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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Samantha Lock (now); Maanvi Singh, Joanna Walters, Léonie Chao-Fongand Martin Belam (earlier)

Nato says it is ready to maintain its support for Ukraine in the war against Russia for years – as it happened

Ukraine Vladimir Putin United Kingdom United States António Guterres Liz Truss Boris Johnson CNN Moscow Poland

Thank you for following our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

This blog has now closed. You can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war in our new live blog in the link below.

Summary

It is just past 7am in Ukraine and its capital, Kyiv, is still reeling from a missile attack launched the night before.

The blasts came soon after UN secretary general, António Guterres met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, admitting his organisation had failed to prevent or end the war.

Meanwhile, Nato has warned that the west needs to be prepared for the long haul and the possibility that the war will “drag on and last for months and years.”

Here’s everything you might have missed:

  • Russia attacked Kyiv with two cruise missiles on Thursday evening, injuring at least ten and partially destroying a 25-storey residential building in the city’s central Shevchenkivskyi district.
  • The blasts came “immediately after” UN secretary general António Guterres met with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the Ukrainian capital.
  • The UN chief admitted his own organisation failed to prevent and end the war. During a press conference in Kyiv, Guterres said: “Let me be very clear. The Security Council failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war.”
  • Joe Biden has called for a giant $33bn package of military and economic aid to Ukraine, more than doubling the level of US assistance to date. The package would include over $20bn in military aid, including heavy artillery and armoured vehicles, greater intelligence sharing, cyberwarfare tools and many more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. “We’re not attacking Russia. We’re helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression,” Biden said.
  • The US House has given final passage to legislation that would streamline a World War II-era military lend-lease program to more quickly provide Ukraine with military aid. The measure would update the 1941 legislation Franklin Roosevelt signed into law to help allies fight Nazi Germany.
  • The UK will send 8,000 soldiers to eastern Europe on expanded exercises to combat Russian aggression in one of the largest deployments since the cold war. Dozens of tanks will be deployed to countries ranging from Finland to North Macedonia between April and June.
  • A British citizen has been killed in Ukraine and a second is missing, the Foreign Office has confirmed, amid reports that both were volunteers who had gone to fight in the country. The Briton who died was understood to be Scott Sibley, a former British soldier who had served in Iraq.
  • A 22-year-old former US marine and American citizen, Willy Joseph Cancel, was also reportedly killed while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in Ukraine, members of his family have told CNN.
  • Russian forces have been hitting the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol with the heaviest strikes yet while preventing wounded Ukrainian fighters from being evacuated, a local official said. “They (want to) use the opportunity to capture the defenders of Mariupol, one of the main (elements) of whom are the... Azov regiment. Therefore the Russian side is not agreeing to any evacuation measures regarding wounded (Ukrainian) troops,” Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told a briefing, according to a Reuters report.
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was probing a report that a missile had flown directly over a nuclear power station, adding it would be “extremely serious” if true. The IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi, said Kyiv had formally told the agency the missile flew over the plant in southern Ukraine on 16 April. The facility is near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk, 350km (220 miles) south of Kyiv.
  • The UN general assembly will vote on 11 May replacing Russia on the world organisation’s leading human rights body after its suspension over allegations of rights violations by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said the Czech Republic was the only candidate for the seat on the 47-member human rights council.
  • Ukraine’s prosecutor general has named 10 Russian soldiers allegedly involved in human rights abuses during the month-long occupation of Bucha. There were 8,653 alleged war crimes under investigation, according to the prosecutor’s office.
  • Moldova’s deputy prime minister, Nicu Popescu, said the country was facing “a very dangerous new moment” as unnamed forces were seeking to stoke tensions after a series of explosions in the breakaway region of Transnistria this week. Popescu said his government had seen “a dangerous deterioration of the situation” in recent days amid attacks in the region.
  • The European Union will consider it as a violation of sanctions if European energy companies comply with Moscow’s requirement to open a payment account in roubles with Gazprombank, EU officials warned. The EU “cannot accept” that payments in euros for Russian gas are considered completed by Moscow only after they are converted into roubles, an official said.
  • Nato said it was ready to maintain its support for Ukraine in the war against Russia for years, including help for Kyiv to shift from Soviet-era weapons to modern western arms and systems. “We need to be prepared for the long term,” Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, told a summit in Brussels. “There is absolutely the possibility that this war will drag on and last for months and years.”
  • Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Finland and Sweden would be “warmly welcomed” should they decide to join the 30-nation military organisation and any membership process could “go quickly”.

As usual, please feel free to reach out to me by email or Twitter for any tips or feedback.

UN chief admits Security Council failed to prevent and end war

The UN Secretary General has criticised his own organisation’s Security Council while on visit to Kyiv.

During a press conference with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Antonio Guterres said the council had failed to prevent or end the war in Ukraine.

Let me be very clear. The Security Council failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war.

This is a source of great disappointment, frustration and anger.”

Guterres pledged that he would “boost our efforts across the board” and expand the council’s cash assistance – distributing $100 million per month, reaching 1.3 million people by May and covering 2 million by August.

The 15-member UN Security Council is specifically tasked with ensuring global peace and security and has faced criticism for failing to act since Russia’s invasion began in February.

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the council had failed to prevent or end the war in Ukraine.
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the council had failed to prevent or end the war in Ukraine. Photograph: Ukraine Presidency/ZUMA Press Wire Service/REX/Shutterstock

Russia is preventing wounded Ukrainian fighters from being evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol because it wants to capture them, the local officials say.

Reuters reports Pavlo Kyrylenko as telling a briefing:

They (want to) use the opportunity to capture the defenders of Mariupol, one of the main (elements) of whom are the... Azov regiment.

Therefore the Russian side is not agreeing to any evacuation measures regarding wounded (Ukrainian) troops.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had been quite clear that while civilians could leave the plant, the defenders had to lay down their arms, Tass news agency said.

“What could be the topic of negotiations in this case?” the agency quoted him as saying.

Mariupol city council said about 100,000 city residents were “in mortal danger” because of Russian shelling and unsanitary conditions. It said the shortage of drinking water and food was “catastrophic”.

Canadian troops are training Ukrainian troops to use howitzer artillery, Canada’s defence minister Anita Anand has confirmed.

The United States has been training a small number of Ukrainian forces on howitzers and some other systems outside of Ukraine. Anand, speaking alongside US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, did not say where the Canadian training was taking place.

US House gives final passage to legislation to streamline military aid to Ukraine

The US House has given final passage to legislation that would streamline a World War II-era military lend-lease program to more quickly provide Ukraine with military aid.

The measure, which passed on Thursday evening by an overwhelming 417-10 vote, now goes to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law.

House foreign affairs committee Gregory Meeks of New York said with unified support from the US Congress, “Ukraine will win.”

The Biden administration announced earlier it will seek another $30 billion from Congress in military and humanitarian aid, on top of the nearly $14 billion Congress approved last month to help Ukraine fight the war.

The measure would update the 1941 legislation Franklin Roosevelt signed into law to help allies fight Nazi Germany. At the time, the then-US president ushered the Lend-Lease Act through Congress, responding to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s appeal for aid, even as America initially remained neutral in the war, according to the US National Archives, the Associated Press reports.

Biden is expected to sign the bill into law, giving the administration greater leeway to send military equipment to Ukraine and neighbouring allies in Eastern Europe.

“It is a real moment in history that we are back on this House floor supporting lend-lease,” said Rep. French Hill, R-Ark.

The congressman said he hoped the “Churchillian idea” would end delays in shipping aid to Ukraine, much the way the original law sped help to Britain fighting Adolf Hitler’s Germany in World War II.

Today we find ourselves in a very similar situation with Putin systematically bombing and shelling the peaceful villages and cities of Ukraine,” he said.

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Finland and Sweden would be “warmly welcomed” should they decide to join the 30-nation military organisation and any membership process could “go quickly”.

“It’s their decision,” Stoltenberg said. “But if they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be warmly welcomed, and I expect that process to go quickly.”

He gave no precise time frame, but did say that the two could expect some protection should Russia try to intimidate them from the time their membership applications are made until they formally join.

Stoltenberg said he’s “confident that there are ways to bridge that interim period in a way which is good enough and works for both Finland and Sweden.”

Nato’s collective security guarantee ensures that all member countries must come to the aid of any ally under attack. Stoltenberg added that many Nato allies have now pledged and provided a total of at least $8 billion in military support to Ukraine.

A 22-year-old former US marine and American citizen, Willy Joseph Cancel, was reportedly killed while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in Ukraine, members of his family have told CNN.

Cancel was working with a private military contracting company when he was killed on Monday, his mother, Rebecca Cabrera, said.

Cancel signed up to work for the company on top of his full-time job as a corrections officer in Tennessee shortly before the war in Ukraine broke out at the end of February, she added.

Cancel flew to Poland on March 12 and crossed into Ukraine sometime over March 12 and 13, Cabrera said.

He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for, and he wanted to be a part of it to contain it there so it didn’t come here, and that maybe our American soldiers wouldn’t have to be involved in it.”

Cabrera said she was told by those who notified her of her son’s death that his body had not been found.

They haven’t found his body. They are trying, the men that were with him, but it was either grab his body or get killed, but we would love for him to come back to us.”

A State Department official told CNN they are “aware of these reports and are closely monitoring the situation.”

Ukraine’s president Zelenskiy has spoken of how Russian troops came within minutes of finding him and his family in the first hours of the war in an interview with Time magazine.

Reporter Simon Shuster interviewed the Ukrainian leader while spending two weeks in the presidential compound in Kyiv earlier this month.

On the first day of war, Shuster writes that officials attempted to seal the compound “with whatever they could find” as Ukrainian troops fought the Russians in the streets.

“Russian troops came within minutes of finding him and his family in the first hours of the war, their gunfire once audible inside his office walls,” he added.

The military reportedly informed Zelenskiy that Russian strike teams had parachuted into Kyiv to kill or capture him and his family.

As night fell that first evening, gunfights broke out around the government quarter. Guards inside the compound shut the lights and brought bulletproof vests and assault rifles for Zelenskiy and about a dozen of his aides. Only a few of them knew how to handle the weapons,” Shuster said.

Russian troops made two attempts to storm the compound, Oleksiy Arestovych, a veteran of Ukraine’s military intelligence service and a senior presidential advisor, told the reporter. Zelenskiy later added that his wife and children were still there at the time.

The US offered to evacuate the President and his team and help them set up a government in exile, most likely in eastern Poland. Speaking on a secure landline with the Americans, Zelenskiy responded: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

As the war rages on two months later and casualties rise, the president said he has aged in the face of such brutality.

I’ve gotten older. I’ve aged from all this wisdom that I never wanted. It’s the wisdom tied to the number of people who have died, and the torture the Russian soldiers perpetrated...To be honest, I never had the goal of attaining knowledge like that...

People see this war on Instagram, on social media. When they get sick of it, they will scroll away.”

