Britain bluntly warned Vladimir Putin on Monday that he would face “war with Nato” if even a “single toecap of a Russian soldier” stepped into the territory of the military alliance’s 30 members.
Cabinet minister Sajid Javid also accused the Russian president of committing war crimes, with Russian troops reported to have attacked 31 health centres in Ukraine including a cancer hospital, as well as a maternity hospital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Sunday that it “it is only a matter of time” before Russian missiles fall on Nato territory after Kremlin forces fired 30 rockets at the Yavoriv military base, less than 15 miles from the border with Poland.
The attack on the centre, where Allied troops trained Ukrainian soldiers before the war started, killed at least 35 people and injured 134 others, according to local reports.It is also an important logistical hub and Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov has said arms shipments to Ukraine from Nato countries would be considered as “legitimate targets”.
However, Mr Javid warned Moscow against any attack on Nato countries.
“We have been very clear, even before the war started, that if there was an attack on any Nato country, even if just a single toecap of a Russian soldier steps into Nato territory then it will be war with Nato and Nato would respond,” he told Sky News.
“That has not changed throughout this conflict and there would be a significant response from Nato if there was any kind of attack from Russia.”
Mr Zelensky said he had given Western leaders “clear warning” of the danger to the Yavoriv base.
He asked Nato leaders again to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, but the West has so far refused to do so amid fears it could spark a wider war across Europe.
Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, launched more than two weeks ago, has been marred by blunders and he has so far failed to seize any major city, with thousands of Russian soldiers having died and the Russian economy now being hit with unprecedented sanctions.
Moscow has reportedly asked China for military supplies, as well as economic support to ease the impact of sanctions, but America has warned Beijing against getting involved in the conflict.
Mr Javid also highlighted more than 30 reported Russian attacks on health facilities in Ukraine.
“These are war crimes,” he stressed.
He added that Justice Secretary Dominic Raab was travelling to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is based, for talks with its Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan.
Mr Raab would offer Britain’s help in gathering evidence of war crimes, he added, and in pursuing a case against Mr Putin and his team for committing such atrocities.
In other key developments
- Ninety children have been killed and more than 100 wounded in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, according to the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office.
- At least two people have died and 12 were injured in a Russian air strike on a residential building in Kyiv, Ukrainian state TV reported, with footage showing blocks of flats burning and destroyed.
- Kyiv authorities said they were stockpiling two weeks worth of essential food items for the two million people who have not yet fled the capital, as Russian forces seek to encircle the capital.
- The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv has been shelled by Russian forces, the Kyiv city administration said, killing two people and injuring seven.
- Civic chiefs in the besieged port of Mariupol said 2,187 residents had been killed there since the start of the invasion. The city is running out of food and water, and aid convoys have failed again to reach the city due to Russian shelling, said Ukrainian authorities who were trying to re-open a humanitarian route into the city.
- Heavy shelling was reported on Chernihiv northeast of the capital and attacks on the southern town of Mykolaiv, where officials said nine people were killed. Ukraine’s forces counter-attacked in Mykolaiv and the eastern Kharkiv region, an Interior Ministry official said.
- Diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine were being stepped up, with Ukrainian and Russian negotiators set to talk again after both sides cited progress. “Russia is already beginning to talk constructively,” Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said in a video online. “I think that we will achieve some results literally in a matter of days.” A Russian delegate to the talks, Leonid Slutsky, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying they had made significant progress and it was possible the delegations could soon reach draft agreements.
- American journalist Brent Renaud, 50, was shot and killed by Russian forces in the town of Irpin near Kyiv and another journalist was wounded, said regional police chief Andriy Nyebytov.
- Russia has admitted to losing its first GRU military intelligence spy in the war. Captain Alexey Glushchak, 31, from Tyumen in Siberia, died in the siege of Mariupol, but the Russians have given no details of how the GRU agent was killed. The GRU was behind the 2018 Salisbury Novichok poisonings, according to British investigators. Around 5,000 Russian troops may already have died in the Ukraine conflict, as well as thousands of civilians, and many Ukrainian soldiers.
- The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR reported that nearly 2.7 million people had fled Ukraine as of Saturday, nearly 1.7 million of them heading to Poland.
Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was due to meet China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome, as Washington warned Beijing against giving Russia economic support to ease the impact of unprecedented sanctions imposed by the West, with Moscow also reported to have asked China for military equipment.
As many countries feel the impact of the economic turmoil caused by the war, Mr Javid defended Boris Johnson seeking to persuade Saudi Arabia to boost its oil output so the West can wean itself off dependence on flows from Russia.
Asked if Britain was overlooking Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights, the Health Secretary said: “We’ve got a candid frank relationship with them, it is a very important country for us, and I think it is right that the Prime Minister is leading this effort to engage Saudi Arabia even more so in the events that we’re seeing unfolding now.”
