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Mariupol evacuation convoy reaches safety
A large convoy of hundreds of cars and vans carrying refugees from the ruins of Mariupol arrived in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday night after waiting days for Russian troops to allow them to leave, Reuters reports.
Mariupol, now mostly Russian-controlled, has been flattened during the 80-day-old war. Ukraine has gradually been evacuating civilians from the devastated city for more than two months.
Refugees first had to get out of Mariupol and then somehow make their way to Berdyansk – 50 miles further west along the coast – and other settlements before the 125-mile drive northwest to Zaporizhzhia.
Nikolai Pavlov, a 74-year-old retiree, told Reuters he had lived in a basement for a month after his apartment was destroyed. A relative using “secret detours” managed to get him out of Mariupol to Berdyansk.
“We barely made it, there were lots of elderly people among us. The trip was devastating. But it was worth it,” he said after the convoy arrived in the dark.
An aide to Mariupol’s mayor had earlier said the convoy numbered between 500 to 1,000 cars, representing the largest single evacuation from the city since Russia’s 24 February invasion.
Updated
Here’s more of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s comments from his Instagram post tonight recalling his earlier meeting with US politicians, including the Senate minority speaker Mitch McConnell.
Zelenskiy said he was especially grateful for Joe Biden signing into law this week an update to the second world war era Lend-Lease act, which allows for faster production and delivery by the US of weapons and munitions to allies engaged in conflicts it is not itself a direct participant:
I believe that this visit once again demonstrates the strength of bipartisan support for our state, the strength of ties between the Ukrainian and American nations.
I expressed gratitude for the historic decision to renew the Lend-Lease program. I called for the official recognition of Russia as a terrorist state.
More and more countries around the world are realizing that Russia, by blocking the Black Sea for us and continuing this war, puts dozens of other countries at risk of a price crisis in the food market and even famine.
This is another incentive for our anti-war coalition to act more decisively together.
Updated
Russia’s ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov says his country’s diplomats in Washington DC are being threatened with violence and harassed by US intelligence services, Reuters is reporting, citing the Tass news agency of Russia.
Antonov told Russian TV on Saturday that face-to-face meetings with US officials ended on 24 February, the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that his staff were facing an impossible situation:
It’s like a besieged fortress. Basically, our embassy is operating in a hostile environment. Embassy employees are receiving threats, including threats of physical violence.
Agents from US security services are hanging around outside the Russian embassy, handing out CIA and FBI phone numbers, which can be called to establish contact.
Reuters said the CIA, the FBI, the office of the director of national intelligence and the US state department did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreev, was pelted in red paint by war protestors at a VE day commemoration in Warsaw on Monday.
Reuters notes that Russia and the US were already in dispute over the size and functioning of their respective diplomatic missions before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Moscow expelled a number of US diplomats in March after Washington said it was kicking out 12 Russian diplomats at the country’s UN mission in New York.
Zelenskiy thanks visiting US senators, warns Donbas situation 'very difficult'
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday thanked a slew of US politicians for coming to Kyiv, and warned that the situation in the eastern Donbas region, under an onslaught from the Russian military, “remains very difficult”.
Zelenskiy was speaking in a series of Instagram videos released on the 80th day of Russia’s invasion.
The visit by US Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and a small group of Republican senators, the latest in a growing list of US politicians coming to the Ukraine capital, was a powerful signal of bipartisan support for his country, he said.
He added that his discussions with McConnell, and a delegation including Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, John Barrasso of Wyoming and John Cornyn of Texas, covered a range of topics, including repeating his call for Russia to be designated a terrorist state:
We discussed many areas of support for our state, including in defence and finance, as well as strengthening sanctions against Russia.
Earlier, he praised the politicians directly for their visit:
Thank you for your leadership in helping us in our struggle not only for our country, but also for democratic values and freedoms. We really appreciate it.
Russia is committing genocide against the Ukrainian people. [Russian president Vladimir Putin] commits war crimes that horrify the whole world – torture, mass executions, rape. Europe has not seen such crimes since world war two.
Their trip came as a $40bn US military, economic and humanitarian aid package remains stalled in the Senate over demands issued by the Kentucky senator Rand Paul for a watchdog to track the spending.
Moscow’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, told Russian TV on Saturday that closer American cooperation with Ukraine was “extremely dangerous”, Reuters reported:
The US is getting dragged ever deeper into a conflict with the most unpredictable consequences for relations between the two nuclear powers.
Meanwhile, in a Saturday night Instagram post, Zelenskiy blasted Russia’s continued assault on the Donbas region as “insane”:
The situation in Donbas remains very difficult. Russian troops are still trying to show at least some victory. On the 80th day of the full-scale invasion, it looks especially insane, but they do not stop all these efforts.
I am grateful to everyone who holds the line and brings closer to Donbas, Pryazovia and Kherson the same thing that is happening now in the Kharkiv region. Step by step we are forcing the occupiers to leave our land. We will make them leave the Ukrainian sea as well.
Updated
Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said Saturday that Russia must take responsibility for the damage caused by its invasion of Ukraine, CNN reports.
Baerbock was speaking at the concluding press conference at the G7 meeting of foreign ministers in Berlin, at which the group also warned millions could starve if Russia does not lift its Black Sea blockade of Ukrainian grain exports.
Germany has been one of the most outspoken countries at the summit, with Baerbock slamming Russia’s “illegal war”:
Russia is solely responsible, not only for this war, which is contrary to international law, but also for all this massive damage, which is also massive in Russia itself.
The Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly said on Saturday that her country could legally use Russian money seized by sanctions to pay for the damages, CNN said. But Baerbock said Europe’s legal framework made it more difficult:
Access to frozen money is legally anything but simple. When we put people on sanctions lists, we have to ... provide explanations for them so that they are also valid before the European court of justice.
That applies all the more to this path, if we were to take it, for which there are some good reasons. It must of course be such that it stands up before our law; we are defending international law.
