Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
We have moved our liveblog across to the page below where you can follow all the latest developments.
Interim summary
Shortly, we will launch a new liveblog to continue our coverage on the war in Ukraine.
But before we do here is a comprehensive rundown of where things currently stand:
- Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the new package of western sanctions against Russia is “not enough” and without more painful measures and supply of weapons, Russia will view the actions as permission to launch a new bloody attack. In his daily address on Thursday, he called for the democratic world to reject Russian oil and completely block Russian banks from the international finance system. Zelenskiy said the west’s hesitation to agree on an oil embargo is costing Ukrainian lives. Russia’s export of oil as “one of the foundations of Russia’s aggression” that allows it to not take peace negotiations seriously, he added.
- The US, UK and EU unveiled new sanctions against Moscow. US sanctions target Russian banks and elites, and include a ban on any American from investing in Russia as well as sanctions on Putin’s adult daughters. The UK will impose an asset freeze on Russia’s largest bank, place sanctions on eight more oligarchs and end imports of oil and coal by next year, foreign secretary Liz Truss said. The EU announced a wide-ranging package of sanctions, including import bans on coal and transaction bans on banks.
- Nato’s foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on Thursday for two days of talks on bringing an end to the war.
-
The UN General Assembly will vote today on whether to suspend Russia from the UN human rights council.
- Hungary’s right-wing, Putin-allied prime minister Viktor Orbán gave a press conference in which he said he had offered to broker talks with Russia. He offered to work towards a ceasefire, while stopping short of agreeing to extend EU sanctions against Russia’s oil and gas shipments.
- Zelenskiy said Kremlin forces were trying to cover up evidence of atrocities. “We have information that the Russian military has changed its tactics and is trying to remove people who have been killed from streets and basements ... this is just an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more,” he said Thursday, but did not provide evidence.
-
US prosecutors are working with their European and Ukrainian counterparts to help collect evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
-
Russia’s military has now shifted its focus to the east of the Ukraine, with Ukraine authorities in Luhansk and Donetsk warning that civilians should leave “while the opportunity still exists” before a massive Russian military assault that it expects in the coming days. It comes as western officials say Russia’s retreat from around Kyiv and the north east of the country is now “largely complete” and that it will take “at least a week” before reconstituted units could go to Donbas and perhaps longer.
-
Russia is hiding ‘thousands’ killed in Mariupol, Zelenskiy said. Russian forces are blocking humanitarian access to the besieged port city of Mariupol because it wants to hide evidence of “thousands” of people killed there, the president said.
- More than 5,000 civilians, including 210 children, have been killed in Mariupol since the start of Russia’s invasion, the mayor of the besieged city said. Vadym Boichenko said 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed and Russian forces have targeted a hospital where 50 people were burned to death.
- After multiple unsuccessful attempts to access the city, about 1,000 people made it out of Mariupol in a convoy of buses and private cars organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They are now at the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia.
- A total of 4,892 people were evacuated from Ukraine on Wednesday using humanitarian corridors, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, compared with 3,846 who were evacuated on Tuesday.
- Ukrainian soldiers are being trained in the US to operate deadly Switchblade drones that Washington is supplying to Kyiv, the Pentagon said Wednesday. Defence department spokesman John Kirby said it was a “very small” number of Ukrainian troops who were already in the US before Russia invaded their country.
- Britain is drawing up plans to send armoured vehicles to Ukraine, according to The Times. Options include sending a protected patrol vehicle, such as the Mastiff, or a vehicle like the Jackal, which can be used as a reconnaissance or long-range patrol vehicle, a ministry of defence report said.
-
Sanctions imposed on Russia over its war in Ukraine should give China a “good understanding” of the consequences it could face if it provides material support to Moscow, US deputy secretary of state said.
- The Pentagon has said Ukraine could “absolutely” win the war against Russia, even as US officials speak of the risk of a protracted conflict. “Of course they can win this,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told a news briefing. “The proof is literally in the outcomes that you’re seeing everyday ... absolutely they can win.”
Here are some of the latest images to come from Ukraine today.
In Bucha, two young girls walks hand-in-hand past destroyed Russian military machinery littering the main town street.
A child’s teddy bear hangs from a tree in front of a building bombed by the Russian army in Borodyanka while a damaged playground is seen next to a heavily damaged apartment building in Hostomel.
Italy will “follow the decisions of the European Union” on new sanctions against Russia, including a possible gas embargo, prime minister Mario Draghi has said.
The growing number of “massacres” in Ukraine “is prompting us to adopt even tougher sanctions,” he told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
All the allied countries are wondering what can be done to stop Russia... We are following what the European Union decides.
If we are offered a gas embargo, we will follow the EU down this path, we want the most effective instrument to achieve peace.”
While a gas embargo is “not a possibility being discussed at the moment” the situation is “constantly evolving” Draghi added.
Italy is highly dependent on Russian gas, importing 95% of the gas it consumes, of which around 40% comes from Russia.
“Today the gas embargo is not yet... on the table,” Draghi said.
The UN General Assembly will vote today on whether to suspend Russia from the UN human rights council.
The move was initiated by the United States in response to the discovery of hundreds of bodies after Russian troops withdrew from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, sparking calls for its forces to be tried for war crimes.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the call for Russia to be stripped of its seat on the 47-member council in the wake of videos and photos of streets in the town of Bucha strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians.
“We believe that the members of the Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine, and we believe that Russia needs to be held accountable,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council is a farce.”
While the Human Rights Council is based in Geneva, its members are elected by the 193-nation General Assembly for three-year terms. The March 2006 resolution that established the Human Rights Council states that the assembly may suspend membership rights of a country “that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
To be approved, the resolution requires a two-thirds majority of assembly members that vote “yes” or “no.” Abstentions don’t count.
Ukraine could 'absolutely' win the war against Russia, Pentagon says
The Pentagon has said Ukraine could “absolutely” win the war against Russia, even as US officials speak of the risk of a protracted conflict.
“Of course they can win this,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told a news briefing.
“The proof is literally in the outcomes that you’re seeing everyday ... absolutely they can win.”
Of course, they can win this. And if you look at what they’ve been able to do just thus far, Mr. Putin has achieved exactly zero of his strategic objectives inside Ukraine. He didn’t take Kyiv. He didn’t topple the government. He didn’t remove Ukraine as a nation state. And he’s really only taken control of a small number of population centres.
And even they weren’t the ones that he was really going after. So, you know, Mariupol is still not taken. He’s moved his forces out of Kyiv. He’s moved his forces out of Cherniniv. They haven’t taken Kharkiv. They haven’t taken Mykolayiv in the south.
So, I think the proof is literally in the outcomes that you’re seeing every day.
The Ukrainians are bravely fighting for their country. And they have denied Mr. Putin so many of his strategic objectives. So absolutely, they can win.”
US says China could face sanctions if it supports Russia's war in Ukraine
Sanctions imposed on Russia over its war in Ukraine should give China a “good understanding” of the consequences it could face if it provides material support to Moscow, US deputy secretary of state has said.
Wendy Sherman, while speaking at a House of Representatives foreign affairs committee hearing on Wednesday, said the “range of sanctions” and export controls coordinated among US allies and partners against Russian President Vladimir Putin, the country’s economy, and oligarchs, should serve as an example for China’s leader Xi Jinping.
It gives President Xi, I think, a pretty good understanding of what might come his way should he, in fact, support Putin in any material fashion.”
She said Beijing should “take away the right lessons” from the coordinated western response over Ukraine that any moves by China to take the democratically governed island of Taiwan by force would not be acceptable.
“We hope that the PRC understands that any such action would see a response from the international community, not just from the United States,” she said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
China has refused to condemn Russia’s action in Ukraine or call it an invasion and has criticised Western sanctions on Moscow, although a senior Chinese diplomat said last week that Beijing is not deliberately circumventing those sanctions.
Updated
Russian troops 'changed their tactics' and are now hiding evidence, Zelenskiy says
Zelenskiy maintained that alleged atrocities committed by Russian forces in Bucha would be repeated in other cities, this time with Russia hiding the evidence of any crimes.
We have information that the Russian troops have changed their tactics and are trying to remove the killed people from the streets and basements of the occupied territory. Killed Ukrainians. This is just an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.
However, the president remained optimistic that they would not succeed. “Responsibility cannot be avoided,” he added.
We already know about thousands of missing people. We already know about thousands of people who could be either deported to Russia or killed. There are no other options for their fate.
The situation now is that thanks to an objective investigation, thanks to witnesses, thanks to satellite surveillance of events on earth, thanks to other tools that help establish the truth we will find out all the circumstances regarding the majority of our missing citizens. Regarding most of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.”
“The search for truth can no longer be stopped,” he added.
Hesitation to agree on oil embargo is costing Ukrainian lives, Zelenskiy says
Zelenskiy described Russia’s export of oil as “one of the foundations of Russia’s aggression” that allows it to not take peace negotiations seriously.
Some politicians are still unable to decide how to limit the flow of dollars and euros to Russia from the oil trade, so as not to jeopardise their own economies...
The embargo on Russian oil supplies will be applied anyway. The format will be found. The only question is how many more Ukrainian men and women the Russian military will have time to kill, so that you, some politicians - and we know you, can borrow a little determination somewhere.”
Zelenskiy said Ukraine will also continue to insist on a complete blockade of the Russian banking system from international finance.
Updated
Russia will regard weak sanctions as 'permission to attack', says Zelenskiy
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the new package of western sanctions against Russia is “not enough” and without more painful measures and supply of weapons, Russia will view the actions as permission to launch a new bloody attack.
New investments in Russia are blocked, restrictions are applied against several systemic banks in Russia, personal sanctions are added, as well as other restrictions. This package has a spectacular look. But this is not enough.”
In his signature nightly national address the Ukrainian president added:
If there is no really painful package of sanctions against Russia and if there is no supply of weapons we really need and have applied for many times, it will be considered by Russia as a permission. A permission to go further. A permission to attack. A permission to start a new bloody wave in Donbas.”
However, Zelenskiy remained optimistic saying “it is still possible to prevent this”.
It is still possible to impose such sanctions, which Ukraine insists on, our people insist on. It is still possible to give us weapons that will really stop this aggression. The west can do it.
Just as it could have applied preventive sanctions last year to prevent this invasion. If the mistake is made again, if there is no preventive action again, it will be a historic mistake for the whole western world.”
Updated
Britain is drawing up plans to send armoured vehicles to Ukraine, according to The Times.
Options under consideration include sending a protected patrol vehicle, such as the Mastiff, or a vehicle like the Jackal, which can be used as a reconnaissance or long-range patrol vehicle, a ministry of defence report said.
The vehicles would be stripped of sensitive equipment and British troops would be sent to a country neighbouring Ukraine to carry out training, the newspaper reported, citing a defence source.
Further support, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, would be announced by Britain in the coming days, the report said.
Ukrainian soldiers training in US with Switchblade drones
Ukrainian soldiers are being trained in the United States to operate the deadly Switchblade drones that Washington is supplying to Kyiv, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.
Defence department spokesman John Kirby said it was a “very small” number of Ukrainian troops who were already present in the US before Russia invaded their country.
Speaking at a brief briefing on Wednesday, Kirby said the weapons were not a system that the Ukrainians typically use.
So, there is going to need to be a little bit of training. It is not a very complex system. It doesn’t require a lot of training ...
We took the opportunity to - having them still in the country, to give them a couple of days’ worth of training on the Switchblade.
So that they can go back ... back home to train others in the Ukrainian military. And we’ll look at - that doesn’t have to be the end all of it. I mean, we’ll look at other suitable opportunities, if needed to provide more training on the Switchblades if it’s necessary, but that’s what they were referring to yesterday.”
Kirby said the 100 drones, which are essentially remotely controlled flying bombs which are crashed into targets where they explode, have been sent to Ukraine to bolster the military’s fight against Russian troops.
