Summary
Finland has become the 31st member of Nato after its foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed an accession document and handed it to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a ceremony in Brussels.
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said the accession of Finland increased the risks of wider conflict.
A Ukrainian soldier pleaded “partly guilty” on Tuesday at Russia’s first trial for war crimes in connection with its military campaign in Ukraine.
Russian investigators formally charged Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old woman, with terrorism offences over the killing of the pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a bomb blast in St Petersburg.
Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, will travel to Moscow on Wednesday for two days of talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin has said.
Lithuania’s parliament decided on Tuesday to ban Russian nationals from purchasing real estate in the Baltic country, citing risks to national security.
Polish farmers are threatening to derail a visit to Warsaw by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, over claims that Ukrainian grain is flooding their market, in a move that would provide Russia with valuable evidence of a crack in western solidarity.
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency has reported that the number of people injured in the St Petersburg cafe explosion that killed the prominent military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky has risen to 40.
Updated
Reuters reporters have spoken to Finns living close to the Russian border about their thoughts of Finland’s new Nato membership. Below you can read an excerpt of their reports.
“I feel it’s a good thing that Finland is joining Nato. We have been here next to Russia for ages,” said Outi Lehtimaki, 59, a designer in Helsinki. “My father was in the war with the Russians so this is like a personal thing to me.”
Senja Veihlanen, a 25-year-old baker said: “In some ways I think it will make Finland a safer place but then again we don’t know what Russia will do. It’s a big question for me.”
In Virolahti, near the Russian border due east of Helsinki, retired Finnish combat engineer Ilkka Lansivaara had hung his own Nato flag from the side of his house.
“It’s a special day for Finland,” said Lansivaara, 70, a former soldier whose father was an air force pilot during the second world war. “Now we have power also behind us, not just our own forces,” he added.
Matti Seppala, 78, a retired warehouse worker who grew up near the border said joining would bolster Finland’s security even if he was not scared of Russian “sabre rattling”.
“I supported joining, you never know with the big brother, what they will do,” he said.
In Vaalimaa, once a busy crossing point for Finns and Russians almost midway between Helsinki and St Petersburg, border guard Markus Haapasaari watched the now just slow trickle of traffic. Finland’s new status hadn’t sunk in for him yet, he said.
The Ukraine invasion, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”, has led both Finland and Sweden to abandon decades of military non-alignment and seek safety in the Nato camp.
The accession of Finland with its 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia roughly doubles Nato’s land frontier facing Moscow at a time when east-west relations have hit their lowest point in decades.
Across the border in St Petersburg, a Russian resident of the city who gave his name only as Nikolai said, “Finland is making problems for itself by joining (Nato) … we used to consider it a brotherly country of the capitalist world, the closest to us in spirit, in relations, in mutually-beneficial economic relations. But now we will consider it as a state that is unfriendly to us.”
Ruled by czarist Russia for more than a century, Finland gained independence in 1917. It then desperately fended off a Soviet invasion in 1939 and for a time sided with Nazi Germany in a bid to win back lost territory.
As the war ended with allied victory, Finland found itself compelled to spend decades maintaining friendly and accommodating relations with its eastern neighbour and treading a sometimes precarious path of neutrality through the cold war.
Memories of Finland’s close relations with Moscow to preserve independence – a tactic known as “Finlandisation” – run deep for many Finns.
Updated
Reuters reports that citizens of St Petersburg, the Russian city closest to Finland, accused their neighbour of turning its back on them by joining the western military alliance Nato, following their government’s line that the accession was a hostile act.
Before Russia sent its armed forces into Ukraine early last year, people in Russia’s second city had been fond of visiting the Finnish capital Helsinki, about five hours’ drive away.
“I don’t think anything will change for us,” said St Petersburg resident Yevgeny, who like others declined to give his surname. “It’ll only get worse for the Finns because we won’t go there, and they’ll only incur losses from this.”
Another resident, Nikolai, said Finland was “making problems for itself”.
“We used to consider it a brotherly country of the capitalist world, the closest to us in spirit, in relations, in mutually-beneficial economic relations,” he said. “But now we’ll consider it as a state that is unfriendly to us.”
None of the five people Reuters spoke to sympathised with Finland’s decision to give up its neutrality because of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, also a neighbour of Russia.
What Russia calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine to defuse a purported Nato threat to Russian security has echoes of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Finland, formerly part of the Russian empire, which resulted in Finland ceding a large part of its territory.
