Thanks for following our live coverage of the Ukraine crisis. We will be moving across to start a new live blog where you can follow all the latest developments below.
South Korea has toughened its financial sanctions against Russia by banning transactions with Russia’s central bank, joining further global efforts to isolate Russia over its invasion into Ukraine, Reuters reports.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said it has decided to immobilise any assets held by the Russian central bank in the won and to sever transactions with Russia’s central bank, following similar moves by the United States and the European Union.
The new penalties on Russia follows Seoul’s March 1 decision to ban transactions with seven major Russian banks and their affiliates, including Sberbank.
South Korea’s finance ministry will release details including the scope of further sanctions later on Monday, which “will be in line with U.S. financial sanctions,” a finance ministry official said.
Details of any Russian central bank assets held in won cannot be disclosed without the holder’s consent, the official said.
Updated
Australian PM calls on China to stop Russia
China must act on its declarations of promoting world peace and join the effort to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Australia’s prime minister said on Monday, warning that the world was in danger of being reshaped by an “arc of autocracy”.
Reuters reports that Scott Morrison also suggested in a wide-ranging speech that Russia’s invasion was not going according to the plan of its leader, Vladimir Putin, who he said had “overestimated the capacity of how he might be able to prosecute this illegal war”.
“China has long claimed to have a role as one of the major powers in the world and to be a contributor to global peace and stability. No country will have a bigger impact on concluding this terrible war in Ukraine than China,” Morrison said in response to a question after a speech at the Lowy Institute think tank.
“I was listening for the voice of the Chinese government when it came to condemning the actions of Russia and there was a chilling silence,” he said.
China has declined to call the Russian attack on Ukraine an “invasion” while asking western countries to respect Russia’s “legitimate security concerns”. It has called for a solution to the crisis through negotiations.
New Zealand brings in Russia Sanctions Bill
Eva Corlett in Wellington reports that New Zealand will pass a law this week that will significantly ramp up its sanctions against Russia, including preventing those sanctioned from moving assets to New Zealand and stopping Russian super-yachts from entering the waters.
The Russia Sanctions Bill is the first law of its kind in New Zealand, and is the country’s next step in its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday afternoon.
“A Bill of this nature has never been brought before our Parliament, but with Russia vetoing UN sanctions we must act ourselves to support Ukraine and our partners in opposition to this invasion,” the prime minister said.
The country initially responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with targeted travel bans, prohibiting exports to the military, and suspending bilateral foreign ministry consultations.
Ardern said: “We have said throughout our response that no options were off the table, and that we’d continue to do more in line with New Zealand’s unequivocal opposition to Russia’s actions. Despite international condemnation and the resilience and resistance of the Ukrainian people, Russia’s assault continues, and so must our pressure.”
The new sanctions will enable the government to freeze assets located in New Zealand, and prevent those sanctioned from moving assets to the country, or using its financial system as “a back door to get around sanctions” imposed by other countries, Ardern said. The new law will also allow for sanctions to be imposed on states that are complicit with Russia, such as Belarus.
Sanctions could also apply to trade, and financial institutions as well as stopping the likes of Russian super yachts, ships and aircraft from entering New Zealand waters or airspace.
Updated
The British front pages today are filled with stories of civilians desperately trying to find safety as Russian attacks intensify.
GUARDIAN: Plea for safe passage after second ceasefire disaster #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/VucdhAqf4o
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) March 6, 2022
MIRROR. Save Them #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/3LKhtyj0Om
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) March 6, 2022
THE SUN: Running for their lives #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/XnoLiFVrlt
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) March 6, 2022
TIMES: Families flee for their lives #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/s5xz6DndUa
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) March 6, 2022
Oil prices soared to a near 14-year high while equity markets plunged on Monday as investors grew increasingly fearful about the impact of the Ukraine war on the global economy.
Experts warned of a period of stagflation with the spike in crude likely to light a fire under already high inflation.
Brent crude at one point rocketed almost 18% to $139.13 in Asia trade- a level not seen since mid-2008 - after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the White House and allies were in talks about banning imports from Russia, according to figures cited by Agence France-Presse.
The Ukrainian military is reporting that Russia is planning on storming the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
Russian troops have “began to accumulate resources to storm Kyiv,” according to a report recently released by the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine.
In city of Irpin on the western outskirts of Kyiv, Russian troops are making an advance towards the capital with tank and motorised infantry units as well as attempting to reach the eastern outskirts of Kyiv through the districts of Brovarsky and Boryspil, the military says.
Ukrainian officials also noted Russian forces are attempting to establish control over the cities of Chernihiv and Sumy but have “suffered significant losses” and needed to redeploy additional forces to “replenish manpower and equipment”.
Updated
The US has provided Ukraine’s president Zelenskiy with encrypted communications equipment and a direct line with US president Joe Biden, the New York Times reports.
According to the Times, intelligence officials in Washington and Germany are sending satellite photographs and electronic intercepts of Russian military units to Ukrainian military units “within an hour or two”.
“As he tries to stay out of the hands of Russian forces in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine travels with encrypted communications equipment, provided by the Americans, that can put him into a secure call with President Biden,” the publication writes.
It was through this equipment that Zelenskiy was able to make a 35-minute call with his American counterpart on Saturday night.
Updated
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the chamber is “exploring” legislation to ban imports of Russian oil and that Congress intends to enact this week $10 billion in aid for Ukraine.
A letter published to the speaker of the house official website reads:
The Biden Administration has requested $10 billion in humanitarian, military and economic support for Ukraine.
The Congress intends to enact this emergency funding this week as part of our omnibus government funding legislation. And an urgent request from President Zelensky is to help ensure air support for the Ukrainian armed forces.
In addition, the House is currently exploring strong legislation that will further isolate Russia from the global economy.
Our bill would ban the import of Russian oil and energy products into the United States, repeal normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus, and take the first step to deny Russia access to the World Trade Organization. We would also empower the Executive branch to raise tariffs on Russian imports.”
Updated
Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak, who sported an insignia linked to the invasion of Ukraine on a medals podium alongside a Ukrainian competitor, has been called out for his “shocking behaviour”.
Kuliak’s shirt had the letter “Z” prominently placed as he stood next to Ukraine’s Kovtun Illia, the gold medallist at a Gymnastics World Cup event in Doha.
The “Z” has been seen daubed on Russian tanks and vehicles in Ukraine and has come to symbolise support for the invasion.
Updated
Russian forces made 'minimal ground advances', British intelligence says
The UK’s ministry of defence has just released its latest intelligence report, speculating that Russian forces made “minimal ground advances” over the weekend.
Russian forces probably made minimal ground advances over the weekend. It is highly unlikely that Russia has successfully achieved its planned objectives to date.”
The ministry notes a “high level of Russian air and artillery strikes” have continued to hit military and civilian sites in Ukrainian cities over the past 24 hours.
“Recent strikes have targeted Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Chernihiv, and been particularly heavy in Mariupol,” the report added.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 06 March 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 6, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/eiocXaCcoT
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/MOPCAhea6i
Interim summary
Here is a quick rundown of what you may have missed over the past few hours. For an even more detailed account you can view our earlier summary here.
- Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered an impassioned address to his nation on Sunday night, warning Russian troops he will punish those who committed atrocities in Ukraine while the “only quiet place” that awaits them is the grave. “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war on our land,” he said.
- Zelenskiy also spoke of the death of a family attempting to flee the Ukrainian city of Irpin, near Kyiv in northern Ukraine, in an emotional plea to honour humanitarian corridors that Russian forces appear to have ignored.
- The Ukrainian president criticised western leaders for failing to respond to the Russian defence ministry’s announcement that it would strike Ukraine’s military-industrial complex. “I didn’t hear even a single world leader react to this. The audacity of the aggressor is a clear signal to the west that the sanctions imposed on Russia are not sufficient,” he said.
- Two major American accounting firms, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, have also announced they will stop doing business in Russia.
- A plane carrying Russian diplomats expelled by the United States has left New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport en route to Moscow about 7.30pm EST, according to Flight Radar24 data.
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Moscow is recruiting Syrians to fight in Ukraine, according to US officials who spoke with the Wall Street Journal.
- The US does not believe a Russian amphibious assault in or near the Ukrainian city of Odesa is imminent, a senior US defence official said, according to Reuters. There have been growing concerns about a possible attack on the city.
- Russia has instructed all state-owned websites and services to switch to the Russian domain name system by 11 March, according to Russian state media outlets. Many fear the move is a sign that Russia is beginning active preparations for disconnection from the global internet.
- Meanwhile, hacking collective Anonymous claimed to have hacked into the Russian streaming services Wink and Ivi and live TV channels Russia 24, Channel One, Moscow 24 to broadcast footage from Ukraine.
- Ukraine will ask the United Nations’ top court on Monday to issue an emergency ruling requiring Russia to stop its invasion, arguing that Moscow’s justification for the attack is based on a faulty interpretation of genocide law, Reuters reports.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson has pledged to send more defensive equipment and $100m to Ukraine to hold off Russian troops and mitigate financial pressures facing the country, but was accused of moving too slowly and timidly to clamp down on oligarchs’ dirty money in the UK.
Updated
A plane carrying Russian diplomats expelled by the United States has left New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport en route to Moscow about 7.30pm EST, according to Flight Radar24 data.
“The flight carrying Russian government personnel expelled by the United States has just departed New York for Moscow,” the flight tracking service said.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova also confirmed on her Telegram channel on Saturday that the diplomats would be returning to Russia.
“This plane will return to their homeland [the] Russian diplomats, whom the US Government has declared persona non grata,” she said.
A statement from the US Mission to the UN in late February called the 12 Russian diplomats “intelligence operatives ... who have abused their privileges of residency in the US by engaging in espionage activities that are adverse to our national security.”
The flight carrying Russian government personnel expelled by the United States has just departed New York for Moscow. https://t.co/I2TMsV0nKp pic.twitter.com/vgMRvXCbnk
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 7, 2022
As the exodus of western businesses to leave Russia continues, two major American accounting firms, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, have also announced they will stop doing business in Russia.
In a statement, KPMG International said it was cutting ties with about 4,500 employees in Russia and Belarus. “We believe we have a responsibility, along with other global businesses, to respond to the Russian government’s ongoing military attack on Ukraine.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers also said in a press release that PwC Russia, which has about 3,700 employees across 11 cities, would leave the network of member firms but “continue cooperation.”
Meanwhile, Deloitte said the firm “unequivocally” stood by the people of Ukraine and was reviewing its Russian business but cited its ongoing “professional obligations”.
“Everyone knows the game is up in terms of being able to retain a network firm in Russia,” an insider at one Big Four firm told the Financial Times.
Updated
Zelenskiy spoke of the death of a family attempting to flee the Ukrainian city of Irpin, near Kyiv in northern Ukraine, in an emotional plea to honour humanitarian corridors that Russian forces appear to have ignored.
There was a lot of talk about humanitarian corridors. There were talks every day about the opportunity for people to leave the cities ...
And we heard the promise that there would be humanitarian corridors. But there are no humanitarian corridors.
Instead of humanitarian corridors, they can only make bloody ones.
A family was killed in Irpin today. A man, a woman and two children. Right on the road when they were just trying to get out of town to escape. The whole family.
How many such families have died in Ukraine?”
Updated
Moscow is recruiting Syrians to fight in Ukraine, according to US officials who spoke with the Wall Street Journal.
The publication cites four American officials who believe Russia has in recent days been recruiting fighters from Syria in the hope that their expertise in urban combat can help take Kyiv and deal a devastating blow to the Ukraine government.
Russia has been operating inside Syria since formally entering the country’s civil war in 2015.
When Russian state TV announced the invasion of Ukraine last week, it did not use the words “attack”, “invasion” or “war”. Instead it reported on a “special military operation” in the neighbouring country designed to liberate a nation that would welcome Russia’s forces to free it from fascism.
The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, provides an insight as to what Russians are being told about the war in Ukraine. He tells Michael Safi that this initial distortion of the facts did not last the week. Instead, as the war grew more intensive and Russian forces met with fierce resistance, there was a subtle change in what Russians were told was going on. Yes, casualties were being taken, major cities were being targeted, but it was a necessary sanction against a government propped up by an imperialist west, determined to humiliate Russia.
Now, as the attacks get increasingly deadly and cities are transformed by bombing campaigns, Russian propagandists are having to adapt their message again. Meanwhile, an economic crunch unlike any other most Russians have faced before is hitting them in their wallets, and many are looking for who’s to blame. As Andrew Roth explains, it’s not necessarily their own government led by Vladimir Putin.
Updated
Powerful snippets from Zelenskiy’s national address can be viewed in the video below.
