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Here is a little more on our earlier story on how Ukrainians are renaming streets and squares associated with Russia.
Cities in Ukraine have in recent days begun to rename streets associated with Russian figures or to dismantle monuments related to the Soviet Union.
The city of Ternopil, in western Ukraine, has renamed a street dedicated to the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and removed a Soviet tank and aircraft. The aircraft is to be replaced with a “heroes of Ukraine” monument.
Fontanka, a village near Odesa, decided to turn a street dedicated to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky into Boris Johnson Street, after the UK promised to send a £100m weapons package to Ukraine.
And the mayor of Dnipro, Borys Filatov, said streets named after Russian towns would be rededicated to Ukrainian cities and symbols: Abkhazia Street became Irpin, while the street of the 30th Irkutsk Division is now called Ukrainian Soldiers.
Russia has nearly doubled its revenues from selling fossil fuels to the EU during the two months of war in Ukraine, benefiting from soaring prices even as volumes have been reduced, Guardian reporter Fiona Harvey writes for us today.
Russia has received about €62bn from exports of oil, gas and coal in the two months since the invasion began, according to an analysis of shipping movements and cargos by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
For the EU, imports were about €44bn for the past two months, compared with about €140bn for the whole of last year, or roughly €12bn a month.
The findings demonstrate how Russia has continued to benefit from its stranglehold over Europe’s energy supply, even while governments have frantically sought to prevent Vladimir Putin using oil and gas as an economic weapon.
A number of Ukrainian cities plan to rename streets and squares associated with Russia under a process of “derussification” following Moscow’s invasion.
A day after the dismantling of a huge Soviet-era monument in Kyiv that was meant to symbolise friendship between Russia and Ukraine, the city council said on Wednesday it had compiled a list of 467 locations that could be considered for renaming, Reuters reports.
They included a central square named after 19th century writer Leo Tolstoy and a street named Russia’s Lake Baikal. A road named after Minsk, the capital of close Russian ally Belarus, was also on the list.
Since Ukraine declared independence of the Soviet Union in 1991, the names of some cities have been changed to erase the legacy of hated Soviet officials. Some officials now want to remove the names of Russian authors, poets and mountain ranges, the news agency reports.
Ihor Terekhov, mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, said on Wednesday that as soon as the war with Russia was over, he would table a bill to his city council to rename places with Russian-affiliated names.
“Even without these names, there will be too many scars that will remind us for a long time about what kind of neighbour is beyond our eastern and northern borders,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Cities and towns in Ukraine’s north have started the process of renaming streets after army units that defended them.
Under a proposal by the governor of the Chernihiv region, streets or squares in the regional capital would be renamed after the 1st Separate Tank Brigade.
Here are some of the latest images to come out Ukraine today.
Countries opposed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must double down on their support for Kyiv, including the supply of heavy weapons, tanks and aeroplanes, British foreign secretary Liz Truss has said.
So far Britain, EU states, the US and other allies have supplied weaponry to help Ukrainian forces fight the Russian army, but they have stopped short of engaging in direct conflict with Moscow.
Truss outlined a new approach in which countries should spend more on defence, and where Nato takes a more global outlook while economic dependency on aggressor nations is reduced.
Watch the video of Truss’ remarks below.
Russia has deployed trained military dolphins at its naval base in the Black Sea – possibly to protect its fleet from an underwater attack – according to new analysis of satellite images.
The US Naval Institute (USNI) reviewed satellite imagery of the naval base at Sevastopol harbor, and concluded that two dolphin pens were moved to the base in February at the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has a history of training dolphins for military purposes, using the aquatic mammal to retrieve objects or deter enemy divers.
The Sevastopol naval base is crucial for the Russian military, as it sits in the southern tip of Crimea which Moscow seized in 2014. According to the USNI’s analysis, many of the Russian ships anchored there, while out of range from missiles, are potentially vulnerable to undersea attacks.
Ukraine had also trained dolphins at an aquarium near Sevastopol, in a program born out of a Soviet-era scheme that fell into neglect in the 1990s.
During the cold war, both the US and the Soviet Union developed the use of dolphins whose echolocation capabilities can allow them to detect underwater objects such as mines.
Updated
A supplemental budget request that includes Ukraine aid could be sent to the Congress as soon as Thursday, the White House said on Wednesday.
The plan will cover military, humanitarian and economic assistance for Ukraine, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters.
More than 4,000 applications have been filed to sponsor Ukrainians seeking to come to the US within 48 hours of the Biden administration launching ‘Uniting for Ukraine,’ a streamlined process for those fleeing war-torn Ukraine, a USCIS spokesperson told CNN.
The move comes come nearly one month after Biden pledged to admit up to 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion and is designed to more quickly get Ukrainians interested in coming to the US.
“This new humanitarian parole program will complement the existing legal pathways available to Ukrainians, including immigrant visas and refugee processing. It will provide an expedient channel for secure legal migration from Europe to the United States for Ukrainians who have a US sponsor, such as a family or an NGO,” Biden said.
Fresh from his visit to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin, the UN Secretary General António Guterres arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday where he is due to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to the media as he arrives in Kyiv, Ukraine on Wednesday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
I have arrived in Ukraine after visiting Moscow.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) April 27, 2022
We will continue our work to expand humanitarian support & secure the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones.
The sooner this war ends, the better – for the sake of Ukraine, Russia, and the world.
Updated
The rouble soared to a more than two-year high against the euro in Moscow trade on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Russia halted gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland for rejecting its demand for payment in roubles on Wednesday.
By 2:18pm GMT, the rouble had gained 1.8% to trade at 75.43 versus the euro , its strongest since early March 2020.
It was 1.1% stronger against the dollar at 72.75 .
Summary so far
- Vladimir Putin has warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow. In an address to lawmakers in St Petersburg, the Russian president said troops would use “all the tools for this — ones that no one can brag about”.
- The crisis in Ukraine must be the “catalyst for change” to overhaul the west’s approach to international security, the UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said. Truss described Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, as a “desperate rogue operator with no interest in international norms” and called upon the west to “dig deep” into its weapons inventories. “We’ve got to double down on our support for Ukraine,” she said.
- The UK is “digging deep” into its inventories, including heavy weapons, tanks and aeroplanes, to defend Ukraine and other countries threatened by Russia, Truss added. “Some argue we shouldn’t provide heavy weapons for fear of provoking something worse. But my view, is that inaction would be the greatest provocation,” she said.
-
Truss singled out China, demanding it “play by the rules”. “China is not impervious. They will not continue to rise if they do not play by the rules. China needs trade with the G7. We represent around half of the global economy. And we have choices. We have shown with Russia the kind of choices that we’re prepared to make when international rules are violated,” she said.
- The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has arrived in Ukraine after meeting with Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow. Guterres will meet with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Thursday, a UN spokesperson said.
- Russia has warned other EU customers may be cut off from Russian natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s comments came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders denounced as “blackmail”, which the Kremlin later denied. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described Russia’s move as “a direct attack” on Poland.
- The White House denounced Russia’s move to cut off energy supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a daily briefing on Wednesday: “Unfortunately this is the type of step, the type of almost weaponising energy supplies that we had predicted that Russia could take in this conflict.”
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described Russia’s actions as amounting to “energy blackmail” against Europe in his nightly national address. Zelenskiy said Russia’s decision to cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria shows “no one in Europe can hope to maintain any normal economic cooperation with Russia”.
- A Ukrainian commander in the besieged city of Mariupol said there are more than 600 injured civilians and fighters in the Azovstal steel works. Serhiy Volyna, acting commander of the 36th marine brigade, said hundreds of civilians including children were living in unsanitary conditions and running out of food and water. Officials earlier said Russian forces were again attacking the huge steel plant.
- The interior ministry of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria issued a statement claiming it came under attack from Ukraine. It said drones were spotted and shots were fired near Kolbasna, which it claims contains one of the largest ammunition dumps in Europe.
- A former head of the Polish army has accused Boris Johnson of “tempting evil” by revealing that Ukrainian soldiers were being trained in Poland in how to use British anti-aircraft missiles before returning with them to Ukraine. Gen Waldemar Skrzypczak complained that a loose-lipped PM had revealed too much to the Russians and that his remarks risked the safety of the soldiers involved.
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Belarus has moved to make attempted acts of terrorism punishable by the death penalty after activists tried to sabotage parts of the railway network to make it harder for Russia to deploy forces into Ukraine for its invasion. The Belarusian lower house of parliament approved the change to the criminal code, which now needs backing from the upper house and Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, before entering force.
- The European Commission has proposed suspending import duties on all Ukrainian products to help the country’s economy during the war with Russia. The proposed one-year suspension, which would need to be approved by the European Parliament and its 27 member states, comes a day after Britain announced it was dropping all tariffs on Ukrainian goods.
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Russia’s foreign ministry announced sanctions on 287 members of Britain’s House of Commons, accusing them of “whipping up Russophobic hysteria”. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said those members who had been hit with sanctions by Russia should regard it as “a badge of honour”.
- A former US marine held in a Russian jail has been released in exchange for a Russian citizen held in US detention. US President Joe Biden said negotiations for the release of Trevor Reed, 30, “required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly”.
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A top executive at one of Russia’s largest private banks said he has quit his post and fled to Kyiv to fight for Ukraine. In an interview with the independent Russian news outlet The Insider, Ukrainian-born Igor Volobuev, vice president of Gazprombank, said he “could no longer be in Russia” and that he wants to “wash off” his Russian past.
- US secretary of state Antony Blinken told Congress that the US is working on reopening its embassy in Ukraine. “I think this will play out over the next few weeks,” he said. Blinken also added there there are “very credible reports” that Russians have been “booby-trapping things like peoples’ washing machines and toys so that when people are able to return home and go about their lives, they’re killed or injured”.
- The US government is providing $670m in food assistance to combat food insecurity due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government announced today. The money will come from the agriculture department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
- The Kremlin is planning to hold “referendums” in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine about joining Russia, according to the Latvia-based news outlet Meduza. Ukrainian officials had previously warned that Russia was planning to conduct such sham referendums in the near future as a way to force men in the region to be drafted for military mobilization.
- Two American volunteers fighting in Ukraine were reportedly wounded by artillery fire near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region. US army veterans Manus McCaffrey and Paul Gray were working together as a team targeting Russian tanks with Javelin anti-tank systems when they were injured, according to reports.
