Summary
As the time approaches 9pm in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, here is a round-up of today’s news.
Russia said its patience should not be tested over nuclear weapons in another repeat of hardline rhetoric over their use. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Russia will do “everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario … but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests”. Vladimir Putin has previously made comments saying he wants to avoid nuclear war, but his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told a UN hearing on Monday that the world was “possibly more dangerous” than during the cold war.
The Kremlin said that relations with European countries are at their “lowest possible level” amid more expulsions of diplomats.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it welcomed anything that could hasten the end of the Ukraine conflict when asked about Wednesday’s phone call between the Chinese and Ukrainian leaders.
Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed the discussion between president Xi and president Zelenskiy and repeated the possibility of the war ending at the “negotiating table”.
Stoltenberg said 98% of promised combat vehicles have now been delivered to Ukraine. This comprises 1,550 armoured vehicles and 230 tanks. This equates to nine new Ukrainian brigades.
The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has voted that the forced detention and deportation of children from Russian occupied territories of Ukraine is “genocide”, at a session on Thursday.
A resolution on “deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to Russian Federation or to Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied: create conditions for their safe return, stop these crimes and punish the perpetrators” passed with 87 votes in favour, meaning an overwhelming majority. One representative voted against and another abstained.
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed that its forces had taken four blocks in north-western, western and south-western Bakhmut, Russia state-owned news agency RIA reported.
Russia’s foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May. It said the measure was taken in response to Washington’s failure to process visas for “representatives from the journalistic pool” of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has invited Pope Francis to visit Ukraine during a visit to the Vatican. He asked the pontiff for help to return children from the east of Ukraine who have been forcibly taken to Russia by Kremlin forces.
Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s former ambassador to Berlin – has said Germany was still failing to provide the support it should. “The Germans are helping much more than they were, and for that we Ukrainians are very grateful, but the government is only delivering as much as it feels it should,” he told Die Zeit in an interview in Kyiv.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner, has said he was joking when he said the mercenary group would suspend fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to show the city to visiting US journalists.
At least seven civilians were killed and 33 injured between Wednesday and Thursday, Ukraine’s presidential office has said, including one person killed and 23 wounded – including a child – when four Kalibr cruise missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Russia has reinforced its defences ahead of a much-expected counterattack by Ukrainian forces, analysts have suggested. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the 500 miles (800km) of Russian lines protecting occupied Ukraine have been triple-fortified and included a “gush of manpower”. The timing comes as the usual winter freeze has begun to thaw and dry, making mobilisation more likely.
Britain’s opposition Labour party has asked the government why there has been no new weapons announcement since February and no fresh update from ministers to parliament since January.
That’s all for today. Thanks for following along. We’ll be back tomorrow.
Council of Europe says Russian-forced deportation of children from Ukraine is 'genocide'
The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has voted that the forced detention and deportation of children from Russian occupied territories of Ukraine is “genocide”, at a session on Thursday.
A resolution on “deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to Russian Federation or to Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied: create conditions for their safe return, stop these crimes and punish the perpetrators” passed with 87 votes in favour, meaning an overwhelming majority. One representative voted against and another abstained.
In its resolution, the assembly called for “immediate and urgent action to be taken to halt the practices of unlawful forcible transfer and deportation currently being carried out by the Russian Federation against the Ukrainian population, and especially its policy and practices relating to the removal of children from their families and homes and their subsequent absorption into Russian citizenship, identity and culture.”
It added: “The assembly highlights the need for the recording and monitoring of individual cases, both in order to permit mechanisms for rapid redress, and to collect evidence of accountability in order to bring the perpetrators, at all levels of responsibility, to justice.”
The assembly called for the practice to stop “immediately and unconditionally”. It also demanded Russia give access to NGOs and charities, as well as information about where the children now are.
The international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in March in relation to the “unlawful deportation” of minors. One was also issued for Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova who is believed to have 18 adopted children, including a teenager from Mariupol.
The resolution claims that Russia began moving children from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk before its invasion on 24 February last year. In a report earlier this month, the Ukrainian government said it had collected reports of more than 19,000 children who had been deported.
Updated
The Ukrainian security service has given details of eight men of military age who had tried to leave Ukraine to avoid serving in the armed forces.
It said that a group was charging up to $7,000 (£5,600) to help people illegally cross the border, including with false documents. Ten have been arrested in total across Ukraine.
One was a taxman in the Poltava oblast who sold fake medical certificates, and another in Kharkiv is suspected of helping people evade military service by posing as business travellers for defence firms.
Other schemes to smuggle people out include disguising them as truck drivers, the SBU reports.
Updated
Russia has reinforced its defences ahead of a much-expected counterattack by Ukrainian forces, analysts have suggested.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the 500 miles (800km) of Russian lines protecting occupied Ukraine have been triple-fortified and included a “gush of manpower”.
The timing comes as the usual winter freeze has begun to thaw and dry, making mobilisation more likely.
The Russian defensive wall runs from Kherson, in Ukraine’s south, to the north-east of the country, spanning more than 500 miles. An autumn counterattack saw Ukrainian forces sweep across the south-east, retaking half of Kherson city.
