This blog is closed. Go here for our latest live coverage of the Ukraine war.
The UK has sanctioned 65 individuals and entities with supporting links to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including Kronshtadt, a Russian defence company and the main producer of Russia’s Orion drone and other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
In a statement, the UK ministry of defence said drone systems have been “widely deployed” in Russia’s invasion.
“Robust Ukrainian air defences has almost certainly limited manned flights beyond their frontlines, hence Russia has highly likely been forced to use more UAVs instead. This is probably leading to greater demand for, and attrition of, these assets. These sanctions will damage Russia’s defence industrial complex and limit their ability to replace their UAV losses,” the statement said.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 25 March 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 25, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/tD70NEEBd8
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/OcvQHs0qIb
Updated
In a video address late on Friday night, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said his country’s forces had delivered “powerful blows” to Russia and that “meaningful, urgent, fair” talks were needed.
Zelenskiy thanked Ukrainians who have fought against the Russian invasion, stating: “Over the past week, our heroic armed forces have dealt powerful blows to the enemy, significant losses.” He said more than 16,000 Russians have been killed, including commanders. Russia says 1,351 soldiers had died in combat.
“I am grateful to our defenders who showed the occupiers that the sea will not be calm for them even when there is no storm. Because there will be fire,” he said in the video address.
“The armed forces continue to repel enemy attacks, in the south of the country, in Donbas, in the Kharkiv direction and in the Kyiv region. By restraining Russia’s actions, our defenders are leading the Russian leadership to a simple and logical idea: talk is necessary. Meaningful, urgent, fair.”
Zelenskiy said that Ukrainian sovereignty must be guaranteed and its territorial integrity ensured.
He added that over the past week 18 humanitarian corridors had been established and 37,606 people rescued from blocked cities.
Updated
The Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, has released some analysis of comments made on Friday by Sergei Rudskoi, first deputy chief of the Russian general staff.
Rudskoi said Russia had completed “the main tasks of the first stage of the operation”, weakened Ukrainian forces and that it would focus on “liberating” Ukraine’s breakaway eastern Donbas region. The comments appeared to suggest Russia may pursue more limited objectives in Ukraine.
In its analysis, the ISW says the Rudskoi’s comments “were likely aimed mainly at a domestic Russian audience and do not accurately or completely capture current Russian war aims and planned operations”.
Here is some of ISW’s analysis:
Rudskoi’s assertion that securing the unoccupied portions of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts was always the main objective of Russia’s invasion is false. The Kremlin’s initial campaign aimed to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine.
Rudskoi’s comments could indicate that Russia has scaled back its aims and would now be satisfied with controlling the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, but that reading is likely inaccurate.
Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine have not stopped fighting and have not entirely stopped attempting to advance and seize more territory. They are also attacking and destroying Ukrainian towns and cities, conducting operations and committing war crimes that do not accord with the objectives Rudskoi claims Russia is pursuing.
Updated
Here are some images from Poland on Friday, where protesters gathered following the arrival of Joe Biden. During his visit, the US president has seen efforts to support the more than 2.2 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled to Poland, and spoke to American troops who have been deployed near Poland’s border.
On Saturday, Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, and meet with Ukrainian refugees and the Warsaw mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, to discuss relief efforts for those arriving in Poland.
Updated
This is Rebecca Ratcliffe in Bangkok, taking over from my colleague Sam Levin.
The UK will fund £2m ($2.6m) in vital food supplies for areas of Ukraine encircled by Russian forces, following a direct request from the government of Ukraine.
Warehouses in Poland and Slovakia are being prepared to supply dried food, tinned goods and water from early next week. Around 25 truckloads will then be transported by road and rail to the local Ukrainian communities in greatest need, according to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Alice Hooper, the FCDO humanitarian adviser, said: “The need on the ground in Ukraine is clear, with so many people in encircled areas trapped in basements without access to food or water. Nearly 6 million children remain in Ukraine, many sheltering inside buildings, which are coming under attack.”
Updated
Summary
- Joe Biden has visited the Polish town of Rzeszów, about an hour’s drive from the Ukrainian border, in a show of support for eastern European states that are seeing Russian aggression wreak havoc in their neighbourhood.
- Authorities in Mariupol have said as many as 300 people were killed in a Russian bombing of a theatre last week, putting a death toll for the first time on the deadliest single attack since Moscow launched its invasion.
- Western officials have said they believe a Russian commander was run over by mutinous forces during the fighting in Ukraine, in a sign of what they described as the “morale challenges” faced by the invading forces.
- Vladimir Putin has accused the west of discriminating against Russian culture, comparing the treatment of Russian cultural figures to that of the “cancelled” Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
- Putin on Friday signed into law a bill introducing jail terms of up to 15 years for publishing “fake” information about any of Russia’s actions abroad.
- The French government is trying to pull together an international coalition to negotiate a “humanitarian operation” to evacuate civilians from the besieged and battered southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol.
- Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that the first phase of its military operation was “generally” complete, saying the country will focus on the “liberation” of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
Updated
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy again has urged Russia to negotiate an end to war, but also asserted that Ukraine would not agree to give up any of its territory to achieve peace, according to AP’s report on his nightly video address Friday evening.
Zelenskiy appeared to be responding to Col Gen Sergei Rudskoi, deputy chief of the Russian general staff, who earlier said Russian forces would now focus on “the liberation of Donbas” as the main goal. The AP explains:
Russian-backed separatists have controlled part of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine since 2014, and Russian forces have been battling to seize more of the region from Ukraine, including the besieged city of Mariupol.
Rudskoi’s statement also was a suggestion that Russia may be backing away from trying to take Kyiv and other major cities where its offensive has stalled. Zelenskiy noted that Russian forces have lost thousands of troops but still haven’t been able to take Kyiv or Kharkiv, the second-largest city.
The president also claimed that Russia has lost more than 16,000 troops:
Ukraine's Zelensky claims more than 16,000 Russian troops lost #UkraineWar #RussianUkrainianWar #ukraine
— CNNWynn (@WynnWs) March 25, 2022
https://t.co/wSUBQ57iQO
The casualty reports of Russian troops have varied widely. Nato officials earlier this week estimated that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, CNN reported, and US officials have put forward similar estimates, but also have said they could not be confident in those numbers.
Russia’s defence ministry earlier said that 1,351 Russian soldiers have died.
More details from the AP’s new report on Russia’s attacks on medical facilities in Ukraine:
Among the most thoroughly documented strikes was the 9 March bombing of a children’s and maternity hospital in Mariupol. Two AP journalists, the last international media to remain in the city after it was encircled by Russian forces, arrived at the hospital minutes after the explosion.
They saw a smoldering two-story deep crater in the interior courtyard, surrounded by the twisted and burned remains of several cars. The force of the explosion tore the facades off three surrounding buildings, blowing out the windows and wrecking rooms inside.
The AP journalists took photos and video of stunned survivors coming out of the hospital. A pregnant woman being carried on a stretcher held her belly, blood staining her sweatpants, her face pale. She later died following an emergency cesarean section at another nearby hospital, according to Dr Timur Marin, one of the surgeons who tried to save her. The woman’s baby also did not survive.
The AP’s analysis notes that these kinds of attacks on hospitals and staff are considered “particularly heinous under international law”, which notes they must be protected. Prosecutors must show the destruction is intentional or reckless for a hospital bombing to be considered a war crime, according to the AP, which is working with Frontline to document such cases. The AP said the evidence for potential war crimes was “mounting and horrendous” and clearly refutes the Russian claims that the stories were “fake news” or that the attacks were militarily justified.
Pavlo Kovtoniuk, a former deputy minister of health and WHO consultant who co-founded the Ukrainian Healthcare Center, told the AP that Russia is bombing “medical infrastructure on purpose, fighting sick people as if they were military”. Kovtoniuk added: “Bombing hospitals is especially cruel because it shows civilian people that there is no safe place for them on Earth,” he said.