The Ukrainian president called on the west to do more as he spoke of the destruction across Ukraine and the suffering faced by his people.
“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war on our land.”
'We will find every bastard', Zelenskiy warns
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered an impassioned nightly address to his nation, warning Russian troops he will punish those who committed atrocities in Ukraine while the “only quiet place” that awaits them is the grave.
“Today is Forgiveness Sunday. But we will not forgive hundreds and hundreds of victims. Thousands and thousands of sufferings. And God will not forgive. Not today. Not tomorrow. Never. And instead of Forgiveness, there will be a Day of Judgment,” Zelenskiy said.
An excerpt of his speech, as translated by Ukrainian broadcaster Ukrinform, reads:
We will not forgive the destroyed houses. We will not forgive the missile that our air defence shot down over Okhmatdyt today. And more than five hundred other such missiles that hit our land. All over Ukraine .. hit our people and children.
We will not forgive the shooting of unarmed people. Destruction of our infrastructure.
We will not forgive.
Hundreds and hundreds of victims. Thousands and thousands of sufferings.
And God will not forgive. Not today. Not tomorrow. Never.
And instead of Forgiveness, there will be a Day of Judgment. I’m sure of it.”
Zelenskiy warned Russian forces they would face “a day of judgement” for the “deliberate murder” inflicted on his country.
How many such families have died in Ukraine?
We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war on our land.
We will find every bastard who shot at our cities, our people, who bombed our land, who launched rockets.
There will be no quiet place on this earth for you. Except for the grave.”
Updated
Russia has instructed all state-owned websites and services to switch to the Russian domain name system by 11 March, according to Russian state media outlets.
“This is necessary to protect resources from cyber attacks and the possibility of disconnection from the outside,” the Kommersant Russian newspaper reports.
Citing the ministry of digital development, the publication said there are no plans to disconnect Russia from the global internet.
The ministry of digital development told Kommersant that these measures are necessary to protect against cyberattacks:
We are preparing for various scenarios to ensure that Russian resources are available to citizens. The telegram for government agencies outlines a set of simple cyber hygiene recommendations that will help to organise work more effectively to protect our resources from malicious traffic, keep services running and control over domain names.”
Russia managed to disconnect itself from the global internet during tests in June and July last year, the RBC media group reported at the time, citing documents from the working group tasked with improving Russia’s internet security, according to Reuters.
Russia adopted legislation, known as the “sovereign internet” law, in late 2019 that seeks to shield the country from being cut off from foreign infrastructure, in answer to what Russia called the “aggressive nature” of the United States’ national cyber security strategy.
The move would strengthen the Russian government’s oversight of cyberspace.
#Russia began active preparations for disconnection from the global Internet
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 6, 2022
No later than March 11, all servers and domains must be transferred to the #Russian zone. In addition, detailed data on the network infrastructure of the sites is being collected. pic.twitter.com/wOCdRqOJej
Cyber resistance against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, with hacking collective Anonymous claiming to have hacked into the Russian streaming services Wink and Ivi and live TV channels Russia 24, Channel One, Moscow 24 to broadcast footage from Ukraine.
The group added that activists are also broadcasting troll faces on Russian military radio.
The hacking collective #Anonymous hacked into the Russian streaming services Wink and Ivi (like Netflix) and live TV channels Russia 24, Channel One, Moscow 24 to broadcast war footage from Ukraine [today] pic.twitter.com/hzqcXT1xRU
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) March 6, 2022
Activists are broadcasting troll faces on Russian military radio pic.twitter.com/lovN3WNVa2
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) March 6, 2022
Russian forces stepped up overnight shelling of Ukrainian cities in the centre, north and south of the country on Sunday night, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich has said.
“The latest wave of missile strikes came as darkness fell,” he told a Ukrainian broadcaster.
Arestovich said Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv in the north-east was still battling to fend off a Russian attack while all regions of Chernihiv in the north were coming under missile attack.
The official described a “catastrophic” situation in the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, where efforts to evacuate residents on Sunday failed. He said the government was doing all it could to resume evacuations, the Associated Press reports.
Updated
Ukraine and Russia to face off at World Court over genocide claim
Ukraine will ask the United Nations’ top court on Monday to issue an emergency ruling requiring Russia to stop its invasion, arguing that Moscow’s justification for the attack is based on a faulty interpretation of genocide law, Reuters reports.
Although the court’s rulings are binding and countries generally follow them, it has no direct means of enforcing them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s “special military action” is needed “to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide” - meaning those whose first or only language is Russian - in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s suit argues that the claim of genocide is untrue, and in any case does not provide legal justification for invasion.
The case it has lodged at the World Court, officially known as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), centres on the interpretation of a 1948 treaty on the prevention of genocide, signed by both countries. The treaty names the ICJ as the forum for resolving disputes between signatories.
Last week, the executive board of the International Association of Genocide Scholars issued a statement saying that Putin was “misappropriating and misusing the term ‘genocide’”.
“There is absolutely no evidence that there is genocide going on in Ukraine,” the association’s president, Melanie O’Brien, told Reuters.
The hearings are set to start at 10am (9am GMT) with Ukraine presenting its case. Russia is due to respond on Tuesday.
Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you as we continue to monitor the crisis unfolding in Ukraine.
Russia’s war on its neighbour continues for its eleventh day and well into its second week. It is 1.40am in Ukraine and the UN estimates more than 1.5 million people have fled the country to seek safety in neighbouring countries.
For any tips and feedback please contact me through Twitter or at samantha.lock@theguardian.com
Updated
The full story on Boris Johnson’s pledge to send more defensive equipment and aid to Ukraine:
Boris Johnson has pledged to send more defensive equipment and $100m to Ukraine to hold off Russian troops and mitigate financial pressures facing the country, but was accused of moving too slowly and timidly to clamp down on oligarchs’ dirty money in the UK.
Emergency legislation is due to be rushed through the House of Commons on Monday, intended to create a register of overseas ownership of UK land and property, reform unexplained wealth orders and make it easier to prosecute those involved in breaking sanctions.
The economic crime bill will be supported by opposition parties, but ministers were warned it would still give those suspected of money laundering a “get out of London free card” and contained loopholes that could let people disguise or liquidate their assets before the new powers come into effect.
Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said he was frustrated ministers were “going slowly” and that there were “echoes of Afghanistan”, claiming the government “really only begins to get its act together and respond in the heat of the situation rather than preparing for it beforehand”.
Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, said on Sunday it could take months or even years for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to be defeated in his ambition to conquer Ukraine.
Britain to provide $100m to Ukraine through the World Bank
Prime minister Boris Johnson’s office said Britain will provide $100 million to Ukraine (75.6 million pounds) through the World Bank, Reuters reports:
The UK is seeking to keep core state functions running and mitigate financial pressures caused by Russia’s invasion, Johnson’s office said.
Britain has sought a central role in the international response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by providing defensive military aid, arguing for tougher sanctions again the Kremlin and offering financial support.
Nevertheless, Johnson’s government has faced criticism that its sanctions have been too slow and its refugee programme underwhelming.
The latest round of cash, which is in addition to $290.95 million (220 million pounds) pledged already, could be used to pay public-sector workers in Ukraine or fund pension and social security payments, British authorities said.
The UK is also pushing new legislation on Monday that aims to speed up the sanctions process.
In his evening video address, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, also criticized western leaders for failing to respond to the Russian Defense Ministry’s announcement that it would strike Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and that employees of the plants should not show up to work, the AP reports. Zelenskiy said:
I didn’t hear even a single world leader react to this. The audacity of the aggressor is a clear signal to the west that the sanctions imposed on Russia are not sufficient ...
Think about the sense of impunity of the occupiers that they can announce such planned atrocities.”
Zelsnkiy urged for a “tribunal” to hold accountable people who have committed atrocities.
The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier on Sunday that its forces were planning to strike Ukraine’s military-industrial complex with “precision weapons”, with ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov (in a statement carried by the state news agency Tass), saying, “We urge all personnel of Ukrainian defense industry plants … to leave the territory of their enterprises,” the AP reported.
More from Zelsnkiy’s speech, via CNN:
For tomorrow Russia has officially announced the shelling of our territory. Our enterprises of the defense complex. Most were built decades ago by the Soviet government, built in cities. And now they are in the middle of an ordinary urban environment. Thousands of people work there. Hundreds of thousands live nearby ... This is murder. Deliberate murder.”
Here are some images from protests against the Russian invasion, from around the globe this weekend.
Santiago:
Cardiff:
Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images
Argentina:
LIVE: Ukrainians in Argentina protest the conflict in Ukraine https://t.co/O68rI8d4BS
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 6, 2022
New York:
Paris:
Mexico City:
Zelenskiy: 'We will punish everyone who committed atrocities'
In an address this evening, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war.”
More quotes from his remarks:
⚡️Zelensky: "Today, a family of four, parents and two children, were killed in Irpin as they were trying to leave the city. We will not forgive. We will not forget."
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 6, 2022
⚡️Zelensky: "The audacity of the aggressor is a clear signal for the West that the imposed sanctions aren’t enough."
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 6, 2022
"You can’t hide from this reality. You can’t hide from the new killings in Ukraine."
Written down like this Zelenskiy’s address tonight reads like a powerful poem. pic.twitter.com/R915iHzc0v
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) March 6, 2022
US official says a Russian attack on Odesa does not appear imminent
The US does not believe a Russian amphibious assault in or near the Ukrainian city of Odesa is imminent, a senior US defence official said, according to Reuters. There have been growing concerns about a possible attack on the city:
The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, estimated that Russia had launched about 600 missiles since the start of the invasion and deployed into Ukraine about 95% of combat forces it had pre-staged outside of the country.
Russian forces continued to try to advance and isolate Kyiv, Kharkhiv and Chernihiv and were meeting “strong Ukrainian resistance”, the official said.
Earlier, Odesa’s mayor said, “I don’t know what kind of bastard you have to be to press the button to drop bombs on Odesa,” the Guardian’s Shaun Walker reported.
Odessa mayor Gennady Trukhanov, generally known as pro-Russian, has come down firmly on the side of Kyiv in recent days.
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) March 6, 2022
“I don’t know what kind of bastard you have to be to press the button to drop bombs on Odessa” pic.twitter.com/NtwNAIGTas
Updated
Summary
- Staff at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are being told what to do by the Russian military commander who seized the site last week, in violation of international safety protocols.
- Emmanuel Macron implored Putin to let civilians flee Ukraine’s besieged cities during a marathon call of nearly two hours as a second attempt to evacuate the port city of Mariupol ended under Russia bombardment.
- A Texas congresswoman has called for Russia to release Brittney Griner as fears grow Putin could use the US basketball star as a pawn during the war in Ukraine.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the US and its allies are engaged in a “very active discussion” about banning the import of Russian oil and natural gas.
- More than 4,300 people have been arrested after demonstrators took to the streets in 21 Russian cities to condemn Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Eight civilians were killed in Irpin as evacuations were underway, according to the mayor.
- Netflix, TikTok, Ikea, Apple, Microsoft, TikTok, Mastercard and Visa, Boeing, Nike, Volkswagen and other companies have suspended or restricted operations in Russia.
Updated
UK aims to speed up sanctions process
The UK is pushing new legislation on Monday that aims to speed up the sanctions process by allowing ministers to tighten restrictions on Russian businesses and individuals, Reuters reports:
The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill is being pushed through parliament next week as Britain tries to punish those with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to his invasion of Ukraine.
“Punishing sanctions are meaningless until properly implemented, and these changes will allow us to pursue Putin’s allies in the UK with the full backing of the law, beyond doubt or legal challenge,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.
Britain has already sanctioned some banks, firms and individuals, but has faced calls to ramp up its sanctions and move faster on Russian oligarchs and companies.
UK seeks to quicken sanctions process to increase pressure on Russia https://t.co/lUnZ3MTxJ8 pic.twitter.com/OdZXNz3v2f
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 6, 2022
For more reading on the subject:
Netflix shuts down service in Russia
Netflix is suspending all of its services in Russian in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the company said in a statement, Variety reports.
“Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia,” a spokesperson told the publication.
Netflix has more than 1m customers in Russia, and no new customers will be able to sign up, though it’s unclear what impact this move may have on existing accounts, according to Bloomberg. Netflix had already announced that it would be temporarily pausing future projects and acquisitions from Russia, Variety reported, noting that the streaming service had four Russian original projects in the works.
Other companies that have suspended or limited operations or sales in Russia include: Ikea, Apple, Microsoft, TikTok, Mastercard and Visa, Boeing, Nike and Volkswagen.