“These defensive lines consist of layered fortifications and trenches,” said Brady Africk at US thinktank American Enterprise Institute.
They include anti-tank ditches, raised barriers, lines of pre-fabricated defences known as dragon’s teeth, landmines and trenches for personnel, he told AFP.
The Russian objective is “to maintain control over occupied territory and to attempt to limit Ukraine’s ability to conduct a counteroffensive”, he said.
Moscow’s strategy is to be able to “absorb any attack”, said Pierre Razoux at the Mediterranean Foundation of Strategic Studies, a French research body.
“The attackers are likely to get stuck by the time they reach the second layer, and even if they get past it, the third is going to be very hard to breach,” he said.
Russia will employ the time-honoured strategy of channelling attacking enemy troops onto ground of their choosing, said Andrew Galer at British strategy thinktank Janes.
But Ukraine meanwhile gets to decide where to attack Russian lines, he said, adding that Kyiv may not have made its choice yet.
Ukraine could well try to mislead Russia with a small-scale attack to pull defending forces there, and then direct the main attack elsewhere, he said.
Vassily Kashin, at the HSE university in Moscow, said Ukraine could pick the region of Bakhmut where battles have raged for 10 months for its attack, but acknowledged that “the data we have are very limited”.
Kashin said the balance of forces at the front is changing in favour of Russia. “Ukraine can try to change this with a last desperate blow,” he said.
Updated
More from Vladimir Putin’s speech at the launch of a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Turkey on Thursday.
Putin praised the leadership of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ahead of an election where Erdoğan is running to be re-elected.
Erdoğan, 69, suspended all campaigning for Turkey’s pivotal presidential and parliamentary elections on 14 May after falling ill while conducting a live TV interview on Tuesday.
While a member of Nato and sending arms to Ukraine, Turkey has maintained ties to Russia during the war and has hosted discussions between both sides.
The Russian president spoke virtually at the launch of a Russian-built nuclear plant in Turkey, using the opportunity to heap praise on Erdoğan, saying Moscow was ready to “extend the hand of friendship”.
Putin said the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, Turkey’s first, was a “convincing example of how much you, President Erdoğan, are doing for your country, for the growth of its economy, for all Turkish citizens”.
“I want to say it straight: you know how to set ambitious goals and are confidently moving towards their implementation,” he added.
Putin stressed that Russia was one of the first countries to send rescue teams and medical personnel to Turkey in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in February.
“We are always ready to extend the hand of friendship to our Turkish partners,” Putin added.
Updated
Here’s a selection of photographs from the conflict in Ukraine on Thursday.
Photograph: Reuters
The Ukrainian clamour for US-made F-16 jets has continued, with the country’s foreign minister and home office adviser tweeting on the subject earlier on Thursday.
Dmytro Kuleba and Anton Gerashchenko said that F-16s would deter Russia rather than provoke it, and it would help ensure “protection of Europe”.
Types of weapons that, we were told, would ‘provoke Russia to escalate’ if supplied to Ukraine but never did:
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) April 27, 2023
Artillery
MLRS
Air Defense
Tanks
Long-range missiles
F-16s will not either. Giving Ukraine F-16s will deter Russia rather than ‘provoke’ it. Time to take this step.
Ukraine needs F-16
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 27, 2023
Please share this as wide as possible! It is extremely important!
This is protection not just of Ukrainian skies - the whole Europe.
The largest war of the century is raging on the European continent. Ukraine is bleeding severely.
Sustainable peace is… pic.twitter.com/YXQsqvpHYU
Updated
Russia has destroyed a bridge in Chernihiv, according to the north-eastern oblast’s governor.
Viacheslav Chaus told a telethon that Russian shelling had destroyed the crossing over the Sudost River. It connected the villages of Muravyi and Gremyach near Novgorod-Siversky.
Serhii Serhienko, the head of the Novgorod-Siversky district military administration said: “For several weeks, the bridges over the rivers of the Novgorod-Siversk community have been shelled. This makes it impossible to provide services to the population in a normal format: to provide food and other things. And it limits movement to the central self-government bodies.”
A former commander of Russia’s Wagner group who is seeking asylum in Norway has been convicted of carrying an air gun and being involved in a bar fight.
Andrei Medvedev was given a two-week sentence which has been suspended for two years. He was acquitted of violence against the police, Reuters reports.
“I want to thank the court for a fair ruling,” Medvedev told Reuters, adding he was looking to the future. “I am studying Norwegian and I hope I will get asylum.”
He crossed the Russian-Norwegian border in January and has spoken out about his time fighting in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to fighting outside an Oslo bar in February and preventing a police officer from doing his or her duty. He also pleaded guilty to carrying an air gun in public on a separate occasion on 14 March.
But Medvedev had pleaded not guilty to a fourth charge of committing violence against a police officer. He was acquitted on Thursday.
Separately, Medvedev will continue to speak with Norwegian police about his time with Wagner. Russia denies accusations of war crimes in the conflict.
“Now he can avoid jail and focus on what he came [to Norway] for: explain [about his time] in the war in Ukraine,” his lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, told Reuters.
