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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Samantha Lock (now); Maanvi Singh, Joanna Walters, Léonie Chao-Fong ans Martin Belam (earlier)

EU countries are ‘almost there’ in agreeing to bloc’s proposed new package of sanctions against Russia – as it happened

Ukraine Russia Vladimir Putin Azovstal Mariupol Azov Joe Biden Kremlin United Nations Dmitry Peskov

Thank you for following our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

This blog has now closed. You can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war in our new live blog in the link below.

Summary

It is 8am in Ukraine. Here is a comprehensive run-down of everything you might have missed:

  • A third United Nations operation is under way to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. “A convoy is proceeding to get to Azovstal by tomorrow morning hopefully to receive those civilians remaining in that bleak hell ... and take them back to safety,” the UN humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said. The mayor of Mariupol estimates around 200 civilians remain sheltering in underground tunnels.
  • The UN secretary general, António Guterres, described the war zone in Mariupol as appearing to be “hellscapes”. The UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross have so far helped nearly 500 civilians flee the steel plant area in the southern port city during two operations in the past week.
  • A Ukrainian commander said “heavy, bloody fighting” continues at Azovstal and Russia violated its promise of a ceasefire, preventing the evacuation of civilians. Svyatoslav Palamar, a commander of the Azov regiment that is defending the site, said in a video on Telegram: “Russians violated the promise of a truce and did not allow the evacuation of civilians who continue to hide from shelling in the basement of the plant.” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said Russian shelling and assault of Azovstal “do not stop” in his latest address.
  • The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, demanded that Ukraine order its fighters holed up in Azovstal to surrender, the Kremlin said. In a call with Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, Putin claimed Russia was still ready to provide safe passage for civilians from the plant, according to the Kremlin.
  • The US says it shared intelligence with Ukraine about the location of the Russian missile cruiser Moskva prior to the strike that sank the warship, but the decision to attack was taken by the Ukrainians. US officials also reportedly confirmed they are providing intelligence that has helped Ukrainian forces target and kill many of the Russian generals.
  • German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock will visit Ukraine shortly amid reports Zelenskiy has also invited the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to visit him in Kyiv.
  • The UK government has placed sanctions on Evraz, the multinational steelmaker part-owned by the billionaire Roman Abramovich. The company was formerly counted among Britain’s biggest companies. The Foreign Office said on Thursday that the action would “further chip away at Putin’s financial reserves and siege economy, and support Ukraine’s continued resistance”.
  • The European Union plans to impose sanctions on Alina Kabaeva, long rumoured to be Vladimir Putin’s girlfriend, and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox church. Two sources said the EU has proposed sanctions on Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast whose appearance on a draft sanctions list was first reported by Bloomberg.
  • EU countries are “almost there” in agreeing the bloc’s proposed new package of sanctions against Russia, including an oil embargo, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday.
  • Naftali Bennett said Vladimir Putin had apologised for the Russian foreign minister’s claims that Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins. The Israeli prime minister, after a call with Putin, said he had accepted the apology and thanked the president for clarifying his position.
  • Putin hopes to claim Mariupol as key prop in Victory Day celebrations, according to Ukrainian intelligence. “Mariupol, according to [Russia’s] plans, should become the centre of celebrations,” Ukraine’s defence intelligence agency said. “A large-scale propaganda campaign continues, during which Russians will be shown stories about the ‘joy’ of local residents from meeting with the invaders.”
  • British prime minister Boris Johnson lauded Ukraine’s president Zelenskiy as “truly one of the most incredible leaders of modern times” during a fundraising event in London. Johnson said the UK will “continue to intensify” efforts to assist Ukraine for as long as the help is needed and insisted Russian president Vladimir Putin will “never break” the spirit of the Ukrainian people, Downing Street said.
  • Poland and the Baltic states have inaugurated a new gas pipeline that links the north-eastern EU with the rest of the bloc, a crucial step towards reducing dependence on Russian gas. The 508 km-long (316-mile) pipeline linking Poland and Lithuania’s gas networks will eventually be able to transport around two billion cubic meters of gas per year in either direction.
  • A $300 million yacht belonging to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov has been seized by Fijian authorities at the request of the United States Department of Justice.
  • A court in Spain ordered the provisional release of Anatoly Shariy, a Ukrainian politician and blogger who was arrested after being accused of treason in Ukraine. Shariy was arrested on Wednesday near the coastal city of Tarragona under an international arrest warrant issued by Ukraine, according to Spain’s National Court and as reported by the Associated Press.

British prime minister Boris Johnson has lauded Ukraine’s president Zelenskiy as “truly one of the most incredible leaders of modern times” during a fundraising event in London.

Johnson said the UK will “continue to intensify” efforts to assist Ukraine for as long as the help is needed and insisted Russian president Vladimir Putin will “never break” the spirit of the Ukrainian people, Downing Street said.

No 10 said the aim of the event, titled “Brave Ukraine”, was to raise vital funds for the humanitarian response to the conflict, according to a report from PA Media.

The PM said it was “a blessing for Ukraine and for the world” and “a disaster for Putin” that Zelenskiy was leading in Kyiv, describing the Ukrainian president as “truly one of the most incredible leaders of modern times”.

“No matter what Putin tries to do to Ukraine’s people ... he will never break their spirit ... He will never overcome those indomitable armed forces, who have already repelled the Russian army from the gates of Kyiv, and therefore achieved the greatest feat of arms of the 21st century,” he said.

That is why I’m more certain than ever that Ukraine will win. Ukraine will be free, and a sovereign Ukraine will rise again.

And it’s because this struggle is so clear cut, and without any moral ambiguity that I can see, a struggle between freedom and oppression, between democracy and tyranny, independence and imperialism, light and darkness, good and evil, that is why I think it speaks so deeply to us.”

“I want you to know, and I told Volodymyr this earlier on today in our conversation, we will continue to intensify this effort for as long as Ukraine wants and needs our help,” he added.

Poland and the Baltic states have inaugurated a new gas pipeline that links the north-eastern EU with the rest of the bloc, a crucial step towards reducing dependence on Russian gas, AFP reports.

The 508 km-long (316-mile) pipeline linking Poland and Lithuania’s gas networks will eventually be able to transport around two billion cubic meters of gas per year in either direction.

Thanks to existing links in the region, Latvia, Estonia and even Finland will also have access to the wider European gas pipeline network.

“Today, we are inaugurating our energy independence,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told a ceremony outside the capital Vilnius.

“This interconnector is a response to blackmail” from Russia, said his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.

Poland has said it is ready to completely swear off Russian gas if necessary and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia announced at the end of last month they were halting imports of Russian gas and would use their reserves.

All the nations are heavily dependent upon Russian gas imports.

The EU funded a large part of the 500-million-euro ($530 million) cost of the construction of the GIPL pipeline.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal told a news conference on Thursday that preliminary economic losses from the war are estimated to be about $600 billion, adding that most of the losses should be covered with “money from the aggressor”.

Ukraine also needed between $4 to $5bn a month just to cover the budget deficit, he said, adding that Ukraine’s important grain exports have been hit after six of its largest storage facilities were struck by missiles.

“Russia is provoking a food security crisis. Now millions of tonnes of our grain are blocked in our ports,” he said, urging the international community to pressure Russia “to organise corridors to transport grain to countries which badly need it”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier launched a global crowdfunding platform to help Ukraine win the war against Russia and rebuild the country’s infrastructure.

“In one click, you can donate funds to protect our defenders, to save our civilians and to rebuild Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said in announcing the launch of the United24 platform.

Every donation matters for victory.

Only together we have the potential to stop the war and to rebuild what Russia has destroyed.”

“All funds will be transferred to the national bank of Ukraine and allocated to the relevant ministries,” Zelenskiy added.

The Ukrainian president outlined the three areas of support the funding would go towards: defence and de-mining, humanitarian and medical aid and the restoration of critical infrastructure.

Updated

Here are some of the latest images to come out of Ukraine today, detailing the ongoing destruction.

Mykola Ovdienko, 66, looks at a building destroyed by an airstrike in the town of Borodianka, Ukraine.
Mykola Ovdienko, 66, looks at a building destroyed by an airstrike in the town of Borodianka, Ukraine. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
A man throws the debris from a broken window as he cleans his room at an apartment damaged by a missile explosion in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine.
A man throws the debris from a broken window as he cleans his room at an apartment damaged by a missile explosion in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
A resident uses a bucket to throw water on a neighbour’s home that caught fire after Russia shelled Saltivka, a residential area in Kharkiv.
A resident uses a bucket to throw water on a neighbour’s home that caught fire after Russia shelled Saltivka, a residential area in Kharkiv. Photograph: Daniel Carde/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock
A woman sweeps debris after Russia shelled her building in Saltivka.
A woman sweeps debris after Russia shelled her building in Saltivka. Photograph: Daniel Carde/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock
Tulip flowers are pictured near a destroyed house in Borodianka.
Tulip flowers are pictured near a destroyed house in Borodianka. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

European Union countries are “almost there” in agreeing the bloc’s proposed new package of sanctions against Russia, including an oil embargo, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday.

I hope that they will get an agreement. They are almost there. And we need this agreement because we have to push still more our economic and financial pressure on Russia,” Borrell told an event in Italy.

Russian oligarch's $300m yacht seized in Fiji

A $300 million yacht belonging to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov has been seized by Fijian authorities at the request of the United States Department of Justice.

“Fijian law enforcement executed a seizure warrant freezing the Motor Yacht Amadea (the Amadea), a 348-foot luxury vessel owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov,” a news release from the Department of Justice said.

The Fijian authorities acting with the FBI were following a seizure warrant issued by Washington “which found that the Amadea is subject to forfeiture based on probable cause of violations of US law, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), money laundering and conspiracy,” according to the statement.

Kerimov and those acting on his behalf and for his benefit caused US dollar transactions to be routed through US financial institutions for the support and maintenance of the Amadea.”

The Amadea yacht owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov seen docked in Lautoka, Fiji.
The Amadea yacht owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov seen docked in Lautoka, Fiji. Photograph: US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE/AFP/Getty Images

The seizure was orchestrated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency law enforcement task force run out of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, focused on enforcing the “the sweeping sanctions, export controls, and economic countermeasures that the United States, along with its foreign allies and partners, has imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine” the news release added.