“They arrived over there earlier this week. So they’ll be getting into Ukraine quickly if they aren’t already there,” Kirby said, adding that the number of Ukrainian trainees was less than a dozen.
President Joe Biden announced on 16 March that, among other weaponry and munitions Washington was shipping to the Ukrainians, it would start sending the Switchblades.
Named for the way their wings unfold when launched, Switchblades are called loitering munitions, because they can be flown to target areas and held there until the right moment when a target is identified.
The operator then flies them into the target where they explode.
The original version, small enough to carry in a backpack, was used by US forces in Afghanistan.
A larger version, with enough explosives to take out armoured vehicles, has also been developed. But the Pentagon would not say which one has been sent to Ukraine, if not both.
Meanwhile the United States announced Tuesday it was releasing another $100 million worth of military aid to Ukraine.
.@PentagonPresSec: Last night, @POTUS Biden authorized an additional Presidential Drawdown of security assistance valued at up to an additional $100 million. This package is intended to meet an urgent Ukrainian need for additional Javelin anti-armor systems. pic.twitter.com/aSQC5gmQgf
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) April 6, 2022
Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was clearly a miscalculation, and will shorten his time in office, a top ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has said.
“Very clearly, Putin has shortened his term,” Leonid Volkov told AFP in an interview.
With his decision to invade Ukraine, “Putin has dramatically decreased the probability of a scenario where he just stays in the Kremlin until he dies ... as he planned.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, Navalny’s right-hand man said it was becoming increasingly obvious that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine six weeks ago was “miscalculated” and doomed to failure.
Volkov acknowledged that Putin so far was “doing OK in selling his propaganda narrative” justifying the invasion to those in the Russian public who receive all news about the war from state-controlled television.
But he stressed that elites were “very unhappy with the economic devastation, the casualties and restrictions and sanctions”.
“They will start thinking of regime change, or changing systems.”
Updated
Russia hiding ‘thousands’ killed in Mariupol, Zelenskiy says
Russia is blocking humanitarian access to the besieged port city of Mariupol because it wants to hide evidence of “thousands” of people killed there, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
In an interview with Turkey’s Haberturk TV, he said:
I think Russia is afraid that [if] we successfully send humanitarian aid to Mariupol, then the whole world will see what’s going on here.
Russia doesn’t want anything to be seen until they take control of the city until they clean it all up.
Mariupol is hell right now. Thousands have either been killed or injured.
The number of those killed and injured is increasing day by day ... we do not have clear information on the number of those who lost their lives.
They are trying to cover up the situation. In this case, they are trying to prevent the humanitarian supply. They will not be able to cover up everything. They will not be able to bury or hide thousands of people. The world has seen the real situation. It has seen what has been done to a Ukrainian city.”
Ukrayna Devlet Başkanı Zelenskiy: Buça'da toplu mezar ortaya çıktı, pek çok sivil katledildi. Çocukların askeri hedef olarak görülmesi söz konusu olmamalı https://t.co/M2heDk7OKM pic.twitter.com/41QCV4BNia
— Habertürk (@Haberturk) April 5, 2022
Zelenskiy said that Russia had already attempted to conceal evidence of crimes in the town of Bucha outside of Kyiv and several nearby communities, where Ukrainian officials have accused Moscow of carrying out widespread killings of civilians.
“They burned families. Families. Yesterday we found again a new family: father, mother, two children. Little, little children, two. One was a little hand, you know,” Zelensky said. “That’s why I said ‘they are Nazis’.”
Updated
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said Russia should be expelled from the Group of 20 major economies forum, and the United States will boycott “a number of G20 meetings” if Russian officials show up.
Her comments at a US House Financial Services Committee hearing raised questions about the G20’s future role in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Yellen told lawmakers that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the killings of civilians in Bucha “are reprehensible, represent an unacceptable affront to the rules-based global order, and will have enormous economic repercussions in Ukraine and beyond”.
The United States and its key allies have placed greater emphasis in recent months on the G7 grouping of industrial democracies, whose interests are more aligned, using G7 meetings to coordinate their response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Yellen said that the Biden administration wants to push Russia out of active participation in major international institutions, but acknowledged that it was unlikely that Russia could be expelled from the International Monetary Fund given its rules.
“President Biden’s made it clear, and I certainly agree with him, that it cannot be business as usual for Russia in any of the financial institutions,” Yellen said in response to a question.
“He’s asked that Russia be removed from the G20, and I’ve made clear to my colleagues in Indonesia that we will not be participating in a number of meetings if the Russians are there,” Yellen said.
Updated
The US has disrupted a global “botnet” controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Wednesday.
A botnet is a network of hijacked computers used to carry out cyberattacks. “The Russian government has recently used similar infrastructure to attack Ukrainian targets,” Garland told reporters at the justice department.
“Fortunately, we were able to disrupt this botnet before it could be used. Thanks to our close work with international partners, we were able to detect the infection of thousands of network hardware devices.
“We were then able to disable the GRU’s [the military intelligence agency] control over those devices before the botnet could be weaponised.”
The attorney general also announced charges against Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev for sanctions violations. He said the billionaire had been previously identified as a source of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea and providing support for the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine.
“After being sanctioned by the United States, Malofeyev attempted to evade the sanctions by using co-conspirators to surreptitiously acquire and run media outlets across Europe,” Garland said.
The indictment is the first of a Russian oligarch in the US since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In a related move, a federal court in the southern district of New York unsealed a criminal indictment against TV producer John Hanick, 71, a US citizen charged with violations of sanctions and false statements because of his work for Malofeyev over several years.
Read more:
Catch up
- The US, UK and EU unveiled new sanctions. US sanctions target Russian banks and elites, and include a ban on any American from investing in Russia as well as sanctions on Putin’s adult daughters. The UK is collaborating with the US on asset freezes against Russian banks and banning all new outward investment to Russia. And the EU announced a wide-ranging package of sanctions, including import bans on coal and transaction bans on banks.
- Hungary’s right-wing, Putin-allied prime minister Viktor Orbán gave a press conference in which he said he had offered to broker talks with Russia. He offered to work towards a ceasefire, while stopping short of agreeing to extend EU sanctions against Russia’s oil and gas shipments.
- Russia’s military has now shifted its focus to the east of the Ukraine, with authorities in Luhansk and Donetsk warning that civilians should leave as quickly as possible. There were reports of burning buildings in Luhansk following Russian shelling, with casualties unknown; while five were killed in Donetsk, according to the governor; and Ukrainian railways reported rocket fire on a railway station in the east of the country, which resulted in casualties, though gave no further detail on the location or number of victims.
- Western officials said Russia’s retreat from around Kyiv and the north east of the country is now “largely complete” and that it will take “at least a week” before reconstituted units could move to Donbas. Kyiv reported 89 deaths since the start of the conflict.
- More than 5,000 civilians, including 210 children, have been killed in Mariupol since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the mayor of the besieged city. Mayor Vadym Boichenko said 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed and Russian forces have targeted a hospital where 50 were burned to death. Russian attacks on the port city have obstructed access to food and supplies and Red Cross humanitarian convoy has been unsuccessful in getting in.
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave an impassioned speech to Ireland’s parliament, in which he urged the country to pile extra pressure on EU nations to introduce tougher sanctions, accusing European countries of worrying excessively about the economic consequences.
– Rachel Hall, Guardian staff
Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said that international experts need to work with Ukraine to “ensure that sanctions are sufficiently destructive” to Russia.
“The war continues. Everyone saw the horrors that took place in the city of Bucha. And that means sanctions are not enough to stop Russia,” he said. “Therefore, all of us and our partners need to work to ensure that sanctions are sufficiently destructive.”
Rostyslav Shurma, the deputy head of office, also said that Russia should be internationally recognized as a “sponsor of terrorism” and included in the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental group designed to combat money laundering, to restrict trade, according to the Ukrainian president’s office.
Ukrainian officials have been meeting with international experts – including former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul – to discuss sanctions and actions against Russia.
Updated
Russia is inching closer to a default on its debts.
Reuters reports:
Russia edged closer to a potential default on its international debt on Wednesday as it set aside roubles to pay holders of international bonds that need to be repaid in dollars and said it would continue to do so as long as its foreign exchange reserves are blocked by sanctions.
The United States on Monday stopped Russia from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from frozen reserves held at U.S. banks, saying Moscow had to choose between draining its dollar reserves at home and default.
Russia has not defaulted on its external debt since reneging on payments due after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, but its bonds have remerged as a flashpoint in the diplomatic crisis and sanctions tit-for-tat between Moscow and western capitals.
“This speeds up the timeline around when Russia runs out of space on willingness and ability to pay,” one fund manager holding one of the bonds due for payment on Monday said.
The Kremlin said it would continue to pay its dues.
“Russia has all necessary resources to service its debts... If this blockade continues and payments aimed for servicing debts are blocked, it (future payment) could be made in roubles,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
Moscow has managed to make a number of foreign exchange coupon payments on some of its 15 international bonds with a face value of around $40 billion outstanding before the United States stopped such transactions.
While sanctions have frozen roughly half of $640 billion in Russia’s gold and foreign currency reserves, the country still receives billions of dollars from exporting crude and gas.
Who are the daughters of Vladimir Putin facing US sanctions?
The identities of Putin’s daughters have never been confirmed by him or the Kremlin and no photographs of them as adults have ever been officially released. Even the number of children Putin has fathered is subject to intense speculation.
Officially, Putin has two children, Maria and Katerina, from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina, a former Aeroflot steward whom he divorced in 2013, becoming the first Russian leader to divorce since Peter the Great in 1698.
Putin, who has very rarely spoken publicly about his children, responded to questions at his annual press conference in 2015, saying his daughters had not fled the country, as had been speculated.
“They live in Russia. They have never been educated anywhere except Russia. I am proud of them; they continue to study and are working,” he said. “My daughters speak three European languages fluently. I never discuss my family with anyone.
“They have never been ‘star’ children, they have never got pleasure from the spotlight being directed on them. They just live their own lives.”
Putin said his daughters were “taking the first steps in their careers”, and were “not involved in business or politics”. However, both daughters have since launched business ventures.
Read more:
As Ukraine war enters new phase, can western arms turn the tide?
As the war in Ukraine enters a new phase, Nato countries have been gradually stepping up their supply of weapons to Kyiv. In doing so, western nations are quietly crossing the defensive-only threshold set by leaders at the start of the crisis.
But the question remains whether the gradual escalation in arms deliveries can avoid a Russian retaliation and turn the tide on the battlefield, where Moscow is seeking to wage a more conventional military-on-military war in the eastern Donbas.
“The issue will be how much the west shifts to offensive weaponry,” said Phil Osborn, a former UK chief of defence intelligence, “and the absolute criticality of ensuring that the supply of critical military kit is maintained and increased.”
Ukraine’s military spent the first six weeks of the war trying to pick off invading Russian armoured columns with light infantry using anti-tank bazookas. Poor Russian tactics and Ukrainian determination successfully forced the overstretched attackers to abandon their attacks on Kyiv, and Chernihiv and Sumy in the north-east.
But Ukraine now has to deal with Russian forces in the east and south that have made more defensible gains and are better dug in.
In the past 24 hours it has emerged that the Czech Republic has sent a dozen Soviet designed T-72 tanks, plus howitzer artillery pieces and BMP-1 armoured vehicles, a significant shift in the direction of supplying “offensive weapons” that western politicians had insisted they were not prepared to do.
That by itself is not enough to make more than a dent in the 94 tanks that Ukraine is estimated by researchers at Oryx to have lost in the fighting so far – but there is persistent speculation Poland could spare 100 more, now it has reached a separate agreement on Tuesday to buy 250 US Abrams tanks for $4.75bn.
