Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has made a second visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine amid an escalation in the fighting around it. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA director general, was shown around the plant by Russian occupying forces and officials, telling reporters: “It is obvious that military activity is increasing in this whole region, so every possible measure and precautions should be taken so that the plant is not attacked.
Russia has stopped informing the US about its nuclear activities, including missile test launches, after Moscow suspended its participation in the New Start arms control treaty last month, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said. The White House on Tuesday said the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging some data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.
Russia began exercises with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system and several thousand of troops, its defence ministry said on Wednesday. Vladimir Putin has aimed to make the Yars missile system, which replaced the Topol system, part of Russia’s “invincible weapons” and the mainstay of the ground-based component of its nuclear arsenal.
The German government has agreed to send an additional €12bn worth of military support to Ukraine. The Bundestag’s budget committee gave the green light on Wednesday for about €8bn to be spent directly on purchasing weapons and equipment for Ukraine. The other €4bn will go to the German military to replenish stocks. Spain will send six Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine after the Easter holiday, the Spanish defence minister Margarita Robles said on Wednesday.
An explosion has been reported near a Russian military airbase in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, according to footage shared on social media. The Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, posted to Telegram that “a UAV [drone] was shot down in the Simferopol region” and that there were “no casualties or damage”.
Ukrainian forces have reportedly shelled the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol, south of the Zaporizhzhia region, and Russian media reported on Wednesday that as a result, the city’s power supply had been cut. Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March last year, said on the Telegram messaging app that several explosions had gone off in the city.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner group, has said the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut has “practically destroyed” the Ukrainian army but that his forces have also been “badly damaged”.
Vladimir Putin has conceded that sanctions imposed on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine could bring about “negative” consequences for the country. Putin, in a televised meeting with the government, insisted Moscow was adapting to the penalties and that unemployment “remains at an all-time low”.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Putin is an “informationally isolated person” who had “lost everything” over the last year of war. “He doesn’t have allies,” Zelenskiy said, adding that it was clear to him that even China was no longer willing to back Russia, despite Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow. Zelenskiy also extended an invitation to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to visit Ukraine. “We are ready to see him here. I want to speak with him.”
Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed 20 Patriot batteries to protect against Russian missiles, and even that may not be enough “as no country in the world was attacked with so many ballistic rockets”. He added that a European nation sent another air defence system to Ukraine, but it didn’t work and they “had to change it again and again”. He did not name the country.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, has urged Russians not to adopt children who she said were “stolen” from her country during the war and deported to Russia. Vereshchuk, posting to Telegram, said orphans had been “stolen in Ukraine” and allegedly given up for adoption in Russia.
Poland has urged the EU to limit the amount of Ukrainian grain entering the bloc’s market, its prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said, amid anger among farmers over the effect of imports on Polish grain prices.
Ukraine’s sports ministry has condemned what it said was a partial change of position by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in international competitions as neutrals. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described the IOC’s decision as “shameful”.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog today. We’ll be back tomorrow. Thank you for following.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has made a second visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine amid an escalation in the fighting around it.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA director general, was shown around the plant by Russian occupying forces and officials, telling reporters:
It is obvious that military activity is increasing in this whole region, so every possible measure and precautions should be taken so that the plant is not attacked.
“I think it’s no secret that there is a significant increase in the number of troops in the region, and there is open talk about offensive and counter offensives,” he added.
The plant is on the south bank of the Dnieper river, which forms the frontline at a time when Russian forces have attempted to conduct a series of offensives and Ukraine is widely expected to launch a counter-offensive in the coming months.
Grossi was accompanying three IAEA inspectors who will replace an outgoing monitoring team and are due to stay at the site for the next two months, the seventh team to take up the rotating role since the agency’s presence was accepted by Kyiv and Moscow.
The director general is also in Zaporizhzhia to continue efforts to negotiate protections for the plant, which would require the agreement of Ukrainian and Russian forces not to fire in or out of the area.
“There have been different concepts that we have been working on. Initially we were focusing on the possibility of the establishment of a well-determined zone around the plant. Now the concept is evolving and refocusing more on the protection itself and the things that should be avoided,” he said on Wednesday. “It is a work in progress.”
Germany to send additional €12bn in military aid to Ukraine
The German government has agreed to send an additional €12bn worth of military support to Ukraine, in a further shift away from its traditional pacifist stance.
The Bundestag’s budget committee gave the green light today for about €8bn to be spent directly on purchasing weapons and equipment for Ukraine, approving a request by the German defence ministry and foreign office. The other €4bn will go to the German military to replenish stocks.
About €12bn in total will be released related to the Ukraine conflict over the next decade or so. Since the start of the Russian invasion, the German government has made available more than €14.2bn in support for Ukraine, according to the foreign office.