Kerimov has been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control who designated him as “part of a group of Russian oligarchs who profit from the Russian government through corruption and its malign activity around the globe, including the occupation of Crimea,” the Department of Justice added.

This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide – not even in the remotest part of the world. We will use every means of enforcing the sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine,” warned US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

Updated

A court in Spain has ordered the provisional release of Anatoly Shariy, a Ukrainian politician and blogger who was arrested after being accused of treason in Ukraine.

Shariy was arrested on Wednesday near the coastal city of Tarragona under an international arrest warrant issued by Ukraine, according to Spain’s National Court and as reported by the Associated Press.

Court documents as seen by the news agency reportedly said Shariy is accused of “high treason and incitement of hatred.”

Citing the “circumstances of the case” and Shariy’s connections to Spain, the judge declined to keep him in custody. Instead Shariy was ordered to surrender his passport, report regularly to authorities and remain in Spain, where he has reportedly lived since 2019.

The court said the measures would remain in place for 40 days in order to allow Ukraine to formally request Shariy’s extradition.

His arrest in Spain was announced by Ukraine’s security services on Thursday, who said there was reason to believe Shariy “was acting on behalf of foreign entities.”

Shariy, the founder of a political party considered by many in Ukraine to be pro-Russian, has been a vocal critic of Ukraine’s government. As recently as Tuesday he tweeted that he had been warned that Ukrainian intelligence was trying to track him down.

Summary so far

  • A third United Nations operation is under way to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. “A convoy is proceeding to get to Azovstal by tomorrow morning hopefully to receive those civilians remaining in that bleak hell ... and take them back to safety,” the UN humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said.
  • The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described the war zone in Mariupol as appearing to be “hellscapes”. The UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross have so far helped nearly 500 civilians flee the steel plant area in the southern port city during two operations in the past week.
  • A Ukrainian commander said “heavy, bloody fighting” continues at Azovstal and Russia violated its promise of a ceasefire, disallowing the evacuation of civilians. Svyatoslav Palamar, a commander of the Azov regiment that is defending the site, said in a video on Telegram: “Russians violated the promise of a truce and did not allow the evacuation of civilians who continue to hide from shelling in the basement of the plant.” Palamar earlier pleaded for help for the “wounded soldiers dying in terrible agony” and the evacuation of civilians trapped in the plant.
  • Russian president Vladimir Putin demanded that Ukraine order its fighters holed up in Azovstal surrender, the Kremlin said. In a call with Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, Putin claimed Russia was still ready to provide safe passage for civilians from the plant, according to the Kremlin.
  • The UK government has placed sanctions on Evraz, the multinational steelmaker part-owned by the billionaire Roman Abramovich. The company was formerly counted among Britain’s biggest companies. The Foreign Office said on Thursday that the action would “further chip away at Putin’s financial reserves and siege economy, and support Ukraine’s continued resistance”.
  • Putin hopes to claim Mariupol as key prop in Victory Day celebrations, according to Ukrainian intelligence. “Mariupol, according to [Russia’s] plans, should become the centre of ‘celebrations’,” Ukraine’s defence intelligence agency said. “For this purpose, the city is urgently cleaning the central streets from rubble, bodies of dead and unexploded Russian ammunition. A large-scale propaganda campaign continues, during which Russians will be shown stories about the ‘joy’ of local residents from meeting with the invaders.”
  • The United States is confident it can address any security concerns Sweden and Finland may have about the period of time after they apply for Nato membership and before they are accepted into the alliance, the White House said on Thursday.

Updated

The United States is confident it can address any security concerns Sweden and Finland may have about the period of time after they apply for Nato membership and before they are accepted into the alliance, the White House said on Thursday.

Sweden and Finland are concerned they would be vulnerable to Russian threats during an application process, which could take up to a year to be approved by all 30 Nato members.

We are confident that we could find ways to address any concerns either country may have about the period of time between a Nato membership application and the formal accession to the alliance,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told a briefing.

Nato also said it will increase its presence around Sweden and the Baltic sea if Sweden applies to join the alliance, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

From the potential moment Sweden is applying, and Nato says that they want Sweden to join, there is a very strong obligation from Nato to be able to guarantee Sweden’s security,” Stoltenberg told SVT.

Both Sweden and Finland are expected to make a decision about whether to apply to join Nato this month.

Updated

Russia violated its promise of a ceasefire in Mariupol, disallowing the evacuation of civilians who continue to hide from shelling in the basement of the plant, a Ukrainian commander has said.

Earlier on Thursday, the Russian army announced a three-day ceasefire at the Azovstal site, but Svyatoslav Palamar, a commander of the Azov regiment which is defending it, said in a video on Telegram that heavy bloody fighting continued.

“The Russians violated the promise of a truce and did not allow the evacuation of civilians who continue to hide from shelling in the basement of the plant,” Agence France-Presse cites Palamar as saying.

President Vladimir Putin said Thursday the Russian army was still ready to allow civilians to leave the complex, while a Kremlin spokesman said humanitarian corridors were “functioning”.

UN finds evidence of 188 abductions

High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said her office has found evidence of arbitrary detentions and possible enforced disappearances of local officials, journalists, civil society activists, retired members of the armed forces and other civilians by Russian troops and affiliated armed groups in Russian-controlled areas including the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

As of May 4, my office has documented 180 such cases, of which five victims were eventually found dead,” she said.

According to an Associated Press report, Bachelet added that her staff has also heard about cases of women raped by Russian armed forces in areas under their control, and other allegations of sexual violence by both Russians and Ukrainians.

Serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law keep increasing every day, the high commissioner added.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, she said, 6,731 civilian deaths and injuries have been recorded and “the real figures are considerably higher.”

From late February for about five weeks, she said, Russian forces in areas around Kyiv targeted civilian men whom they considered suspicious, detaining, beating, summarily executing them and in some cases taking them to Belarus and Russia.

Meanwhile, the US Defense Department has denied that it provided intelligence on the locations of Russian generals on the battlefield so that Ukraine forces could kill them.

Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said it was true that the United States supplies Kyiv’s forces with military intelligence “to help Ukrainians defend their country” but Ukraine makes its own decisions on whether to target a Russian leader or not.

We do not provide intelligence on the location of senior military leaders on the battlefield or participate in the targeting decisions of the Ukrainian military,” Kirby said.

“Ukraine combines information that we and other partners provide with the intelligence that they themselves are gathering on the battlefield.

Then they make their own decisions, and they take their own actions.”

The White House National Security Council slammed the New York Times report as “irresponsible.”

“The United States provides battlefield intelligence to help the Ukrainians defend their country,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

“We do not provide intelligence with the intent to kill Russian generals.”

US provided intel that helped Ukraine target Russian warship, sources say

The United States provided intelligence that helped Ukrainian forces locate and strike the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet last month, according to US officials.

The targeting help, which contributed to the eventual sinking of the Moskva is part of an ongoing classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces, having spotted a Russian warship in the Black Sea, called their American contacts for confirmation that it was in fact the Moskva, sources familiar with the events told CNN. The US reportedly responded that it was, and provided intelligence about its location.

It is not clear whether the US knew Ukraine would move to strike the ship, however, and the US was not involved in that decision, the sources said.

Two senior American officials told the New York Times that Ukraine already had obtained the Moskva’s targeting data on its own, and that the United States provided only confirmation. But other officials said that the American intelligence was crucial to Ukraine’s sinking of the ship.

The ship sank after it was struck by two Ukrainian cruise missiles on 14 April in what was a major blow to the Russian military.

Updated

Rescue operations to evacuate civilians trapped in besieged Mariupol resumed today as Russia’s assault on the Azovstal steel works plant continues, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed in his latest address.

More than 150 people from Azovstal and more than 300 people from Mariupol and its suburbs who were evacuated by the humanitarian corridor this week are already receiving all the help they need. Medical, document renewal, financial assistance, communication with relatives, friends and families.

Currently, Russian shelling and assault of Azovstal do not stop.

But civilians still need to be taken out - women, children. Many children who are still there. Just imagine this hell! And there are children! More than two months of constant shelling, bombing, constant death nearby...”

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said a rescue convoy was on its way.

“A convoy is proceeding to get to Azovstal by tomorrow morning hopefully to receive those civilians remaining in that bleak hell... and take them back to safety,” he told a Ukraine donor conference in Warsaw.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed to AFP “that a safe passage operation is ongoing” in coordination with the UN.

The two organisations already worked together to evacuate some 100 civilians from the plant at the weekend.

The mayor of Mariupol estimates around 200 civilians remain sheltering in dismal conditions in the plant’s Soviet-era underground tunnels.

Updated

Another round of evacuations from Mariupol will be carried out on Friday.

“Tomorrow, on May 6, an evacuation from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia will take place,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Meanwhile, efforts to evacuate those trapped in the Azovstal steel plant is also underway. About 200 civilians remain trapped there, according to the Ukrainian military.

Updated

As Victory Day, 9 May, approaches in Russia, Vladimir Putin has yet to win any prize in two months of war in Ukraine that can be shown off to the Russian people.

But one could be close: the industrial port city of Mariupol, on the shores of the Azov Sea. Severely damaged in the Russian onslaught, it may now serve as a key prop in the festivities of the coming weeks. Kremlin officials and propagandists have flocked to the town before the holiday, as local cleaning crews are clearing rubble and patriotic statues to Russia are being erected.

Fighting is reportedly still raging in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol’s industrial zone, which Putin had previously ordered his military chief to block up so that “not even a fly can get through.” Despite his orders for a siege, Ukrainian soldiers say Russia is making a final push to enter the steelworks and subdue the city’s final defenders just days before Victory Day.

Ukrainian intelligence has claimed that Russia is planning to hold part of its key Victory Day parade in the city. “Mariupol, according to [Russia’s] plans, should become the centre of ‘celebrations’,” Ukraine’s defence intelligence agency said in a statement. “For this purpose, the city is urgently cleaning the central streets from rubble, bodies of dead and unexploded Russian ammunition.

“A large-scale propaganda campaign continues, during which Russians will be shown stories about the ‘joy’ of local residents from meeting with the invaders,” the intelligence agency continued, noting a recent visit by the Russian state television host Vladimir Solovyov to the city alongside officials. He was pictured wearing local army camouflage and later displayed part of a British anti-tank missile launcher that he had brought back to Moscow with him.