The next phase of the war – which could yet be decisive – is expected to unfold in the Donbas in the next month as Russian forces seek to capture Mariupol, create a land bridge to Crimea, expand the area of occupation in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk – and perhaps encircle Ukraine’s main fighting force ranged against it.
Read more:
In France, president Emmanuel Macron is defending his diplomatic efforts with Vladimir Putin, as he faces a challenge from the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
Le Pen, who is gaining in polls ahead of the the first round of voting in France’s election on Sunday, and who had previously expressed admiration for Putin and lobbied for the EU to drop sanctions against Russia after the annexation of Crimea, has sought to distance herself from Moscow ahead of the elections.
Macron, responding to Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawieck’s criticisms of his meetings with Putin, accused Morawieck of seeking to bolster Le Pen.
AFP reports:
Morawiecki on Monday slammed Macron’s hours of phone calls with Putin, whom he likened to Hitler, and suggested they had achieved nothing.
“These statements are both baseless and scandalous,” Macron told TF1 on Wednesday evening when asked about the remarks which threaten to undermine EU unity during the bloc’s face-off with Moscow over Ukraine.
He said the Polish leader was from a “far-right party” and was “supporting” his rival Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election this month.
“I take full responsibility for having spoken to the president of Russia, in the name of France, to avoid the war and to build a new architecture for peace in Europe several years ago,” he added.
“I did it from the beginning of my term in office,” he said adding: “I was never naive, unlike others. I was never complicit, unlike others.”
Macron has sought to target Le Pen’s links to Russia, stressing repeatedly how she had taken a loan from a Russian bank which her National Rally party is still repaying.
Updated
UK sanctions Russian billionaire over ties to Putin
Jessica Elgot and Jasper Jolly report:
The Russian billionaire Moshe Kantor, who was sanctioned by the UK government on Wednesday, has long cultivated deep ties with British politicians and establishment figures, including Tony Blair and Prince Charles.
With an estimated net worth of £3.48bn, Kantor is the largest shareholder in the fertiliser company Acron, which the Foreign Office said had vital strategic significance for the Russian government.
But in Europe Kantor is best known as the holder of one of the Jewish community’s most high-profile roles, president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), as well as his multitude of interests in Jewish charities, education and events.
Born in Moscow and now a British citizen, Kantor, 68, has maintained close ties to Vladimir Putin, and has brought a number of delegations to meet the Russian president, according to Haaretz. In 2017, Putin bestowed Kantor with the Order of Honour “in recognition of his professional achievements and longstanding fair work”.
The Kantor Centre, which the billionaire founded in Israel, has condemned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
In 2015, Kantor appointed Tony Blair to a role tackling antisemitism as chairman of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, an organisation funded and founded by Kantor. Blair is still listed as a chair of the organisation, along with the former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Kantor is vice president of the Jewish Leadership Council and honorary life president of a school in Ilford, east London, Kantor King Solomon, jointly with The Apprentice tycoon Lord Alan Sugar.
He also organised the World Holocaust Forum, which marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, attended in Jerusalem by Prince Charles, Macron, then US vice-president Mike Pence and Putin.
The Kantor Centre, which he founded at Tel Aviv University, issued a statement condemning the war in Ukraine as an “unprovoked invasion … and the cowardly war crimes committed under the directives of Vladimir Putin”.
It said the Russian invasion was “fascist-style aggression” and added: “Putin has the blood of thousands of victims, including children, on his hands. His policies pose an existential threat to world democracy, peace and security.”
The EJC said it was “deeply shocked and appalled by the decision” to impose sanctions on Kantor, adding: “Dr Kantor has been granted the most prestigious awards and honours from many European heads of state and government. We call for this decision to be reversed as soon as possible.”
Read more:
Here’s more context on how additional sanctions targeting the daughter of Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, will affect her, from the Washington Post’s Paul Sonne:
Lavrov’s daughter, who was sanctioned by Treasury today, was born in the US, went to school at the private Dwight School in New York and graduated from Barnard. This will have a substantive impact on her life.
Lavrov's daughter, who was sanctioned by Treasury today, was born in the U.S., went to school at the private Dwight School in New York and graduated from Barnard. This will have a substantive impact on her life.
— Paul Sonne (@PaulSonne) April 6, 2022
Updated
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said today that the US will impose additional sanctions against the adult children of Russian president and other Russian officials, as well as their relatives.
From Blinken’s Twitter account:
We are implementing sanctions on two of the largest Russian financial institutions, designating the adult children of President Putin, the wife and adult child of Foreign Minister Lavrov, and 21 members of Russia’s National Security Council, including former President Medvedev.
We are implementing sanctions on two of the largest Russian financial institutions, designating the adult children of President Putin, the wife and adult child of Foreign Minister Lavrov, and 21 members of Russia’s National Security Council, including former President Medvedev.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) April 6, 2022
Updated
An update on the convoy of civilians leaving the besieged city of Mariupol: an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team has led a bus of more than 1,000 people to Zaporizhzhia.
Earlier reports from today said the convoy was escorting more than 500 citizens, but a new report from Reuters updated the figure to over 1,000 people.
Updated
A small number of Ukrainian soldiers received drone training in the US, said the Pentagon today, reported AFP.
A small group of Ukrainian soldiers who were already in the United States before Russia’s invasion of their country are being trained to use the deadly Switchblade drones Washington is supplying to Kyiv, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.
“A very small number of Ukrainians... were already here in the United States going through some professional military education,” the senior defense official said, requesting anonymity.
“We took advantage of the opportunity to pull them aside for a couple of days and provide them some training, particularly on the Switchblade (drones) that is a system that is not organic to the Ukrainian military,” he said.
The group, made up of “less than a dozen” people, “will be heading back into Ukraine relatively soon” as originally planned, he added...
Updated
A total of 4,892 people have been evacuated from Ukraine today using humanitarian corridors, reports Reuters.
In an online post, Ukraine deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that a total of 4,982 people had escaped from multiple Ukrainian cities, compared with 3,846 who were evacuated on Tuesday.
Updated
Over 5,000 civilians, including children, killed in Mariupol
The mayor of Mariupol said today that over 5,000 civilians, including 210 children, have been killed since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reports the Associated Press.
Today, Mariupol mayor Vadym Boichenko confirmed the amount of Mariupol civilians that have died since the start of Russia’s occupation.
Boichenko noted that Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.
Boichenko also said that more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed due to Russian bombardments.
The Russian military has besieged the port city, cutting off access to food, water and energy supplies while continually dropping artillery and air raids on the town.
Read AP’s full story here.
Updated
Shells and rockets were landing at regular intervals in the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk today, reports AFP.
According to AFP journalists who observed the bombardment, one building caught on fire during the bombing. Civilians who were outside quickly ran for cover as the shelling continued.
“We have nowhere to go, it’s been like this for days,” said Volodymyr, 38, to AFP. Volodymyr was on the opposite side of the road to a burning building.
Today, amid increased fighting, Ukraine warned civilians in the eastern parts of the country to leave the area “while the opportunity still exists”, citing a massive Russian military assault expected in the coming days.
Ukraine deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said:
It has to be done now, because later people will be under fire and face the threat of death. There is nothing they will be able to do about it ... It is necessary to evacuate as long as this possibility exists. For now, it still exists.
Updated
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said today that sanctions imposing a full ban on Russian oil would probably cause “skyrocketing” prices felt globally, reports Reuters.
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that sanctions imposing a full ban on Russian oil exports would likely result in “skyrocketing” global prices that would hurt the United States and its democratic allies.
Yellen told the US House financial services committee she hopes oil companies in the United States and elsewhere can ramp up production in the next six moths, enticed by higher prices, which may allow for tougher restrictions on Russian oil.
Updated
French president Emmanuel Macron said today that the killings in the Ukrainian city of Bucha were “very probably a war crime” that deserved justice, Reuters has reported.
During remarks today, Macron condemned the killings in Bucha, saying:
It was very probably a war crime that was committed there.
Macron also said that he was in favor of additional sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
🔴 EN DIRECT
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) April 6, 2022
Emmanuel Macron: "Je suis favorable à un nouveau train de sanctions européennes contre la Russie"
📝 https://t.co/Y5aRtO9FRn pic.twitter.com/ANTwtMgJkK
Ukraine and several western countries have accused Russian forces of killing hundreds of civilians in the town of Bucha during its occupation, an allegation that Russia denies.
Updated
Ukraine cannot help evacuate residents in the eastern town of Izyum, which is currently under Russia control, reports Reuters.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said today that Ukraine officials could not help people evacuate Izyum or send humanitarian aid to the town because it was completely under Russian control.
Fighting in the eastern regions of Ukraine has escalated after Russia withdrew troops from around Kyiv, Reuters further reported.
Updated
The parents of Trevor Reed, a US ex-marine who is jailed in Russia, said today that they are concerned “something terrible” has happened to their son, reports Reuters.
Reed’s parents say that they have not received any updates on him in the past five days, despite his “rapidly declining health.”
A statement from Reed’s parents read, in part:
It has now been five days without any updates at all on Trevor’s rapidly declining health and with each passing hour, we are more and more worried that something terrible has happened.
On Monday, Russian news agencies reported that Reed had ended a hunger strike that he had begun to protest against being put in solitary confinement and not receiving proper treatment for a possible tuberculosis diagnosis.
Russian media also reported that Reed was being treated at the prison’s medical facility.
Today, Reed’s parents said that they had not been able to confirm if Reed was actually taken to the medical facility or even ended his hunger strike. They said further that they had no confirmation that Reed was receiving “any real medical care as Russian officials have claimed”.
Updated
The FBI said today that it had stopped a cyber-attack conducted by Russian military hackers, reports Reuters.
The FBI said that it had seized control of thousands of firewalls and routers that were hijacked by Russian hackers taking over the same infrastructure that Russian spies were using to communicate with the stolen devices.
Reuters further reported:
An unsealed redacted affidavit described the unusual operation as a pre-emptive move to stop Russian hackers from mobilizing the compromised devices into a “botnet,” a network of hacked computers that can bombard other servers with rogue traffic.
“Fortunately, we were able to disrupt this botnet before it could be used,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
Updated
The British politician George Galloway has threatened legal action against Twitter after the social media website flagged his account as “Russia state-affiliated media”.
He had been regular fixture on the Russia Today news channel for many years.
He wrote:
Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work for NO #Russian media.
I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament.
If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.
Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work for NO #Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.
— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) April 6, 2022
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for now. My colleague Gloria Oladipo will be along shortly to take over from me.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed that a Ukrainian fuel storage base was destroyed by Russian missiles in the Kharkiv region, the RIA news agency quoted it as saying.
The Russian forces also destroyed some Ukrainian military equipment and foreign weapons at a railway station in the same region, RIA reported, citing the ministry.
Poland has arrested two citizens of Belarus on charges of spying for Minsk, which could carry a 10-year prison sentence if they are found guilty, a regional prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
Tensions have been running high between the neighbours over a migrant crisis that the European Union and Poland say was engineered by Belarus, a charge Minsk denies. The EU also accuses Minsk of supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported.
“...the suspects heard charges of espionage on behalf of the Belarus intelligence services,” a regional prosecutor’s office in Poznan, west Poland, said in a statement
“They are suspected, among others, of conducting reconnaissance of military and civilian facilities of critical importance for the defense of the Republic of Poland,” the statement also said.
Both were arrested for three months and are facing up to 10 years in prison.
Russian artillery fire killed at least four people and wounded four others at a humanitarian aid distribution point on Wednesday as Moscow’s forces bombarded towns, cities and rail infrastructure in eastern Ukraine, local officials said.
Authorities in the eastern region of Luhansk urged civilians to evacuate “while it is safe”, warning that Russian bombardments could cut off escape routes, Reuters reported.
Later, Ukrainian Railways reported there were a number of casualties after three rockets hit an unspecified rail station in the east, without giving further details.