In a statement, three lawmakers representing the coalition government on the committee said:
With the money, Ukraine can directly buy armaments with the support of the German government.
The move represents a “very important step with which we make it clear that we are supporting Ukraine in the long term in its fight against Putin,” said Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius.
The agreement will allow supplies including armoured vehicles, tanks, and ammunition to be delivered to Ukraine in the coming years, according to a statement from the minister.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has responded to remarks by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov who earlier today said Russia’s “hybrid war” against “hostile states” will continue “for a long time”.
Peskov and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, are both “wrong: the war can be ended diplomatically”, Podolyak posted to Twitter.
He called on Russian forces to immediately withdraw from occupied parts of Ukraine, adding that “a reboot must happen in Moscow for that”.
#Peskov/#Lavrov are wrong: the war can be ended diplomatically.
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) March 29, 2023
If RF immediately withdraws from the occupied land. A reboot must happen in Moscow for that & the negotiator must change. New defeats of the Russian army can help with that. The supply of weapons is being increased.
An explosion has been reported near a Russian military airbase in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, according to footage shared on social media.
An explosion has occurred in occupied Hvardiiske, central Crimea. There are no further details so far
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) March 29, 2023
📹Local social media accounts pic.twitter.com/C7sQMEPVuX
The Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, posted to Telegram that “a UAV [drone] was shot down in the Simferopol region”. He added:
It crashed in a field. There were no casualties or damage.
It has not been possible to independently verify his claim.
A letter from a Russian girl who drew anti-war pictures at school, addressed to her father who has reportedly fled house arrest after being sentenced to two years after being convicted of discrediting the armed force, has been made public.
Alexei Moskalyov, a single parent from the town of Yefremov, 150 miles south of Moscow, was detained by police and placed under house arrest at the start of this month. His daughter Masha was moved to a state-run shelter.
On Tuesday, a court spokesperson said Moskalyov had fled house arrest overnight and his whereabouts are currently not known. A human rights lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, has since said Moskalyov had been in touch with him and sent him a copy of a letter that Masha had written him from the children’s home.
The letter reads:
Hi Dad, I really ask you not to get sick and not to worry. Everything is fine with me, I love you very much and know that you’re not guilty of anything. I am always on your side, and everything you do is right.
It ends with “I love you” in English, and the words “you are a hero” inside a heart.
«Прошу тебя, только не сдавайся».
— Холод (@holodmedia) March 29, 2023
Адвокат Алексея Москалева опубликовал письмо Маши Москалевой, написанное для отца 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/kzYMCfaDIt
The family said they had faced pressure from police since last April when Masha, a sixth-grader, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and made several drawings showing rockets being fired at a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another that said “Glory to Ukraine!”
School officials at the time summoned the police, who questioned the girl and threatened her father. He was eventually charged with discrediting the armed forces for his social media posts in which he called the Russian regime “terrorists” and described the Russian army as “rapists”.
The high-profile case was criticised by Russian human rights groups and led to an online campaign to reunite father and daughter.
Russian authorities have put a member of the feminist punk group Pussy Riot on a wanted list for criminal suspects, according to an interior ministry database.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is on Russia’s federal wanted list, Russian news outlet Mediazona has reported. The entry said Tolokonnikova faces criminal charges, but it did not specify what the charges are.
Tolokonnikova left Russia and reportedly lives in the US. She was designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian government in 2021.
My colleague Zoe Williams interviewed Tolokonnikova in March last year.
Vladimir Putin has conceded that sanctions imposed on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine could bring about “negative” consequences for the country, but insisted Moscow was adapting to the penalties.
Putin, in a televised meeting with the government, said:
The sanctions imposed against the Russian economy in the medium term could really have a negative impact.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, has shared the clip:
Putin says sanctions "might have a negative impact" on Russian economy. pic.twitter.com/9qcHKERKTp
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) March 29, 2023
During the meeting, Putin said unemployment in Russia “remains at an all-time low” and that inflation is expected to “drop below 4%” by the end of March after soaring in spring last year.
However the “return to a growth trajectory should not make us feel relaxed”, he said.
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Tthe UN’s nuclear agency chief, Rafael Grossi, has said the situation is not improving at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant after visiting Zaporizhzhia in an occupied region of Ukraine. While on the Russian-held territory, Grossi told Russian news agencies including Tass that “Obviously, the situation is not improving, on the contrary, hostilities around this territory are intensifying. All possible measures must be taken to protect the station from any attack.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner group, has said the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut has “practically destroyed” the Ukrainian army but that his forces have also been “badly damaged”.
Russia has stopped informing the US about its nuclear activities, including missile test launches, after Moscow suspended its participation in the New Start arms control treaty last month, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said. The White House on Tuesday said the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging some data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.
