We are now closing the blog. Here’s a summary of today’s events:
Three people were killed by shelling near the southern Ukrainian city of Berislav on Sunday morning, according to local officials. The regional military administration said Russian forces struck the village of Burgunka with “massive artillery fire” and that one of the shells hit the yard of a family home.
Ukrainian troops preparing for a Russian offensive in the eastern Donetsk region if the town of Bakhmut falls have described being outgunned and their fears of being “semi-encircled”.
The state body that manages Ukraine’s nuclear power plants has said two missiles fired from the Black Sea on Saturday came “dangerously close” to hitting a plant in the Mykolaiv region.
The US has said it believes China could be preparing to provide military aid to Russia, possibly including guns and other weapons.
Russia has sustained almost 143,000 casualties since the beginning of the war, according to the latest figures from the Ukrainian military.
The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, has said the war could be over “in weeks” if the EU cannot increase its supply of ammunition to Ukraine. “We are in urgent war mode,” he said. “This shortage of ammunition has to be solved quickly.”
France has said it would deliver the AMX-10 light armoured vehicles it has promised to Ukraine “by the end of next week”.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, also said in an interview that he wants Russia to lose the war but he does not want to see it “crushed”.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, will travel to Kyiv on Monday to meet with President Zelenskiy, according to reports.
The amount of grain leaving Ukraine under a deal to keep food flowing to developing nations has dropped significantly in recent months, the body set up to monitor the shipments has said.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, rejected calls to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs, telling German media the military alliance “has neither recommended nor supplied these kinds of weapons.”
The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said on Sunday he and President Joe Biden will discuss the possibility of increasing US troop presence in Poland and making it more permanent.
The Biden administration is planning to impose new export controls and a fresh round of sanctions on Russia, targeting its defence and energy sectors, financial institutions and several individuals, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday.
The Ukraine war will have cost the German economy around €160bn (£142bn), or about 4% of its gross domestic output, in lost value creation by the end of the year, the head of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) said.
Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine was planning to stage a nuclear incident on its territory to pin the blame on Moscow before a United Nations meeting, without providing evidence for the accusation.
Suggestions by senior Ukrainian government ministers that the country’s military should be provided with cluster munitions received a cool reception among western allies at the Munich security conference.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, rejected calls to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs, telling German media the military alliance “has neither recommended nor supplied these kinds of weapons”.
Cluster munitions are a type of weapon that split open mid-air to release smaller explosives over a wide area. They can cause indiscriminate harm to civilians and have been banned under an international convention signed by more than 100 countries.
On the sidelines of the conference, which concluded this afternoon, Ukraine’s calls for cluster munitions were widely discussed among attendees. For EU officials, however, the demand is particularly difficult since most European countries are parties to the convention.
Asked at the conference about the calls for cluster munitions, Germany’s foreign affairs minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the country’s military support for Ukraine would be guided by the treaty. Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that within the German government “it is considered impossible that chancellor Olaf Scholz could allow something like this”.
The reaction follows comments made by Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Olexander Kubrakov, who suggested Ukraine should be allowed to use cluster munitions on its territory.
When asked about this on Saturday, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told reporters: “We understand that cluster ammunition is a debatable issue in world affairs. We are not party to the convention on the prohibition of cluster munitions. So legally there are no obstacles for that.”
“If we receive one, we will be using it exclusively against military forces of the Russian Federation,” he added.
Ukraine, like Russia and the US, has not joined the international convention on cluster munitions, which came into effect in 2010. The UN treaty prohibits under any circumstance the use, stockpiling, production or transfer of the weapons.
Updated
The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said on Sunday he and President Joe Biden will discuss the possibility of increasing US troop presence in Poland and making it more permanent.
Biden will visit Poland over 20-22 February to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Morawiecki told CBS’s Face the Nation:
We are in the process of discussion with president Biden’s administration about making their (troop) presence more permanent and increasing them. I’m very grateful also for sending new Patriot systems and other very modern weapons and munitions because this is also to some extent a proxy for presence of soldiers, but of course, the two go in tandem.”
The US has about 11,000 personnel on rotation in Poland, according to CBS.
Biden said last June the US would set up a new permanent army headquarters in Poland in response to Russian threats.
He will meet the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, and eastern European allies but has no plans to cross into Ukraine, according to the White House.