Updated
The US efforts to isolate Russia have intensified this weekend, with discussions of a possible ban on the import of Russian oil and natural gas, and senior US officials traveling to Venezuela for rare talks with Nicolás Maduro’s government.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier today that the US and its allies were engaged in a “very active discussion” about prohibiting the import of Russian oil and natural gas, which would mark a significant escalation of the ongoing sanctions. Blinken told CNN:
“We are now talking to our European partners and allies to look in a coordinated way at the prospect of banning the import of Russian oil while making sure that there is still an appropriate supply of oil on world market. That’s a very active discussion as we speak.”
House speaker Nancy Pelosi has also backed the idea of a Russian oil import ban, arguing at a press briefing earlier this week that Russia’s exports are funding Putin’s war efforts.
This weekend, White House and state department negotiators also met Maduro representatives in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, the first meeting of its kind in years, as the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, reported:
Citing anonymous US officials, the New York Times claimed the Biden administration was motivated partly by concern that Russia’s Latin American allies – which include the authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela – could become “security threats” if the geopolitical clash with Putin escalated.
Others speculated that the US saw Venezuelan oil as a potential substitute for Russian imports were it to slap sanctions on Moscow as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and its output is currently growing despite US sanctions imposed at the height of the 2019 attempt to topple Maduro.
Denmark’s prime minister also said today that the country was aiming to become independent of Russian natural gas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Eight civilians killed in Irpin, mayor says
Eight civilians were killed in Irpin as evacuations were underway, according to the mayor, who said he witnessed four people die:
Irpin's mayor Oleksandr Markushyn said he saw 4 people die today: 2 adults and 2 children, who were trying to evacuate. He said in total 8 died. He says part of the city is under Russian control but 'Irpin has not surrendered, Irpin is fighting' pic.twitter.com/5qvxBpn99b
— Isobel Koshiw (@IKoshiw) March 6, 2022
Residents fleeing Irpin, just outside of Kyiv, were caught in shelling by Russian forces earlier today and forced to dive for cover, Reuters reported.
“A family died,” Irpin mayor Oleksandr Markushyn said, according to CNN, “in front of my eyes two small children and two adults died ... Irpin is at war, Irpin has not surrendered. Part of Irpin was indeed captured by Russian invaders, but part of Irpin is fighting and not surrendering.”
The Ukrainian town of Volnovakha was almost completely destroyed in the first days of the war, with intense shelling targeting civilian homes. About 90% of buildings have been damaged or reduced to rubble, and the dead lie unburied in the street, residents say.
Hundreds if not thousands of people are still sheltering in basements without heat or electricity, and dwindling supplies of food and water. Russia has not made good on offers of a ceasefire and humanitarian corridor to allow evacuations.
Marina, 38, an economist and mother of three, tells the story of her family’s hellish week under fire – and their terrifying escape:
My life is split into before and after these events happening in my country. I couldn’t hold back my tears about all the destruction.
When we heard the news that the Russian federation was planning to ‘liberate’ some territories, we didn’t believe it, we didn’t even think it was possible in the modern world. That’s why we decided to stay in the place we live.
If we had imagined for even a second what was coming, we would have risked trying to escape the very first moment the shelling started. Our children, who are five, six and 13, have got psychological trauma from this that will last all their lives.
Denmark aims to become independent of Russian natural gas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said, according to Reuters. Denmark will also significantly increase its defence budget in response to the conflict, Frederiksen said.
From Reuters:
The Nordic country will increase its defence spending gradually to reach 2% of GDP by 2033, equivalent to an increase in annual defence spending of around 18 billion Danish crowns ($2.65 billion) under an agreement between the main parliamentary parties.
The parties also agreed to set aside 7 billion crowns over the next two years to strengthen Danish defence, diplomacy and humanitarian efforts.
“Historic times call for historic decisions,” Frederiksen said at a press briefing in Copenhagen, adding that this was “the largest investment in Danish defence in recent times”.
The prime minister also said that the main parliamentary parties were in agreement that Denmark should become independent of Russian gas “as soon as possible”, but Frederiksen did not offer a specific timeline at a press conference in Copenhagen on Sunday.
Some Ukrainians have reported that their loved ones in Russia refuse to believe that Russian soldiers could bomb innocent people, or even that a war is occurring, according to a new report from a New York Times journalist in Lviv.
Across Ukraine, I have been meeting people w close relatives in Russia who refuse to believe the extent of the violence their state is perpetrating.
— Valerie Hopkins (@VALERIEinNYT) March 6, 2022
Cities suffer missile attacks, mothers fear for sons, but fathers, sisters, brothers respond w denial. 🧵https://t.co/GLdl2BKAid
Across Ukraine, residents reported that their close family members in Russia were repeating the official Kremlin position to them, denying the attacks and the extent of the violence, reporter Valerie Hopkins wrote. Some examples:
Relatives parrot the official Kremlin position: that Putin’s army is conducting a limited “special military operation” to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Putin has called Pres Zelensky, a native Russian speaker w Jewish background, a “drug-addled Nazi” in an attempt to justify the invasion.
— Valerie Hopkins (@VALERIEinNYT) March 6, 2022
Svetlana from Cherkasy sends her relatives in Belarus and Tomsk "necessary information" every day. “The response is that ‘This is some kind of fake information that this cannot be the case at all, that no one can or will shoot at civilians,’” she said.
— Valerie Hopkins (@VALERIEinNYT) March 6, 2022
Some more on the disinformation, misinformation and propaganda from Russian-backed outlets that has been spreading over the last week:
TikTok suspends livestreaming in Russia
TikTok has announced that it is suspending livestreaming in Russia and restricting the uploading of new videos, in response to Russia’s new law that threatens jail sentences of up to 15 years for spreading “fake news”.
1/ TikTok is an outlet for creativity and entertainment that can provide a source of relief and human connection during a time of war when people are facing immense tragedy and isolation. However, the safety of our employees and our users remain our highest priority.
— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) March 6, 2022
TikTok said in a statement:
Our highest priority is the safety of our employees and our users, and in light of Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service in Russia while we review the safety implications of this law. Our in-app messaging service will not be affected. We will continue to evaluate the evolving circumstances in Russia to determine when we might fully resume our services with safety as our top priority.
The “fake news” law has already had widespread consequences. The BBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Bloomberg News all said on Friday that their journalists were pausing work. CNN, CBS News and ABC News stopped broadcasting in Russia, and other news organizations have temporarily stopped publishing bylines of their journalists in Russia, the Guardian reported.
Russia also entirely blocked Facebook on Friday in retaliation for the platform restricting content from state-owned media.
More details here:
Retired army general David Petraeus, former head of US central command during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he did not accept military assumptions that Kyiv will inevitably fall to Russia.
Russian forces have a 40-mile-long convoy of military vehicles stalled on the approach to the Ukrainian capital and Petraeus said it appeared “they cannot keep their columns fueled” and praised Ukrainian resilience so far.
“They’ve taken down road signs or pointed “Welcome to Hell” and stuff like that,” Petraeus, who is also former director of the CIA, told CNN:
This is going to be a very long fight in Kyiv. The locals there have been stockpiling food, there is going to be an enormously fierce resistance. I don’t accept assumptions that it will fall.”
Petraeus also noted Kyiv’s extensive surface area as a major obstacle for the Russian military, pointing out that the capital is spread across around 320 square miles, larger than New York City and a little over half the size of London’s sprawl. CNN host Jake Tapper asked Petraeus about the vulnerability of other countries near Russia, notably non-Nato places, even as Nato moves to strengthen its boundaries with military might along members’ borders with Russia and its neighbor Belarus, from the Baltic states to Romania.
“The one to be worried about is Moldova,” said Petraeus, referring to the small country lodged between Nato-member Romania and the south-western flank of Ukraine, where US secretary of state Antony Blinken was on Sunday. “We need to be shoring that up substantially.”
Petraeus added that that should occur even as the US and its western allies “work to get these MiGs out of Poland and into Ukraine to be flown by Ukrainian pilots,” he said.
Earlier, Blinken had talked about sending US fighter jets to Poland so that that country can send supplies of used MiGs and Sukhoi military planes to Ukraine, where the military is familiar with those Russian-style jets rather than western-made fighters.
Vladimir Putin has reiterated his demands in Ukraine in a further telephone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron and said Ukraine must meet them or the war continues.
In a briefing with journalists, the Elysée said Macron had spoken to Putin for an hour and 45 minutes on Sunday morning to reiterate the international communities demands to halt hostilities but also guarantee the safety of civilians and allow humanitarian organisations to operate.
“President Putin has again expressed his termination to obtain all his objectives by negotiation or by war. The President of the Republic expressed his determination to obtain negotiations and peace,” the Elysée spokesperson said.
French president Emmanuel Macron spoke again to Russian president Vladimir Putin today. Was a 1hr45min call made by Macron. Putin reiterated his demands for:
— Kim Willsher (@kimwillsher1) March 6, 2022
1. The "de-Nazification" of Ukraine
2. The "neutralisation" of Ukraine (ie no joining Nato and no weapons). #Ukraine 1/n
More from the spokesperson:
If Ukraine refuses to agree to this there will be a pursuing of military operations. This is unacceptable to Ukraine ... The President of the Republic has reiterated the demand, a demand with the quasi unanimous support of the international community, for the halting of the military operation. It is also necessary that international humanitarian rights are absolutely respected.”
War crimes investigators begin collecting evidence
Ukrainians fleeing the scenes of destruction and carnage in Ukraine are already being interviewed by investigators in anticipation of a future war crimes trial of Vladimir Putin, along with his top officials and generals.
With well over a million refugees crossing the border, there is an abundance of eyewitness testimony, while the flow of video footage through social media has provided an unprecedented amount of evidence which is being subjected to forensic analysis.
However, the sheer quantity of evidence is not necessarily a guarantee of a successful trial, and experienced war crimes investigators warn there is a long war to go before Putin and his regime are in the dock, in person or in absentia.
War crimes investigators have already started work collecting evidence from Ukraine, but it will be a long road from survivor interviews to putting Putin and his regime in the dock.
— Julian Borger (@julianborger) March 6, 2022
I spoke to some veteran investigatorshttps://t.co/JKNtFj58OE
Multiple investigations have been launched at the same time, and it is not clear to what extent they are coordinated, if at all.
The prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague has opened an investigation, after a petition by an unprecedented 39 member states, and will almost certainly receive the most governmental support.
American Express is suspending all operations in Russia and Belarus, Reuters reports.
Visa and Mastercard have taken similar steps, with a block that allows for continued domestic transactions in Russia. The Guardian’s banking correspondent, Kalyeena Makortoff, explained earlier that the Mastercard and Visa suspension largely targets foreign payments, so that local consumers will no longer be able to use their Russian cards abroad or for online international payments.
Our earlier coverage:
Summary
A summary of some of the latest developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
- The US has seen “very credible reports” of deliberate attacks on civilians in Ukraine, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said.
- Police detained more than 4,300 people on Sunday at protests across Russia against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, an independent protest monitoring group reported.
- BBC World News has been taken off air in Russia, the broadcaster said.
- Ukraine is is open to discussing “non- NATO models” for its future, one of its negotiators said.
- The safe passage of civilians from Ukraine’s besieged eastern port city of Mariupol was halted again on Sunday.
- A UN nuclear watchdog said that staff at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant continue to operate it, but that management is now under the orders of the commander of the Russian forces.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, has responded to a joint letter from the heads of diplomatic missions urging Pakistan to condemn Russia, saying, “What do you think of us? Are we your slaves ... that whatever you say, we will do?”
On 1 March, the heads of 22 diplomatic missions had publicised a joint letter calling on Pakistan to support a resolution in the United Nations general assembly to condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Reuters reports, noting that the move to release the letter was rare:
In the event, Pakistan, a traditional ally of the west, abstained from voting as the UN general assembly overwhelmingly reprimanded Russia for invading Ukraine.
“I want to ask the European Union ambassadors: Did you write such a letter to India?” Khan said at a political rally on Sunday, noting that Pakistan’s arch-rival had also abstained. Khan also said European countries had not censured India for its actions in Kashmir, a mountainous region over which Pakistan and India have fought two wars.
Updated
The Bolshoi Theatre’s music director and principal conductor, Tugan Sokhiev, has announced his resignation, saying he felt under pressure due to calls to take a position on the Ukraine conflict.
The Russian said in a statement he was resigning “with immediate effect” from his post at the Moscow theatre, as well as his equivalent position at France’s Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse.
Sokhiev was appointed by the Bolshoi in 2014. He was brought in as part of moves to improve the theatre’s image after scandals including the 2013 acid attack on its then-artistic director Sergei Filin.
