That’s it from me, Charlie Moloney, and the Guardian’s live coverage of the Ukraine war for now.
Before I go, here’s a roundup of today’s developments:
The latest defence intelligence update from the UK Ministry of Defence says that over the past two weeks, Russian forces are likely to have had their highest rate of casualties since the first week of the invasion of Ukraine.
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, cast doubt on whether Poland will be able to supply Ukraine with fighters jets. Duda said sending F-16 aircraft would be a “very serious decision” that was “not easy to take”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner group, said the mercenary force had taken the village of Krasna Hora, on the northern edge of the embattled city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Reuters reported. In an audio message published by his press service on the messaging app Telegram, Prigozhin said: “Today the settlement of Krasna Hora was taken by the assault troops of the Wagner private military company.”
Ukraine’s defences are holding along the frontline in Donetsk, with the fiercest battles raging for the cities of Vuhledar and Maryinka, Kyiv’s top military commander said on Saturday, Reuters reports. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said Russia was carrying out 50 attacks a day in Donetsk, a region in Ukraine’s south-east that Moscow has been trying to occupy fully.
Updated
Summary
Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:
Austria has come under heavy criticism for granting visas that will allow sanctions-hit Russian lawmakers to attend a Vienna meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Associated Press reports. The issue highlights the delicate balancing act the European country has engaged in while trying to maintain its longstanding position of military neutrality during the war in Ukraine.
Iran smuggled drones into Russia using boats and the state airline, sources reveal. Our Middle East correspondent, Martin Chulov, has an exclusive report on the methods used by Iran to smuggle weaponry to Russia for use in its war on Ukraine. You can read the full report here.
Andrew Anthony has interviewed the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, in the Observer about the future of the war in Ukraine. Read the full Q&A here.
Two captured former Wagner soldiers have described their experiences of fighting with the mercenary group in Ukraine. Speaking to CNN, the two fighters – who were both recruited in prison, fought in Ukraine and captured – described “first wave” attacks near the village of Bilohorivka that they likened to first world war advances.
Updated
Russian soldiers are dying in Ukraine in greater numbers this month than at any time since the first week of the invasion, Ukrainian data suggests.
So far in February, an average of 824 Russian soldiers a day are dying, according the data, which cannot be verified.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence highlighted the figures and stated that the trends were “likely accurate”, the BBC reports.
Ukrainian officials have said Russia has launched a big offensive, which coincides with the reported increased death rate.
Updated
Austria has come under heavy criticism for granting visas that will allow sanctions-hit Russian lawmakers to attend a Vienna meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Associated Press reports.
The issue highlights the delicate balancing act the European country has engaged in while trying to maintain its longstanding position of military neutrality during the war in Ukraine. The Austrian government has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago but also stressed the need to maintain diplomatic relations with Moscow.
Moscow plans to send delegates to the 23-24 February meeting of the OSCE’s parliamentary assembly, including 15 Russian lawmakers who are under European Union sanctions. Among them are the deputy Duma chair Pyotr Tolstoy and his fellow parliament member Leonid Slutsky.
In a letter to Austria’s chancellor, foreign minister and other officials, 81 OSCE delegates from 20 countries, including France, Canada, Britain, Poland and Ukraine, called upon the Austrian government to prohibit the participation of the sanctions-hit Russians.
“It is important to remember that Russian parliamentarians are an integral part of the power system and complicit in the crimes Russia commits every day in Ukraine,” read the letter, which was seen by the Associated Press. “They have no place in an institution tasked with promoting sincere dialogue and opposition to the war.”
Updated
Iran smuggled drones into Russia using boats and state airline, sources reveal
Our Middle East correspondent, Martin Chulov, has an exclusive report on the methods used by Iran to smuggle weaponry to Russia for use in its war on Ukraine.
Iran has used boats and a state-owned airline to smuggle new types of advanced long-range armed drones to Russia for use in its war on Ukraine, sources inside the Middle Eastern country have revealed.
At least 18 of the drones were delivered to Vladimir Putin’s navy after Russian officers and technicians made a special visit to Tehran in November, where they were shown a full range of Iran’s technologies.
On that occasion, the 10-man Russian delegation selected six Mohajer-6 drones, which have a range of around 200km and carry two missiles under each wing, along with 12 Shahed 191 and 129 drones, which also have an air to ground strike capability.