Updated
The Biden administration is planning to impose new export controls and a fresh round of sanctions on Russia, targeting key industries, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday.
The new sanctions will target Russia’s defence and energy sectors, financial institutions and several individuals, the report added.
Here are some images coming to us over the wires.
Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, warned on the final day of the Munich security conference:
Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians have a lot of applause and not enough ammunition. That’s the paradox.
They need to be less applauded and better supplied with arms.”
The Ukraine war will have cost the German economy around €160bn euros (£142bn), or about 4% of its gross domestic output, in lost value creation by the end of the year, the head of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) said.
That means GDP per capita in Europe’s largest economy will be €2,000 lower than it would otherwise have been, DIHK chief Peter Adrian told the Rheinische Post, Reuters reports.
German industry is set to pay about 40% more for energy in 2023 than in 2021, before the crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February last year, a study by Allianz Trade said last month.
“The growth outlook for 2023 and 2024 is therefore also lower than in many other countries,” Adrian said, adding that was also the case last year.
Updated
Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine was planning to stage a nuclear incident on its territory to pin the blame on Moscow before a United Nations meeting, without providing evidence for the accusation.
Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement that radioactive substances had been transported to Ukraine from a European country and Kyiv was preparing a large-scale “provocation”.
“The aim of the provocation is to accuse Russia’s army of allegedly carrying out indiscriminate strikes on hazardous radioactive facilities in Ukraine, leading to the leakage of radioactive substances and contamination of the area,” it said.
Ukraine and its allies have dismissed such accusations as cynical attempts to spread disinformation and accused Moscow of planning incidents itself in an attempt to blame Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Updated
Summary
If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick round-up of all the latest from the war in Ukraine.
Three people were killed by shelling near the southern Ukrainian city of Berislav on Sunday morning, according to local officials. The regional military administration said Russian forces struck the village of Burgunka with “massive artillery fire” and that one of the shells hit the yard of a family home.
Ukrainian troops preparing for a Russian offensive in the eastern Donestk region if the town of Bakhmut falls have described being outgunned and fears of being “semi-encircled”.
The state body that manages Ukraine’s nuclear power plants has said that two missiles fired from the Black Sea on Saturday came “dangerously close” to hitting a plant in the Mykolaiv region.
Russia has sustained almost 143,000 casualties since the beginning of the war, according to the latest figures from the Ukrainian military.
The US has said it believes China could be preparing to provide military aid to Russia, possibly including guns and other weapons.
The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, has said the war could be over “in weeks” if the EU cannot increase its supply of ammunition to Ukraine. “We are in urgent war mode,” he said. “This shortage of ammunition has to be solved quickly.”
France has said it will deliver the AMX-10 light armoured vehicles it has promised to Ukraine “by the end of next week”.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, also said in an interview that he wants Russia to lose the war but he does not want to see it “crushed”.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, will travel to Kyiv on Monday to meet with President Zelensky, according to reports.
The amount of grain leaving Ukraine under a deal to keep food flowing to developing nations has dropped significantly in recent months, the body set up to monitor the shipments has said.
Updated
The oil company Shell and energy trader Vitol have been accused of prolonging the war in Ukraine by exploiting a “loophole” in the EU sanctions regime to bring products derived from Russian oil into Europe through Turkey.
Oleg Ustenko, the economic adviser to President Zelenskiy, has urged the energy companies to commit to a deadline to halt the trade of a “Russian-origin oil products” to reduce Vladimir Putin’s war coffers, the Guardian has revealed.
The EU implemented a ban on importing seaborne Russian crude oil on 5 December – the same day as a G7 price cap on Russian seaborne exports – and the ban was extended on 5 February to refined products such as diesel and fuel oil.
But analysis of data from commodity tracker Kpler by the non-profit group Global Witness found that Shell had imported more than 600,000 barrels of refined products into the Netherlands from Turkish refineries known to import Russian oil since 5 December.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Ukrainian troops in the small town of Siversk have said they are preparing to defend one of the possible targets of the next Russian offensive.
Siversk is just 21 miles north of the city of Bakhmut - scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks - and on a direct road to another of the key towns in the Donetsk region, Sloviansk.
If Bakhmut falls, it is expected Russian forces would try to use it as a stepping stone to target Sloviansk as well as Kramatorsk, both larger cities.