Ukraine says Russian troops that invaded on Feb. 24 are regrouping and preparing for a new offensive in the Donbas area, which includes both the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko shared online photos from the town of Vuhledar, where he said Russian artillery fire had struck a humanitarian aid distribution point.
The photos showed two women stretched out on the ground. Another person had a serious leg wound and a fourth was shown with a bloodied leg, being helped into a rescue vehicle.
“The enemy cynically fired on civilians from Vuhledar, who had come to receive humanitarian aid. As a result of the shelling there are 4 dead and 4 wounded,” Kyrylenko wrote in a later post, updating the death toll from an earlier estimate of two killed.
Updated
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has said he plans to appeal to his counterparts from G7 and Nato nations to fulfil Ukraine’s request for sufficient weapons to counter Russian forces.
Speaking in a video address, Kuleba said he was meeting the other foreign ministers on Thursday, Reuters reported.
“The main topic of my discussion in Brussels will be the supply of all necessary weapons to Ukraine,” he said.
Updated
Catch up
It’s been a big day for fresh sanctions on Russia, as countries responded to harrowing reports and images of civilian killings in Bucha earlier in the week, and sought to cripple Vladimir Putin’s economy.
- The US unveiled sanctions which target Russian banks and elites, and include a ban on any American from investing in Russia as well as sanctions on Putin’s adult daughters.
- The UK also announced fresh sanctions, including collaborating with the US on asset freezes against Russian banks and banning all new outward investment to Russia.
- In the morning, the EU also announced a wide-ranging package of sanctions, including import bans on coal and transaction bans on banks.
- Hungary’s Viktor Orbán gave a press conference in which he said he had offered to broker talks with Putin aimed at leading towards a ceasefire, while stopping short of agreeing to extend EU sanctions against Russia’s oil and gas shipments.
- Russia’s military has now shifted its focus to the east of the Ukraine, with authorities in Luhansk and Donetsk warning that civilians should leave as quickly as possible. There were reports of burning buildings in Luhansk following Russian shelling, with casualties unknown; while five were killed in Donetsk, according to the governor; and Ukrainian railways reported rocket fire on a railway station in the east of the country, which resulted in casualties, though gave no further detail on the location or number of victims.
-
Kyiv reported 89 deaths since the start of the conflict.
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave an impassioned speech to Ireland’s parliament, in which he urged the country to pile extra pressure on EU nations to introduce tougher sanctions, accusing European countries of worrying excessively about the economic consequences.
-
Western officials said Russia’s retreat from around Kyiv and the north east of the country is now “largely complete” and that it will take “at least a week” before reconstituted units could move to Donbas.
Thanks for tuning in today, I’m handing over to my colleague Tom Ambrose who will keep you updated on any further developments.
Updated
Casualties after three rockets hit a rail station in eastern Ukraine
State-owned Ukrainian Railways has said there have been a number of casualties after three rockets hit a rail station in eastern Ukraine, damaging buildings, tracks and rail stock.
The statement provides no further detail on the number of victims or the location of the attack.
Five killed in Donetsk on Wednesday
The governor of Donetsk has said at least five people were killed by shelling today, as Russia shifts it focus to the east of Ukraine.
Lithuanian Olympian Rūta Meilutytė has swum through a red blood-like pond located in front of the Russian embassy in Vilnius in protest at the conflict.
The pond, which was temporarily coloured with eco-friendly dye, is intended to symbolise Russia’s responsibility for committing war crimes against Ukrainians, while the act of swimming communicates the need for continuous effort to fight through.
Updated
US prosecutors are working with their European and Ukrainian counterparts to help collect evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
US attorney general Merrick Garland said that justice department officials met with their counterparts at Europol and Eurojust this week to develop a plan to work together and are separately helping a top Ukrainian prosecutor with evidence collection as well.
“Today, we are assisting international efforts to identify and hold accountable those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine,” Garland added. “And we will continue to do so.”
Meanwhile, a US defence official has said that the killings in Bucha appear to be “deliberate and premeditated”.
Updated
Russia's retreat from Kyiv is 'largely complete', say western officials
Here’s some insight from western officials obtained by the Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh:
Western officials believe that Russia’s retreat from around Kyiv and the north east of the country is now “largely complete” and that it will take “at least a week” before reconstituted units could go to Donbas and perhaps longer given how many losses they have suffered in the war so far.
The officials believe that the Kremlin wants to see some kind of victory in the eastern Donbas region in time for Russia’s traditional Victory Day parade on 9 May, an important date in the country’s military calendar.
One official said that Putin will want to have an “announceable success” by then, which could create “some tension” with Russian commanders as to “what they want to do in the military terms”.
This means that exhausted Russian forces are likely to be thrown into battle fairly soon in an attempt to gain ground in the east.
The belief is that Russia will prioritise capturing the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, or seek to create a land bridge to Crimea or both, with Russia “reshaping its narrative” so it can redefine its idea of victory.
Ukraine’s military, however, have so far been unable to reinforce their own forces in the Donbas either “partly because they’re still trying to secure those areas from which they’ve sort of repulsed Russian forces” in the north and north east - and also because they need to defend against any surprise Russian re-offensive against Kyiv, one official said.
Revised estimates suggest that 29 of Russia’s battalion tactical groups, the smallest operating unit of its forces, are now “combat ineffective” from an invading force that is estimated at some 125 battalions, around 75% of Russia’s total army.
There is also growing western concern about “genocidal propaganda” emerging from Moscow following a recent RIA Novesti Kremlin news agency article that called for Ukrainian society to be “cleansed of Nazi elements” and statements from former president Dmitri Medvedev who said that Ukrainian activists had been “praying to the Third Reich”.
A Western official said “those sorts of comments are really creating an even more toxic information environment” and could “absolutely contribute” to Russian soldiers committing more war crimes in Ukraine.
“Responsibility for this, of course lies with the perpetrators of the acts, but it also lies with the Russian leadership,” the official added.
Updated
Here’s the Guardian’s full report on the new sanctions imposed by the US and its allies on Moscow over civilian killings in Ukraine, as the west makes a fresh attempt to strangle Vladimir Putin’s economy and war effort.
Updated
UK unveils new sanctions
The UK is co-ordinating with the US on asset freezes against Sberbank and Credit Bank of Moscow, and has banned all new outward investment to Russia and committed to end all imports of Russian coal and oil by the end of the year, with gas to follow as soon as possible.
Imports of Russian iron and steel products will be banned and a further eight oligarchs have also been added to the sanctions list.
The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said the package was “some of our toughest sanctions yet”.
She added:
Our latest wave of measures will bring an end to the UK’s imports of Russian energy and sanction yet more individuals and businesses, decimating Putin’s war machine.
Together with our allies, we are showing the Russian elite that they cannot wash their hands of the atrocities committed on Putin’s orders.
We will not rest until Ukraine prevails.
Updated
Russian largest lender Sberbank has responded to the latest wave of US sanctions, stating that it would not significantly affect the bank’s operations.
A statement read:
The sanctions will not have a significant impact on the bank’s operations and will not affect service to Russians as the system has already adapted to the previous restrictions.
Updated
Joe Biden has spelled out in a tweet that the latest US sanctions are linked to atrocities in Bucha.
I made clear that Russia would pay a severe and immediate price for its atrocities in Bucha. Today, along with our Allies and partners, we’re announcing a new round of devastating sanctions. https://t.co/LVqTDIOSvz
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 6, 2022
US imposes fresh sanctions on Putin's daughters and top Russian banks
The US is imposing sanctions on Putin’s daughters and Russia’s Sberbank as part of a new package of measures announced today.
The measures target Russian banks and elites, and include a ban on any American from investing in Russia.
Reuters reports:
The new sanctions will put full blocking sanctions in Russia’s Sberbank, which holds one-third of Russia’s total banking assets, and Alfabank, a senior US official told reporters. Energy transactions were blocked from these sanctions, the official said.
The United States was also imposing sanctions on the Russian president, Vladimir Putin’s adult daughters, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov’s wife and daughter, and members of Russia’s security council, the official said.
Americans were banned from investing in Russia, the official said, including through venture capital or mergers.
The US was “dramatically escalating” the financial shock on Russia by cutting off that country’s largest banks, the official said. Russians might be forced back into Soviet-style living standards from the 1980s, the official said.
Updated
Ukraine’s human rights ombudswoman has said that more than 400 residents are missing in the town of Hostomel after a 35-day occupation by Russian forces, and she quoted witnesses as saying some of them had been killed.
Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova did not say how many people may have been killed in Hostomel, near the capital Kyiv, and cited no direct evidence for her assertion. She did not say who the witnesses were or provide any other details.
Russian forces seized Hostomel, which is close to an airfield, soon after invading Ukraine on 24 February.
The Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, Jennifer Rankin, has a report from Viktor Orbán’s press conference:
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said his country would have “no difficulty” in paying for Russian gas in roubles and will do so if Moscow asks.
The statement undermines EU unity on Russia, after Germany and Italy, other big EU consumers of Russian gas, refused Vladimir Putin’s request to pay for gas shipments in roubles. Germany found a workaround that would allow it to pay for gas in euros, which would then be converted into roubles by Russia’s Gazprombank.
Orbán was speaking at a press conference, days after a resounding victory in an election that independent monitors said was characterised by media bias, a blurring between party and state and opaque campaign finance.
Orbán also said he had invited Putin for peace talks in Hungary to be attended by the leaders of Ukraine, France and Germany.
The Russian president was one of the first leaders to congratulate Orbán on his victory, which was also welcomed by the far-right leaders Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and the former US president Donald Trump.
Hungary’s government did not refer to Putin in a list of leaders said to have congratulated Orbán published on an international website on Wednesday.
Budapest has supported EU sanctions and condemned Russia’s war, but Hungary’s refusal to aid Ukraine with weapons, as well as virulent anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in state-controlled media, has angered allies.
On Wednesday Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, announced that he was summoning Ukraine’s ambassador, a move that usually indicates a diplomatic dressing down.
“It’s time for Ukrainian leaders to stop insulting Hungary and to take note of the will of the Hungarian people,” said Szijjártó, who was awarded a medal of friendship from Vladimir Putin.
In recent weeks Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has accused Orbán of siding with the Kremlin and ignoring the humanitarian catastrophe being suffered by residents of Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities.
Updated
Helena Smith, the Guardian’s Athens correspondent, reports on the reaction to the Greek government decision to expel Russian diplomats:
The Russian embassy has reacted with fury to the Greek government’s decision to expel 12 of its diplomats after declaring them “personae non-gratae”.
Joining the growing list of EU capitals to eject Russian embassy personnel, Athens invoked the Vienna convention on diplomatic and consular relations as it announced the move earlier today.
In a statement, the Russian embassy described the decision as a step that would further undermine bilateral relations between the two Orthodox Christian nations.
“We have strongly protested against this unjustified and hostile step which aims to further destroy our bilateral relations,” it said, noting that the Russian ambassador to Greece, Andrey Maslov, had been summoned to Athens’ foreign ministry to be informed of the decision. “We have made clear that this action will not be without consequences.”
Greek-Russian ties have been jolted as never before by the war over Ukraine with the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, not only making clear that Athens has sided wholeheartedly with Kyiv but declaring that this is no time for neutrality. “There can be no neutrality,” he told Greek MPs recently, “either one favours international law or one is against.”
Greece’s centre-right administration has dispatched humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine despite the majority of Greeks telling pollsters they believe Athens should stay out of the conflict.
Ukraine is home to a large ethnic Greek community with the diaspora numbering around 150,000 people in the besieged city of Mariupol alone. Mitsotakis, like his foreign minister, Nikos Dendias, has said that protection of the community and Greece’s obligations as an EU member state will take precedence over diplomatic ties with a regime in Moscow that has so flagrantly violated international law by invading Ukraine.