Updated
At least seven civilians killed and 33 injured in Mykolaiv missile strike
At least seven civilians were killed and 33 injured between Wednesday and Thursday, Ukraine’s presidential office has said, including one person killed and 23 wounded – including a child – when four Kalibr cruise missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv (see 05.49).
The governor of Mykolaiv province, Vitalii Kim, said 22 multi-storey buildings, 12 private houses and other residential buildings were damaged in the attack, Associated Press reports.
Defence officials said the Kalibr missiles were fired from somewhere in the Black Sea.
Updated
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner, has said he was joking when he said the mercenary group would suspend fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to show the city to visiting US journalists.
Prigozhin said in an audio message on Thursday: “A decision has been taken to suspend artillery fire so that American journalists can safely film Bakhmut and go home.”
In a later audio message, however, he said: “Guys, this is military humour. Humour, and nothing more ... It was a joke,” Reuters reported.
Wagner has been leading Russia’s assault on Bakhmut since the summer in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, but Ukrainian forces have so far thwarted its attempts to take full control of the city.
Updated
Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s former ambassador to Berlin – who was deeply critical of what he saw as Germany’s hesitancy over providing material support to Ukraine from the start of Russia’s invasion – has said Germany was still failing to provide the support it should.
“The Germans are helping much more than they were, and for that we Ukrainians are very grateful, but the government is only delivering as much as it feels it should,” he told Die Zeit in an interview in Kyiv.
Melnyk, who returned to Ukraine in October as deputy foreign minister, was perceived as something of a thorn in the side of the government of Olaf Scholz for his frequent interventions in debates on Ukraine, which he himself describes as “often undiplomatic”.
He said he regretted he was no longer able to use his influence on Berlin. “A year ago we were powerful participants in the debate, and even steering it. But my successor does it differently,” he said.
“Now we’re simply swimming with the current, letting ourselves go with the flow.... Our offensive is going to happen, and the Germans think: ‘We’ve delivered 18 Leopards (tanks), ticked that off the list, finito’. As if the war had been won with these tanks. The coalition government has … convinced the German public that regarding military help, everything is sorted. Which is not true.”
Instead of “continuing to bang the drum”, his successor, Oleksiy Makeev, was “repeating mantra-like, ‘Thankyou Germany’,” Melnyk said, adding that he was “hardly” in touch with Makeev, due to their “very different points of view”.
He denied his return to Ukraine – where his particular responsibility is relations with Latin America - was an attempt to rein him in. “My post there was long enough and it was a miracle that I was able to stay there when the war started,” he said. But he admitted he had not wanted to leave.
“It is no secret that I left Berlin against my will. I would have liked to have continued, because I had the feeling that I could have achieved a lot more for Ukraine … despite the strong headwinds I faced.
“Here in Kjiv the opposition was stronger still, because many didn’t understand why I was often acting in this very unconventional, often undiplomatic way in order to pull the government out of its lethargy.”
Updated
Here’s some analysis of President Xi and President Zelenskiy’s call on Wednesday by our correspondent Helen Davidson in Taipei, and why it may have been hastened by problematic comments about sovereignty by a Chinese ambassador.
A long-awaited phone call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been cautiously welcomed, but China analysts say the timing suggests it could be partly an act of damage control after controversial comments by China’s ambassador to France.
Ambassador Lu Shaye, one of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats with a history of fiery remarks, caused outrage across Europe this week when he denied the sovereignty of former Soviet states, saying they “did not have effective status”. The comments were roundly condemned, with several European nations summoning Chinese envoys for rebuke, and politicians suggesting it demonstrated China’s untrustworthiness as a neutral party in the Ukraine war.
Beijing, which counts Russia as its closest major ally, has sought to present itself as neutral and a potential peacemaker and there have been signs that Xi was unhappy with Russia’s actions, but in practice China has largely supported Russia’s stance.
“At a time when there is already significant concern about Russian ambitions and PRC [People’s Republic of China] support for them, Lu’s comments seemed to suggest that Beijing is open to continued, perhaps even expanded, Russian aggression,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.
Read more:
Russia rejects US request to visit Gershkovich
Russia’s foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May.
It said the measure was taken in response to Washington’s failure to process visas for “representatives from the journalistic pool” of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday.
Lavrov led a session of the UN security council on multilateralism, in which he said the world was at its most dangerous since the cold war. He had requested to bring journalists with him from Russia, but they were barred from entering the US.
“It was particularly emphasised [to the US diplomat] that such sabotage, intended to prevent normal journalistic work, would not go unanswered,” the foreign ministry said in its statement.
Gerschkovich has previously been visited by Lynne Tracy, the US ambassador to Russia.
The visit would have taken place on 11 May. The Kremlin has said it is considering other retaliatory measures against the US over the rejection of visas.
He was arrested last month in the city of Ekaterinburg by Russia. The 31-year-old has been charged with espionage, which he has denied, and appeared in court on Tuesday. The US has designated him as wrongfully detained by Russia.
Updated
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has invited Pope Francis to visit Ukraine during a visit to the Vatican.