Unlike the better known Shahed 131 and 136 drones, which have been heavily used by Russia in kamikaze raids against Ukrainian targets, the higher flying drones are designed to deliver bombs and return to base intact.
Read the full report here:
Andrew Anthony has interviewed the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, in the Observer about the future of the war in Ukraine.
Read the full Q&A here:
Updated
The Guardian’s digital editor Claire Phipps has written an article reflecting on a year of this blog and the daily, round-the-clock reporting on Europe’s biggest war since 1945.
Read the article here:
Images from the city of Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine, show residents struggling to secure clean water after attacks on Saturday disrupted the city’s supply.
Updated
The Russian defence ministry has said it carried out an attack on Kharkiv, after Ukrainian authorities reported a missile attack overnight.
“As a result of high-precision missile attack launched by the Russian aerospace forces at the AFU [armed forces of Ukraine], workshops for assembling armoured vehicles near the Malyshev machine-building plant in Kharkov were hit,” said the Russian defence ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov .
According to the head of the Kharkiv regional administration, Oleg Sinegubov, a 35-year-old local resident received shrapnel wounds as a result of the impact.
The Guardian has not been able to verify these reports.
Updated
Two captured former Wagner soldiers have described their experiences of fighting with the mercenary group in Ukraine. Speaking to CNN, the two fighters – who were both recruited in prison, fought in Ukraine and captured – described “first wave” attacks near the village of Bilohorivka that they likened to first world war advances.
“There were 90 of us. Sixty died in that first assault, killed by mortar fire. A handful remained wounded,” said one. “If one group is unsuccessful, another is sent right away. If the second one is unsuccessful, they send another group.”
He said there was little support for the injured or dying. “If you’re wounded, you roll away on your own at first, any way you can, somewhere neutral where there’s no fire, and if there’s no one around, you administer first aid to yourself,” he said.
Should someone disobey orders for commanders, the consequences are lethal. “One man stayed at a position, he was really scared, it was his first assault,” said one of the former soldiers. “We received an order to run forward. But the man hid under a tree and refused. This was reported to the command and that was it. He was taken 50 metres away from the base. He was digging his own grave and then was shot.”
Updated
The Sunday Telegraph reports that British weaponry and military vehicles could be manufactured in Ukraine.
Unnamed senior UK defence industry officials are reported to be discussing the plans with counterparts in Kyiv, the paper reports (£).
British executives have reportedly travelled there with a view to setting up joint ventures that would manufacture arms and vehicles locally under licence.
The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the reports.
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH; British weapons could be made in Ukraine #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/uNvySFDODr
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) February 11, 2023
Updated
The Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, has said “let’s wait and see” in response to comments by Poland’s president that cast doubt on the prospect of allies donating jets to Ukraine.
Appearing on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the ambassador says world leaders have to show unity.
"Let's wait and see. That's what we heard about tanks... I know that some leaders have to say these words"
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) February 12, 2023
Ukrainian Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko says countries will make a "group decision" on donating jets, despite international hesitation#BBCLauraK https://t.co/3CQTf90ede pic.twitter.com/2KJyUAqGm1
Updated
Summary
It is 2pm in Kyiv.
Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has cast doubt on whether it would be able to supply Ukraine with fighters jets. Duda said sending F-16 aircraft would be a “very serious decision” that was “not easy to take”.
The latest defence intelligence update from the UK Ministry of Defence says that over the past two weeks, Russia has likely suffered its highest rate of casualties since the first week of the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian forces over the weekend continued to shell Ukrainian cities amid a grinding push to seize more land in the east of the country. One person was killed and one more was wounded on Sunday morning by the shelling of Nikopol, a city in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Serhii Lysak reported. The shelling damaged four residential buildings, a vocational school and a water treatment facility.
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg will end his term as planned in October, a spokesperson for the alliance said, after a newspaper reported a further extension was in the works.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner group, has said the mercenary force had taken the village of Krasna Hora, on the northern edge of the embattled city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region,
Galina Danilchenko, the Russia-installed mayor of the Ukrainian city Melitopol in south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, said on Saturday one civilian died in overnight shelling of Melitopol by Ukrainian forces. Two people were also injured, she wrote on the Telegram social media app.
First reports indicate that three Russian S-300 missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday night, regional governor Oleh Sinehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “One infrastructure facility was damaged. Information about the victims and the scale of the destruction is being clarified,” he said.