Russia began exercises with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system and several thousand of troops, its defence ministry said on Wednesday. Vladimir Putin has aimed to make the Yars missile system, which replaced the Topol system, part of Russia’s “invincible weapons” and the mainstay of the ground-based component of its nuclear arsenal.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Russian president Vladimir Putin is an “informationally isolated person” who had “lost everything” over the last year of war. “He doesn’t have allies,” Zelenskiy said, adding that it was clear to him that even China was no longer willing to back Russia, despite Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow.
Zelenskiy suggested that Putin’s announcement shortly after Xi’s visit that he would move tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, closer to Nato territory, was meant to deflect from the fact that the Chinese leader’s visit did not go well. Putin said the move was a counter to Britain’s decision to provide more depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine. Belarus has pinned the move as being a response to Nato aggression on its borders.
Zelenskiy extended an invitation to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to visit Ukraine. “We are ready to see him here. I want to speak with him. I had contact with him before full-scale war. But during all this year, more than one year, I didn’t have,” he said. The Chinese leader invited Vladimir Putin to visit Beijing this year during a meeting in Moscow earlier this month.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed 20 Patriot batteries to protect against Russian missiles, and even that may not be enough “as no country in the world was attacked with so many ballistic rockets”. He added that a European nation sent another air defence system to Ukraine, but it didn’t work and they “had to change it again and again”. He did not name the country.
Ukrainian forces have reportedly shelled the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol, south of the Zaporizhzhia region, and Russian media reported on Wednesday that as a result, the city’s power supply had been cut. Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March last year, said on the Telegram messaging app that several explosions had gone off in the city.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, has urged Russians not to adopt children who she said were “stolen” from her country during the war and deported to Russia. Vereshchuk, posting to Telegram, said orphans had been “stolen in Ukraine” and allegedly given up for adoption in Russia.
Spain will send six Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine after the Easter holiday, the Spanish defence minister Margarita Robles said. Spain will repair another four tanks that will be sent “in the near future”, she added.
Russia’s cyberwar on Ukraine largely failed and Moscow is increasingly targeting Kyiv’s European allies, according to US and French analysts. French defence firm Thales said in a report on Wednesday that Russia was hitting Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries with an arsenal of cyber weapons aiming to sow divisions and promote anti-war messages.
Sweden’s foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Russia’s Stockholm ambassador to complain about a statement on the Russian embassy’s website that said joining Nato made the Nordic nation a “legitimate target”.
Poland has urged the EU to limit the amount of Ukrainian grain entering the bloc’s market, its prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said, amid anger among farmers over the effect of imports on Polish grain prices.
Ukraine’s sports ministry has condemned what it said was a partial change of position by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in international competitions as neutrals. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described the IOC’s decision as “shameful”.
Good afternoon from London, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong still here with all the latest news from the Russia-Ukraine war. I’m on Twitter or you can email me.
Poland has urged the EU to limit the amount of Ukrainian grain entering the bloc’s market, its prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said, amid anger among farmers over the effect of imports on Polish grain prices.
Morawiecki said he had agreed with the leaders of several countries bordering Ukraine to write to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to demand action.
Morawiecki, at a news conference, said:
We demand the use of all regulatory instruments - quotas, tariffs, which will limit or block the import of Ukrainian grain into Poland.
Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, has been forced to find alternative shipping routes through Poland and Romania, after its Black Sea ports were blocked following Russia’s invasion.
But logistical bottlenecks have meant large quantities of Ukrainian grains, which are cheaper than those produced in the EU, have ended up in central Europen countries, Reuters reports.
The influx of Ukrainian grain has damaged prices and sales of local farmers, and caused a major headache for Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party in an election year.
Here are some images we have received from the news wires of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi visiting Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been held by Russian forces for more than a year.
Ukraine’s sports ministry condemned on Wednesday what it said was a partial change of position by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in international competitions as neutrals.
“The ministry of youth and sports of Ukraine condemns the partial change of the position of the International Olympic Committee regarding the non-admission of Russian and Belarusian athletes,” Reuters reports the Ukrainian ministry said in a statement.
“We have consistently advocated and will continue to insist that under the conditions of the unprecedented unprovoked military aggression of the Russian Federation with the support of the republic of Belarus against Ukraine, which contradicts the principles of the Olympic charter, representatives of aggressor states should not be present at international sports arenas.”
Object found near Nord Stream 2 'does not pose safety risk' – Danish energy agency
Reuters is carrying a quick snap that the Danish energy agency says that the object found near the Nord Stream 2 pipeline does not pose a safety risk, and is an empty maritime smoke buoy, which is used for visual marking.
Updated
Grossi: situation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant 'not improving'
Rafael Grossi, the UN’s nuclear agency chief, has told the media in Russia that the situation is not improving at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant after visiting Zaporizhzhia in an occupied region of Ukraine.