Mariupol is a city that few Russians would have imagined as a prize before the war, home to a leading iron and steelworks that played an important role in the city’s economy but also fuelled local pollution. Nonetheless, it was a vibrant port with an active civil society that had withstood the Russian-backed advance in 2014, when Russian artillery came close enough to Mariupol to bombard the city’s outer districts, before being driven back.

The Kremlin could be keen to take the city as a strategic point in its goals to build a “land bridge” to Crimea, to gain access to another deep-water port that it used to transport coal, steel and grain, and as a symbolic victory, the largest city yet taken by Russia, which has failed to conquer Kharkiv or Kyiv.

And in an extraordinary visit this week, the presidential aide Sergey Kiriyenko, widely seen as Putin’s curator for Russian domestic politics, went to the city this week as part of what are seen as preparations for Russia to absorb the area as part of what has clearly been a war of conquest.

The visit chimed with reports that parts of east and southern Ukraine have entered the portfolio of the Kremlin’s domestic politics tsar, and served as confirmation, in the words of a local Russian-affiliated official, for “those who want to see proof that Russia has returned here”.

But that victory, if it arrives, will have come at a terrible cost. More than 90% of the city has been damaged, its mayor has said, and even Russian television has shown the extent of the devastation, though blaming it on Ukraine rather than its own artillery’s bombardment.

Read more:

EU officials are also targeting the immediate family of Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, who was sanctioned in a previous round. Peskov’s wife, Tatiana Navka, would be added to the list through her marriage, but also because of her co-ownership of property in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, according to the EU. Nikolay Peskov, 31, is said by the EU to use his father’s money, while Elizaveta Peskova, 24, is said to have acquired “lucrative positions and has been living a luxurious lifestyle thanks to her father’s connections”.

Also expected to be added to the list is Marina Mordashova, the wife of Russia’s richest man, Alexei Mordashov, because she is said to benefit from her husband’s assets. He is a majority shareholder of Severstal, Russia’s biggest steel company, and during the pandemic rescued Tui, Europe’s largest tour operator.

The EU is also targeting several dozen military officers accused of the murder and torture of civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. Heading the list is Azatbek Omurbekov, the commander of the 64th separate motor rifle brigade of the 35th army. He is described on the EU sanctions list as “leading the actions of his military unit and nicknamed ‘butcher of Bucha’, due to his direct responsibility in killings, rapes and torture”.

Also on the draft list is the head of Russia’s national defence management centre, Mikhail Mizintsev, the military commander said to be responsible for the siege of Mariupol that has killed thousands of people.

A handful of Ukrainians are also on the list, notably officials who the EU says have worked with Russians in the occupied cities of Kherson and Melitopol.

The European Union plans to impose sanctions on Alina Kabaeva, long rumoured to be Vladimir Putin’s girlfriend, and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox church.

Two sources said the EU has proposed sanctions on Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast whose appearance on a draft sanctions list was first reported by Bloomberg. Kirill, a long-serving Kremlin ally who has given his blessing to the war in Ukraine, appears on a draft document seen by the Guardian.

Kabaeva and Kirill are two of dozens of people who would face an EU travel ban and asset freeze under new listings being discussed by member states, joining more than 1,000 powerful Russians already on the sanctions list. The new names still have to be approved by the EU’s 27 member states.

According to Bloomberg the document describes Kabaeva as “closely associated with President Vladimir Putin”. Kabayeva won gold in the 2004 Olympics for rhythmic gymnastics and was also a flag-bearer at the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014. She was an MP for six years representing Putin’s United Russia party and went on to run a major pro-Kremlin media group, despite an apparent lack of experience in media management.

In 2008 a Moscow newspaper alleged that Putin had secretly divorced his wife Lyudmila and was planning to wed the gymnast. The Kremlin vehemently denied the story and the newspaper closed soon after. The Putins announced their separation in 2013, after 30 years of marriage. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the US administration had held off sanctioning Kabaeva because of concerns Putin would view it as a personal attack. The White House strongly denied the report, insisting no one was safe from sanctions. The US and EU have already sanctioned Putin’s adult children, Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova.

UK imposes sanctions on Roman Abramovich-linked steel firm Evraz

Jasper Jolly and Rob Davies report:

The UK government has placed sanctions on Evraz, the multinational steelmaker part-owned by the billionaire Roman Abramovich that was formerly counted among Britain’s biggest companies.

The Foreign Office said on Thursday that Evraz “operates in sectors of strategic significance to the government of Russia” and the action would “further chip away at Putin’s financial reserves and siege economy, and support Ukraine’s continued resistance”.

Evraz’s registered office is in London’s Mayfair district, but it has vast mining and steelmaking operations in Russia, with more than 70,000 employees.

The UK and allies including the US and EU have used sanctions on Russian companies and businessmen as one of the main tools to respond to the invasion of Ukraine.

The Evraz measure is thought to be the first time a former FTSE 100 member has been subject to sanctions. It completes the fall from grace of a company that was valued at more than £5bn as recently as January.

Its membership of the index meant that shares in the company were held by a wide variety of investors managing money for pensions, including BlackRock, Schroders Investment Management, Vanguard and Legal & General.

Evraz shares were suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange in March after the UK government highlighted its alleged strategic significance to Russia when imposing sanctions on Abramovich, who owns a 29% stake in the company. Its board also resigned after the sanctions against Abramovich.

Read more:

Some more anecdotal details emerging from what the United Nations secretary-general António Guterres just described as the “hellscape” that is Mariupol, specifically the situation at the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian soldiers have been taking a last stand in the city and civilians have been hiding, in the face of Russian bombardment, and are now gradually being evacuated, apparently with great difficulty.

Iuliia Mendel, a journalist and former press secretary to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has tweeted an account from a man she describes as a Crimean Tartar doctor and a Muslim, saying of conditions in the steel plant: “I don’t remember what day of the war it is. People are dying, some from bullets, some from hunger, the wounded from lack of medicine, from terrible conditions.”

According to an interpretation of his account, he goes on to say: “We don’t have time, I don’t know if tomorrow will come. I’m a Muslim, a Crimean Tatar, a descendant of the Gireys. I studied medicine before the occupation. Now I provide medical care to the wounded at Azovstal. I had never seen death before the war. Worked in an ambulance.

“It hurts to watch people die from purulent wounds, the simple lack of antibiotics. We are constantly bombed from the air, sea &land. Please comply with the procedure of withdrawal of all people, including military, from the territory of Azovstal. Stop this nightmare.”

The tweet thread begins with an appeal to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Tartar is an umbrella term describing various Turkic ethnic groups in the region, including Crimea.

This blog will now hand over to my colleague Maanvi Singh in California who will take you through the next few hours in news from the war.

Updated

United Nations secretary general António Guterres has described the war zone in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol as appearing to be “hellscapes”.

More details are coming in on the report from Guterres that the latest operation to get civilians out of Mariupol, including the besieged Azovstal steel plant there, is indeed in progress.

A third operation is under way, Guterres has just told the UN security council in New York, Reuters reports.

The United Nations Security Council meets on Thursday afternoon (local time), amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at the UN headquarters in New York. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield here with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (back to the camera).
The UN security council on Thursday. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have so far helped nearly 500 civilians flee the area during two operations in the past week.

Guterres declined to give details on the new operation “to avoid undermining possible success.”

I hope that the continued coordination with Moscow and Kyiv will lead to more humanitarian pauses to allow civilians safe passage from the fighting and aid to reach those in critical need.

We must continue to do all we can to get people out of these hellscapes,” he told the 15-member Security Council.

Updated

New 'safe passage operation' under way around Mariupol – UN

The United Nations says a new safe passage operation is underway in and around the bombarded southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, The Associated Press and Reuters are reporting.

Reuters has just “snapped” the news that UN secretary general António Guterres says a third operation is underway to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steel plant.

And humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu tells AP the UN is working in coordination with the parties to the conflict and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

He says they will “share more information when the situation allows.”

It is not clear how many people are part of the evacuation and Abreu would not say whether people at the Azovstal steel plant are involved.

A similar joint evacuation effort brought 101 civilians out of the plant over the weekend.

Another brought out people from Mariupol and other communities on Wednesday.

Screengrab from what appears to be an attack on Mariupol steel works Asovstal.
Screengrab from what appears to be an attack on Mariupol steel works Asovstal. Photograph: МВД ДНР

It was earlier reported that a new United Nations convoy is on its way to the Azovstal steel works to try to evacuate civilians.

Smoke rises from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.
Smoke rises from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. Photograph: AP

We’ll bring you more details from the UN as soon as they bubble up.

Updated

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock will visit Ukraine shortly, after the two countries mended a diplomatic rift over Kyiv’s refusal to receive German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday, Reuters reports.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Meseberg, eastern Germany on May 4, 2022.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Meseberg, eastern Germany on May 4, 2022. Photograph: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Steinmeier held “good talks” earlier on Thursday, Scholz told a news conference.

The German head of state had planned to visit the Ukrainian capital in mid-April but Kyiv refused to welcome him, amid disquiet over his past support of rapprochement with Russia.

Kyiv’s refusal caused a scandal in Germany and prompted Scholz to say he would not visit the war-torn country before the German president had done so.

The authoritarian president of Russia’s neighbour Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in an interview with the Associated Press but said he didn’t expect the conflict to “drag on this way”.

Lukashenko, whose country was used by the Russians as a launch pad for the invasion, said Moscow had to act because Kyiv was “provoking” Russia.

But he also created some distance between himself and the Kremlin, repeatedly calling for an end to the conflict and referring to it as a “war” – a term Moscow refuses to use, instead calling it a “special military operation”.

Speaking at the Independence Palace in Minsk, Lukashenko said:

But I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it. I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on.

Lukashenko’s support for the war has prompted international criticism and sanctions against Minsk.

Some Russian troops were sent from Belarusian territory into Ukraine, and Lukashenko has publicly stood by his longtime ally, who has pumped billions of dollars into shoring up his Soviet-style, state-controlled economy with cheap energy and loans.

But in his comments to the AP, Lukashenko, 67, said he and his country stand for peace.

We categorically do not accept any war. We have done, and are doing, everything now so that there isn’t a war. Thanks to yours truly, me that is, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have begun.

Lukashenko said using nuclear weapons in Ukraine was “unacceptable because it’s right next to us – we are not across the ocean like the United States. It is also unacceptable because it might knock our terrestrial ball flying off the orbit to who knows where. Whether or not Russia is capable of that — is a question you need to ask the Russian leadership.”