Read my colleague Daniel Boffey’s report on the G7 summit here:
Summary
It’s midnight on Sunday in Kyiv after the 80th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Here’s what we’ve been following:
- The US Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, joined the growing list of US politicians making visits to Kyiv. The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed McConnell’s visit as a powerful signal of bipartisan support for Ukraine.
- Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, told Vladimir Putin Helsinki plans to join Nato. Niinistö delivered the news during a phone call with the Russian leader.
- In response, Putin said abandoning neutrality would be a mistake and that there are no current threats to Finland’s security. Russia has described Helsinki’s bid to join Nato as a hostile move that “definitely” would represent a threat – to which Moscow will respond.
- Ukraine says Moscow is planning to hold a referendum, perhaps as early as Sunday, on whether Mariupol wants to become part of Russia. It follows news of a similar poll in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia and allegations from western allies that Russia is planning sham referendums to justify military actions.
- Russian troops have withdrawn from the Kharkiv city area, its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said. He said that, “due to the efforts of Kharkiv territorial defence and Ukrainian armed forces, the Russians have withdrawn out far from the city area in the direction of the Russian border”.
- The war will be over by the end of 2022, Ukraine’s head of military intelligence said. Major general Kyrylo Budanov claimed Moscow was suffering heavy casualties and predicted a turning point by mid-August – adding his belief that “most of the active combat actions will have finished by the end of this year”.
- Moscow is failing to reach its political aims in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said. The fact Russia has only succeeded in imposing a pro-Russia local leadership in the city of Kherson “highlights the failure of Russia’s invasion to make progress towards its political objectives”, the latest intelligence update said.
- “Very difficult negotiations” on the next stage of evacuations from Mariupol were ongoing, Zelenskiy said. The city’s last remaining Ukrainian defenders are holed up in the Azovstal steel plant.
Updated
Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra made a plea for the city of Mariupol and its besieged Azovstal steel plant at the end of their appearance in the Eurovision 2022 song contest.
The group’s lead singer Oleh Psiuk made the comments at the conclusion of its performance in Turin of the song Stefania, Reuters reports. Ukraine is a heavy favourite to win this year’s competition:
Please help Ukraine, Mariupol. Help Azovstal right now.
In a video address released before the event, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believed the Kalush Orchestra would win.
Follow our live blog of the Eurovision song contest here:
Russia is denying Ukraine’s claim that it damaged a navy support ship in a missile strike in the Black Sea, Reuters is reporting.
The Russian defence ministry published online photographs it said were taken of the auxiliary vessel Vsevolod Bobrov in the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Saturday.
“It is now clear from the photographs that the ship is not damaged at all,” a statement accompanying the images claimed.
On Thursday, military authorities in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region said its navy had made a direct hit on the Vsevolod Bobrov, setting it alight, and stating Russia had “lost” the 95-metre logistics vessel.
Last month the missile cruiser Moskva, flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, sank after catching fire. Ukraine said it hit the ship with a missile fired from the coast, while Moscow blamed an ammunition explosion.
It emerged earlier this month that the US shared information about the Moskva’s location with Ukraine prior to its sinking.
Here’s a selection of images from Ukraine on Day 80 of Russia’s invasion.
In Irpin:
In Dnipropetrovsk:
In Bucha:
In Kyiv:
In Lysychansk:
Ukraine: Moscow 'planning Mariupol referendum'
Moscow is preparing to hold a referendum in Mariupol on whether the city will join Russia, Ukrainian officials have claimed, following the announcement of a similar poll in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the port city’s mayor, who is operating in exile, said sources among those remaining among its ruins believed a vote on its future was in the making, even as residents were going without food and water.
The ruins left of Mariupol, a sea resort once home to 400,000 people, are largely occupied by Russia, although as many as 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers are holding out in the sprawling Azovstal steelworks by the port in the face of remorseless shelling.
Andryushchenko told the Observer that an announcement of a referendum could come as early as Sunday, although he said there was no evidence yet of polling stations being established:
We have some information that the Russian authorities are preparing a referendum and could even call it tomorrow, but we don’t know yet if this is the case. But we see lots of integration of Mariupol into the Russian system, the education system, the banking system.
South Ossetia leader Anatoly Bibilov had announced on Friday he would hold a referendum on joining Russia on 17 July, claiming “we are coming home” and citing his people’s “historic aspiration” to join Russia.
Moscow’s initial plan to seize the whole of Ukraine failed after they lost the bloody battle of Kyiv. The Kremlin has since focused on securing a swathe of land around the east and south-east of the country.
Read more:
Updated
Relatives of wounded Ukrainian soldiers holed up in a besieged steel plant in the port city of Mariupol have been talking with the US news network CNN, saying: “Our children are in hell.”
Earlier today, Turkey proposed carrying out a sea evacuation of hundreds of wounded fighters from the Azovstal plant in the city under Russian control, although Moscow has not yet agreed to the plan.
Speaking with CNN, Stavr Vishnyak, whose son Artem, 21, is among the cut-off Ukrainian troops, called on Turkey and China to facilitate the safe removal of the fighters before it was too late:
Our children are in hell. We ask the world community again and again to make the extraction procedure. The petition to save Mariupol has collected one-and-a-half million signatures. We have already reached out to everyone.
Only Xi Jinping remained. We ask [the] president of China to mediate, intervene and become a peacemaker in this war. Our heroes have almost no time left. Our warriors have already been to hell. Give them the opportunity to step on the earth and see the sun.
A number of civilians who were sheltering in the steelworks were evacuated earlier this month with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN.
Under the Turkish plan, evacuees would be taken by land to the port of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov, and be picked up by a Turkish vessel that would take them across the Black Sea to Istanbul.
Ukraine has not commented on a possible sea evacuation, but the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said talks were under way to evacuate a large number of wounded soldiers from the steelworks in return for the release of Russian prisoners of war.
According to CNN, a Ukrainian soldier inside the plant described horrific and unsanitary conditions for the wounded on Ukrainian TV on Saturday:
Fighters are simply lying without limbs, without arms, without legs.