Updated
There’s more detail on Reuters about Viktor Orbán’s press conference, including that he asked Vladimir Putin to announce an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine.
Orbán, a conservative nationalist and one of the few European leaders to have good relations with Putin, said he was called by Putin, and proposed talks in Budapest around an immediate ceasefire, as peace talks would take a longer time.
He said:
The response was positive but the Russian president said this had conditions. I cannot negotiate to meet those conditions - it should be him and the Ukrainian president agreeing on those.”
“This is a war that the Russians started, they attacked Ukraine, and it’s aggression, this is the joint stance of the European Union and Hungary shares that stance.”
However, Orbán, under whom Hungary has cultivated close business ties with Putin’s Russia, has opposed any EU sanctions on Russian oil and gas or Western arms shipments through Hungarian territory to Ukraine.
A spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry has accused Ukraine of using images of dead bodies strewn across the Ukrainian town of Bucha, which Russia says were staged, to justify more sanctions against Moscow and derail peace talks with Kyiv.
Ukraine has accused the Russian military of massacring residents of Bucha, an area outside the capital Kyiv which Russian troops had occupied for several weeks before withdrawing. Western countries have called for those responsible for the murder of civilians to be punished.
Orbán: Hungary 'will not give in' to pressure to extend EU sanctions against Russia's oil and gas
Reuters is carrying a little extra detail from Viktor Orbán’s press conference here which could be significant for the future. The Hungarian prime minister, fresh from winning his fourth consecutive election, told reporters Hungary must strengthen its alliance with Poland as it is a strategic alliance within the European Union.
Crucially, in response to a question about a disciplinary procedure flagged by the European Commission yesterday, Orban said Hungary would wait to see the EU’s letter, but “will not give in” to pressure to support an expansion of sanctions against Russia to oil and gas shipments, as that was a “red line” for Hungary.
The European Commission said yesterday is was launching a rule-of-law disciplinary procedure against Hungary.
First of all, this war must end now, and President Putin end it by withdrawing its troops and forces, and under stop attacking independent sovereign countries like Ukraine and sit down in in good faith and to find a political solution.
But at the same time, we have to be realistic and and realise that this may last for a long time, for many months, or even years.
I also believe that, regardless of when the war ends, this has long term implications for our security. Because we have seen the brutality. We have seen the willingness by President Putin to use military force to reach his objectives.
The invasion of Ukraine was a wake up call. But that happened in 2014. So we have actually, since 2014, implemented the biggest reinforcements of our collective defence.
So, Nato was actually quite well prepared when Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time, and on the day of the invasion, we activated our defence plans and deployed thousands of additional troops in the eastern part of the alliance.
Updated
Our graphics team have produced this updated map of the latest situation on the ground in Ukraine.
One of the topics of the Nato meeting is a “New Strategic Concept”. Secretary general of Nato Jens Stoltenberg explained that it would “address the new security reality we are faced with.”
He told reporters:
The strategic concept will be the roadmap for Nato. How to address a more dangerous world, and how to make sure that we continue to protect and defend all Nato allies.
In the strategic concept, we need to address the security consequences of Russia’s aggressive actions, the shifting global balance of power, the security consequences of a much stronger China, and the challenges Russia and China are imposing together to a rules based international order of democratic values.
We will set out the strategy for how to deal with cyber, hybrid, and terrorism, and also the security consequences of climate change.
A quick summary of what secretary general of Nato Jens Stoltenberg has had to say so far. He told reporters that Nato had supported Ukraine over many months, with both training and equipment, which has been making a real difference on the ground. He said:
Since the invasion, Allies have stepped up their support. I also expected ministers, when they meet today and tomorrow, will discuss how we can further support Ukraine.
Allies are providing both anti-tank, anti-air or air defence systems, but also different kinds of advanced weapon systems. and also both light and heavier weapon systems to Ukraine.
He went on to say that he did not want to detail “exactly what kind of weapons equipment Allies are providing”, but that “the totality is significant.”
Secretary general Jens Stoltenberg is making a statement before Nato’s meeting today. There is a live stream available at the top of the blog. You may need to refresh the page and then press play for it to start.
Sir Mark Lyall Grant, former UK national security adviser and former UK permanent representative to the UN, said he expected “pledges of more military support” to come.
PA Media quotes him telling BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme that there was a “balance” to be struck between military support for Ukraine which helps them in the fight against this Russian invasion and not giving Putin an excuse to escalate the conflict even further.”
“I think we will see pledges of more military support of the sort of anti-tank weapons, perhaps also some anti-ship missiles, which haven’t so far reached the theatre, and also surface-to-air missiles.
“When it comes to tanks and fighter aircraft ... Nato has so far been very reticent, but now that the Czech Republic appears to be deciding to send Russian-made tanks into the theatre, there may be some other Nato members who will press to do that as well.”
Nato member the Netherlands has sent four F-35 warplanes to Nato ally Bulgaria to help with its air-policing tasks. but not directly to Ukraine. [see 13:31]
Lyall Grant added “Certainly, the evidence of war crimes and human rights abuses that have been uncovered in recent days has raised the level of outrage in the West and definitely increased the willingness to consider further supplies of weapons.
“If Ukraine is now going to go on the offensive to try and take back territory that’s being occupied by Russia in the east of the country, they are going to need slightly different type of weapons.”
- This is Martin Belam in London, taking over the blog for the next half-hour or so.
Updated
The 193-member UN general assembly will vote on Thursday whether to suspend Russia from the Geneva-based UN human rights council.
Reuters reports that diplomats have said that the US is pushing for the vote.
A two-thirds majority of voting general assembly members in New York can suspend a country for committing gross and systematic violations of human rights. Russia is in its second year of a three-year term on the 47-member human rights council.
Updated
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, says he has talked with Vladimir Putin at length and asked him to apply a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Orbán told a news conference that earlier on Wednesday he had invited Putin for peace talks in Hungary, to be held with the Ukrainian and French presidents as well as the German chancellor. He said that Putin’s response was “positive” but that the Russian president said this would have conditions.
Updated
The Netherlands has sent four F-35 warplanes to Nato ally Bulgaria to help with its air-policing tasks amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the defence ministry has said.
Reuters reports:
The Dutch warplanes, along with Bulgarian MiG-29 fighter jets, will help protect the airspace of the Black Sea country until 31 May, in line with Nato’s integrated plan for air and anti-missile defence.
They will replace four Spanish fighter jets that have been supporting airspace surveillance of Bulgaria since the middle of February.
Bulgaria, on Nato’s eastern flank, is also setting up a battlegroup of up to 1,000 troops in close cooperation with the alliance.
Updated
Germany can only supply arms to Ukraine that the country’s army will know how to use, German chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.
He told lawmakers in the Bundestag lower house of parliament:
These are very old inventories that were used by the NVA [the army of former communist East Germany], which have the advantage that they can be used particularly well in Ukraine because they have experience with this equipment.
We have to supply equipment that can be used.
Updated
Buildings shelled in Luhansk after authorities in eastern Ukraine urge civilians to evacuate
The governor of the eastern region of Luhansk has said that 10 high-rise buildings are on fire in the town of Sievierodonetsk after Russian shelling, with no information yet on casualties.
This morning, authorities in eastern Ukraine urged civilians to evacuate, warning that Russian bombardments could cut off escape routes as forces increase attacks on the Donbas area.
Sievierodonetsk is the temporary headquarters of the regional authorities as Luhansk city has been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.
Updated
The US Department of Justice is set to outline new enforcement actions “to disrupt and prosecute criminal Russian activity” later today.
Top justice officials, including the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and the FBI director, Christopher Wray, would discuss the action at 10am (1500 BST), the department said in a statement.
New sanctions were announced earlier today by the United States and its allies against Russian banks and officials. They also planned a ban on new investment in Russia, the White House said, after officials in Washington and Kyiv accused Moscow of committing war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
Updated
The European Union has given €35bn (£29.1bn) to Vladimir Putin for energy supplies since the start of his war and €1bn to fund Ukraine’s defence, the union’s top diplomat said.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said:
We have to continue arming Ukraine. We need less rounds of applause and more assistance.
The EU has pledged €1bn in military aid for Ukraine, he said, which “might seem a lot” but “€1bn is what we pay Putin every day for the energy he provides us. Since the beginning of the war we have given him €35bn. Compare that to the €1bn we have given to Ukraine in arms and weapons.”
Updated
Here’s a roundup on all the key events from day 42 of the Russian invasion from reporters Samantha Lock and Martin Belam:
Kyiv reports 89 deaths since start of invasion
Eighty-nine people, including four children, have been killed in Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, according to the city council.
In a statement, the council said a further 398 people had been wounded and 167 residential buildings damaged by Russian strikes.
The statement read:
It has become safer in Kyiv, but the threat of airstrikes remains.
Russia denies targeting civilians.
Updated
The sight of tied bodies shot at close range in the Ukrainian streets of Bucha do not “look far short of genocide”, the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said.
The deaths in Bucha, outside Kyiv, have triggered a global outcry and pledges of further sanctions against Russia from the west.
Johnson told reporters:
I’m afraid when you look at what’s happening in Bucha, the revelations that we are seeing from what Putin has done in Ukraine, which doesn’t look far short of genocide to me, it is no wonder that people are responding in the way that they are.
And I have no doubt that the international community - Britain very much in the front rank - will be moving again in lockstep to impose more sanctions and more penalties on Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Updated
Norway has expelled three Russian diplomats, the Norwegian foreign ministry says.
Updated
An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team has led a convoy of buses and private cars carrying more than 500 people to Zaporizhzhia after the civilians fled the besieged Ukrainian town of Mariupol on their own.
“This convoy’s arrival to Zaporizhzhia is a huge relief for hundreds of people who have suffered immensely and are now in a safer location. It’s clear, though, that thousands more civilians trapped inside Mariupol need safe passage out and aid to come in,” Pascal Hundt, the ICRC’s head of delegation in Ukraine, said in a statement.
The convoy that the ICRC led left Berdiansk on Tuesday and reached Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday.
The ICRC team had tried over the course of five days and four nights to reach Mariupol, and came within 20 kilometres of the city, but security conditions on the ground made it impossible to enter.
The ICRC will continue facilitate the safe passage of civilians from Mariupol and other cities, provided there are security guarantees and conditions.
Updated
Here’s a summary of the new sanctions announced by the European Union this morning:
- An import ban on coal from Russia, worth €4bn a year, intended to cut an important revenue source for Russia.
- A full transaction ban on four key Russian banks, among them VTB, the second largest Russian bank, intended to weaken Russia’s financial system. The four banks will be totally cut off from the markets and represent 23% of the Russian banking sector.
- A ban on Russian vessels and Russian-operated vessels from accessing EU ports and on Russian and Belarusian road transport operators, limiting options for Russia to obtain key goods. There are exemptions for essentials, such as agricultural and food products, humanitarian aid as well as energy.
- Targeted export bans, worth €10bn, in areas in which Russia is vulnerable such as quantum computers, advanced semiconductors, sensitive machinery and transportation equipment. This is intended to degrade Russia’s technological base and industrial capacity.
- Specific new import bans, worth €5.5bn, to cut access to funds for Russia and its oligarchs, on products from wood to cement, from seafood to liquor.
- Several targeted measures, such as an EU-wide ban on Russian companies obtaining contracts through public procurement and an exclusion of all financial support to Russian public bodies.
- Sanctions against key high-profile individuals.
- The EU is working on possible additional sanctions, including on oil imports, taxes or specific payment channels such as an escrow account.
Updated
The Kremlin has said that peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv are not progressing as rapidly or energetically as it would like.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said work on setting up a new round of talks was under way but that there remained a long road ahead to achieve any progress.
He added that Russia has all the resources needed to service its debt and there are no grounds to default.