- The total losses inflicted upon Ukraine from the war have reached $600 billion, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. “More than 32 million square meters of living space, more than 1,500 educational facilities and more than 350 medical facilities have been destroyed or damaged,” he added. “About 2,500km of roads and almost 300 bridges have been ruined or damaged.”
Canadian lawmakers have voted unanimously to call Russia’s attacks in Ukraine a “genocide”, with members of parliament saying there was “ample evidence of systemic and massive war crimes against humanity” being committed by Moscow.
The Canadian House of Commons’ motion said war crimes by Russia include mass atrocities, systematic instances of wilful killing of Ukrainian civilians, the desecration of corpses, forcible transfer of Ukrainian children, torture, physical harm, mental harm, and rape, Reuters reports.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was “absolutely right” for more and more people to describe Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide, supporting an accusation made by US President Joe Biden a day earlier.
Uniper, Germany’s top importer of Russian gas, will transfer payments for Russian gas to a Russian bank and no longer to a Europe-based bank, newspaper Rheinische Post is reporting.
“The plan is to make our payments in euros to an account in Russia,” the daily paper cited a Uniper spokesperson as saying.
Even though Russia has demanded rouble payments for its gas, the payments system it has proposed foresees the use of accounts at Gazprombank, which would convert payments made in euros or dollars into roubles.
This offers wiggle room some countries could try to use to keep buying Russian gas against western currencies.
The European Commission said last week that if buyers of Russian gas confirmed payment was complete once they had deposited euros, as opposed to later when the euros have been converted to roubles, that would not breach sanctions.
Uniper said it considered Russian gas flows into Germany secure for now despite a halt in supplies to Poland and Bulgaria as transit volumes headed elsewhere would be unaffected.
Russia considers gas and 'any trade' as a weapon, Zelenskiy says
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also addressed what he called Russia’s “energy blackmail” against Europe in his nightly national address.
Zelenskiy said Russia’s decision to cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria shows “no one in Europe can hope to maintain any normal economic cooperation with Russia”.
This week, Russia’s leadership launched a new series of energy blackmail of Europeans. The decision to cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria is another argument in favour of the fact that no one in Europe can hope to maintain any normal economic cooperation with Russia.
Russia considers not only gas, but any trade as a weapon. It is just waiting for the moment when one or another trade area can be used. To blackmail Europeans politically. Or to strengthen Russia’s military machine, which sees a united Europe as a target.
Hence, the sooner everyone in Europe admits that it is inadmissible to depend on Russia in trade, the sooner it will be possible to guarantee stability in European markets.”
The White House has denounced Russia’s move to cut off energy supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.
Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a daily briefing on Wednesday:
Unfortunately this is the type of step, the type of almost weaponising energy supplies that we had predicted that Russia could take in this conflict.
And we have been working for some time now, for months, with partners around the world to diversify natural gas supply to Europe to — in anticipation of and to also address near-term needs and replace volumes that would otherwise come from Russia.”
Kazakhstan may declare a prominent Russian television host persona non grata after he said the central Asian nation could meet the same fate as Ukraine if it did not side decisively with Russia, a Kazakh official said on Wednesday.
Reuters has this report below:
Tigran Keosayan - married to Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT - said on his YouTube show that Kazakhstan was being “ungrateful” and “sly” by failing to show its support for Russia.
Kazakh foreign ministry spokesperson Aibek Smadiyarov said Keosayan’s comments were “insulting” and lacked objectivity.
Perhaps his statement reflects the views of some parts of the Russian public and political establishment, but it goes against the spirit and essence of the cooperation between our countries and the existing agreements between our leaders,” he added.
I expect he will be included in the list of people who are not welcome in Kazakhstan.”
Kazakhstan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic, has so far not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has called for the crisis to be resolved in line with the United Nations charter. It has also sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and has said it will abide by Western sanctions against Moscow.
A snapshot of daily life in Ukraine is seen in the home below.
Ukraine’s losses from war reach $600 billion, Zelenskiy says
The total losses inflicted upon Ukraine from the war have reached $600 billion, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
The president met with local and regional authorities on Wednesday to discuss Ukraine’s post war reconstruction. Zelenskiy said:
Preliminary estimates of Ukraine’s losses from this war reach $600 billion today. More than 32 million square meters of living space, more than 1,500 educational facilities and more than 350 medical facilities have been destroyed or damaged.
Economic entities suffered huge losses – hundreds of enterprises have been destroyed. About 2,500km of roads and almost 300 bridges have been ruined or damaged. And it’s not just statistics. This is Mariupol, this is Volnovakha, this is Okhtyrka, this is Chernihiv, this is Borodianka and dozens or dozens of our cities, towns and villages.”
According to the president, more than 11.5 million Ukrainians have fled their homes due to the fighting, and about 5 million of them have gone abroad with 95% of migrants already wanting to return home.
Damage caused to Ukraine’s infrastructure as a result of the war has reached almost $90 billion, the country’s minister of infrastructure added.
Most of the damage has been inflicted on railway, road and bridge infrastructure, Oleksandr Kubrakov said.
Updated
Truss singled out China, which has refused to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, while increasing imports from Russia and commenting on “who should or shouldn’t be a Nato member”.
Countries must play by the rules.
And that includes China...
China is not impervious. They will not continue to rise if they do not play by the rules.
China needs trade with the G7. We represent around half of the global economy. And we have choices.
We have shown with Russia the kind of choices that we’re prepared to make when international rules are violated.”
Inaction would be the 'greatest provocation', Truss says
Truss detailed what the new west’s approach to international security could look like: military strength, economic security and deeper global alliances.
“Firstly, we need to strengthen our collective defence,” she said, admitting that “the world should have done more to deter the invasion” and vowing to “never make that same mistake again”.
Some argue we shouldn’t provide heavy weapons for fear of provoking something worse. But my view, is that inaction would be the greatest provocation. This is a time for courage not for caution.”
Truss said the G7 group of leading industrialised nations should act as an “economic Nato” defending collective prosperity, while the western military alliance must be prepared to open its doors to countries such as Finland and Sweden.
At the same time, the UK needed to build a series of strong partnerships with like-minded countries around the world in a “network of liberty”.
In Europe, Finland and Sweden should, if they choose to join Nato, be integrated into the alliance “as soon as possible”, while states like Moldova and Georgia - which are not Nato members - should have the means to maintain their sovereignty and freedom.
Nato, which has traditionally been focused on the defence of Europe, needed to adopt a “global outlook”, working with allies like Japan and Australia to ensure the Pacific is protected and democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.
We need a global Nato,” Truss said. “By that I don’t mean extending the membership to those from other regions. I mean that Nato must have a global outlook, ready to tackle global threats.”
Truss said they had to be prepared to stand up to “aggressors” who try to exploit their economic power as a “tool of foreign policy” to exert control and to coerce others.
Access to the global economy must depend on playing by the rules. There can be no more free passes.
We are showing this with the Russia-Ukraine conflict - Russia’s pass has been rescinded.
The G7 should act as an economic Nato, collectively defending our prosperity. If the economy of a partner is being targeted by an aggressive regime we should act to support them. All for one and one for all.”
Updated
West must overhaul approach to international security: UK foreign secretary
The crisis in Ukraine must be the “catalyst for change” to overhaul the west’s approach to international security, the UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.
Speaking at Mansion House in London on Wednesday evening, Truss described Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, as a “desperate rogue operator with no interest in international norms” and called upon the west to “dig deep” into its weapons inventories.
Faced with appalling barbarism and war crimes, which we’d hoped had been consigned to history, the free world has united behind Ukraine in its brave fight for freedom and self-determination.
Those who think they can win through oppression, coercion or invasion are being proved wrong by this new stand on global security – one that not only seeks to deter, but also ensures that aggressors fail.
We cannot be complacent – the fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance.
But let’s be clear – if Putin succeeds there will be untold further misery across Europe and terrible consequences across the globe. We would never feel safe again.
So we must be prepared for the long haul. We’ve got to double down on our support for Ukraine. And we must also follow through on the unity shown in the crisis. We must reboot, recast and remodel our approach.”
We must learn the lessons from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. This has to be a catalyst for change to protect the free world.
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) April 27, 2022
We need a new approach based on military strength, economic security and deeper alliances.
My speech tonight 👇https://t.co/BSZh2jLBQa
Truss said recent events over the past months must be “a catalyst for wider change”.
Now we need a new approach, one that melds hard security and economic security, one that builds stronger global alliances and where free nations are more assertive and self-confident, one that recognises geopolitics is back.”
In the short term, the foreign secretary suggested the west should be “digging deep into our inventories [and] ramping up production” of heavy weapons, tanks and planes while sanctions against Russia needed to go further to include cutting off oil and gas imports “once and for all”.
We are doubling down.
We will keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.
And this has to be a catalyst for wider change ...
The war in Ukraine is our war – it is everyone’s war because Ukraine’s victory is a strategic imperative for all of us.”
Updated
Today so far
- Vladimir Putin has warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow. In an address to lawmakers in St Petersburg, the Russian president said troops would use “all the tools for this — ones that no one can brag about”.
-
Two American volunteers fighting in Ukraine were reportedly wounded by artillery fire near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region. US army veterans Manus McCaffrey and Paul Gray were working together as a team targeting Russian tanks with Javelin anti-tank systems when they were injured, according to reports.
- The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has arrived in Ukraine after meeting with Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow. Guterres will meet with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Thursday, a UN spokesperson said.
-
Russia has warned other EU customers may be cut off from Russian natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s comments came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders denounced as “blackmail”, which the Kremlin later denied. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described Russia’s move as “a direct attack” on Poland.
- A Ukrainian commander in the besieged city of Mariupol said there are more than 600 injured civilians and fighters in the Azovstal steel works. Serhiy Volyna, acting commander of the 36th marine brigade, said hundreds of civilians including children were living in unsanitary conditions and running out of food and water. Officials earlier said Russian forces were again attacking the huge steel plant.
- The interior ministry of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria issued a statement claiming it came under attack from Ukraine. It said drones were spotted and shots were fired near Kolbasna, which it claims contains one of the largest ammunition dumps in Europe.
- A woman was killed in the Russian shelling of a hospital in the east Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk today, the regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said. The hospital was one of only two still operational in the area, he said, alongside video footage showing caved-in brick walls, broken hospital beds, and glass and rubble inside a building.