Updated
The Observer’s Jon Ungoed-Thomas has been looking at how fraud at Russia’s National Bank Trust could end up helping to fund the country’s war in Ukraine, and how the film star Bruce Willis inadvertently got caught up in the scheme:
In one of Russia’s most high-profile marketing campaigns, film star Bruce Willis appeared in cinematic advertisements with a car chase and a rooftop rescue, ending with the slogan, “Trust is just like me, but a bank.”
The campaign for National Bank Trust in 2011 – which included cardboard cutouts of Willis popping up in 400 branches across Russia – was credited with raising the bank’s profile and boosting business.
Ministers are now under pressure to impose sanctions on the bank over its efforts to recover hundreds of millions of pounds in debts from the UK.
A decade ago, money was pouring in to the bank’s coffers from clients and large chunks were sent around the world in loans for a network of offshore companies. But it was subsequently alleged that the elaborate corporate structure incorporated fake documents and was a fraudulent scheme that concealed bad debts and enriched key executives.
Willis, whose family announced earlier this year he had the neurological disorder aphasia, had no knowledge of the alleged scheme.
The high court in London ruled in January 2020 that the bank was owed $900m (£735m) compensation from three former bosses, two settled in Britain, allegedly involved in the scheme. The bank is now seeking to recover money owed in the UK, but ministers face questions on whether sanctions will stop it getting the cash.
National Bank Trust is now majority owned by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, so any money recovered in Britain could flow back to the Russian state.
Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, said:
There are too many question marks around the National Bank Trust and whether it is, in fact, able to channel funds to the Putin regime.
We need crystal-clear answers about whether it is able to raise foreign cash, that the Kremlin is so desperate for, and send it back to Russia.
Read the full story:
Slovakia is weighing in on plans by Finland and Sweden to join Nato. The country’s foreign minister, Ivan Korčok, told reporters on Saturday he is confident all 30 member states of the alliance will welcome them.
Arriving for the gathering of Nato leaders in Berlin, Korčok said Slovakia was “absolutely ready” to support admission of the two Nordic nations, Reuters reports. He was also asked how long the allies were willing to support Ukraine’s efforts to repel the Russian invasion:
Until they win. Russia has lost this war politically, it has achieved the contrary which Russia wanted to achieve.
Good afternoon, good evening, or good morning, depending on where you are. It’s Richard Luscombe in the US, and I’ll be guiding you through the next few hours.
Retired lieutenant general Mark Hertling, former commander of the US Army in Europe, has retweeted a video apparently showing an undisciplined Russian tank crew in Mariupol running over civilian vehicles, presumably for their own amusement. Hertling says he would court martial the occupants.
The translation from the Ukrainian text in the original tweet reads: “The garbage that captured Mariupol for fun shoots houses and crushes the cars of locals with tanks. It is obvious that the Russians came not to defend, but to rob, kill and destroy. Defenders do not behave this way”.
The Russian tanks have major design flaws. That’ not their biggest issue.
— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) May 14, 2022
The real problem is a lack of soul, values, discipline & professionalism of Russian soldiers.
In @1stArmoredDiv I would have court martialed this tank crew. https://t.co/VzsYP8PdEW
Norway on Saturday backed plans of Finland and Sweden to join Nato against criticism from Turkey.
Norwegian foreign minister Anniken Huitfeld said as she arrived for a meeting with her Nato counterparts in Berlin:
We don’t know what Turkey really means but from [the] Norwegian perspective, we are 100% behind Finland and Sweden if they decide to apply for membership in Nato.
This will also strengthen the Nordic cooperation because we chose differently after World War 2, so I think that this is a historic moment right now.
Dutch foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra echoed her, and said it was important that all Nato members showed unity, Reuters reports.
Updated
Russia has denied responsibility for rising food prices and the risk of a global hunger crisis, and has reacted sharply to such accusations by German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock.
Writing on her Telegram channel on Saturday, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blamed rising prices on Western sanctions, dpa reports.
“If you don’t understand that, it’s either a sign of stupidity or deliberately misleading the public,” she told Baerbock.
Another reason for the global food crisis is, according to Zakharova, the collapse of Ukraine’s statehood, for which she also holds the west responsible.
“One of the reasons for this is the predecessors of Ms Baerbock, who not only interfered in the situation in the country, but also shaped Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy by hand,” Zakharova claimed.
Baerbock had previously expressed concerns about an imminent global famine at the Baltic Sea G7 meeting, and had accused Russia of blocking Ukraine’s seaports and thus preventing grain exports.
Ukraine is one of the most important grain producers in the world.
Updated
The foreign ministers of Finland and Turkey will meet in Berlin later on Saturday to try to solve disagreements over Finland’s and Sweden’s plan to join Nato, Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto said.
He told reporters he was “confident that in the end we will find a solution and Finland [and] Sweden will become members of Nato” as he arrived for a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Berlin, adding he had spoken to his “good colleague” Mevlut Cavusoglu by phone on Friday.
Referring to a phone call initiated by Finland’s president to Vladimir Putin, Haavisto said it was “very important that we communicate with our neighbour” even if “we don’t ask any permission for our political steps”.
Updated
People fleeing the war in Ukraine are being put up with UK hosts who have not had a criminal record check, it has emerged, adding to concerns about the government’s response to the refugee crisis.
46,100 Ukrainians have so far arrived in the UK, and in many cases, people have been housed for weeks by hosts who still are waiting for their Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
My colleagues Mark Townsend and Anna Fazackerley have more.
Portugal has blocked the sale of a €10m mansion belonging to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, Publico newspaper said on Saturday.
The property registry of the mansion in the luxury Quinta do Lago resort in the Algarve was frozen so the ownership cannot change on 25 March at the request of the foreign ministry, according to the report.
The sanctioned former Chelsea owner tried to sell the property 15 days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began through the Delaware-based Millhouse Views LLC, owned by his investment holding.
Portugal’s largest bank, Caixa Geral de Depositos, alerted authorities, the newspaper said. The bank declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Abramovich did not respond to phone calls and messages from journalists.