Speaking to Reuters, one soldier, 30-year-old Stefan, said the Soviet-era artillery with which Ukrainian forces were defending Siversk was being outgunned.
“We have one artillery attack from our side, and the Russians can do it five times more,” he said. “It’s very difficult for the guys who are standing, especially at the first line [of defence], they feel it too much.”
The deputy Siversk battalion commander, who used the nom-de-guerre “Han”, said the capture of Bakhmut by the Russians would leave his forces “semi-encircled”.
“On the left side we have the Siverskyi Donets river, and the enemy will advance from the right, and it is possible to cut us off if they reach the Bakhmut highway,” he said.
While capturing Bakhmut would be strategically useful to the Russians, Ukraine and its Western allies have said it would be a largely Pyrrhic victory, given the time taken and losses sustained.
Updated
Some final pictures here from the last day of the Munich security conference, where discussion among world leaders has been dominated by the war in Ukraine.
Updated
France is to begin delivering the armoured vehicles it has promised to Ukraine, the defence minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said on Sunday.
The vehicles, of the AMX-10 type and sometimes described as “light tanks”, are used for armed reconnaissance and attacks on enemy tanks.
Their combat weight is 20 tonnes, around a third of that of France’s Leclerc battle tanks.
Speaking to Le Parisien newspaper’s Sunday edition, Lecornu said that training of Ukrainian crews on the AMX-10 was “nearly complete” the first vehicles would be sent “by the end of next week”.
He declined to specify the number of vehicles in the first batch, saying he did not want to give Russia any “strategic information”.
President Emmanuel Macron promised in early January that France would provide the AMX-10s after months of hesitation over fears of escalating the conflict.
Updated
War over 'in weeks' unless EU can provide more ammunition, foreign affairs chief warns
The war in Ukraine will be over unless the EU finds a way in weeks to speed up the provision of ammunition, the EU foreign affairs chief has warned.
Speaking on the final day of the Munich security conference, Josep Borrell said a special meeting of EU defence ministers slated for 8-9 March would provide a chance for countries to offer ammunition from their existing stocks.
He added that it was taking up to 10 months for European armies to order and receive a single bullet.
“We are in urgent war mode,” he said. “This shortage of ammunition has to be solved quickly; it is a matter of weeks.”
Read the full story here:
Updated
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, will travel to Kyiv on Monday to meet President Zelenskiy, Reuters reports, citing a political source.
Meloni, who took office in October, had said she planned to visit Kyiv before the 24 February anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Meloni, who heads the rightwing Brothers of Italy party, has been strongly supportive of Ukraine since taking office in October, but there are frictions over the issue within the coalition government that she leads.
The former PM Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the Forza Italia party, last week said he would not seek a meeting with Zelenskiy if he were still head of government because he blames him for the war.
The Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, another of Forza Italia’s founders, said on Saturday he had met his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, on the sidelines of a G7 meeting at the Munich security conference to reassure him of Italy’s support.
Italy and France have also recently finalised talks over delivery of an advanced air defence system to Kyiv in the spring.
Updated
Former champion boxer Wladimir Klitschko has urged Ukraine’s allies to maintain their support for its resistance to the Russian invasion.
Klitschko is the brother of Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, and since the war began has made frequent public appearances to rally support for his country.
Speaking at a panel event on the final day of the Munich security conference, he said Ukraine was “completely depending” on “all the allies of the free world” and that it was “important to understand how much joy we have to live in a democracy”.
“We talk about democracy but we don’t know what it feels like, and it’s so great,” he said. “So please keep on supporting us in Ukraine, because we are you. And you are us. It doesn’t matter what is in front of us - one of the strongest armies in the world, or weapons – our will is indestructible.”
Gesturing to the people in the hall, he added: “Because it’s our will, of us, the free world.”
Updated
The US has said it believes China may be about to provide lethal aid to help Russia in the war in Ukraine, prompting a direct warning against doing so from the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to China’s top diplomat.
Blinken made the warning to the Chinese state councillor Wang Yi on Saturday evening at a blunt meeting on the sidelines of the Munich security conference.
He also urged China to stop helping Russia evade the impact of sanctions. China’s trade with Russia is increasing and it has been buying Russian oil, but probably below the US$60 per barrel price cap imposed by the EU and G7 group of states.
Speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation after he met with Wang, Blinken said: “We’ve made very clear to them that [providing lethal support] could cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.”
Read the full story here:
Updated
Russian missiles flew 'dangerously close' to nuclear reactor
Two Russian missiles fired on Saturday flew “dangerously close” to a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the state body that runs the site has said.
Energoatom, which manages the country’s nuclear plants, said that at 8.25 and 8.27am local time, two cruise missiles were recorded flying past the South Ukraine nuclear power plant.
The plant sits in the Mykolaiv region around 80 miles north of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.
Early on Saturday, Ukrainian military officials said that four Kalibr missiles had been launched from the Black Sea and that two had been intercepted by air defence systems.
“The threat of hitting the reactor with possible consequences – a nuclear disaster – was again high,” Energoatom said.
“This is another act of nuclear terrorism of the Russian Federation, which threatens the security of the whole world!”
The body also appealed to the International Atomic Energy Authority to take “all possible measures to stop Russian nuclear terrorism” and to establish “a no-fly zone over all nuclear facilities of Ukraine”.
Updated
Shelling kills three in southern city of Berislav
Three people were killed by Russian shelling near the southern Ukrainian city of Berislav on Sunday morning, according to local officials.
Posting on Telegram, the military administration in the Kherson region said Russian forces struck the village of Burgunka with “massive artillery fire”.
It said one of the shells hit the yard of a family home and that at least three people – a father, mother and uncle – had been killed.
It added that five people – a grandmother, a man, a 13-year-old boy, a 10-year-old girl, and an eight-year-old boy – were wounded.
All the injured are said to have been taken to a medical facility and to be receiving treatment.
“The enemy is targeting peaceful people!” the post said.
Updated
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began a year ago this week, was an extraordinary and unexpected event that has changed the world in which we live. Long-held assumptions about peace in Europe, post-cold war relations with Moscow and Nato’s diminished standing were shattered overnight.
The war has revolutionised German defence policy, silenced French talk of “strategic autonomy”, boosted EU unity, revived US commitment to the transatlantic alliance, dramatised the global north-south divide, reduced the UN to the role of hand-wringing bystander and given the UK an opportunity, after Brexit, to show it still has an international role to play.
The fact the sovereign, democratic nation of Ukraine has survived, unbowed and unconquered, is possibly the most remarkable outcome of the conflict so far. And Ukraine’s physical survival, despite significant losses of territory, has been matched by psychological triumph.
For this, much credit goes to its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has campaigned tirelessly to whip up international support. Gifts of weapons, cash aid, technology, expertise and shelter have poured in, along with volunteers, military and civilian. In contrast, morale among Russia’s army and public has slumped.
But, and it’s a big “but”, it is plain the war is far from over and may be entering an even more dangerous phase.
Read the Observer view on the war in Ukraine in full here:
Updated
Russia is probably using balloons to gather information about Ukraine’s defence systems and force it to use up ammunition, according to UK intelligence.
In its latest update, the Ministry of Defence said that, on 12 February, Ukraine’s air force reported sighting a number of balloons near the eastern city of Dnipro.
Ukrainian armed forces also said that, on 15 February, they spotted and shot down several balloons over the capital, Kyiv.
They also said the balloons had radar reflectors – devices that help radar systems detect small objects – suspended beneath them.
“It is likely that the balloons were Russian,” the UK update said. “They likely represent a new tactic by Russia to gain information about Ukrainian air defence systems and compel the Ukrainians to expend valuable stocks of surface to air missiles and ammunition.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 19 February 2023
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) February 19, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence: https://t.co/JOkHGpKGFX
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/9AF5XFXrd2
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The amount of grain leaving Ukraine under a deal to keep food flowing to developing nations has dropped significantly, according to the body set up to monitor the shipments.
The Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul, which comprises inspectors from the UN, Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey, said food exports from three Ukrainian ports have fallen from 3.7m metric tons in December to 3 million in January.
It added that the number of average daily inspections fell to 5.7 last month, down from a peak of 10.6 in October.
The drop in supply equates to about a month of food consumption for Kenya and Somalia combined.
The Ukrainian government has accused Russia of deliberately delaying inspections of vessels to take “advantage of the opportunity of uninterrupted trade shipping” from its own ports on the Black Sea, a claim Moscow has dismissed as “simply not true”.