Rescuers have found two more bodies after a fire at a Russian aerospace defence research institute broke out last week, bringing the total number of deaths to 22, Tass news agency cited local emergency services as saying on Thursday.

One person is still believed to be missing, the Russian state outlet said. The institute is in the city of Tver, about 160km (100 miles) northwest of Moscow.

Authorities have opened a criminal investigation after media reports that an electrical fault caused the blaze.

The fire erupted in an administrative building of the aerospace defence forces’ central research institute, which operates under the Russian defence ministry. It quickly engulfed the building’s upper three floors, forcing those inside to jump from windows and causing the roof to cave in.

Updated

Summary

If you have just joined our live coverage of the war in Ukraine, here is a quick re-cap of where things currently stand.

  • Russia attacked western Kyiv with two cruise missiles during a visit by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to the Ukrainian capital. Two loud explosions rocked Kyiv on Thursday evening after Guterres visited the site of massacres and mass graves on the city’s outskirts. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the strikes happened “immediately after” his talks with the UN chief.
  • Ten were injured in the blast, which hit the central Shevchenkivskyi district, and three people were hospitalised, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. A 25-storey residential building was partially destroyed.
  • In his latest address, Zelenskiy addressed the strike on Kyiv, saying that Ukraine could not let its guard down. “Moscow claimed they had allegedly ceased fire in Mariupol. But the bombing of the defenders of the city continues,” he said. “This is a war crime committed by the Russian military literally in front of the whole world.”
  • The UK will send 8,000 soldiers to eastern Europe on expanded exercises to combat Russian aggression in one of the largest deployments since the cold war. Dozens of tanks will be deployed to countries ranging from Finland to North Macedonia between April and June.
  • Joe Biden has called for a giant $33bn package of military and economic aid to Ukraine, more than doubling the level of US assistance to date. The package would include over $20bn in military aid, including heavy artillery and armoured vehicles, greater intelligence sharing, cyberwarfare tools and many more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. “We’re not attacking Russia. We’re helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression,” Biden said.
  • A British citizen has been killed in Ukraine and a second is missing, the Foreign Office has confirmed, amid reports that both were volunteers who had gone to fight in the country. The Briton who died was understood to be Scott Sibley, a former British soldier who had served in Iraq.
  • Russian forces have been hitting the Azovstal steelworks in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol with the heaviest strikes yet, a local official said.
    Meanwhile, a senior US defence official said the US had seen indications that some Russian forces were leaving Mariupol and moving towards the north-west, even as fighting for the Ukrainian port city continued.
  • The UN secretary general, Guterres, said the UN was “doing everything possible” to evacuate people from the Azovstal steelworks in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol. “They need an escape route out of the apocalypse,” Guterres said. Zelenskiy added that he believed that a “successful result” was still possible “in terms of deblocking” the Mariupol plant.
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was probing a report that a missile had flown directly over a nuclear power station, adding it would be “extremely serious” if true. The IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi, said Kyiv had formally told the agency the missile flew over the plant in southern Ukraine on 16 April. The facility is near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk, 350km (220 miles) south of Kyiv.
  • The UN general assembly will vote on 11 May on a country to replace Russia on the world organisation’s leading human rights body after its suspension over allegations of rights violations by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said the Czech Republic was the only candidate for the seat on the 47-member human rights council.
  • Ukraine’s prosecutor general has named 10 Russian soldiers allegedly involved in human rights abuses during the month-long occupation of Bucha. There were 8,653 alleged war crimes under investigation, according to the prosecutor’s office.
  • Guterres described the war as “an absurdity” in the 21st century on a visit to the scene of civilian killings outside Kyiv. Guterres was touring Borodianka, where Russian forces are accused of massacring civilians before their withdrawal, on his first visit to Ukraine since the start of the invasion.
  • Moldova’s deputy prime minister, Nicu Popescu, said the country was facing “a very dangerous new moment” as unnamed forces were seeking to stoke tensions after a series of explosions in the breakaway region of Transnistria this week. Popescu said his government had seen “a dangerous deterioration of the situation” in recent days amid attacks in the region.
  • The European Union will consider it as a violation of sanctions if European energy companies comply with Moscow’s requirement to open a payment account in roubles with Gazprombank, EU officials warned. The EU “cannot accept” that payments in euros for Russian gas are considered completed by Moscow only after they are converted into roubles, an official said.
  • Nato said it was ready to maintain its support for Ukraine in the war against Russia for years, including help for Kyiv to shift from Soviet-era weapons to modern western arms and systems. “We need to be prepared for the long term,” Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, told a summit in Brussels. “There is absolutely the possibility that this war will drag on and last for months and years.”
Natalia Tsyukalo, 62, demonstrates how she hid in her cellar from the Russian shelling that hit the apartments across the street from her home in Irpin, Ukraine.
Natalia Tsyukalo, 62, demonstrates how she hid in her cellar from the Russian shelling that hit the apartments across the street from her home in Irpin, Ukraine. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

The world’s largest security body has said it is officially winding up its observer mission in Ukraine after eight years, after Russia vetoed its extension.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in a statement it would “take immediate steps” to close the mission after members failed to find a way around Russia’s objections during a meeting last month, AFP reports.

Poland’s foreign minister Zbigniew Rau, whose country holds the rotating OSCE chairmanship, said the organisation had tried all options but “the position of the Russian Federation left us with no choice”.

The Vienna-based OSCE’s mission to Ukraine began in 2014 after Russia-backed separatists launched an insurgency in the east. The organisation was the only international body monitoring the conflict on the ground.

OSCE monitors were largely withdrawn from the country following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February.

But administrative staff were left behind, and four of them have since been detained.

OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid said the organisation would continue to push for an “end to the detentions, intimidation, and disinformation that are so dangerous for our national mission members”.

The OSCE has 57 members on three continents - including Russia, Ukraine and the United States.

Earlier today, US president Joe Biden said he was sending Congress a supplemental budget request to “keep weapons and ammunition flowing” to Ukraine.

Biden added a “comprehensive legislative package” would also be included to “hold accountable the Russian oligarchs who enable Putin’s war.”

“We need to seize the yachts, luxury homes, and other ill-begotten gains of Putin’s kleptocrats,” he said.

The United States is analysing strikes on Kyiv that the Ukrainian authorities blamed on Russian missiles, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday.

“We’re still trying to analyse this and figure out what happened here, what was struck and with what kind of munition,” he told CNN.

More images of the aftermath of the missile strike on Kyiv have emerged.

Flames engulf buildings following an explosion in Kyiv, Ukraine on Thursday.
Flames engulf buildings following an explosion in Kyiv, Ukraine on Thursday. Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP
Police officers and army members inspect the debris following an explosion in Kyiv.
Police officers and army members inspect the debris following an explosion in Kyiv. Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the blasts hit the central Shevchenkivskyi district and three people have so far been hospitalised.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the blasts hit the central Shevchenkivskyi district and three people have so far been hospitalised. Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP
Firefighters try to put out a fire after loud explosions rocked Kyiv on Thursday evening.
Firefighters try to put out a fire after loud explosions rocked Kyiv on Thursday evening. Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP
The attack comes just one day after Guterres met with Vladimir Putin.
The attack comes just one day after Guterres met with Vladimir Putin. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Possible pseudo-referendums in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine will complicate negotiations between the countries, President Volodymyr Zelenskyiy has said.

In the event of any pseudo-referendums in the occupied territories they will not be recognised by Ukraine and the world and will complicate possible negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, Zelenskyiy said during a press briefing following talks with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in Kyiv.

I believe that it is impossible and will not be possible to annex one or another part of our territories by force.

This (pseudo-referendum - ed.) will not bring anything, except that this is another complication of probable, at least some kind of probable negotiations between Ukraine and Russia... It seems to me that this is a complication of any negotiations ...

If they want to complicate all this for the whole of Europe and the world, they can continue to play with these referendums, which will not yield any results - either current or historical.”

Updated

UK to send 8,000 soldiers to eastern Europe on expanded exercises

About 8,000 British army troops will take part in exercises across eastern Europe to combat Russian aggression in one of the largest deployments since the cold war.

Dozens of tanks will be deployed to countries ranging from Finland to North Macedonia this summer under plans that have been enhanced since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Joining them will be tens of thousands of troops from Nato and the Joint Expeditionary Force alliance, which includes Finland and Sweden.

The Ministry of Defence said the action had been long planned and had been enhanced in response to Russia’s invasion of its neighbour in late February.

The UK deployment is expected to build to a peak of about 8,000 personnel operating in mainland Europe between April and June.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says it is probing a report that a missile had flown directly over a nuclear power station, adding it would be “extremely serious” if true.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Kyiv had formally told the agency on Thursday the missile flew over the south Ukraine plant on 16 April. The facility is near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk, some 350km (220 miles) south of Kyiv.

Ukraine’s regulator formally informed the IAEA that on 16 April 2022 on-site video surveillance recorded the flight of a missile flying directly over the South Ukraine NPP.

The IAEA is looking into this matter, which, if confirmed, would be extremely serious.

Had such a missile gone astray, it could have had a severe impact on the physical integrity of the NPP potentially leading to a nuclear accident,” Grossi said in a statement.

Grossi did not say who had fired the missile but Kyiv had earlier accused Moscow of sending rockets directly over nuclear plants.

Updated

Ten injured in Kyiv missile attack

We are receiving a little more information surrounding casualties from Russia’s earlier missile strike on Kyiv.

One missile reportedly struck the lower floors of a 25-storey residential building, injuring at least 10 people, Ukrainian officials said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the blasts hit the central Shevchenkivskyi district and three people have so far been hospitalised.

The State Emergency Service said one blast - believed to have occurred around 8:13pm - partially destroyed a 25-storey residential building in the Shevchenkivskyi district of the capital.

“As a result of enemy shelling, a fire broke out in a 25-storey residential building with partial destruction of the 1st and 2nd floors,” the agency said on Telegram.

About one hour later, emergency services were able to extinguish the fire with search and rescue operations still underway.

According to preliminary data, five people were rescued and ten were injured, the agency said.

Ukraine’s foreign minister has responded to the strikes in Kyiv, calling the attack a “heinous act of barbarism”.

Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, called the Russian missile strikes in Kyiv a “heinous act of barbarism” in a tweet Thursday.

“Russia [struck] Kyiv with cruise missiles right when UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Bulgarian PM Kiril Petkov visit our capital. By this heinous act of barbarism Russia demonstrates once again its attitude towards Ukraine, Europe and the world,” he said.

  • Its Samantha Lock back with you on the blog as we continue to deliver all the latest news from Ukraine.