Abramovich has been sanctioned by the British government, the EU and Switzerland over his links to Russian president Vladimir Putin, an allegation which he denies.
He was granted Portuguese citizenship last year based on a law offering naturalisation to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the mediaeval Inquisition.
Updated
Turkey has proposed carrying out a sea evacuation of hundreds of wounded fighters holed up in a steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, president Tayyip Erdoğan’s spokesman and top foreign policy adviser, Ibrahim Kalin, said on Saturday.
Mariupol is under Russian control, and a number of civilians who were sheltering in the steel works were evacuated earlier this month with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN.
Kalin told Reuters he had personally discussed the proposal with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv two weeks ago and that it remained “on the table” although Moscow had not agreed to it.
Under the plan, evacuees would be taken by land to the port of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov, and be picked up by a Turkish vessel that would take them across the Black Sea to Istanbul, he said.
“If it can be done that way, we are happy to do it. We are ready. In fact our ship is ready to go and bring the injured soldiers and other civilians to Turkey,” Kalin said.
Ukraine and Russia did not immediately comment on the possibility of an evacuation by sea.
Zelenskiy has said complex talks were under way to evacuate a large number of wounded soldiers from the steel works in return for the release of Russian prisoners of war.
Kalin said the Russian position “changes day to day”.
Turkey objected to Russia’s invasion and has supplied Kyiv with armed drones, but opposes western sanctions on Moscow.
Updated
Summary
That’s it from me for today. Thanks for reading. I’m handing you over to my colleague Jedidajah Otte, who’ll take you through the next few hours. Here’s a summary of the day’s main developments:
- The US Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, joined the growing list of US politicians making visits to Kyiv. The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed McConnell’s visit as a powerful signal of bipartisan support for Ukraine.
- Finland’s president Sauli Niinistö told Vladimir Putin Helsinki plans to join Nato. Niinistö delivered the news during a phone call with the Russian leader.
- In response, Putin said abandoning neutrality would be a mistake and that there are no current threats to Finland’s security. Russia has described Helsinki’s bid to join Nato as a hostile move that “definitely” would represent a threat – to which Moscow will respond.
- Russian troops have withdrawn from the Kharkiv city area, its mayor Ihor Terekhov said. He said that, “due to the efforts of Kharkiv territorial defence and Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russians have withdrawn out far from the city area in the direction of the Russian border”.
- The war will be over by the end of 2022, Ukraine’s head of military intelligence said. Major general Kyrylo Budanov claimed Moscow was suffering heavy casualties and predicted a turning point by mid-August – adding his belief that “most of the active combat actions will have finished by the end of this year”.
- Moscow is failing to reach its political aims in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said. The fact Russia has only succeeded in imposing a pro-Russia local leadership in the city of Kherson “highlights the failure of Russia’s invasion to make progress towards its political objectives,” the latest intelligence update said.
- “Very difficult negotiations” on the next stage of evacuations from Mariupol were ongoing, Zelenskiy said. The city’s last remaining Ukrainian defenders were holed up in the Azovstal steel plant.
Hungary’s president, Katalin Novák, has condemned Russia’s invasion and said her first trip will take her to Poland – an apparent gesture to mend relations with Warsaw – during her inauguration ceremony.
Reuters reports that Hungary’s refusal to send weapons shipments to neighbouring Ukraine and its opposition to a planned EU embargo on Russian oil imports has weighed on relations between Budapest and Warsaw, whose two nationalist governments have long been allies in the EU.
Novák, a former Fidesz party lawmaker and an ally of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was elected to the largely ceremonial post of president in March – shortly before Orbán won another landslide victory in elections on 3 April.
Hungary’s first female president, Novák has served as deputy chair of Fidesz and was family affairs minister in Orbán’s previous government. During her inauguration speech, she said:
On Tuesday, 17 May, I am travelling to Warsaw to meet the president of the Polish people. Mr President, dear Andrzej (Duda), I thank you for the opportunity to talk as befits friends.
We condemn Putin’s aggression, the armed invasion of a sovereign state. We say eternally no to every effort aiming at the restoration of the Soviet Union.
She said the war in Ukraine was also “fought against us peace-loving Hungarians”, adding that Hungary demanded that war crimes be investigated and punished.
Updated
Senior US senators visit Zelenskiy
The US Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has joined the growing list of US politicians making visits to Kyiv, it has emerged.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, welcomed McConnell’s visit as a powerful signal of bipartisan support for Ukraine.
McConnell led a delegation, which included Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, John Barrasso of Wyoming and John Cornyn of Texas, to the Ukrainian capital, where he was hosted by Zelenskiy.
In remarks and video posted on Instagram on Saturday, Zelenskiy told the visitors Ukraine was defending not only its own state but all democratic values and freedoms and the right of people to freely choose their own future.
Thank you for your leadership in helping us in our struggle not only for our country, but also for democratic values and freedoms. We really appreciate it.
Russia is committing genocide against the Ukrainian people. [Putin] commits war crimes that horrify the whole world – torture, mass executions, rape. Europe has not seen such crimes since world war two.
The visit comes as a $40bn US military aid budget has stalled in the Senate over demands issued by the Kansas senator Rand Paul for a watchdog to track the spending.
In a rare bipartisan request, McConnell and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer – a Democrat – offered Paul a vote on his amendment to the package. That offer was rejected, with Paul saying he wanted changes to the underlying bill.
Updated
When Prof Gavin Brown, pro vice-chancellor at Liverpool University, first made contact with academics at Sumy State University (SSU) in north-eastern Ukraine a few weeks ago, he did not expect to come off the call and start ordering new windows.
One of SSU’s main buildings had been destroyed in a Russian bomb attack. Among the university’s many immediate needs, it had to replace 110 windows – but managers could not source glass in war-torn Ukraine. Brown told them to send him the measurements.