Russia “can’t by definition lose this war”, Lukashenko said, noting that Belarus was the only country standing by Moscow, while “as many as 50 states have joined forces” on Ukraine’s side.

He added that Putin wasn’t seeking a direct conflict with Nato, and the west should ensure that doesn’t happen.

He most likely does not want a global confrontation with Nato. Use it. Use it and do everything for that not to happen. Otherwise, even if Putin doesn’t want it, the military will react.

Alexander Lukashenko, left, is interviewed by Ian Phillips, of the Associated Press, at the Independence Palace in Minsk, Belarus, on Thursday.
Alexander Lukashenko, left, is interviewed by Ian Phillips, of the Associated Press, at the Independence Palace in Minsk, Belarus, on Thursday. Photograph: Markus Schreiber/AP

Updated

Today so far

It is just past 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

  • A new United Nations convoy is on its way to the Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol to try to evacuate civilians, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said. The convoy comes after the UN and Red Cross said on Tuesday that more than 100 civilians were evacuated from the tunnels of the Azovstal plant to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia.

That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, today as I hand the blog over to my colleague, Joanna Walters, in New York. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Updated

The attorneys general of the US, Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada have held talks with their Ukrainian counterpart, Iryna Venediktova, on investigating war crimes, the US justice department said.

The six justice officials “discussed their coordinated efforts to hold accountable individuals whose criminal actions are enabling war crimes in Ukraine”, the department said in a statement.

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in the statement:

Our commitment to working with our international partners, including Ukraine’s prosecutor general, to investigate and prosecute those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine remains steadfast.

We will be relentless in our efforts to bring to justice those who facilitate the death and destruction we are witnessing in Ukraine.

Updated

Nazarii has spent the last three weeks listening to fighter planes fly over his village in western Ukraine and hoping that his British visa will arrive soon.

The 17-year-old applied to join a family in Hampshire under the Homes for Ukraine scheme on 11 April and thought it would be straightforward. But with no decision from the Home Office, it appears Nazarii may be the latest casualty of a government policy that denies visas to unaccompanied children.

Under-18s travelling alone are not permitted to be hosted under the Homes for Ukraine programme, leaving them with no route to Britain.

British families that have been carefully vetted and subject to enhanced DBS checks are frustrated that they cannot help teenagers with whom they have been matched. Many are already alone and vulnerable to trafficking and abuse.

The government claims the policy is designed to safeguard children, but by offering no alternative, charities say it could leave young people in greater danger in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe.

For Nazarii, travelling with his parents is not an option. His mother has to care for elderly relatives in their village near Ternopil and his father is a much-needed doctor.

Nazarii, 17, applied to join a family in Hampshire under the Homes for Ukraine scheme on 11 April.
Nazarii, 17, applied to join a family in Hampshire under the Homes for Ukraine scheme on 11 April. Photograph: Handout

His potential host, Samantha Read, 54, from Church Crookham, in Hampshire, works as a teaching assistant and lives with her husband, Tim, and their 17-year-old son, Theo.

She said she rang the Home Office helpline at the start of April to ask if she could host a 17-year-old and was told it was fine if there was written parental permission. After DBS checks and vetting by social services they were expecting the visa any day.

Speaking about Nazarii’s parents, Read said: “All they want is to keep their son safe so he can have a positive future. We have formed a bond with this family. We know we can support him emotionally, financially, provide a safe haven in a loving family home.

“Is it really too much to ask that the Home Office grant this visa as they told me they would in a timely manner?”

Meanwhile, Nazarii is left wondering how he will find safety. “I often hear many sirens and military planes, terrible sounds,” he said.

Updated

Boris Johnson and the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, have warned that the invasion of Ukraine could be replicated in east Asia if democratic powers do not stand up to autocratic powers.

“Ukraine may be east Asia tomorrow,” Kishida said on Thursday during a visit to London, as he called for Indo-Pacific leaders to recognise that the invasion of Ukraine was not just a European problem.

Asked about the implications for Taiwan, he said:

We must collaborate with our allies and like-minded countries, and never tolerate a unilateral attempt to change the status quo by the use of force in the Indo-Pacific, especially in east Asia.

He added:

Russia’s egregious aggression against Ukraine is a clear violation of international law, which prohibits the use of force against a nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Earlier, Johnson said:

We in the UK recognise that our security in Europe is indivisible from the security, our collective security, in the Asia-Pacific, in the Indo-Pacific region. And there is direct read across from the actions of autocratic, coercive powers in Europe, to what may happen in east Asia.

The two countries have signed a mutual access agreement for their two forces, in part dedicated to keeping the seas free and open.

Kishida also announced new sanctions, including an asset freeze on 140 Russia individuals and the expansion of an export ban to include Russian military firms.

The package was announced the day after Russia had imposed asset bans and travel freezes on 60 Japanese officials, including cabinet members and the prime minister himself. Kishida had described the Russian action as completely unacceptable.

Updated

A volunteer at Eco-Park in the emergency room at a local hospital after Russians shelled the Park in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
A volunteer at Eco-Park in the emergency room at a local hospital after Russians shelled the Park in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/UPI/Rex/Shutterstock
Wreckage and damage caused by rockets that were launched into the park
Wreckage and damage caused by rockets that were launched into the park. Photograph: Salvatore Cavalli/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Ivano-Frankivsk mayor urges residents to leave city for fear of Russian missile strikes

Residents in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk, western Ukraine, have been urged to avoid public gatherings this weekend, or leave the city if they can, its mayor has said.

All official events in Ivano-Frankivsk on Saturday, Sunday and Monday have been cancelled for fear of Russian missile strikes, the mayor, Ruslan Martsinkiv, said in a video posted online, Reuters reports.

His announcement followed warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia might step up its offensive in Ukraine before 9 May, when Moscow celebrates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the second world war.

Martsinkiv said:

We have certain information, the enemy unfortunately wants to conduct further missile strikes, therefore on the 7th, 8th and 9th there won’t be any public events, including prayers.

For your safety, I urge you ... on these three days to stay at home ... or out of town if you are able.

He did not give details about the “information” he was referring to.

Updated

A large fire engulfed an oil depot in the city of Makiivka, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, on Wednesday.

Russia-backed authorities in the area said the site had been hit by a Ukrainian military missile strike. Local officials said more than 90 firefighters were involved in trying to extinguish the fire.

Putin apologised for minister’s Hitler comments

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, apologised for comments by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claiming Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins, according to Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett.

Bennett said he accepted the apology and thanked Putin for clarifying his position, he said.

The Israeli prime minister said he also asked Putin to consider allowing the evacuation of the besieged Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, following an earlier conversation he had with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zekenskiy.

Bennett said Putin promised to set up a corridor for evacuating civilians from the plant.

In an interview with Italian TV earlier this week, Lavrov was asked to address how Russia could say it needed to “denazify” the country when its president, Zelenskiy, is Jewish.

Lavrov replied:

As to [Zelenskiy’s] argument of what kind of nazification can we have if I’m Jewish, if I remember correctly, and I may be wrong, Hitler also had Jewish blood. It doesn’t mean anything at all.

The remarks sparked a diplomatic row with Israel, one of the few western countries that has yet to impose sanctions on Russia over its invasion and has not provided military aid to Ukraine.

Updated

New convoy en route to evacuate Azovstal civilians, says UN

A new United Nations convoy is on its way to the Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol to try to evacuate civilians, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said.

The convoy comes after the UN and Red Cross said on Tuesday that more than 100 civilians were evacuated from the tunnels of the Azovstal plant – where Ukrainian officials say heavy fighting continues – to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia. It marked the first completed civilian evacuation from Azovstal, where Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have been trapped for weeks.

Griffiths told a Ukraine donors’ conference in Warsaw:

Today as we speak, a convoy is proceeding to get to Azovstal by tomorrow morning hopefully to receive those civilians remaining in that bleak hell ... and take them back to safety.

Updated

Putin demands surrender of Azovstal defenders

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said Ukraine should order its fighters holed up in the besieged Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol to surrender, the Kremlin said.

In a call with Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, this afternoon, Putin claimed Russia was still ready to provide safe passage for civilians from the plant, according to the Kremlin.

It said Putin told Bennett in a “thorough exchange of views on the situation in Ukraine” that Kyiv should order Ukrainian fighters holed up in the vast Azovstal plant to put down their weapons.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov earlier today denied Russian troops had entered the plant, contradicting claims by Ukrainian officials and fighters that heavy fighting was taking place inside.

The Kremlin said Putin and Bennett, looking forward to the May 9 anniversary when Russia commemorates victory over the Nazis in World War Two, “emphasised the special significance of this date for the peoples of both countries, who carefully preserve the historical truth about the events of those years and honour the memory of all the fallen, including victims of the Holocaust”.

It made no direct reference to the diplomatic row that broke out earlier this week after Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, suggested Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood”.

Updated

Today so far...

It is 7pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

  • The European Union plans to impose sanctions on the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, a long-serving Kremlin ally who has given his blessing to the war in Ukraine, according to a draft document seen by the Guardian. EU officials are also targeting the immediate family of Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, under new listings being discussed by member states.
  • The EU’s aviation safety agency warned of increased risks of civil planes being accidentally targeted due to the war in Ukraine. “Misidentification is easy in confused arenas of warfare”, it said in a document. “It is easy to see the potential for innocent aircraft being subject to missiles or radar laid weapons.”

Hello from London. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong and I’ll continue to bring you all the latest developments from the war in Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.

Updated

There is some queasiness among Europeans about the wisdom of the anonymous US officials telling the New York Times that US intelligence has allowed Ukraine to kill so many Russian generals. (Ukrainian forces say they have killed 12 so far).

There is a feeling that this sort of boasting does not serve a military purpose, and brings Nato and Russia closer to direct confrontation.

One European official said:

We have to be very careful on what we are briefing, for two reasons: for the security of the operations on the ground … and because we don’t want to go to war with Russia.

Another official, well briefed on the issue, argued the claim was also misleading.

“I don’t think that the information published in the New York Times on the targeting of Russian generals is accurate,” this official said.

The reason why Ukrainian forces have succeeded in targeting Russian generals is simply because the Russians implement former Soviet Union doctrines.

The official would not go into detail about what those doctrines entail, but did say:

The Ukrainians are smart enough to know which area they need to target once the Russian troops are deployed on the ground.

It has also been suggested that the combination of a very top-down decision-making tradition in the Russian military, combined with a failure of the army’s secure communications systems has meant that generals have had to come to the front line to give their orders directly, putting them in the line of fire.