Updated

Today so far

  • Russia attacked western Kyiv with two cruise missiles, as the UN secretary general António Guterres visited the Ukrainian capital, a move that was hard to see as anything other than Moscow mocking the institution. Two loud explosions rocked Kyiv on Thursday evening, after Guterres visited the site of massacres and mass graves on the city’s outskirts, and met with Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
  • In his latest address, Zelenskiy addressed the strike on Kyiv, saying that Ukraine could not let its guard down. “Moscow claimed they had allegedly ceased fire in Mariupol. But the bombing of the defenders of the city continues,” he said. “This is a war crime committed by the Russian military literally in front of the whole world.”
  • The United Nations General Assembly will vote on May 11 on a country to replace Russia on the world organization’s leading human rights body following its suspension over allegations of horrific rights violations by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, The Associated Press reports.Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said Thursday that the Czech Republic was the only candidate for the seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council.
  • Joe Biden has called for a giant $33bn package of military and economic aid to Ukraine, more than doubling the level of US assistance to date. The president asked Congress to give immediate approval for spending that would include over $20bn in military aid, involving everything from heavy artillery and armoured vehicles to greater intelligence sharing, cyberwarfare tools and many more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
  • The European Union will consider energy companies complying with Moscow’s requirement to open a second account, with Gazprombank in roubles, as a violation of sanctions against Russia, EU officials warned. The EU “cannot accept” that payments in euros for Russian gas are considered completed by Moscow only after they are converted into roubles, the official said.

The target of Russia’s strike on Kyiv appeared to be the Artem defence plant, which was empty at the time of the attack, according to the Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo.

The plant had been evacuated prior to the Russian invasion, and it remains unclear whether the plant was actually hit. However, a residential building was struck as well.

Updated

Zelenskiy says Russian missile strike requires 'strong response'

In his latest address, Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed the strike on Kyiv, saying that Russia’s strikes meant that Ukraine could not let its guard down.

Moscow claimed they had allegedly ceased fire in Mariupol. But the bombing of the defenders of the city continues. This is a war crime committed by the Russian military literally in front of the whole world. Russia’s shelling of Mariupol did not stop even when the UN Secretary-General was holding negotiations in Moscow.

And today, immediately after the end of our talks in Kyiv, Russian missiles flew into the city. Five missiles.

And this says a lot about Russia’s true attitude to global institutions. About the efforts of the Russian leadership to humiliate the UN and everything that the Organization represents. Therefore, it requires a strong response.

Russian missile strikes at Ukraine - Kyiv, Fastiv, Odesa, and other cities - once again prove that we cannot let our guard down. We cannot think that the war is over. We still have to fight. We still have to drive the occupiers out.

The Ukrainian president also thanked the US in his address, for their offers of aid, and for approving a measure to extend a WWII-era lend-lease program to bring military equipment to Ukrainian forces. “This support from the United States is necessary,” he said. “Together, we can certainly stop Russian aggression and reliably defend freedom in Europe.”

Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday.
Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

He said:

Every time I contact my partners, I emphasize that weapons for Ukraine right now, the very types we ask for and just when we need them, are salvation not only for our people. This is salvation for all of you - for all of Europe.

I am grateful to those partners who understand this. And who help convince others.

Updated

Following a Russian cruise missile attack on western Kyiv with two cruise missiles, residents in the city’s Shevchenko district said they were in shock after a residential building was hit.

“We are still in shock. We were in the house when they bombed the building” said Maksym maksymov, 29, a sales manager, told the Guardian. “We hard the first strike. And the then a second missile hit the building. We don’t know if people died.”

Firefighters try to put out a fire following an explosion in Kyiv. Russia mounted attacks across a wide area of Ukraine on Thursday, bombarding Kyiv during a visit by the head of the United Nations.
Firefighters try to put out a fire following an explosion in Kyiv. Russia mounted attacks across a wide area of Ukraine on Thursday, bombarding Kyiv during a visit by the head of the United Nations. Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP

“People were walking outside the building...Definitely people got injured”, said Sergeii, 28, who lives in an apartment close to the attack.

“We don’t know how many people lived in that building, maybe 20-30
people”, says Andrey, who was pushed by the wave of the explosion.
“Some of the apartments were not completed”

The building was just beside the entrance of the factory, which was
allegedly the target of the strike. According to initial reports, at least 5 people were inured but the number of casualties is still unclear.

The attack occurred while the UN secretary general António Guterres was visiting the Ukrainian capital. It was the first such attack Kyiv since mid-April.

Updated

The US congress has approved a measure extending a World War II-era military lend-lease program to send aid to Ukraine.

The AP reports: .

The measure, which passed by an overwhelming 417-10 vote, now goes to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory Meeks of New York said with unified support from the US Congress, “Ukraine will win.”

The bill is the latest from Congress, which is steadily churning out resolutions and resources to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and help the country and its President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fight back. The Biden administration announced Thursday it will seek another $30 billion from Congress in military and humanitarian aid, on top of the nearly $14 billion Congress approved last month to help Ukraine fight the war.

Months in the making, the bipartisan bill was first introduced in January as part of the U.S.’s posture of deterrence to warn off Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine.

The measure would update the 1941 legislation Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law to help allies fight Nazi Germany. At the time, the then-U.S. president ushered the Lend-Lease Act through Congress, responding to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s appeal for aid, even as America initially remained neutral in the war, according to the U.S. National Archives.

Biden is expected to sign the bill into law, giving the administration greater leeway to send military equipment to Ukraine and neighboring allies in Eastern Europe.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also gave nod to the moment, saying the war is a battle between democracy and autocracy, and echoed Roosevelt’s call on Americans to provide the fuel to keep light of democracy burning.

“Our task today remains the same,” she said. “The Ukrainian people are making the fight for all of us.”

This is Maanvi Singh in San Francisco taking over the blog from New York. Later I’ll hand it to my colleague in Australia.

Here’s some analysis from the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour:

Just as Britain has positioned itself as the most munificent provider of weaponry to Ukraine, so it has adopted the most uncompromising of approaches to the terms for a final peace settlement with Russia. Judging by the near existential tone of the foreign secretary Liz Truss’s speech on Wednesday evening, the UK is self-consciously now on the provisional wing of the small group of allies that are privately discussing the terms of how the war might end.

Not all of it is in the public domain, but in her speech Truss made clear that Russia would be required to leave the whole of Ukraine, and so no longer retain its foothold in the Donbas in the east and Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. In this view she gained the support of the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, on Thursday. She also agrees with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, that Russia must end the war so weakened militarily that it cannot repeat its threats not only to Ukraine but to Moldova and the Baltic states.

For good measure there would have to be reparations – a payment to Ukraine for the damage Moscow had inflicted – in an echo of the principles followed by allied forces against Germany in 1919: punishment, payment and prevention.

These terms may not end up as humiliating as the notorious Versailles peace treaty of that year, but they would leave little room for doubt that Putin had lost. The UK has long said that not only must Putin fail in his war, he must also be seen to fail.

Read more:

Updated

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, returned from Ukraine after the Chornobyl nuclear power plant (NPP).

“Today, Ukraine’s regulator formally informed the IAEA that on 16 April 2022 on-site video surveillance recorded the flight of a missile flying directly over the South Ukraine NPP,” he said.

“The IAEA is reviewing the evidence and, if confirmed, this event is extremely serious. Had such a missile gone astray, it could have had a severe impact on the physical integrity of the NPP potentially leading to a nuclear accident,” Grossi said.

Updated

Ukraine’s prosecutor general has named 10 Russian soldiers allegedly involved in human rights abuses during the month-long occupation of Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Iryna Venediktova also told German TV that that Ukranian investigators had identified “more than 8,000 cases” of suspected war crimes since Russia’s invasion, which included accusations of “killing civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, torture” and “sexual crimes”.

Her comments came as the international criminal court (ICC) ramps up its investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine since the start of the war. The Dutch government will “very soon” send a team of “several dozen” forensic specialists to Ukraine on behalf of the ICC to gather evidence of human rights abuses, the ANP press agency reported on Thursday.

Ukraine’s flag is see beside new graves for people killed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at a cemetery in Bucha, Kyiv region, Ukraine April 28, 2022.
Ukraine’s flag is see beside new graves for people killed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at a cemetery in Bucha, Kyiv region, Ukraine April 28, 2022. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Russian forces’ retreat from Kyiv in early April left horrifying evidence of atrocities littered across the region’s suburbs and towns, where scores of bodies in civilian clothes were found lying in the streets or buried in shallow graves.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Venediktova identified 10 soldiers – two sergeants, four corporals and four privates – who she said were all “involved in the torture of peaceful people” during the brutal occupation of Bucha, a small commuter town 18.5 miles north-west of Kyiv.

Venediktova said the soldiers were part of the 64th Motor Rifle Brigade, a unit based in the Khabarovsk region, on the Pacific coast in Russia’s far east.

“During the occupation of Bucha, they took unarmed civilians hostage, killed them with hunger and thirst, and kept them on their knees with their hands tied and their eyes taped. [The hostages] were mocked and beaten with fists and the rifle stocks. They were beaten for information about the location of the [Ukrainian] armed forces … and some were tortured for no reason at all,” she wrote.

Venediktova appealed to the public to help gather evidence, and said that Ukrainian prosecutors and police officers are now investigating whether any of the men were also involved in homicides.

Read the full report here.

One of the Russian strikes on Kyiv on Thursday hit the lower floor of a residential building, injuring at least three people, in the first such attack on the Ukrainian capital since mid-April, Agence France-Presse reports.

Witnesses have seen a building in flames and black smoke pouring into the air with a heavy presence of police and rescuers in the area, a residential neighbourhood on the western side of the city.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the three injured have been taken to hospital. Their condition and further details are not yet known.

AFP further reports that a close aide to the United Nations secretary-general António Guterres, who had just finished an in-person meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenzkiy in the city when the explosions occurred, sent a message to journalists confirming the UN party was safe.

The strikes prompted a furious response from Ukraine’s government, with foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba denouncing it as a “heinous act of barbarism” which demonstrated Russia’s “attitude towards Ukraine, Europe and the world”.

Updated

The United Nations General Assembly will vote on May 11 on a country to replace Russia on the world organization’s leading human rights body following its suspension over allegations of horrific rights violations by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, The Associated Press reports.

Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said Thursday that the Czech Republic was the only candidate for the seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council.

A life-size tank entirely made with inflatable biodegradable latex balloons is displayed during the ‘Stop Bombing Civilians’ campaign by NOG Handicap International in front of the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this month.
A life-size tank entirely made with inflatable biodegradable latex balloons is displayed during the ‘Stop Bombing Civilians’ campaign by NOG Handicap International in front of the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this month. Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA

Seats on the council, based in Switzerland’s Geneva, are divided among regional groups and a replacement for Russia has to come from an east European country.

After the General Assembly suspended Russia, its deputy ambassador Gennady Kuzmin told UN members that Russia withdrew from the human rights council before the vote.

Council spokesman Rolando Gomez said that by withdrawing, Russia avoided being deprived of observer status at the rights body.