Liverpool is one of 44 British universities that have signed up in recent weeks to “twin” with a struggling Ukrainian university. UK academics say the weekly Zoom meetings, slotted in around air raid sirens, with female staff who have fled calling in from across Europe, are “humbling” and “emotional”. The idea is to make sure that when the war with Russia ends, Ukraine’s universities will still exist, so their staff and students can help rebuild the battered country.
Updated
Turkey has not shut the door to Sweden and Finland joining Nato, but wants negotiations with the Nordic countries and a clampdown on what it sees as terrorist activities especially in Stockholm, a spokesman for the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said.
Ibrahim Kalın, who is also the president’s top foreign policy adviser, has told Reuters:
We are not closing the door. But we are basically raising this issue as a matter of national security for Turkey.
Erdoğan surprised Nato members and the two Nordic countries seeking membership by saying on Friday it was not possible for Turkey to support enlarging the alliance because Finland and Sweden were “home to many terrorist organisations”, the news agency reports.
Any country seeking to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization needs the unanimous support of the members of the alliance. The United States and other member states have been trying to clarify Ankara’s position.
Stockholm is widely expected to follow Helsinki’s lead and could apply for entry to the 30-nation alliance as early as Monday.
But Kalın has said the militant Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) – designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union – was fundraising and recruiting in Europe and its presence is “strong and open and acknowledged” in Sweden in particular.
What needs to be done is clear: they have to stop allowing PKK outlets, activities, organisations, individuals and other types of presence to ... exist in those countries.
Nato membership is always a process. We will see how things go. But this is the first point that we want to bring to the attention of all the allies as well as to Swedish authorities.
Of course, we want to have a discussion, a negotiation with Swedish counterparts.
Updated
Ukrainian forces are on the counteroffensive near the Russian-held town of Izyum, Reuters reports, citing the governor of the Kharkiv region.
The news agency calls the move a striking at a key axis of Russia’s assault on eastern Ukraine and notes that a major and successful counteroffensive on that Russian line of advance would deal a serious setback for Moscow in the battle for the Donbas, a region in Ukraine’s east that Russia has said it wants to capture completely.
Moscow’s forces have been trying to fight their way south from the town of Izyum, the northern part of a Russian pincer movement aimed at outflanking battle-hardened Ukrainian forces dug in to defend the eastern frontline. The regional governor, Oleh Sinegubov, has said:
The hottest spot remains the Izyum direction. Our armed forces have switched to a counteroffensive there. The enemy is retreating on some fronts and this is the result of the character of our armed forces.
In a possible shift in momentum in the war, Ukraine has been recapturing territory in its north-east, driving Russia away from the second-largest Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in their fastest advance since Moscow’s troops pulled away from Kyiv.
Ukrainian forces destroyed parts of a Russian armoured column as it tried to cross a river in the Donbas, video from Ukraine’s military showed on Friday, and its defence minister predicted many weeks of grinding fighting ahead.
Updated
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is claiming the west has announced a “total hybrid war” against Russia and says it is hard to predict how long it will last. He said everyone would feel the consequences of this war, Reuters reports.
Efforts by the west to isolate Russia are doomed to fail, Lavrov claims; a reference to sanctions over Ukraine.
Updated
Relatives of Ukrainian soldiers trapped in Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant are calling on China’s president, Xi Jinping, to save the encircled troops, saying he’s the last world leader that Moscow would listen to, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. The agency says:
Five wives of the Ukrainian soldiers and one father gave a press conference in Kyiv, in another desperate appeal to help the soldiers, holed up in the underground tunnels of the huge factory that has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks.
‘There is only one man left in the world that we can address, it is the Chinese leader,’ said Stavr Vychniak, the father of one of the trapped soldiers.
‘China has a big influence on Russia and on (Russian president Vladimir) Putin personally. We ask for him to intervene,’ he sad.
He called on Xi to ‘take necessary measures for the extraction’ of the soldiers.
‘They are in hell, under constant bombardment,’ he said, calling on wounded soldiers and bodies of dead soldiers to be removed from the plant.
Western powers and Ukraine have repeatedly urged China to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while Beijing, which has good relations with Moscow, has tried to maintain a neutral stance.
Natalia Zarytska, the wife of one of the trapped soldiers, also called for China’s help. ‘There is still a person in this world to whom Putin struggles to say no to,’ she said, calling on Xi to ‘join in to save’ the soldiers.
‘We are confident that China, strong and noble, is able to take decisions difficult in the name of good.’
Zarytska said she receives messages from her husband, saying they are under attack ‘from sea, ground and air’ and that Russia is dragging out ‘this painful process of torture.’
She called on the world ‘not to be silent and stop this destruction’ at Azovstal.
Ukraine’s Azov battalion that has led the defence of Mariupol has posted desperate videos from he plant, saying soldiers are ‘dying’ from their wounds there.
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Putin tells Finland's president abandoning neutrality a mistake
Vladimir Putin has told Finnish president Sauli Niinistö that abandoning Finnish neutrality would be a mistake and that there are no security threats to Finland, Reuters reports.
Reuters is citing the Russian state-owned Ria news agency.
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Finnish president calls Putin to tell him of Nato plan
Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, told Vladimir Putin about Helsinki’s plans to join Nato by phone, Reuters reports.
Russia has said Finland’s bid to join Nato was a hostile move that “definitely” posed a threat to its security, to which it will respond.
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Russian troops have retreated from Kharkiv and local area, says mayor
The major of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, has told the BBC that Russian troops have withdrawn from the Kharkiv city area.
He said that “due to the efforts of Kharkiv territorial defence and Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russians have withdrawn out far from the city area in the direction of the Russian border”.
He added that it was now “calm in Kharkiv and people are gradually coming back to the city”.
There was “no shelling in the city for the last five days”, he said, explaining that there was only “one attempt” from Russian forces to hit the city with a missile rocket near Kharkiv airport. But, he said, “the missile was eliminated by Ukrainian Air Defence”.
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Here’s a little more detail on the joint statement issued by the G7 nations, which Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports have vowed never to recognise the borders Russia is trying to redraw and have pledged enduring support for Kyiv.