- A former head of the Polish army has accused Boris Johnson of “tempting evil” by revealing that Ukrainian soldiers were being trained in Poland in how to use British anti-aircraft missiles before returning with them to Ukraine. Gen Waldemar Skrzypczak complained that a loose-lipped PM had revealed too much to the Russians and that his remarks risked the safety of the soldiers involved.
-
Belarus has moved to make attempted acts of terrorism punishable by the death penalty after activists tried to sabotage parts of the railway network to make it harder for Russia to deploy forces into Ukraine for its invasion. The Belarusian lower house of parliament approved the change to the criminal code, which now needs backing from the upper house and Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, before entering force.
- The European Commission has proposed suspending import duties on all Ukrainian products to help the country’s economy during the war with Russia. The proposed one-year suspension, which would need to be approved by the European Parliament and its 27 member states, comes a day after Britain announced it was dropping all tariffs on Ukrainian goods.
-
Russia’s foreign ministry announced sanctions on 287 members of Britain’s House of Commons, accusing them of “whipping up Russophobic hysteria”. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said those members who had been hit with sanctions by Russia should regard it as “a badge of honour”.
- A former US marine held in a Russian jail has been released in exchange for a Russian citizen held in US detention. US President Joe Biden said negotiations for the release of Trevor Reed, 30, “required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly”.
-
A top executive at one of Russia’s largest private banks said he has quit his post and fled to Kyiv to fight for Ukraine. In an interview with the independent Russian news outlet The Insider, Ukrainian-born Igor Volobuev, vice president of Gazprombank, said he “could no longer be in Russia” and that he wants to “wash off” his Russian past.
- US secretary of state Antony Blinken told Congress today that the US is working on reopening its embassy in Ukraine. “I think this will play out over the next few weeks,” he said.Blinken also added there there are “very credible reports” that Russians have been “booby-trapping things like peoples’ washing machines and toys so that when people are able to return home and go about their lives, they’re killed or injured”.
- The US government is providing $670m in food assistance to combat food insecurity due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government announced today. The money will come from the agriculture department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
- The Kremlin is planning to hold “referendums” in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine about joining Russia, according to the Latvia-based news outlet Meduza. Ukrainian officials had previously warned that Russia was planning to conduct such sham referendums in the near future as a way to force men in the region to be drafted for military mobilization.
– Lauren Aratani Léonie Chao-Fong
‘People here will simply die’: Ukrainian commander makes plea for Mariupol evacuation – video
A Ukrainian marine commander in the besieged city of Mariupol has made a plea for the evacuation of troops and civilians holed up in the Azovstal steel plant: “I have appealed to all world leaders, I have appealed to world diplomats, I have appealed to Pope Francis, I have shouted at the top of my voice, asking for us to be extracted.”
In a video posted online on Wednesday, Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th marine brigade forces in Mariupol, urged the international community to help evacuate Ukrainian fighters and hundreds of civilians trapped in the plant.
Updated
Where is Transnistria and why is it being drawn into Ukraine war?
Guardian staff and agencies:
Where is Transnistria and what is its status?
The predominantly Russian-speaking region wedged between the Dniester River and the Ukraine border seceded from Moldova after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1992, the separatists fought a war with Moldova’s pro-western government, which ended in hundreds of deaths and the intervention of the Russian army on the rebels’ side.
In a 2006 referendum that was not recognised by the international community, 97.1% of voters backed joining Russia, dealing a blow to Moldova’s hopes of following Romania and other ex-communist eastern European states into the EU.
Transnistria is controlled by pro-Russian separatists and permanently hosts 1,500 Russian troops as well as a large arms depot.
How closely tied are Transnistria and Russia?
Transnistria still uses the Cyrillic alphabet and has its own currency (the Transnistrian ruble), security forces and passport, although most of its estimated 465,000 residents have dual or triple Moldovan, Russian or Ukrainian nationality.
The majority of the population is Russian-speaking, while the rest of Moldova is dominated by Romanian speakers.
Moscow props up Transnistria’s economy, supplying free gas and keeping troops stationed there, in effect creating a Russian satellite on the borders of the EU.
Transnistria is also awash with Soviet symbols.
Its flag is emblazoned with a hammer and sickle, a huge statue of Lenin looms over the centre of its main city, Tiraspol, and a bust of the Bolshevik leader sits outside the town hall, or House of Soviets.
What does Russia say?
Russian president Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, on Tuesday told journalists that he was “concerned” about the news that came out of Transnistria, while the leader of the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, told RIA Novosti that Moscow should “take into account what is happening in Transnistria” when planning the next stage of its military campaign.
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What does Moldova say?
Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, has made clear her opposition to Transnistria’s secession.
She wants Russian troops stationed along Transnistria’s frontier with Moldova to be replaced with an observer mission from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a proposal rejected by Moscow.
After a meeting of her security council this week, Sandu said certain unnamed “forces inside Transnistria” were in “favour of war” and were interested in destabilising the situation in the region.
Western war aims are growing. But how much more will Nato commit to Ukraine?
Step by step, the west’s war aims are expanding. What began as an effort to supply “defensive weapons” to Ukraine has evolved into an attempt to provide heavier weaponry. This week Germany and the UK agreed to supply armoured anti-aircraft artillery vehicles to keep Russia’s air force at bay.
On Monday Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said the west’s goal was to “weaken Russia” to the point where it could no longer invade or threaten its neighbours.
A day later the British junior defence minister James Heappey said it would be “completely legitimate” for Ukraine to use western weapons to strike inside Russia if need be.
These are different, more specific, statements, compared with some of the broad-brush rhetoric used in the early phase of the war when Russian forces were menacing Kyiv, and Ukraine’s crisis seemed existential.
“Vladimir Putin’s act of aggression must fail and be seen to fail,” Boris Johnson wrote in March. It was a generalised observation by the British prime minister that tactfully avoided spelling out any specific outcome.
Yet the language has toughened as the conflict has stalled. On the ground Russia’s well-telegraphed assault on the Donbas is still only gradually unfolding, with the gain of a handful of villages near Izyum, where the attempt to envelop Ukraine’s forces continues without any sign of a breakthrough, hindered by rainy weather, strong resistance and command and control problems
Updated
US secretary of state Antony Blinken told Congress today that the US is working on reopening its embassy in Ukraine. “I think this will play out over the next few weeks,” he said.
Blinken also added there there are “very credible reports” that Russians have been “booby-trapping things like peoples’ washing machines and toys so that when people are able to return home and go about their lives, they’re killed or injured”.
Blinken: “There are very credible reports” that the Russians have been “booby trapping things like peoples’ washing machines and toys so that when people are able to return home and go about their lives, they're killed or injured as a result of these booby traps.”
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) April 27, 2022
Blinken in his and defense secretary Lloyd Austin’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday told the Ukrainian president that the US was working on getting its diplomats back into the country. On Wednesday, the state department said that diplomats had traveled from Poland to Lviv in western Ukraine.
Updated
A report from Microsoft says that state-supported Russian hackers have conducted “relentless and destructive” cyber-attacks in Ukraine, destroying the data of governmental and infrastructure organizations. Microsoft said that it has observed nearly 40 attacks, “targeting hundreds of systems”.
“The attacks have not only degraded the systems of institutions in Ukraine but have also sought to disrupt people’s access to reliable information and critical life services on which civilians depend, and have attempted to shake confidence in the country’s leadership. We have also observed limited espionage attack activity involving other Nato member states, and some disinformation activity,” Microsoft said in its report.
Updated
An artist in Cologne, Germany, put a giant protest poster of Vladimir Putin as a banana on the side of a house.
Putin in a prison jumpsuit on the wall of a house in #Cologne
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) April 27, 2022
The author of the work is the famous #German artist Thomas Baumgärtel. His " signature" is bananas, which he draws on walls all over the world. Baumgärtel previously painted Trump and Erdogan in a similar style. pic.twitter.com/IoQe66PTHu
Updated
Reuters is reporting that a giant steel plant in Kryvyi Rih, central Ukraine’s largest city, is slowly starting up again after shutting down at the start of the Russian invasion. Here’s more from Reuters:
A giant steel plant in Ukraine’s central city of Kryvyi Rih is slowly resuming work, although the conflict in the country rages on, and Russian troops are only 60 kilometres (37 miles) away.
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih - not the large steel plant in Mariupol where fighters are holed up - began restarting one of its blast furnaces on April 9, after shutting down all four when the February invasion began.
The plant, one of Ukraine’s largest, has further plans to restart a second furnace by May if the situation remains stable, according to CEO Mauro Longobardo.
“Sixty kilometres from here there are these (Russian) troops, so we don’t know what is going to happen today or tomorrow, and we hope that the Ukrainian army will be able to push them back,” Longobardo told Reuters on Wednesday.
“Of course we recognise the risk, and need to be realistic, because the plant cannot be hit only by the land troops, but it can be also hit by rockets,” he said. Any damage to the country’s railway infrastructure would also affect its ability to export, he said.
The plant and nearby mines operated by ArcelorMittal are functioning with around 94% of their original staff, the company said. Other workers have been called into military service or evacuated to western Ukraine.
According to staff, the last time the over-80-year-old plant shut down all blast furnaces was during World War Two, when the plant was destroyed.
The US government is providing $670m in food assistance to combat food insecurity due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government announced today. The money will come from the agriculture department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The agencies are allocating $282m in US food commodities to six countries in the Horn of Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen. Another $388m will go toward logistics, including transportation and shipping.
The U.S. is providing more than $200 million in additional humanitarian assistance for the Horn of Africa region. We remain deeply concerned about the worsening humanitarian crisis and call on the donor community to contribute generously to the response.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) April 27, 2022
Drought in eastern Africa has caused severe food shortages across the region, exacerbated by the impact of the war. The United Nations estimates there are more than 13 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia facing food insecurity due to the drought.
Updated
This is Lauren Aratani taking over for Léonie Chao-Fong.
The Kremlin is planning to hold “referendums” in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine about joining Russia, according to the Latvia-based news outlet Meduza.
Meduza, citing sources close to the Kremlin, reports Putin wants to hold “referendums” in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts about joining Russia next month.
— max seddon (@maxseddon) April 27, 2022
Notably, they were meant to have happened already, but have been postponed by battlefield setbackshttps://t.co/DX9UVgZVJ1
Ukrainian officials had previously warned that Russia was planning to conduct such sham referendums in the near future as a way to force men in the region to be drafted for military mobilization.