Updated
Ukraine’s deputy interior minister, Anton Gerashchenko, said in a statement on Facebook this evening that Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, has been absent from public events since mid-March because he suffered a heart attack.
The claim, which has not been independently verified, adds to the mystery surrounding Shoigu, who had not been seen in public for 12 days until he appeared on Russians’ television screens for just a few seconds on Thursday, sitting in the corner box of a teleconference with Vladimir Putin.
Prior to that TV appearance, rumours were spreading that Shoigu may have been punished for the bungle invasion of Ukraine and the failure to capture Kharkiv or Kyiv. Agentstvo, an independent Russian news website, earlier cited a source saying that Shoigu, one of the most trusted men in the nation according to opinion polling, had heart problems, the Guardian’s Andrew Roth noted.
“The defence minister has a lot to deal with right now, as you can understand,” Dmitri Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said during a briefing. He denied Shoigu was sick. “A special military operation is ongoing. Certainly, now isn’t exactly the right time for media activities. This is quite understandable.”
More here on Shoigu and his mysterious and brief TV appearance:
US first lady Jill Biden visited a children’s hospital in Tennessee today to meet with Ukrainian children with cancer and their families fleeing the war and seeking treatment in America, the Associated Press reports.
At St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Biden talked privately with Ukrainian pediatric cancer patients and their relatives. St Jude on Monday received four Ukrainian children, ages 9 months to 9 years old, and the children are due to receive cancer treatment and therapy to address emotional and cultural needs, the hospital said, according to AP.
“They seemed comfortable and they didn’t seem sad,” Biden said. “They were just like normal kids, like normal families. It was just, it’s amazing.”
First Lady Jill Biden to meet Ukrainian children at St. Jude (from @AP) https://t.co/sgkmoj6YoO
— darlene superville (@dsupervilleap) March 25, 2022
Updated
A total of 7,331 people were evacuated today through two humanitarian corridors, said Ukrainian deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk, NBC News reported.
Vereshchuk said that 2,800 of them traveled by car from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, and that 4,000 were evacuated from Berdyansk by bus, NBC said. She also said that evacuation corridors for the Mariupol, Kyiv and Luhansk regions would be opening this weekend.
The Kyiv Independent further reported Vereshchuk’s demands that all of its citizens deported to Russia from Mariupol be given an opportunity to return:
⚡️Ukraine demands that International Red Cross Committee obtain from Russia lists of deported Mariupol residents.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 25, 2022
Ukraine demands that all its citizens deported to Russia from Mariupol are provided with the opportunity to return, says Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
More than half of Ukraine’s children have been displaced after one month of war, according to Unicef. Unicef’s spokesman James Elder was just on CNN to discuss the toll, saying:
First and foremost, these kids need protection from the war that keeps raging around them. They wake up everyday, and there’s another horror story from a family member somewhere in a city that is still under siege ...
Countries have to lead by example to support what is millions of people who didn’t want to leave their homes.”
Some disturbing statistics: “An estimated 1.4 million people now lack access to safe water, while 4.6 million people have limited access to water or are at risk of being cut off. Over 450,000 children aged 6 to 23 months need complementary food support.”
Families in Ukraine have faced horrors that were unimaginable just a month ago.
— Catherine Russell (@unicefchief) March 25, 2022
Here's how @UNICEF is supporting children who have been deeply traumatized. https://t.co/e7C9Ga8fWk
Some key details from a senior US defense official’s briefing from Warsaw today:
- The US has observed more than 1,250 missile launches since the start of the invasion.
- It appears that the Russians are at the moment not pursuing a ground offensive towards Kyiv, but, “They are digging in, they are establishing defensive positions, they don’t show any signs of being willing to move on Kyiv from the ground.”
- The US is still observing airstrikes on Kyiv, but nothing on the ground “in keeping with our assessment of a couple of days ago that they are going to prioritise the eastern part of the country”.
- “We’re seeing the Ukrainians really go now on the offense around Kyiv. That includes to the west of it ... The Russians are in a defensive position around Kyiv on the ground.”
- Asked if the US has seen indications that Putin has become more reckless in his tactics as Russia has not achieved its goals, the senior official said, “It’s there for the world to see. I can’t get inside Putin’s mind, and I wouldn’t want to speculate about his personal level of frustration, or whatever decisions he’s making based on the fact that they have been stymied and stalled throughout the country. But you can see for yourself how they have tried to make up for the fact that they haven’t been able to move well on the ground by the increasing use of airstrikes and missile strikes and artillery strikes on population centers.”
You can read the full remarks from the background briefing here.
Updated
AP confirms more than 30 attacks on medical facilities
Over the last month, Russian forces have repeatedly attacked Ukrainian hospitals, ambulances, medics, patients and newborns, according to the Associated Press, which is now reporting that it has independently documented 34 assaults.
More details from the AP on the growing calls for war crimes prosecutions against Putin, his generals and top Kremlin advisers:
To convict, prosecutors will need to show that the attacks are not merely accidents or collateral damage. The emerging pattern, tracked day by day by the AP, shows evidence of a consistent and relentless onslaught against the very civilian infrastructure designed to save lives and provide safe haven to Ukraine’s most vulnerable.
AP journalists in Ukraine have seen the deadly results of Russian strikes on civilian targets first hand: the final moments of children whose tiny bodies were shredded by shrapnel or had limbs blown off; dozens of corpses, including those of children, heaped into mass graves.
Deliberate attacks on hospitals will likely be a top priority for war crimes prosecutors.”
Earlier this week, the US formally accused Russian forces of committing war crimes, vowing to pursue accountability “using every tool available”.
For more reading on the subject:
Updated
Amid US reports that Russian ground forces have halted their advance on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, do stay tuned as our blog hands from reporter to reporter across the globe, with the Guardian keeping you up to date with developments on the war around the clock.
The US east coast is now passing the news baton to the US west coast.
My colleague Sam Levin, there, will take you through events over the next few hours.
Putin signs law to jail those publishing news Russia deems fake - amid denials that Russia has even invaded Ukraine
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday signed into law a bill introducing jail terms of up to 15 years for publishing “fake” information about any of Russia’s actions abroad, AFP reports.
This gives a much broader reach, expanding on a previous law relating more directly to the ongoing invasion of neighbour Ukraine.
Agence France-Presse further writes:
The bill, adopted by Russia’s parliament this week, sets out jail terms and fines for people who publish “knowingly false information” about actions abroad by Russian government agencies.
If the false information “caused serious consequences”, it is punishable by up 15 years in jail.
The new bill expands on a law passed earlier in March that allows for up to 15 years in jail for publishing false information about the Russian army.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press news agency is reporting that Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov denies Russia has even invaded Ukraine.
AP says:
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights confirms at least 1,035 civilians, including 90 children, have died in the four weeks since the start of the war. Another 1,650 civilians have been wounded. Those numbers are certainly an undercount since scores of bodies now lie under the rubble of demolished buildings or were hurriedly buried in mass graves, or the deaths occurred in areas now under Russian control.
Still, Russian officials have denied hitting civilian targets, deriding the mounting documentation of atrocities as “fake news” and claiming without evidence that dead and wounded civilians photographed were “crisis actors.”
Speaking at talks in Turkey about a potential cease-fire, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov [AP uses different spelling from the Guardian] dismissed concerns about civilian casualties as “pathetic shrieks” from Russia’s enemies and denied Ukraine has even been invaded.
France to talk to Russia about international plan to evacuate civilians from besieged Mariupol - Macron
The French government is trying to pull together a small international coalition to negotiate a “humanitarian operation” to evacuate civilians from the besieged and battered southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol, Agence France-Presse reports.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, announced on Friday after a European Union summit that he expects to talk to Russian president Vladimir Putin again within the next three days to discuss the issue.
AFP writes [but with some links to Guardian articles added by this reporter]:
Macron said Friday France was working with Turkey and Greece on a “humanitarian operation” to evacuate people from the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol under attack by Russian forces.