After three days of talks in northern Germany, the foreign ministers said:
We will never recognise borders Russia has attempted to change by military aggression, and will uphold our engagement in the support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea, and all states.
They also vowed to expand sanctions to include sectors on which Russia is dependent, and keep supplying Ukraine with weapons to help it repel Russia’s invasion.
We reaffirm our determination to further increase economic and political pressure on Russia, continuing to act in unity.
Western countries have supplied Ukraine with artillery, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank weapons and other powerful material, but Kyiv has been pushing allies for more support.
As the war drags on, G7 foreign ministers also highlighted the growing impact of the war on poorer countries, especially in regard to food security.
AFP reports that ministers also criticised Belarus over its stance on the war.
We ... call on Belarus to stop enabling Russia’s aggression and to abide by its international obligations.
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Russian Su-27 fighter jets have taken part in drills to repel a mock airstrike on Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave, the Interfax news agency reports, citing the Baltic Sea fleet.
The drills took place two days after Finland announced plans to apply to join Nato, with Sweden likely to follow; moves that would bring about the expansion of the western military alliance that Putin has said he aims to prevent.
The Russian Baltic Sea fleet’s press service said Su-27 fighter jets “destroyed” the planes of the simulated adversary during the drills, Interfax reports, adding that more than 10 crews of the Baltic Sea fleet’s Su-27 were involved in the exercises.
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Foreign ministers from the G7 group of nations have vowed to reinforce Russia’s economic and political isolation, continue supplying weapons and work to ease global food shortages stemming from the war in Ukraine, Reuters reports, citing a joint statement.
We reaffirm our determination to further increase economic and political pressure on Russia, continuing to act in unity.
The war will be over by the end of the year, Ukraine claims, while a UK intelligence assessment suggests Moscow is failing to make progress towards its political objectives. And, in the battle for Ukraine’s second largest city, a US thinktank believes it is Kyiv’s forces that are prevailing.
So what’s the situation on the ground right now?
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Efforts at the Azovstal steelworks are now focused on evacuating about 60 people, comprising the most seriously wounded as well as medical personnel, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has told local TV.
Reuters reports that many of those still in the plant are members of the Azov Regiment. Its deputy commander Sviatoslav Palamar has previously said his forces would continue to resist as long as they could. He told an online forum streamed on YouTube:
Our enemy, supported by planes and artillery, continues to attack. They continue their assault on our positions but we continue to repel them.
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There should be consensus at Nato for Sweden and Finland to join the alliance, but their accession should also be quick, Reuters quotes the Canadian foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, as saying.
It is important that we have a consensus. We wish that there not only be an accession of Finland and Sweden, but a quick accession, which is fundamental in the circumstances as Finland and Sweden are looking for security guarantees.
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Interfax quotes Grushko as saying:
It will be necessary to respond ... by taking adequate precautionary measures that would ensure the viability of deterrence.
He also reiterated the Kremlin’s earlier statement that Moscow’s response to Nato’s possible expansion would depend on how close the alliance moves military assets towards Russia and what infrastructure it deploys.
Finland’s plan to apply for membership, announced on Thursday, and the expectation that Sweden will follow, would bring about the expansion of the western military alliance the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, aimed to prevent.
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Russia will act if Nato deploys nuclear forces and infrastructure closer to its border, the state-run RIA news agency quotes deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko as saying.
Grushko claims to have no hostile intentions towards Finland and Sweden and to see no “real” reasons for those two countries to join the defence alliance.
More than 700,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine have been recorded in Germany thus far, Welt am Sonntag newspaper has reported, citing interior ministry data.
Since the start of the war on 24 February until 11 May, 727,205 people have registered in Germany’s central register of foreigners (AZR), of which 93% hold Ukrainian citizenship, Welt reported, according to Reuters. A significant number may have travelled on to other European Union countries or returned to Ukraine, it said.
Around 40% of Ukrainian refugees were minors and women make up 81% of the adult refugees registered, Welt added.
The Russian invasion has triggered a massive displacement of people, including more than 8 million Ukrainians within the country, according to the latest International Organization for Migration (IOM) report.
The number of people who have fled Ukraine has passed 6 million, in Europe’s worst refugee crisis since the end of the srcond world war, a UN refugee agency said on Thursday.
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In case you’d missed it, Italy is set to host the Grand Final of the Eurovision song contest later on Saturday – and Ukraine is the favourite to win.
Kalush Orchestra, a band that blends traditional folk and hip-hop, is competing in the event with the song Stefania, which has become an anthem at home, the Guardian’s Rome correspondent Angela Giuffrida reported earlier this week.
Written by frontman Oleh Psiuk as a tribute to his mother, Stefania is also the most watched on YouTube among the 35 contenders.
But in an interview with the Italian news agency Ansa, Psiuk said his band’s entry was tipped to do well even before Russia invaded in February.
“Some people are saying we could win because of the war, but our song was among the five favourites before the start of the conflict, which means people like it regardless,” he said.
Russia has been banned from competing this year.
Read more here:
Ukraine already has 40 suspects and 11,000 cases in its war crimes investigation, prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova has said.
I am confident that in the nearest future we will see other cases being transferred to courts and perpetrators appearing before judges. We will ensure that these cases are brought to their logical end.
Her comments came after Kyiv heard its first war crimes trial since the invasion began in February.
Vadim Shysimarin, a commander of the Kantemirovskaya tank division, is accused of shooting dead an unarmed man on a bicycle, after being ordered “to kill a civilian so he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders”, according to prosecutors.
We have over 11000 ongoing cases of war crimes and already 40 suspects. I am confident that in the nearest future we will see other cases being transferred to courts and perpetrators appearing before judges. We will ensure that these cases are brought to their logical end. pic.twitter.com/xnkLC6G5vy
— Iryna Venediktova (@VenediktovaIV) May 13, 2022
War in Ukraine will be over by end of year, head of military intelligence predicts
The war against Russia will reach a turning point by mid-August and be over by the end of the year, Ukraine’s head of military intelligence has told Sky News.