He comes from the same North Ossetia region of Russia as star conductor Valery Gergiev and is considered to be his protege. Kremlin loyalist Gergiev has been stripped of his role at the Munich Philharmonic for failing to denounce Russia’s actions.
Sokhiev said in a lengthy statement that “many people were waiting for me to express myself and to hear from me my position on what’s happening at the moment,” referring to Russia’s military action in Ukraine.
He said he decided to resign after “being forced to face the impossible option of choosing between my beloved Russian and beloved French musicians”.
He cited opposition from authorities in Toulouse to his planned staging of a Franco-Russian music festival there, saying they “want me to express myself for peace”.
Sokhiev became music director of the Toulouse orchestra in 2008 and continued to work with the orchestra after joining the Bolshoi.
Sokhiev did not say explicitly whether he backs or opposes Russia’s actions in Ukraine while he said that “I have never supported and I will always be against any conflicts in any shape and form”.
He said musicians are becoming “victims of so called ‘cancel culture’” and suggested Russian music could come under threat. “I will be soon asked to choose between Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy,” he warned.
The Bolshoi general director, Vladimir Urin, told TASS state news agency he was saddened by Sokhiev’s decision. “I’m very sorry. His departure is a serious problem for the Bolshoi Theatre. It’s unclear how the situation will develop from now,” he said.
Updated
Ukraine is not willing to compromise on its territorial integrity in talks with Russia but is open to discussing “non- Nato models” for its future, one of its negotiators told Fox News.
Ukraine has pursued membership of the European Union and Nato, both opposed by Moscow. Vladimir Putin has cited Ukraine’s potential membership of Nato as evidence of what he portrays as Nato aggression toward Russia.
“The response that we are getting from the Nato countries is that they are not ready to even discuss having us in Nato, not for the next period of five or 10 years,” negotiator David Arakhamia said in remarks published by Fox News late on Saturday.
“We are ready to discuss some non-Nato models. For example, there could be direct guarantees by different countries like the US, China, UK, maybe Germany and France. We are open to discussing such things in a broader circle, not only in bilateral discussions with Russia but also with other partners.”
Delegations from Ukraine and Russia have had two rounds of talks since Russia launched an invasion of its neighbour on 24 February.
On Thursday, the sides agreed to open humanitarian corridors to allow civilians out of some combat zones, although there have been delays in implementing them. The next round of talks is due on Monday, according to the Ukrainian side.
Updated
Earlier on Sunday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russian rockets had completely destroyed the civilian airport in the central-western region of Vinnytsia on Sunday.
Footage appears to show columns of smoke and fire billowing from the airport.
A German-flagged ship carrying Russian oil that had been moored in the UK has moved on after workers made it clear they would not unload the cargo.
Unions have urged the government to close what they believe is a loophole following a ban on Russian vessels docking in the UK, saying cargo is not covered.
The German-flagged Seacod was moored near the Stanlow Oil Refinery in the north-west but moved away on Sunday, heading north. Unite said because the vessel is German flagged it doesn’t fall under the UK’s ban on Russian shipping.
It was not clear if the oil was unloaded before unions became aware it was Russian.
Updated
Staff at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant under Russian orders, IAEA says
Staff at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant continue to operate it, but management is now under the orders of the commander of the Russian forces that seized it last week, the UN nuclear watchdog said.
“I’m extremely concerned,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Rafael Grossi, said in a statement, adding that Russian forces had cut off some mobile networks and the internet, complicating communications with the plant.
“Management and staff must be allowed to carry out their vital duties in stable conditions without undue external interference or pressure.”
Senior US officials have flown to Venezuela for rare talks with Nicolás Maduro’s government in an apparent bid to prise the South American country away from its Russian backers after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
White House and state department negotiators met Maduro representatives in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, on Saturday in what was the first such encounter in years.
Ukrainians fleeing the town of Irpin just outside Kyiv were caught in shelling by Russian forces on Sunday and forced to dive for cover, Reuters witnesses said.
Irpin, 16 miles (25km) north-west of the capital, has seen intense fighting in recent days. Russia’s military is closing in on Kyiv, home to around 3.4 million people before the invasion sparked a mass exodus of civilians.
Irpin residents scurried along pavements clutching children, luggage and pets as they made their way to waiting buses and cars that would take them further from the clashes.
Soldiers and fellow residents helped elderly men and women who were falling behind. Some people crouched down when explosions went off nearby, apparently from mortar rounds.
Reuters reporters said they did not witness casualties in the shelling, but several news outlets said that at least three people – a woman and two children – were killed.
The New York Times published a photograph of four members of a family – a mother, father and two children – lying on the ground in Irpin.
The caption said they were trying to flee when a mortar struck, and that the father, being tended to by Ukrainian soldiers in the image, was the only one still with a pulse.
Updated
A Texas congresswoman has called for Russia to release Brittney Griner as fears grow Vladimir Putin could use the US basketball star as a pawn during the war in Ukraine.
The two-time Olympic champion has been detained by Russian customs authorities, who claim they discovered vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. The arrest took place last month and the 31-year-old faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of bringing drugs into Russia.
While Boris Johnson and his cabinet scramble to deliver measures that will give Vladimir Putin pause for thought in his assault on Ukraine, another – lesser known – Briton is poised to have a potentially more significant impact.
Less than nine months into his tenure as the international criminal court (ICC) prosecutor, Karim Khan, a senior English barrister, announced this week that he had launched an investigation into the situation in Ukraine as there was “a reasonable basis” to believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed there.
There is no guarantee charges will be brought against Putin and his acolytes but some cling to the hope that the prospect of potentially having to stand trial in the future and of being arrested in countries signed up to the ICC may make some of them think again.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, told Vladimir Putin, during a phone call on Sunday, of his concerns about a possible imminent attack on the Ukrainian city of Odesa, according to a statement from Macron’s office.
Macron also stated the importance of finding a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine crisis, and of protecting Ukraine’s nuclear facilities.
Updated
A Maidenhead rabbi who is attempting to set up a “Ukrainetransport” for families fleeing the Russian invasion says he has been overwhelmed by offers of help in the UK.
Jonathan Romain, whose mother fled Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport during the second world war, has been contacted by more than 240 people offering rooms for refugees.
Explaining the initiative, he tweeted: “I have always wondered how I could repay the debt I owe to the Kindertransport, who saved my then 11-year-old mother. Now is the time, which is why I am helping to co-ordinate Ukrainetransport.”
Anastasia Lapatina, a journalist at the Kyiv Independent, tells how Polish people are hosting Ukrainians in their apartments, driving them to places, or simply giving them money to cover basic needs.
When I hopped on a train from Krakow to Przemyśl, a small Polish town near the Ukrainian border, I expected to be confronted with a humanitarian catastrophe, produced by a million people fleeing their homes due to war. But what I saw was instead the best of humanity.
As Russia has launched a bloody full-scale war against my country, thousands of Ukrainians have escaped by train to this railway station.
There, they are met by an enormous banner in front of its entrance that reads, in bothPolish and Ukrainian: “You are safe here.”
Inside, dozens of Polish volunteers provide Ukrainian refugees with “everything for free”, as another sign says – food, water, clothes, phones with prepaid plans, accommodation, legal advice.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said he had signed a formal request to foreign governments, including the United States, for termination of Russia and Belarus’s memberships of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
“These two countries violated their obligations and directed their policies towards war,” he said in a statement.
Updated
British prime minister Boris Johnson told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy he would work with international allies to obtain more defensive military equipment to help with the conflict in Ukraine.
“The leaders discussed the urgent needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the prime minister undertook to work with partners to provide further defensive equipment,” said a readout of a call between the two leaders provided by Johnson’s office.
How can we expect the Tory party to wean Britain off Russian wealth and power, when they got us hooked in the first place, writes Guardian columnist John Harris.
In some of London’s most exclusive neighbourhoods, you can suddenly sense the kind of unease that wealth usually keeps at bay. As the government talks up its determination to crack down on Russian oligarchs, a much wider shift may be afoot.
On Friday the Financial Times quoted the chair of Aylesford International, a Chelsea estate agent whose current offerings include a four-bedroom apartment in Cadogan Square, SW3, going for the best part of £12m.
“The severity of these sanctions is the beginning of a new world, a new market,” he said. “I don’t think you can hide any more.”
Explosions can be heard as journalists and Ukrainians are filmed amid heavy shelling in town of Irpin, near Kyiv. The Ukrainian military helped residents escape as Russian troops advanced towards the capital.
British MPs are urging major banks to shut their Moscow offices, after campaigners accused them of “quietly profiting” off their Russian operations while other industries sever ties with the country.
Some of the City’s largest lenders including JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Credit Suisse collectively employ thousands of staff who offer banking services to large companies and wealthy clients doing business in Russia.
While banks have had to drop services for Russian businesses and oligarchs in line with EU, US and UK sanctions, MPs said lenders had a moral duty to exit the country to put further financial pressure on Moscow as the Russian military continues to assault Ukraine.
In conflict, where information is everything, what is striking about the war in Ukraine is not what is known but the very large areas of unknowns.
And even as commentators have picked over and analysed everything that is known about the Russian military’s operations and performance in Ukraine in an effort to predict the trajectory of the conflict, it’s what is poorly understood that may yet be more significant still.
One issue that has come under the spotlight is the rate of losses of soldiers and equipment on the Russian side in the week and a half so far of fighting.
In that period, images of dead and captured Russian soldiers and destroyed or abandoned equipment have become commonplace as it has become clear that Russian forces have lost everything from aircraft to main battle tanks and even whole convoys.
But attrition is not a one way street, and what is far less clear is the level of losses sustained by Ukrainian forces, with no equivalent social media avalanche from the Russian side parading this, and Ukraine understandably not wanting to advertise its losses.
Ukrainian engineers were scrambled to repair a gas pipeline damaged by Russian forces, halting supplies to parts of south-eastern Ukraine, the Donetsk region governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
Engineers had shut down the pipe to prevent gas from leaking, he said, adding that gas flow downstream was now dropping and would stop completely later in the day.
Kyrylenko said that every location between the town of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region and the port of Berdyansk would be left without gas while the damage was repaired. The distance between the two towns is 117 km (73 miles).
“We are working hard to remove this problem as quickly as possible,” Kyrylenko said.
Updated
Russian forces have opened fire at a protest against their occupation of the southern Ukrainian city of Nova Kakhovka, wounding five people, Ukrainian news agency Interfax Ukraine said, citing eyewitnesses.
Around 2,000 people had taken to the streets of Nova Kakhovka to show their opposition to the invasion by waving Ukrainian flags and calling on Russian forces to leave, the agency reported. Similar protests were staged in other occupied areas, it said.
Images have emerged showing two Ukrainian fighters getting married at a checkpoint near Kyiv.
Members of the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces, Lesia Ivashchenko and Valerii Fylymonov, are pictured during their wedding ceremony on 6 March.
Updated
A prominent member of the Brazilian right is facing calls to resign after he was exposed in leaked audio messages making a succession of callous and misogynistic remarks about Ukrainian refugees during a purportedly humanitarian mission to the recently invaded country.
Arthur do Val, a São Paulo congressman and former supporter of Brazil’s rightwing president, Jair Bolsonaro, made a three-day trip to the region last week, supposedly to raise awareness of the human cost of Vladimir Putin’s attack.
On Friday, Brazilian media published audio messages in which Do Val spoke in highly offensive terms about Ukrainian refugees.
In one recording, the politician says: “I’ve just crossed the border on foot between Ukraine and Slovakia. Bro, I swear to you … I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of beautiful girls. The refugee queue … it’s like 200 metres long or more of just total goddesses … It’s some incredible shit … The queue outside Brazil’s best nightclub … doesn’t come close to the refugee queue here.”
In a second excerpt Do Val says: “Let me tell you, they’re easy because they’re poor.”
Updated
Consumers will still be able to use Mastercard and Visa-branded cards for domestic transactions in Russia, the country’s state-backed payments network has said, reducing the impact of the US firms’ decision to pull services over the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s homegrown payments system Mir said the cardholders would still be able to access their funds, make withdrawals and domestic transfers – at least until their bank cards expire.
Mir has processed most domestic payments in Russia since 2015, while foreign operators such as Visa and Mastercard continued to run international transactions.
The operator – which is 100% owned by the country’s central bank – was established on government orders to protect the economy against sanctions imposed over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Tens of thousands of people have demonstrated in cities including Santiago, Vancouver, Paris and New York in support of Ukraine, demanding an end to Russia’s invasion.
The protesters rallied on Saturday against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attack, which began on 24 February and appeared to be entering a new phase with escalating bombardment.