“We are going to work with Turkey and Greece to launch a humanitarian operation to evacuate all those who wish to leave Mariupol,” Macron said after an EU summit in Brussels.
“I will have a new discussion with President Vladimir Putin within the next 48 to 72 hours to work out the details and secure the modalities,” he said.
The French leader said he hoped to “be able to involve the maximum number of stakeholders in this operation”.
He said that he wanted to be “in a position” to conduct the evacuation “in the next few days”.
Macron said that French officials had spoken Friday to the mayor of Mariupol and that the 150,000 remaining residents were left trapped in “dramatic conditions”.
Authorities in the city have put the death toll in the city at over 2,000, and said Friday that a single strike last week on a theatre where civilians were sheltering was feared to have killed 300 people.
Russia has made the port city a major focus of its brutal onslaught on Ukraine as it tries to link up the annexed Crimea peninsula with Moscow-controlled areas in the east.
The Kremlin’s devastating attack on Mariupol has drawn parallels with the bombardments by Russian forces that flattened Chechen capital Grozny and Syria’s Aleppo.
Here is a link to the Guardian’s Today in Focus news analysis podcast this week on the siege of Mariupol, as told by residents who escaped.
Updated
Russia and China should tell North Korea to avoid more “provocations” after it resumed intercontinental ballistic missile testing this week in a “brazen” move, the US state department has said, in a rather bizarre signal given that relations between the US and Russia are hardly normal at this time.
“China and Russia should send a strong message to (North Korea) to refrain from additional provocations,” state department spokesperson Jalina Porter told a regular news briefing on Friday ahead of a United Nations security council meeting in New York to discuss the launch.
The Reuters news agency reports that:
North Korea said it launched a big, new ICBM on Friday, a test its leader Kim Jong Un said was designed to demonstrate the might of its nuclear force and deter any US military moves. It was the nuclear-armed country’s first full ICBM test since 2017.
Referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, Porter called the launch a “brazen” violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
“We urge all countries to hold the DPRK accountable for such violations and we also call on the DPRK to come to the table for serious negotiations,” she said.
She said she was unable comment on the position China and Russia might take at the security council, but added: “We are in the early stages of consulting on this issue. There have been developments that should be of concern to all countries, particularly those who share a border with the DPRK. The DPRK’s decision to return to ICBM tests is a clear escalation.”
North Korea’s last ICBM launches in 2017 prompted UN security council sanctions, but the US and its allies are at odds with Russia and China over the Ukraine war, making such a response more difficult.
Porter earlier tweeted about resistance in Ukraine.
In Ukraine, the Russian military is shelling residential neighborhoods and shooting at civilians. Yet, Oleksandr does not doubt Ukraine’s chance at victory. The people of Ukraine’s dedication and passion for their country knows no bounds. #UnitedWithUkraine https://t.co/nHJNubsrMZ
— Jalina Porter (@StateDeputySpox) March 25, 2022
Meanwhile, moments ago, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said in New York that the US will urge the UN security council to “update and strengthen” sanctions on North Korea because of “increasingly dangerous provocations.”
Thomas-Greenfield earlier tweeted about solidarity between Albania and the US over Ukraine, after meeting with Albanian minister of Europe and foreign affairs Olta Xhaçka.
It was a pleasure to meet @xhacka_olta in New York again at the @ipinst this morning. Grateful for Albania's very strong partnership as we stand united in the face of Russia's devastating war in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/QdGvCFM0GA
— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) March 25, 2022
Updated
United States intelligence personnel are concerned that Russia will cut off Ukrainian forces operating in the eastern Donbas region as some sort of high stakes bargaining chip in their war of aggression in Ukraine, Reuters is reporting.
As the Guardian reported earlier, the Russian defence ministry earlier on Friday said that Russian-backed separatists now controlled 93% of Luhansk and 54% of Donetsk, the self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine’s east, which together are commonly known as the Donbas region.
And this could be part of a shifting of focus, at least right now, from the objective of capturing the sprawling capital Kyiv, with which Russian forces have clearly been struggling.
Reuters further reports on the US assessment from an unnamed “senior defence official”:
The announcement [from the Russian defence ministry earlier] appeared to indicate Moscow may be switching to more limited objectives after running into fierce Ukrainian resistance in a month of war.
The senior US official suggested Russia’s activities on the ground appeared broadly to back up Moscow’s announcement.
“They are prioritizing it and we concur, our information would concur, with that,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.
The official said the United States was seeing Russian forces become more aggressive in the Donbas area.
“They have certainly made it a higher priority on their list,” the official added.The city of Kherson, a regional capital of about 250,000 people, did not seem to be as solidly in Russian control as it was before and appeared to be contested, the official said.
Kherson was the first big urban center to fall into the hands of Russian troops after they invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Russian troops have largely stalled around Kyiv and are establishing defensive positions, the official said.
For the first time, the official said, the United States had signs that Russia was looking to draw on its troops in Georgia to help in Ukraine. It was unclear what their timeline was and where exactly they would go, but the official said it would not be surprising if they were sent into the Donbas region.
Friday Summary
Here’s a round up of Friday’s top stories on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Russia appeared to scale back its ambitions for the war. The defence ministry said the first phase of its military operation was “generally” complete, saying the country will focus on the “liberation” of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. It marks a downgrading of objectives – amid a haphazard war campaign – after an initial aim of ‘denazification,’ or in other words regime change.
- It came after Russia’s defence ministry admitted 1,351 Russian soldiers have died since the start of its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, the first update in over three weeks. US intelligence estimates the real figure is likely over 7,000.
- Ukrainian forces went on the offensive outside Kyiv. Reports from UK intelligence said Ukrainian forces had reoccupied towns and defensive positions up to 35km east of Kyiv.
- The immense human toll of the war continues to escalate. The UN said a confirmed 1,081 civilians had died and 1,707 had been injured, with the real toll expected to be significantly higher.
- The situation in Mariupol remains dire. The head of the UN human rights team in Ukraine said monitors had received increasing information on mass graves in the encircled city, including one that appeared to hold 200 bodies.
- Mariupol officials said at least 300 confirmed people were killed in the bombing on 16 March of the Drama Theatre. About 1,300 were believed to have been sheltering in the building.
- The Russian president Vladimir Putin ranted the west was supposedly discriminating against Russian culture, comparing the treatment of Russian cultural figures with that of the “cancelled” Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
-
Evidence of potential Russian warcrimes continues to mount. A video shows civilians reportedly shelled while receiving humanitarian aid in Kharkiv.
- Meanwhile, the city of Chernihiv had in effect been cut off by Russian forces, the regional governor said, after water was rationed in recent days.
- Mutinous Russian forces ran over a Russian commander with a tank, western officials said. The UK and other western countries believe that Russian forces are suffering from increasingly poor morale as they incur heavy losses in the fighting.
- In other news, the Ukrainian Air Force said Russian cruise missiles hit several buildings while attempting to strike the Air Force’s command in the Vinnytsia region. And Ukraine said Russian forces had managed partially to create a land corridor to Crimea.
- Spotify became the latest company to announce it will fully suspend services in Russia, citing new legislation that could ‘risk’ the ‘safety’ of employees or listeners.
My colleague Joanna Walters is taking charge of the blog from here. Bye for now.
Updated
Mutinous Russian forces ran over a Russian commander with a tank, western officials said.
My colleague Dan Sabbagh reports the details:
Western officials have said they believe a Russian commander was run over and killed by mutinous forces during the fighting in Ukraine, in a sign of what they described as the “morale challenges” faced by the invading forces.
They highlighted – and repeated – reports from earlier this week from a Ukrainian journalist that a colonel of the 37th separate guards motor rifle brigade was run over by a tank and subsequently died of his injuries.