He asked the pontiff for help to return children from the east of Ukraine who have been forcibly taken to Russia by Kremlin forces.
“I invited His Holiness to visit Ukraine in person,” Shmyhal told reporters at the Foreign Press Association in Rome a few hours after the papal audience.
He said he had discussed with the 86-year-old pope the peace plan proposed by Volodymyr Zelenskiy to end the war sparked by Russia’s invasion last year.
This included “discussing in a little more detail the different steps the Vatican could take” to help Kyiv achieve its goals, the prime minister said, speaking through an Italian translator.
“For example, I asked for the participation, the assistance from the Vatican, from His Holiness, for the return to Ukraine of children, some of whom were orphaned, who were taken away by force, mainly to Russia.”
More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the February 2022 invasion, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes.
Russia denies the allegations, saying instead it has saved Ukrainian children from the horrors of the war.
In March, the international criminal court announced an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
The pope has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine, although the Vatican’s attempts to mediate in the conflict have yet to yield any results.
Shmyhal was in Rome on Wednesday for a conference on how Italian businesses could help with the reconstruction of Ukraine, when he also met with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
Met with His Holiness Pope Francis @Pontifex at the Vatican 🇻🇦. I told how Ukrainians have to fight for their lives every day in the war started by russia. We appreciate the Holy See's efforts to end the war. The best way to peace is the formula of the President of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/3LRmh1RQlR
— Denys Shmyhal (@Denys_Shmyhal) April 27, 2023
Updated
Russia hopes to avoid using nuclear weapons but 'its patience should not be tested'
Russia is not planning to take the path of nuclear escalation in its standoff with the west over Ukraine but others should not test its patience, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
Her comments follow a flurry of warnings by senior Russian officials, including president Vladimir Putin, that western military support for Ukraine is increasing the risks of a catastrophic nuclear conflict.
“We will do everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario, but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests,” Zakharova told a regular news conference according to Reuters.
“I do not recommend that anybody doubt our determination and put it to the test in practice,” she added.
Russia has strongly criticised the supply of western arms to Ukraine and the expansion of the Nato military alliance closer to its borders. Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, this month became the 31st member of Nato, while Ukraine itself also wishes to join, though it faces opposition from some countries.
“They [the US] continue to deliberately infringe on our fundamental interests, deliberately generate risks and raise the stakes in the confrontation with Russia …,” said Zakharova.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, said earlier this week that the world was “quite probably on the verge of a new world war”.
Updated
Russian forces make gains in Bakhmut - reports
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed that its forces had taken four blocks in north-western, western and south-western Bakhmut, Russia state-owned news agency RIA reported.
Reuters could not independently confirm the claim. Russian forces have been struggling for months to capture the city in eastern Ukraine.
In the news conference Stoltenberg also welcomed the telephone conversation between Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Chinese president Xi Jinping on Wednesday– their first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Beijing says it is neutral in the conflict and Xi has never condemned the Russian invasion. It has been thought he is trying to maximise potential political benefits from the conflict.
The Chinese leader, who made a friendly visit to Moscow last month, has come under increased pressure from western nations to step in and mediate. He said he will send a peace delegation to Kyiv.
“Maybe this war will end at the negotiating table,” Stoltenberg said.
But he stressed that “it is for Ukraine to decide what are the conditions for talks and what format any talks should have”.
In any case, Stoltenberg said, “any possibility for meaningful negotiations requires that Ukraine has the necessary military strength to send a very clear message to President Putin that he will not win on the battlefield”.
Updated
Following earlier comments by Nato’s Jens Stoltenberg that nearly all promised combat vehicles have been delivered to Ukraine, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has details on how much has been sent.
In a news conference, Stoltenberg said the total was made up of 1,550 armoured vehicles and 230 tanks. This equates to nine new Ukrainian brigades.
“This will put Ukraine in a strong position to continue to retake occupied territory,” the secretary general said.
Nato members have provided anti-aircraft systems and artillery while Poland and the Czech Republic have given Soviet-built MiG-29 aircraft.
Training has also been given to thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.
Stoltenberg emphasised this “unprecedented military support to Ukraine” but cautioned that “we should never underestimate Russia”.
Moscow was mobilising more ground forces and was “willing to send in thousands of troops with very high casualty rates,” he said, adding that Nato members need to “stay the course”.
Stoltenberg said that a Nato summit in July in Lithuania would set out plans for a “multi-year programme of support” for Ukraine.
Updated
Wagner stops Bakhmut artillery barrage to allow journalists to visit
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said on Thursday it was suspending artillery fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to safely show the city to visiting US journalists.
Wagner has been leading Russia’s assault on Bakhmut in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, but Ukrainian forces have so far thwarted its attempts to take full control of the city.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s founder, said in an audio message published by his press service: “A decision has been taken to suspend artillery fire so that American journalists can safely film Bakhmut and go home.”
Prigozhin in the same message warned the Ukrainian side not to try to bring in any extra forces under cover of the journalists’ visit.
Reuters could not immediately independently verify whether Wagner had suspended its artillery fire or not.
A day earlier, Prigozhin lambasted the defence ministry for not sending much-needed shipments of ammunition to his fighters.