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Summary
It is 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand now:
- Vladimir Putin has warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow. In an address to lawmakers in St Petersburg, the Russian president said troops would use “all the tools for this — ones that no one can brag about”.
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Two American volunteers fighting in Ukraine were reportedly wounded by artillery fire near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region. US army veterans Manus McCaffrey and Paul Gray were working together as a team targeting Russian tanks with Javelin anti-tank systems when they were injured, according to reports.
- The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has arrived in Ukraine after meeting with Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow. Guterres will meet with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Thursday, a UN spokesperson said.
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Russia has warned other EU customers may be cut off from Russian natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s comments came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders denounced as “blackmail”, which the Kremlin later denied. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described Russia’s move as “a direct attack” on Poland.
- A Ukrainian commander in the besieged city of Mariupol said there are more than 600 injured civilians and fighters in the Azovstal steel works. Serhiy Volyna, acting commander of the 36th marine brigade, said hundreds of civilians including children were living in unsanitary conditions and running out of food and water. Officials earlier said Russian forces were again attacking the huge steel plant.
- The interior ministry of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria issued a statement claiming it came under attack from Ukraine. It said drones were spotted and shots were fired near Kolbasna, which it claims contains one of the largest ammunition dumps in Europe.
- A woman was killed in the Russian shelling of a hospital in the east Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk today, the regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said. The hospital was one of only two still operational in the area, he said, alongside video footage showing caved-in brick walls, broken hospital beds, and glass and rubble inside a building.
- A former head of the Polish army has accused Boris Johnson of “tempting evil” by revealing that Ukrainian soldiers were being trained in Poland in how to use British anti-aircraft missiles before returning with them to Ukraine. Gen Waldemar Skrzypczak complained that a loose-lipped PM had revealed too much to the Russians and that his remarks risked the safety of the soldiers involved.
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Belarus has moved to make attempted acts of terrorism punishable by the death penalty after activists tried to sabotage parts of the railway network to make it harder for Russia to deploy forces into Ukraine for its invasion. The Belarusian lower house of parliament approved the change to the criminal code, which now needs backing from the upper house and Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, before entering force.
- The European Commission has proposed suspending import duties on all Ukrainian products to help the country’s economy during the war with Russia. The proposed one-year suspension, which would need to be approved by the European Parliament and its 27 member states, comes a day after Britain announced it was dropping all tariffs on Ukrainian goods.
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Russia’s foreign ministry announced sanctions on 287 members of Britain’s House of Commons, accusing them of “whipping up Russophobic hysteria”. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said those members who had been hit with sanctions by Russia should regard it as “a badge of honour”.
- A former US marine held in a Russian jail has been released in exchange for a Russian citizen held in US detention. US President Joe Biden said negotiations for the release of Trevor Reed, 30, “required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly”.
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A top executive at one of Russia’s largest private banks said he has quit his post and fled to Kyiv to fight for Ukraine. In an interview with the independent Russian news outlet The Insider, Ukrainian-born Igor Volobuev, vice president of Gazprombank, said he “could no longer be in Russia” and that he wants to “wash off” his Russian past.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, as I hand the blog over to my US colleague Lauren Aratani. I’ll be back tomorrow. Thank you for reading.
Updated
EU 'must include' oil embargo in Russia sanctions, says Zelenskiy
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has thanked the European Commission for its proposed suspension of import duties on all Ukrainian products to help the country’s economy.
Zelenskiy tweeted that he had spoken with the Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, about further support for Ukraine as well as a sixth package of sanctions against Russia, which he said “must include oil embargo”.
Talked to @vonderleyen. Thanked the European Commission for deciding to abolish tariffs, quotas on 🇺🇦 industrial goods, foods. Discussed further support, including MFA. The European Commission President spoke about 6th sanctions package, which must include oil embargo.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) April 27, 2022
The unavoidable truth looming over Europe’s response to the invasion of Ukraine is that Russian gas heats the continent’s homes and powers its industries.
While European leaders have vowed to wean themselves off Kremlin-controlled supplies, both of gas and oil, the reality is that this is very hard to do in short order. There will be at least one more cold winter to come before major energy-hungry economies that rely heavily on Russia, such as Germany and Italy, can tap other sources.
Knowing this, Vladimir Putin fired a shot across the bows this week. Having issued a decree that foreign buyers must start paying for their gas in roubles, he made Poland and Bulgaria the laboratory mice for the experiment.
Both countries, the Kremlin announced, would no longer be receiving Russian gas through the Yamal pipeline from Siberia after they refused to accede to the demand. The decision could usher in a new phase of the war, with Russia making good on Putin’s threat to use its vast gas reserves as a weapon against Europe.
Read the full article: How worried should Europe be as Russia starts cutting off gas supplies?
Ukraine’s military said its troops struck Russian positions on the Black Sea’s Snake Island, claiming it hit a checkpoint and an anti-aircraft system.
In a statement on social media last night, the military said its forces “carried out strikes on enemy positions” on Snake Island, which has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance after soldiers defending the island told an attacking Russian warship to “go fuck yourself”.
The Russians’ losses were being “clarified”, Ukraine’s military said. Russia has not confirmed the attack on the island, which Moscow captured shortly after its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
A top executive at one of Russia’s largest private banks said he has quit his post and fled to Kyiv to fight for Ukraine.
Ukrainian-born Igor Volobuev, vice president of Gazprombank, said he “could no longer be in Russia” and that he wants to “wash off” his Russian past.
In an interview with the independent Russian news outlet The Insider, Volobuev said he wanted to join the Ukrainian territorial defence after Russia invaded on 14 February.
Volobuev said:
I could no longer be in Russia. I am Ukrainian by nationality, I was born in Akhtyrka, I could no longer observe from the outside what Russia is doing to my homeland.
Volobuev said he worked for six years at Gazprombank, a subsidiary of the Russian energy giant, as well as Gazprom for over 16 years. He said he now wanted “to stay in Ukraine until the victory”.
He said:
My homeland is in danger now, and I cannot live a well-fed, contented life while my father, who lives in Akhtyrka, is being killed, when my relatives, acquaintances, friends are being killed.
His father spent a month in a cold basement but is now safe, he said. He described his visit to Kyiv as “like repentance”, adding:
I want to wash off my Russian past. I want to stay in Ukraine until the victory.
Putin warns of ‘lightning fast’ retaliation if West interferes in Ukraine
In an address to lawmakers in St Petersburg earlier today, Vladimir Putin warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow.
The Russian president said the West wanted to cut Russia up into different pieces and accused it of pushing Ukraine into conflict with Russia, adding:
If someone intends to intervene into the ongoing events (in Ukraine) from the outside and creates unacceptable strategic threats for us, then they should know that our response to those strikes will be swift, lightning fast.
Russian troops would not hesitate to use the most modern weaponry, Putin said:
We have all the tools for this — ones that no one can brag about. And we won’t brag. We will use them if needed. And I want everyone to know this.
We have already taken all the decisions on this.
Updated
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has arrived in Ukraine after meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow yesterday.
Guterres tweeted that “the sooner this war ends, the better – for the sake of Ukraine, Russia, and the world”.
I have arrived in Ukraine after visiting Moscow.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) April 27, 2022
We will continue our work to expand humanitarian support & secure the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones.
The sooner this war ends, the better – for the sake of Ukraine, Russia, and the world.
A former head of the Polish army has accused Boris Johnson of “tempting evil” by revealing that Ukrainian soldiers were being trained in Poland in how to use British anti-aircraft missiles before returning with them to Ukraine.
Gen Waldemar Skrzypczak, also a former junior defence minister, complained that a loose-lipped prime minister had revealed too much to the Russians and that his remarks risked the safety of the soldiers involved.
Speaking to Polish tabloid Fakt, Skrzypczak said that Johnson had revealed “a military secret” and that “bad words are on the lips” when he gave details of the Ukrainian training plan on a trip to India last week.
“Military training is a matter of the army, in such a situation secret. Let a man restrain himself and think before he says such things,” said the former general to the newspaper, which described his tone as irritated in an article from Friday.
“The prime minister may not be aware of it, but with such statements he puts the success of the entire military operation at risk, as well as the safety of the soldiers,” Skrzypczak said. “Such statements are tempting evil.”
On the visit, Johnson had revealed that Ukrainians were being taught how to use Nato-standard weapons in both Poland and the UK. “I can say that we are currently training Ukrainians in Poland in the use of anti-aircraft defence, and actually in the UK in the use of armoured vehicles,” he said.
British forces in Poland are training the Ukrainian military in using the Starstreak air defence missile systems. It is likely to be a few weeks before they can be deployed on the frontline to target Russian helicopters and aircraft.
Two American volunteers fighting in Ukraine were wounded by artillery fire near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to reports.
US army veterans Manus McCaffrey and Paul Gray were working together as a team targeting Russian tanks with Javelin anti-tank systems when they were injured, journalist Nolan Peterson reports.
At 1435 today, two American volunteers in Ukraine’s armed forces were wounded by artillery fire near Orikhiv. Manus McCaffrey & Paul Gray. Both are US Army veterans. 1/ pic.twitter.com/BOB1TSwkSY
— Nolan Peterson (@nolanwpeterson) April 27, 2022
McCaffrey reportedly suffered shrapnel wounds to his face, head and torso. Gray wounded his foot when a concrete wall collapsed on him. Both men are in hospital, Peterson said.
Gray told me: “We were ready for a tank to come down the road when the artillery hit us. A concrete wall protected me but then fell on me. Manus took the hardest blow and shrapnel.” 3/ pic.twitter.com/i8JbkvS9qt
— Nolan Peterson (@nolanwpeterson) April 27, 2022
Updated
Updated
Summary
If you’ve just joined us, here’s a round-up of the key events from today so far:
-
Russia has warned other EU customers may be cut off from Russian natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s comments came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders denounced as “blackmail”, which the Kremlin later denied. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described Russia’s move as “a direct attack” on Poland.
- A Ukrainian commander in the besieged city of Mariupol said there are more than 600 injured civilians and fighters in the Azovstal steel works. Serhiy Volyna, acting commander of the 36th marine brigade, said hundreds of civilians including children were living in unsanitary conditions and running out of food and water. Officials earlier said Russian forces were again attacking the huge steel plant.
- The interior ministry of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria issued a statement claiming it came under attack from Ukraine. It said drones were spotted and shots were fired near Kolbasna, which it claims contains one of the largest ammunition dumps in Europe.