Since its February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has lost its spot on multiple UN bodies, including the executive boards of UN Women and the UN children’s agency UNICEF, the Committee on Non-governmental Organizations and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Russia was also suspended this week from the World Tourism Organization.

'They need escape route out of apocalypse' - Guterres on Mariupol

United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said after talks in Kyiv on Thursday that intense discussions were still continuing to enable the evacuation of a steel plant where fighters and civilians are holed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Reuters reports.

His meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy followed talks by Guterres with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, where the latter agreed “in principle” to UN and International Committee for the Red Cross involvement in evacuating the Azovstal plant in the besieged southern city.

The Mariupol city council has said about 100,000 residents across the city are “in mortal danger” because of Russian shelling and unsanitary conditions, and described a “catastrophic” shortage of drinking water and food. Guterres called the situation a crisis within a crisis.

Thousands of civilians need life-saving assistance. Many are elderly, in need of medical care or have limited mobility. They need an escape route out of the apocalypse,” Guterres told reporters in the Ukrainian capital after he had met with Zelenskiy.

Referring to the possibility of a United Nations and ICRC-coordinated humanitarian corridor for the hundreds of civilians believed to still be in Azovstal, Guterres said:

As we speak, there are intense discussions to move forward on this proposal to make it a reality.

“I can only tell you we are doing everything we can to make it happen. I’m not going to enter into any comment that could undermine that possibility.

On April 21, nearly two months into the siege of the strategic port city, Russia declared victory in Mariupol although remaining Ukrainian forces were holding out in a vast underground complex below Azovstal, where civilians were also sheltering.

Speaking alongside Guterres, Zelenskiy said:

I trust and believe - just as many relatives of those people who are blocked in Azovstal [the steel plant] do - that the secretary-general and we will be able to have a successful result.”

Updated

Russia hits Kyiv with two cruise missiles

Russia attacked western Kyiv with two cruise missiles, as the UN secretary general António Guterres visited the Ukrainian capital, a move that was hard to see as anything other than Moscow mocking the institution.

Two loud explosions rocked Kyiv on Thursday evening, after Guterres visited the site of massacres and mass graves on the city’s outskirts, and met with Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Ukrainian officials were quick to underline the extraordinary timing of the attack, just one day after Guterres met with Vladimir Putin (across the very long table the Russian leader uses for many meetings).

Can you hear me now? Russian president Vladimir Putin (L) and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres (R) meet in Moscow, on April 26, 2022.
Can you hear me now? Russian president Vladimir Putin (L) and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres (R) meet in Moscow, on April 26, 2022. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak asked: “Postcard from Moscow?”

Defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, called the strikes an attack “on the security of the Secretary General, and on world security!”

A string of visits by leaders of Western allies, and senior US officials, in recent weeks - from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to US Secretaries of State and Defence, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin - have passed without attacks.

Updated

More information is trickling out about two large explosions heard in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv earlier.

Two explosions rocked a central district of Kyiv on Thursday evening after Russian forces fired on the Ukrainian capital, the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said in an online post.

Klitschko said authorities were gathering details about possible casualties. Reuters eyewitnesses had earlier reported the sound of two blasts in the city, Reuters reported.

The blasts were witnessed in the central Shevchenkivskyi district and took place while United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, was there to visit Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, shortly after they had wrapped up their meeting, according to reports on social media.

“There were two hits in the Shevchenkivskyi district. All services are working on the scene. Information about casualties is being clarified,” Klitschko said via his account on the Telegram platform.

This is Joanna Walters in New York taking over the blog from London. Later I’ll hand it to my colleague in California and she’ll pass it to our Australian team after that, then back to London, as we try to keep you up to date around the clock with all the developments since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as the news happens.

Updated

Summary

It is 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand now:

  • Two explosions have been heard in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to reports. Reuters cited eyewitnesses who heard the explosions and said no further details of what caused the blasts were immediately available. CNN also reported that its staff in Kyiv had observed two large explosions several kilometres east of the city centre.
  • Joe Biden has called for a giant $33bn package of military and economic aid to Ukraine, more than doubling the level of US assistance to date. The president asked Congress to give immediate approval for spending that would include over $20bn in military aid, involving everything from heavy artillery and armoured vehicles to greater intelligence sharing, cyberwarfare tools and many more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
  • The European Union will consider energy companies complying with Moscow’s requirement to open a second account, with Gazprombank in roubles, as a violation of sanctions against Russia, EU officials warned. The EU “cannot accept” that payments in euros for Russian gas are considered completed by Moscow only after they are converted into roubles, the official said.

That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, today. I’ll be back tomorrow but in the meantime, my colleague Joanna Walters will continue to bring you the latest developments from the war in Ukraine.

Updated

Two large explosions heard in Kyiv – reports

Two explosions have been heard in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to reports.

Reuters cited eyewitnesses as hearing the explosions and said no further details of what caused the blasts were immediately available.

CNN also reported that its staff in Kyiv had observed two large explosions several kilometres east of the city centre. The cause of the explosions is unknown, it said.

From the Kyiv Independent:

The head of Ukraine’s negotiating team, Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser to President Zelenskiy, tweeted about “missile strikes” in downtown Kyiv during an official visit by the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

Updated

The Russian war in Ukraine is evil, said the UN secretary general, António Guterres, during his visit to the country.

Guterres visited Irpin, Borodianka and Bucha, and inspected a mass grave before meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Updated

British citizen killed in Ukraine understood to be former soldier Scott Sibley

A British citizen has been killed in Ukraine and a second is missing, the Foreign Office has confirmed, amid reports that both were volunteers who had gone to fight in the country, Peter Beaumont and Ben Quinn report.

The Briton who died is understood to be Scott Sibley, a former British soldier who had served in Iraq. Former colleagues paid tribute on a Facebook page run by veterans of the commandos logistics support squadron, where he was described as a man who had “showed commando spirit until the end”.

Scott Sibley was described as a man who had ‘showed Commando spirit until the end’.
Scott Sibley was described as a man who had ‘showed Commando spirit until the end’. Photograph: Facebook

In a statement the Foreign Office said:

We can confirm that a British national has been killed in Ukraine and are supporting their family.

On the missing person, the spokesperson said:

We are aware of a British national who is missing in Ukraine and are supporting their family. We are urgently seeking further information.

The Foreign Office offered no further details, including whether the two cases were related and where the death occurred. Sky News reported the pair were thought to be volunteers fighting against Russian forces, but this has not been confirmed.

A number of Britons, including former servicepeople, have volunteered to fight with the Ukrainian armed forces, some travelling to Ukraine well before the outbreak of hostilities and others going to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.

Two other British volunteers were captured by Russian forces in the besieged southern port of Mariupol. Aiden Aslin and his fellow British fighter Shaun Pinner surrendered after their unit ran out of ammunition in their position inside the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where the last Ukrainian defenders have been surrounded.

Updated

UN ‘doing everything possible’ to evacuate people from Mariupol’s Azovstal plant, says secretary general

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has been speaking following a meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv.

Reuters has a few top lines from the speech:

  • Guterres described Mariupol as “a crisis within a crisis”
  • “We are doing everything possible” to evacuate people from the Azovstal steelworks
  • Guterres said he had intense discussions with Zelenskiy to make an evacuation from Mariupol a reality

President Zelenskiy said he believes that a “successful result” is still possible “in terms of deblocking” the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a joint news conference in Kyiv.
UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, attend a joint news conference in Kyiv. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Updated

Ukraine identifies ‘more than 8,000 cases’ of suspected war crimes

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said investigators have identified more than 8,000 cases of suspected war crimes, AFP reports.

Venediktova has been investigating and tallying the mounting cases of suspected crimes by Russian forces since their invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

She told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle:

It’s actually 8,600 cases only about war crimes, and more than 4,000 cases that are connected with war crimes.

The alleged crimes documented include “killing civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, torture” and “sexual crimes” that are being reported in the “occupied territory of Ukraine”, Venediktova said.

‘Massive bombing strike’ on Azovstal plant, says Mariupol official

Russian forces have been hitting the Azovstal steelworks in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol with the heaviest strikes yet, a local official said.

Hundred of fighters and civilians are believed to still be trapped in the vast iron and steelworks. In a video posted online on Wednesday, Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th marine brigade forces in Mariupol, said there are more than 600 injured Ukrainian soldiers and hundreds of civilians including children in the plant.

Mykhailo Vershynin, chief of the Mariupol Patrol Police, told CNN:

Last night, the plant was hit by the strongest strike so far.

First, there was a massive air strike using seven Tu-22M3 aircraft. Then there were more than 50 air strikes. Apparently, either the Su-25s worked, or the Su-24s.

I can’t identify since we were in the shelter. The bombing was inflicted on the place where the seriously wounded are — in the hospital.

People are buried under the rubble, Vershynin said.

There is rubble, there are people under the rubble. There are dead and wounded. That is, the wounded are injured once again.

CNN could not independently confirm the extent of Russian airstrikes nor the casualties they caused.

Joe Biden has been delivering remarks at the White House, confirming that he has asked Congress to approve $33bn in funding to aid Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

The US president argued that more funding for arms and humanitarian assistance was “critical” for helping Ukraine combat Russian attacks, adding:

The cost of this fight, it’s not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen.

We either back the Ukrainian people as they defend their country, or we stand by as the Russians continue their atrocities and aggression in Ukraine.

President Joe Biden speaks about the war in Ukraine in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.
President Joe Biden speaks about the war in Ukraine in the Roosevelt room at the White House. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

Biden emphasised that his new request for $33bn in assistance to Ukraine should not be taken as an attack on Russia.

We’re not attacking Russia. We’re helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression.

But Russia “is the aggressor”, he said. “No ifs, and or buts about it.”

The US president also taking steps to ensure the money raised from assets seized from sanctioned allies of Vladimir Putin directly aids Ukraine. The president is sending a proposal to Congress to make it easier to transfer those funds to humanitarian projects in Ukraine.

We’re going to seize their yachts, their luxury homes and other ill-begotten gains.

Asked for his message to Ukrainian refugees who are waiting at the southern border to enter the US, Biden said they are being allowed to come directly into the country.

We’ve said there’s no need to go to the southern border. Fly directly to the United States. We set up a mechanism whereby they can come directly with a visa.

Updated

Local children play close to a damaged church in Lukashivka village, Chernihiv area, April 27, 2022.
Local children play close to a damaged church in Lukashivka village, Chernihiv area, April 27, 2022. Photograph: Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

Some Russian forces leaving Mariupol, says US official

The US has seen indications that some Russian forces are leaving Mariupol and moving towards the north-west, even as fighting for the Ukrainian port city continues, a senior US defence official said.

Reuters reports the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in addition to training Ukrainian forces on howitzers, training was ongoing outside of Ukraine for a mobile radar system and the M113 armoured personnel carrier.

The official did not give any details about where this training was taking place.

From Foreign Policy’s Jack Detsch:

Updated

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Russia has handed over 12 civilians and 33 soldiers, including 13 officers, in an exchange of prisoners of war with Kyiv.