One official said they believed that the brigade commander was “killed by his own troops” as “a consequence of the scale of losses that had been taken by his brigade” in the bitter fighting.
However, while there was some evidence to corroborate the claim that the commander had been run over, it was less clear whether, as the western officials claimed, the colonel had died.
Britain and other western countries believe that Russian forces are suffering from increasingly poor morale as they incur heavy losses in the fighting. The US has estimated that 7,000 Russians have been killed, out of an invasion force of about 150,000.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Chernobyl staff not rotated in four days - UN
Staff on duty at Chernobyl’s radioactive waste facilities have not been rotated in four days, the UN nuclear watchdog has said.
Chernobyl is held by Russian forces. Fighting nearby means there is currently no sense of when staff can rotate.
“Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency today that there had been no rotation of technical staff at [Chernobyl] since 21 March and it did not know when it might next take place,” the IAEA said in a statement.
Staff now on duty replaced a shift that was there for more than three weeks, Reuters reports.
Russian cruise missiles hit buildings in Vinnytsia region, Ukrainian air force says
The Ukrainian air force said on Friday that Russian cruise missiles had hit several buildings while attempting to strike the Air Force’s command in the Vinnytsia region, Reuters reports.
“The consequences of the missile strike by the occupiers are being clarified,” it said in a statement.
Updated
The Turkish president, Tayyip Erdoğan, in a Friday phone call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he emphasised Nato’s commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity at the organisation’s summit this week.
Erdoğan said that he had conveyed in bilateral talks there the “effective” diplomatic efforts that Turkey has made, Reuters reports. They discussed the situation on the ground and the status of peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow.
Zelenskiy said the two leaders also talked about the threat of a food supply crisis.
Updated
Really worth checking out this report from my colleague Daniel Boffey in Lviv here.
At 3.50 on the cold morning of 24 February, Iryna Prudkova, 50, received a message on Telegram from her 24-year-old daughter, Valeria, who lives in Ukraine’s capital: “Mum, Kyiv is being shelled.”
Sitting in her small flat on the first floor of a nine-storey apartment block in the leafy Kirovsky residential area of Mariupol, Iryna knew what she had to do. ...
As Iryna hastily packed a suitcase, her husband Alexandr took their Mercedes W212 to fill it with petrol at the Western Oil group station at the back of the apartment block. A long line of cars had got there first.
As Alexandr waited nervously, the night sky suddenly lit up with a deafening thunder, a noise unfamiliar even in a city close to the frontline of the eight-year battle between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in Donestsk and Luhansk.
The war had taken its grip of Mariupol – and it has yet to let go.
This is a story, based on diary entries and interviews with those who have survived an unthinkable trial of endurance, of a swift and brutal destruction of a city in which the best and worst of humanity was on show. It is an ongoing story full of death, misery and heartache documented and told through tears.
Read the full story below:
First phase of invasion 'generally' complete, says Russia in downgrading of aims
Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that the first phase of its military operation was “generally” complete, saying the country will focus on the “liberation” of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
The defence ministry stated Russian-backed separatists now controlled 93% of Luhansk and 54% of Donetsk, the self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine’s east. The two together are commonly known as the Donbas region.
“The main objectives of the first stage of the operation have generally been accomplished,” Sergei Rudskoi, the head of the Russian general staff’s main operational directorate said during a briefing.
In Friday’s announcement, Russia also appeared to hint that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine may be turning to more limited objectives, adding that the main goal of the operation was the “liberation of the Donbas”.
“The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which ... makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas.”
Russia has been shifting its objectives in Ukraine throughout the war. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, earlier said that the “denazification” of the Ukrainian leadership – generally understood as regime change – was the main motivation for the invasion.
Michael Kofman, the director of the Russia studies programme at the CNA thinktank, on Friday tweeted that the military briefing suggested Russia would focus on “taking as much of the Donbas as possible,” while claiming Donbas was always the main goal of what Kremlin refers to a “special military operation”.
“I had a hypothesis that the more minimal aims Moscow could have at this point is to try to take all of the Donbas, pursue some political settlement, then turn around and claim that’s what this operation was really all about in an effort to salvage something & declare victory,” Kofman tweeted.
Updated
Qatar’s energy minister said it would not “choose sides” but will continue to supply Europe with gas.
Commenting on the Russia-Ukraine war, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi told CNN said:“From a business perspective, we do not choose sides”.
Spotify suspends service in Russia, citing new legislation
The music streaming platform Spotify has suspended services in Russia, a spokesperson told the Guardian.
A company spokesperson said that while it was important to “try to keep our service operational in Russia to provide trusted, independent news and information in the region”, the impact of new legislation “further restricting access to information, eliminating free expression, and criminalising certain types of news puts the safety of Spotify’s employees and possibly even our listeners at risk”.
They added: “After carefully considering our options and the current circumstances, we have come to the difficult decision to fully suspend our service in Russia.”
Spotify follows a long line of western companies – including Apple, H&M, Mastercard, Netflix, Unilever, Visa and more – to suspend or exit operations in Russia since the war in Ukraine began.
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Putin slams west for 'cancelling' Russian culture 'like JK Rowling'
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Friday slammed the west for discriminating against Russian culture, comparing the treatment of Russian cultural figures with that of the “cancelled” Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
At a televised meeting with leading cultural figures, Putin said the west was “trying to cancel a whole thousand-year culture, our people”, citing the cancellation of events involving Russian artists in some western countries.
“They’re now engaging in the cancel culture, even removing Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov from posters; Russian writers and books are now cancelled,” Putin said.
A number of events involving Russian cultural figures who have expressed their backing for the war have been cancelled, most notably concerts by the award-winning Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, a friend and supporter of Putin, who was part of the meeting on Friday.
Some events involving dead Russian cultural figures have also been cancelled, with the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra removing the Russian composer Tchaikovsky from its programme, a move that was widely criticised by western cultural figures.
Putin in his address added that the “last time” such a campaign was waged against “unwanted literature” was when Nazi supporters burned books in the 1930s.
The Russian leader further compared the treatment Russia has received following the country’s invasion of Ukraine with the controversy surrounding the British author JK Rowling’s comments on transgender people.
“Recently they cancelled the children’s writer Joanne Rowling because she – the author of books that have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide – fell out of favour with fans of so-called ‘gender freedoms’. Today they want to cancel a whole thousand-year culture, our people,” Putin said.
JK Rowling on Friday distanced herself from Putin’s comments by sharing an article about the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Twitter.
Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center said that Putin’s address on Friday gave another insight into the “distorted” view the Russian leader had of the west.
“Putin uses the information he receives from advisers and then creates his own reality of the west,” Kolesnikov said.
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For more on what to expect from China amid the tensions between Russia and the west tensions, a US White House official has said China will engage in a “dance” between the axes of power.
Reuters reports from Washington:
Mira Rapp-Hooper, director for the Indo-Pacific at the White House National Security Council, told an online panel discussion that driving a wedge between Russia and China would be easier said than done, but that Beijing would remain uncomfortable with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war.
“We’re unlikely, I think, to see a fully and publicly unified Moscow and Beijing in which China is totally comfortable being saddled with the burden of Vladimir Putin’s brutal and ill-begotten war,” Rapp-Hooper said.
“That is to say that we are likely to continue to see some amount of Chinese support for the Russian economy, but a dance that Beijing tries to do to keep up its economic ties to the European Union in particular, but also to the United States,” she said.
China has repeatedly voiced opposition to the sanctions, calling them ineffective and insisting it will maintain normal economic and trade exchanges with Russia.
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Downing Street has released a belated and somewhat brief statement about UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s long phone chat with China’s president, Xi Jinping, on Friday morning.
Earlier, Johnson’s deputy spokesperson had said the call, which took place from around 10am UK time, had lasted 50 minutes. He declined to give any details beyond confirming that the pair had discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the UK is keen for China not to assist Russia with weapons or other support.