Major general Kyrylo Budanov said:
The breaking point will be in the second part of August.
Most of the active combat actions will have finished by the end of this year.
As a result, we will renew Ukrainian power in all our territories that we have lost including Donbas and the Crimea.
He said Russia was suffering huge losses – although he would not be drawn on Ukrainian casualties – and said he was not surprised by their scale, given Russian power was a “myth”.
Europe sees Russia as a big threat. They are afraid of its aggression.
We have been fighting Russia for eight years and we can say that this highly publicised Russian power is a myth.
It is not as powerful as this. It is a horde of people with weapons.
Budanov said Russian forces attacking the north-eastern city of Kharkiv had been pushed back almost to the Russian border and that their much-reported failure to cross the Siverskyi Donets river several days ago had resulted in “heavy losses”.
I can confirm that they suffered heavy losses in manpower and armour and I can say that when the artillery strikes happened many of the crews abandoned their equipment.
He also claimed that Russian defeat in Ukraine would lead to the removal of Russian president Vladimir Putin and that a coup was already under way against him. “They are moving in this way and it is impossible to stop it,” he said. He provided no evidence to support the claim.
Furthermore, Putin was in a “very bad psychological and physical condition and he is very sick”. Rumours of Putin’s ill health have circulated recently but the Guardian has been unable to substantiate them.
Russia failing to achieve political aims in Ukraine, says UK
The fact that Russia has only succeeded in imposing a pro-Russia local leadership in the city of Kherson “highlights the failure of Russia’s invasion to make progress towards its political objectives in Ukraine,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said in its latest intelligence update.
The Russian-controlled administration in Kherson said it planned to request annexation by Moscow on Wednesday. Russia occupied Kherson in March and seized its city council building in late April. The occupation was met with protests by residents, despite violent attempts by Russian forces to disperse them.
The MoD said a central part of Russia’s original invasion plan had highly likely been to “use rigged referendums to place the majority of Ukraine’s regions under long-term pro-Russian authority.”
If Russia carries out an accession referendum in Kherson, it will almost certainly manipulate the results to show a clear majority in favour of leaving Ukraine. Citizens in the Kherson region are likely to continue to demonstrate their opposition to Russian occupation.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 14 May 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 14, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/tAa8K8A12w
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Ya1mzfvjY4
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India is banning wheat exports in a bid to protect the country’s food security, the government has said.
The “sudden spike” in global wheat prices put the food security of India, neighbouring and other vulnerable countries at risk, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade said.
Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat and other food products. Its invasion by Russia has sparked warnings of a global food crisis.
G7 foreign and agricultural ministers are currently meeting in Germany to discuss ways of breaking Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian grain exports from ports including Odesa.
Before the war, most of the food produced by Ukraine – enough to feed 400 million people – was exported through the country’s seven Black Sea ports.
Senior Russian lawmaker Anna Kuznetsova visited the Russian-occupied region of Kherson in Ukraine to discuss social and healthcare needs of the local population, the state RIA news agency reported on Saturday according to Reuters.
There have been sparse confirmed reports of Russian senior officials visiting areas of fighting since Russia invaded its neighbour on 24 February.
Kherson is the first region set to be annexed after Moscow said in April it had gained full control of the region, which has seen sporadic anti-Russian protests.
Kuznetsova, deputy head of Russia’s Duma or lower house of parliament, discussed the supply of foodstuffs as well as medical and other products needed for children, RIA reported.
“We are here ready to provide all kinds of assistance,” Kuznetsova, the wife of an Orthodox priest and mother of seven was quoted saying.
The agency did not report when the visit took place. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Kherson, home to a port city of the same name, provides part of the land link between the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, and Russian-backed separatist areas in eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin said it was up to residents living in the region to decide whether they wanted to join Russia.
Anna Kuznetsova, deputy speaker of the 🇷🇺 State Duma, visited Russian-occupied Kherson. They do everything to establish their power in my hometown. I guess they will send there some Russians to live in empty houses as many left the region & there is almost no support of 🇷🇺 there pic.twitter.com/VraLvNfnhN
— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) May 14, 2022
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Russian forces in the Kharkiv region have not been engaging in active combat, the Ukrainian general staff has said in its latest update on the conflict.
Their main efforts were instead “focused on ensuring the withdrawal of troops from the city of Kharkiv, maintaining occupied positions and supply routes.”
In the southern port city of Mariupol, Russia was continuing to blockade the last remaining Ukrainian forces in the Azovstal steel plant, it said, and was using “mass artillery and air strikes”.
In the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk Ukrainian forces had repelled ten Russian attacks and destroyed equipment including five tanks, five artillery systems, and six units of combat armoured equipment, the general staff said.
'Difficult negotiations' underway on Mariupol evacuations, Zelenskiy says
“Very difficult negotiations” are underway on the next stage of evacuations from Mariupol and the Azovstal steel plant, where the city’s last remaining Ukrainian defenders are holed up, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address.
We do not stop trying to save all our people from Mariupol and Azovstal. Currently, very difficult negotiations are underway on the next stage of the evacuation mission - the rescue of the seriously wounded, medics.
It is a large number of people. Of course, we are doing everything to evacuate everyone else, each of our defenders. Everyone in the world who can be the most influential mediator has already been involved in the relevant negotiations.
Russian forces have intensified their bombardment of steelworks, where many of the fighters are thought to be injured. Recent evacuees have described hellish conditions in the network of underground bunkers there.
Zelenskiy also warned that the war and Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s ports were “provoking a large-scale food crisis”.
Russian officials are also openly threatening the world that there will be famine in dozens of countries. And what could be the consequences of such a famine? What political instability and migration flows will this lead to? How much will you have to spend then to overcome the consequences?
These are the questions that need to be answered by those who are delaying sanctions on Russia or trying to postpone aid to Ukraine.
His warning came as G7 foreign and agriculture ministers were meeting in Germany to discuss ways of breaking the Russian blockade of grain exports.