“This is just a conspiracy by the Anglo-Saxon world,” said Vasily, echoing the stance taken by the Kremlin. “We have always had good neighbourly relations with Finland.”
Another citizen, Alexei, had a recommendation for Finland: “If they wanted to unite with Russia against Nato, then I would be glad.”
Updated
The US has pledged a further $2.6bn in weapons and munition to aid Ukraine.
The military assistance includes air surveillance radars, anti-tank rockets and fuel trucks, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday, as Ukraine prepares to mount a spring offensive against Russia.
In a statement, the US Department of Defense said:
Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announces critical new security assistance for Ukraine. This includes the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance with more ammunition for US-provided HIMARS, air defense interceptors, and artillery rounds that Ukraine is using to defend itself, as well as anti-armor systems, small arms, heavy equipment transport vehicles, and maintenance support essential to strengthening Ukraine’s defenders on the battlefield valued at up to $500mn.
In addition, we are announcing a significant package of air defense capabilities, as well as artillery and tank ammunition, mortar systems, rockets, and anti-armor systems using $2.1bn in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funds.
Updated
The Russian finance ministry said it had paid out 6.6bn roubles in full settlement of a 2042 eurobond coupon.
More soon …
Updated
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, has said Finland’s accession to Nato increased the risks of wider conflict. In an address to the leadership of Russia’s armed forces he also said that Belarusian jets were now capable of carrying Russian nuclear missiles, a development likely to ratchet up tension
Updated
You can read the Guardian’s full report here of Finland becoming Nato’s 31st member.
Finland has become the 31st member of Nato after its foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed an accession document and handed it to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a ceremony in Brussels.
The handover marks the formal accession of Russia’s western neighbour to the world’s largest military alliance, completing an accelerated application process launched last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” the alliance’s secretary general, the former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, said shortly before the ceremony. “He is getting exactly the opposite.”
Stoltenberg added: “Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full-fledged member of the alliance.” Finland’s membership “removes the room for miscalculation in Moscow about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland”, he said.
The blue and white flag of Finland will shortly be raised alongside those of its partners outside Nato headquarters.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Finland has become the 31st member of Nato after its foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed an accession document and handed it to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a ceremony in Brussels. The handover marks the formal accession of Russia’s western neighbour to the world’s largest military alliance, completing an accelerated application process launched last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said shortly before the ceremony. “He is getting exactly the opposite”. Stoltenberg added: “Finland today, and soon also Sweden, will become a full-fledged member of the alliance.” Finland’s membership “removes the room for miscalculation in Moscow about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland”, he said.
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said the accession of Finland increased the risks of wider conflict. In an address to the leadership of Russia’s armed forces he also said that Belarusian jets are now capable of carrying Russian nuclear missiles, in a move likely to ratchet up tension.
Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who was accused by the international criminal court (ICC) alongside Putin of war crimes in Ukraine, said on Tuesday that the ICC’s allegations were false and unclear. Maria Lvova-Belova also said Russia had accepted more than 5 million refugees from Ukraine’s Donbas region, including 730,000 children, since February 2022. The ICC said it had information that hundreds of children had been taken from orphanages and care homes in areas of Ukraine claimed by Russia. Some of those children, the ICC said, had been given up for adoption in Russia. Lvova-Belova insisted her commission was not aware of a single case of a child from eastern Ukraine being separated from their biological relatives and being transferred to a foster home.
Russian investigators on Tuesday formally charged Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old woman, with terrorism offences over the killing of pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a bomb blast in St Petersburg. Tatarsky, a cheerleader for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed on Sunday in an explosion in a cafe where he was due to talk. The committee, which investigates major crimes, said it had charged Trepova with committing “a terrorist act by an organised group that caused intentional death”. It said she had acted under instructions from people working on behalf of Ukraine.
A Ukrainian soldier pleaded “partly guilty” on Tuesday at Russia’s first trial for war crimes in connection with its military campaign in Ukraine. Anton Cherednik, a member of Ukraine’s naval infantry, faced charges in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don of trying to seize power by force, of using prohibited methods of warfare and of murdering a civilian in Mariupol in March last year in the conflict’s early days. It was the first time Russia had accused a member of Ukraine’s armed forces of war crimes, according to Russian news outlets and the court’s press service.
Polish farmers are threatening to derail a visit to Warsaw by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, over claims that Ukrainian grain is flooding their market, in a move that would provide Russia with valuable evidence of a crack in western solidarity. Ukraine’s president is scheduled to visit Poland’s capital on Wednesday to express his gratitude for the country’s solidarity over the war with Russia, but Polish grain producers are warning they could take to the streets to “ruin” the occasion.