While on the Russian-held territory, Grossi told Russian news agencies including Tass that “Obviously, the situation is not improving, on the contrary, hostilities around this territory are intensifying. All possible measures must be taken to protect the station from any attack.”
Tass reports that he was shown “objects damaged as a result of shelling by the armed forces of Ukraine”. Russian forces have occupied the plant since March 2022, forcing Ukrainian staff to continue working while under occupation.
Russia has claimed that Ukraine has shelled both the station and the nearby residential area of Enerhodar. Ukraine has claimed that shelling has been by Russian forces.
Grossi previously visited the site in September 2022.
Spain will send six Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine after the Easter holiday, Reuters is reporting the Spanish defence minister, Margarita Robles, as saying.
The German-made battle tanks have not been used since the 1990s, Robles told lawmakers, adding that Spain had repaired them and would test their combat readiness before shipping them to support Ukraine’s efforts to fend off Russia’s invasion.
Spain will repair another four tanks that will be sent “in the near future”, she added.
Updated
Wagner boss admits battle for Bakhmut has ‘badly damaged’ his forces
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner group, has said the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut has “practically destroyed” the Ukrainian army but that his forces have also been “badly damaged”.
In an audio message, Prigozhin said:
The battle for Bakhmut today has already practically destroyed the Ukrainian army and, unfortunately, it has also badly damaged the Wagner private military company.
Asked about Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s promise to defend Bakhmut to the end, CNN reported Prigozhin as saying his forces would win in “the greatest turn in this war and in all modern history”.
Updated
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has condemned the International Olympic Committee’s recommendation that Russian and Belarusian athletes compete as neutrals, describing the decision as “shameful”.
Speaking at a news conference, Morawiecki said Poland would build “a coalition of states to together demand that the IOC withdraw this bad and wrong decision”.
Decyzja MKOL o przywróceniu rosyjskich sportowców do rywalizacji to skandal i zdrada prawdziwego ducha sportu.
— Mateusz Morawiecki (@MorawieckiM) March 28, 2023
Poleciłem ministrowi @KamilBortniczuk, aby przekazał władzom MKOL nasz stanowczy sprzeciw. Zrobimy co w naszej mocy, żeby sport pozostał wolny od rosyjskich wpływów.
Updated
Russia has stopped informing the US about its nuclear activities, including missile test launches, after Moscow suspended its participation in the New Start arms control treaty last month, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said.
Ryabkov, in remarks carried by Interfax news agency, said:
There will be no notifications at all. All notifications, all kinds of notifications, all activities under the treaty will be suspended and will not be conducted regardless of what position the US may take.
The 2010 New Start treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia, limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads each side can deploy. The US and Russia hold nearly 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads between them.
Vladimir Putin announced last month that Russia was suspending participation in the treaty, accusing Washington of trying to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia in Ukraine.
Ryabkov’s remarks reflect a change of course, after the Russian foreign ministry initially said it would continue notifying the US about planned test launches of its ballistic missiles.
The White House on Tuesday said the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging some data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.
A spokesperson for the US national security council said yesterday:
Under international law, the United States has the right to respond to Russia’s breaches of the New Start treaty by taking proportionate and reversible countermeasures in order to induce Russia to return to compliance with its obligations.
It comes as Russia conducted drills of its strategic missile forces today, deploying mobile launchers in Siberia in a show of the country’s nuclear capability.
Updated
A Siberian journalist whose news website published content that was critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has gone on trial charged with discrediting Moscow’s armed forces, according to a report.
Mikhail Afanasyev, one of the best-known journalists in Siberia and chief editor of Novy Fokus in the Russian region of Khakassia, was arrested by security forces in April 2022.
His arrest came after the website’s reporting on 11 riot police officers who allegedly refused deployment to Ukraine. He was accused of disseminating “deliberately false information” about the Russian armed forces, an offence that carries a maximum jail sentence of 10 years under a law passed last year.
My colleague Andrew Roth reported on Afanasyev’s arrest last April:
Updated
Russians urged not to adopt ‘stolen’ Ukrainian children
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, has urged Russians not to adopt children who she said were “stolen” from her country during the war and deported to Russia.
Vereshchuk, posting to Telegram, said orphans had been “stolen in Ukraine” and allegedly given up for adoption in Russia. She said:
I strongly recommend that Russian citizens do not adopt Ukrainian orphans who were illegally taken out of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
Nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported to Russia or Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s ministry of integration of occupied territories.
Russia says it has been evacuating people voluntarily from Ukraine, and claims it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone. Russia’s defence ministry said in mid-August that 3.5m people had been brought to Russia by then, including more than half a million children.
According to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office, 464 children have died so far since the war began in February last year. Police have estimated that 356 are still missing.
Writing on her Telegram account today, Vereshchuk added:
Once again I remind all Russian so-called ‘adoptive parents’ and ‘guardians’: sooner or later you will have to answer.