The EU is expected to agree to keep its markets open to tariff-free Ukrainian grain for another year on Friday, despite objections from central and eastern European countries hit by declining agricultural prices.
A proposal to extend tariff-free access for Ukrainian grain into mid-2024 is expected to be approved by a majority of EU member states, overriding opposition from Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, according to a diplomatic source.
MEPs on the European parliament’s international trade committee on Thursday voted to keep in place the suspension of import duties on Ukraine’s agricultural products for another year, paving the way for an agreement with EU member states.
The EU dropped tariff barriers on Ukrainian farm produce following the Russian invasion and is now seeking to extend the policy, which expires on 5 June. But logistical bottlenecks have meant much of the grain has stayed in the EU, depressing prices and farm incomes in neighbouring countries.
The European Commission last week proposed €100m in compensation payments for farmers in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, after three of those countries banned the import of grain and other food products. These countries will also be allowed to ban the sale of Ukrainian grain inside their borders, although foodstuffs can continue to travel onwards to other EU states and countries around the world.
EU officials argue that Ukraine’s continuing grain exports are helping keep the country afloat at a time when the government in Kyiv risks running out of money. One senior EU official contrasted the €26bn Ukrainian businesses earned over the past 12 months from exports including grain, with the €18bn the EU intends to lend Kyiv this year to keep Ukraine’s public sector functioning. “If we didn’t have this €26[bn], [EU aid] would be even higher.”
Updated
Summary
As the time approaches 2pm in Kyiv, here is a roundup of developments in the ongoing conflict.
Relations with European countries are at their “lowest possible level”, the Kremlin has said, adding that each wave of expulsions of Russian diplomats was reducing the space for diplomacy. Germany is one of the latest country to send diplomats home, expelling 20 on Saturday. Russia responded by expelling 40.
Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated that the Kremlin welcomed the call between China and Ukraine on Wednesday, adding: “We are ready to welcome anything that could hasten the end of the conflict in Ukraine and Russia achieving all the goals it has set itself.”
Nato allies have delivered almost all their promised combat vehicles to Ukraine, the transatlantic defence alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said. “More than 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine have been delivered,” Stoltenberg said at a news briefing, adding that Kyiv “now has the military capabilities it needs to recapture territory”.
EU diplomats are still seeking to convince central and eastern European countries to extend Ukraine’s tariff-free access to the EU market for another year.
The EU dropped tariff barriers on Ukrainian grain after the Russian invasion last year and is now seeking to extend the policy, which expires on 5 June. But logistical bottlenecks have meant much of the grain has stayed in the EU, depressing prices and farm incomes in neighbouring countries.
A Russian missile strike hit apartment buildings in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv overnight and has killed one person and injured 23 more.
The remains of an “unidentified aerial military object” have been found in northern Poland near the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland’s defence ministry and justice minister have said. The broadcaster RFM FM said the object, found near the city of Bydgoszcz, was an air-to-surface missile measuring several metres, with its head missing.
Russian forces pounded the city of Bakhmut, the months-old focal point of their attempts to capture the eastern Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas, and the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said Ukrainian troops were pouring in ahead of an “inevitable” counter-offensive.
Updated
Britain’s opposition Labour party has asked the government why there has been no new weapons announcement since February and no fresh update from ministers to parliament since January.
In an urgent question to the defence minister Andrew Murrison, the shadow defence secretary, John Healey, said: “I am concerned momentum behind our military help is faltering, and our UK commitment to Ukraine is flagging.
“No statement on Ukraine from the defence secretary since January. No new weapons announced for Ukraine since February. No 2023 Action Plan for Ukraine, despite being promised last August. No priorities set for the London Ukraine recovery conference in June,” he told MPs.
“The prime minister said in February the UK ‘will be the first country to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons’. What? And when? The defence secretary said on Friday that ‘delivery is accelerating’ of military aid. How? And what?”
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, was not present to give a response, but Murrison, one of his deputies, said the UK was “one of the leading providers of military support for Ukraine”.
A total of 14,000 Ukrainian troops had been trained by the UK so far, and the total was expected to reach 20,000 this year, he added.
Updated
Vladimir Putin will speak to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, later on Thursday, the Kremlin has said, before the two countries mark the inauguration of Turkey’s first nuclear power reactor, built by Russia.
The Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Turkey’s southern Mersin province has been built by Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom.
The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a regular news briefing that after their telephone conversation the two presidents would take part – virtually – in a ceremony marking the loading of nuclear fuel into the first power unit at Akkuyu.
The $20bn, 4,800-megawatt project to build four reactors will allow Turkey to join the small club of nations with civil nuclear energy.
Asked about alleged health problems that Erdoğan is having, Peskov said Moscow knew nothing of the issue.
Turkey faces landmark presidential and parliamentary elections on 14 May. But Erdoğan cancelled his campaign rallies scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday for health reasons.
While a member of Nato and sending arms to Ukraine, Turkey has maintained ties to Russia during the war and has hosted discussions between both sides.
Updated
Kremlin: relations with Europe at lowest possible level
Relations with European countries are at their “lowest possible level”, the Kremlin has said, adding that each wave of expulsions of Russian diplomats was reducing the space for diplomacy.