Ukraine’s state emergency services has shared images of a woman who was rescued from debris after a military strike in the town of Rubizhne, in Luhansk region this morning.
Zelensky urges Ireland to pressure EU into tougher Russian sanctions
In his address to the Irish parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ireland has not remained neutral over the disaster Russia has inflicted on his country.
He said:
You did not doubt starting helping us, you began doing this right away and, although you are a neutral country, you have not remained neutral to the disaster and to the mishaps that Russia has brought to Ukraine.”
He said he is grateful to every citizen of Ireland and for the country’s support of sanctions against Russia, and urged Ireland’s political leaders to use their influence to convince other EU nations to introduce even tougher sanctions to halt the Russian war machine.
Zelensky went on to say that he cannot tolerate indecisiveness in sanctions against Russia.
Today, when the whole world knows about the crimes against our people, we still have to convince even some of the European companies to abandon Russian markets, we still have to convince Russia of foreign politicians that we need to cut any ties of global banks of Russian banks with the global financial system.
We still have to convince Europe that Russian oil cannot feed Russian military machinery with new sources of funding.”
Zelensky told those gathered that Russia is using hunger as a weapon in its war against his country.
They are destroying things that are sustaining livelihoods to people. They also have blocked all of our sea ports, together with the vessels that had already agricultural cargos for exports.
“Ukraine is one of the leading food-supplying country in the world with exports. This is not just about the deficit and the threat of hunger.
“There will be a shortage of food and the prices will go up, and this is reality for the millions of people who are hungry, and it will be more difficult for them to feed their families.”
Zelensky also said that Russia needs to be held responsible for everything it has done in Ukraine. He said that in 42 days of war at least 167 children have been killed.
They were targeting even churches and shelters that they knew for sure that there is nobody but women and children, and this is a fact.
“The country which is doing this is not doesn’t deserve to be in the circle of the civil countries.”
Speaking after the historic address, Irish premier Micheal Martin said he is certain that Ukraine will prevail in its war with Russia.
We are a militarily neutral country. However, we are not politically neutral in the face of war crimes. Quite the opposite.
“Our position is informed by the principles that drive our foreign policy - support for international human rights, for humanitarian law and for a rules-based international order. We are not neutral when Russia disregards all of these principles. We are with Ukraine.
“Ukraine’s political, economic and humanitarian needs are now manifold and pressing.
“Our efforts, as a friend and as a partner of Ukraine, are aimed at using all the levers at our disposal to bring a just end to this war; applying international pressure on Russia; pursuing accountability for violations of international law; and meeting the humanitarian needs of those caught now in the midst of this terrible and immoral war.”
Rachel Hall here taking over the blog for the day. Please send over anything ideas for coverage, or things we’ve missed, to rachel.hall@theguardian.com.
Updated
Today so far …
- The governor of Ukraine’s Donetsk region said at least two civilians were killed and five wounded today when Russian artillery fire struck a humanitarian aid distribution point in the town of Vuhledar.
- The governor of Russia’s Kursk region has claimed that border guards were fired on from Ukraine yesterday. Ukraine’s military has claimed to have no knowledge of the alleged incident.
- Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said that eleven humanitarian corridors have been agreed in total for Wednesday. Luhansk region governor Serhiy Gaidai told civilians to “evacuate while it is safe”.
- Russian soldiers have committed sexual violence against Ukrainian women and men, children and elderly people,” Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova has alleged.
- Pope Francis has condemned what he called “the massacre of Bucha” and held up a Ukrainian flag sent from the town at his weekly audience in the Vatican’s auditorium. He described the war on Ukraine as “cruelty that is increasingly horrendous”.
- The United States and its allies are preparing to impose new sanctions on Moscow over civilian killings in Ukraine as the west makes a fresh attempt to cripple Vladimir Putin’s economy and war effort.
- Ukraine’s minister for foreign affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, has commented on the latest tranche of EU sanctions on Russia, saying that he appreciates the strengthening of the package. However, he called on his European neighbours to go further. saying “difficult times require difficult decisions”.
- Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev has said Russia will fight Western attempts to expropriate Russian property overseas with lawsuits.
- Hungary’s foreign ministry has summoned Ukraine’s ambassador over what it called his offensive statements on Hungary’s stance regarding the war.
- The European Council president, Charles Michel, has said European Union countries should think about ways to offer asylum to Russian soldiers willing to desert Ukraine battlefields.
- The UK’s foreign secretary Liz Truss has announced the country is to donate some NHS ambulances to Ukraine.
- A driver has died after ramming his car into the gate of the Russian embassy in Bucharest early on Wednesday, police in the Romanian capital said in a statement.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later on. Rachel Hall will be with you shortly.
Ukraine’s minister for foreign affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, has commented on the latest tranche of European Union sanctions on Russia, saying that he appreciates the strengthening of the package. However, he called on his European neighbours to go further. saying “difficult times require difficult decisions”.
I appreciate the strengthening of the 5th EU sanctions package: bans on Russian coal, vessels accessing EU ports, and road transport operators. But it will take a gas/oil embargo and de-SWIFTing of all Russian banks to stop Putin. Difficult times require difficult decisions.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) April 6, 2022
Updated
Donetsk governor claims Russia fired on aid distribution point
The governor of Ukraine’s Donetsk region said at least two civilians were killed and five wounded today when Russian artillery fire struck a humanitarian aid distribution point in the town of Vuhledar. Reuters report Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko shared graphic photos online of the aftermath of the alleged attack. Russia continues to deny targeting civilians.
Updated
The European Council president, Charles Michel, has said European Union countries should think about ways to offer asylum to Russian soldiers willing to desert Ukraine battlefields.
During an address to the the European parliament, Michel expressed his “outrage at crimes against humanity, against innocent civilians in Bucha and in many other cities”, then called on Russian soldiers to disobey orders.
Associated Press quotes him saying: “If you want no part in killing your Ukrainian brothers and sisters, if you don’t want to be a criminal, drop your arms, stop fighting, leave the battlefield.”
Endorsing an idea previously circulated by some EU lawmakers, Michel added that granting asylum to Russian deserters is “a valuable idea that should be pursued”.
Updated
US authorities are allowing Ukrainian refugees to enter the country at its border with Mexico in Tijuana, with permission to remain in the country on humanitarian parole for one year. Here are some photographs taken yesterday of the refugees who are there, and the makeshift encampment they are waiting in.
Updated
Two new lines on European diplomacy here, via Reuters. Firstly, Greece has announced it is joining the growing list of European countries who have expelled Russian diplomats. The Greek foreign ministry’s general secretary has informed the Russian ambassador that 12 diplomats have been declared “personae non-gratae” because the host nation says they were not acting in accordance with international rules.
At the same time, the Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko has insisted that Russia wants to maintain diplomatic relations with western countries despite the series of expulsions. The Interfax news agency cites him saying European countries disrupting the work of Russian diplomats were damaging their own interests.
Updated
Pope Francis condemns 'massacre of Bucha', describes town as 'martyred'
Pope Francis has condemned what he called “the massacre of Bucha” and held up a Ukrainian flag sent from the town at his weekly audience in the Vatican’s auditorium.
Reuters quotes him saying:
Recent news from the war in Ukraine, instead of bringing relief and hope, brought new atrocities, such as the massacre of Bucha. Cruelty that is increasingly horrendous, even against civilians, defenceless women and children. They are victims whose innocent blood cries out up to heaven and implores: ‘Stop this war! Let the weapons fall silent! Stop sowing death and destruction’. Yesterday, precisely from Bucha, they brought me this flag. It comes from the war, precisely from that martyred city, Bucha
The Pope then distributed some chocolate Easter Eggs to children who had fled Ukraine, saying “These children had to flee in order to arrive in a safe land. This is the fruit of war. Let’s not forget them and let’s not forget the Ukrainian people.”
Russia has repeatedly denied that any massacre took place in Bucha, offering various different explanations for the images and video that has emerged, describing them as a staged “provocation”.
Ukraine's military claims it has no information about attack on Russian border guards in Kursk
We reported earlier an accusation that Russian border guards had been fired upon in the Kursk region on the border with Ukraine. The area is to the north-east of Sumy. [see 7.32am]
Reuters is carrying a little more detail of the alleged incident now, with a quote from Kursk’s governor, Roman Starovoit. He said “Yesterday, on 5 April, they tried to fire mortars at the position of our border guards in the Sudzhansky district. Russian border guards returned fire... There were no casualties or damage on our side.”
Starovoit said regional officials were in touch with the defence ministry and urged citizens to remain calm. In separate comments to the RIA news agency, he said the mortars fired at the Sudzha border crossing did not reach Russian territory.
Ukraine’s military told Reuters “We do not have such information.”
Neither Russia or Ukraine’s claims have been independently verified.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has added a little to its earlier analysis of the latest situation on the ground in Ukraine. They say that heavy fighting and Russian airstrikes have continued in the encircled city of Mariupol, adding:
The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening. Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water. Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender.
(2/2)
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 6, 2022
The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening. Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water. Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender.
We’ve recieved some images from the area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which at one point was occupied by Russian forces. The area is now once again under Ukrainian control, and these photographs were taken yesterday.
The UK’s foreign secretary Liz Truss has just announced that the UK is to donate some NHS ambulances to Ukraine.
The UK is doing everything possible to help the people of Ukraine amid Putin's appalling war.
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) April 6, 2022
We’re providing food, medicine and generators. Today, we’re donating world class @nhsuk ambulances to bring life-saving care.https://t.co/tdA6oWLtIm
A joint statement from the foreign office and the department of health in the UK says:
The donation of around 20 NHS ambulances will help bring vital lifesaving care to Ukrainians remaining in towns and cities under attack from Russian bombardments.
This donation will help replace those Ukrainian ambulances lost to Russian attacks, bolstering the existing fleet’s resilience as the barbaric war goes on.
Truss is quoted as saying “The UK has been among the biggest aid donors, providing food, medicines and generators to help those affected. These world class NHS ambulances will now help bring lifesaving care directly to those injured in the conflict.”
In the statement, health secretary Sajid Javid adds “The invasion has damaged key medical infrastructure and the generous donation of four ambulances by South Central Ambulance Service will ensure people in Ukraine can receive urgent care. It marks the first of many ambulances the UK government and the NHS is donating to Ukraine in the coming days.”
Following on from that theme of some sections of the US political media using Kremlin propaganda lines, the actor Sean Penn has been very vocal about the situation in Ukraine and was in the country filming earlier this year, and met Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy before the Russian invasion. Last night in the US he was on MSNBC talking about the war, a clip of which has gone viral on social media
Penn had two main points – firstly about his certainty that Ukraine will win out in the war, in part because of national unity. He said:
To be in Ukraine, and to feel despite many political differences, you know, just like anywhere ugly positions on things, but not on this. Not on being able to determine their own dreams. They look at each other and they say we’re together.
It’s a horrible moment in so many ways, but it’s an exciting moment in history, to follow the lead of the Ukrainians, because they are proof of theory. They’re going to win this thing because they’re together. And what they’re gonna win is otherwise impossible to win. And it’s a certainty.
He also said that the feeling from the people he experienced in Ukraine gave him pause to reflect on the disunity among Americans, and he had a challenge for the US political class, which was:
When we look back on it, what role will we have played in diminishing the death, the maiming, the rapes, the destruction of this country that’s going to have so many demands of reconstruction? This is in my lifetime … what I would say … they are offering us the greatest opportunity we’ve ever had to be the America we’ve always wanted to be. And we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do to support them in doing that.
Updated
False and conspiratorial narratives pushed by some American conservative politicians and media figures about Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine have bolstered and created synergies with the Kremlin’s legendary disinformation machine, experts on information manipulation say.
Led by Tucker Carlson at Fox News, a few Republican rightwingers in Congress, and some key conservative activists, a spate of comments that have disparaged Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and echoed other Russian war disinformation have been recycled by Moscow, say experts.