Five of the troops exchanged had been wounded, Reuters cited her as saying. Vereshchuk did not say how many Russians were involved in the exchange.

Updated

The Netherlands will “very soon” send a team of forensic specialists to Ukraine to gather evidence of possible war crimes committed in the country since Russia’s invasion on 24 February as part of the investigation launched by the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, the Dutch ANP news agency reported on Thursday, citing several sources close to the matter.

According to ANP, the decision to send “several dozen” Dutch specialists will be announced tomorrow when the country’s ministers will gather for their weekly cabinet meeting.

ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, previously signed an agreement with prosecutors general of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine to take part in a joint investigative team to look into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed since the start of the war.

Updated

Summary

It’s just past 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s a roundup of what’s been happening so far:

  • The European Union will consider energy companies complying with Moscow’s requirement to open a second account, with Gazprombank in roubles, as a violation of sanctions against Russia, EU officials warned. The EU “cannot accept” that payments in euros for Russian gas are considered completed by Moscow only after they are converted into roubles, the official said.

Good afternoon from London. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong, and I will continue to bring you all the latest news from the war in Ukraine today. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.

Updated

Joe Biden is asking Congress to approve another $20bn in military aid to Ukraine, significantly ramping up the US contribution to the battle against Russian occupation.

Biden will also ask for $8.5bn in economic aid to Kyiv and $3bn in humanitarian relief, as well as funds to help increase US production of food crops and strategic minerals to offset the impact of the war in Ukraine on global supplies.

The total request for supplemental spending comes to $33bn. The last supplemental request approved by Congress in March was $13.6bn.

In a letter to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Biden said:

What I want to make clear to the Congress and the American people is this: the cost of failing to stand up to violent aggression in Europe has always been higher than the cost of standing firm against such attacks.

The new military assistance the congressional funding will finance will include:

  • More artillery, armoured vehicles, as well as anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft systems.
  • Help to build up Ukraine’s cyber warfare capabilities.
  • More intelligence sharing.
  • Support to increase Ukraine’s ability to produce munitions.
  • Assistance in clearing landmines and other explosives and in Ukraine’s defence against chemical, biological and dirty bomb attack.
  • Assistance to clear landmines, improvised explosive devices, and other explosive remnants of war and for the government of Ukraine in securing and addressing threats related to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials.
  • Further building up US presence on Nato’s eastern flank.

The package of proposals the administration is sending to Congress also includes measures to strengthen the hand of the justice department in pursuing Kremlin-aligned oligarchs.

Biden said the measures would allow for “expanded and expedited measures for investigating, prosecuting, and forfeiting assets of Russian oligarchs to be used for the benefit of Ukraine”.

Updated

British man killed and another missing in Ukraine, says foreign office

A British man has been killed and a second British man is missing in Ukraine, the UK’s Foreign, Development and Commonwealth Office (FCDO) said.

The foreign office said it was unable to provide any further information.

It is thought the pair had been fighting against Russian forces as volunteers supporting Ukraine’s military, although this has not been confirmed, Sky News reports.

A FCDO spokesperson said:

We can confirm that a British national has been killed in Ukraine and are supporting their family.

On the missing person, the spokesperson added:

We are aware of a British national who is missing in Ukraine and are supporting their family. We are urgently seeking further information.

Updated

Moldova is facing “a very dangerous new moment”, the country’s deputy prime minister has said, as he warned that unnamed forces were seeking to stoke tensions after a series of explosions in the breakaway region of Transnistria this week.

In a briefing with journalists, Nicu Popescu said his government had seen “a dangerous deterioration of the situation” in recent days, following grenade attacks on the “ministry of security” in the breakaway region of Transnistria on Monday. The attacks with rocket-propelled grenades represented “a very dangerous new moment in the history of our region”, he said, adding that Moldova’s institutions had been put on high alert in response.

Fears are growing that Moldova and Transnistria could be drawn into the Ukraine conflict. The predominantly Russian-speaking region of Transnistria in eastern Moldova has been controlled by pro-Russia separatists since 1992 after a short war when Moscow intervened on the side of the rebels.

Last week a senior Russian commander said gaining control over southern Ukraine would help Russia link up with Transnistria, which shares a 453 km border with Ukraine. Then on Monday came a series of mysterious explosions targeting Transnistria’s “state security ministry”, a radio tower and military unit.

“Our analysis so far shows that there are tensions between different forces within the region interested in destabilising the situation and that makes the Transnistrian region vulnerable and creates risks for the Republic of Moldova, said Popescu, who added that a majority of Moldovans, including those in Transnistria, wanted to stay out of the war.

Moldova’s government, which does not control Transnistria, was working through several hypotheses about the cause of the attacks, he said, adding that it could be a provocation or “the result of some tensions of some forces inside this region”. He added:

We cannot point exactly the finger or put the blame, but what we see is that indeed there are some forces inside the region that work towards the destabilisation of the situation inside this region.

Updated

Here is a selection of some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the newswires.

A woman watches as a member of the State Emergency Service demining team removes part of missile from her bathroom after Russian shelling in Kharkiv.
A woman watches as a member of the State Emergency Service demining team removes part of missile from her bathroom after Russian shelling in Kharkiv. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images
A monument to winemakers is surrounded by blooming Japanese cherry trees in Vynohradiv, Zakarpattia region, western Ukraine.
A monument to winemakers is surrounded by blooming Japanese cherry trees in Vynohradiv, Zakarpattia region, western Ukraine. Photograph: Ukrinform/Rex/Shutterstock
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, gestures for the media to stand back as he visits Borodianka, outside Kyiv.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, gestures for the media to stand back as he visits Borodianka, outside Kyiv. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images
A volunteer of the Heart to Heart charity foundation working at a warehouse from where humanitarian assistance is sent out on a daily basis.
A volunteer of the Heart to Heart charity foundation working at a warehouse from where humanitarian assistance is sent out on a daily basis. Photograph: Ukrinform/Rex/Shutterstock
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy (R), and Bulgaria’s prime minister, Kiril Petkov, shake hands during a joint news conference in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy (R), and Bulgaria’s prime minister, Kiril Petkov, shake hands during a joint news conference in Kyiv. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Updated

The government has acknowledged that processing problems within the Home Office have led to delays between the approval of visas for Ukrainian refugees and emailed notification that the visas have been granted – preventing many vulnerable people from swiftly making their way to safety.

Politicians from all parties highlighted a variety of serious problems with the Homes for Ukraine visa scheme during an urgent question in the Commons on the Home Office’s handling of the refugee crisis.

Latest figures show that just one in five of those issued visas under the Homes for Ukraine scheme had arrived in the UK. MPs suggested that the relatively small number of people travelling was the consequence of visas not being issued to family units simultaneously, with approval of children’s visas often taking several weeks longer.

About 86,000 visas have been issued to people fleeing Ukraine under the government’s two Ukraine refugee schemes (the Ukraine family scheme and the Homes for Ukraine scheme) but just 27,100 have travelled to the UK. Of the51,300 visas issued under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, only 11,000 have actually arrived in the UK.

The Home Office minister Kevin Foster dismissed as nonsense reports that there was a deliberate Home Office policy to withhold children’s visas. “I am aware of the claims that have been made, the false claims I have to say, that there is a deliberate move to withhold individual visas. Those are absolute nonsense,” he told the Commons.

But he admitted there were bureaucratic issues which meant refugees were not immediately receiving emails informing them that the visas had been granted. “We have been aware of an issue with the way the current system is working, in terms of the decision being made and then needing to be dispatched,” he said.

Read more of Amelia Gentleman’s report here: Government admits bureaucratic issues causing Homes for Ukraine visa delays

Updated

Council of Europe calls for creation of special tribunal to prosecute crime of aggression

The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has called for the creation “urgently” of a special tribunal to investigate and prosecute the crime of aggression, allegedly committed by the political and military leadership of Russia in Ukraine.

The international criminal court’s (ICC) definition of the crime of aggression includes invasion of another state, bombardment and blockade of ports. However, if a state is not a party to the ICC, its individuals cannot be prosecuted for this specific offence, so the ICC is not currently investigating the crime of aggression.

This has prompted calls from the likes of the former UK prime ministers Gordon Brown and Sir John Major, and the professor of international law, Philippe Sands QC, for the creation of an international tribunal to investigate Vladimir Putin, and those who helped plan his invasion of Ukraine, for the offence.

A resolution passed today by the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe – the first such taken by an international organisation – says an ad hoc international criminal tribunal should be set up, to be headquartered in Strasbourg, France, “in view of possible synergies with the European court of human rights, which is dealing with numerous related individual and interstate applications”.

Earlier, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Ukraine was “grateful” for the decision. “I call on all states to join the establishment of such a tribunal. Together, we will hold Russian leadership to account.”

Updated

Nato has so far shown an almost entirely united front against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, however this week has seen a resurfacing of simmering tensions between Greece and neighbouring Turkey.

The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, today called on Turkey to stop violating Greek airspace with its fighter jets, specifically citing the context of the war in Ukraine. Reuters report he has spoken to the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on the issue, quoting him saying:

I made it clear to the secretary general that this type of behaviour by a Nato ally … is unacceptable. It undermines European security as well as the unity … of Nato at a time when, amongst Nato members, it is indispensable for all of us to remain united as we face the continued aggression of Russia in Ukraine.

Mitsotakis, who met the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, last month, said that Turkey’s recent stance on overflights undermined the progress made in that meeting and they needed to “stop immediately”.

The division of Aegean airspace has long been a source of disagreement between the two nations. There has not been any immediate response from Turkey.

Updated

The Mariupol city council has posted on Telegram to claim that more than 2,000 unique exhibits from the museums of Mariupol have been removed by Russian forces.

They say the haul includes original works by Arkhip Kuindzhi and Ivan Aivazovsky, a unique handwritten Torah scroll, and the Gospel of 1811 made by the Venetian printing house for the Greeks of Mariupol.

They claim the items have been removed to Donetsk. The message goes on to say: “Mariupol City Council is preparing materials for law enforcement agencies to initiate criminal proceedings and appeal to Interpol.”

Updated

Finland will not pay for Russian gas in roubles despite Russia’s request for European countries to do so, the Finnish minister in charge of European affairs, Tytti Tuppurainen, said.

Reuters cited Tuppurainen as telling reporters that Finland would seek to end its use of all Russian fossil fuel as soon as possible, adding:

Finland’s stance is clear. We support harsh sanctions ... and we are ready to sanction also gas.