The international criminal court (ICC) in the Hague issued an arrest warrant earlier this month against President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of the war crime of illegally deporting Ukrainian children.
More than 220,000 Russian personnel have been killed or injured since its troops invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said, citing the latest US assessment.
From Sky News’ Deborah Haynes:
NEW: Latest US assessment for Russian losses in Ukraine puts the figure of Russian dead and injured at over 220,000 personnel, UK Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP says in a press briefing with his Swedish counterpart who is on a visit to London
— Deborah Haynes (@haynesdeborah) March 29, 2023
Updated
Russia’s “confrontation with hostile states” is “going to last for a long time”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said.
My colleague Pjotr Sauer reports:
Peskov today in a call with journalists:
— Pjotr Sauer (@PjotrSauer) March 29, 2023
"If you mean a war in a broad context - this is a confrontation with hostile states, with unfriendly countries, this is a hybrid war that they unleashed against our country, then this is for a long time" https://t.co/92DSovuGL9
Zelenskiy invites Xi Jinping to Ukraine
Here’s more from that Associated Press interview with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, where the Ukrainian president extended an invitation to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to visit his country.
Zelenskiy, who has not spoken to Xi since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, said:
We are ready to see him here. I want to speak with him. I had contact with him before full-scale war. But during all this year, more than one year, I didn’t have.
The Chinese leader invited Vladimir Putin to visit Beijing this year during a meeting in Moscow earlier this month.
Asked if Xi would accept Zelenskiy’s invitation, or whether one had been officially extended, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters she had no information to give. She added that Beijing maintains “communication with all parties concerned, including Ukraine”.
In response to Zelenskiy’s interview, the Kremlin said it was not up to Moscow to advise the Chinese leader on whether he should visit Ukraine or not.
Updated
Grossi arrival at Zaporizhzhia confirmed
Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has arrived the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in southeastern Ukraine, a spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed.
The IAEA chief is visiting Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since near the beginning of the invasion, to review the situation there, the spokesperson said. They said:
At the plant now.
⚡️The #IAEA delegation headed by Director General Rafael #Grossi, accompanied by Russian military police, went to the #Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) March 29, 2023
📹: Telegram / OperativnoZSU pic.twitter.com/0kaJhWsEan
Hello everyone, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong here taking over the live blog from Martin Belam. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Russian president Vladimir Putin is an “informationally isolated person” who had “lost everything” over the last year of war. “He doesn’t have allies,” Zelenskiy said, adding that it was clear to him that even China was no longer willing to back Russia, despite Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow.
Zelenskiy suggested that Putin’s announcement shortly after Xi’s visit that he would move tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, closer to Nato territory, was meant to deflect from the fact that the Chinese leader’s visit did not go well. Putin said the move was a counter to Britain’s decision to provide more depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine. Belarus has pinned the move as being a response to Nato aggression on its borders.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed 20 Patriot batteries to protect against Russian missiles, and even that may not be enough “as no country in the world was attacked with so many ballistic rockets”. He added that a European nation sent another air defence system to Ukraine, but it didn’t work and they “had to change it again and again”. He did not name the country.
Ukrainian forces have reportedly shelled the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol, south of the Zaporizhzhia region, and Russian media reported on Wednesday that as a result, the city’s power supply had been cut. Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March last year, said on the Telegram messaging app that several explosions had gone off in the city.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that on 28 March five residents of Donetsk – three in Bakhmut and two in Chasiv Yar – were injured.
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, is due to visit the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, with Russian media outlets reporting he has arrived. He has described the situation there as very dangerous.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, has restated that Russia intends to achieve all the aims of what it terms its “special military operation”, despite, he said, “the steadily increasing military assistance to Ukraine from the US and other western states.”
Russia’s cyberwar on Ukraine largely failed and Moscow is increasingly targeting Kyiv’s European allies, according to US and French analysts. French defence firm Thales said in a report on Wednesday that Russia was hitting Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries with an arsenal of cyber weapons aiming to sow divisions and promote anti-war messages.
Global commodities trader Cargill has told Russia’s agriculture ministry that it will stop exporting Russian grain from the start of the next exporting season, which begins on 1 July, the ministry said on Wednesday.
Sweden’s foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Russia’s Stockholm ambassador to complain about a statement on the Russian embassy’s website that said joining Nato made the Nordic nation a “legitimate target”.
Sweden’s admission to Nato faces challenges as Hungary has grievances about criticism it has received from the Nordic state, and bridging this gap will require significant efforts on both sides, the Hungarian government’s spokesperson tweeted on Wednesday. After months of foot-dragging Hungary’s parliament approved a bill on Monday to allow Finland to join Nato but the Swedish bill is still stranded in parliament.