One of the deals negotiated last summer to keep food supplies moving from ports in Ukraine is due to come up for renewal next month.
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Almost 143,000 Russians casualties, says Ukraine
Russia has sustained almost 143,000 casualties since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian military.
The latest update from Ukraine’s ministry of defence said the number of casualties on the Russian side had reached 142,860, up by 590 since yesterday.
It also said that 3,310 tanks and 6,545 armoured combat vehicles had been destroyed, increases of seven and 12 respectively.
Tweeting the figures, the ministry included a quote from the Beatles’ 1968 song Back in the USSR: “Let me hear your balalaikas [a Russian instrument] ringing out.”
"Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out."
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) February 19, 2023
The Beatles
Total combat losses of the enemy from Feb 24 to Feb 19: pic.twitter.com/XayHzNwBBT
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President Zelensky has welcomed indications he has received in the last few days that attempts will be made to hold Russia legally accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine.
Speaking in his nightly address, he said he had received “strong signals from our partners, and concrete agreements regarding the inevitability of holding Russia accountable for aggression, for terror against Ukraine and its people”.
“Every Russian attack on … every corner of our state will have concrete legal consequences for the terrorist state. We have to restore justice,” he said.
On Friday, it was announced that a body called the Register of Damages Caused by Russian Aggression to Ukraine will be set up in The Hague to keep a record of the damage to Ukrainian households, businesses, and infrastructure caused by the war.
Addressing the Munich security conference on Saturday, the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, also said the US had formally determined that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
In his own speech, the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said that “we must see justice through the [international criminal court]” and “consider together how to ensure that Russia pays” towards the reconstruction of Ukraine.
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The US government has had conversations with Elon Musk about the use of Starlink satellite internet in Ukraine, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said.
SpaceX this month said it had taken steps to prevent Ukraine’s military from using the company’s Starlink service to control drones, saying it was “never never meant to be weaponized”.
In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, due to air on Sunday, Blinken was questioned about whether the US had asked Musk, who serves as Starlink’s chief executive, to remove the restrictions.
“Well, I can’t share any conversations we’ve had other than to say we’ve had conversations,” he said.
SpaceX has privately shipped truckloads of Starlink terminals to Ukraine, allowing its military to communicate by plugging them in and connecting them with the nearly 4,000 satellites SpaceX has so far launched into low-Earth orbit.
Russia has attempted to jam Starlink signals in the region, though SpaceX countered by hardening the service’s software, Musk has said.
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France wants Russia to be defeated in Ukraine but it does not want to “crush” it, president Emmanuel Macron has told paper Le Journal du Dimanche.
“I do not think, as some people do, that we must aim for a total defeat of Russia, attacking Russia on its own soil,” Macron said in an interview published on Saturday.
“Those observers want to, above all else, crush Russia. That has never been the position of France and it will never be our position.”
Macron has drawn criticism from some Nato allies for delivering mixed messages regarding his policy on the war between Ukraine and Russia, with some considering Paris a weak link in the western alliance. On Friday, Macron urged allies to step up military support for Ukraine.
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Blinken warns China's Wang Yi against aiding Russia in a meeting
The US believes China may be about to provide lethal aid to help Russia in the war in Ukraine prompting a direct warning from the US secretary of state Antony Blinken to China’s top diplomat not to take the step.
Blinken made the warning to the Chinese state councillor Wang Yi on Saturday evening at a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference during which he also rebuked China over the use of an alleged spy balloon over US soil. In a blunt meeting he also urged China to stop helping Russia evade the impact of sanctions.
China’s trade with Russia is increasing and it has been purchasing Russian oil, but probably below the $60 per barrel price cap imposed by the EU and G7 group of states.
Blinken told US networks that the US had information China was considering whether to give Russia assistance, possibly including guns and weapons, for the Ukraine war. He made clear to Wang that “would have serious consequences in our relationship”.
“There are various kinds of lethal assistance that they are at least contemplating providing, to include weapons,” Blinken said, adding that Washington would soon release more details.
Wang told Blinken the United States must “face up to and resolve the damage” to bilateral relations “caused by the indiscriminate use of force”, according to a brief statement on Sunday by China’s foreign affairs ministry.