Zelenskiy also claimed that Russia had lost almost 27,000 soldiers, “many of them young conscripts”, and that Ukraine had downed a 200th Russian military aircraft.
Russia had also “lost more than three thousand tanks, armored combat vehicles, a large number of conventional military vehicles, helicopters, drones and all its prospects as a state.”
And why all this? For a monument to Lenin to stand in the temporarily occupied Henichesk for a little longer? There is no other result for Russia and there will not be any.
The Guardian is not able to verify Ukraine’s claims regarding Russian losses and Moscow has provided very little detail.
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Ukraine winning battle of Kharkiv, US think tank says
Ukraine has “likely won the battle of Kharkiv”, the country’s second largest city, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled them from around the city, as they did to Russian forces attempting to seize Kyiv.
Russian units had “generally not attempted to hold ground against counterattacking Ukrainian forces over the past several days, with a few exceptions.”
Reports from Western officials and a video from an officer of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) indicate that Moscow is focused on conducting an orderly withdrawal and prioritizing getting Russians back home before allowing proxy forces to enter Russia rather than trying to hold its positions near the city.
The US-based think tank said Ukraine would now likely “attempt to disrupt ground lines of communication (GLOCs) between Belgorod [in Russia] and Russian forces concentrated around [the Russian-occupied city of] Izyum, although Russia is using several GLOCs, including some further away from current Ukrainian positions than any Ukrainian counteroffensive is likely to reach soon.”
Russian troops had “made no progress” with an attempted ground offensive from Izyum, it continued, adding: “We had previously hypothesized that Russia might give up on attempts to advance from Izyum, but the Russians have either not made such a decision or have not fully committed to it yet.”
Meanwhile, it said, the main Russian effort was aimed at encircling the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in Luhansk.
Russian troops attacking from Popasna to the north made no significant progress in the last 24 hours. Russian forces coming north-to-south have failed to cross the Siverskyi Donets River and taken devastating losses in their attempts.
The Russians may not have enough additional fresh combat power to offset those losses and continue the offensive on a large enough scale to complete the encirclement, although they will likely continue to try to do so.
Other key takeaways included:
- Russian forces have likely secured the highway near the western entrance to the Azovstal Steel Plant but fighting for the facility continues.
- Russian forces in Zaporizhia Oblast are likely attempting to reach artillery range outside Zaporizhia City.
- Ukrainian forces are reportedly attempting to regain control of Snake Island off the Romanian coast or at least disrupt Russia’s ability to use it.
Welcome summary
As the time approaches 8am in Kyiv, here’s a round up of the latest developments.
- Ukraine has “likely won the battle of Kharkiv”, the country’s second largest city, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict. “Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled them from around the city, as they did to Russian forces attempting to seize Kyiv,” the US-based thinktank said.
- Ukrainians have also repelled multiple attempts by the Russians to cross a strategically significant river in the Donbas, inflicting heavy losses in the process, according to local officials and British intelligence. British defence intelligence said Russia had lost “significant armoured manoeuvre elements” from a battalion tactical group – a formation with about 800 personnel at full strength – from the failed effort to cross the Siversky Donets River, 12 miles (20km) west of Severodonetsk.
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says “very difficult negotiations are underway” on the evacuation of the seriously wounded and medics from Mariupol and the city’s Azovstal steel plant, which Russian forces continue to bombard. “Of course, we are doing everything to evacuate everyone else, each of our defenders,” the president added.
- Russia will suspend electricity supplies to Finland from 1am on Saturday the supplier, RAO Nordic, said, amid rising tensions over Helsinki’s bid to join Nato.
- That news came as US president Joe Biden expressed his support for the right of Finland and Sweden “to decide their own future, foreign policy, and security arrangements” in a call with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö, and Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson.
- The White House also said it was ‘working to clarify Turkey’s position’ after president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Turkey would not welcome either Sweden or Finland joining Nato. The comments appeared directed at the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey regards as a terrorist organisation. Sweden has a large Kurdish diaspora.
- Earlier, the Ukrainian president reiterated an offer to hold direct talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in the Ukrainian president’s fullest public comments on the prospect of peace talks in weeks. “I am ready to talk to Putin, but only to him. Without any of his intermediaries. And in the framework of dialogue, not ultimatums,” he told Italy’s RAI 1 television.
- A Russian soldier has appeared in court accused of murdering an unarmed man on a bicycle, at the start of the first war crime trial in Ukraine since the invasion began. Vadim Shysimarin, a commander of the Kantemirovskaya tank division, is charged with the premeditated murder of a 62-year-old man. The case is scheduled to resume on Wednesday.
- Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia will hold a referendum on joining Russia on 17 July, the region’s leader, Anatoly Bibilov, has announced. South Ossetia was at the centre of the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 after which the Kremlin recognised the territory – along with another separatist region, Abkhazia – as an independent state and stationed military bases there.
- Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said Kyiv hopes to arm a million people as the country prepares for a “new, long phase of war”. He warned that “extremely tough weeks are ahead” and that Ukraine needed “unity, cohesion, will and patience” during this difficult period.
- The UK has issued sanctions against a dozen members of Vladimir Putin’s family and inner circle including his long-rumoured girlfriend. The Foreign Office argued that the Russian president officially owns only modest assets, and has sanctioned the people who help support his lavish lifestyle.
- The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, for the first time since before the invasion began, the Pentagon said. Austin “urged an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and emphasised the importance of maintaining lines of communication”, the Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby, said.
- The EU could agree on a phased embargo on Russian oil next week, despite concerns about supply in eastern Europe, according to diplomats and officials. A senior EU diplomat told Reuters an agreement could come as early as Monday when EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels. A third diplomat said there was a chance of an agreement later in the week.
- The lawyer for the US professional basketball player Brittney Griner said her pre-trial detention has been extended by one month. The two-time Olympic medallist was arrested in February at Moscow’s airport, allegedly in possession of vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis. If found guilty, she could face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
This is Helen Livingstone bringing you all the latest news on the war in Ukraine.
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