Hungary’s foreign minister held telephone talks with the Russian deputy prime minister, Alexander Novak, about gas and oil shipments as well as nuclear cooperation, the Hungarian minister said late on Tuesday. In a statement, Péter Szijjártó said Novak had reassured him that despite international sanctions, the Russian party would be able to do maintenance work on the Turkstream pipeline.
Grossi arrives at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – reports
Russia’s state-owned news agency RIA has reported that the UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi has now arrived at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since very near the beginning of the invasion.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, is reporting that there are power outages in some areas of Kyiv and also Odesa which have been caused by weather conditions, rather than enemy action. It writes:
In Kyiv and the region, due to worsening weather conditions, emergency shutdowns of lights were used. Most of them are at the Vyshhorod, Kyiv-Sviatoshyn, and Vasylkiv power stations, DTEK reported. There are also stabilizing power outages in some areas of the capital and the region. In Odesa, seven settlements remain without power due to bad weather.
Russia’s embassy in the US has issued a punchy statement overnight in response to what it says are “statements of a number of US administration officials on support for the creation of a special tribunal against Russia”. It writes on its official Telegram channel:
Such comments are an outright profanity that has nothing to do with justice. The US continues to demonstrate a complete disregard for the norms of international law in favour of its own geopolitical interests. The outrageous and unfounded accusations of alleged aggression, crimes against humanity and other violations are nothing more than an element of the Russophobic campaign organised by Washington as part of the hybrid war unleashed against us.
The US hypocritically and cynically refrains from assessing the criminal acts of the nazis who have settled in Kyiv and have been terrorising civilians for many years. Washington is silent about its own role in the incitement of the Ukrainian conflict. It continues to support [the] Zelenskiy regime through the endless supply of lethal weapons, as a result of which the civilian population continues to die, including children, and kindergartens, schools and hospitals are destroyed.
How may Washington speculate on “responsibility for aggression”, when the international community has not yet recovered from the catastrophic consequences of American adventurist interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, bombing of Yugoslavia and the atrocities in Vietnam?
Sweden’s foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Russia’s Stockholm ambassador to complain about a statement on the Russian embassy’s website that said joining Nato made the Nordic nation a “legitimate target”, Reuters reports, citing news agency TT.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, has restated that Russia intends to achieve all the aims of what it terms its “special military operation”. State-owned news agency Tass quotes him saying:
Despite the steadily increasing military assistance to Ukraine from the US and other western states, all the declared goals of the special military operation will certainly be achieved. We will achieve the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, ensure the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and the security of our population.
Late last year the Russian Federation claimed to annex four regions of Ukraine after organising widely derided “referendums” in the regions which they partially occupied. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, in a move not widely recognised by the international community.
An IAEA spokesperson has confirmed that UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi was on his way to the plant. He said Grossi was in the Zaporizhzhia region, but declined to say where. According to Reuters, he shared a photograph of Grossi standing in body armour by an armoured UN car on the side of a road.
Sweden’s admission to Nato faces challenges as Hungary has grievances about criticism it has received from the Nordic state, and bridging this gap will require significant efforts on both sides, the Hungarian government’s spokesperson tweeted on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
After months of foot-dragging Hungary’s parliament approved a bill on Monday to allow Finland to join Nato but the Swedish bill is still stranded in parliament.
Zelenskiy: Putin is 'informationally isolated' and does not have allies
More from that Associated Press interview with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, where Ukraine’s president was unstinting in his criticism of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Zelenskiy said Putin was an “informationally isolated person” who had “lost everything” over the last year of war.
“He doesn’t have allies,” Zelenskiy said, adding that it was clear to him that even China was no longer willing to back Russia. President Xi Jinping has recently attended a state visit in Moscow, and extended an invitation to Putin to visit Beijing.
Zelenskiy suggested that Putin’s announcement shortly after Xi’s visit that he would move tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, closer to Nato territory, was meant to deflect from the fact that the Chinese leader’s visit did not go well. Putin said the move was a counter to Britain’s decision to provide more depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine. Belarus has pinned the move as being a response to Nato aggression on its borders.
Despite Putin’s nuclear provocations, and some of the harsh rhetoric that has come from his allies such as Dmitry Medvedev, Zelenskiy told AP he does not believe the Russian leader is prepared to use the bomb.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, offers this news round-up of the latest developments on its official Telegram channel:
In the morning, a series of explosions rang out in the temporarily occupied Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia. The lights went out in some areas of the city and settlements.
During the day, the Russian army launched 34 airstrikes and artillery strikes on the de-occupied part of Kherson region, three on Kherson. It struck houses, a hospital and a post office. One person is injured.
At night, the Ukrainian military destroyed a Russian Su-24M bomber in the direction of Bakhmut, the air force reported.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Zelenskiy: Ukraine had to return some air defence equipment from west that didn't work
Journalists from Associated Press accompanied Volodymyr Zelenskiy on part of his trip this week around frontline regions of Ukraine, and to the border region of Sumy. During that time, Ukraine’s president reiterated requests for more modern weaponry, and also said some elements that had been supplied by the west had not worked.