Updated
Zelenskiy congratulates Finland on joining Nato
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has offered his congratulations to Finland on the country’s accession to Nato. In a post on Telegram, Ukraine’s president said:
My sincere congratulations to Finland and President Sauli Niinistö on joining Nato on the 74th anniversary of its founding. Amid Russian aggression, the alliance became the only effective guarantee of security in the region. We expect that the Vilnius Nato Summit will bring Ukraine closer to our Euro-Atlantic goal.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is reporting that “about 260 houses on 30 streets were flooded in the Kramatorsk community of the Donetsk region”.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, posted to Telegram, saying “on one of the ponds, the water discharge sluice is partially destroyed, as a result of which there is an uncontrolled discharge of water.”
He said: “We are creating a concrete barrier and clearing the channel of the river there to minimise the consequences of the spill, we are relocating people from the affected houses to temporary housing.”
It is unclear from initial reports what has caused the damage.
Updated
Finland formally becomes 31st member of Nato
Finland has become the 31st member of Nato after its foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed an accession document and handed it to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a ceremony in Brussels.
The handover marks the formal accession of Russia’s western neighbour to the world’s largest military alliance, completing an accelerated application process launched last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” the alliance’s secretary general, the former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, said shortly before the ceremony. “He is getting exactly the opposite.”
Stoltenberg added: “Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full-fledged member of the alliance.” Finland’s membership “removes the room for miscalculation in Moscow about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland”, he said.
Nato’s border with Russia will roughly double with the accession of Finland, which shares a 1,340km (832 mile) border with its eastern neighbour. Moscow has warned it will bolster its defences in the region if necessary.
Turkey became the last Nato member to ratify Finland’s application last week, but Turkey and Hungary continue to delay Sweden’s application, with Ankara accusing Stockholm of sheltering Kurdish militants and Budapest angry about Swedish criticism of the rule of law in Hungary.
Finland’s accession falls on the 74th anniversary of the signing of Nato’s founding Washington Treaty on 4 April 1949.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday that Nato’s expansion to embrace Finland was an “encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests”, adding that Moscow would watch closely for any Nato military deployments there.
Updated
Ukrainian soldier pleads 'partly guilty' at Russia's first trial for war crimes
A Ukrainian soldier pleaded “partly guilty” on Tuesday at Russia’s first trial for war crimes in connection with its military campaign in Ukraine.
Anton Cherednik, a member of Ukraine’s naval infantry, faced charges in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don of trying to seize power by force, of using prohibited methods of warfare and of murdering a civilian in Mariupol in March last year in the conflict’s early days.
It was the first time Russia had accused a member of Ukraine’s armed forces of war crimes, according to Russian news outlets and the court’s press service.
Outside the court, his lawyer Vladimir Bakulov said Cherednik had pleaded “partly guilty” and had requested a meeting with the judge to explain his position. The case will resume next week, Reuters says Russian news agencies reported.
Prosecutors say Cherednik detained two men in Mariupol, ordering them to speak Ukrainian, and shot one of them who did not use correct pronunciation, the Tass news agency reported.
Russian forces seized Mariupol last May after weeks of attritional fighting.
Ukraine has already tried and sentenced a number of Russian soldiers for killing unarmed civilians.
Updated
Polish farmers are threatening to derail a visit to Warsaw by Volodymyr Zelenskiy over claims that Ukrainian grain is flooding their market, in a move that would provide Russia with valuable evidence of a crack in western solidarity.
Ukraine’s president is scheduled to visit Poland’s capital on Wednesday to express his gratitude for the country’s solidarity over the war with Russia, but Polish grain producers are warning they could take to the streets to “ruin” the occasion.
“Warsaw should think the thing over,” said Marcin Sobczuk, the head of the Zamość Farmers’ Association, in an interview with the Polish news website Interia. He said the association was ready to “spoil” the visit, adding: “There are a lot of ideas, but it is too early to talk about it.”
As part of an EU initiative, all tariffs and quotas have been lifted on Ukrainian grain exports into the bloc’s 27 member states in order to facilitate the product’s transit around the world, including to Africa, where a Russian blockade on Ukrainian exports has been particularly painful.
The grain has, however, failed to move out of some eastern EU countries, including Poland, Hungary and Romania, forcing down prices in those countries and fuelling resentment in farming communities.