Ukraine’s forces are holding defence along the frontline in Donetsk, including in the besieged town of Bakhmut, with the fiercest battles raging for the cities of Vuhledar and Maryinka, Kyiv’s top military commander said on Saturday. Valerii Zaluzhnyi did not specify where the gains were. He added that Ukrainian forices are trying to “stabilise” the frontline around Bakhmut, a city in the eastern Donbas region, which has become the focal point of Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion and of Moscow’s drive to regain battlefield momentum.
Russia is ready for negotiations with Ukraine, but without preconditions, state media have reported the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergey Vershinin, as saying. In an interview with state-run Zvezda television, Vershinin said it was not Ukraine, but the US and the EU that should make the decision on talks with Russia. Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, who headed the country’s negotiating team in the early phases of the conflict, said “talks are out of the question”.
Zemfira, one of Russia’s most popular singers, has been placed on a list of “foreign agents” on grounds that she supported Ukraine and criticised Russia’s “special military operation” in that country, according to the Russian justice ministry. The ministry has added several other people to its “foreign agents” list, including opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov, political analyst Abbas Gallyamov, and activists Aleksandra Kazantseva and Tatyana Nazambaeva for “LGBT propaganda”.
Immigration authorities in Argentina are cracking down on Russian women who since the invasion of Ukraine have started travelling to Buenos Aires to give birth in order to gain Argentinian citizenship for their children. The director of Argentina’s immigration office, Florencia Carignano, said on Friday that a judicial investigation has been launched into what she described as a lucrative business that promises Argentinian passports for the Russian parents.
Russian forces over the weekend continued to shell Ukrainian cities amid a grinding push to seize more land in the east of the country, the Associated Press reports.
One person was killed and one more was wounded on Sunday morning by the shelling of Nikopol, a city in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Serhii Lysak reported. The shelling damaged four residential buildings, a vocational school and a water treatment facility.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, one person was wounded after three Russian S-300 missiles hit infrastructure facilities overnight, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
Ukrainian forces also downed five drones — four Shahed killer drones and one Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone — over the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions on Saturday evening, Kyiv’s military reported.
The attacks come as Russian forces push to take over more land in the eastern industrial heartland of Donbas, comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that Russia could launch a new, broad offensive there to try to turn the tide of the conflict as the war approaches the one-year mark.
But Ukrainian officials say that Moscow is having trouble mounting such an offensive.
“They are having big problems with a big offensive,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Ukrainian television on Saturday night.
“They have begun their offensive, they’re just not saying they have, and our troops are repelling it very powerfully. The offensive that they planned is already gradually underway. But (it is) not the offensive they were counting on,” Danilov said.
A US-based thinktank noted that it is also Russia’s pro-Kremlin military bloggers who question Moscow’s ability to launch a broad offensive in Ukraine. They “continue to appear demoralised at the Kremlin’s prospects for executing a major offensive,” the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest report.
Russia suffers highest casualties since first week of invasion – UK intelligence
The latest defence intelligence update from the UK Ministry of Defence says that over the past two weeks, Russia has likely suffered its highest rate of casualties since the first week of the invasion of Ukraine.
The update, posted to Twitter, continues:
The Ukrainian General Staff release daily statistics on Russian casualties. Although Defence Intelligence cannot verify Ukraine’s methodology, the trends the data illustrate are likely accurate.
The mean average for the last seven days was 824 casualties per day, over four times the rate reported over June-July 2022. Ukraine also continues to suffer a high attrition rate.
The uptick in Russian casualties is likely due to a range of factors including lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front – this is exemplified in Vuhledar and Bakhmut.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 12 February 2023
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) February 12, 2023
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/is1JQ7T8pE
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/4Fz8VPKU7g
Updated
My colleague Emily Dugan has this report on a family stuck in Ukraine after their UK host died suddenly.
Nadiia Luba was sheltering in a basement in central Ukraine earlier this month when she learned that her family’s chances of escaping to Britain had been dashed.
After nearly eight months of waiting for visas for her and her two sons, she got a text to say that the British host who had been so ready to welcome them had died suddenly. “I couldn’t stop crying,” she said. “My brain didn’t want to accept it.”
Luba is one of 9,700 Ukrainians still waiting on a visa decision to join a host in the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Volunteers helping to match families say they have seen an increase in waits of six months or more, where no news is communicated by the Home Office.