- A woman was killed in the Russian shelling of a hospital in the east Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk today, the regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said. The hospital was one of only two still operational in the area, he said, alongside video footage showing caved-in brick walls, broken hospital beds, medical appliances, and glass and rubble inside a building.
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A Ukrainian presidential aide described explosions heard in three Russian provinces bordering Ukraine on Wednesday as “karma” and payback for the war in Ukraine. Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak did not acknowledge Ukraine was responsible for the incidents.
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Belarus has moved to make attempted acts of terrorism punishable by the death penalty after activists tried to sabotage parts of the railway network to make it harder for Russia to deploy forces into Ukraine for its invasion. The Belarusian lower house of parliament approved the change to the criminal code, which now needs backing from the upper house and Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, before entering force.
- The European Commission has proposed suspending import duties on all Ukrainian products to help the country’s economy during the war with Russia. The proposed one-year suspension, which would need to be approved by the European Parliament and its 27 member states, comes a day after Britain announced it was dropping all tariffs on Ukrainian goods.
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Russia’s foreign ministry announced sanctions on 287 members of Britain’s House of Commons, accusing them of “whipping up Russophobic hysteria”. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said those members who had been hit with sanctions by Russia should regard it as “a badge of honour”.
- A former US marine held in a Russian jail has been released in exchange for a Russian citizen held in US detention. US President Joe Biden said negotiations for the release of Trevor Reed, 30, “required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly”.
Hello, I’m Léonie Chao-Fong and I will continue to bring you all the latest news from the war in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Updated
The European Commission has proposed suspending import duties on all Ukrainian products to help the country’s economy during the war with Russia.
The proposed one-year suspension comes a day after Britain announced it was dropping all tariffs on Ukrainian goods.
It will need to be approved by the European Parliament and its 27 member states to come into force.
The commission, which oversees trade policy in the European Union, said the “unprecedented” measures were designed to alleviate difficulties for Ukrainian producers and exporters in the face of Russia’s invasion.
In a statement, it said this “far-reaching step is designed to help boost Ukraine’s exports to the EU”, adding:
It will help alleviate the difficult situation of Ukrainian producers and exporters in the face of Russia’s military invasion.
The bloc’s economy commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, said the move was “vital to win the war and recover post-war”.
🔴 UNPRECEDENTED: EU grants #Ukraine zero-tariff, zero-quota trade.
— Valdis Dombrovskis (@VDombrovskis) April 27, 2022
These measures will boost trade & keep its economy going. This is vital to win the war and recover post-war.
This shows 🇪🇺's unwavering commitment to helping 🇺🇦 in its hour of need.
👉 https://t.co/bStnWPnmoc pic.twitter.com/8yTqitp1ZZ
Mariupol commander says more than 600 injured with no medication in Azovstal steel works
A Ukrainian commander in the besieged city of Mariupol has made an urgent plea in a video on his Facebook page, saying that there are more than 600 injured civilians and fighters in the Azovstal steel works.
Serhiy Volyna, acting commander of the 36th marine brigade, said there was no medication and no conditions for treatment for the wounded, adding that hundreds of civilians including children were living in unsanitary conditions and running out of food and water.
He issued an urgent appeal for a Dunkirk-style evacuation of troops and civilians from Mariupol.
From Politico’s Christopher Miller:
Situation in Mariupol Azovstal growing more dire. Marine commander Serhiy Volyna says ~600 wounded troops in serious condition, w/o meds, in unsanitary conditions; 100s of civilians including many kids, people with disabilities underground. They’re running out of food and water. pic.twitter.com/MaHdsByoBH
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 27, 2022
Updated
Ukrainian authorities have dismantled a large Soviet-era monument in the centre of Kyiv meant to symbolise friendship between Russia and Ukraine in response to Moscow’s invasion, according to the city’s mayor.
The eight-metre (27-ft) bronze statue, erected in 1982 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Soviet Union, depicted a Ukrainian and Russian worker on a plinth, holding aloft a Soviet order of friendship.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warned that any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be faced with a swift response from Russia and said all decisions on how Moscow would react in that situation had already been taken.
Addressing lawmakers in St Petersburg, Putin said the west wanted to cut Russia up into different pieces and accused it of pushing Ukraine into conflict with Russia.
Reuters reports Putin said Russia’s rouble, banking system, transport sector and economy as a whole had withstood sanctions imposed against Moscow and he promised a response to attempts to isolate Russia.
Updated
A woman was killed in Russian shelling of a hospital in the east Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk today, the regional governor said.
The hospital was one of only two still working in the area more than two months since Russia invaded Ukraine, Serhiy Gaidai said. The other was in nearby Lysychansk.
“The Russians knew that the hospital was not empty, there were patients in different conditions with doctors - and that did not stop them,” Gaidai wrote on Telegram.
Reuters reports Gaidai also posted video footage showing caved-in brick walls, broken hospital beds, medical appliances, and glass and rubble inside a building. A nurse was seen removing mats and blankets from what appeared to be a destroyed ward.
“The destruction of the building is significant. Several floors were damaged at once,” Gaidai wrote.
Gaidai’s comments and the video footage could not immediately be independently verified. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in what it has described as a “special military operation” in Ukraine which began on 24 February.
Updated
There are a couple of quick diplomatic news snaps going through the newswire at the moment. Reuters is reporting that Canada is imposing sanctions on 203 individuals which it says are involved in the attempted annexation of certain areas of the Donbas in Ukraine.
At the same time, Russia is announcing that it is to expel eight Japanese diplomats.
Updated
Berlin’s outdoor swimming pools will be two degrees chillier this summer than in previous years, in what the state operator says is its contribution towards reducing German reliance on Russian gas.
Water at the German capital’s 16 gas-heated Sommerbäder or lidos, which start to open this week, will be kept below the weather-dependent standard temperature throughout the summer season.
“We have made this decision because we wanted to make a contribution to the reduction of gas imports”, said a spokesperson for Berliner Bäder-Betriebe, Europe’s largest communal pool operator.
The spokesperson said the lowered temperatures were not a cost-cutting measure driven by increased gas prices but a “political statement” coordinated with the Berlin senate.
In a related political gesture, Berlin’s public baths have been free to use for holders of Ukrainian passports since March.
Read more of Philip Oltermann’s report from Berlin here: Berlin cools pools in ‘political statement’ against Russian gas
Belarus has moved to make attempted acts of terrorism punishable by the death penalty after activists tried to sabotage parts of the railway network to make it harder for Russia to deploy forces into Ukraine for its invasion.
The Belarusian lower house of parliament approved the change to the criminal code in two readings, the Belta news agency reported. The change now needs backing from the upper house and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko before entering force.
Reuters quotes house speaker Vladimir Andreychenko, alluding to acts sabotage on the railway, saying “Destructive forces are continuing terrorist extremist activity by trying to rock the situation in Belarus, provoking domestic instability and conflicts.”
“Actions are being taken to disable railway equipment and tracks, objects of strategic importance,” He said. “There can be no justification for the actions of terrorists.”
Russia used close ally Belarus as a staging ground to launch its unsuccessful attempt to encircle Kyiv in the first phase of the invasion. Minsk denies direct involvement in the conflict.
- This is Martin Belam back on the blog for an hour. You can reach me by email at martin.belam@theguardian.com
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said it is unclear who is behind the attacks that have taken place in the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria.
In an address to the German parliament, Baerbock described the situation in Moldova as “extremely critical”.
Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Mykhailo Podolyak, said no agreement had been reached for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to discuss the war in Ukraine, despite efforts by Turkey to arrange such talks.
“The time of a meeting of the two countries’ presidents and the context of the meeting have not yet been determined”, Podolyak said, Reuters reports.
Podolyak drew attention to increased hostilities in eastern Ukraine and Russian attempts to “completely destroy” the southern port city of Mariupol.
Western officials said “we are trying to inflict cost on Russia” by supplying more arms and ammunition to “reduce its offensive capabilities and its ability to project threat against its neighbours and the West” in a late morning briefing on Wednesday.
The remarks demonstrate how western policy towards the war has evolved and hardened as the fighting enters its third month – although officials insisted they were not supporting a proxy war and helping Ukraine defend itself.
This week US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said Russia should be “weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine” while UK junior defence minister, James Heappey, said it was legitimate for Ukraine to use western weapons to strike targets in Russia itself.
One official said:
There is a Russian narrative that this is a proxy war between Russia and NATO. It isn’t. We are supporting Ukraine in their self defence.
“We are entitled to provide military support to any state exercising its right to self defence, and that is lawful,” they added, and Russian threats to strike back against Nato targets were “unlawful”.
Representatives of 40 western nations led by the US met this week in Ramstein, Germany to discuss further arms transfers to Ukraine, with Berlin announcing that it would send 50 Gepard armoured anti-aircraft vehicles to help the defenders in their fight with Russia.
“We are trying to inflict cost on Russia is to reduce its offensive capabilities and its ability to project threat against its neighbours and the West,” an official said, which applied both to the supply of weapons but also through economic sanctions meaning that Moscow would “not be able to support the same level of threat that it does at this time”.
Russia’s offensive in the Donbas was continuing slowly, making gains in “small villages and towns south of Izyum” but the officials said the invader was still struggling “to fully employ capability overmatch” - not helped by the current weather.
One official added:
Russians don’t like to fight in the rain.
Ukrainian forces were showing some ability to stage counter attacks, although not yet able to push back Russian positions substantially.
Even when the Russians take the village or a town Ukrainians frequently counter attack immediately. So Russians have no time to bed in or control the situation and they’re immediately on the backfoot again.
The defenders’ special forces were also “operating behind Russian lines” and exploiting the vulnerability of long supply lines to prevent Russians from attacking effectively. “All of it buys time to allow the Ukrainians to continue to build up their capabilities,” the official added.
Updated
A former US marine held in a Russian jail has been released, his family have said.
Trevor Reed, 30, from Texas, was serving out his term after being convicted by a Moscow court of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk on a visit to the Russian capital. His family and the US government said the charges were false and politically motivated.
In a statement, Reed’s family said he is on his way back to the United States, adding:
We’d respectfully ask for some privacy while we address the myriad of health issues brought on by the squalid conditions he was subjected to in his Russian gulag.
US ex-Marine Trevor Reed, who was detained in 2019 and accused of assaulting police officers. Photograph: Tatyana Makeyeva/Reuters
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said Reed’s release came due to a prisoner swap for the Russian citizen, Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence in the US.