Read more of Daniel Boffey’s report here: Polish farmers threaten to ‘ruin’ Zelenskiy visit amid grain dispute
Here are some of the images from the ceremony in Brussels which admitted Finland to the Nato military alliance.
Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, will travel to Moscow on Wednesday for two days of talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin has said.
Reuters reports that according to the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, last week the two leaders would discuss Lukashenko’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine at a face-to-face meeting.
Putin and Lukashenko would hold talks on “topical bilateral and international issues” on 5 April, before a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Union State the following day, the Kremlin said in an announcement published on Tuesday.
Russia and Belarus are formally part of a Union State, a borderless union and alliance between the two ex-Soviet countries, though longstanding plans for closer integration of their economies have repeatedly stalled.
Moscow is Belarus’s key political and financial backer, while Lukashenko allowed Putin to use Belarus’s territory as a launchpad for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Last month Putin said Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.
Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, said on Tuesday that Russia was boosting Belarus’ nuclear capabilities in response to Finland joining the Nato military alliance.
Updated
Finland formally joined the Nato military alliance on Tuesday in a historic policy shift brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, drawing a threat from Moscow of “countermeasures”.
Reuters reports that Finland’s accession roughly doubles the length of the border that Nato shares with Russia, while bolstering its eastern flank as the war in Ukraine grinds on with no resolution in sight.
The Finnish foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, completed the accession process by handing over an official document to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Nato headquarters in Brussels.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, welcoming Finland to its ranks, noted that Vladimir Putin had cited opposing Nato expansion as one justification for his invasion.
“He is getting exactly the opposite ... Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full-fledged member of the alliance,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels.
The Kremlin said Russia would be forced to take “countermeasures” to Finland’s accession. The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said the move raised the prospect of the conflict in Ukraine escalating further.
Russia said on Monday it would strengthen its military capacity in its western and northwestern regions in response to Finland joining Nato.
The Ukrainian government also hailed Finland’s move. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram: “FI made the right choice. Nato is also a key goal for Ukraine.”
But the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted Finns to seek security under Nato’s collective defence pact, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the Nato expansion was an “encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests”. Moscow would watch closely for any Nato military deployments in Finland, he said.
Blinken said: “I’m tempted to say this is maybe the one thing we can thank Mr Putin for. Because he once again here precipitated something he claims to want to prevent.”
Updated
Finland becomes Nato member
Finland became a member of Nato on Tuesday, completing a historic security policy shift triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Pekka Haavisto, the Finnish foreign minister, completed the accession process by handing over an official document to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at Nato headquarters in Brussels.
Updated
Darya Trepova charged with terrorism offences over St Petersburg cafe explosion
Reuters reports that Russian investigators on Tuesday formally charged Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old woman, with terrorism offences over the killing of the pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a bomb blast in St Petersburg.
Tatarsky, a cheerleader for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed on Sunday in an explosion in a cafe where he was due to talk.
The investigative committee, which looks into major crimes, said it had charged Trepova with committing “a terrorist act by an organised group that caused intentional death”.
It said she had acted under instructions from people working on behalf of Ukraine.
Trepova was transferred from St Petersburg to Moscow, where prosecutors were due to ask the Basmanny district court later on Tuesday to remand her in pre-trial detention.
Updated
A new Lithuanian bid to push the European Union to impose sanctions on Russia’s nuclear energy industry includes proposed exemptions for Hungary and a two-year period to phase out existing contracts, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Reuters reports that unlike similar proposals by the EU’s Russia hawks earlier on, the latest plan from Vilnius includes a nuanced approach, an apparent attempt to win over sceptics in Budapest and elsewhere.
“It is proposed to introduce individual restrictive measures for Rosatom,” says the policy proposal dated March 17, which has not been released publicly.
“In addition, it is appropriate to introduce a derogation on the basis of which operations, contracts or other agreements concluded with Rosatom could be still executed for a fixed period of time allowing European Union member states to complete the execution of these contracts or other agreements.”
The document proposed setting that at two years.
The EU has slapped 10 rounds of sanctions on Russia since it invaded Ukraine in Febraury, 2022, but hundreds of millions of euros worth of trade with Russia’s nuclear energy industry has not been directly affected.
All EU countries must agree for the bloc to impose sanctions and Budapest – where Rosatom is to expand the Paks nuclear power plant – has vowed to oppose any curbs on Russian nuclear energy industry.
The Lithuanian proposal sought to address that by offering Budapest specific carve-outs of up to nine years for Paks.