The readout, which arrived around three hours after the call, described it as “a frank and candid conversation lasting almost an hour”, adding: “The leaders discussed a range of issues of mutual interest – including the situation in Ukraine.”
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In France, Russia’s ambassador was summoned to the French foreign ministry on Friday over an earlier embassy tweet that Paris deemed unacceptable.
The Russian embassy in Paris on Thursday had posted a picture depicting a body lying on a table called “Europe” with characters representing the US and EU jabbing needles into it.
“These posts are unacceptable. We made that clear today to the Russian ambassador,” the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters. “We are trying to maintain a demanding channel of dialogue with Russia and these actions are completely inappropriate.”
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Russia thundered on with its information warfare on Friday, accusing the US president, Joe Biden, of “diverting attention” from his country’s chemical and biological weapons programme – after Biden warned Nato would be forced to respond if the Kremlin resorted to using chemical weapons.
It follows Kremlin disinformation this week accusing Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, of funding biological weapons labs in Ukraine through his investment fund Rosemont Seneca.
As well as the ground war in Ukraine, Russia is waging an aggressive information war against the west.
“We see this as an attempt to divert attention to some kind of ephemeral, allegedly existing threat against the backdrop of a scandal that is flaring up in the world involving chemical and biological weapons programmes that the United States has been carrying out in various countries, including Ukraine,” the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, AFP reports.
Biden dismissed Russia’s claims. “Simply not true. I guarantee you,” he said.
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Ukrainian forces may have more main battle tanks and they had at the start of Russian invasion, my colleague Dan Sabbagh reports, because they’ve been remarkably successful at acquiring Russian vehicles (with the help of a few farmers).
That’s according to western officials, who confirmed a seventh Russian general was killed and that a brigade commander was killed by his own troops “as a consequence of the scale of losses that had been taken by his brigade”.
Ukrainian forces may have more main battle tanks and they had at the start of Russian invasion, because they've been remarkably successful at acquiring Russian vehicles (with the help of a few farmers) - Western officials
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) March 25, 2022
Dan Sabbagh reports:
Around 20 Russian BTGs are “no longer combat effective” officials estimate – out of 115-120 who were in the original invasion force. So Russia has lost “a sixth, maybe a fifth” of its effective troops
More on the Russian commander officials believe was killed by his own troops. The belief is he was “run over”. Was the commander of 37th motor rifle brigade.
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For more context on the situation in Mariupol right now, here’s a map on how much of the city Russian forced hold and where the shellings have been concentrated.
A man taking the video footage on his phone of the moments immediately after the bomb dropped on Mariupol’s Drama Theatre, killing at least 300 and leaving hundreds more unaccounted for says the shell was a direct hit.
In the clip he says: “A missile hit right in the middle of the theatre. Now people are trying to evacuate.”
“Airstrike was carried out on the Drama Theatre. We were on the first floor and weren’t injured, but under those rubbles could be a lot of people. It hit right in the centre of the theatre. Where people came to get water.”
Neither Poland or Hungary have enjoyed a particularly warm relationship with the core elements of the EU over recent years, with both countries having governments with strong nationalistic tendencies. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now put those two countries slightly at odds with each other, as well.
Speaking on Polish public radio today, Reuters report that Poland’s ruling party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, said he was not pleased with the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s cautious stance on Russia, but that he would wait to see what happens after Hungary’s April election.
“If you asked me if I’m happy, then no, but I will wait for the election, we will see after the election.”
Orban has condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine but has avoided personal criticism of President Vladimir Putin and is strongly opposed to sanctions on Russian energy.
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The Swiss government has adopted more European Union sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, report Reuters.
“This means that all measures contained in the EU’s fourth package of sanctions have been implemented,” it said in a statement, adding it had decided not to implement the EU measure of March 1 suspending the broadcasting of Russian media outlets Sputnik and Russia Today.
“Despite the fact that these outlets are used to spread targeted propaganda and disinformation by the Russian Federation, the Federal Council is of the opinion that it is more effective to counter untrue and harmful statements with facts instead of preventing them from being broadcast,” it said.
Maria Zolkina is a political analyst at Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a Kyiv-based thinktank, and she writes for us today to say that Ukraine will not surrender one inch of land to Russia – the west must understand this:
Western analysts are trying to develop different scenarios for Russia’s actions in Ukraine. The “menu” is expansive: a protracted conflict with a gradual transition to low-intensity hostilities; a nuclear disaster; the use of chemical or biological weapons to bring victory in land operations; political compromise on the side of Ukraine and others.
The only scenario that is not discussed is the full restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Everywhere there are some “buts”, as if the need to “sacrifice” something to Russia is considered unavoidable.
It is impossible for Ukraine to accept any of Russia’s ultimatums. Not the recognition of the so-called “republics” within the borders of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, not the annexation of Crimea, and not the demilitarisation of Ukraine.
Kyiv understands that these concessions will not bring any security and in no way will they guarantee the withdrawal of Russian troops. Moreover, these “compromises” will not prevent a new Russian attack. To the contrary, they can only provoke a new Russian offensive against Ukraine.
Read more here: Maria Zolkina – Ukraine will not surrender one inch of land to Russia – the west must understand this
I just want to circle back to those words from the Russian defence ministry, which appear to signal a downgrading of Russian military ambitions in Ukraine. To date, the assumption of most analysts had been that Russia’s aim included taking Kyiv and replacing Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the current Ukraine government with a more pliant administration that would no longer be looking to the EU and to Nato but to Moscow.
However, in the last hour or so, Sergei Rudskoi, head of the Russian general staff’s main operational directorate, has said:
The main objectives of the first stage of the operation have generally been accomplished. The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which ... makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas.
The defence ministry said Russian-backed separatists now controlled 93% of Luhansk and 54% of Donetsk – the two self-proclaimed republics that jointly make up the Donbas.
Nevertheless, Russia’s general staff said its military operation in Ukraine would continue until Russian forces had completed the tasks that had been set, without saying what those tasks were.
Russia’s military had considered two options for its operation in Ukraine, one confined to the Donbas and the other on the whole territory of Ukraine, before opting for the latter, Rudskoi said.
It should be remembered, though, that for weeks leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia insisted that the build-up of troops and equipment on the borders and inside Belarus was for training exercise purposes.
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I mentioned earlier that the Russian ambassador to Italy, Sergey Razov, is suing the Italian newspaper La Stampa over an article that had raised the possibility of killing President Vladimir Putin. [see 10.12am]
Razov said his suit accused the newspaper of soliciting and condoning a crime.
The editor of La Stampa, Massimo Giannini, has dismissed the accusation with some strong words in a video posted on the newspaper’s website: “We do not take lessons from an illiberal regime that slaughters humanity and truth.”
On 22 March, La Stampa published an analysis headlined: “If killing the tyrant is the only option”. The piece had said if all other options failed to halt the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the only solution might be for someone to kill the president.
Giannini said La Stampa’s contested analysis had concluded by saying that killing a tyrant hardly ever resolved problems and could make things even worse.
Razov also criticised Italy’s decision to send weapons to Ukraine to help it fight off the Russians. “The thing that worries us is that the Italian weapons will be used to kill Russian citizens,” Razov said. “There are thousands and thousands of guns out there and it is not clear how and when they will be used.”
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Polish president's plane forced to return to Warsaw
The careful choreography of the US president Joe Biden’s visit to Poland has been disrupted by news that the plane taking the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, to meet him in the east of the country has had to return to Warsaw and make an emergency landing. According to statements by Duda’s adviser Jakub Kumoch to the news agency PAP, the president did not face any danger.
Biden is expected to hear directly from US troops stationed near Poland’s border with Ukraine during his stop. It is unclear at the moment whether Duda will now be able to join him.
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We’ve just launched a piece – “God has left Mariupol”: diary entries chart horror of besieged city in Ukraine – by Daniel Boffey, which features the diaries and voices of residents of the unfolding story of heartache, destruction and death in Mariupol.