“We have great decisions about Patriots, but we don’t have them for real,” he said, referring to the US-made air defence system that has been promised.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed 20 Patriot batteries to protect against Russian missiles, and even that may not be enough “as no country in the world was attacked with so many ballistic rockets”.
Zelenskiy added that a European nation sent another air defence system to Ukraine, but it didn’t work and they “had to change it again and again”. He did not name the country.
Zelenskiy also reiterated his longstanding request for fighter jets, saying: “We still don’t have anything when it comes to modern warplanes.”
Poland and Slovakia have decided to give Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine, but no western country so far has agreed to provide modern warplanes, through concerns that it might escalate the conflict and provide Ukraine with strike capabilities deep into Russian territory, and that the length of time that it would take to train pilots and provision ground crews makes the delivery in the short-term impractical.
Updated
Global commodities trader Cargill has told Russia’s agriculture ministry that it will stop exporting Russian grain from the start of the next exporting season, which begins on 1 July, the ministry said on Wednesday.
“The cessation of its export activities on the Russian market will not affect the volume of domestic grain shipments abroad. The company’s grain export assets will continue to operate regardless of who manages them,” the agriculture ministry said in a comment to Reuters.
A spokesperson for Cargill’s Russian unit declined to comment to the news agency.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that on 28 March five residents of Donetsk – three in Bakhmut and two in Chasiv Yar – were injured due to the war.
Hungary’s foreign minister held telephone talks with the Russian deputy prime minister, Alexander Novak, about gas and oil shipments as well as nuclear cooperation, the Hungarian minister said late on Tuesday.
In a statement, Péter Szijjártó said Novak had reassured him that despite international sanctions, the Russian party would be able to do maintenance work on the Turkstream pipeline.
“Thus Hungary’s gas supply will continue without any disruptions,” the statement added.
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan. My colleague Martin Belam will take you through the rest of the day’s news.
Moscow increasingly launching cyberattacks on Europe – research
Russia’s cyberwar on Ukraine largely failed and Moscow is increasingly targeting Kyiv’s European allies, according to US and French analysts.
French defence firm Thales said in a report on Wednesday that Russia was hitting Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries with an arsenal of cyber weapons aiming to sow divisions and promote anti-war messages.
Microsoft said in a threat assessment earlier this month that Russian actors had launched attacks in at least 17 European countries in the first six weeks of this year.
Thales and Microsoft said Russia’s invasion was accompanied by widespread cyberattacks in Ukraine, but they were repelled. Both firms said Russia shifted focus to other European countries late last year.
“In the third quarter of 2022, Europe was dragged into a high-intensity hybrid cyberwar at a turning point in the conflict,” said Pierre-Yves Jolivet, Thales vice president for cyber solutions.
Jolivet said countries outside Ukraine were suffering a “massive wave” of DDoS attacks, when a server is flooded with requests that crash the network. These attacks were increasingly carried out by “hacktivist” groups aligned with the Kremlin rather than official groups, and they aimed to sow chaos rather than destroy infrastructure, Thales said.
Poland, Latvia and Sweden were among the most affected countries, the Thales report said. Microsoft said in its assessment that attacks this year in Europe were largely aimed at government entities for espionage purposes.
Ukrainian forces shelled Russian-controlled Melitopol – Russian media
Ukrainian forces have reportedly shelled the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol, south of the Zaporizhzhia region, and Russian media reported on Wednesday that as a result, the city’s power supply had been cut.
Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March last year, said on the Telegram messaging app that several explosions had gone off in the city.
Russia’s state TASS news agency, citing Moscow-installed officials in the area, said Ukrainian shelling had damaged the city’s power supply system and knocked out electricity in the city and some nearby villages.
TASS also reported that a locomotive depot was destroyed but according to initial information, there were no casualties.
The Guardian has not verified these reports independently.
UN nuclear chief to visit occupied Zaporizhzhia plant
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, is visiting the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine today. He has described the situation there as very dangerous.
He said in an interview with Reuters that his work on forging an agreement to protect Europe’s largest nuclear power station was still alive. Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling the site.
The nuclear facility has lost its external power supply six times since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, forcing emergency diesel generators to kick in to cool its reactors.
Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the water level in a nearby reservoir controlled by Russian forces was another potential danger. Water supplied by the reservoir is used to cool the reactors.
He told Reuters yesterday:
If the reservoir level goes down beyond a certain level, then you don’t have water to cool down the reactors, and we have seen especially in January that the levels of the water were going down significantly. They recovered somehow in the past few weeks.
He added that there had been increasing military activity in the region without giving details.
Grossi said his attempt to broker a deal to protect the plant was still alive, and that he was adjusting the proposals to seek a breakthrough.