Countries including Moldova, Sweden and Norway have all expelled Russian diplomats in recent days. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said all such measures would be responded to in kind.
Updated
Kremlin welcomes call between Chinese and Ukrainian leaders
The Kremlin said it welcomed anything that could bring the end of the Ukraine conflict closer when asked about Wednesday’s phone call between the Chinese and Ukrainian leaders, Reuters reports.
The call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy had long been sought by Kyiv. Moscow added that still needed to achieve the aims of what it continues to call its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was familiar with the details of what the two leaders had discussed and said their stances on the conflict were well known, according to Reuters.
“We are ready to welcome anything that could hasten the end of the conflict in Ukraine and Russia achieving all the goals it has set itself,” Peskov said.
“As for the fact that they communicated – that is a sovereign matter for each of these countries and a question of their bilateral dialogue.”
Updated
Nato's Stoltenberg: almost all promised combat vehicles delivered to Ukraine
Nato allies have delivered almost all their promised combat vehicles to Ukraine, the transatlantic defence alliance’s general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, has said.
“More than 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine have been delivered,” Stoltenberg said at a news briefing, adding that Kyiv “now has the military capabilities it needs to recapture territory”.
He also welcomed Wednesday’s phone call between the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, their first since Russia invaded Ukraine, but said it “doesn’t change the fact that China has still not condemned” the Russian invasion.
Updated
Jack Teixeira, the US Air National Guardsman accused of leaking military secrets and keeping an arsenal of weapons in his bedroom, appears in court for a detention hearing today (see 06.29).
Reuters reports that federal prosecutors are expected to argue that Texeira, who was arrested on 13 April in Massachusetts and charged with violating the Espionage Act, should remain in custody as a national security risk.
The 21-year-old is alleged to have leaked classified documents, including some relating to troop movements in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to gamers on the messaging app Discord.
He kept a gun locker two feet from his bed containing handguns, bolt-action rifles and a military-style rifle. FBI agents also found a gas mask, ammunition and what appeared to be a silencer in his desk drawer.
“The defendant undoubtedly poses a danger to the US at large based on his ability to cause exceptionally grave danger to the US national security,” a motion filed by the office of US attorney Rachael Rollins said.
“There is also evidence to suggest that the defendant may also pose a physical danger to the community.”
Updated
The remains of an “unidentified military object” found in a forest in northern Poland (see 08.03) could be part of a missile stuck in the ground, Polish broadcster RMF FM has said.
Reuters cites RFM as saying the object, found near the city of Bydgoszcz, was an air-to-surface missile measuring several metres, with its head missing. No sources were named.
Poland has been on alert for possible spillover of weaponry from the war in Ukraine after two people were killed last November by what Warsaw said was a misfired Ukrainian air defence missile.
The analyst Ulrich Speck has an interesting thread on what may lie behind Wednesday’s phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (see 05.30), their first since Russia invaded Ukraine.
For Xi, who said China would send special representatives to Ukraine and hold talks with all parties seeking peace, “the war in Ukraine is first and foremost an opportunity to advance his geopolitical agenda”, Speck argues.
The Chinese leader aims to weaken Russia (though not too much), split Europe from the US by playing nice to the EU, and similarly weaken the US by isolating it from Europe, he says.
“Making peace in Ukraine or defending its sovereignty is nowhere on the list,” Speck concludes. “It’s debatable whether Chinese interests as defined by Xi are helped more by an ongoing and even escalating war in Ukraine or by a ceasefire.”
The Twitter thread begins here:
For Xi, the war in Ukraine is first and foremost an opportunity to advance his geopolitical agenda. His goals:
— Ulrich Speck (@ulrichspeck) April 27, 2023
EU diplomats are still seeking to convince central and eastern European countries to extend Ukraine’s tariff-free access to the EU market for another year, reports Politico.
The EU dropped tariff barriers on Ukrainian grain following the Russian invasion last year and is now seeking to extend the policy, which expires on 5 June. But logistical bottlenecks have meant much of the grain has stayed in the EU, depressing prices and farm incomes in neighbouring countries.
The European Commission last week proposed €100m in compensation payments for farmers in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, after three of those countries banned the impact of grain and other food products. These countries will also be allowed to ban the sale of Ukrainian grain inside their borders, although food can continue to travel onwards to other EU states and countries around the world.
Officials hoped this emergency help for central and eastern Europe would ease the decision on extending Ukraine’s duty-free access for one year, but a deal is yet to be reached. Officials are still hopeful of finding a deal, with diplomats due to vote on the plans on Friday.
A jailed former presidential hopeful in Belarus, which has been hit with western sanctions for allowing Russian troops to launch their invasion of Ukraine from its territory, has been transferred to hospital from prison, AFP reports.
Viktor Babariko, 59, a high-profile candidate who wanted to challenge President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020 elections, is undergoing surgery in a hospital in Novopolotsk, authorities confirmed.
Babariko was jailed in 2021 on charges of bribery and tax evasion and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Belarus has jailed or forced into exile all the leading political figures who contested Lukashenko’s re-election.