At 8.23am, the mayor of Mariupol addressed his city on television. He urged everyone to remain calm. “Due to the current situation in the city, the work of schools, kindergartens and other social infrastructure institutions, except for hospitals and healthcare centre, has been temporarily stopped,”Vadym Boichenko said. “We also open all shelters in the city. All utilities and public transport continue to operate.”
Within 20 minutes, seven buildings in Mariupol’s left bank were engulfed in fire after Russian shelling that took a day to put out, killing four people, including a child.
More shelling followed at 3.17pm. Three hours later, instructions as how to act under fire were published and the rules of a new curfew between 10pm and 6am were imposed. An additional train service was put on for those who wanted to leave.
Read more here: “God has left Mariupol” – diary entries chart horror of besieged city in Ukraine
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There’s a lot happening at the moment, but away from direct developments with Russian military plans in Ukraine, Reuters are reporting that a senior White House official has said India’s position on the crisis in Ukraine has been “unsatisfactory” but is also unsurprising given its historical relationship with Russia.
Mira Rapp-Hooper, the director for the Indo-Pacific at the White House National Security Council, told a panel discussion it was necessary to provide India with alternatives to continued close ties with Russia.
Earlier today, India’s foreign minister said that China and India agreed that a ceasefire was important in Ukraine, but both countries have been lukewarm in any condemnation of Russian aggression.
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Negotiations on key issues between Ukraine and Russia have made limited progress at peace talks, Moscow negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said on Friday, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Interfax’s report said the two parties were coming closer to an understanding on secondary issues, however.
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Russia admits 1,351 soldiers dead and 3,825 wounded - Interfax
The Russian defence ministry has admitted 1,351 Russian soldiers have died since the start of its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, the Russian Interfax news agency reports.
The update is the first since the defence ministry admitted 498 Russian soldiers had been killed in action and 1,500 wounded in early March.
A comfirmed figure of Russian fatalities is shrouded in the fog of war but is expected by analysts to be much higher.
US intelligence officials this week gave a “conservative” estimate that more than 7,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in fighting in Ukraine since late February, a number that would exceed the official death toll among Russian servicemen for the two years of the first Chechen war, which is remembered as a particularly brutal and haphazard campaign.
The ministry added Russia would continue with its operation until it achieved the targets set by President Vladimir Putin, RIA reported.
UN: at least 1,081 civilians killed during invasion
The UN rights office said on Friday that a confirmed 1,081 civilians had died and 1,707 had been injured in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, Reuters reports, with the real toll expected to be significantly higher.
Earlier on Friday, video footage appeared to show Russian shelling of civilians receiving humanitarian aid in Kharkiv.
The US has formally accused Russian forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine and said it would pursue accountability “using every tool available”.
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Russia to focus on Donbas region - Russian Interfax news agency
Russia will focus on what it calls the complete “liberation” of Ukraine’s Donbas region and does not rule out the possibility of storming blockaded Ukrainian cities, according to the Russian news agency Interfax, citing the defence ministry and army.
The defence ministry said Russia had been considering two options for its so-called “special operation” in Ukraine – one solely within the self-proclaimed separatist republics in Donbas and the other on the whole territory of Ukraine, Interfax reported.
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US and Nato contingency planning for Russian strike on Nato territory - White House adviser
The US and Nato are doing contingency planning for the possibility Russia chooses to strike Nato territory, the White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Friday .
Russian attacks have edged closer to Nato’s borders since the invasion of Ukraine began.
On 13 March, Russia drew warnings from Nato after strikes on a major military base close to the alliance’s border, killing at least 35 people and injuring 134 more.
The video below from 13 March is in Yavoriv, around 15km from the Polish border.
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The Russian energy giant Gazprom, trying to wean itself off dependence on the US dollar for energy payments, has asked India to pay in euros instead.
Reuters reports the details from New Delhi:
Gazprom has asked India’s largest gas transmitter GAIL (India) to pay for gas imports in euros instead of dollars, two sources said, in a sign the Russian energy giant seeks to wean itself away from the U.S. currency in the wake of the Ukraine conflict.
European countries and the United States have imposed heavy sanctions on Russia since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.
GAIL has a long-term gas import deal with Gazprom Marketing & Trading Singapore to annually buy 2.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas and has been settling trade with Gazprom in dollars.
GAIL, which imports and distributes gas, also operates India’s largest gas pipeline network.
Last week, Gazprom wrote to GAIL requesting that the company settle payments for gas purchases in euros instead of dollars, the sources familiar with the matter said, adding the state-run Indian firm is still examining the request.
“GAIL doesn’t see any problem in settling payment in euros as European countries are paying for their imports in euros,” said one of the sources.
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Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said on Friday Ukrainian troops had repulsed a first attack by Russian forces on the town of Slavutych, Reuters reports, where workers at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant live.
Earlier on Friday, local authorities said Slavutych was isolated, with Russian forces just beyond the town’s limits. “Slavutych is completely isolated. The enemy is 1.5 km (one mile) from the town,” the Kyiv region administration said.
Video appears to show Russian shelling of civilians receiving humanitarian aid in Kharkiv
A video shows civilians reportedly receiving humanitarian aid in Kharkiv, Ukraine, being hit by what appear to be Russian shells.
The Nova Poshta postal department in Kharkiv shown in the footage, confirmed by Google Maps location, has become a hub to “deliver humanitarian aid to charitable organizations and volunteer fighters ... in Ukraine.”
It seems to mark another grim targeting of civilians by Russia just two days after the US formally accused Russian forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine and said it would pursue accountability “using every tool available”.
Meanwhile, there are some incredibly powerful pictures coming out of Kharkiv today.
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Ukraine’s deputy prime minister says Ukraine wants a humanitarian corridor for Chernihiv on Saturday, Reuters reports.
Iryna Vereshchuk said negotiations with Russia on creating humanitarian corridors were difficult, with Russia wanting civilians to evacuate to Russian-controlled territory.
Earlier on Friday the governor said the city was surrounded. “The city has been conditionally, operationally surrounded by the enemy,” governor Viacheslav Chaus said on national television, adding that the city was under fire from artillery and warplanes.
It comes after, on Wednesday, Russian forces were accused of taking the people of the besieged city hostage, as desperate local officials imposed drinking water rationing on trapped civilians.
My colleague Daniel Boffey reported on Chernihiv on Wednesday:
About 150,000 people are stuck in the northern city with little hope of aid after Russia cut them off from the capital, Kyiv, 100 miles south, by bombing a road bridge across the Desna River.
Chernihiv, which has been the focus of intense fighting in which tens of people have been killed a day, has already been without power for days, with looting rife, as the city has collapsed into chaos.
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Russian forces have partially created a land corridor to Crimea from territory in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Ukraine’s defence ministry has said.
“The enemy was partially successful in creating a land corridor between the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and part of Donetsk region,” it said in an online post.
It comes after British intelligence said on Friday Ukraine’s forces had retaken towns 35km east of Kyiv.
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UN human rights team in Ukraine say there are 'mass graves' in Mariupol
The head of the UN human rights team in Ukraine said on Friday that monitors had received increasing information on mass graves in the encircled city of Mariupol, Ukraine, including one that appeared to hold 200 bodies.
“We have got increasing information on mass graves that are there,” Matilda Bogner told journalists by video link from Ukraine, saying some of the evidence came from satellite images.
Reuters reports that Bogner said civilian deaths in Ukraine exceeded 1,035, adding that the UN team was probing what appeared to be indiscriminate attacks by both sides in the conflict.
During the call the UN also said it had received allegations of Russians killing civilians in cars during evacuations, and had documented cases of enforced disappearances of Ukraine officials, some who appear to have been taken hostage.
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Today so far …
- Local officials in the besieged city of Mariupol have said that at least 300 people are known to have been killed in the bombing on 16 March of the Drama Theatre. About 1,300 were believed to have been sheltering in the building, with just 150 survivors having staggered out of the rubble immediately after the attack.
- Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said she hoped some civilians would be able to leave besieged Mariupol in private cars today. Those who managed to leave Mariupol would find buses awaiting in the nearby city of Berdiansk which would take them to the city of Zaporizhzhia, Vereshchuk said.
- The northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv had in effect been cut off by Russian forces, the regional governor said this morning.
- The UK’s Ministry of Defence said Ukrainian forces had reoccupied towns and defensive positions up to 35km east of Kyiv. In an earlier report, the ministry said Ukraine was striking “high-value targets” which was forcing Russian forces to divert resources to defend their supply lines.
- Russia is claiming that it used Kalibr cruise missiles to destroy a major fuel depot outside Kyiv. The defence ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said the depot was used to supply Ukraine’s armed forces in the centre of the country, and that the missiles were fired from sea.
- The mayor of Boryspil says 20,000 civilians have fled the city near to the international airport on the outskirts of Kyiv. Earlier in the week he had called for residents to evacuate, saying it would make military operations easier.
- The governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Valentyn Reznichenko, has reported that there is “serious destruction” after two missiles hit a Ukrainian military unit on the outskirts of Dnipro.
- Ukrainian forces have been bolstered by the destruction of the major Russian landing ship as it brought in supplies to its troops. Dramatic pictures showed billowing fire and black smoke as the ship, docked in Berdiansk on the Azov Sea, was hit by Ukrainian ballistic missiles.
- The Kremlin has said that the Russian military will submit proposals to President Vladimir Putin on how the country should strengthen its defences in response to Nato reinforcing its eastern flank.
- Russia has also said “nothing terrible will happen” if it were to be expelled from the G20 group of countries.
- The US president, Joe Biden, will travel to a town near the Polish-Ukrainian border later today, in an attempt to signal western resolve.
- A group of veteran Russian human rights activists plan to publish an open letter calling on Russia to end its war in Ukraine, declaring it “our common duty” to “stop the war, protect the lives, rights and freedoms of all people, both Ukrainians and Russians”.
- Ukrainians fleeing the war in their homeland will be able to access healthcare and some benefits as soon as they arrive in Scotland. The health secretary, Humza Yousaf, explained the move was part of efforts to ensure that those fleeing the Russian invasion received the “warmest welcome possible”.
- About 20,100 visas had been issued under the Ukraine family scheme as of 5pm on Thursday, the UK’s Home Office said. The UK’s resettlement scheme for those fleeing Ukraine was called a “disgrace” by a Briton in Lviv who said few in the country knew about its existence.
- Finland’s national railway operator will suspend services between Helsinki and St Petersburg in Russia on Monday, closing one of the last public transport routes to the European Union for Russians.
- Belgium’s prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said this morning that European leaders would discuss measures to reduce the impact of high energy prices on consumers as a knock-on effect of Russia’s war on Ukraine
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Ukrainians fleeing the war in their homeland will be able to access healthcare and some benefits as soon as they arrive in Scotland.
Health Secretary Humza Yousaf explained the move was part of efforts to ensure that those fleeing the Russian invasion receive the “warmest welcome possible”.
“We fully recognise that they may have been through very traumatic experiences and could require specialist treatment and care,” PA Media quote him saying.
“Removing charges for healthcare and providing access to benefits is a practical step in ensuring those who have been forced to flee their homes and country can live safely and comfortably in Scotland for as long as they need to.”
An amendment to current legislation means that refugees from Ukraine will be able to access health care, including maternity care, mental health services and treatment for specific conditions at no charge while in Scotland.
The Scottish Government has also stressed this will apply to people from Ukraine who were in Scotland on short term visas when the war began and have had to extend their stay as it is not safe for them to return home.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has held his regular conference call with reporters this morning, and the key lines to come out of it, as reported by Reuters, are:
- the Russian military will submit proposals to President Vladimir Putin on how the country should strengthen its defences in response to Nato reinforcing its eastern flank.
- he described US talk of the “ephemeral threat” of Russia possibly resorting to chemical weapons as a tactic to divert attention away from awkward questions for Washington.
- he declined to say whether Russia would rebuild Ukrainian towns and cities such as Mariupol.
- he said Western sanctions targeting German Gref, the head of Russia’s largest lender Sberbank, did not pose a threat to the country’s banking sector or Sberbank.
- he said “nothing terrible will happen” if Russia is expelled from the G20 group of the world’s largest economies, because the world is much more diverse than just the United States and Europe. There are countries, he said, who take a “sober” approach to Russia and who aren’t burning bridges.
The Russian ambassador to Italy, Sergey Razov, has said he is suing Italian newspaper La Stampa over an article that had raised the possibility of killing President Vladimir Putin.
“Needless to say that this goes against the rules of journalism and morality,” Razov told reporters in front of the prosecutor’s office in Rome after he had deposited the suit.
Reuters report that, speaking through a translator, Razov said his suit accused the newspaper of soliciting and condoning a crime.
On 22 March La Stampa published an analysis headlined “If killing the tyrant is the only option”. The piece said if all other options failed to halt the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the only solution would be for someone to kill the president.
A group of veteran Russian human rights activists plan to publish an open letter calling on Russia to end its war in Ukraine, declaring it “our common duty” to “stop the war, protect the lives, rights and freedoms of all people, both Ukrainians and Russians”.
The “manifesto”, signed by 11 prominent activists including Lev Ponomaryov, Oleg Orlov, and Svetlana Gannushkina, announces the creation of a new anti-war council of Russian human rights defenders and is the broadest collective statement against the war by the Russian human rights community to date.
The activists say they will seek to help Russians avoid taking part in the war against Ukraine and to demand that the Ministry of Defence releases accurate information about the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war.
“Russian citizens are being involved in military operations on the territory of Ukraine, where they become accomplices in war crimes and die themselves,” a draft statement says. “Our first goal is to help them avoid this, relying on the constitution and Russian legislation, and to assist all those who are illegally forced to participate in hostilities.”
Read more of Andrew Roth’s piece here: Russian activists sign open letter calling for end to war in Ukraine
Finland’s national railway operator will suspend services between Helsinki and Saint Petersburg in Russia on Monday, closing one of the last public transport routes to the European Union for Russians.
Reuters report that operator VR had been directed by the state that it was no longer appropriate to run the service, “So we are suspending the traffic for the time being,” head of passenger traffic Topi Simola said.
Trains from Russia to Finland’s capital Helsinki have been full of Russians since the invasion of Ukraine. The border between Finland and Russia remains open for crossings by private car.
UK says it has issued 20,100 visas under 'Ukraine family scheme'
Some 20,100 visas have been issued under the Ukraine family scheme as of 5pm on Thursday, the UK’s Home Office said.
PA Media report that so far 35,500 applications have been submitted, according to provisional data published on the department’s website.
Earlier, Jan Egeland, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council criticised the lack of European-wide co-ordination for Ukrainian refugees, pointing out that Poland has taken in a huge number of displaced people who do not have options to move on. [see 8.19am]
The UK’s resettlement scheme for Ukrainians has been branded a “disgrace” by one Briton working in Lviv helping applicants through the process.
A quick snap from Reuters here that Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has said this morning that India and China agreed on the importance of an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, after he held talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Both China and India have so far held back from strongly condemning Russia’s invasion.
Northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv cut off by Russian forces
The northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv has in effect been cut off by Russian forces, the regional governor said this morning according to reports from Reuters.
“The city has been conditionally, operationally surrounded by the enemy,” Governor Viacheslav Chaus said on national television, adding that the city was under fire from artillery and warplanes.
Local officials say at least 300 people killed in Drama Theatre bombing in Mariupol
Local officials in the besieged city of Mariupol have said that at least 300 people are known to have been killed in the bombing on 16 March of the Drama Theatre.
About 1,300 were believed to have been sheltering the building, with just 150 survivors having staggered out of the rubble immediately after the attack.