The prisoner swap took place on Wednesday “as a result of a lengthy negotiation process”, Zakharova said on her Telegram channel.
US president Joe Biden also confirmed Reed’s release, adding that the negotiations to get him home “required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly”.
Biden’s statement went on to call for the release of detained security director, Paul Whelan, who was first arrested in 2018.
Updated
Russian troops used tear gas to disperse Ukrainian protesters in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, according to reports.
Three people were injured with burns and one suffered a broken leg, according to a local hospital.
From Belarusian journalist Hanna Liubakova:
Today, Kherson residents gathered for a peaceful rally to show that they are part of #Ukraine and are against Russian occupation. The Russian military dispersed the activists, using tear gas and stun grenades. At least two people are known to have been injured pic.twitter.com/3E9Z9Ukq9U
— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) April 27, 2022
On Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had “liberated” the entire Kherson region in the south of Ukraine.
Interfax news agency cited a senior official as saying elsewhere in the south of Ukraine, Russian troops had taken parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv regions, as well as part of the Kharkiv region to the east of Kyiv.
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has told members of the House of Commons who have reportedly been sanctioned by Russia to regard it as “a badge of honour”.
Conservative MP, Ben Everitt, raised the issue at PMQs this afternoon, where he asked the PM:
Within the last hour or so it’s been reported that 287 members of this House have been sanctioned by the Russian state.
Now I’m sure nobody here is rushing to change their summer holiday plans, but perhaps the Prime Minister will assure us that he will continue his excellent relationship with President (Volodymyr) Zelensky and continue to provide the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian military with the support that they need?
In response, Johnson said:
It’s I think no disrespect to those who haven’t been sanctioned, when I say that all those 287 should regard it as a badge of honour.
And what we will do is keep up our robust and principled support for the Ukrainian people and their right to protect their lives, their families, and to defend themselves.
That’s what this country is doing, and that has the overwhelming support, I think, of the whole House.
Russia warns it may cut natural gas supplies to other EU countries
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has warned that other European Union customers may be cut off from Russian natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles.
His comments earlier today came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders denounced as “blackmail”.
In a memo, the state-controlled Russian giant Gazprom said it was cutting Poland and Bulgaria off its natural gas because they refused to pay in Russian roubles, in line with a decree issued last month by President Vladimir Putin. Gazprom said it had not received any such payment since the beginning of the month.
Speaking to reporters, Peskov said:
Russia was and remains a reliable supplier of energy resources to its consumers and remains committed to its contractual obligations.
He added:
When the payment deadlines approach, if some consumers decline to pay under the new system, then the president’s decree of course will be applied.
Asked whether Russia was ready for the budget losses it could sustain if European countries declined to pay for gas in roubles, Peskov replied:
Everything has been calculated, all risks have been forecast and necessary measures taken.
Updated
Polish PM accuses Russia of ‘direct attack’ by cutting gas supplies
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has called Russia’s halt of gas deliveries “a direct attack” on Poland.
Speaking in Poland’s lower house of parliament, the Sejm, Morawiecki said Russia has pushed the boundaries of its “gas imperialism” and accused Moscow of attacking the European economy through inflationary measures.
He sought to reassure lawmakers that Poland has enough gas in storage, adding:
Russia not only carried out a brutal, murderous attack on Ukraine... but Russia also attacked all of Europe’s energy security and food security.
It is a direct attack on Poland... We’ll deal with this blackmail, this pistol to the head in such a way that it doesn’t affect Poles.
Poland will not need Russian gas.
The Kremlin has denied using natural gas supplies as an instrument of blackmail after Russian energy giant Gazprom halted gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was a reliable energy supplier and was not engaging in blackmail, Reuters reports.
He declined to say how many countries had agreed to switch to paying for gas in roubles in line with a decree issued last month by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Separately, the Czech Republic’s prime minister, Petr Fiala, said there were no signals or information about any interruption of its gas supplies.
Fiala said his country – which is heavily dependent on Russia for its gas – must be prepared for any scenarios.
Updated
Russia sanctions 287 British MPs for 'whipping up Russophobic hysteria'
Russia’s foreign ministry has announced sanctions on 287 members of Britain’s House of Commons, the Russian news agency Interfax reports.
In a statement, the ministry said the decision to introduce restrictions against members of the UK parliament was taken in response to Britain’s decision on 11 Match to sanction 386 members of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, for their support of the Ukrainian breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
The 287 MPs who are on the sanctions list “are now banned from entering the Russian Federation,” the statement said.
A translation of a statement reported by the state-owned Russian news agency RIA Novosti read:
These persons, who are now banned from entering the Russian Federation, took the most active part in the establishment of anti-Russian sanctions instruments in London, contribute to the groundless whipping up of Russophobic hysteria in the UK.
The hostile rhetoric and far-fetched accusations coming from the lips of British parliamentarians not only condone the hostile course of London, aimed at demonising our country and its international isolation, but are also used by opponents of a mutually respectful dialogue with Russia to undermine the foundation of bilateral cooperation.
Hello from London. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong, I’ll be bringing you all the latest news from the war in Ukraine. I’m on Twitter or you can email me.
Updated
Fears that the former Soviet republic of Moldova could be sucked into the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine are mounting after several explosions in the breakaway Moscow-backed region of Transnistria.
The mysterious blasts, which targeted the state security ministry, a radio tower and military unit, happened days after a senior Russian commander claimed Russian speakers in Moldova were being oppressed – the same argument used by Russia to justify its invasion of Ukraine.
Rustam Minnekayev, the deputy commander of Russia’s central military district, said gaining control over southern Ukraine would help Russia link up with Transnistria, which lies just across the border from the Black Sea port of Odesa.
Where is Transnistria and what is its status?
The predominantly Russian-speaking region wedged between the Dniester River and the Ukraine border seceded from Moldova after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1992, the separatists fought a war with Moldova’s pro-western government, which ended in hundreds of deaths and the intervention of the Russian army on the rebels’ side.
In a 2006 referendum that was not recognised by the international community, 97.1% of voters backed joining Russia, dealing a blow to Moldova’s hopes of following Romania and other ex-communist eastern European states into the EU.
Transnistria is controlled by pro-Russian separatists and permanently hosts 1,500 Russian troops as well as a large arms depot.
How closely tied are Transnistria and Russia?
Transnistria still uses the Cyrillic alphabet and has its own currency (the Transnistrian ruble), security forces and passport, although most of its estimated 465,000 residents have dual or triple Moldovan, Russian or Ukrainian nationality.
The majority of the population is Russian-speaking, while the rest of Moldova is dominated by Romanian speakers.
Moscow props up Transnistria’s economy, supplying free gas and keeping troops stationed there, in effect creating a Russian satellite on the borders of the EU.
Transnistria is also awash with Soviet symbols.
Its flag is emblazoned with a hammer and sickle, a huge statue of Lenin looms over the centre of its main city, Tiraspol, and a bust of the Bolshevik leader sits outside the town hall, or House of Soviets.
Read the full article here: Where is Transnistria and why is region being drawn into Ukraine war?
Updated
Today so far …
- Russia was accused of seeking to blackmail Europe as the energy giant Gazprom confirmed it had halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, prompting crisis talks in capitals across Europe.
- In a statement, Gazprom said it acted in response to the failure by the two EU countries to make their payments in roubles. “Gazprom has completely suspended gas supplies to Bulgargaz and PGNiG due to absence of payments in roubles.”
- Bulgarian prime minister Kiril Petkov has said demands to change the payment scheme were a grave breach of a contract and amounted to blackmail. Both Bulgaria and Poland say they have sufficient stored energy for the forseeable future.
- Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, condemned the move, saying that fellow EU countries would come to Poland and Bulgaria’s aid. She said: “The announcement by Gazprom that it is unilaterally stopping delivery of gas to customers in Europe is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail. This is unjustified and unacceptable.”
- The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, has said Gazprom made the right decision in fully suspending gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland and said Moscow should do the same with other “unfriendly” countries.
- In the UK, deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said the UK would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Poland over energy blackmail. He said: “We cannot allow Vladimir Putin’s bullying behaviour, whether it is economic warfare, or it is military warfare, to succeed.”
- Russia’s defence ministry said its Kalibr missiles had struck an arms depot in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region housing weapons from the US and European countries.
- Russian forces have established control over the settlement of Zarichne after storming the settlement of Yampil, the Ukrainian military has said in its latest operational report as of 6 o’clock this morning.
- Russian forces were again attacking the huge Azovstal steel plant where fighters and some civilians are holed up in the southern city of Mariupol, an aide to the city’s mayor said.
- A series of blasts sounded across in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border early Wednesday morning as authorities extinguished a fire at an ammunition depot. Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he woke “to a loud sound like an explosion” at about 3.35am in an update posted to Telegram.
- Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak described explosions heard in three Russian provinces bordering Ukraine as “karma” and payback for the war in Ukraine. He did not acknowledge Ukraine was responsible for the incidents.
- The interior ministry of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria has issued a statement this morning claiming it came under attack from Ukraine. It said drones were spotted and shots were fired near Kolbasna, which it claims contains one of the largest ammunition dumps in Europe.
- In Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s latest national address, the Ukrainian president said he believes Russia is trying to destabilise the situation in the Transnistrian region, while Ukrainian armed forces are ready for a possible escalation by Russian troops in the breakaway territory of Moldova.
- Poland’s government has issued a statement to say that it has arrested “a citizen of the Russian Federation and a citizen of Belarus who were engaged in espionage activities in Poland” and that a court has “ordered their detention on remand for three months”.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. I am handing over to Léonie Chao-Fong.
Updated
Greece will offer help to Bulgaria after Russia cut off its gas supply, prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told his Bulgarian counterpart.
Reuters reports the two leaders discussed the issue by phone.
“The prime minister said that Greece will help Bulgaria to deal with the new situation caused by the Russian decisions on energy,” Mitsotakis’s office said in a statement, without providing further details.
Updated
A Ukrainian presidential aide described explosions heard in three Russian provinces bordering Ukraine on Wednesday as “karma” and payback for the war in Ukraine.
Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, in comments on the Telegram messaging app, did not acknowledge Ukraine was responsible for the incidents.
“The reasons for the destruction of the military infrastructure in border areas can be quite varied,” Reuters reports he wrote, adding that “sooner or later the debts will have to be repaid” when one country decides to attack another country.