One European official said that Ukraine was just at the beginning of an “attrition war”, in which resupplying the troops with new weapons, agility, and morale would be decisive. The official suggested that Ukraine had a potential advantage in all three areas.

Russian efforts to strike weapon supply routes from the west would have limited success because the Ukrainians had a variety of routes, both rail and road, and changed them from day to day, the European official said, echoing an assessment from the Pentagon on Wednesday.

Updated

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, spoke with the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, in a call this afternoon to discuss the possible supply of longer-range weaponry by Britain to Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Johnson “welcomed the opportunity to address the Ukrainian parliament earlier this week, noting how important Ukraine’s democratic values are as a counterweight to Russia’s failing autocracy”, the spokesperson said.

They added:

The leaders discussed developments on the battlefield and the Ukrainian armed forces’ requirements, including the provision of longer-range weaponry to prevent the bombardment of civilians.

The prime minister also set out the importance of a robust and independent international judicial process to ensure those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine are held to account, and offered the UK’s continued support on war crimes evidence-gathering.

The two leaders agreed to speak again “in the next few days”, the spokesperson said.

Updated

Nato will increase its presence around Sweden’s borders and in the Baltic Sea while Sweden applies to join the alliance, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said.

There is a “strong obligation” for Nato to guarantee Sweden’s security while a potential application to join the alliance is processed, Stoltenberg told Swedish public broadcast SVT, adding:

I am convinced that we will find solutions for the security needs Sweden will have in a transitional period.

Sweden and Finland are expected to make a decision about whether to apply to join Nato this month. Both countries are seeking military protection assurances during an application process, which could take up to a year to be approved by all Nato members.

Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde, said yesterday that the US had given the country “security assurances” for the application period, but “not concrete security guarantees”.

Updated

Here’s some more detail on the comments we posted earlier by Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, who pleaded for help for wounded soldiers “dying in horrible agony” and the evacuation of civilians at the Azovstal steel works in the southern port city of Mariupol.

Russia “violated” a promised ceasefire at the steel works, where civilians and the city’s last defenders are holed up, Palamar said in a video on Telegram.

Palamar said:

It’s day three since the enemy entered the Azovstal factory, where heavy, bloody fighting continues.

Once again, the Russians violated the promise of a ceasefire and did not allow the evacuation of civilians who continue to hide from shelling in the basement of the plant.

He appealed to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to take care of “the wounded soldiers who are dying in terrible agony from improper treatment”, adding:

Give the opportunity to pick up the bodies of soldiers so that Ukrainians can say goodbye to their heroes. Respond appropriately to a critical situation in which the enemy does not adhere to any ethical norms.

The Kremlin has denied its troops have entered the steel works and said humanitarian corridors to evacuate trapped civilians were operating there on Thursday.

Ukrainian officials believe that about 200 civilians remain trapped along with fighters in the network of underground bunkers at the sprawling Soviet-era complex.

Updated

The EU’s aviation safety agency warned of increased risks of “innocent” civil planes being accidentally targeted by missiles due to the war in Ukraine.

The conflict has also led to an increased risk of cyberattacks, the regulator said in a document published online, Reuters reports.

The statement read:

As shown by previous wars, misidentification is easy in confused arenas of warfare. The development of this risk is common to all combatants.

If we add in the likelihood of jamming of electronic aids that may be involved with navigation and or ... identification tools, then it is easy to see the potential for innocent aircraft being subject to missiles or radar laid weapons.

There were also risks related to an increase in the number of military operations using civilians airports, it added:

Military drones and aircraft operating in the conflict zone may inadvertently infringe adjacent civil airspace.

Updated

A tank is seen in front of the damaged building in Mariupol, Ukraine.
A tank is seen in front of the damaged building in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Smoke rises from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, in eastern Ukraine.
Smoke rises from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, in eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Alexei Alexandrov/AP

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has invited the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to visit him in Kyiv, AFP quotes the German president’s office as saying.

Zelenskiy made the invitation during a telephone call with Steinmeier earlier today, in which “past irritations were cleared up” and the German president expressed his “solidarity, respect and support” for Ukraine, a source from the president’s office said.

The invitation comes three weeks after Steinmeier, a former German foreign minister, was snubbed by Kyiv amid criticism for his years-long detente policy towards Russia. He admitted last month that he had offered to visit Ukraine with other EU leaders, but said this was “not wanted in Kyiv”.

Scholz has also faced criticism for his own failure to visit Kyiv, as well as his hesitancy over providing heavy weapons to help Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion. The German government said last week that it would send anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine, in a clear switch in Berlin’s cautious policy on military backing for Kyiv.

In the telephone call earlier today, Steinmeier said Germany “stands with united forces in solidarity at Ukraine’s side”, the source from the president’s office said.

Both presidents described the talks as “very important and very good”, the source said.

'Heavy, bloody fighting' continues in Azovstal according to video posted by member of Azov Regiment

One of the Ukrainians barricaded into the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol appears to have posted a video with a situation update from there. Reuters reports Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment said:

It is the third day that the enemy has entered the Azovstal steel plant. Heavy, bloody fighting is going on. Yet again, the Russians have not kept the promise of a ceasefire and have not given an opportunity for the civilians who seek shelter in basements of the plant to evacuate. Our enemy observes no ethical norms, conventions or laws.

The veracity of the video and the location and timing that it was filmed have not been verified.

Earlier today Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied that Russia had attacked the plant. Russia has said it is opening a humanitarian corridor for three days to allow civilians trapped in the plant alongside the fighters an opportunity to evacuate.

TV channel TSV in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria has reported that there has been shooting near the Kuchurgan checkpoint on the border with Ukraine.

The reports, which are unverified, have been carried by the Russian news agency RIA, which quotes TSV saying:

A source in the law enforcement agencies of Transnistria said that, indeed, indiscriminate shooting took place on the territory of Ukraine near the village of Pavlovka. It is near the village of Kuchurgan, in the area of the railway bridge that was blown up on 4 March.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has tweeted that he has spoken with Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Zelenskiy said:

Had a good, constructive, important conversation with Germany’s federal President Steinmeier. Thanked for strong support for Ukraine. Expect it to be intensified. German leadership is important to counter Russian aggression. Informed about situation on the frontline, critical situation in Mariupol.

Earlier today newspaper Die Welt reported that Germany is preparing to supply Ukraine with seven Panzerhaubitze 2000 armoured howitzers.

Peter Beaumont wraps up the latest military developments in Ukraine for us:

Russia has unleashed heavy artillery barrages against multiple Ukrainian positions in the south and east of the country, amid conflicting claims over whether Russian forces were attempting to storm the last Ukrainian positions in the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.

While Ukrainian officials and fighters claimed Russian troops had entered the labyrinthine industrial area in the southern city and that heavy fighting was taking place inside, the Kremlin denied its troops had entered and said humanitarian corridors to evacuate trapped civilians were operating there on Thursday.

Ukrainian fighters inside Azovstal said they were fighting “difficult, bloody battles” inside the plant, according to Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov regiment.

Ukraine’s military general staff said the assault on the plant had air support, and pictures released by Russian-backed fighters appeared to show smoke and flames enveloping it.

However, asked to comment on the claim that Russian troops had broken into the plant’s territory, the official Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, referred reporters to president Vladimir Putin’s previous order not to storm the plant.

Asked about a New York Times report that US intelligence helped Ukraine kill a number of Russian generals, Peskov said: “The United States, Britain, Nato, as a whole hand over intelligence ... to Ukraine’s armed forces on a permanent basis.

“Coupled with the flow of weapons that these countries are sending to Ukraine, these are all actions that do not contribute to the quick completion of the operation,” he said.

Read more of Peter Beaumont’s report here: Russia opens artillery barrages in south and east Ukraine

Head of Russian Orthodox church on EU sanctions list draft

The European Union plans to impose sanctions on the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, a long-serving Kremlin ally who has given his blessing to the war in Ukraine, according to a draft document seen by the Guardian.

Kirill, who used a sermon to support Russia’s “special peacekeeping operation” days after the invasion, now faces being added to the EU sanctions list, which already includes more than 1,000 powerful Russians, according to the draft.

He is one of 57 people who would face an EU travel ban and asset freeze under new listings being discussed by member states.

Patriarch Kirill conducts the Easter service at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, Russia.
Patriarch Kirill conducts the Easter service at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, Russia. Photograph: Sergei Vlasov/AP

EU officials are also targeting the immediate family of Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, who was sanctioned in a previous round. Peskov’s wife, Tatiana Navka, would be added to the list through her marriage, but also because of her co-ownership of property in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, according to the EU. Nikolay Peskov, 31, is said by the EU to use his father’s money, while Elizaveta Peskova, 24, is said to have acquired “lucrative positions and has been living a luxurious lifestyle thanks to her father’s connections”.

The day after the Russian invasion, Peskova posted “No to war” on her Instagram account, according to Russian media. The post was later removed.

Also expected to be added to the list is Marina Mordashova, the wife of Russia’s richest man, Alexei Mordashov, because she is said to benefit from her husband’s assets. He is a majority shareholder of Severstal, Russia’s biggest steel company, and during the pandemic rescued Tui, Europe’s largest tour operator. After Mordashov was added to the EU sanctions list in March, German authorities reported that he had transferred €1.5bn worth of shares in Tui and the gold company Nordgold to his wife via various offshore companies.

Updated

Ukraine ‘unlikely’ to launch counter-offensive before mid-June, says presidential adviser

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said no Ukraine counter-offensive was expected before mid-June when it hopes to have received more weapons from its allies, Reuters reports.

Arestovych said he did not expect Russia’s offensive in Ukraine to produce any “significant results” by 9 May, when Russia celebrates its ‘Victory Day’ over Nazi Germany in the second world war.

He said fighting continued at the Azovstal steel works in the southern port city of Mariupol where civilians and the city’s last defenders are holed up.

Speaking on national television, Arestovych said Ukrainian forces “repelled” Russian troops at the plant.

He said a lot of contradictory information was circulating but said “there are ongoing combats. All other information is being clarified.”

Updated

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, thanked his Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, for humanitarian aid and support of Kyiv “during and after this war”.

Kuleba tweeted that Lapid had assured him that Israel will “stand by” Ukraine, including “by preventing sanctions evasion and helping to rebuild Ukraine”.