A feedback loop between the Kremlin and parts of the American right has been palpable since the war’s start in February. The influential figure of Carlson has pushed several false narratives to millions of Fox News viewers that have been eagerly embraced and recycled by Moscow and parts of the American right. Last month, for example, Carlson touted rightwing conspiracies that attempted to link Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to a discredited allegation that the US financed bioweapons labs in Ukraine.
On a separate front, two Republican congressional conservatives, Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, delighted Moscow last month by condemning Zelenskiy without evidence in conspiracy-ridden terms that sparked some bipartisan criticism. Cawthorn called Zelenskiy a “thug” and his government “incredibly corrupt”, while Greene similarly charged that Zelenskiy was “corrupt”.
Read more of Peter Stone’s piece here: US right wing in step with Kremlin over Ukraine disinformation, experts say
Eleven 'humanitarian corridors' agreed for today – Ukraine's deputy PM
Also on the topic of “humanitarian corridors”, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said that eleven have been agreed in total for Wednesday, according to a report from Reuters.
She said, however, that those seeking to leave Mariupol will have to use their own vehicles.
Earlier this week an agreed International Committee of the Red Cross mission to evacuate people from Mariupol was halted and turned back by Russian forces.
Ukrainian authorities in Luhansk urge residents to evacuate
Authorities in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk hope to evacuate civilians through five “humanitarian corridors” on Wednesday and urged residents to get out “while it is safe.”
Ukraine has said Russian troops are regrouping and preparing for a new offensive in the Donbas area, which includes Luhansk.
“We will take everyone out if the Russians allow us to get to the meeting places (for evacuation). Because, as you can see, they don’t always observe ceasefires,” the Luhansk region governor, Serhiy Gaidai, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“I appeal to every resident of the Luhansk region - evacuate while it is safe ... While there are buses and trains - take this opportunity. “
Reuters reports Gaidai said rail connections in the Donetsk region of Donbas had been damaged this week and took several hours to repair. “This is another alarm bell,” he said.
Gaidai said separately in a video address that Russian forces had not managed to break through Ukrainian defences in his region but were destroying “everything in their path” and would “stop at nothing.”
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, although the mayor of Kyiv yesterday claimed that he had been informed that at least 5,000 civilians had been killed in the southern city of Mariupol.
A few little inter-linked pieces of news have just broken. The Dutch government has said it is currently preventing 14 yachts from leaving the country due to sanctions on Russia, including 12 that were under construction for Russian owners.
Reuters reports that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the statement in a letter to parliament, updating lawmakers on the enforcement of sanctions.
At the same time, long-term ally of Vladimir Putin and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has been talking. Medvedev has said that Russia will fight Western attempts to expropriate Russian property overseas with lawsuits. He likened attempts to seize Russian business assets abroad to thievery, and said they would be fought in courts in the US and Europe.
Those quotes broke on the wires while Peter Kyle, the UK opposition spokesperson on Northern Ireland for the Labour party, was being interviewed on Sky News.
Put to him, he said “They can try what they want” but that Medvedev’s words were “an admission that sanctions against them are working. Our sanctions have been wide and far, far reaching, and the Labour party wants the sanctions to go further.”
EU sanctions to target Vladimir Putin's daughters – reports
The Wall Street Journal is carrying a report that a new tranche of European Union sanctions will target the daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Laurence Norman and Ann M. Simmons write:
The European Union has proposed sanctioning two daughters of President Vladimir Putin, according to diplomats familiar with the plan, a move that would add the Russian leader’s closest family members to a growing list of individuals sanctioned in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Putin doesn’t speak publicly about his family. He has two daughters with his former wife, Lyudmila Putina, according to the Kremlin. It isn’t known if Putin has other children, and it couldn’t be learned if the daughters being targeted in the EU sanctions were those he has publicly acknowledged.
Richard Dannatt, who was Chief of the General Staff in the British army from 2006 to 2009, has been appearing on Sky News in the UK.
On the images that have emerged from Ukraine, he said “I think the war crimes are stacking up to the point that it looks like a concerted effort to reduce the Ukrainian population. That is getting very close to the definition of genocide. It is absolutely right and proper that all these war crimes are being chronicled, evidence is been gathered.”
Citing his own experience of testifying at a war crimes trial he said “If you think back to the early dark days of the Bosnian Civil War, it seemed inconceivable that Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic would find their way into court. But they did. This is looking to me increasingly like genocide that is plotted from the top and the top therefore must bear responsibility.”
On the Donetsk region he said “this is a difficult one” and a “huge dilemma” for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. In pushing for a peace deal, Dannatt asked “Is he going to insist that every square kilometre of Ukrainian soil remains Ukrainian soil? Or is he going to have to accept reality on the ground?”
He felt Odesa was more straightforward, and that Ukraine must retain their major port. He suggested in the longer term that a third peacekeeping force might be required in Ukraine – although not a Nato-badged one as that would be unacceptable to the Russians.
Russia’s state-owned domestic news agency RIA Novosti is reporting claims that Russian border guards have been fired on in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine. The region is to the north-east of Ukraine’s Sumy region. The Guardian has not independently verified the claims.
The UK’s health secretary Sajid Javid has been appearing on Sky News in the UK. Asked about the images coming out of Ukraine he said:
I think it strengthens the resolve of all of us. What we’re seeing unfolding now in Ukraine is absolutely appalling. These atrocities we now sadly seen almost daily on our TV screens, and the image you just talked of [a child with her mothers’s contact details written on her back], when I first saw that image, I think yesterday, it could have been my daughter. It could be anyone’s daughter, their son. Just to think that’s what parents are having to do in Ukraine right now because of the choice that Putin has made.
And we should never forget this as a choice. This was not a a war for any other reason, it is something that Vladimir Putin has just chosen to do. And we will continue to help Ukraine in every way that we can, whether that’s military support, or sanctions on Russia, and humanitarian support.
Javid did not go as far as to suggest that the UK would be pursuing regime change in Russia. He said it “is ultimately up to the Russian people about the leadership of their country.”
Hungary’s foreign ministry has summoned Ukraine’s ambassador over what it called his offensive statements on Hungary’s stance regarding the war, foreign minister Peter Szijjarto has said.
Reuters quotes a statement saying “It is time for Ukrainian leaders to stop their insults directed at Hungary and acknowledge the will of the Hungarian people.”
At the weekend Viktor Orbán won his fourth consecutive election in Hungary, and then included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the list of enemies he said he had “over-powered”.
Orbán dismissed Zelenskiy as “an actor who uses and works with the knowledge he has acquired”, and said he would not comply with any demands that would lead to “our sons dying in someone else’s war” and the “ruination” of Hungary’s economy.
Zelenskiy has not called for western forces to enter the ground war. However, he responded to Orbán’s words by suggesting that the Hungarian leader would have to choose between Moscow and the “other world”, and that the Hungarian leader feared Russian influence.
- This is Martin Belam taking over the blog in London now from Samantha Lock. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
Some of the latest images to come out of Ukraine today can be seen in the gallery below.
Burned buildings marked with bullets holes and shrapnel fragments show the evidence of a brutal battle that occurred in Borodyanka, a town near Kyiv.
A man walks past a disarmed missile in the street while abandoned weapons lie discarded just outside town.
Updated
A driver has died after ramming his car into the gate of the Russian embassy in Bucharest early on Wednesday, police in the Romanian capital said in a statement.
A video recorded before firefighters arrived showed the front of the car in flames as it remained wedged in the gate, Reuters is reporting.
It was unclear whether the crash was an accident or deliberate.
During recent weeks, several Russian embassies elsewhere in Europe have been targeted by protesters angered by the invasion of Ukraine.
Police said they were investigating and did not release the identity of the driver.
Romania said on Tuesday it would expel 10 Russian diplomats who are not acting in accordance with international rules, joining other European countries to have done so in recent days.
Zelenskiy accuses Russia of using UN to ‘justify the evil it does’
Zelenskiy questioned the ability of the UN Security Council to provide security, undermining the very functions for which it was created during his Tuesday night national address.
The UN Security Council exists, and security in the world doesn’t. For anyone.
This definitely means that the United Nations is currently unable to carry out the functions for which it was created. And only one state is to blame for this - Russia, which discredits the UN and all other international institutions where it still participates.
Well, not exactly participates... Tries to block everything constructive and use global architecture in order to spread lies and justify the evil it does.
I’m sure the world sees it. I hope the world will draw conclusions. Otherwise there will be only one institution left in the world to guarantee the security of states. Namely - weapons.
In an interview with Ukrainian media, Zelenskiy said it is necessary to ensure his nation is able to defend itself from Russia in the years ahead and spoke of the importance of concrete security guarantees.
Even if we sign the most powerful agreement, we understand that in two years Russia may return. And if you and I accept this, then we act accordingly,” he said.
Referring to concrete security guarantees, Zelenskiy said everything would depend on the guarantor countries to ensure implementation.
All this is being discussed at the level of advisers and leaders with France, the United States, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Israel, and there are many friends who want to join. So far, we have not received a specific list of guarantees and a list of countries that are ready to join us 100%.
We do not need to have 40 countries of the world that are ready to join and fight for Ukraine under the agreement. We need serious players who are ready for anything. We need a circle of states that are ready to provide any weapons within 24 hours. We need individual countries on which sanctions policy really depends, so that these sanctions are deeply elaborated in advance. So that in the first second when we feel the threat from the Russian Federation, these states will unite and within three days introduce everything at once, block everything.”
Speaking of Nato, he added:
If we are offered to join Nato tomorrow, if they don’t play with our lives again, but seriously offer, we will join. But this will not happen, unfortunately, and did not happen.
That is why we will build those security guarantees that can protect us, protect people’s lives.”
Twitter earlier announced it is introducing new measures against Russian government accounts to reduce the impact of official propaganda on the social network.
The official accounts will no longer be “recommended” to Twitter users across all categories of the app, including in searches, the platform said in a statement.
The California company, like its rival Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had already blocked the accounts of the Russian state-run media RT and Sputnik in the European Union.
Moscow responded by restricting access to Twitter in the country, and blocking Facebook and Instagram.
We will not amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict - whether Twitter is blocked in that country or not,” Twitter said in a statement.
When a government blocks or limits access to online services within their state, undercutting the public’s voice and ability to freely access information, but continues to use online services for their own communications, a severe information imbalance is created.”
Starting today, we will not amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict – whether Twitter is blocked in that country or not.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) April 5, 2022
Britain is to send surplus NHS ambulances to Ukraine to replace vehicles destroyed in Russian attacks, the government has said.
The foreign office said NHS trusts are expected to donate around 20 ambulances, with the first vehicles due to arrive in the country this week, according to a report from PA Media.
They include four ambulances being provided by the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust.
Foreign secretary Liz Truss said: “The UK has been among the biggest aid donors, providing food, medicines and generators to help those affected.
“These world class NHS ambulances will now help bring lifesaving care directly to those injured in the conflict.”
Earlier, prime minister Boris Johnson urged Russian citizens not to fall for Vladimir Putin’s propaganda, and to circumvent tough internet censorship rules by installing technology to discover the full extent of war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to make an historic address to the Irish Parliament later today.
Addressing nations’ representatives, including those from Russia, he accused Vladimir Putin’s forces of creating “mass starvation” and shooting and raping civilians.
Irish foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney said he expects Zelenskiy to “emphasise the brutality” of the conflict when he addresses the Dail and Seanad in a joint sitting on Wednesday, PA Media reports.
“Certainly, my conversation with the Ukrainian foreign minister earlier this week was a very sobering and difficult conversation,” he said.
Coveney also said that the government would keep further expulsions of Russian officials from Ireland under consideration, but added that keeping diplomatic efforts open was “important”.