Russia accused of blackmail after gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria halted
Daniel Boffey in Brussels has this roundup of the situation in Europe regarding Russia switching off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria:
Russia was accused of seeking to blackmail Europe as the energy giant Gazprom confirmed it had halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, prompting crisis talks in capitals across Europe.
In a statement, the Russian supplier said on Wednesday it acted in response to the failure by the two EU countries to make their payments in roubles.
“Gazprom has completely suspended gas supplies to Bulgargaz and PGNiG due to absence of payments in roubles,” a statement issued by the company said.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, condemned the move, saying that fellow EU countries would come to Poland and Bulgaria’s aid.
She said: “The announcement by Gazprom that it is unilaterally stopping delivery of gas to customers in Europe is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail.
“This is unjustified and unacceptable. And it shows once again the unreliability of Russia as a gas supplier. We are prepared for this scenario. We are in close contact with all member states.”
Gazprom has also said it would stop transiting gas through the two EU countries to others such as Germany if it discovered any withdrawal of volumes from pipelines.
“Bulgaria and Poland are transit states,” Gazprom said. “In the event of unauthorised withdrawal of Russian gas from transit volumes to third countries, supplies for transit will be reduced by this volume.”
The Polish gas company PGNiG confirmed that supply had stopped but a spokesperson said its clients were still getting the fuel in line with their needs.
Read more of Daniel Boffey’s report from Brussels here: Russia accused of blackmail after gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria halted
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry said its Kalibr missiles had struck an arms depot in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region housing weapons from the US and European countries.
Reuters reports the ministry – which said its air force had destroyed 59 Ukrainian military targets overnight – said the missiles had “destroyed hangars with a large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition supplied to Ukrainian troops by the United States and European countries”.
The Russian claim has not been independently verified.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images being sent to us of the impact of the conflict in Ukraine over the newswires.
Transnistria's internal ministry claims drones launched and shots fired from Ukraine
The interior ministry of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria has issued a statement this morning claiming it came under attack from Ukraine.
The statement says:
Last night, several drones were seen in the sky above the village of Kolbasna, Rybnitsa region. Aircraft on the territory of Transnistria were launched from Ukraine.
On the morning of 27 April, at 8.45am, shots were fired from the Ukrainian side in the direction of the Pridnestrovian settlement of Kolbasna.
The self-declared breakaway region gives itself the title the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. The ministry’s statement says that Kolbasna contains one of the largest ammunition dumps in Europe.
Updated
Bulgarian prime minister Kiril Petkov has said Gazprom shutting off gas supplies to Bulgaria over demands to change the payment scheme is a grave breach of a contract and amounts to blackmail.
Reuters reports Petkov said Bulgaria was reviewing all of its contracts with Gazprom, including for transit of Russian gas to Serbia and Hungary, because “one-sided blackmail was not acceptable”.
Updated
Azovstal under attack in Mariupol again – reports
Russian forces were again attacking the huge Azovstal steel plant where fighters and some civilians are holed up in the southern city of Mariupol, an aide to the city’s mayor said.
Reuters reports aide Petro Andryushchenko also said no agreements had been reached on trying to evacuate civilians from Mariupol on Wednesday.
A week ago, Russia switched tactics, with Russian president Vladimir Putin ordering that the complex be blockaded “so a fly can’t get through” rather than stormed.
Updated
Ursula von der Leyen: using gas as instrument of blackmail 'unjustified and unacceptable'
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, has condemned Russian for seeking to “blackmail” Europe after Russian energy giant Gazprom confirmed that it had cut gas supply to Poland and Bulgaria.
She said: “The announcement by Gazprom that it is unilaterally stopping delivery of gas to customers in Europe is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail.
“This is unjustified and unacceptable. And it shows once again the unreliability of Russia as a gas supplier.
“We are prepared for this scenario. We are in close contact with all member states. We have been working to ensure alternative deliveries and the best possible storage levels across the EU.”
Von der Leyen said the EU had made contingency plans for such a situation and that crisis talks were taking place in Brussels.
She said: “Member states have put in place contingency plans for just such a scenario and we worked with them in coordination and solidarity. A meeting of the gas coordination group is taking place right now.
“We are mapping out our coordinated EU response. We will also continue working with international partners to secure alternative flows. And I will continue working with European and world leaders to ensure the security of energy supply in Europe.
“Europeans can trust that we stand united and in full solidarity with the member states impacted in the face of this new challenge. Europeans can count on our full support.”
Updated
Bulgaria's energy minister: we have enough energy for 'sufficiently foreseeable period'
Bulgaria’s energy minister has attempted to reassure the public that the country has enough energy, including for hospitals, saying: “We have provided alternative quantities for a sufficiently foreseeable period.”
Sofia-based news provider Novinite reports that Alexander Nikolov explained the country’s decision not to use Gazprom’s new payment system at a news briefing this morning:
The two-stage payment procedure proposed by Russia poses significant risks. In practice, we would lose control over our money when paying in US dollars – since the Russian bank is responsible for converting into roubles, there is no clarity about the exchange rate
He said Bulgaria had not violated its contracts, and also said the country would pose no threat to Serbia and Hungary. Their gas supply from Russia continues, and passes through Bulgaria. He said:
Regarding Serbia and Hungary – Bulgaria is a loyal partner to all neighbouring countries. Bulgaria is not Russia.
Nikolov also stated there would be no shift in Bulgaria’s position. Novinite quotes him saying:
As long as I am a minister and responsible for this, Bulgaria will not negotiate under pressure and with its head bowed. Bulgaria does not give in and is not sold at any price.
Updated
The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, has said Gazprom made the right decision in fully suspending gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland and said Moscow should do the same with other “unfriendly” countries.
Reuters reports Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel “The same should be done with regard to other countries that are unfriendly to us.”
UK deputy PM Raab: Russian threat of 'proportional response' to UK is 'unlawful'
The UK’s deputy prime minister Dominc Raab has also addressed threatening rhetoric from Russia aimed at the UK.
Yesterday, Russia’s defence ministry warned of an immediate “proportional response” if Britain continues its “direct provocation” of the Kyiv regime, after the UK armed forces minister, James Heappey, described Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil that hit supplies and disrupt logistics as “completely legitimate”. In his Sky News interview earlier, Raab said:
Well, the Russian statement is unlawful, and what we’re doing is lawful. International law is very clear on this. States are entitled to provide military support to any state exercising the right of lawful defence against an aggressive invasion.
And frankly, if Russia starts threatening other countries, it only adds further to their pariah status, and will only further the solidarity and the consensus of the international community that they must be stopped.
Updated
Gas supply to Poland and Bulgaria suspended, says Gazprom
Reuters is now carrying the text of the statement from Gazprom this morning. It reads:
Gazprom has completely suspended gas supplies to Bulgargaz (Bulgaria) and PGNiG (Poland) due to absence of payments in roubles. Payments for gas supplied from 1 April must be made in roubles using the new payments details, about which the counterparties were informed in a timely manner.
Gazprom also warned that transit via Poland and Bulgaria would be cut if gas was taken illegally.
Russian president Vladimir Putin had signed an order for most European countries to pay Gazprom in roubles. It demanded that countries Russia terms “unfriendly” agree to a scheme under which they would open accounts at Gazprombank and make payments in euros or dollars that would be converted into roubles.
Poland has said repeatedly it will not pay for Russian gas in roubles and has planned not to extend its gas contract with Gazprom after it expires in the end of this year.
Updated
UK deputy PM: Putin's 'bullying behaviour' cannot be allowed to succeed
In the UK, the deputy prime minister and lord chancellor Dominic Raab has been interviewed on Sky News. He said the UK would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Poland over energy blackmail. He told viewers:
We need to show solidarity. Clearly what we’re seeing is the need to wean ourselves off reliance on Russia. We have been warning about this for a while, but yes, we’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with our Polish friends and allies
They’ve said that they can deal with this, but of course it will have a very damaging effect on Russia as well, because it is becoming further and further not just a political pariah, but an economic pariah. And that will put the squeeze ultimately on Vladimir Putin.
But one thing is true and clear. We cannot allow his bullying behaviour, whether it is economic warfare, or it is military warfare, to succeed.
Updated
On the issue of gas supplies to Poland, government figures yesterday were anxious to reassure the public in Poland that the country could cope if Russia cut off supplies.
The Polish Press Agency last night was carrying the following quotes. Anna Moscow, head of the ministry of climate and environment, said:
Poland has the necessary gas reserves and sources of supply that protect our security – we have been effectively independent of Russia for years. Our warehouses are 76% full. There will be gas in Polish homes.
Government spokesman Piotr Müller looked further into the future, saying that plans for the Baltic pipeline were on track. He said:
The Baltic Pipe gas pipeline will also be commissioned in a few months. The decision to build it was made by the PiS government and has been consistently implemented in recent years. This is another element of Poland’s energy security.
Updated
Poland’s government has issued a statement to say that it has arrested “a citizen of the Russian Federation and a citizen of Belarus who were engaged in espionage activities in Poland” and that a court has “ordered their detention on remand for three months”.
The statement says:
The men detained on 21 and 22 April are suspected of espionage activities for the Russian secret services. The material collected by the military counterintelligence service (SKW) indicates that a Russian and a Belarusian, acting on behalf of the Russian intelligence against Poland, carried out activities aimed at identifying the functioning of the Polish Armed Forces, including the presence of the army in the Polish-Belarusian border zone.
Updated
Gazprom halts gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria – reports
Reuters has a snap that gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria have been halted by Gazprom.
Moscow had told Poland and Bulgaria it would halt gas supplies at 8am CET following their refusal to pay the Russian energy giant Gazprom in roubles. Supplies to Poland had already been briefly disrupted.
Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Russia was “beginning the gas blackmail of Europe”.
Updated
There is an analysis of the situation in Mariupol in our latest First Edition – our new daily morning email from Archie Bland and Nimo Omer. They write that the siege of Mariupol was meant to be over. Why isn’t it?:
An estimated 1,000 Ukrainian forces – as well as hundreds of civilians – are thought to be located at the Azovstal steelworks, a sprawling complex covering about four square miles with a network of passages in its basement. Metinvest, which owns the steel mill, says that the bunkers below ground were used as shelters in 2014 during a previous attempt on the city by Russian-backed separatists and were stocked with enough food and water to last 4,000 people three weeks.