Otherwise, the sanctions proposed by Lithuania would ban new investments in Russia’s civil nuclear energy sector, prevent new cooperation agreements with Rosatom, and end imports of enriched uranium from Russia, with opt-outs for France and others who have running contracts there.
The detail of the proposal is reported here for the first time.
Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, spoke of it in broader terms on arriving for talks with his EU peers in Brussels on 20 March. He said the plan amounted to “an onion approach”.
“That means that it has a lot of layers to choose from. We can peel all those that we cannot … agree upon,” he told reporters.
“But still there are things that we can sanction when it comes to board members, it can be new contracts, it can be a lot of things taking into consideration those countries who have existing contracts and existing projects that need to be safeguarded.
Updated
Vladimir Putin has achieved the opposite of his Ukraine war aims by triggering Finland’s “historic” accession to Nato on Tuesday, the alliance’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said, declaring Sweden would also join soon.
Reuters reports:
“President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” he told reporters at Nato’s Brussels headquarters, speaking hours before Finland was officially to become a member of the military alliance.
“He is getting exactly the opposite... Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full fledged member of the alliance,” Stoltenberg said.
Later on Tuesday, Nato was to hold a ceremony at its headquarters marking Finland’s accession.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year pushed Finland and its neighbour Sweden to apply for Nato membership, abandoning decades of military non-alignment.
The final hurdle to Finland’s membership was removed last week when Turkey’s parliament voted to ratify Helsinki’s application even as it kept Sweden’s bid on hold.
Finland has an 810-mile border with Russia, meaning Nato’s frontier with Russia will roughly double in length, and the move drew a pledge from Moscow that it will beef up its forces in border regions.
Responding to Moscow’s latest announcements, Stoltenberg said Nato was constantly assessing its own posture, holding more exercises and having more presence in the Nordic region.
He also played down Putin’s pledge to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
“So far, we haven’t seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that require any changes in our posture, but we will remain vigilant, we monitor closely what they do, and we will take the necessary steps to always ensure that we have credible deterrence for all our allies.”
Stoltenberg said Nato’s Nordic enlargement was not meant to provoke a conflict but preserve peace.
“By (Finland) becoming a full-fledged member, we are removing the room for miscalculation in Moscow, about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland, and that makes Finland safer and NATO stronger”, he noted.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the expansion of Nato was an “encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests” and that Moscow would watch closely for any Nato military deployments in Finland.
Updated
Reuters reports that the United States and European Union will confront any attempts to destabilise global energy markets, the two sides said on Tuesday after a meeting of officials in Brussels where they discussed the fallout in energy markets of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The two sides reiterated their strong commitment to directly confront, with adequate measures, all efforts to further destabilise the global energy situation and to circumvent sanctions,” they said in a joint statement.
Finland's entry into Nato 'encroachment on Russia's security', says Kremlin spokesperson
The Russian state-owned news agency RIA is carrying remarks from the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov. It reports:
Peskov said that Finland’s entry into Nato (scheduled for today) is another aggravation of the situation, the expansion of the alliance is an encroachment on Russia’s security.
At the same time, he noted that this whole situation is fundamentally different from the problem with Ukraine – Finland has never been anti-Russia.
Reuters reports Peskov called Helsinki’s move to join the bloc an “encroachment” on Russia’s security and said the structure of Nato was hostile towards Russia. He said Russia would be forced to take “countermeasures” to ensure Russia’s security.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Finland’s accession to Nato later on Tuesday will be a historic event and direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said, adding the alliance would ensure that Sweden will also become a full-fledged member. “President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” he told reporters ahead of a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers. “He is getting exactly the opposite.”
Finland will become the 31st member of the world’s biggest military alliance on Tuesday. Stoltenberg said Turkey, the last country to ratify Finland’s membership, would hand its official texts to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Tuesday. Stoltenberg said he would then invite Finland to do the same.
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said the accession of Finland increased the risks of wider conflict. In an address to the leadership of Russia’s armed forces he also said that Belarusian jets are now capable of carrying Russian nuclear missiles, in a move likely to ratchet up tension.
Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who was accused by the international criminal court (ICC) alongside President Vladimir Putin of war crimes in Ukraine, said on Tuesday that the ICC’s allegations were false and unclear. Maria Lvova-Belova also said Russia had accepted more than 5 million refugees from Ukraine’s Donbas region, including 730,000 children, since February 2022. The ICC said it had information that hundreds of children had been taken from orphanages and care homes in areas of Ukraine claimed by Russia. Some of those children, the ICC said, had been given up for adoption in Russia. Lvova-Belova insisted her commission was not aware of a single case of a child from eastern Ukraine being separated from their biological relatives and being transferred to a foster home.