Recent remarks by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” and that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews” sparked a diplomatic row with Israel, one of the few western countries that has yet to impose sanctions on Russia over its invasion and has not provided military aid to Ukraine.

Earlier this week, Lapid said Israel made “every effort” to have good relations with Russia “but there is a limit and this limit has been crossed this time. The government of Russia needs to apologise to us and the Jewish people.”

Kuleba said both he and Lapid were “outraged” by Lavrov’s remarks, and called on the Russian foreign minister to publicly apologise to Jews around the world.

Antisemitism has “a long track record among Russian elites”, Kuleba tweeted.

Updated

A woman sits on her bed with her dog at an apartment damaged by a missile explosion in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine.
A woman sits on her bed with her dog at an apartment damaged by a missile explosion in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
A woman on a balcony at an apartment damaged by a missile explosion in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine.
A woman on a balcony at an apartment damaged by a missile explosion in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Russia says 'impossible to hold Victory Day parade in Donetsk and Luhansk'

There will be no Victory Day parade in the Russia-controlled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to a top Kremlin official.

The Victory Parade and the “Immortal Regiment” on 9 May “cannot yet be held”, Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, was quoted by the Russian state-owned news agency Ria as saying.

Speaking on a square in Mariupol, Kiriyenko was quoted by the Russian state-owed newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta as saying:

Yes, it’s impossible to hold an Immortal Regiment march or a Victory parade in Donetsk or Luhansk on May 9, but this time will come and will come soon.

It would be the first time no 9 May parade has taken place in Luhansk and Donetsk since 2014, when those territories were seized by Russia, according to the Ukrainian newspaper Pravda.

Ukrainian officials said yesterday that Russian forces were preparing for a military parade in the city of Mariupol. In a statement on Telegram, Ukraine’s intelligence service said Kiryenko had arrived in Mariupol to prepare for the parade.

Mariupol would become “the centre of celebrations”, Ukraine’s intelligence said, adding:

The main avenues of the city are [being] urgently cleaned, the debris and the bodies of the dead removed, as well as the ammunition which did not explode.

Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, did not confirm the parade would take place in Mariupol when asked about his country’s Victory Day preparations, AFP reported.

But he said that “this year, military parades will take place in 28 Russian cities”, adding “nearly 65,000 people, about 2,400 types of weapons and military equipment and more than 460 planes will be mobilised”.

Updated

The European Union should confiscate and sell Russian assets it has seized through sanctions and use the proceeds to rebuild Ukraine, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, said.

In an interview with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Michel said:

I’m absolutely convinced that this is extremely important not only to freeze assets, but also to make possible to confiscate it, to make it available for the rebuilding of the country.

He added:

In my opinion, this is a question of fairness.

The EU said last month that it had frozen €30bn in assets linked to blacklisted Russian and Belarusian individuals. Michel’s remarks make him the first senior EU official to propose the confiscation of these assets, AFP reports.

European Council President Charles Michel
The European Council president, Charles Michel Photograph: Dumitru Doru/EPA

The US president, Joe Biden, proposed last week for oligarchs’ seized assets to be “sold off” to “remedy the harm Russia caused and to help build Ukraine”.

But rights groups warned any legislation in that sense could violate due-process protections, a concern Michel acknowledged.

Confiscation of sanctioned individuals’ assets “is not so simple” and would be “a difficult and long process”, he said.

Updated

US intelligence helping Ukraine kill Russian generals, report says

US officials have reportedly confirmed they are providing intelligence that has helped Ukrainian forces target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in the Ukraine war.

The claim in the New York Times, quoting unnamed defence officials, appears to confirm suspicions the US is supplying actionable intelligence in real time to help the Ukrainian military select high-value targets.

Appearing to confirm the claims, the Pentagon spokesperson, John Kirby, acknowledged the US was providing “Ukraine with information and intelligence that they can use to defend themselves”, although Adrienne Watson, a national security council spokesperson, said intelligence was not provided “with the intent to kill Russian generals”.

The acknowledgment of US intelligence assistance in targeting Russian forces, which comes on top of another $20bn (£16bn) in promised weapons to Ukraine from Washington, is a further escalation in what is increasingly becoming a proxy war between the US, with its western allies, and Russian forces in Ukraine.

A destroyed Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle on a road near Pokrovske, eastern Ukraine.
A destroyed Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle on a road near Pokrovske, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

The Kremlin said on Thursday it was well aware that the United States, Britain and other Nato countries were constantly feeding intelligence to the Ukrainian military and that this would not stop Russia from achieving its objectives.

While Moscow has already said it was targeting western arms shipments arriving in Ukraine, it also threatened “lightning fast” retaliation after the UK defence minister James Heappey defended Ukraine striking targets inside Russia.

According to the US officials, Washington has given Ukraine details on Russia’s expected troop movements and the location and other information about Russia’s mobile military headquarters, and Ukraine has combined that help with its own intelligence to conduct artillery strikes and other attacks that have killed Russian officers.

Ukrainian officials said their forces had killed about 12 Russian generals on the battlefield. The most recent fatality apparently occurred at the weekend with the reported death of Maj Gen Andrei Simonov, a Russian electronic warfare commander, who Ukraine said it killed near the city of Izium in the Kharkiv region, which is occupied by Russian forces.

Updated

Russia has expelled seven employees of the Danish embassy in Moscow in retaliation for a similar move by Copenhagen last month, the Russian foreign ministry said.

The ministry said it had declared the Danish embassy employees “persona non grata”, adding that Denmark’s openly anti-Russian policy was seriously damaging bilateral relations.

Moscow reserved the right to take additional steps in response, it said.

The Danish foreign ministry confirmed it had been informed that four diplomats and three other employees at its embassy in Moscow would be expelled.

Denmark’s foreign minister, Jeppe Kofod, said the expulsion was “completely unjustified and deeply problematic” and that it underlined that Russia “no longer wants real dialogue and diplomacy”.

Updated

The Kremlin accused the west of preventing a “quick end” to Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine by supplying weapons and intelligence to Kyiv.

Responding to a New York Times report that the US had provided intelligence that helped Ukrainian forces kill a dozen Russian generals in the Ukraine war, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:

Our military is well aware that the United States, Britain and Nato as a whole are constantly transmitting intelligence and other parameters to the Ukrainian armed forces.

Coupled with the flow of weapons that these countries are sending to Ukraine, these are all actions that do not contribute to the quick completion of the operation.

This would not stop Russia from achieving its military objectives in Ukraine, he said.

Asked what measures Russia might take in response, Peskov said:

Of course, the Russian military is doing whatever is necessary in this situation.

Hello, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong with you again to bring you all the latest developments 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

A damaged statue in the Borodianka region of Ukraine.
A damaged statue in the Borodianka region of Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The Kremlin has denied that Russian troops are storming the Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine’s southern port city of Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters and civilians are trapped, and said humanitarian corridors are operating there.

Reuters reports that asked if a claim by a senior Ukrainian official that Russian troops had broken into the plant’s territory was true, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred reporters to President Vladimir Putin’s previous order not to storm the plant.

It should be noted that in the past Peskov has said that reports Russia intended to invade Ukraine were a “hollow and unfounded” invention of the western media, and in February he said that Russian troops would be “pulled back to their permanent bases” after the conclusion of joint military drills with Belarus. Seven days after he said that, Russia launched what it terms its “special military operation” inside Ukraine.

Updated

Today so far …

  • Another 344 people have been rescued from the besieged city of Mariupol in a second evacuation operation, Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed in his latest national address. However, the Ukrainian president said civilians would need to be dug from bunkers under the city’s Azovstal steelworks by hand as heavy equipment could not be used.
  • Russia has said it will implement a ceasefire for three days from Thursday to allow more civilian evacuations from the Azovstal plant. However, Ukraine has claimed Russia resumed its offensive against Mariupol in order to take control of the plant, saying heavy fighting continues.
  • Video has emerged which appears to show the Azovstal plant being bombed, although when the footage was filmed was unclear.
  • Russia said its artillery struck multiple Ukrainian positions and strongholds overnight, killing 600 fighters. The defence ministry also said its missiles destroyed aviation equipment at the Kanatovo airfield in Ukraine’s central Kirovohrad region, and a large ammunition depot in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
  • Ukraine’s military says it has regained control over several settlements surrounding Mykolaiv and Kherson in the country’s south.
  • Ukraine has shelled the Russian Belgorod villages of Zhuravlevka and Nekhoteevka with no resulting casualties, according to the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
  • The United States has provided intelligence that has helped Ukrainian forces kill many of the Russian generals who have died in the Ukraine war, the New York Times reported, citing senior US officials. Washington has reportedly provided Ukraine with details on Russia’s expected troop movements and the location and other details about Russia’s mobile military headquarters.
  • Reports claim almost 200,000 children from the self-proclaimed breakaway regions of Ukraine – Donetsk and Luhansk – have so far arrived in Russia since the latest conflict began on 24 February. Ukrainian authorities have accused Russia of carrying out forced deportations from the east of the country.
  • Russia said its forces practiced simulated nuclear-capable missile strikes yesterday in the western enclave of Kaliningrad
  • Germany is preparing to supply Ukraine with seven Panzerhaubitze 2000 armoured howitzers granting Kyiv’s explicit wishes for material support in the shape of the self-propelled weapons systems that can hit targets at a distance of 25 miles (40km).
  • The UK is providing £45m in funding to help the most vulnerable in Ukraine and at its borders, the government has said. The money will go to UN agencies and charities delivering aid and supporting survivors of sexual violence.

Updated

A video published by a Russia-backed separatist group appears to show an attack on the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. The video was released on 4 May, and while the location has been confirmed, it is unclear when it was filmed.

Julian Borger reports for us from Washington on how the Ukrainian war is also a domestic political issue for US President Joe Biden:

The visit of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Kyiv at the head of a congressional delegation this week was a reminder that in Washington the Ukraine war is not just an issue of national security but is an increasingly important domestic political issue too.

In his approach to the conflict, Joe Biden, has the wind at his back in terms of US public opinion and Democratic party sentiment which is encouraging him to be ever more forward-leaning.

In a new poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News, 37% of Americans questioned said his administration was not doing enough to support the Ukrainians, fractionally more than the 36% who said he was doing the right amount. Only 14% suggested he was doing too much.

Late last month, the administration broadened US objectives in the conflict, to not just support Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity but also to weaken Russia, with the aim of preventing a repeat of Moscow’s aggression against other countries.

A European diplomat suggested that one of the factors behind that shift was impatience in the higher levels of the party with the administration’s posture.