Updated
Moscow begins drills to test new ICBM
Russia began exercises with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system and several thousand of troops, its defence ministry said on Wednesday, in what is likely to be seen as another attempt by Moscow to show off its nuclear strength, Reuters reports.
President Vladimir Putin has aimed to make the Yars missile system, which replaced the Topol system, part of Russia’s “invincible weapons” and the mainstay of the ground-based component of its nuclear arsenal.
“In total, more than 3,000 military personnel and about 300 pieces of equipment are involved in the exercises,” the defence ministry said in a statement on Telegram.
The drills involve the Strategic Missile Forces comprehensive control checking of the Omsk missile formation together with a command and staff exercise with the Novosibirsk missile formation equipped with the Yars systems.
Zelenskiy fears war could be hampered by Washington divisions
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said in an interview that he he worries the war could be affected by shifting political forces in Washington. In an interview with AP, published a short while ago, Zelenskiy said:
“The United States really understands that if they stop helping us, we will not win”.
Following its long interview with Ukraine’s leader, AP reports:
Zelenskiy is well aware that his country’s success has been in great part due to waves of international military support, particularly from the United States and western Europe. But some in the United States – including Republican Donald Trump, the former American president and current 2024 candidate – have questioned whether Washington should continue to supply Ukraine with billions of dollars in military aid.
Trump’s likely Republican rival, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, also suggested that defending Ukraine in a ‘territorial dispute’ with Russia was not a significant US national security priority. He later walked that statement back after facing criticism from other corners of the GOP.
Zelenskiy didn’t mention the names of Trump or any other Republican politicians – figures he might have to deal with if they prevailed in 2024 elections.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan bringing you the latest.
Our top story this morning: Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, says that he he worries the war could be impacted by shifting political forces in Washington. In an interview with AP, published a short while ago, Zelenskiy said:
“The United States really understands that if they stop helping us, we will not win”.
And Russia began exercises with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system and several thousand troops, its defence ministry said on Wednesday, in what is likely to be seen as another attempt by Moscow to show off its nuclear strength.
We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments.
The United States has not seen any indications that Vladimir Putin is getting closer to using tactical nuclear weapons in his war on Ukraine, after the Russian leader said he was moving such weapons into Belarus. Belarus confirmed it would host Russian tactical nuclear weapons, saying the decision was a response to years of western pressure. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said Belarus would face further EU sanctions.
Russia said it shot down a US-supplied GLSDB guided smart bomb fired by Ukrainian forces, the first time Moscow has claimed to have intercepted one of the weapons that could double Ukraine’s battlefield firing range.
Ukraine’s frontline city of Avdiivka “is being wiped off the face of the Earth” amid intensifying Russian shelling, according to its top local official. Russian forces have been making recent gradual gains on the flanks of Avdiivka, and the Ukrainian military said last week that the city could become a “second Bakhmut”. Russia’s 10th tank regiment has borne the brunt of the assault of Avdiivka and has likely lost a “large portion of its tanks” while attempting to surround the town from the south, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update.
Ukraine is aiming to exhaust and inflict heavy losses on Russian forces trying to capture the small eastern city of Bakhmut, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces has said. In a video showing him addressing soldiers in what appeared to be a large industrial warehouse, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia was continuing to focus on the Bakhmut area after months of battle.
Germany’s much-awaited shipment of 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks has arrived in Ukraine, the German defence ministry has confirmed. Berlin first promised 14 but increased that to 18 as part of a deal under which several EU states would contribute to a shipment of two Leopard 2 battalions and 31 American-made M1A2 Abrams tanks from the US.
The first British Challenger 2 main battle tanks have also arrived in Ukraine and will soon begin combat missions, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has said. The UK said in January it would send 14 of the tanks to Ukraine. Reznikov wrote on Twitter that the tanks had “recently arrived in our country” and posted a video that showed him sitting in one of a long line of tanks in an open field, all of them flying Ukraine’s yellow and blue flag.
The US supports the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression against Ukraine, officials have said. The US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, Beth Van Schaak said the court might also be located elsewhere in Europe, at least at first, in order “to reinforce Ukraine’s desired European orientation”.
A Russian man who was investigated by police after his 12-year-old daughter drew a picture depicting Russian bombing a family in Ukraine has been sentenced to two years in a penal colony, according to a rights group. Alexei Moskalyov has been separated from his daughter Maria since he was placed under house arrest, and she was taken into a state-run shelter last month. Court officials said on Tuesday that the 54-year-old had fled house arrest and his whereabouts were unknown.
The International Olympic Committee has recommended that Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to compete in international sporting events under a neutral flag. A decision regarding next year’s Olympics in Paris and the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026 would be taken “at the appropriate time”, it said. Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said the committee’s decision was “a slap in the face for all Ukrainian athletes”.