Zelenskiy has addressed a number of national parliaments, including the House of Commons last month, as well as the US Congress, and last week spoke virtually at the Grammy Awards.
While Russian forces have been advancing further into the centre of the city of Mariupol, Ukrainian forces are still in control of some areas and have forced Russian troops out of towns in the north.
US and EU to hit Russia with new sanctions
The United States and its allies are preparing to impose new sanctions on Moscow over civilian killings in Ukraine as the west makes a fresh attempt to cripple Vladimir Putin’s economy and war effort.
Western sanctions on Russia over its nearly six-week invasion of its neighbour gained new impetus this week after bodies of civilians shot at close range were discovered in the town of Bucha, after a retreat by Russian forces.
The White House said sanctions to be unveiled on Wednesday were in part a response to Bucha. The measures, coordinated between Washington, G7 economies and the European Union, will target Russian banks and officials and ban new investment in Russia.
“The goal is to force them to make a choice,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “The biggest part of our objective here is to deplete the resources that Putin has to continue his war against Ukraine.”
Proposed EU sanctions, which the bloc’s 27 member states must approve, would ban buying Russian coal and prevent Russian ships from entering EU ports. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said the bloc was also working on banning oil imports. Europe, which obtains about a third of its natural gas from Russia, has been wary of the economic impact a total ban on Russian energy would bring. But signalling strengthening EU resolve, Germany’s foreign minister said the coal ban was the first step toward an embargo on all Russian fossil fuel imports.
Renewed pressure from the west comes after Zelenskiy gave the UN security council a harrowing account of atrocities in his country and demanded that Russian leaders be “brought to justice for war crimes”.
The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that Washington is considering additional sanctions against Putin’s two daughters and Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.
The United States will provide an additional $100 million in security assistance to Ukraine, including anti-armour systems, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.
Updated
Russian forces commit sexual violence, torture and burn bodies to 'hide the crime', prosecutor alleges
Russian soldiers have committed sexual violence against Ukrainian women and men, children and elderly people,” Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova alleged in a seperate statement.
But the victims are silent about it. It’s their choice. And it’s clear: fear, pain, despair, total disbelief to all,” she added.
Specifically, Venediktova referenced reported atrocities committed in Bucha.
“Bucha was released from the occupiers, but the consequences of their atrocities will have to be recovered for a long time: civilians were killed in the streets, cars were shot, torturers in basements,” she said.
Venediktova said prosecutors are currently investigating the “horrifying fact of torturing, killing and attempting burning of bodies of six civilians in Bucha,” she added to Twitter on Tuesday.
“The occupiers tried to burn the bodies of six tortured and killed civilians in Bucha,” she said, adding that prosecutors together with Kyiv Region police officers found a torture chamber in the town of Bucha in the basement of a children’s sanatorium.
Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Tuesday:
During the occupation of the city of Bucha, soldiers of the Russian Federation armed forces, violating international humanitarian law standards, killed civilians and set fire to their bodies in order to hide the crime.
During the investigation, it was found that the bodies of the dead have traces of violent death and torture. The prosecutors of the Bucha district and Kyiv region prosecutor’s office work on the site together with police employees. Measures are being taken to determine all circumstances of the crime. The pre-trial investigation is underway.”
The Buchanian District Prosecutor’s Office has initiated criminal proceedings, the office confirmed.
In the basement of one of the children’s sanatoriums, law enforcement officers discovered the bodies of five men with their hands tied. Soldiers of the Russian Federation armed forces tortured unarmed civilians and then killed them.
Prosecutors and police officers work at the scene of the crime. All measures are taken to determine the circumstances of every war crime and person involved in the Russian aggression in order to bring them to justice.”
All over the Kyiv region, investigative and operative groups are investigating crime scenes across various districts, Venediktova said.
“More than 50 national police staff and prosecutors are now involved to conduct first-ever investigations in the territory of Buchansky district alone,” she said in a statement earlier this week.
Similar work is also reportedly being developed in all liberated towns in the Kyiv and Chernihiv region, with investigators collaborating with the local population to talk with witnesses, victims and gather photos and video evidence, Venediktova added,
“It takes time and a professional approach to record everything correctly and not lose any chance to find and punish the guilty,” she said.
4,684 alleged Russian war crimes under investigation, prosecutor says
Ukrainian prosecutors say they are investigating 4,684 alleged Russian war crimes after the horror of recent atrocities committed in the Ukrainian town of Bucha came to light, prompting global revulsion and a raft of crippling new sanctions against Russia.
According to figures released by the prosecutors office, a total of 4,468 potential war crimes were listed as under investigation as of Tuesday with the figure growing by hundreds every day. An estimated 167 children have also died as a consequence of Russia’s invasion, the agency added.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova described the recently liberated towns surrounding Kyiv as a “tortured region from hell” and vowed to “punish the inhumans who set it up on our land” at a press briefing held from Bucha on Tuesday.
“Russia will be responsible for Bucha in The Hague,” she added in a statement published later in the day.
“Prosecutors and investigators are already examining the area [Kyiv region] and documenting crimes, so that every perpetrator of these atrocities are brought to justice both in national and international courts,” she said.
Ukraine’s prosecutors office has said pre-trial investigations have begun across the country, including in the regions of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Donetsk and Luhansk.
“We are collecting evidence for the national courts and the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Evidence is no longer just war crimes, but crimes against humanity. And we will prove every fact to punish those who tortured, mocked and destroyed Ukrainians,” Venediktova said.
Updated
The latest UK ministry of defence intelligence report is in, claiming that heavy fighting and air strikes continue in the encircled city of Mariupol.
“The humanitarian situation is worsening,” the ministry added.
Most of the 16,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water.
Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 6 April 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 6, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/3Oz7eZieEQ
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/6hxubnBabH
In an earlier report, the ministry said the bodies of Ukrainian civilians lay on a street in Bucha for at least ten days before the town was reclaimed from Russian forces.
Citing an analysis of satellite imagery dated 21 March 2022, the ministry said at least 8 bodies were identified lying in a street in Bucha, about 30km north-west of the capital Kyiv.
Bucha was occupied by the Russian armed forces until 31 March 2022.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on Ukraine - 5 April 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 5, 2022
Analysis of satellite imagery dated 21 March 2022 shows at least 8 bodies identified lying in a street in Bucha, Kyiv Oblast. Bucha was occupied by the Russian armed forces until 31 March 2022.
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/o1tQ0bVZ8v
Updated
Summary and welcome
It’s Samantha Lock back with you as we continue to cover the unfolding atrocities occurring in Ukraine. Some content may be sensitive or disturbing for readers so we advise some caution in following our live blog today.
Here is where the crisis currently stands:
- Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given the UN security council a harrowing account of atrocities in his country and demanded Russian leaders “be brought to justice for war crimes”. Zelenskiy called for an international tribunal similar to the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after the second world war, speaking of Russian forces: “There is not a single crime that they would not commit there.”
- Atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha are “only one of many examples of what the occupiers have been doing on our land for the past 41 days,” Zelenskiy said, adding that there were many more that the world had yet to learn the full truth about. “Russia wants to turn Ukraine into silent slaves,” he said.
- Ukrainian prosecutors say they are investigating nearly 5,000 alleged Russian war crimes after the horror of recent atrocities committed in the Ukrainian town of Bucha came to light, prompting global revulsion and a raft of crippling new sanctions against Russia. According to figures released by the prosecutors office, a total of 4,468 potential war crimes were listed as under investigation as of Tuesday with the figure growing by hundreds every day. An estimated 165 children have also died as a consequence of Russia’s invasion, the agency added.
- The Ukraine president also questioned the ability of the UN security council to provide security. “The UN Security Council exists, and security in the world doesn’t. For anyone,” he said in his nightly address. “Now Kyiv is the capital of global democracy, the capital of the struggle for freedom for all on the European continent.”
- The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he will “never forget the horrifying images of civilians killed” in Bucha. Speaking at the UN security council in New York, he said the war in Ukraine is “one of the greatest challenges ever” to the “international order”. The UN undersecretary general for political and peacebuilding affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, said allegations of sexual violence perpetrated by Russian forces include “gang-rape and rapes in front of children”.
- The Ukrainian human rights ombudswoman, Lyudmyla Denisova, said between 150 and 300 bodies may be in a mass grave by a church in the town of Bucha. She did not say how the authorities had reached the estimate.
- Satellite imagery of one Bucha street published by Maxar Technologies from 19 and 21 March appears to show several bodies in exactly the same position as in video footage and photos taken this weekend in the same street.The UK’s ministry of defence said eight bodies had lain on the street for at least ten days before the town was reclaimed from Russian forces.
- Displaced residents of Bucha should not yet return to their homes because there are still mines in the area after Russian troops withdrew from the town, its mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk, said. Fedoruk said about 3,700 civilians had stayed in Bucha, which had a pre-war population of about 37,000, throughout the Russian occupation.
- The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the evidence from Bucha shows “a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities” by Russian forces. “The reports are more than credible. The evidence is there for the world to see,” he told reporters. The UN human rights office spokesperson, Liz Throssell, said all the signs from Bucha pointed towards civilians having been directly targeted and killed.
- At the UN security council, India condemned the killing of civilians in the Bucha and called for an independent investigation. Israel also condemned Russia’s “war crimes” in Ukraine in a statement.
- The Kremlin said allegations that Russian forces committed war crimes by executing civilians in Bucha were a “monstrous forgery” aimed at “denigrating” the Russian army. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that remarks by US president Joe Biden calling for Russian president Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes were unacceptable and unworthy of a US leader.
- On a visit to Trostianets, a town close to the Russian border, the Guardian found evidence of summary executions, torture and systematic looting during the month of occupation. Yuriy Bova, the mayor of Trostianets, said it was too early to give a reliable estimate of how many civilians the Russians had killed, saying it was: “definitely more than 50, but probably not hundreds”.
- The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Nato and G7 foreign ministers meeting on Wednesday and Thursday will discuss the delivery of advanced weapons to Ukraine. Ammunition, medical supplies and “high-end” weapons systems would also be discussed, he added.
- The US and its allies are planning more sanctions on Russia with the objective to “deplete the resources that Putin has to continue his war against Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. The new penalties will include a ban on all new investment in Russia and greater sanctions on its financial institutions and state-owned enterprises. Separately, the US Treasury Department moved to block any Russian government debt payments with US dollars from accounts at US financial institutions, making it harder for Russia to meet its financial obligations.
- The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the EU is also proposing new sanctions against Russia, including an import ban on coal worth €4bn (£3.3bn) per year. The package will include a full transaction ban on four key Russian banks, a ban on Russian vessels and Russian-operated vessels accessing EU ports, as well as targeted export and import bans.
- US Army Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States should look at the development of more bases in eastern Europe to protect against Russian aggression, but rotate forces through them rather than make permanent deployments. Milley suggested the conflict would extend beyond Ukraine and continue for “at least” years.
- The United States will provide an additional $100 million in security assistance to Ukraine, including anti-armour systems, secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Tuesday. The US is also providing Ukraine with life-saving protective equipment that could be deployed if Russia were to use chemical and biological weapons, a Biden administration official added.
-
The Czech Republic also joined other nations in directly supplying Ukraine with offensive weapons, reportedly becoming the first EU country to do so since Russia invaded in February.
- Almost two hundred Russian diplomatic staff have been expelled from European countries this week in a direct expression of governments’ outrage at the killings of Ukrainian civilians. In what amounts to one of the biggest diplomatic breakdowns of recent years, 206 Russian diplomats and embassy staff have been told since Monday they are no longer welcome to stay by governments in Italy, France, Germany and elsewhere.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson urged Russian citizens not to fall for Putin’s propaganda, and to circumvent tough internet censorship rules by installing technology to discover the full extent of war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine.
- Twitter announced it is introducing new measures against Russian government accounts to reduce the impact of official propaganda on the social network.