Russia’s ambassador to the US on Sunday responded to the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, who accused Russia of crimes against humanity during its nearly year-long invasion of Ukraine.
Harris made the comments a day earlier at the Munich security conference where, five days before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion, western leaders are assessing Europe’s worst conflict since the second world war.
“We regard such insinuations as an unprecedented attempt to demonise Russia in the framework of the hybrid war unleashed against us,” Anatoly Antonov said on the Russian embassy’s Telegram account.
“There is no doubt that the purpose of such attacks by Washington is to justify its own actions to fuel the Ukrainian crisis.”
The UN-backed Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine says it has identified war crimes but has not concluded whether they amount to crimes against humanity.
Organisations supported by the US Agency for International Development have documented more than 30,000 war crimes incidents since the invasion, according to the US government. Ukrainian officials said they were investigating the Thursday shelling of the city of Bakhmut as a possible war crime.
Summary
Hello, this is Christine Kearney bringing you the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Moscow has responded to Joe Biden’s presidential administration announcing, at the Munich security conference, the US’s formal conclusion that Russia has committed crimes against humanity during its nearly year-long war against Ukraine.
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said: “In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine … there is no doubt: these are crimes against humanity.”
Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US, responded on Sunday: “There is no doubt that the purpose of such attacks by Washington is to justify its own actions to fuel the Ukrainian crisis.”
About 40 heads of state and government as well as politicians and security experts from nearly 100 countries – including the US, Europe and China – are attending the three-day conference to discuss Europe’s security situation amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In other developments at 9am in Kyiv and 10am in Moscow:
China’s senior diplomat Wang Yi, one of the few external politicians able to influence Russia, announced that China would launch its peace initiative on the anniversary of the war, and has been consulting Germany, Italy and France on its proposals. China had “neither stood by idly nor thrown fuel on the fire” regarding the crisis in Ukraine, he said.
Western leaders have reacted nervously to the Chinese peace plan for Ukraine due to be revealed this week, but cautiously welcomed the move as a first sign that China recognises the war cannot be regarded solely as a European affair.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned Wang Yi of consequences should China provide material support to Russia’s invasion, saying in an interview after the two met that Washington was concerned Beijing was considering supplying weapons to Moscow. The top diplomats met at an undisclosed location on the sidelines of the Munich conference.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, called on the west to “double down” on its military support to Ukraine. “When Putin started this war, he gambled that our resolve would falter,” he said. “But we proved him wrong then, and we will prove him wrong now.” He also offered to help other countries that were willing to send aircraft to Ukraine now.
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said there was “no doubt” that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Harris also warned that any Chinese support for Russia in its war in Ukraine would reward aggression.
Ukraine must win its battle against Russia’s invasion, said Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, warning that a Russian victory might embolden Moscow to attack other countries. Pistorius said he assured the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that Germany and its allies would help Kyiv “for as long as it takes”.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said the EU wants to work with the defence industry to quicken and scale up the production of ammunition, both for the Ukrainian military and to replenish stocks at home. It follows warnings from Kyiv that its forces need more supplies quickly.
Poland is ready to support Ukraine with its MiG jets, but only if a broader coalition is formed with the United States as a leader, said the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has said it is becoming “increasingly difficult” for the Russian government to “insulate the population” from the reality of the war. Air raid alerts were in place across much of western and southern Ukraine early on Saturday, with Ukrainian officials reporting that Russia fired four Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea.
Two people were injured in a strike on the western city of Khmelnytskyi, according to the local mayor.
One civilian was reported killed in shelling in the eastern city of Vovchansk, a few miles from the Russian border.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that its forces had captured Hrianykivka, a village in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region that is well to the north of most significant fighting. A briefing note from Ukraine’s general staff later on Saturday said the village was being shelled, but made no mention of an assault.
The number of Russian soldiers killed since the invasion has reached 142,270, according to the Ukrainian military. A day earlier the UK’s defence ministry said as many as 60,000 Russian forces may have been killed in just under a year. The MoD said the casualty rate “has significantly increased since September 2022 when ‘partial mobilisation’ was imposed”.
Most of Ukraine has power despite a series of major Russian attacks on the generating system, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday, praising the work done by repair crews. Russia has carried out repeated waves of attacks on key infrastructure, at times leaving millions of people without light, heating or running water.