At least 364 civilians are confirmed to have been killed in Ukraine since Russian troops invaded on 24 February, and another 759 wounded, although the true numbers are probably “considerably higher”, a UN monitoring mission has said.
The updated figures, relating to casualties up to 5 March, added a further 13 deaths and 52 injuries to the casualties that the monitors from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported on Saturday.
More than 4,300 detained at anti-war protests in Russia
Police detained more than 4,300 people on Sunday at Russia-wide protests against president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to an independent protest monitoring group.
Thousands of protesters chanted “No to war!” and “Shame on you!”, according to videos posted on social media by opposition activists and bloggers.
Dozens of protesters in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg were shown being detained. One protester there was shown being beaten on the ground by police in riot gear. A mural in the city showing President Vladimir Putin was defaced.
Russia’s interior ministry said earlier that police had detained around 3,500 people, including 1,700 in Moscow, 750 in St Petersburg and 1,061 in other cities.
The OVD-Info protest monitoring group said it had documented the detention of at least 4,366 people in 56 different cities.
“The screws are being fully tightened - essentially we are witnessing military censorship,” Maria Kuznetsova, OVD-Info’s spokeswoman, said by telephone from Tbilisi.
“We are seeing rather big protests today, even in Siberian cities where we only rarely saw such numbers of arrests.”
The group said police had used electric shockers on protesters and posted witness photos and videos on Telegram messenger service showing riot police beating protesters with batons and demonstrators with blood running down their faces.
Memorial, Russia’s most prominent human rights group, said that one of its leading activists, Oleg Orlov, was detained on the capital’s Manezhnaya Square as he held a placard.
Svetlana Gannushkina, another veteran rights campaigner who has been tipped as a potential Nobel prize winner, was detained in Moscow on her 80th birthday.
A police van carrying a group of detainees to a police station overturned in a road traffic accident, injuring nine, six of them members of the public, city police said.
The protests came after hundreds were detained at demonstrations further east, including the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and in Yekaterinburg in the Urals.
Russian police on Friday said all attempts to hold demonstrations on Sunday would be “immediately suppressed”, and organisers and participants would face charges.
The latest detentions brought the total number of demonstrators held to more than 10,000 since 24 February, when the president, Vladimir Putin, launched an invasion of Ukraine.
Despite the official crackdown on demonstrations, and protesters facing jail terms, there have been daily protests since then.
On Friday, jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny urged supporters to stage protests on Sunday “on all the central squares of Russia and all the world”.
He has called for Russians to hold daily protests, saying they should not become a “nation of frightened cowards”.
Updated
BBC World News taken off air in Russia
BBC World News has been taken off air in Russia, the broadcaster has said.
Russian authorities have been restricting access to foreign and independent media outlets, including the main BBC websites, in recent days as the invasion of Ukraine continues.
On Friday, its parliament approved a law making it a criminal offence, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to spread “fake” or “false” news about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, prompting the BBC to temporarily suspend the work of all its news journalists and support staff in Russia.
BBC World News presenter Victoria Derbyshire was the first to announce the channel’s suspension.
She told viewers shortly before midday on Sunday: “BBC World News, the channel you are watching if you are outside the UK right now, and which is the BBC’s global television news channel, has just been taken off air in Russia.”
A BBC spokesperson later said BBC World News had not been available in Russia since Saturday.
The spokesperson added: “We regret that our Russian audiences are being denied access to trusted and impartial news at a time when they need it most.”
Since the Russian invasion began last month, the broadcaster has made efforts to ensure people inside Russia and Ukraine have access to its news output.
Both its Ukrainian and Russian language services are available on the dark web through the Tor network, a privacy-focused software, and the corporation has also brought back its shortwave radio service in a bid to thwart censorship attempts.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova previously accused the BBC of playing “a determined role in undermining the Russian stability and security”.
In the UK, broadcasting watchdog Ofcom has opened 27 investigations into the “due impartiality” of programmes broadcast on the Kremlin-backed RT news channel, formerly known as Russia Today.
Updated
Summary
Here is a quick summary of the latest developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
- The evacuation of civilians from besieged Mariupol was “halted” on Sunday for a second consecutive day. The Red Cross confirmed attempts to evacuate an estimated 200,000 people out of the city came to a halt, “underscoring the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between the parties to the conflict”. Ukraine’s national guard accused Russia of continuing to shell the humanitarian corridors.
- The exodus from Ukraine is the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the second world war, the United Nations said. More than 1.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in the past 10 days, and data showed Polish border guards cleared as many as 129,000 people at border crossings on Saturday, the most in a single day since the war started.
- Ukraine’s president said Russian rockets have completely destroyed Vinnytsia regional airport. He said in a video update that eight missiles were launched against “our peaceful Vinnytsia, a town that never threatened Russia in any way”, and renewed his demand that western powers enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine to prevent more Russian attacks.
-
Putin said the conflict will only stop if Ukraine stops fighting and Russia’s demands are met. In a phone conversation with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Putin also said Ukraine’s negotiators should take a more “constructive” approach in talks with Moscow to take into account the reality on the ground.
- France has accused the UK of a “lack of humanity” over Ukrainian refugees. The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said 150 Ukrainian refugees have been turned away at Calais border crossings in recent days and told to obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris. He called on the British government to set up a proper consular service in Calais, adding that its response so far was “completely unsuitable”.
- Britain’s deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, said it may take years for Putin to be defeated in Ukraine and people who thought the crisis could be resolved in days were “deluding themselves”.
- Pope Francis said the Ukraine conflict is “not a military operation but a war” in his weekly address to crowds gathered in St Peter’s Square. However, he did not publicly condemn Russia by name for its invasion.
- One of the last remaining independent media outlets in Russia, Mediazona, said it has been blocked by authorities for its reporting on the invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this week, Ekho Moskvy radio station and the Dozhd TV channel – two of Russia’s landmark liberal media outlets – were either dissolved or suspended operations.
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The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has accused Ukrainian radicals for an incident on 3 March at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
“Vladimir Putin informed about the provocation by Ukrainian radicals in the area of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” the Kremlin said. “The radiation levels are normal.”
Putin also accused Ukraine of preventing civilians from leaving Mariupol.
Updated
Ukraine’s envoy to the United States has called on president Joe Biden’s administration to impose tougher sanctions on Moscow and to step up arms supplies to Kyiv, saying Russia should be treated “as a terrorist state.”
Ambassador Oksana Markarova, in an interview on Fox News on Sunday, repeated charges that Russia is committing war crimes by targeting civilians, hospitals and schools, and said Ukraine is working with the US and other countries to collect evidence.
“This is a terrorist state and we should treat Russia as a terrorist state,” Markarova said.
She renewed a plea for the US to intensify sanctions against Russia, including imposing a full embargo on imports of Russian oil and gas, and to increase shipments of anti-aircraft systems and other weaponry to Ukraine.
“We are thankful for the sanctions that have been implemented by the United States,” she said. “But since Russia is not changing their behaviour, they escalated actually, they are killing us more and more, the sanctions should toughen up.”
The White House is weighing cutting imports of Russian oil and gas, but is wary about a spike in gasoline prices that would fuel decades-high inflation.
Halting Russia’s invasion is vital to preventing the conflict from spreading beyond Ukraine, Markarova said.
“Every large war in the past started locally,” she said. “We know from the past that all of them could have been stopped locally.” Ukraine, Markarova said, will respond “to any peace talks.”
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US has seen "very credible reports" of deliberate attacks on civilians in Ukraine
The United States has seen “very credible reports” of deliberate attacks on civilians in Ukraine, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said, adding that Washington was documenting these reports to support appropriate organisations in their potential war crimes investigation.
Blinken told CNN’s State of the Union show:
We’ve seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians which would constitute a war crime.
We’ve seen very credible reports about the use of certain weapons.
What we’re doing right now is documenting all of this, putting this all together, looking at it and making sure that as people and the appropriate organisations and institutions investigate whether war crimes have been or are being committed that we can support whatever they are doing.
On Friday, the US embassy in Ukraine said in a tweet that attacking a nuclear plant is a war crime. after Russian invasion forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in heavy fighting in southeastern Ukraine, triggering global alarm.
The State Department sent a message to all US embassies in Europe telling them not to retweet the post, according to CNN, which said it reviewed the message.
Blinken did not address the embassy’s tweet and the State Department declined to comment on whether the tweet reflects the overall position of the US government on the issue, Reuters reported.
Images of cluster bombs and artillery strikes on Ukrainian cities this week have prompted the world’s top war crimes prosecutor to launch an investigation, with the support of dozens of nations opposed to Russia’s invasion.
In an CNN interview, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said an investigation is needed into whether Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
“I think there needs to be a strong and clear investigation on this question,” von der Leyen said.
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Ukraine’s state-run railway operator is ready to organise agricultural exports by rail as a matter of urgency, it said on Sunday, after closure of the country’s Black Sea ports because of the military invasion by Russia.
A major global agricultural producer and exporter, Ukraine has historically exported its grain, vegetable oils and other food products by ship.
“This situation causes problems not only for Ukraine. The share of Ukrainian grain on the world market is 11%, the share of sunflower oil is 55%,” Ukrainian Railways said on social media.
“To prevent the global food crisis and save Ukrainian exports, Ukrainian Railways is ready to organise agricultural products delivery by rail urgently.”
Ukrainian Railways said that it may deliver grain to borders with Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, from where the grain can be delivered to ports and logistics hubs of European countries.
Updated
Planned evacuation of Mariupol halted for second day
The safe passage of civilians from Ukraine’s besieged eastern port city of Mariupol was “halted” on Sunday for a second consecutive day, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
In a statement, the ICRS said:
Amid devastating scenes of human suffering in Mariupol, a second attempt today to start evacuating an estimated 200,000 people out of the city came to a halt.
The failed attempts yesterday and today underscore the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between the parties to the conflict.
“The ICRC is not and cannot in any way be the guarantor of a ceasefire agreement between the parties or of its implementation,” the body added, criticising the lack of a proper agreement between the warring parties to protect civilian lives amid ceasefire violations.
“For the safe passage of civilians to happen with the required levels of trust, the parties should agree between themselves not just in principle but also on the details and parameters” of an evacuation accord, the ICRC added, stressing its neutrality.
It underlined its readiness “to help facilitate further attempts if the parties reach a detailed agreement, which is for the parties alone to implement and respect”.
Mariupol city council said the evacuation was not possible due to Russian shelling. “It is extremely dangerous to take people out under such conditions,” the city council said in an online statement.
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The UK’s chief of the defence staff has slapped down Liz Truss’s suggestion that Britons could travel to Ukraine to take up arms in the war against Russia, saying doing so would be illegal.
Sir Tony Radakin urged people not to rush towards “the sound of gunfire” and stressed there were many other ways that people in the UK could support those resisting the advancement of Vladimir Putin’s troops.
The unusually direct comment will be viewed as a strict admonishment of the foreign secretary’s suggestion, which had already been rejected by the defence secretary, Ben Wallace.
Last week, Truss was quizzed about the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s call for anyone who wanted to “join the defence of security in Europe” to “stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians against the invaders”.
Asked whether Britons should venture out to fight, she said: “I do support that, and of course that is something that people can make their own decisions about.”
The exiled Belarus opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, said the country’s leader had in effect ceded control of Belarus to the Kremlin.
President Alexander Lukashenko denies that his armed forces are operating in Ukraine or that he plans to enter the war on Russia’s side. But Belarus’s military is now indirectly under Kremlin control, Tsikhanouskaya said in an interview with the Guardian.
“It seems to us that Lukashenko is not controlling our military any more, the only thing he is controlling is repression against the Belarusian people,” she said. “We see signs of the military occupation of Belarus.”
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Ukraine president says Russian rockets have completely destroyed Vinnytsia regional airport
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russian rockets had completely destroyed the civilian airport of the central-western region capital of Vinnytsia on Sunday.
He said in a video update that eight missiles were launched against “our peaceful Vinnytsia, a town that never threatened Russia in any way”.
He described the attack as “brutal and cynical” and said it has left the airport “completely destroyed”. Russian attacks “continue to destroy our infrastructure - our lives”, he said.
Several cities and airbases in Ukraine have been bombed, shelled or hit with ballistic missiles since Russia launched its invasion. But Vinnytsia is in the western area of central Ukraine, far from the Russia and Belarus borders, in an area that has seen fewer such strikes.
Zelensky took the opportunity to renew his demand that Western powers enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine to prevent more Russian attacks.
“We repeat every day: close the sky over Ukraine. Close for all Russian missiles, for Russian combat aircraft, for all their terrorists,” he said.
“If you don’t, if you don’t give us at least planes so we can protect ourselves, there’s only one thing to conclude; you want us to be killed very slowly.”