Ukrainian defence forces destroyed 14 of 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones Russia launched overnight, Ukraine’s military has said, with 13 drones destroyed over the Odesa region in the country’s south-west. Ukraine’s South military command said one drone hit an enterprise in the Odesa region, causing a fire, which was eliminated by the morning.
Alexei Kulemzin, the mayor of occupied Donetsk, has posted to his Telegram channel to say that a school in the Petrovsky district of the city has been damaged by shelling from Ukrainian forces.
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency has reported that the number of people injured in the St Petersburg cafe explosion that killed the prominent military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky has risen to 40.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted on his official Telegram channel about a meeting he held yesterday that included among its guests Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state under President Donald Trump.
Lithuania’s parliament decided on Tuesday to ban non-resident Russian nationals from purchasing real estate in the Baltic country, citing risks to national security.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Tobi Thomas will be here shortly to take you through the next few hours of our live coverage.
Stoltenberg: Putin is getting opposite of what he wanted with Nato enlargement due to Ukraine war
Finland’s accession to Nato on Tuesday will be a historic event and direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said, adding the alliance would ensure that Sweden will also become a full-fledged member.
“President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” he told reporters ahead of a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers.
“He is getting exactly the opposite … Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full-fledged member of the alliance,” he said.
Updated
Finland’s Nato accession creates risks of a significant expansion of conflict, the Russia defence minister said today.
Sergei Shoigu was addressing in public a leadership meeting of the Russian armed forces. Reuters reports that Shoigu said Nato is strengthening its anti-Russian course, and that Finland’s entry into the alliance risked expanding conflict.
He also said that Belarusian jets are now capable of carrying Russian nuclear missiles, in a move that is likely to ratchet up tension.
Lithuania bans non-resident Russian nationals from purchasing real estate
Lithuania’s parliament decided on Tuesday to ban Russian nationals from purchasing real estate in the Baltic country, citing risks to national security.
Reuters reports the ban, which will be in place until 2024, would not apply to Russians who are granted residency in the country.
Parliament also halted the issuing of new visas to nationals of Russia and its ally Belarus.
Many of the citizens of those two countries who carry other travel documents, such as previously issued visas, will be subject to “individual extended checks” at the border to determine if they pose a threat to national security.
Lvova-Belova says ICC charges over deported Ukrainian children 'false and unclear'
Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who was accused by the international criminal court (ICC) alongside President Vladimir Putin of war crimes in Ukraine, said on Tuesday that the ICC’s allegations were false and unclear. Maria Lvova-Belova also said Russia had accepted more than 5 million refugees from Ukraine’s Donbas region, including 730,000 children, since February 2022.
Reuters reports Lvova-Belova told a news conference in Moscow that the consent of children’s parents was always sought and that the commission always acted in the best interests of the child. If there were any specific problems with specific families, she said she was ready to help solve them.
She insisted her commission was not aware of a single case of a child from eastern Ukraine being separated from their biological relatives and being transferred to a foster home.
The Hague-based ICC on 17 March issued arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova for the war crime of unlawfully deporting children from areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces.
The ICC said it had information that hundreds of children had been taken from orphanages and care homes in areas of Ukraine claimed by Russia. Some of those children, the ICC said, had been given up for adoption in Russia.
“It is unclear to the presidential commissioner for children’s rights what the international criminal court’s allegations specifically consist of and what they are based on,” Lvova-Belova’s commission said in a separate statement about its work, released before the news conference.
“The use of the formulation ‘unlawful deportation of population (children)‘ in the ICC’s official statement causes bewilderment,” it said.
It said it had also not received any documents about the case from the ICC, whose jurisdiction Russia does not recognise.
The commission said Donetsk and Luhansk, two Ukrainian regions that Russia has claimed to annex, had asked Russia to accept civilians, including orphans and children whose parents were missing.
The Kremlin has said the ICC arrest warrant is an outrageously partisan decision but meaningless. Russian officials deny war crimes in Ukraine and say the west has ignored what it says are Ukrainian war crimes.
Putin allies have attempted to cast the ICC, which countries including Russia, China and the US do not recognise, as a “legal nonentity” that had never done anything significant.
Updated
Ukrainian players do not get enough support from women’s tennis governing body WTA amid Russia’s invasion of their country, Elina Svitolina said on Tuesday.