Updated

A Ukrainian army soldier stands guard at the war-damaged Irpinsky Lipky residential complex following the visit of United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, in Irpin, Ukraine.
A Ukrainian army soldier stands guard at the war-damaged Irpinsky Lipky residential complex following the visit of United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, in Irpin, Ukraine. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images
The secretary general visited several towns around Kyiv that had been heavily damaged by Russian forces in their failed attempt to take the city.
The secretary general visited several towns around Kyiv that had been heavily damaged by Russian forces in their failed attempt to take the city. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

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Biden to propose using assets seized from Russian oligarchs to compensate Ukraine

The US president, Joe Biden, is expected to ask Congress for billions of dollars in additional US spending to support Ukraine’s military as well as new legal authorities to siphon assets from Russian oligarchs to pay for the war effort.

The White House said officials would seek the full amount they expect to need through September to support Ukraine’s military operations, as well as humanitarian and economic aid, its spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

The package of proposals would establish new authorities for cracking down on sanctions evasion and establish new protocols for how the seized funds can be used to help Ukraine rebuild.

Biden’s proposal would also enable the US to use proceeds from selling the seized assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs “to remediate harms of Russian aggression toward Ukraine”.

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Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney addressed the economic and social council at the UN on the situation in Ukraine.

Clooney is a part of a legal taskforce advising Ukraine on “securing accountability” for war crimes that could be pursued at a national level as well as at institutions such as the International Criminal Court.

UN secretary general describes war in Ukraine as ‘absurdity’ in 21st century

The UN secretary general has described the war in Ukraine as “an absurdity” in the 21st century on a visit to the scene of civilian killings outside Kyiv, as Russia warned the west that increasing arms supplies to Ukraine would endanger European security.

António Guterres was touring Borodianka on Thursday, where Russian forces are accused of massacring civilians before their withdrawal, on his first visit to Ukraine since the start of the invasion on 24 February, before talks with Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, visits a heavily damaged residential site in Irpin, Ukraine.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, visits a heavily damaged residential site in Irpin, Ukraine. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

“I imagine my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black,” said the UN secretary general, who has been criticised for visiting Ukraine only after having first met Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow.

“I see my granddaughters running away in panic,” Guterres said.

The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil. There is no way a war can be acceptable in the 21st century.

Guterres was accompanied by local military and civilian governors, who showed him residential buildings that had been destroyed in Russian attacks. He was also due to visit the towns of Bucha and Irpin, sites of further alleged Russian war crimes.

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Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has thanked Germany after lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favour of providing Kyiv with “heavy weapons and complex [weapons] systems”.

The petition in the Bundestag passed earlier today, with 586 votes in favour, 100 against, and seven abstentions. The vote represents a historic shift in policy for Germany — after the government held off for weeks on sending heavy equipment.

Kremlin warns ‘pumping' Ukraine with weapons will 'threaten European security'

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said western arms supplies to Ukraine posed a threat to the security of the European continent.

Peskov told reporters:

The tendency to pump weapons, including heavy weapons into Ukraine, these are the actions that threaten the security of the continent, provoke instability.

Peskov was responding to comments made by the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, on Wednesday that countries opposed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must “ramp up” military production to help Ukraine, including by supplying heavy weapons, tanks and planes.

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The former US marine Trevor Reed has landed at Kelly Field airport in San Antonio, Texas.

Reed, who had been held in a Russian jail since 2019, was freed in a prisoner swap with Russia, in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko.

From Rep. August Pfluger:

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The European Union will consider energy companies complying with Moscow’s requirement to open a second account, with Gazprombank in roubles, as a violation of sanctions against Russia, EU officials warned.

The EU “cannot accept” that payments in euros for Russian gas are considered completed by Moscow only after they are converted into roubles, the official said.

The EU official said:

If companies pay in euros, they are not in breach of the sanctions.

What we cannot accept is that companies are obliged to open a second account and that between the first and second account, the amount in euros is in the full hands of the Russian authorities and the Russian Central Bank, and that the payment is only complete when it is converted into roubles.

Such a system was an “absolutely clear circumvention of the sanctions”, the official added.

There is “consensus on this from all member states, is that none is willing to pay” in roubles, a senior EU official said.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Moscow has still not received a response from Kyiv regarding its latest proposals for a possible peace agreement.

Reuters cites Zakharova as saying:

As of this morning, at the time of preparing for the briefing, the Russian side has not received an answer.

The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed that it has submitted a written proposal for a possible peace agreement, but Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he had neither seen nor heard about it.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who has previously accused Kyiv of dragging out the peace process, said last week that diplomatic efforts to end the war remained stalled.

Hello, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong with you today on the blog, taking over from my colleague Martin Belam. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.

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The Antonov An-225 Mriya, the world’s largest cargo plane, destroyed in the Battle of Antonov Airport, in a ruined hangar, Hostomel, Kyiv Region, northern Ukraine.
The Antonov An-225 Mriya, the world’s largest cargo plane, destroyed in the Battle of Antonov Airport, in a ruined hangar, Hostomel, Kyiv Region, northern Ukraine. Photograph: Future Publishing/Getty Images

Today so far …

  • Russia’s foreign affairs ministry has issued another stern warning to western countries over encouragement given to Ukraine to strike within Russian territory.
  • Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said: “Such aggression against Russia cannot remain without an answer … further provocation prompting Ukraine to strike against Russian facilities will be met with a harsh response from Russia … Advisers from western countries staying in Ukraine’s decision-making centres will not necessarily be a problem for Russia’s response measures. We do not advise to continue trying our patience.”
  • Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak has defended Ukraine’s right to strike inside Russian, saying “Ukraine will defend itself in any way, including strikes on the warehouses and bases of the killers in Russia. The world recognizes this right.”
  • The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has repeated the assertion that it is legitimate for Ukraine to target logistics within Russian territory, saying: “If Ukraine did choose to target logistics infrastructure for the Russian army, that would be legitimate under international law.”
  • Wallace also suggested the UK would be supplying Ukraine with weaponry that can strike Russian naval forces in the Black Sea. Russia’s Black Sea fleet retains the ability to strike Ukrainian and coastal targets, despite its “embarrassing losses”, Britain’s defence ministry said in its latest intelligence report.
  • Russia’s defence ministry said that Russian missiles had struck four Ukrainian military targets overnight, destroying two missile and ammunition depots near the settlements of Barvinkove and Ivanivka in the east of the country.
  • The southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which Russia claims to have captured, will transition to using the rouble from 1 May, according to Russian state media.
  • The head of Ukrainian parliament’s energy committee, Andriy Herus, has attempted to reassure the country that energy supplies are secure in the short term. He said Ukraine has enough gas and electricity to meet its needs at the moment, but cautioned that he was less certain it would be able to do so in the late autumn.
  • The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is in Ukraine, and has visited Borodianka to see the destruction there.
  • Efforts are under way to get emergency contraception into Ukrainian hospitals as quickly as possible, as reports of rape after the Russian invasion continue to rise. About 25,000 packets of the medication, also known as the morning-after pill, have been sent by International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
  • More than 8,500 alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine are under investigation, Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office has said.
  • Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of Nato, has said in Brussels “if they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be welcomed with open arms to Nato.”
  • The Financial Times is reporting some of Europe’s largest gas importers are preparing to acquiesce to Russian demands that energy must be paid for in roubles. It says Gas distributors in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia are planning to open rouble accounts at Gazprombank in Switzerland.
  • Germany’s Bundestag lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a petition on support for Ukraine, backing the delivery of weapons including heavy arms to the country to help it fend off Russian attacks.
  • The UK government has released figures stating that about 27,100 people had arrived in the UK as refugees under the Ukraine visa schemes as of Monday. UNHCR states that 5,372,854 people have fled Ukraine for abroad since Russia’s latest invasion began on 24 February.
  • Former US marine Trevor Reed, who was detained in Russia and released in a prisoner swap between Russia and the US, has landed in his home country.

Léonie Chao-Fong will be taking over the blog now for the next few hours.

Updated

On that issue of the legitimacy of strikes by Ukraine on what it considers to be military targets within Russia’s borders, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak has just weighed in on Twitter, saying:

Ukraine should decide whether to strike Russian military facilities, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said. Russia has attacked Ukraine and killing civilians. Ukraine will defend itself in any way, including strikes on the warehouses and bases of the killers in Russia. The world recognizes this right.

Just as he was being reference by Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, the UK armed forces minister James Heappey has appeared in some photographs from Poland, where he is visiting British troops stationed with Nato there.

Russian foreign ministry: west must stop 'trying our patience' over Ukrainian strikes across border

In a press briefing Maria Zakharova the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign affairs ministry has issued another stern warning to Western countries – and in particular the UK – over encouragement given to Ukraine to strike within Russian territory. She said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was “being used” by the west, and told the west to stop trying the patience of Russia. She also threatened strikes on visiting Western dignitaries in Ukraine, saying:

Such aggression against Russia cannot remain without an answer. We would like Kyiv and western capitals to take seriously the statement by the Russian ministry of defence that further provocation prompting Ukraine to strike against Russian facilities will be met with a harsh response from Russia.

Advisors from Western countries staying in Ukraine’s decision-making centres will not necessarily be a problem for Russia’s response measures. We do not advise to continue trying our patience.

She cited UK armed forces minister James Heappey by name, saying that his words suggesting it was “entirely legitimate” for Ukraine to strike at Russian logistics over the border had been taken in Kyiv as a call to action.

She said “In other words, [Heappey was] effectively calling for Kyiv to use weapons provided by Nato countries.”

She suggested that the Ukrainian government was just a puppet regime of the west with no independence, telling President Volodymyr Zelenskiy “you are being used”, saying:

And again we can see that Zelenskiy’s regime is not independent, and that its decisions are fully depend on foreign curators. I believe that Western curators try to impose the thought that his actions are independent. I’m convinced that this is how a group of persons who we call the Kyiv regime thinks they came to independent decisions and that they control the situation. This is just an illusion. You are being used.

Germany’s Bundestag lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a petition on support for Ukraine, backing the delivery of weapons including heavy arms to the country to help it fend off Russian attacks.

“Alongside the broad economic isolation and decoupling of Russia from international markets, the most important and effective means to stop the Russian invasion is to intensify and speed up the delivery of effective weapons and complex systems including heavy arms,” the petition read.

Reuters reports the petition was backed by the three parties in the ruling coalition as well as the opposition conservatives, passing with 586 votes in favour, 100 against with seven abstentions.

The head of Ukrainian parliament’s energy committee has attempted to reassure the country that energy supplies are secure in the short term. Reuters reports he said Ukraine has enough gas and electricity to meet its needs at the moment, but cautioned that he was less certain it would be able to do so in the late autumn.

“Today, if we talk about gas volumes, we have enough. We consume less gas than is produced and even today gas is pumped into underground storage facilities,” Andriy Herus said on national television. “The same goes for electricity.”

He added: “There are enough gas and electricity resources in the country.”

Former US marine Trevor Reed lands in US – reports

Former US marine Trevor Reed, who was detained in Russia and released in a prisoner swap between Russia and the US, has landed in his home country, Reed’s spokesperson has just said. Reuters reports that the location where Reed landed was not immediately clear.