Jets to Ukraine decision not easy – Polish president
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has cast doubt on whether it would be able to supply Ukraine with fighters jets.
Duda said sending F-16 aircraft would be a “very serious decision” that was “not easy to take”.
Updated
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg will end his term as planned in October, a spokesperson for the alliance said, after a newspaper reported a further extension was in the works.
“The mandate of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been extended three times, and he has served for a total of almost nine years,” Nato spokesperson Oana Lungescu said late on Saturday.
“The secretary general’s term comes to an end in October of this year and he has no intention to seek another extension of his mandate.”
Earlier, Welt am Sonntag reported Stoltenberg’s term was to be extended again as the alliance sought to maintain stability during the war in Ukraine.
Stoltenberg, an economist by training and a former leader of Norway’s Labour Party, had his Nato term extended last year.
He was prime minister of Norway from 2000-01 and 2005-13 before becoming Nato chief the following year. He has also been finance minister and energy minister.
Welt said alliance members wanted to give Stoltenberg the opportunity to chair the organisation’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington in April 2024. He would also be in a position to become president of the World Bank when David Malpass steps down around the same time, it said.
Updated
Wagner mercenaries claim to have captured village north of embattled Bakhmut
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner group, has said the mercenary force had taken the village of Krasna Hora, on the northern edge of the embattled city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Reuters is reporting.
In an audio message published by his press service on the messaging app Telegram, Prigozhin said: “Today the settlement of Krasna Hora was taken by the assault troops of the Wagner private military company.”
Prigozhin also published a short video, apparently showing Wagner fighters at the entrance sign to Krasna Hora, which had a pre-war population of 600.
The Guardian and Reuters could not independently verify that the village had been taken.
Updated
Nato should hold an emergency meeting to discuss recent findings about September explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said late on Saturday.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970, said in a blogpost on Wednesday, citing an unidentified source, that US navy divers had destroyed the pipelines with explosives on the orders of Joe Biden.
The White House dismissed as “utterly false and complete fiction” the claim that the US was behind explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which send Russian gas to Germany.
Sweden and Denmark, in whose exclusive economic zones the blasts occurred, have concluded the pipelines were blown up deliberately, but have not said who might be responsible.
The US and the Nato have called the incident “an act of sabotage”. Moscow has blamed the west for the unexplained explosions that caused the ruptures. Neither side has provided evidence.
Updated
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the Ukrainian defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, have discussed “priorities”, including air defence and artillery, for upcoming meetings of Kyiv’s allies in Brussels, both sides said late on Saturday.
After securing a promise of scores of modern battle tanks, including the US M1 Abrams, German Leopard 2 and British Challenger 2, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and other Kyiv officials have been urging allies to send fighter aircraft.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group will meet on Tuesday at the Nato headquarters, following up on a 20 January conference at Ramstein airbase in Germany that was key for the decisions to send tanks.
Austin and Reznikov discussed the importance of delivering promised capabilities as quickly as possible, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, brigadier general Patrick Ryder, said in a statement.
After the call, Reznikov tweeted that “the United States is unwavering in its support of Ukraine”, adding that the two also discussed the situation on the front line.
Had a 📞with my great friend & friend of 🇺🇦 Lloyd J. Austin III @SecDef
— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) February 11, 2023
We discussed the situation on the frontline&priorities for the next #Ramstein.
🇺🇸 is unwavering in its support of 🇺🇦
All this is possible thanks to our transparent and trustworthy relationship.
Thank you 🇺🇸! pic.twitter.com/eQTCU6uvSM
Updated
First reports indicate that three Russian S-300 missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday night, regional governor Oleh Sinehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“One infrastructure facility was damaged. Information about the victims and the scale of the destruction is being clarified,” he said.
Russian missiles hit power generating facilities in Kharkiv on Friday in an attack that injured eight people. Kharkiv is eastern Ukraine’s largest city.
Ukraine’s forces hold defence along the frontline in Donetsk - Kyiv
Ukraine’s forces hold defence along the frontline in Donetsk, including of the besieged town of Bakhmut, with the fiercest battles raging for the cities of Vuhledar and Maryinka, Kyiv’s top military commander said on Saturday, Reuters reports.
Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said Russia carries out some 50 attacks daily in Donetsk, a region in Ukraine’s southeast that Moscow has been trying to occupy fully.