Svitolina spoke to support fellow Ukrainian player Lesia Tsurenko, who said she withdrew from the Indian Wells tournament because of a panic attack brought on by a conversation the 33-year-old had days earlier with WTA chief executive Steve Simon about tennis’s response to the Russian invasion.
“We are afraid, we feel empty. What is happening to Lesia is very sad. People who haven’t experienced it can’t really understand what it feels like to have no home, to feel safe nowhere, to have family in Ukraine, under the bombs, to know that Ukrainian cities are being destroyed. It’s both fear and a great emptiness,” Reuters reports Svitolina told French sports daily L’Équipe.
China has a moral duty to contribute to the establishment of peace in Ukraine, and must not support the aggressor in the war started by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union’s top diplomat said on Tuesday.
“China has a moral duty to contribute to a fair peace, they cannot be siding with the aggressor,” Reuters reports EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said after a meeting with US secretary of state Antony Blinken in Brussels.
Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Russian children’s rights commissioner who the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for, is giving a press conference this morning.
One of the topics she will address, she has said on her Telegram channel, is “current urgent tasks, including in the new regions of the country”, which is a reference to the four regions of Ukraine that the Russian Federation claims to have annexed.
We’ll bring you any key lines that emerge.
Alexei Kulemzin, the mayor of occupied Donetsk, has posted to his Telegram channel to say that a school in the Petrovsky district of the city has been damaged by shelling from Ukrainian forces. He reported that the “entrance doors, roof, and glazing were damaged”. The claims have not been independently verified.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted on his official Telegram channel about a meeting he held yesterday that included among its guests Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state under President Donald Trump. Ukraine’s president posted:
Yesterday, I had a meeting with a delegation of politicians, businessmen and representatives of charitable organisations from the US, led by former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
Such visits and meetings are a powerful signal of support for Ukrainians in our struggle for freedom and democracy. The US stands by us and fights with us for common goals. We feel bipartisan support, support from the White House. Comprehensive American support is very important for us.
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency has reported that the number of people injured in the St Petersburg cafe explosion that killed the prominent military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky has risen to 40. It quotes a statement from the press service of the Russian health ministry:
According to operational data, as a result of an incident in a cafe in St. Petersburg, 40 people sought medical help, including three minors.
Tass also reports that 25 of the casualties remain in hospital, with five in a condition described as “serious”.
Updated
This is the latest news summary from Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster:
At night, the Russian Federation attacked Ukraine from the south with 17 “Shahed” drones: 14 of them were destroyed by air defence forces. In the Odesa region, a business was hit, there were no casualties.
In the morning, Russian troops shelled Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region. As a result of the impact, an economic building caught fire, the state emergency service reported. On 3 April, one man was injured as a result of shelling in the Chuhuiv district.
During the day, Russian troops shelled the Kherson region 61 times: ten shells were aimed at a residential quarter and the territory of a medical facility, one person died.
In Donetsk region, four people were killed by shelling of the Russian army last night, two in Toretsk, one each in Avdiivka and Torske. Three more residents of the region were injured.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, is reporting that overnight there has been shelling in the Sumy region – specifically in the communities of Seredyna-Buda and Esmansk. It reports “there are injuries and damage”, citing the regional authority. The claims have not been independently verified.
UK defence ministry says Russia likely looking to sponsor alternatives to Wagner
The UK Ministry of Defence has posted its daily update, in which it says Russia may be looking to sponsor and develop alternatives to Wagner – private military companies that could eventually replace Wagner.
“This takes place in the context of the high-profile feud between the Russian Ministry of Defence and the Wagner group. Russia’s military leadership likely wants a replacement PMC that it has more control over. However, no other known Russian PMC currently approaches Wagner’s size or power.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 4 April 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 4, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/oUYAi2Vhia
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/a485dL48wL
Updated
Ukrainian defence forces destroyed 14 of 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones Russia launched overnight, Ukraine’s military has said, with 13 drones destroyed over the Odesa region in the country’s south-west.
“In total, up to 17 launches of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) attacks were recorded, presumably from the eastern coast area of the Sea of Azov,” the command said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s South military command said one drone hit an enterprise in the Odesa region, causing a fire, which was eliminated by the morning.
“According to preliminary information, there were no human losses,” the command said.
Updated
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given his consent to transfer 94.8bn roubles ($1.21bn) to Shell for its stake in the Far East Sakhalin-2 gas project, Russian daily Kommersant reported.
Russian gas company Novatek has received Putin’s consent to transfer the money to Shell, the newspaper reported citing sources familiar with the matter.