A reminder that Alessio Mamo, one of several freelance photographers who have worked extensively with the Guardian in Ukraine since the start of the war, last night won the photojournalism category in Amnesty International’s media awards.
It is a huge honour to receive the @AmnestyUK award. I would like to thank @fshields, @guardianphotos, @fidz72, @wilsonjamie, the amazing @guardian team&reporters in #Ukraine & last but not least all Ukrainians I met in the country who are paying the highest price of this #war. https://t.co/NujSlSicWL
— Alessio Mamo (@AlessioMamo) April 26, 2023
Alessio won for this remarkable piece, with Guardian reporters Lorenzo Tondo, Emma Graham-Harrison and Isobel Koshiw, documenting the scale of the violence that has been integral to Russia’s campaign.
Updated
A Russian missile strike hit apartment buildings in the Ukrainian town of Mykolaiv overnight, authorities have said (see 05.49), injuring 23 people.
Here are some agency pictures of the aftermath of the strike that have just come through.
The remains of an “unidentified aerial military object” have been found in northern Poland near the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland’s defence ministry and justice minister have said.
Reuters reported that it was not immediately clear what the object was, where it came from, or how long it had been there. The justice minister said it was found in a forest.
“The situation does not threaten the safety of residents. The location of the discovery is being investigated” by Polish officers and military police, the interior ministry said.
Updated
The Globsec thinktank has published a report – you can read it here – on the “complex, costly and almost impossibly challenging” task Ukraine will eventually face in demining its territory and clearing it of deadly ordnance and explosives.
About 30% of Ukraine’s territory (174,000 sq km) will require survey and clearance of vast amounts of ordnance, it says, making the country “the largest mined territory in the world, surpassing such former frontrunners as Afghanistan and Syria”.
Much of the area affected is of course difficult or impossible to assess since fighting is still ongoing: around 18% of Ukraine’s territory remains under occupation. Russian troops are also “infamously creative in leaving mine-traps”, the report says, planting “victim-activated devices on animals and dead bodies, as well as double and even triple booby-traps on roads, fields and forests”.
And it says the pace of demining work is cripplingly slow, with operations in areas controlled by Ukraine in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions between 2015 and 2021 succeeding in clearing only about 6% of potentially contaminated territory .
That represents about 64 sq km a year, with most of the work done by the special services of Ukraine’s defence and interior ministries supported by international NGOs such as the HALO Trust.
Updated
Reuters has taken a hard look at satellite imagery of Russia’s “vast network of fortifications, sweeping down from western Russia through eastern Ukraine and on to Crimea” and built in readiness for Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive.
The news agency says it has examined thousands of defensive positions, both inside Russia and along Ukrainian front lines, and concluded Russia is most heavily defended in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and the gateway to the Crimean Peninsula.
Military experts have told Reuters the extensive, layered defences, most built since Ukraine’s advance last November, could make things harder for Kyiv this time and that progress would hinge on Ukrainian forces’ ability to carry out complex, combined operations effectively.
Neil Melvin of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) said:
It’s not the numbers for the Ukrainians. It’s can they do this kind of warfare, combined arms operations? The Russians have shown they can’t do it and they’ve gone back to their old Soviet method of attrition.
Analysts have said a Ukrainian counteroffensive could change the dynamics of the war, which has become a bloody battle of attrition, and believe the sheer length of the front could leave Russia’s defences severely exposed.
But they warn that Ukraine is unlikely to receive any more armoured weaponry from the west for some time, meaning Kyiv is under pressure to retake as much land as possible in case military support begins to wane. Melvin added:
We’ve cleaned out most of the stocks in the West. It’s going to take some years to rebuild. I think this is Ukraine’s big opportunity to press on.
Updated
Hello, this is Jon Henley taking over from Helen Sullivan. I’ll be bringing you the latest news from – and related to – Ukraine as it happens, for the rest of the European morning.
That’s it from me for now. My colleague Jon Henley will take you through the rest of the day’s news from Ukraine.
Number of injured in Mykolaiv strike rises to 23
Zelenskiy has posted a video showing the damage caused by a Russian strike on Mykolaiv overnight – the number of wounded has now risen to 23, including a child, he says.
⚡️ Volodymyr Zelenskyi posted a video on the consequences of the russian shelling of Mykolaiv:
— FLASH (@Flash_news_ua) April 27, 2023
“At the moment, it is known about 1 killed and 23 wounded, including a child. Eternal memory to the deceased and speedy recovery to the wounded.” pic.twitter.com/gEkxMjQGha
Zelenskiy wrote:
The country-invader never ceases to prove that the main goal of this war is terror and the destruction of Ukrainians and everything Ukrainian.
At night, Russia shelled Mykolaiv with four Kalibr missiles launched from the Black Sea. High-precision weapons were aimed at private houses, a historic building and a high-rise building.
At the moment, it is known about 1 killed and 23 wounded, including a child. Eternal memory to the deceased and speedy recovery to the wounded.
Pentagon leak suspect may still have access to classified info, court filings allege
Federal prosecutors are urging a judge to keep behind bars a Massachusetts Air National guardsman accused of leaking highly classified military documents, arguing he may still have access to secret national defence information that he could expose, the Associated Press reports.