Read more of Julian Borger’s analysis here: Why the Ukrainian war is also a domestic political issue for Biden

Germany is preparing to supply Ukraine with seven Panzerhaubitze 2000 armoured howitzers, according to newspaper Die Welt, granting explicit wishes by Kyiv for material support in the shape of the self-propelled weapons systems that can hit targets at a distance of 40 kilometres.

The delivery of the armoured howitzers, which newspaper Bild reported to be currently in repair and not be ready for delivery until the end of June, is believed to be a political decision that goes against the advice of Germany’s military, which has said it requires the armed vehicles for its own needs.

Only 40 out of 119 Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers within the Bundeswehr’s arsenal are currently ready for use, said Die Welt.

Mariupol’s mayor Vadym Boychenko has praised the work of Ukraine’s president and deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk in a post on the Mariupol council’s official Facebook page. He is quoted as saying:

Now we are fighting together for the salvation of every person, every Mariupol resident. Thank you to the international partners involved in organizing the humanitarian corridors. Special thanks to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and Iryna Vereshchuk for saving the lives of Mariupol residents. The evacuation should be continued and maximum diplomatic efforts should be made along the way.

In a second statement, Mariupol council has announced that it is setting up hubs to help Mariupol residents who have been forced to flee the city in Zaporizhia and Dnipro, with the aim not just to provide services but “a sense of home”.

The council says “This is a kind of Mariupol diaspora, where you can find friends, support and understanding. When we have each other, Mariupol lives!”

The council says it plans to open centres in other Ukrainian cities shortly.

Russia’s RIA news agency is reporting that almost 200,000 children from the self-proclaimed breakaway regions of Ukraine – Donetsk and Luhansk – have so far arrived in Russia since the latest conflict began on 24 February.

RIA quote a representative of Russia’s emergency services saying “In total, 199,700 children crossed the Russian state border at the beginning of the conflict, including 2,100 over the past day.”

Ukrainian authorities have accused Russia of carrying out forced deportations from the east of the country in territory it occupies.

Here is the video clip of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying civilians are still trapped in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, after more than 300 people were rescued from the city during a brief ceasefire.

Russia claims to have killed 600 Ukrainian fighters overnight in artillery strikes

Russia said this morning that its artillery struck multiple Ukrainian positions and strongholds overnight, killing 600 fighters.

Reuters reports the defence ministry also said its missiles destroyed aviation equipment at the Kanatovo airfield in Ukraine’s central Kirovohrad region, and a large ammunition depot in the southern city of Mykolaiv.

Russian villages in Belgorod shelled from Ukraine – regional governor

The Russian Belgorod villages of Zhuravlevka and Nekhoteevka have been shelled by Ukraine with no casualties resulting, according to the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Russia’s RIA news agency quotes his Telegram channel saying “a house and a garage were destroyed in Nekhoteevka. There were no casualties among the civilian population. The shelling continues.”

The Belgorod region borders Ukraine, the north of Kharkiv.

Updated

Gen Richard Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff of the British army in the early 2000s has been interviewed about Ukraine on Sky News in the UK this morning. He told viewers that he thought the renewed reports of fighting at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol represented Russia attempting to secure some sort of victory announcement for the 9 May commemoration of the end of the second world war. He said:

It would appear they’ve now resumed the direct attack in order to try and snuff out the remaining parts of the resistance, so that they can claim on Monday that they have captured Mariupol, and therefore they have completed their land corridor from Crimea through the Donbas into Russia proper.

This is a tragedy that’s unfolding in front of our eyes. Some of the civilians may get out over a two or three day ceasefire, which is being talked about, but for the soldiers in there, I’m afraid the prospect is very grim.

He suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin was in a position to declare a victory because “he has control over the state media. He can say what he likes. And tragically a large proportion of the Russian people will believe what he says.”

Dannatt said that “the evidence is mounting” that Russia’s campaign amounts to an attempt at genocide, describing the attack on the theatre in Mariupol as “really quite despicable.”

He felt that the prospects for the endgame in Ukraine were quite bleak for the Ukrainians, saying:

The sad reality is that at some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, there will be some form of general ceasefire and the war will stop where it is.

[The Russians] won’t leave of their own free accord. And no one is going to throw them out. Nato and the west is not going to mount an Iraq-style operation to throw out the Russians from Ukraine in the same way that Saddam Hussein was thrown out of Kuwait. That just isn’t going to happen.

So there may have to be the realisation of an awful new status quo, where 10-to-15% of Ukraine is occupied by Russians, and there’s nothing that can be done about it.

Russia’s RIA news agency is carrying additional details from Moldova’s unrecognised breakaway Transnistria region, which claimed earlier this week to have foiled a drone attack it says originated within Ukraine. Transnistria borders Ukraine to the west.

The report quotes Transnistria’s foreign minister Vitaly Ignatiev saying:

The red increased terrorist threat code remains. We managed to neutralise the drone that flew with explosives in the direction of the Mayak radio and television centre. We minimised this threat, but the danger of terrorist attacks remains

The drone that was neutralized, we were able to track the tracking of its movements, and everything suggests that it was launched from the territory of Ukraine , six kilometres from the border of Transnistria

Russia practises nuclear-capable missile strikes, ministry says

Russia has said its forces practiced simulated nuclear-capable missile strikes yesterday in the western enclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania along the Baltic coast.

Russia practised simulated “electronic launches” of nuclear-capable Iskander mobile ballistic missile systems, the defence ministry said in a statement.

The Russian forces practised single and multiple strikes at targets imitating launchers of missile systems, airfields, protected infrastructure, military equipment and command posts of a mock enemy, AFP cited the statement as saying.

After performing the “electronic” launches, the military personnel carried out a manoeuvre to change their position in order to avoid “a possible retaliatory strike,” the defence ministry added. The drills reportedly involved more than 100 servicemen.

Russia placed nuclear forces on high alert shortly after the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February and Russian President Vladimir Putin has hinted at deploying tactical nuclear weapons, warning of a “lightning fast” retaliation if the west directly intervenes in the Ukraine conflict.

Updated

Sir Andrew Wood, a former British Ambassador to Russia and Moldova, has been interviewed on Sky News in the UK. Asked about the prospect of a big shift in the war or Russian tactics as the 9 May Victory Day holiday approaches, he said:

They thought [Putin] was going to win the war a long time before that. In fact he is losing heavily. And I think we have to realise that he cannot win the war in the sense of achieving a settled outcome. Nobody in Ukraine is going to forget what he’s done, and what his forces have done, and the way they have done it. That in itself is a defeat.

On the prospects for peace talks, Wood said:

I don’t think there could be any real dialogue until the results in the eastern region are clear. If Russia continues to lose troops at the rate they are, then they could have talks about Russia retreating, essentially. If [Putin] wins, in the sense of slaughtering more Ukrainians, it still isn’t a victory because it isn’t a permanent solution.

He said that the support Britain had given to Ukraine so far was “stalwart and effective” and had increased the standing of the UK of the eastern half of the EU. He said the possibility of Sweden and Finland joining Nato was a “radical change” in Europe.

He finished by saying “I can only hope that in the end, the Putin regime will take account of some new realities. And be different.”

The United States has provided intelligence that has helped Ukrainian forces kill many of the Russian generals who have died in the Ukraine war, the New York Times has reported, citing senior US officials.

The targeting help is part of a classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine, the newspaper said.

Washington has reportedly provided to Ukraine details on Russia’s expected troop movements and the location and other details about Russia’s mobile military headquarters, and Ukraine has combined that help with its own intelligence to conduct artillery strikes and other attacks that have killed Russian officers.

Intelligence also includes anticipated Russian troop movements gleaned from recent American assessments of Moscow’s secret battle plan for the fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, the officials said.

Ukrainian officials said they have killed about 12 Russian generals on the battlefield, according to the New York Times. Officials declined to specify how many generals had been killed as a result of US assistance, the newspaper added.

UK to provide £45m to help vulnerable in Ukraine and at its borders

The UK is providing £45m in funding to help the most vulnerable in Ukraine and at its borders, the government has said.

The money will go to UN agencies and charities delivering vital aid and supporting survivors of sexual violence in the war-torn nation, PA Media reports.

This means the UK’s full £220m humanitarian aid package for Ukraine has now been allocated. Foreign secretary Liz Truss said:

Britain has stood shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine throughout this conflict. As one of the largest humanitarian donors we will continue to make sure those bearing the brunt of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s vile war have the lifesaving aid they need.

British aid is supporting the most vulnerable in Ukraine, particularly women and children, who are facing increased risk of sexual violence and exploitation.”

Evacuees including some from the Azovstal plant wave as they arrive on a bus at an evacuation point in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.
Evacuees including some from the Azovstal plant wave as they arrive on a bus at an evacuation point in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Of the 45m, 15m will go to the UN Ukraine Humanitarian Fund which distributes food, water, shelter and other basic necessities, as well as working to prevent sexual violence, the agency added.

Martin Griffiths, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator, said: “This generous contribution from the United Kingdom will enable the UN’s Ukraine Humanitarian Fund to scale up the delivery of fast, effective and lifesaving aid to people who are caught up in this unfolding nightmare.”

Another 15m will go to children’s agency Unicef to provide food to pregnant women and mental health support for children.

Aid organisations in Moldova and other neighbouring countries will receive 10m to protect those fleeing the war, while 5m will go to the International Federation of the Red Cross in Ukraine.

Truss also announced the UK will send more medical supplies, in addition to more than 5m items already delivered, including some 380,000 packs of medicine and wound care packs to treat 220,000 wounded.

Britain has already committed 2m of food supplies to parts of Ukraine encircled by Russian forces, with 17 trucks already having delivered more than 50,000kg of pasta, 10,000kg of rice, 60,000 tins of corned beef and more than 80,000 litres of water.

Some 30 million in humanitarian support is going to Poland to help refugees there and get supplies into Ukraine.

Nearly 16 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance within Ukraine, according to the UN. Some seven million are internally displaced, while 5.5 million refugees have spilled into neighbouring countries.

Sized and sorted children’s shoes are seen at a central aid processing and distribution centre in Lviv, Ukraine.
Sized and sorted children’s shoes are seen at a central aid processing and distribution centre in Lviv, Ukraine. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Ukraine says Russian offensive on Azovstal plant has resumed, Moscow promises ceasefire

Russia has said it will implement a ceasefire for three days from Thursday to allow more civilian evacuations from the Azovstal plant in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“The Russian armed forces will from 8 am to 6 pm (Moscow time) on May 5, 6 and 7 open a humanitarian corridor from the territory of the Azovstal metallurgical plant to evacuate civilians,” the defence ministry said on Wednesday.