Novatek said on Monday it had submitted an application to acquire a stake in Sakhalin Energy, the operator of the Sakahlin-2 gas project.
Why does Finland’s accession into Nato matter?
So, why does Finland’s accession into Nato matter?
First, Finland’s Nato membership will double the length of the alliance’s border with Russia, with which Finland shares a 1,300 km border. It has also happened extraordinarily fast – completing the ratification in well under a year still makes this the fastest membership process in the alliance’s recent history.
Joining Nato places Finland under the alliance’s article five, the collective defence pledge that an attack on one member “shall be considered an attack against them all”.
If one of the allies were to invoke the article, and the other allies are unanimous in agreeing that the member is indeed under attack, each will take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
During the cold war, this principle translated as an effective US security guarantee for smaller allies facing the implied threat of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies in Europe.
Updated
Russian drones strike Ukraine’s port of Odesa: officials
Russian drones struck the strategic Ukrainian port of Odesa, local authorities said early this morning, adding that “damage” had been recorded.
“The enemy has just struck Odesa and the Odesa district with attack UAVs,” local authorities said in a statement on Facebook, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles.
“There is damage,” the statement said without providing further details.
Citing the head of the Odesa district military administration, Yuriy Kruk, the statement said Ukraine’s air defence forces were at work and warned of a possible second wave of attacks.
No other details were immediately provided.
Finland to officially join Nato
Russia has said it will bolster its defences near its 1,300km border with Finland after the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced that the Nordic country would formally join the transatlantic defence alliance on Tuesday.
The accession marks the end of an accelerated process that began last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey last week became the last of the alliance’s 30 member states to ratify Finland’s application, but Turkey and Hungary continue to hold up Sweden’s bid. Stockholm said last week it was not sure it would join in time for a planned Nato summit in July.
“Tomorrow we will welcome Finland as the 31st member of Nato, making Finland safer and our alliance stronger,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels on Monday. “We will raise the Finnish flag for the first time here at Nato headquarters.”
Ankara and Helsinki would hand their official texts to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Tuesday, at which point Finland would become a Nato member, he said, describing the moment as “historic”.
Opening summary
Hello, this is the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest news as it happens.
Today Finland will officially join Nato. The alliance will welcome Finland as its 31st member in a flag-raising ceremony at Nato headquarters on the outskirts of Brussels.
And Russian drones struck the strategic Ukrainian port of Odesa, local authorities said in the early hours of Tuesday, adding that “damage” had been recorded.
More on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:
Ukraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag. Six civilians were killed and eight wounded in Russian shelling of Kostiantynivka near Bakhmut, a senior Ukrainian official said.
Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo visited Ukraine on Monday and said he would work towards Washington supplying F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles for the country’s war against Russia. Asked whether he would back providing Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles Pompeo said: “Yes. And the training and the software and all the things needed to actually protect and defend your own land.”
Pompeo’s visit coincides with discussion in the United States around how much further support should be given to Ukraine. Washington has already provided $30bn in military aid since the beginning of what Moscow calls its “special military operation”.
Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday. Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he hosted a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of the city. Police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect and that she was arrested in a flat in St Petersburg after a search on Monday morning.
The West is trying to put a wedge between Russia and China’s friendship, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview. Lavrov also said that the EU had “lost’ Russia and that Moscow may get tough with Europe if need be.
Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who is wanted by the international criminal court on war crimes charges arising in Ukraine, is likely to brief an informal meeting of the UN security council, according to a note seen by Reuters.
Zelenskiy has paid tribute to the courage of nearly 400 villagers in north Ukraine who were held in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago. The Ukrainian leader travelled to Yahidne on Monday, where he gave a speech recalling how villagers were kept captive in a space of less than 200 sq metres during the first month of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Zelenskiy is scheduled to visit Poland on Wednesday for talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Zelenskiy will be accompanied by his wife, Olena Zelenska, during his first official visit to Warsaw since Russia’s invasion 13 months ago. Zelenskiy is also expected to hold talks with Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
Poland has already delivered the first batch of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to the Polish presidential office’s head of international policy, Marcin Przydacz. He did not specify how many jets had been transferred. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, last month said Warsaw would hand over the first four MiG-29 to Ukraine.
Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist arrested on espionage charges in Russia last week, has appealed against his detention through his lawyers, according to a report. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Gershkovich’s arrest was “of concern” and called for his “immediate release”. The US government is “pushing hard” for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the White House said on Monday.