In those circumstances, says Peter Beaumont, an experienced foreign correspondent for the Guardian and Observer, there may have been some misunderstanding of the reasons for Russia’s reluctance to go in on the ground even as it continues to shell the site. “Perhaps some people have slightly got the narrative wrong when the Kremlin said we’re going to seal it off, as if this was a Russian defeat.”
Peter points out that the presence at the site of the Azov battalion, a unit linked to the far right with a significant neo-Nazi contingent, means that “in propaganda terms, pictures of these guys stumbling out with their hands up would be a much bigger win than potentially losing hundreds of soldiers by trying to raise a Russian flag over the steelworks.”
You can read the analysis in full here: Wednesday briefing – The siege of Mariupol was meant to be over. Why isn’t it?
In case you missed Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s latest national address, the Ukrainian president said he believes Russia is trying to destabilise the situation in the Transnistrian region, while Ukrainian armed forces are ready for a possible escalation by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied territory of the Republic of Moldova.
Answering journalists’ questions after a meeting with the International Atomic Agency’s director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he fully shares the assessment of the situation by Moldovan president Maia Sandu.
Zelenskiy also said that he discussed that issue with the Romanian prime minister, Nicolae Ciucă, who was in Kyiv on Tuesday.
We clearly understand that this is one of the steps of the Russian Federation. The special services are working there. It’s not just about fake news. The goal is obvious – to destabilise the situation in the region, to threaten Moldova. They show that if Moldova supports Ukraine, there will be certain steps.”
According to Zelenskiy, Ukraine knows that the Russian troops, which have been present in the territory of the temporarily occupied part of Moldova – Transnistria – for many years, are in “constant readiness”.
“But we understand their capabilities, the armed forces of Ukraine are ready for this and are not afraid of them,” he added.
Updated
The west must 'double down' on support for Ukraine, UK foreign minister says
Britain’s foreign minister Elizabeth Truss is expected to call on allies of Ukraine to “ramp up” military production including of planes and tanks, the AFP is reporting after reviewing a preview of a speech to be delivered on Wednesday. In her speech, called the new approach, Truss says it “will be based on three areas: military strength, economic security and deeper global alliances”.
“We cannot be complacent – the fate of Ukraine remains in the balance,” her speech reads.
A Russian victory would have “terrible consequences across the globe”, Truss is expected to say. “We must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine.
Russia has brought barbarity and devastation to Ukraine. I told @HouseofCommons that the UK must do everything we can to ensure Putin loses. pic.twitter.com/OhyJBlK5AK
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) April 26, 2022
“Heavy weapons, tanks, aeroplanes – digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this. There must be nowhere for Putin to go to fund this appalling war,” her speech continues.
“The architecture that was designed to guarantee peace and prosperity has failed Ukraine. We must also follow through on the unity shown in this crisis to reboot, recast and remodel our approach to deterring aggressors.”
Truss will also call for “free nations” to be “more assertive and self-confident”, according to AFP.
Updated
Russia to stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria today
Russia said it will stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria today after the countries refused to pay its supplier, Gazprom, in roubles.
Bulgaria, which is almost completely reliant on Russian gas imports, said it had fulfilled all its contractual obligations with Gazprom and that the proposed new payment scheme was in breach of the arrangement.
However, Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria continued to flow this morning, according to Vladimir Malinov, executive director of Bulgarian gas network operator Bulgartransgaz, who told Reuters on Wednesday that gas supplies were continuing for the time being.
Bulgaria’s energy ministry said Russia’s Gazprom informed Bulgarian state gas company Bulgargaz it will halt gas supplies as of Wednesday.
The ministry will give a news briefing on the situation later on Wednesday morning.
Gas supplies under the Yamal contract to Poland also edged up after dropping to zero earlier, data from the European Union network of gas transmission operators seen by Reuters showed on Wednesday.
Physical gas flows via the Yamal-Europe pipeline from Belarus to Poland were at 3,449,688 kWh/hour at 6.22am CET (4.22am GMT).
Updated
Blasts heard in Russian city of Belgorod
A series of blasts sounded across in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border early Wednesday morning as authorities extinguished a fire at an ammunition depot.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he woke “to a loud sound like an explosion” at about 3:35am in an update posted to Telegram.
“So far, not a single duty service of the city and the region has found the cause of this sound,” he added.
The explosions were said to have come from near the village of Staraya Nelidovka which lies about 40km outside the Ukrainian border.
“According to preliminary information, an ammunition depot is on fire. There is no destruction of residential buildings, houses. There were no casualties among the civilian population,” Gladkov said.
The Belgorod province borders Ukraine’s Luhansk, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, all of which have seen heavy fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago.
У Бєлгородській області пролунало кілька вибухів, місцевий губернатор каже про пожежу на складі боєприпасів https://t.co/TMQfx1gGJC pic.twitter.com/s1PWzFJ0Yb
— Еспресо (@EspresoTV) April 27, 2022
"According to preliminary data, an ammunition depot is on fire near the village of Staraya Nelidovka" - Governor of Russia's Belgorod Oblast Vyacheslav Gladkov
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) April 27, 2022
He says there were no casualties among the civilian population.
📷https://t.co/8ug5cgreIVhttps://t.co/39kvsua6An pic.twitter.com/YYwtsm6sS2
A Weapons Depot is on fire as a result of Explosions in the Western Russian city of Belgorod, Russian Air Defenses were reported to have been Active over the City earlier. @spook_info pic.twitter.com/OIBcBmRqEZ
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 27, 2022
Russian forces have established control over the settlement of Zarichne after storming the settlement of Yampil, the Ukrainian military has said in its latest operational report as of 6am this morning.
In the Russian settlements of the Belgorod region, Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces claimed that Russian forces launched two missile divisions of the OTRK “Iskander-M”.
Ukrainian defenders continue to be blocked in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol while Russian forceS carry out “filtration measures” on civilians, officials added.
Russia is also attempting to replenish losses by transporting new equipment into Ukraine via railway, the report reads.
Updated
Summary and welcome
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments until my colleague, Martin Belam, takes the reins a little later in the day.
It is just past 7am in Ukraine. Here’s what we know so far:
- A series of blasts were heard in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border amid reports an ammunition depot caught fire, local officials have said. Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he woke “to a loud sound like an explosion” at about 3.35am in an update posted to Telegram. The explosions were said to have come from near the village of Staraya Nelidovka which lies about 40km outside the Ukrainian border.
-
Russia will stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria from Wednesday. Warsaw has refused to pay its supplier, Gazprom, in roubles and earlier announced that it was imposing sanctions on 50 entities and individuals including Russia’s biggest gas company. Bulgaria, which is almost completely reliant on Russian gas imports, said it had fulfilled all its contractual obligations with Gazprom and that the proposed new payment scheme was in breach of the arrangement. Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia was “beginning the gas blackmail of Europe”. However, data from the European Union network of gas transmission operators seen by Reuters showed gas supplies under the Yamal contract to Poland edged up on Wednesday.
- Russia’s defence ministry warned of an immediate “proportional response” if Britain continues its “direct provocation” of the Kyiv regime, after the UK armed forces minister, James Heappey, described Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil that hit supplies and disrupt logistics as “completely legitimate”.
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believes Russia is trying to destabilise the situation in Moldova’s Transnistrian region after a series of explosions there, adding that Ukrainian armed forces were ready for a possible escalation by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied territory. “The goal is obvious – to destabilise the situation in the region, to threaten Moldova. They show that if Moldova supports Ukraine, there will be certain steps,” Zelenskiy said in his latest national address. Russia has refused to rule out Moldova’s breakaway region Transnistria being drawn into the Ukraine war.
- Zelenskiy said the “free world has the right to self-defence” after predicting that Russia intends to not only seize the territory of Ukraine but to “dismember the entire centre and east of Europe” and “deal a global blow to democracy”.
- Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is expected to call on allies of Ukraine to “ramp up” and “double down” on military production including of planes and tanks in a speech set to be delivered on Wednesday. Truss said the UK’s new approach “will be based on three areas: military strength, economic security and deeper global alliances”. Russia’s victory will have “terrible consequences across the globe”, Truss is expected to say. “We must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine.
- Germany will authorise the delivery of 50 anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine, the German defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, said. Lambrecht said the government has agreed to sign off the delivery of around 50 Gepard anti-aircraft weapons systems. Switzerland said it had blocked Germany from sending Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine.
- The US vowed to move “heaven and earth” to help Ukraine win its battle against Russia’s invasion as it hosted defence talks in Germany with allies from 40 nations on Tuesday. The gathering is being led by the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, following his meeting with Zelenskiy on Sunday. Austin said the west was gearing up to help Ukraine for “the long haul” and urged Ukraine’s allies to “move at the speed of war” to get more weapons to Kyiv.
- Australia will send six M777 howitzers and ammunition to Ukraine as part of a A$26.7m package in its response to “Russia’s brutal, unrelenting and illegal invasion” a statement from prime minister Scott Morrison and defence minster Peter Dutton said on Wednesday. Canada aims to send eight armoured vehicles “as quickly as possible”, minister of defence Anita Anand announced.
- The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, travelled to Moscow and, in a joint press conference with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, Guterres said the UN was “ready to fully mobilise its human and logistical resources to help save lives in Mariupol”. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereschuk, said there was “no point” in the UN if there was no real humanitarian corridor from Mariupol. Guterres also met Russian president Vladimir Putin who described the situation in the besieged city of Mariupol as “tragic” and “complicated”. Moscow and Kyiv were continuing talks online, Putin said.
- Russia has dismissed Ukraine’s proposal to stage peace talks in Mariupol. Lavrov said it was too early to talk about who would mediate in any negotiations, but he said Moscow was committed to a diplomatic solution via talks on Ukraine.
- The head of the UN’s atomic watchdog has condemned the Russian occupation of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, describing it as “very, very dangerous”. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general, Rafael Grossi, is heading an expert mission there to “deliver equipment, conduct radiological assessments and restore safeguards monitoring systems”.
- Zelenskiy said “no one in the world can feel safe” after Russia threatened Ukraine’s nuclear facilities and called for “global control” over Russia’s nuclear facilities and nuclear technology after meeting with director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi. “No other country in the world since 1986 has posed such a major threat to nuclear security, to Europe and the world” he said.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson said he does not expect Putin to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Johnson said Putin “has a lot of room for manoeuvre” and could back down.
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Ukraine retains control over the majority of its airspace as Russian air activity focuses primarily on southern and eastern Ukraine, the UK’s ministry of defence has said.
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