boeing, are grounded, officials say.
But some experts have sounded notes of caution. Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va., voiced skepticism about some claims that the export controls were forcing some tank factories and other defense companies in Russia to shutter.
“There’s not been much evidence to substantiate reports of problems in Russia’s defense sector,” he said. It was still too early in the war to expect meaningful supply chain problems in Russia’s defense industry, he said, and the sourcing for those early claims was unclear.
Maria Snegovaya, a visiting scholar at George Washington University who has studied sanctions on Russia, said the lack of critical technologies and maintenance was likely to start being felt widely across Russian industry in the fall, as companies run out of parts and supplies or need upkeep on equipment. She and other analysts said even the production of daily goods such as printer paper would be affected; Russian companies had bought the dye to turn the paper white from Western companies.
“We expect random disruptions in Russia’s production chains to manifest themselves more frequently,” Ms. Snegovaya said. “The question is: Are Russian companies able to find substitutes?”
U.S. officials say the Russian government and companies there have been looking for ways to get around the controls but have so far been largely unsuccessful. The Biden administration has threatened to penalize any company that helps Russia evade sanctions by cutting it off from access to U.S. technology. |
2022/06/02 | U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Yacht Company That Caters to Russian Elites | WASHINGTON — The U.S. government leveled sanctions against a yacht management company and its owners, describing them as part of a corrupt system that allows Russian elites and President Vladimir V. Putin to enrich themselves, the Treasury Department announced on Thursday.
Imperial Yachts, which is based in Monaco and controlled by the Moscow-born Evgeniy Kochman, caters to Russian oligarchs. The Treasury Department said Mr. Kochman and his company provide yacht-related services to “Russia’s elites, including those in President Putin’s inner circle.” Imperial Yachts, the department said, conducts business with at least one person subject to sanctions.
The Treasury Department also identified four yachts linked to Mr. Putin: the Shellest, the Nega, the Graceful and the Olympia. The department said Mr. Putin used the Nega for travel in Russia’s north, and the Shellest periodically travels to his Black Sea palace. The department said Mr. Putin has taken numerous trips in the Black Sea on the Graceful and the Olympia. |
2022/06/04 | U.S. Warship Arrives in Stockholm for Military Exercises, and as a Warning | ABOARD U.S.S. KEARSARGE, in the port of Stockholm — If ever there was a potent symbol of how much Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has altered Europe, the sight of this enormous warship, bristling with 26 warplanes and 2,400 Marines and sailors, moored among the pleasure craft and tour boats that ply this port, would certainly be it.
“No one in Stockholm can miss that there is this big American ship here in our city,” said Micael Byden, the supreme commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, standing on the amphibious assault ship's deck in the shadow of an MV-22 Osprey under a clear sky on Saturday. “There are more capabilities on this ship,” he marveled, “than I could gather in a garrison.”
In this perennially neutral country that is suddenly not so neutral, the U.S.S. Kearsarge, which showed up just two weeks after Sweden and Finland announced their intention to seek membership in NATO, is the promise of what that membership would bring: protection if President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia turns his ire toward his Nordic neighbors. |
2022/05/31 | Russian Military Is Repeating Mistakes in Eastern Ukraine, U.S. Says | But by May 13, control of the city had flipped again. “The Russians took Kharkiv for a short period of time; the Ukrainians counterattacked and took Kharkiv back,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said at a news conference at the Pentagon last week. “We’ve seen them really proceed at a very slow and unsuccessful pace on the battlefield.”
Ukraine is now pushing Russian troops north and east from Kharkiv, “in some cases all the way back to Russia,” said retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, the former supreme allied commander for Europe. “So now Ukrainians are threatening to cut off Russian lines of supply and pushing their forces to the rear.”
Cutting off Russian supply lines east of Kharkiv would put Russian troops in the same situation they were in after their advance on Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, at the beginning of the war, officials said. Ukrainian units carrying shoulder-fired Javelin antitank missiles picked off Russian soldiers as miles-long Russian convoys near Kyiv stopped moving forward. The invasion stalled, and thousands of Russian troops were killed or injured. Russia then refocused its mission on the east.
In the early weeks of the war, Russia ran its military campaign out of Moscow, with no central war commander on the ground to call the shots, American and other Western officials said. In early April, after Russia’s logistics and morale problems had become clear, Mr. Putin put General Dvornikov in charge of a streamlined war effort.
General Dvornikov arrived with a daunting résumé. He started his career as a platoon commander in 1982 and later fought in Russia’s brutal second war in Chechnya. Moscow also sent him to Syria, where the forces under his command were accused of targeting civilians. |
2022/05/31 | Forces Battle for Ukraine City, as E.U. Ratchets Up Responses | BRUSSELS — Russian troops battled their way into the devastated Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk on Tuesday, as their slow, brutal offensive in eastern Ukraine shifted from indiscriminate shelling to street fighting, with thousands of civilians still trapped among the ruins.
With Moscow pressing its advance despite heavy losses, Ukraine’s allies looked to new ways to raise the price Russia pays for aggression, while easing the pain it causes elsewhere. A day after the European Union agreed to ban most Russian oil imports, the bloc’s focus shifted to aiding Ukraine and helping it resume food exports that are vital to feeding the world.
Wrapping up a two-day summit meeting in Brussels, E.U. leaders agreed to $9.7 billion in aid to Ukraine this year, albeit with demands attached to fight the corruption that has plagued the country. And Ursula von der Leyen, president of the E.U. executive commission, said the developing global food crisis is “only the fault of Russia,” which has seized or blockaded all of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. |
2022/06/01 | Putin’s Threats Highlight the Dangers of a New, Riskier Nuclear Era | WASHINGTON — The old nuclear order, rooted in the Cold War’s unthinkable outcomes, was fraying before Russia invaded Ukraine. Now, it is giving way to a looming era of disorder unlike any since the beginning of the atomic age.
Russia’s regular reminders over the past three months of its nuclear might, even if largely bluster, were the latest evidence of how the potential threat has resurfaced in more overt and dangerous ways. They were enough to draw a pointed warning to Moscow on Tuesday from President Biden in what amounted to a tacit acknowledgment that the world had entered a period of heightened nuclear risks.
“We currently see no indication that Russia has intent to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, though Russia’s occasional rhetoric to rattle the nuclear saber is itself dangerous and extremely irresponsible,” Mr. Biden wrote in a guest opinion essay in The New York Times. “Let me be clear: Any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us as well as the rest of the world and would entail severe consequences.” |