Updated
One of the last remaining independent media outlets in Russia, Mediazona, said it has been blocked by authorities for its reporting on Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Roskomnadzor began blocking Mediazona,” the outlet said in a statement, referring to Russia’s communications regulator.
“Because we cover honestly what is happening in Ukraine and call the invasion an invasion, and the war a war,” it said.
The statement added that Russia has in recent days introduced “military censorship and there are almost no independent media left in the country.”
The outlet’s publisher, Pyotr Verzilov, said they would “continue to work anyway and tell you about the war”.
Медиазона будет продолжать работать в любом случае и рассказывать вам о войне.
— Пётр Верзилов (@gruppa_voina) March 6, 2022
Заблокировать нас или остановить работу редакции не получится ни у кого.
Since president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, authorities have ramped up an unprecedented crackdown on the already embattled media.
Earlier this week, Ekho Moskvy radio station and the Dozhd TV channel – two of Russia’s landmark liberal media outlets – were either dissolved or suspended operations.
Dozens of media workers and independent outlets – including Dozhd – have already been designated “foreign agents” by authorities, and many reporters and editors have been forced to leave the country.
The independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2021, said it would not cover the conflict, citing new legislation on reporting on the military.
Mediazona is an independent online publication which writes about court cases and abuses of prisoners’ rights, among other subjects.
The outlet was founded in 2014 by Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina after they served prison time for mocking Putin in church.
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Russia and Ukraine blame each other as Mariupol evacuation fails again
Pro-Russian separatists and Ukraine’s national guard accused each other of failing to establish a humanitarian corridor out of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Sunday, the second time the sides have attempted to arrange it.
Ukraine 24 television showed a fighter of the Azov Regiment (a grouping which uses Nazi-linked symbols and has had many members who have professed far-right extremist views) of the national guard who said Russian and pro-Russian forces that had encircled the port city of about 400,000 continued shelling the areas that were meant to be safe.
The Interfax news agency cited an official of the Donetsk separatist administration who accused the Ukrainian forces of failing to observe the limited ceasefire.
The separatist official said only about 300 people have left the city. Ukrainian authorities have earlier said they planned to evacuate over 200,000 people from Mariupol.
Updated
It may take years for Vladimir Putin to be defeated in his conquest of Ukraine, Britain’s deputy prime minister has admitted, as Labour accused the government of moving too slowly over sanctions.
Dominic Raab said people who thought the crisis could be resolved in days were “deluding themselves” and that Nato would need to “show some strategic stamina” in its bid to force the Russian army to retreat.
Raab said Putin was resorting to “ever more brutal tactics to try and wrest back the initiative” given the military campaign run from Moscow had “stuttered”.
Raab, who is also the justice secretary, told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme:
I think the bottom line is none of the major cities have yet fallen.
But I think we ought to be under no doubt that our mission with our allies is to ensure Putin fails in Ukraine, and it’s going to take some time.
We’re talking about months if not years, and therefore we’ll have to show some strategic stamina because this is not going to be over in days.
Putin says conflict will only stop if Ukraine stops fighting and Russia's demands are met - Kremlin
Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s military operation would only be halted if Kyiv stopped resisting and fulfilled all of the Kremlin’s demands.
Putin told Turkish president Tayyip Erdoğan by telephone that Ukraine’s negotiators should take a more “constructive” approach in talks with Moscow to take into account the reality on the ground.
Putin, whose comments were published in a Kremlin readout of the call, said his “special operation” in Ukraine was going according to plan and to schedule.
“It was underlined that the suspension of the special operation is only possible if Kyiv stops military operations and carries out well-known Russian demands,” the Kremlin said.
Russia calls its actions in its former Soviet neighbour a “special operation” that seeks to destroy Ukraine’s military capabilities, purge the country of what it says are nationalists and make it a neutral state.
The Kremlin leader told Erdoğan that Moscow was open to dialogue with the Ukrainian authorities, but that he hoped Ukrainian negotiators would take a more constructive approach at the next round of talks.
“Attention was drawn to the futility of any attempts to drag out the negotiation process, which is being used by the Ukrainian security forces to regroup their forces and resources,” the Kremlin said
“It is hoped that during the planned next round of negotiations, Ukraine’s representatives will show a more constructive approach, fully taking into account the emerging realities.”
Updated
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appealed directly to Russians to take to the streets in protest against the Kremlin’s invasion of his country or risk their own poverty and repression.
Since last week, thousands of people in Russia have been detained for protesting against the invasion of Ukraine, what the Russian authorities call a “special military operation”, that began on 24 February.
Russians are now bracing for an uncertain and isolated future after international sanctions plunged the economy into crisis and authorities cracked down on independent media and restricted access to Facebook and other social media sites.
“Citizens of Russia - for you, this is a struggle not only for peace in Ukraine, this is a fight for your country,” Zelenskiy said in a televised address, switching from Ukrainian to Russian.
“If you keep silent now, only your poverty will speak for you later. And only repression will answer,” he said.
All forms of protest in Russia have essentially become illegal since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic for what authorities say are safety reasons.
Like the Ukrainian people, Russians now face a choice “between life and slavery,” Zelenskiy said.
Updated
Turkish president Tayyip Erdoğan urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to declare a ceasefire in Ukraine, open humanitarian corridors and sign a peace agreement, his office said.
NATO member Turkey shares a maritime border with Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea and has good ties with both. Ankara has called Russia’s invasion unacceptable and offered to host talks, but has opposed sanctions on Moscow.
In a statement after a one-hour phone call, the Turkish presidency said Erdoğan told Putin that Turkey was ready to contribute to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
“President Erdoğan, who said an immediate ceasefire will not only ease humanitarian concerns in the region but also give the search for a political solution an opportunity, renewed his call of ‘let’s pave the way for peace together’,” his office said.
“Erdoğan emphasised the importance of taking urgent steps to achieve a ceasefire, open humanitarian corridors and sign a peace agreement.”
The two leaders also discussed bilateral ties, it said.
Erdoğan, who has called Putin a “friend”, had last spoken to the Russian leader on 23 February, a day before Russia launched its invasion. The call makes Erdoğan the third NATO leader to speak to Putin since his offensive, following the leaders of Germany and France.
Updated
Staff at an independent Russian TV station, Dozhd (TV Rain), walked out live on air while declaring ‘No to war’ after being shut down over their coverage of the Ukraine invasion.
The decade-long defiance of Dozhd was silenced, at least for a while, by a brutal new law, passed unanimously in the Russian parliament, which bans news organisations from reporting anything about the war except state-approved press releases.
Journalists and media owners who contravene the new legislation could be jailed for up to 15 years.
Italian luxury label Prada has announced it is suspending retail sales in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
Prada is following in the footsteps of other multinationals and luxury brands, including the French giants LVMH, Hermes and Chanel.
“The Prada Group suspends its retail operations in Russia,” the firm said on its Linkedin page, adding that the move was effective from Saturday.
“Our primary concern is for all colleagues and their families affected by the tragedy in Ukraine, and we will continue to support them,” Prada said.
Volunteers in Ukraine are in the process of removing, covering and wrapping statues and windows on many of the country’s historically important buildings for fear of damage.
Kyiv Post reports this statue of Jesus Christ is being stored in a bunker for safety, for the first time since the second world war.
Jesus Christ statue being taken out of Armenian Cathedral of Lviv, #Ukraine, to be stored in a bunker for protection. The last time it was taken out was during WWII. pic.twitter.com/mx2YCB4gAT
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) March 6, 2022
More than 430,000 people trapped in the port city of Mariupol by encircling Russian forces are nervously preparing to evacuate after a ceasefire was announced, a day after a similar plan fell apart amid accusations that Moscow had failed to respect the agreement.
Local authorities in the south-eastern Ukrainian city said an evacuation supervised by the Red Cross would begin at noon local time (10am GMT) during a nine-hour cessation in Russian attacks.
Attempts to get residents out of the city failed on Saturday after Ukrainian authorities claimed the Russians reneged on an agreement to stop their shelling. The city council was forced to tell residents to return to shelters in the city.
The head of the military in the Russian-controlled territory Donetsk in eastern Ukraine said safe-passage corridors for residents in the besieged city of Volnovakha would also reopen Sunday.
He did not say for how long nor whether a ceasefire would accompany that evacuation.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna, said she did not trust Russia’s word but hoped that the Red Cross would step up to secure the safety of Ukrainian citizens.
Pope Francis says Ukraine conflict is "not military operation but a war"
Pope Francis has rejected Russia’s assertion that it is carrying out a “a special military operation” in Ukraine, saying the country was being battered by a war.
“In Ukraine rivers of blood and tears are flowing. This is not only a military operation but a war which is leading to death, destruction and misery,” the pope said in his weekly address to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
However, as has been the case throughout the 11-day conflict, the pope did not publicly condemn Russia by name for its invasion.
Instead, he repeated his appeal for peace, the creation of humanitarian corridors and a return to negotiations.
“In that martyred country the need for humanitarian assistance is growing by the hour,” the pope said. “Let common sense prevail, let us return to the respect of international law.”
There were many more people than normal gathered in front of St. Peter’s Basilica for the pope’s Sunday appearance, with some holding aloft multi-coloured peace flags as well as the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine.
“The Holy See is willing to do all everything to put itself at the service of peace,” the pope said, adding that two Roman Catholic cardinals had gone to Ukraine to help those in need. “War is madness, please stop,” the pope said.
Andriy Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, praised the pope for calling the conflict a war.
“I am very, very happy that he said that,” he told Reuters in St. Peter’s Square shortly after the pope ended his address. “Even if the pope did not say the word ‘Russia’, everyone in the world knows who the aggressor that invaded us is and who started this unprovoked war.”
Updated
Israel will continue trying to mediate between Russia and Ukraine even if success seems unlikely, prime minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday after returning from surprise talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine has requested that Israel serve as intermediary, citing the Bennett government’s good relations with both Kyiv and Moscow. Bennett’s office said he spoke three times over the weekend with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
In televised remarks to his cabinet, Bennett gave no details on his three-hour Kremlin meeting with Putin on Saturday, saying only that it had “the blessing and encouragement of all parties” - an allusion to the United States, among other powers. Bennett and Putin had discussed the mediation idea by phone last week.
Bennett said:
We will continue to assist wherever this is requested, even if the chances are not great. The moment there is even a small opening, and we have the access to all sides and the capability, I see it as a moral duty to make every attempt.
Israel has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, expressed solidarity with Kyiv and sent humanitarian aid. But Bennett has not met Ukrainian requests for military assistance and has kept channels open to Russia, with which Israel coordinates operations against Iranian deployments in Syria.
Israeli communications minister, Yoaz Hendel, said he had declined Ukrainian requests to ban nine Russian media outlets on the grounds they were propagandising.
“These (broadcasters) did not meet any kind of threshold that would necessitate their blocking. I would like to remind you that, in a democracy, blocking media channels is a very dramatic event,” Hendel told reporters.
Interior minister Ayelet Shaked said Israel was bracing for a “very, very big wave” of immigration sparked by the conflict.
This could entail taking in more than 200,000 Ukrainians who are Jewish or have Jewish family links and more than 600,000 Russians in the same categories, she said.
In what local media have cast as a bid to prevent Russian oligarchs from fleeing to Israel to evade sanctions, the Israel Airports Authority said it had received instructions not to allow private jets to park for more than 24 hours.
UK universities say that although their priority must be supporting their Ukrainian students, they are also reaching out to Russian students who may be feeling alone but unable to ask for help.
Paul Nightingale, professor of strategy at Sussex’s University’s Science Policy Research Unit, and formerly head of special projects at the government’s Economic and Social Research Council, said all universities should “certainly be kicking out the children of oligarchs and their extended families”.
But, he said: “It is stupid to say we should expel all Russian students. The ones in the UK are mostly anti-Putin. We have to support the people who will turn Russia around in the future.”
Sanctions will take time and ‘Ukraine fatigue’ could blunt the west’s resolve as the cost of living crisis deepens, writes the Guardian’s economics editor, Larry Elliott.
Sanctions can inflict pain without leading to a change of leadership or a policy shift. Iran suffered a 20% reduction in potential output in the two years following the introduction of sanctions over its nuclear programme but didn’t buckle.
So, 10 days into the invasion, the west has a big decision to make. Does it deploy the biggest economic weapon it has left: adding Russia’s oil and gas exports to the sanctions list?
France accuses UK of ‘lack of humanity’ over Ukrainian refugees
France’s interior minister has accused the British government of showing a “lack of humanity” when it comes to helping the Ukrainian refugees who have fled the Russian invasion and are now waiting in Calais for permission to join their families in the UK.
Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to the northern French port in the last few days in the hope of crossing the Channel so they can be with relatives who are already established in the UK.
According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
In a letter to the UK home secretary, Priti Patel, Darmanin called on the British government to set up a proper consular service in Calais, adding that its response so far was “completely unsuitable” and showed a “lack of humanity“ towards refugees who were often “in distress”.
In the letter, seen by the Agence France-Presse news agency, Darmanin wrote: “It is imperative that your consular representation – exceptionally and for the duration of this crisis – is able to issue visas for family reunification on the spot in Calais.”
The minister said it was “incomprehensible” that the UK was able to provide such services on the ground in Poland on the Ukrainian border but could not do so in the its closest neighbour, France. Darmanin told French radio he had contacted Patel twice requesting that the UK set up a consulate in Calais.
Updated
The United States is considering sending planes to Poland if Warsaw decided to send fighter jets to Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Moldova on Sunday.
He said:
We are looking actively now at the question of airplanes that Poland may provide to Ukraine and looking at how we might be able to backfill should Poland decide to supply those planes.
I can’t speak to a timeline but I can just say we’re looking at it very, very actively.
The visit came after Blinken visited NATO-member Poland on Saturday as the alliance bolsters its eastern flank in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Updated
Here is a first-hand account of the invasion of the Ukrainian city last week, as witnessed by two female journalists.
Tuesday 1 March
The first day of spring. It is snowing. We are sleeping in our clothes with our anxiety backpacks nearby. At night there was bombing again in the suburbs. I sleep only four hours.
Wednesday 2 March
Total silence. Everyone is staying at home, reading the news. The city council building was shelled at night. Some areas are without electricity and water. Nineteen civilians were killed.
Exodus from Ukraine is fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two - UNHCR
More than 1.5m refugees have fled Ukraine in the past 10 days in the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the second world war, the United Nations has said.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, tweeted: “More than 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine have crossed into neighbouring countries in 10 days - the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.”
More than 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine have crossed into neighbouring countries in 10 days — the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
— Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi) March 6, 2022
Record numbers of refugees headed into Poland from Ukraine with the total number expected to surpass one million people later on Sunday.
Fresh data shows Polish border guards cleared as many as 129,000 people at border crossings on Saturday, the most in a single day since the war started, bringing the total to 922,400.
At the Medyka crossing, the busiest along Poland’s roughly 500km (310 mile) border with Ukraine, refugees streamed past boxes of clothes laid out along a path from the border crossing while Scouts handed out hot tea, food and toiletries.
Some carried babies, others dogs and cats wrapped in blankets. Many joined a queue for buses to the nearby town Przemysl where friends, relatives and volunteers waited to take them to other cities in Poland and beyond.
Poland’s Ukrainian community of around 1.5m is the region’s largest and makes the country a major destination point for refugees, though fleeing Ukrainians also cross to safety through Slovakia, Hungary and northern Romania.
Officials said many of the refugees who have arrived so far had friends and places to go to but the head of the UN refugee agency told Reuters a growing tide of refugees would put pressure on governments to absorb them.
“Frankly these governments have done very well in their initial response,” Grandi said. “They were well prepared. But if the numbers continue to grow it will be a problem.”
Romania has taken in 227,446 Ukrainians, including 31,628 who arrived on Saturday, border police data showed. More than 163,000 entered Hungary since 24 February.
Updated
Here is a selection of new images coming in to our picture desk this morning.
Ukraine president says Russian forces are preparing to bombard Odessa city
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russian forces are preparing to shell Odessa, a historic port city on the Black Sea coast.
“They are preparing to bomb Odessa. Odessa!” he said in a video address.
Russians have always come to Odessa. They have always felt only warmth in Odessa. Only sincerity. And now what? Bombs against Odessa? Artillery against Odessa? Missiles against Odessa?
It will be a war crime. It will be a historical crime.
Russian forces have made progress in southern Ukraine since their 24 February invasion, overrunning the city of Kherson and besieging the port of Mariupol, but Odessa has so far been largely spared.
Almost a million people live in Odessa, a cosmopolitan harbour on Ukraine’s southern coast with both Ukrainian and Russian speakers and Bulgarian and Jewish minorities.
The Russian advance from occupied Crimea has in part turned east to link up with Russian-backed separatists and to seize the Azov Sea port of Mariupol.
But another part of the force has also headed west to Kherson, on the road towards Odessa. The city is also close to the Moldovan border and the Russian-occupied region of Transnistria.
During the first 11 days of the conflict, Russian forces from Belarus have also advanced on the capital Kyiv from the northwest and northeast, while another group bombarded the northern city of Kharkiv.
Updated
Labour leader Keir Starmer said he was “very concerned” about reports surrounding the appointment of media mogul Lord Evgeny Lebedev to the House of Lords.
The Sunday Times reported [paywall] British intelligence officials withdrew their assessment that giving a peerage to Lord Lebedev posed a national security risk after Boris Johnson intervened.
Starmer told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme:
I’m very concerned about that story, because it goes to the heart of national security and there’s at least the suggestion that the government and the prime minister were warned that there was a national security risk in this particular appointment.
I think, in the circumstances, what the appropriate thing is for the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is a cross-party committee in Parliament that can have access to confidential material - I think this case should be referred to that committee so they can look into this story.
This allegation - which is very serious because, of course, it’s a matter of national security - I hope the Government will answer it today.
The US secretary of state Antony Blinken briefly crossed into Ukraine after meeting with the country’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba.
The pair met at the border with Poland to discuss western efforts to support Ukraine after Russia invaded 10 days ago.
Olha Stefanishyna said despite agreements over ceasefires, Ukrainians would “never trust” what the Russians say.
The Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme every Ukrainian citizen and politician “knows the Russian playbook by heart”.
Stefanishyna hit out at Western leaders who refused to impose a no-fly zone over her country, PA Media reported.
She said:
My president was as precise as it is possible and we absolutely support from the bottom of his, of our, hearts [in] everything he says because this is what we feel.
It is very upsetting when the group of 30 leaders or ministers or even ambassadors are ... gathering itself in a fancy cabinet, with the fancy furniture, and talking about the fancy thing, knowing that Ukraine was over this table for all of [these] years sitting in this fancy offices.
But now knowing that we can’t be there because we are operating under the bombarding of [the] Russian Federation and knowing that their intelligence also confirms that further severe attacks on the civil population - including carpet bombarding of the cities, which are basically happening these days already in some cities - will be taking place.
Volunteers at a railway station in Lviv in western Ukraine are doing all they can to help refugees flee the violence of Putin’s invasion and reach safety.
Lviv is less than 50 miles from the Polish border and thousands of people have been arriving daily from the rest of country.
The Guardian spent the day with one volunteer, Sergyi Mykolaiv.
British deputy prime minister Dominic Raab described talk of an increased threat of Russia using nuclear weapons in its invasion of Ukraine as rhetoric and brinkmanship.
“I think its rhetoric and brinkmanship,” he told Sky News when asked about a possible nuclear escalation by the Kremlin.
“[Putin’s] got a track record as long as anyone’s arm of misinformation and propaganda ... this is a distraction from what the real issues are at hand - which is that it’s an illegal invasion and it is not going according to plan.”
He also again ruled out imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying this would lead to a “massive escalation” and would feed into the Russian president’s narrative.
He said:
We’re not going to get ourselves into a direct military conflict with Putin because that would be a massive escalation, but also that feeds Putin’s narrative.
Putin wants to say that he’s actually in a struggle with the west - he’s not.
He called no-fly zones “very difficult, very challenging” and said “we will do everything short of that to support Ukrainians”.
Updated
More than 2,034 people were detained at anti-war protests on Sunday in cities across Russia, according to an independent Russian-based protest monitor.
The OVD-Info protest monitoring group said people were detained at protests including in the Russian Pacific port city of Vladivostok and the Siberian city of Irkutsk.
Opposition activists posted videos showing protests in other cities.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the information. Reuters was unable to reach spokespeople for the police in either city, or Russia’s interior ministry
The interior ministry warned on Saturday that any attempt to hold unauthorised protests would be prevented and the organisers held to account.
A video posted on social media showed a protester on a square in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk shouting: “No to war - how are you not ashamed” before two policemen detained him.
Police used loudspeakers to tell a small group of protesters in Khabarovsk: “Respected citizens, you are taking part in an unsanctioned public event. We demand you disperse.” Reuters was not able to independently verify the post.
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny had called for protests on Sunday across Russia and the rest of the world against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
About 2,000 people attended an anti-war protest in Kazakhstan’s biggest city Almaty, videos posted on social media showed. Reuters was unable to independently verify the posts.
The crowd shouted slogans such as “No to war” and “Putin is a dickhead”, while waving Ukrainian flags. Activists put blue and yellow balloons in the hand of a Lenin statue towering over the small square where the rally took place.
Updated
Second ceasefire attempt in Mariupol for evacuations
The city council of Mariupol has said a ceasefire will be observed between 10am and 9pm local time today.
However, the evacuation of civilians was postponed yesterday because Russian forces encircling the city were not respecting an agreed ceasefire.
In a statement, the city council had asked residents to return to shelters in the city and await further information on evacuation.
In a televised broadcast, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said Russia was not observing an agreed ceasefire in some areas, preventing a joint plan to allow civilians to evacuate.
It comes as the landmine clearance charity The HALO Trust tweeted that it had restored communications with one of its supervisors today.
They said:
No communication, no water, no electricity, no food in stores.#
Ships, artillery, planes are shooting.
The population is already on the edge. But we’re holding on.
I have no words, this is a living hell.
We briefly regained communications with one of our team on the ground in Mariupol.
— The HALO Trust (@TheHALOTrust) March 6, 2022
We continue to hope and pray for their safety.https://t.co/Q7b0eOy0SH pic.twitter.com/8fNyRwzlKp
Updated
In an address to Ukrainians on Sunday morning, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the many forms of resistance people have chosen to oppose the Russian invasion and called his country “a superpower of spirit.”
The country, he said, was performing at “the maximum of possibilities,” with soldiers fighting but also ordinary people defending towns, hospitals and fire departments. He encouraged residents of occupied areas to protest, if possible.
Ten days into the war, he said, Ukraine had united with “millions of people, which became one whole.”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that he made a “desperate” plea to American lawmakers yesterday for the United States to help get more warplanes to his military.
Zelenskiy opened the private video call with US lawmakers by telling them this may be the last time they see him alive. “President Zelenskiy made a desperate plea,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
He said Zelenskiy wants the US to facilitate the transfer of planes from Eastern European allies. “I will do all I can to help the administration to facilitate their transfer,” Schumer said.
The US is considering sending American-made F-16s as backfill to former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe that are now members of NATO. They, in turn, would send Ukraine their own Soviet-era MiGs, which Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly.
Russia struck and disabled Ukraine’s Starokostiantyniv military air base with long-range high-precision weapons, Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Sunday.
“The Russia armed forces continue to strike the military infrastructure of Ukraine,” Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
“On the morning of 6 March, strikes were carried out by high-precision long-range weapons. The Ukrainian air force base near Starokostiantyniv was disabled.”
He said a Ukrainian-controlled S-300 missile system had also been destroyed by Russian rocket forces. He added that Russia had downed 10 Ukrainian planes and helicopters over the past 24 hours.
I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news over the next two hours.
Before I hand over to my colleague, Tom Ambrose, here is a quick snap of events from the past few hours. A more detailed summary of events can be found here.
- An anti-war rally appears to be underway in Almaty, Kazakhstan according to a slew of social media posts this morning.
- The World Health Organization has confirmed “several” attacks on health care centres in Ukraine which resulted in multiple deaths and injuries, the agency’s chief has said.
-
South Korea will implement export controls against Belarus for “effectively supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine”, Seoul’s foreign ministry said on Sunday, Reuters reports.
- The Ukrainian military is reporting that Russia has lost more than 11,000 military personnel since the invasion began.
- Russian forces are targeting populated areas in Ukraine but the strength of resistance has slowed the Russian advance, British military intelligence reveals.
- Ukraine’s emergency services are reporting casualties from a Russian missile strike which hit residential homes in the Zhytomyr region, about 140km north-west of Kyiv.
- The Ukrainian military released its operational report as of 6am local time, noting its forces have been “fighting fierce battles to maintain certain borders”.
Updated
An anti-war rally appears to be underway in Almaty, Kazakhstan according to a slew of social media posts this morning.
Almaty-based journalist for The Economist, Joanna Lillis, posted a series of photos from the protest alongside the caption: “Lenin decked out in blue and yellow at anti-war rally in Almaty Kazakhstan - ‘no to bloody dictators’ reads the placard.”