“Fierce fighting continues in the area of Vuhledar and Maryinka,” Zaluzhnyi said in a Telegram message after a call with US General Mark Milley.
“We reliably hold the defence. In some areas of the front we have managed to regain previously lost positions and gained a foothold.”
Zaluzhnyi did not specify where the gains were. He added that Ukraine continues to hold Bakhmut, tying to “stabilise” the frontline around the town.
Summary and welcome
Hello, I’m Christine Kearney and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the surrounding region and the Odesa and Dnipro regions can avoid power cuts on Sunday, leading producer DTEK said, as authorities worked to repair power grids damaged by a major Russian strike.
Russia bombarded Ukraine in a large-scale attack on Friday, hitting several cities including Kyiv. Ukraine’s state-run energy operator Ukrenergo has said the situation in the country’s energy system is challenging but controlled.
Kyiv said Russia struck power facilities in six regions, causing blackouts across most of Ukraine.
The attacks came a day after Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy ended a tour of European allies to lobby leaders for long-range weapons and fighter jets.
In other developments:
Galina Danilchenko, the Russia-installed mayor of the Ukrainian city Melitopol in south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, said on Saturday one civilian died in overnight shelling of Melitopol by Ukrainian forces. Two people were also injured, she wrote on the Telegram social media app.
First reports indicate that three Russian S-300 missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday night, regional governor Oleh Sinehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “One infrastructure facility was damaged. Information about the victims and the scale of the destruction is being clarified,” he said.
Ukraine’s forces are holding defence along the frontline in Donetsk, including in the besieged town of Bakhmut, with the fiercest battles raging for the cities of Vuhledar and Maryinka, Kyiv’s top military commander said on Saturday. Valerii Zaluzhnyi did not specify where the gains were. He added that Ukrainian forices are trying to “stabilise” the frontline around Bakhmut, a city in the eastern Donbas region, which has become the focal point of Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion and of Moscow’s drive to regain battlefield momentum.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, acknowledged that his forces are facing fierce resistance around Bakhmut from Ukrainian defenders. He said it could take two years for Russia to fully control the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, two regions whose capture Moscow has stated as a key goal of the war. “If we have to get to the Dnipro, then it will take about three years,” Prigozhin added, referring to a larger area that would extend to the vast Dnieper River that runs roughly north to south, bisecting Ukraine. Russian forces must capture the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut to proceed with their campaign.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday issued a decree sacking a senior security figure and said separately that his drive to clean up the government would continue. Authorities have dismissed dozens of officials in recent weeks and opened probes as part of a widespread drive against wrongdoing. The European Union says addressing corruption is a requirement for Ukraine joining the 27-member bloc.
Russia is ready for negotiations with Ukraine, but without preconditions, state media have reported the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergey Vershinin, as saying. In an interview with state-run Zvezda television, Vershinin said it was not Ukraine, but the US and the EU that should make the decision on talks with Russia. Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, who headed the country’s negotiating team in the early phases of the conflict, said “talks are out of the question”.
Russia’s sports minister, Oleg Matytsin, has said Ukraine’s call to ban Russian athletes from the 2024 Paris Olympics was “unacceptable”, state media are reporting. He described the call as “a blatant desire to destroy the unity of international sport and the international Olympic movement”. His remarks came as a group of 35 countries will demand that Russian and Belarusian athletes are banned from the 2024 Olympics, according to the Lithuanian sports minister, Jurgita Šiugždinienė.
A proposed resolution for adoption by the UN’s general assembly has underlined the need for peace ensuring Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity”. The draft resolution from supporters of Ukraine, on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is broader and less detailed than Zelenskiy’s 10-point peace plan he announced in November.
Zemfira, one of Russia’s most popular singers, has been placed on a list of “foreign agents” on grounds that she supported Ukraine and criticised Russia’s “special military operation” in that country, according to the Russian justice ministry. The ministry has added several other people to its “foreign agents” list, including opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov, political analyst Abbas Gallyamov, and activists Aleksandra Kazantseva and Tatyana Nazambaeva for “LGBT propaganda”.
Immigration authorities in Argentina are cracking down on Russian women who since the invasion of Ukraine have started travelling to Buenos Aires to give birth in order to gain Argentinian citizenship for their children. The director of Argentina’s immigration office, Florencia Carignano, said on Friday that a judicial investigation has been launched into what she described as a lucrative business that promises Argentinian passports for the Russian parents.