“During this period, the Russian armed forces and formations of the Donetsk People’s Republic will unilaterally cease any hostilities,” the ministry added.

However, Ukraine has claimed Russia resumed its offensive on Mariupol in order to take control of the plant, saying heavy fighting continues.

Russian occupiers are focusing their efforts on blocking and trying to destroy Ukrainians units stationed in the Azovstal steel works area, officials said in a recent report released by Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces.

Smoke rises from the Azovstal steel works plant in Mariupol.
Smoke rises from the Azovstal steel works plant in Mariupol. Photograph: Alexei Alexandrov/AP

Ukrainian forces earlier said they are fighting “difficult bloody battles” against Russian troops inside the Azovstal steelworks.

“I am proud of my soldiers who are making superhuman efforts to contain the pressure of the enemy ... the situation is extremely difficult,” Denis Prokopenko, the commander of the Azov regiment, said in a video message posted on Telegram.

Russian forces entered the territory of Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks on Wednesday, a Ukrainian official said. Video from a Russia-backed account reportedly shows airstrikes hitting the plant as civilians seek refuge inside, but it’s not entirely clear when the strikes happened.

Civilians will need to be dug from Azovstal steelworks bunkers by hand, says Volodymyr Zelenskiy

Another 344 people have been rescued from the besieged city of Mariupol in a second evacuation operation, Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed in his latest national address. However, the Ukrainian president said civilians will need to be dug from bunkers by hand under the Azovstal steelworks as heavy equipment cannot be used.

The second stage of our evacuation operation from Mariupol was completed today. 344 people were rescued - from the city and its suburbs. That’s how many people departed to Zaporizhzhia today...

They all receive the necessary help. All of them will receive the most caring treatment from our state.”

A group of Mariupol residents, including Azovstal evacuees who spent almost two months in the shelter at the steelworks, head for Zaporizhzhia, southeastern Ukraine.
A group of Mariupol residents, including Azovstal evacuees who spent almost two months in the shelter at the steelworks, head for Zaporizhzhia, southeastern Ukraine. Photograph: Ukrinform/REX/Shutterstock

Zelenskiy said negotiations continue to rescue people trapped in the Azovstal steel works. “There are still civilians. Women, children,” he added.

To save them, we need to continue the silence. The Ukrainian side is ready to provide it. It takes time to just lift people out of those basements, out of those underground shelters. In the current conditions, we cannot use special equipment to clear the debris. Everything is done manually.”

Zelenskiy also asked the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, for help evacuating people still trapped in the plant.

“The lives of the people who remain there are in danger. Everyone is important to us. We ask for your help in saving them,” he said.

Updated

Russian forces rehearse for Victory Day, Kremlin denies it will declare all-out war

Russian forces rehearsed for a Victory Day Parade set for 9 May in Moscow on Wednesday as the Kremlin denies it is preparing to declare all-out war in Ukraine.

Russia has dismissed speculation that it will declare all-out war in Ukraine in the coming days as “nonsense” amid speculation from western officials that President Vladimir Putin could use the 9 May Victory Parade to announce an escalation of military action.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no truth to the rumours “at all”.

Last week, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the Moscow parade - an annual event that commemorates the defeat of the Nazis and end of World War Two - might be used to drum up support for a mass mobilisation of troops and renewed push into Ukraine.

“I would not be surprised, and I don’t have any information about this, that he is probably going to declare on this May Day that ‘we are now at war with the world’s Nazis and we need to mass mobilise the Russian people’,” he told LBC radio.

Russia has dismissed speculation that it will declare all-out war in Ukraine in the coming days as “nonsense”.
Russia has dismissed speculation that it will declare all-out war in Ukraine in the coming days as “nonsense”. Photograph: Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
A Russian T-14 Armata tank participates in a Victory Day Parade night rehearsal on Tverskaya street on May 4.
A Russian T-14 Armata tank participates in a Victory Day Parade night rehearsal on Tverskaya street on May 4. Photograph: Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
Russian military vehicles participate in a Victory Day Parade night rehearsal on Tverskaya street in Moscow, Russia on Wednesday.
Russian military vehicles participate in a Victory Day Parade night rehearsal on Tverskaya street in Moscow, Russia on Wednesday. Photograph: Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
Russian military seen rolling down a Moscow street on Wednesday in preparation for Victory Day.
Russian military seen rolling down a Moscow street on Wednesday in preparation for Victory Day. Photograph: Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
Victory Day is a remembrance of Russians who died in World War II and victory over the Nazis.
Victory Day is a remembrance of Russians who died in World War II and victory over the Nazis. Photograph: Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images

Updated

Ukraine regains control over settlements near Kherson, military says

Ukraine has regained control over several settlements surrounding Mykolayiv and Kherson in the country’s south, military officials have said.

Due to the successful actions of Ukrainian defenders, Russian forces “lost control over several settlements on the border of Mykolayiv and Kherson regions,” the latest intelligence report from Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces reads.

Russian forces have fought heavily in the southern region of Kherson, seeking to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula and the eastern Donbas region.

However, heavy fighting continues in Mariupol where Russian occupiers are focusing their efforts on blocking and trying to destroy Ukrainians units stationed in the Azovstal steel works area, officials added.

With the support of aircraft, the enemy resumed the offensive in order to take control of the plant, the report continued.

Russia is also “provoking tensions” in the Transnistrian region of Moldova, Ukraine claimed.

A glassless window opens to a destroyed home after Russian shelling in Novovorontsovka, just 10km north of the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian troops in Kherson.
A glassless window opens to a destroyed home after Russian shelling in Novovorontsovka, just 10km north of the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian troops in Kherson. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

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 in London takes the reins a little later.

Ten weeks into a war that has killed thousands, destroyed cities and driven millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes, Moscow is showing no signs of pulling back.

It is 8am in Ukraine. Here is everything you might have missed:

  • Ukrainian forces are fighting “difficult bloody battles” against Russian troops inside the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, Reuters reported, citing a Telegram video message from the commander of the Azov battalion. A Ukrainian official said on Wednesday that Russian forces entered the steelworks where the city’s last resistance has been holding out but contact remained with the defenders.
  • Another 344 people have been rescued from the besieged city of Mariupol in a second evacuation operation, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has confirmed a national address.
  • Russia has said it will implement a daytime ceasefire for three days from Thursday to allow more civilian evacuations from the Azovstal plant. “The Russian armed forces will from 8 am to 6 pm (Moscow time) on 5-7 May open a humanitarian corridor from the territory of the Azovstal metallurgical plant to evacuate civilians,” the defence ministry said.
  • The UK is providing £45m in funding to help the most vulnerable in Ukraine and at its borders, the government has said. The money will go to UN agencies and charities delivering vital aid and supporting survivors of sexual violence in the war-torn nation, PA Media reports.
  • Joe Biden said he would speak with other G7 leaders this week about potential additional sanctions against Russia. His treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the US was in constant discussions with its partners about this.
  • The United States has provided intelligence that has helped Ukrainian forces kill many of the Russian generals who have died in the Ukraine war, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing senior US officials. Washington has reportedly provided to Ukraine details on Russia’s expected troop movements and the location and other details about Russia’s mobile military headquarters.
  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believed Ukraine would again see peace despite Russia’s war but warned that what happens in Ukraine will have important consequences for the rest of Europe. Addressing the people of Denmark on the 77th anniversary of their liberation from Nazi occupation, he said: “I do believe our day of liberation is coming close.”
  • Russia has practised simulated nuclear-capable missile strikes in the western enclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania along the Baltic coast. Forces rehearsed simulated “electronic launches” of nuclear-capable Iskander mobile ballistic missile systems, the defence ministry said.
  • Sweden has received assurances from the US that it would receive support during the period a potential application to join Nato is processed by the 30 nations in the alliance, the Swedish foreign minister, Ann Linde, said in Washington.
  • Brazilian presidential frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said Zelenskiy and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, bear equal responsibility for the war, putting the leftist candidate at odds with western powers.
  • The bodies of 20 more civilians were found in the past 24 hours in the Kyiv region, according to Kyiv’s regional police chief, Andriy Nebytov. The latest discoveries, in the town of Borodianka and the surrounding villages, raise the total number of civilian bodies found in the region to 1,235.
  • The European Union is proposing to ban all Russian oil imports in a sixth package of sanctions. The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Putin had to pay a “high price for his brutal aggression” in Ukraine. Hungary’s international relations minister, Zoltán Kovács, said his country would veto the EU proposal.
  • The head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, is reportedly on the draft blacklist of the EU’s next round of sanctions. An EU document claims Kirill has been “one of the most prominent supporters of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine” and a key player in amplifying Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric on Ukraine.
  • Ukraine has accused Russia of planning to hold a Victory Day military parade in the captured city of Mariupol on 9 May to celebrate victory over the Nazis in the second world war. Ukraine’s military intelligence said an official from Russia’s presidential administration had arrived in Mariupol to oversee plans for the parade.
  • The Kremlin dismissed speculation that it will declare all-out war in Ukraine in the coming days as “nonsense” amid speculation from western officials that President Vladimir Putin could use the 9 May Victory Parade to announce an escalation of military action. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no truth to the rumours “at all”.


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Boozy or not, that leftover eggnog makes a great milkshake
By now you may have found uses for many of the holiday leftovers
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Why you shouldn’t bother budgeting
With the new year approaching, people may be looking to reorganize their finances. Brittany Miller writes about how one of the best money tips might be to avoid budgeting altogether
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
All I want for Christmas is $1.22bn: Mega Millions ticket matches all six numbers
Circle K in Cottonwood, California, where ticket was sold celebrates $1m bonus as winner remains unknown
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
How ‘sad’ bananas could help tackle food waste
Bananas are a sociable fruit. They thrive in bunches, bound by a unifying stalk which joins them happily together in curvy yellow brightness.
The Conversation
The Conversation
Most restaurants don’t make it. Here’s how Jean-Georges restaurants have survived the test of time—and even a pandemic
Legendary chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten also tells young hopefuls that if they can’t handle 14-hour days, the chef life is ‘not for you’.
Fortune
Fortune
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