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Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign affairs ministry is giving a press briefing. She is currently saying that citizens of western European countries – she listed Italy, Spain, France and Britain among others – have turned a blind eye to Nazism in Ukraine.

She is giving a history lesson about what happened in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, and accuses Ukrainians of holding civilians hostage and using them as human shields.

She has also cited the events of 2 May 2014 when there were clashes in Odesa as a crime that has never been solved.

The UK government has released figures stating that about 27,100 people had arrived in the UK as refugees under the Ukraine visa schemes as of Monday.

UNHCR states that 5,372,854 people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s latest invasion began on 24 February.

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The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is in Ukraine, in a visit that has been heavily criticised for coming after he visited Russia, rather than before. This morning he has been in Borodianka, a town in the Kyiv region. Here are some of the images of the visit that have been sent to us over the newswires.

UN secretary-general António Guterres (2-R) speaks to officials during his visit to Borodianka.
António Guterres (second right) speaks to officials during his visit to Borodianka. Photograph: Laurence Figa-Talamanca/EPA
The UN secretary-general gestures as he walks during his visit to Borodianka.
The UN secretary general gestures as he walks during his visit to Borodianka. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images
A guard separates Guterres from the media in Borodianka.
A guard separates Guterres from the media in Borodianka. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images

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Russia’s defence ministry said that Russian missiles had struck four Ukrainian military targets overnight, destroying two missile and ammunition depots near the settlements of Barvinkove and Ivanivka in the east of the country.

Reuters reports the defence ministry said Russian forces had also downed a Ukrainian Su-24 aircraft near Luhansk. The Russian claims have not been independently verified.

Finland and Sweden will be welcomed 'with open arms' into Nato if they apply – Jens Stoltenberg

Roberta Metsola, the president of the European parliament, and Jens Stoltenberg the secretary general of Nato, have been giving a joint briefing to the media in Brussels. The key line to emerge is from Stoltenberg, who said:

It is, of course, for Finland and Sweden to decide whether they would like to apply for membership in Nato or not. But if they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be welcomed with open arms to Nato. Finland and Sweden are our closest partners.

Metsola said:

We will continue to call for further sanctions, and we will continue to call for the enforcement of the current packages of sanctions in a better way and more effective way. This we will continue also to discuss in Strasbourg next week, but in our case, this parliament will continue to build on the momentum of this unprecedented coordination that we have, which is extremely important, because we share the fundamental values and we share our defence of Ukraine’s right to defend itself.

European parliament president Roberta Metsola (R) welcomes Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg at the European parliament in Brussels.
The European parliament president, Roberta Metsola, welcomes the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, at the European parliament in Brussels. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images

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Some of Europe's largest gas importers preparing to pay in roubles – reports

The Financial Times is currently leading with reports that some of Europe’s largest gas importers are preparing to acquiesce to Russian demands that energy must be paid for in roubles. The Russian move has been described as akin to “blackmail” by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

The Financial Times reports:

Some of Europe’s largest energy companies are preparing to use a new payment system for Russian gas demanded by the Kremlin, which critics say will undercut EU sanctions, threaten the bloc’s unity and deliver billions in cash to Russia’s economy.

Gas distributors in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia are planning to open rouble accounts at Gazprombank in Switzerland in order to satisfy a Russian requirement for payments in its own currency, according to people with knowledge of the preparations.

The groups include two of the single largest importers of Russian gas: Düsseldorf-based Uniper and Vienna-based OMV.

Read more here: Financial Times – EU energy groups prepare to meet Vladimir Putin’s terms for Russian gas

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UK defence minister repeats assertion it is 'legitimate' for Ukraine to attack logistics targets within Russia

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has repeated the assertion that it is legitimate for Ukraine to target logistics within Russian territory. He told viewers of BBC television in the UK in an interview:

If Ukraine did choose to target logistics infrastructure for the Russian army, that would be legitimate under international law. It is certainly the case that Britain is assisting and finding artillery for Ukraine, which it is mainly using within Ukraine on Russian forces.

Reuters reports he said British weapons were unlikely to be used to strike Russia from Ukraine, as Ukrainian forces tend to use mobile launchers while the British army would deliver them from the air or sea.

Earlier this week Russia warned the UK after armed forces minister James Heappey expressed a similar view. Russia’s defence ministry said: “We would like to underline that London’s direct provocation of the Kyiv regime into such actions, if such actions are carried out, will immediately lead to our proportional response.”

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Lviv’s governor, Maksym Kozytskyi, has posted an update on Twitter. He says that the region had one air alert with the threat of a missile strike from the south-east, from the Black Sea, which air defence prevented. He described the situation as “calm and productive all day”, and said that police processed 1,568 complaints about suspicious people and objects.

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The governor of Luhansk oblast, Serhiy Haidai, has posted an update on the situation with utilities in the region. He says:

7,000 more Luhansk region subscribers without electricity, difficult situation with gas supply, Severodonetsk once again without water. The power outage occurred in the mountain community, where a Russian shell hit the substation. Currently, there is no electricity in 39 settlements - 26 in full and 13 in part.

Residents of Rubizhne, Popasna, partly Lysychansk, Novodruzhesk are without water supply. We have problems with centralized water supply to homes in Severodonetsk. The Russians damaged the power cable that fed the city’s main water intake.

Updated

Yuriy Ryzhenkov, the CEO of Metinvest which owns the Azovstal iron and steel works, has been speaking to Sky News in the UK from Kyiv. He said it had now been a long time since they had heard from any of their employees at the plant, which is besieged by Russian forces in the southern port city of Mariupol. He said:

Unfortunately, we don’t know how many of our employees are still at the plant. The situation there is, I would say, a humanitarian catastrophe. The food and water that was prepared by us in the shelters is probably over.

And the Russians, since the beginning of the war, did not allow people to leave safely the place, despite their announcement of so-called green corridors. They never worked.

Our last direct contact was some time ago, when we still had some employees with satellite phones, and they were able to conduct their daily meetings. Some people managed to get out at their own risk from the plant and get to our help centre. We’re talking to them and they’re telling us the stories what’s happening there.

More broadly on the conflict, he said:

Putin has made a huge damage to Ukraine, but he has destroyed Russia, and the Russians for generations will pay for that. We’re really seeing the world uniting around Ukraine to basically to stop this Russian aggression. And I mean, we’ve learned from the second world war, when the world unites, none of the aggressors were able to win.

The UK defence minister Ben Wallace has suggested that the UK will be supplying Ukraine with weaponry that can strike Russian naval forces in the Black Sea. He told Sky News earlier:

We have said we will source and supply, if we can, anti-ship missiles. It’s incredibly important that grain that affects us all, the food prices, does get out of Ukraine. It can’t control the Black Sea. It’s not theirs anymore. And therefore making sure that Russian ships are not used to bombard cities is important.

UK defence minister: Russian presence could become 'cancerous growth' in Ukraine

The UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has warned that having failed in his main objectives, Russian President Vladimir Putin may order his troops to fortify and dig in, and become a “cancerous growth” in Ukraine.

Interviewed on Sky News in the UK, he said the UK supported pushing Russia completely out of Ukraine, and did not rule out supporting Ukraine in recapturing Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. He said:

It’s certainly the case that Putin, having failed in nearly all of his objectives, may seek to consolidate what he’s got. Sort of fortify and dig in as he did in 2014. And just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country of Ukraine and make it very hard for people to move them out of those fortified positions. If we want this to not happen, we have to help Ukraine try to get the limpet off the rock and keep the momentum pushing them back.

The international community believes Russia should leave Ukraine. The international community condemned Russia for its invasion of Crimea, which was illegal in 2014, [and] its invasion of Donetsk. We’ve constantly said that Russia should leave Ukraine sovereign territory, so that hasn’t changed.

There’s a long way to go before Ukraine forces are in Crimea. What I would certainly say is that we are supporting Ukraine sovereign integrity. We’ve done that all along. Now of course that includes Crimea.

First and foremost, let’s get Russia out of where they are now in its invasion plans. And help Ukraine resolve – remember the Minsk agreement which Russia has basically ripped up was all about trying to resolve those two occupied territories. But the key thing here is to continue to support Ukraine’s sovereign integrity and their ability to defend themselves.

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Efforts are under way to get emergency contraception into Ukrainian hospitals as quickly as possible, as reports of rape after the Russian invasion continue to rise.

About 25,000 packets of the medication, also known as the morning-after pill, have been sent by International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to Ukraine, while a network of volunteers across Europe has been collecting donations of the medication from abroad and delivering them to hospitals.

“The timeframe for treating victims of sexual violence is really essential,” said Julie Taft, of IPPF. “If a woman is seen within five days of an event, then that medication should automatically be given to her.”

Taft said the IPPF was also sending medical abortion pills, which can be used up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

While emergency contraception was widely available in Ukraine, the war has destroyed local supply chains, caused a displacement of patients and healthcare providers, and increased the rate of sexual assaults.

“There is a demand for emergency contraception, but very rarely from hospitals in the west. It is mostly hospitals to the east, in Kharkiv, Mariupol, those regions,” said Joel Mitchell from Paracrew, a humanitarian aid organisation delivering food and medical equipment to Ukraine. “As soon as we made contact with hospitals in those regions, we had standing orders for that medication.”

Read our full story below:

The website of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk region in Russia has published news about its plans to “expropriate the surplus crops of farmers” in the occupied region of Kherson, Ukrainian media is reporting.

A rough Google translation appears to read: “This approach will be economically justified, given the withdrawal of many suppliers of seeds and fertiliSers from the Russian market, as well as significant costs for heat and electricity to grow their own vegetables and fruits.”

Here are some of the latest images to come out of Ukraine today.

A weapon belonging to a member of the Ukrainian army stands inside a house in a village at Huliaipole district, in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine.
A weapon belonging to a member of the Ukrainian army stands inside a house in a village at Huliaipole district, in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/EPA
A neighbourhood destroyed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv.
A neighbourhood destroyed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv. Photograph: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/REX/Shutterstock
Vera, 83, and Inna, 69, sit on their bunk bed in the bunker of Ostchem factory in Severodonetsk, eastern Ukraine.
Vera, 83, and Inna, 69, sit on their bunk bed in the bunker of Ostchem factory in Severodonetsk, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
Photos of the victims of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine are seen on the ‘Wall of Memory’ in Lviv.
Photos of the victims of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine are seen on the ‘Wall of Memory’ in Lviv. Photograph: Pavlo Palamarchuk/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

More than 8,500 alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine are under investigation, Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office has said.

A total of 8,653 cases have been reported and 217 children have been confirmed to have been killed, the office added.

Russia is almost 'weaponising energy supplies', White House says

Echoing Zelenskiy’s remarks, the White House also denounced Russia’s move to cut off energy supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.

Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a daily briefing on Wednesday:

Unfortunately this is the type of step, the type of almost weaponising energy supplies that we had predicted that Russia could take in this conflict.