In #Almaty, #Kazakhstan, locals joined a #protest rally in support of #Ukraine.
— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) March 6, 2022
Kazakhstan is formally a political and military ally of #Russia. And yet, its people are weary of Russian chauvinism and imperialism which are driving forces of Putin’s barbaric war on Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/qYKDwezsaX
Lenin decked out in blue and yellow at anti-war rally in Almaty #Kazakhstan - "no to bloody dictators" reads the placard #Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/T93F9Le1ES
— Joanna Lillis (@joannalillis) March 6, 2022
The World Health Organization has confirmed “several” attacks on health care centres in Ukraine which resulted in multiple deaths and injuries, the agency’s chief has said.
Additional reports are being investigated, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post to Twitter on Sunday.
“Attacks on healthcare facilities or workers breach medical neutrality and are violations of international humanitarian law,” he added.
.@WHO has confirmed several attacks on health care in #Ukraine, causing multiple deaths and injuries. Additional reports are being investigated. Attacks on healthcare facilities or workers breach medical neutrality and are violations of international humanitarian law. #NotATarget https://t.co/Wdc2jeoHIB
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 6, 2022
South Korea will implement export controls against Belarus for “effectively supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine”, Seoul’s foreign ministry said on Sunday.
The ministry did not detail what measures would be taken, but said they will be applied in a similar way to moves already taken by South Korea against Russia, Reuters reports.
It condemned Moscow as having launched an “armed invasion” of Ukraine.
South Korea said last month it would tighten export controls against Russia by banning shipments of strategic items and join Western countries’ moves to block some Russian banks from the Swift international payments system.
“The Korean government decided today to implement export control measures against Belarus as well, judging that Belarus is effectively supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the ministry said in a statement.
Updated
The Ukrainian military is reporting that Russia has suffered losses of more than 11,000 military personnel since the invasion began.
A total of 285 Russian tanks and 985 armoured combat vehicles were also reported to have been destroyed as well as 109 artillery systems, 44 aircraft and 48 helicopters, according to a report by the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine and published to the website of the Ukrainian ministry of defence.
“Just yesterday, more than 650 wounded members of the Russian occupation forces were taken to the central city hospital in the village of Bryanka, Luhansk region,” the report adds.
“All of them are mostly in serious condition... after providing first aid, they were escorted by an armed convoy from the regular forces of the Russian armed forces to the line of combat to introduce further hostilities as ‘cannon fodder’. It is known that the personnel of the 6th separate motorised rifle regiment is frightened and demoralised, looking for ways to desertion.”
🇺🇦 Загальні бойові втрати противника
— Defence intelligence of Ukraine (@DI_Ukraine) March 6, 2022
З 24.02 по 06.03 орієнтовно становлять:
🇺🇸 Total combat losses of the enemy
From 24.02 to 06.03 are approximately: pic.twitter.com/e3lbBNo9o7
Updated
Strength of Ukraine resistance 'continues to surprise' Russia - British intelligence report
Russian forces are targeting populated areas in Ukraine but the strength of resistance has slowed the Russian advance, British military intelligence reveals.
In its daily intelligence report, the UK’s ministry of defence said the strength of Ukraine’s resistance continues to surprise Russia, which has responded by targeting cities including Kharkiv, Chirnihiv and Mariupol.
The scale and strength of Ukrainian resistance continue to surprise Russia.
[Russia] has responded by targeting populated areas in multiple locations, including Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol.
This is likely to represent an effort to break Ukrainian morale.
Russia has previously used similar tactics in Chechnya in 1999 and Syria in 2016, employing both air and ground-based munitions.
Russia’s supply lines reportedly continue to be targeted, slowing the rate of the advance of their ground forces.”
Russia has repeatedly denied that it is targeting civilian areas.
The intelligence report also says there is a “realistic possibility” that Russia is now “attempting to conceal fuel trucks as regular support trucks in an effort to conceal losses”.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 06 March 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 6, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/xXx8qpSqRp
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/nJjcTJTDtX
Updated
Ukraine’s emergency services are reporting casualties from a Russian missile strike which hit residential homes in the Zhytomyr region, about 140km north-west of Kyiv.
Some 15 private houses were destroyed in the assault in the city of Ovruch, Ukraine’s the state emergency service said in an update on its official Telegram account this morning.
In a seperate attack in Korosten, a town just south of Ovruch, one person was reportedly killed and two injured in an overnight rocket attack, according to the agency.
Ten private houses were said to have been destroyed and one building was burnt down. Five children were rescued from the basement.
Житомирська область
— DSNS.GOV.UA (@SESU_UA) March 6, 2022
Внаслідок ракетного удару по приватному сектору у м. Овруч зруйновано 30 приватних житлових будинків, з них 5 повністю. Попередньо жертв та постраждалих немає. Від ДСНС залучено 10 осіб та 2 од. техніки. pic.twitter.com/QgUuh4NDid
The Ukrainian military has just released its operational report as of 6am local time, noting its forces have been “fighting fierce battles to maintain certain borders”.
A defence operation in the eastern part of the Donetsk operational district is underway while efforts are focused on defending the city of Mariupol, the military said.
According to the report, Russian forces were stopped from an advance towards the Dnipropetrovsk region from Balaklia and an operation to defend the city of Chernihiv is underway.
The report references the “heavy losses in weapons, equipment and personnel” alongside the losses of 88 Russian aircraft and helicopters.
“Some enemy pilots who catapulted and survived were found by Ukrainian soldiers. They have received medical treatment and are already testifying about the Putin regime’s crimes against humanity,” the report read.
Due to the resistance of the entire Ukrainian people, Russian troops have been “demoralised” with “extremely low moral and psychological state ... due to awareness of the real state of affairs” Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said.
Biden and Zelenskiy discuss more support for Ukraine
US President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday to discuss ongoing efforts to impose sanctions on Russia and speed up US military, humanitarian and economic assistance.
A White House statement of a readout of the call reads:
President Biden highlighted the ongoing actions undertaken by the United States, its Allies and partners, and private industry to raise the costs on Russia for its aggression in Ukraine.
In particular, he [Biden] welcomed the decision this evening by Visa and Mastercard to suspend service in Russia.
President Biden noted his administration is surging security, humanitarian, and economic assistance to Ukraine and is working closely with Congress to secure additional funding.”
Zelenskiy confirmed the call, writing over Twitter early Sunday morning:
As part of the constant dialogue, I had another conversation with @POTUS. The agenda included the issues of security, financial support for Ukraine and the continuation of sanctions against Russia.”
As part of the constant dialogue, I had another conversation with @POTUS. The agenda included the issues of security, financial support for Ukraine and the continuation of sanctions against Russia.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 6, 2022
Updated
Thousands of Ukrainian refugees continue to flee their homeland seeking safety in neighbouring countries.
More than 1.3 million Ukrainians have crossed borders since the Russian invasion started on the 24 February in what the United Nations is now calling Europe’s fastest-moving refugee crisis since the end of the second world war. The figure is expected to reach 1.5 million later today.
“This is the fastest-moving refugee crisis we have seen in Europe since the end of the second world war,” UNHCR head Filippo Grandi said.
A representative of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington has said 3,000 US volunteers responded to the Ukraine’s appeal for foreigners to join the “international legion” to help fight the war.
The official said the 3,000 volunteers answered the call in an interview with the Voice of America news service.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced he would be forming an official legion of foreign volunteers, adding just days ago that an estimates 16,000 foreigners had signed up, mostly from other post-Soviet states such as Georgia and Belarus.
Senior US officials traveled to Venezuela on Saturday to meet with President Nicolas Maduro’s government, seeking to determine whether Caracas is prepared to back away from its close ties to Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine, according to a person familiar with the matter, Reuters reports.
The trip is the highest-level US visit to Venezuela in years after the two countries broke diplomatic relations amid a campaign of US sanctions and diplomatic pressure aimed at ousting Maduro, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
China opposes any move that adds 'fuel to the flames'
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke earlier by phone with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, who said Beijing opposes any moves that “add fuel to the flames” in Ukraine, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and as reported by the Associated Press.
Yi said the “evolution” of the situation in Ukraine is “something China does not want to see,” adding that the Ukraine crisis should be solved through “dialogue and negotiation” and called on the United States, Nato, and the European Union to engage in “equal dialogue” with Russia. He said they should “pay attention to the negative impact of Nato’s continuous eastward expansion on Russia’s security.”
“China supports all efforts conducive to de-escalation and political settlement of the situation, while opposing any moves which are adverse to promoting a diplomatic solution and add fuel to the flames,” Wang said.
With international outrage and sanctions mounting against Russia, Beijing is scrambling to avoid being tainted by association with Moscow while also maintaining their increasingly close ties.
Once Cold War rivals, China and Russia have moved increasingly closer since Xi Jinping took power nearly a decade ago, driven by their shared desire to confront US power.
According to Agence France-Presse, China seems to have been “caught flat-footed” by Russia’s military offensive, fierce Ukrainian resistance, and the volume of the resulting international anti-Kremlin backlash.
The situation has effectively paralysed China, according to Richard Ghiasy, an expert at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.
“Security interests virtually always trump economic interests” in China’s calculus, and it will not fundamentally shift toward a more pro-Ukraine stance, he told AFP.
Russia is “a giant, nuclear-armed and resource-rich neighbour” that China won’t risk agitating, Ghiasy said.
Beijing, which has long demanded respect for territorial integrity in border disputes with its own neighbours, has been forced into rhetorical contortions on Ukraine to avoid upsetting Russia.
While maintaining lip service to national sovereignty, China has insisted that Moscow’s security concerns regarding Ukraine and the broader expansion of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) are valid.
Updated
Summary
Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you as we continue to monitor the crisis unfolding in Ukraine.
Russia’s war on its neighbour continues for its tenth day and well into its second week. It is 7am in Ukraine and here is where the situation currently stands:
- US president Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to discuss ongoing efforts to impose sanctions on Russia and speed up US military, humanitarian and economic assistance. The White House said during the call the pair also discussed talks between Russia and Ukraine, but offered no additional details.
- Britain’s prime minister Boris Johnson issued a six-point plan in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is urging other leaders to endorse it in efforts to ensure Russia fails in its apparent attempt to take over its democratic neighbour.
- Zelenskiy also said he spoke to SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk, announcing the country will receive more of its Starlink satellite internet terminals this coming week.
- US-based credit card giants Visa and Mastercard announced they will suspend their Russian business operations.
- The Ukrainian military said Russian forces continue to focus on Kyiv while moving ahead with assaults on Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and the creation of a land corridor with Crimea, in its latest operational report. The report said aircraft from airports in Belarusian territory were involved in air strikes on military and civilian infrastructure in Kyiv and Zhytomyr.
- US-based think tank and policy research organisation, the Institute for the Study of War, released a report saying Russian forces in Ukraine may have entered a possibly brief operational pause as they prepare to resume operations against Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, and possibly Odesa in the next 24-48 hours.
- The relief effort to distribute humanitarian aid to Ukraine has stepped up as volunteers across the country work tirelessly to gather basic necessities to give to refugees and prepare food supplies for the army to be sent to the frontline.
- The humanitarian situation in the southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol is “catastrophic” and it is vital that civilians be evacuated, a senior official from the NGO Doctors Without Borders warned.
- The International Monetary Fund announced it could approve $1.4 billion emergency funding as early as next week as the body warns of war’s “severe impact” on the global economy.
- Western sanctions on Russia are a stumbling block to revived Iran nuclear deal, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said.
- Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba met with US secretary of state Antony Blinken, saying Ukraine “will win this war” but needs more help from Nato.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dymtro Kuleba, appealed for more military assistance while Reuters reports Zelenskiy made a “desperate plea” for eastern Europe to provide Russian-made aircraft to Ukraine. In a call with US senators, he is also understood to have called for a no-fly zone, lethal aid, a ban on Russian oil and a suspension of Visa and Mastercard in Russia.
- The US is reportedly in discussions with Poland on the possibility of Poland providing more fighter jets to Ukraine with the US potentially agreeing to backfill Poland’s fleet of fighter planes if Warsaw decides to transfer its used MiG-29s to Ukraine, four US officials told POLITICO.
- Russia and Ukraine plan another round of talks on Monday, even though previous talks that produced an agreement to a limited ceasefire in order to protect corridors for civilian have not been honoured by Russia.
- The United Nations recorded 351 civilians killed and 707 injured in Ukraine, according to the UN high commissioner for human rights.
- Tens of thousands joined rallies around the world in support of Ukraine over the weekend, gathering in cities across Europe, the US and South America to demand an end to Russia’s invasion.
For any tips and feedback please contact me through Twitter or at samantha.lock@theguardian.com