In court papers filed late Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers said releasing 21-year-old Jack Teixeira from jail while he awaits trial would be a grave threat to US national security. Investigators are still trying to determine whether he kept any physical or digital copies of classified information, including files that haven’t already surfaced publicly, they wrote.
“There simply is no condition or combination of conditions that can ensure the Defendant will not further disclose additional information still in his knowledge or possession,” prosecutors wrote. “The damage the Defendant has already caused to the US national security is immense. The damage the Defendant is still capable of causing is extraordinary.”
The documents Teixeira is accused of leaking provided a wide variety of highly classified information on allies and adversaries, with details including Ukraine’s air defences:
Brussels also welcomed the conversation Xi and Zelenskiy, thought to be their first call since Russia invaded Ukraine.
“It is an important, long overdue first step by China in exercising its responsibilities as a member of the UN security council,” said European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer.
“China’s leadership needs to use its influence to bring Russia to end its war of aggression, restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity and respect its sovereignty, as a basis for a just peace.”
The White House has welcomed Wednesday’s phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy but said it was too soon to tell whether it would lead to a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
John Kirby, White House national security spokesperson, told reporters that the call was a “good thing,” but regarding whether it would lead to a meaningful move toward peace, “I don’t think we know that yet.”
Updated
Russian missile attack on Mykolaiv kills one person, injures 15
The governor of the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv said Russian missiles had also hit an apartment building and a private house in the city of the same name.
One person was killed and 15 were injured, Vitaliy Kim wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The Guardian was not able to verify battlefield reports.
Updated
Russia pounds Bakhmut and Kharkiv
Russian forces pounded the city of Bakhmut, the months-old focal point of their attempts to capture the eastern Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas, and the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said Ukrainian troops were pouring in ahead of an “inevitable” counter-offensive.
The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, in a report on Facebook, said fighting gripped Bakhmut and nearby areas. It said Russian forces had failed to advance on two villages to the north-west. At least a dozen localities came under Russian fire.
Separately, Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told national television on Wednesday that in the past 24 hours, Russian forces had attacked 324 times using artillery and multiple rocket launchers.
“The Russians are destroying buildings in Bakhmut to prevent our soldiers from using them as fortifications,” Cherevatiy said.
Cherevatiy on Tuesday said there had been a record number of attacks on a section of the front farther north – near the city of Kupiansk, in northeastern Ukraine.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest news as it happens.
Our top story this morning: Russian forces are pounding the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s east.
Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told national television on Wednesday that in the past 24 hours, Russian forces had attacked Ukraine’s east and northeast 324 times using artillery and multiple rocket launchers.
“The Russians are destroying buildings in Bakhmut to prevent our soldiers from using them as fortifications,” Cherevatiy said.
Cherevatiy on Tuesday said there had been a record number of attacks on a section of the front farther north, near the city of Kupiansk, in northeastern Ukraine.
And both the US and European Union have welcomed news of a call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy, with the EU calling the call, the first between the two leaders since the war began, “an important, long overdue first step by China in exercising its responsibilities as a member of the UN security council”.
Here are the other key recent developments:
China’s president, Xi Jinping, spoke to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Wednesday for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv had publicly sought such talks for months. Zelenskiy described the hour’s phone call as “long and meaningful”. Xi told Zelenskiy that China would send special representatives to Ukraine and hold talks with all parties seeking peace, Chinese state media reported. The White House welcomed the phone call, but said it was too soon to tell whether it would lead to a peace deal.Russia’s envoy to the UN in Geneva said no real progress had been achieved in resolving issues raised by Moscow over the Black Sea grain deal, which is due to expire next month.
British fighter jets helped in a joint Nato response to intercept three Russian planes, including two SU-27 fighter jets, over the Baltic Sea on Wednesday.
The head of Russia’s private Wagner militia said Ukraine was preparing for an “inevitable” counter-offensive and was sending well-prepared units to the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, for many months the focal point of fighting.
The Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny says he is being investigated on terrorism charges that could see him sentenced to 30 years in prison, Reuters has reported. The Kremlin critic is serving sentences totalling 11 and a half years on charges including fraud and contempt of court, which human rights groups say were made up to silence him.
Italy has said it wants to play a major role in the reconstruction of Ukraine and urged EU bodies to back the rebuilding. Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, met the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, on Wednesday.
A Ukrainian reporter working as a fixer for Italy’s daily newspaper Repubblica was shot dead by snipers in Kherson, while his Italian colleague was wounded, the newspaper said. “Our correspondent Corrado Zunino and his fixer Bogdan Bitik were victims of an ambush by Russian snipers today on the outskirts of Kherson, in southern Ukraine.”
Russia is resettling poor citizens from its remote regions in the occupied east of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister. Hanna Mailar said the inward migration to Ukraine was mainly being seen in Luhansk.
In a press conference, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said there was “no use now in saying who is right” in the conflict. In a joint conference with the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, Lula said that “no one can doubt that Brazilians condemn Russia’s [invasion]. The mistake happened and the war started.”