And we have been working for some time now, for months, with partners around the world to diversify natural gas supply to Europe to — in anticipation of and to also address near-term needs and replace volumes that would otherwise come from Russia.”

Russia considers gas and trade as a weapon, Zelenskiy says

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pointedly accused Russia of “energy blackmail” against Europe in his most recent national address.

Zelenskiy said Russia’s decision to cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria shows “no one in Europe can hope to maintain any normal economic cooperation with Russia”.

This week, Russia’s leadership launched a new series of energy blackmail of Europeans. The decision to cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria is another argument in favour of the fact that no one in Europe can hope to maintain any normal economic cooperation with Russia.

Russia considers not only gas, but any trade as a weapon. It is just waiting for the moment when one or another trade area can be used. To blackmail Europeans politically. Or to strengthen Russia’s military machine, which sees a united Europe as a target.

Hence, the sooner everyone in Europe admits that it is inadmissible to depend on Russia in trade, the sooner it will be possible to guarantee stability in European markets.”

Russia’s Black Sea fleet retains ability to strike Ukrainian and coastal targets, UK MoD says

Russia’s Black Sea fleet retains the ability to strike Ukrainian and coastal targets, despite its “embarrassing losses”, Britain’s defence ministry said in its latest intelligence report this morning.

Approximately 20 Russian Navy vessels are currently in the Black Sea operational zone, including submarines.

The Bosporus Strait remains closed to all non-Turkish warships, rendering Russia unable to replace its lost cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea.

Despite the embarrassing losses of the landing ship Saratov and cruiser Moskva, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet retains the ability to strike Ukrainian and coastal targets.”

Kherson to transfer to rouble from 1 May, Russian official claims

The southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which Russia claims to have captured, will transition to using the rouble from 1 May, according to Russian state media.

Kirill Stremousov, the deputy chairman of the military-civilian administration of the region, told Ria Novosti that the transition would take place over a period of four months, during which the Russian rouble and the Ukrainian hryvnia will be in circulation.

After this period, the region will fully transition to using Russian currency, he added.

From May 1, we are moving into the ruble zone,” Stremousov told the outlet.

The Guardian has been unable to immediately independently verify Stremousov’s claims.

Russian forces used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse a pro-Ukraine rally that broke out on Wednesday, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said.

“During a peaceful pro-Ukrainian rally on Freedom Square in the city of Kherson, servicemen of the Russian armed forces used tear gas and stun grenades against the civilian population,” the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said in a statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the protests, saying in a late night address that “I am grateful to everyone who has not given up, who is protesting, who is ignoring the occupiers and showing the marginal people who have become collaborators that there is no future for them”.

The day before, local authorities said Russia appointed its own mayor to the city after its troops took over the administration headquarters in the regional capital.

Updated

War has cost Ukraine $600bn, Zelenskiy says

The total losses inflicted upon Ukraine from the war have reached $600 billion, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.

The president met with local and regional authorities on Wednesday to discuss Ukraine’s post war reconstruction. Zelenskiy said:

Preliminary estimates of Ukraine’s losses from this war reach $600 billion today. More than 32 million square meters of living space, more than 1,500 educational facilities and more than 350 medical facilities have been destroyed or damaged.

Economic entities suffered huge losses – hundreds of enterprises have been destroyed. About 2,500km of roads and almost 300 bridges have been ruined or damaged. And it’s not just statistics. This is Mariupol, this is Volnovakha, this is Okhtyrka, this is Chernihiv, this is Borodianka and dozens or dozens of our cities, towns and villages.”

According to the president, more than 11.5 million Ukrainians have fled their homes due to the fighting, and about 5 million of them have gone abroad with 95% of migrants already wanting to return home.

Damage caused to Ukraine’s infrastructure as a result of the war has reached almost $90 billion, the country’s minister of infrastructure added.

Most of the damage has been inflicted on railway, road and bridge infrastructure, Oleksandr Kubrakov said.

Truss urges ‘doubling down’ on support for Ukraine

The crisis in Ukraine must be the “catalyst for change” to overhaul the west’s approach to international security and the west should be “doubling down” on its support for Ukraine, the UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.

Speaking at Mansion House in London on Wednesday evening, Truss described Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, as a “desperate rogue operator with no interest in international norms”.

Faced with appalling barbarism and war crimes, which we’d hoped had been consigned to history, the free world has united behind Ukraine in its brave fight for freedom and self-determination.

Those who think they can win through oppression, coercion or invasion are being proved wrong by this new stand on global security – one that not only seeks to deter, but also ensures that aggressors fail.

We cannot be complacent – the fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance.

But let’s be clear – if Putin succeeds there will be untold further misery across Europe and terrible consequences across the globe. We would never feel safe again.

So we must be prepared for the long haul. We’ve got to double down on our support for Ukraine. And we must also follow through on the unity shown in the crisis. We must reboot, recast and remodel our approach.”

The foreign secretary suggested the west should be “digging deep into our inventories [and] ramping up production” of heavy weapons, tanks and planes while sanctions against Russia needed to go further to include cutting off oil and gas imports “once and for all”.

We are doubling down.

We will keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.

And this has to be a catalyst for wider change ...

The war in Ukraine is our war – it is everyone’s war because Ukraine’s victory is a strategic imperative for all of us.”

Putin warns of ‘lightning fast’ retaliation if west interferes in Ukraine

In an address to lawmakers in St Petersburg earlier on Wednesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow.

The Russian president said the west wanted to cut Russia up into different pieces and accused it of pushing Ukraine into conflict with Russia, adding:

If someone intends to intervene into the ongoing events (in Ukraine) from the outside and creates unacceptable strategic threats for us, then they should know that our response to those strikes will be swift, lightning fast.

Russian troops would not hesitate to use the most modern weaponry, Putin said:

We have all the tools for this — ones that no one can brag about. And we won’t brag. We will use them if needed. And I want everyone to know this.

We have already taken all the decisions on this.

Vladimir Putin warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow.
Vladimir Putin warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow. Photograph: Alexey Danichev/SPUTNIK/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

UN chief to meet Zelenskiy after talks with Putin

United Nations secretary general António Guterres is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy today after he arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Guterres is fresh from his visit to Russia where he met with Vladimir Putin, later describing the face-to-face tasks as “very useful.”

The secretary-general defended the role of the UN in terms of bringing an end to the two-month-old conflict but stressed the war “will not end with meetings” in an interview with CNN:

The war will not end with meetings. The war will end when the Russian Federation decides to end it and when there is – after a ceasefire – a possibility of a serious political agreement.

We can have all the meetings but that is not what will end the war.”

During Wednesday’s meeting with Putin, Guterres said he discussed the evacuation of civilians from the steel factory encircled in the southern port city of Mariupol.

He said Putin agreed “in principle” on the evacuation of civilians and that discussions were taking place between UN officials and Russia’s ministry of defence to fine tune the details.

“We are also in contact with the government of Ukraine to see if we can have a situation in which nobody can blame the other side for things not happening,” he said.

Summary and welcome

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments until my colleague, Martin Belam, takes the reins a little later in the day.

It is just past 7am in Ukraine. Here’s what we know so far:

  • Vladimir Putin has warned any countries attempting to interfere in Ukraine would be met with a “lightning-fast” response from Moscow. In an address to lawmakers in St Petersburg, the Russian president said troops would use “all the tools for this — ones that no one can brag about”.
  • The UK is “digging deep” into its inventories, including heavy weapons, tanks and aeroplanes, to defend Ukraine and other countries threatened by Russia, Truss added. “Some argue we shouldn’t provide heavy weapons for fear of provoking something worse. But my view, is that inaction would be the greatest provocation,” she said.
  • The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has arrived in Ukraine after meeting Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow. Guterres will meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Thursday.
  • Russia has warned other EU customers may be cut off from Russian natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s comments came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders denounced as “blackmail”, which the Kremlin later denied. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described Russia’s move as “a direct attack” on Poland.
  • The White House denounced Russia’s move to cut off energy supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a daily briefing on Wednesday: “Unfortunately this is the type of step, the type of almost weaponising energy supplies that we had predicted that Russia could take in this conflict.”
  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy described Russia’s actions as amounting to “energy blackmail” against Europe in his nightly national address. Zelenskiy said Russia’s decision to cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria shows “no one in Europe can hope to maintain any normal economic cooperation with Russia”.
  • A Ukrainian commander in the besieged city of Mariupol said there are more than 600 injured civilians and fighters in the Azovstal steel works. Serhiy Volyna, acting commander of the 36th marine brigade, said hundreds of civilians including children were living in unsanitary conditions and running out of food and water. Officials earlier said Russian forces were again attacking the huge steel plant.
  • The interior ministry of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria issued a statement claiming it came under attack from Ukraine. It said drones were spotted and shots were fired near Kolbasna, which it claims contains one of the largest ammunition dumps in Europe.
  • A former head of the Polish army has accused Boris Johnson of “tempting evil” by revealing that Ukrainian soldiers were being trained in Poland in how to use British anti-aircraft missiles before returning with them to Ukraine. Gen Waldemar Skrzypczak complained that a loose-lipped PM had revealed too much to the Russians and that his remarks risked the safety of the soldiers involved.
  • The European Commission has proposed suspending import duties on all Ukrainian products to help the country’s economy during the war with Russia. The proposed one-year suspension, which would need to be approved by the European Parliament and its 27 member states, comes a day after Britain announced it was dropping all tariffs on Ukrainian goods.
  • Russia’s foreign ministry announced sanctions on 287 members of Britain’s House of Commons, accusing them of “whipping up Russophobic hysteria”. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said those members who had been hit with sanctions by Russia should regard it as “a badge of honour”.
  • A top executive at one of Russia’s largest private banks said he has quit his post and fled to Kyiv to fight for Ukraine. In an interview with the independent Russian news outlet The Insider, Ukrainian-born Igor Volobuev, vice president of Gazprombank, said he “could no longer be in Russia” and that he wants to “wash off” his Russian past.
  • Two American volunteers fighting in Ukraine were reportedly wounded by artillery fire near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region. US army veterans Manus McCaffrey and Paul Gray were working together as a team targeting Russian tanks with Javelin anti-tank systems when they were injured, according to reports.
  • The total losses inflicted upon Ukraine from the war have reached $600bn, Zelenskiy said. “More than 32m square metres of living space, more than 1,500 educational facilities and more than 350 medical facilities have been destroyed or damaged,” he added. “About 2,500km of roads and almost 300 bridges have been ruined or damaged.”
  • The rouble soared to a more than two-year high against the euro in Moscow trade on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

As usual, please feel free to reach out to me by email or Twitter for any tips or feedback.

Iryna Terekhova (55) stands in the entrance to her destroyed house in Lukashivka village in the Chernihiv region.
Iryna Terekhova (55) stands in the entrance to her destroyed house in Lukashivka village in the Chernihiv region. Photograph: Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA

Updated

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