Sources said the bulk of those in the theatre had been hiding from the shelling under the stage and that rubble was blocking their exit.
There are no emergency services operating in Mariupol and the intense fighting and shelling near the theatre has prevented rescue attempts. The theatre was bombed by plane despite the word children having been painted on the ground in white.
In a statement on Friday morning, a spokesman for the city council said they were able to share a new death toll from the tragedy.
The statement said: “Unfortunately, we start this day with bad news. From eyewitnesses, information appears that about 300 people died in the Drama Theatre of Mariupol as a result of a bombardment by a Russian aircraft.Until the last, I do not want to believe in this horror. Until the last, I want to believe that everyone managed to escape. But the words of those who were inside the building at the time of this terrorist act say otherwise.
“The Drama Theatre in the heart of Mariupol has always been the hallmark of the city. A place of meetings, dates, a point of reference. ‘Where are you? I’m on Drama.’ How many times have we heard or said this phrase: ‘on the Drama’.
“Now there is no more Drama. In its place, a new point of pain for Mariupol residents appeared, ruins that became the last refuge for hundreds of innocent people.”
The statement goes on: “The Drama Theatre was cynically destroyed by the messengers of the ‘Russian world’. These fascists of the 21st century were not stopped either by the huge inscription CHILDREN, or by the statements of the people themselves that there were only peaceful people there - women, children, old people. The occupier knew where he was hitting.
“We can restore buildings, but we will never get friends, neighbours, relatives and loved ones back. Blessed memory of all the innocent victims of the insane war waged against Ukraine by the aggressor country, the terrorist country Russia.”
Andrey Kurkov, a Ukrainian novelist, writes for us today that Putin’s bombs and missiles rain down, but he will never destroy Ukraine’s culture:
In the first week of the war, Kyiv’s museums received instructions from the Ministry of Culture to evacuate their collections to western Ukraine. Some museums simply hid their collections in basements; some managed to pack everything in boxes and now are waiting for transportation out of the city. But transport is in short supply – the evacuation of people and the delivery of humanitarian supplies have been prioritised. The protection of our cultural heritage has had to take second place.
At the very beginning of the war, a Russian bomb fell on the museum dedicated to Maria Pryimachenko – the most famous “naive” Ukrainian artist – in the town of Ivankov, to the north of Kyiv. Braving the flames, local residents carried the paintings out of the museum and have hidden them away so that, after the war, when a new museum is built, the collection can be displayed once more.
The Ministry of Culture is keeping a record of destroyed historical and cultural sites. Dozens of new items are added to the list every day. But Ukrainian culture cannot be destroyed by bombs and missiles. It will survive, just as the Ukrainian language has survived, despite it being banned by more than 40 tzarist decrees during the 19th century, despite the Soviet policy of Russification of Ukraine, despite Russia’s current and violent hatred of everything Ukrainian.
Read more here: Andrey Kurkov – Putin’s bombs and missiles rain down, but he will never destroy Ukraine’s culture
Belgium’s prime minister Alexander De Croo said this morning that European leaders would discuss measures to reduce the impact of high energy prices on consumers as a knock-on effect of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Reuters quote him saying:
The EU is not only about big principles, big meetings and American presidents.
Today is about the everyday issues of the people and that is the electricity and gas bills of the people and that’s the impact we see today of that war in Ukraine. So we need to intervene and I hope this time we have measures that have an impact.
We are ruining our population and public finances with these high prices. We are at war and in a war you need to take extraordinary measures.
There is a little more detail on the attempts to rescue civilians from the siege of Mariupol. Reuters report that Ukraine hopes some civilians will be able to leave in private cars today, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
Those who manage to leave Mariupol will find buses awaiting in the nearby city of Berdiansk which will take them to the city of Zaporizhzhia, Vereshchuk said.
“We will do everything in our power so that buses filled with Mariupol residents reach Zaporizhzhia today,” she said.
Repeated attempts to arrange safe passage out of the southern port city, which is surrounded by Russian forces, have failed.
Mariupol, which is normally home to about 400,000 people, has been under heavy bombardment for weeks. Civilians trapped there have been sheltering in basements with little food, power or running water.
Jan Egeland, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, has appeared on Sky News in the UK talking about their operations to help refugees in Ukraine, and a new centre being set up in Warsaw in Poland.
He said the new centre could receive 2,500 Ukrainian refugees per day, saying “we can give them meals, we can give them counselling, we can give them a safe space, and then we can advise them on other services beyond their first entry point.”
He said that the people arriving in Poland now, compared to the first wave of refugees from Ukraine were “weak, more exhausted, they have less resources and they don’t know where to go.”
On the scale of the refugee crisis engulfing Europe, Egeland described it as “mind-boggling”, saying “You will remember how the whole of Europe sort of paniced in 2015 because a million people were crossing the Mediterranean to the continent of Europe. Now Poland alone has received 2.2 million people – more than twice that, in four weeks.”
Egeland also expressed concern at the lack of pan-European co-ordination and planning, saying “There’s no European responsibility sharing. The mothers who come here, exhausted with their children, they tell us where can we go? Poland is completely filled to the brim, where can we go?”
Ukraine’s new agriculture minister, Mykola Solskyi, who was appointed yesterday, global food prices would continue to rise if the situation in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion did not change.
Reuters report the minister said that Ukraine’s grain stocks for export amount to $7.5 billion but did not say what the volume of grains for export was.
The previous agriculture minister, Roman Leshchenko, stepped down yesterday citing a serious health condition.
Two quick snaps from Reuters here. Firstly, Russia is claiming that it used “Kalibr” cruise missiles to destroy a major fuel depot outside Kyiv. Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told a briefing the strike happened on Thursday evening with missiles fired from the sea. Konashenkov said the depot was used to supply Ukraine’s armed forces in the centre of the country.
Secondly, the Mayor of Borispyl says 20,000 civilians have fled the city. It is near to the international airport on the outskirts of Kyiv, and earlier in the week he had called for resident to evacuate, saying it would make military operations easier.
Reuters and the Guardian have been unable to independently verify either of these claims.
Here are a few of the latest pictures that have reached us.
The UK’s resettlement scheme for those fleeing Ukraine has been called a “disgrace” by a Briton who said few in the country knew about its existence.
Andrew Murray, a technology worker from north-east Scotland, said ministers’ claims about the success of the visa programme that is meant to allow charities, businesses or companies to sponsor a refugee “does not match the reality on the ground”.
“The rhetoric stops at the border of Ukraine and does not penetrate where it’s needed,” he said.
Speaking from Lviv, Murray said Ukrainians were “very grateful” for all the military equipment supplied by Britain to help fend off Russian forces.
But he added: “They’re under no illusion that the UK has made it artificially difficult to seek sanctuary there,” calling the scheme a “disgrace”.
Murray arrived in Ukraine earlier this week, with bundles of papers he drew up containing information about how those wanting to flee to the UK could navigate the process. He hoped to distribute the documents to charities and aid agencies, but said he realised “that’s a cottage industry trying to address an industrial scale problem”.
After going to Lviv city hall and meeting officials on the council, he said he realised they had never heard of the UK’s “homes for Ukraine” programme.
Read more of Aubrey Allegretti’s report here: UK resettlement scheme for Ukrainians is a ‘disgrace’, says Briton in Lviv
The Marshall Islands is considering “expelling” from their ship registry any Russian yachts or boats that have been targeted by Western-led sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, its foreign minister said.
The minister, Casten Nemra, told reporters “We are one of the largest ship registry programmes for flagged ships throughout the global shipping industry,” he said.
“We are also looking into expelling any Russian ownership in terms of yachts or those that are listed and are on the sanction list. We will do our part in working, collaborating with a number of countries.”
Reuters report he said his Pacific island nation strongly condemned the Russian invasion.
Moldova, one of the poorest nations in Europe, is learning how badly war relief can drain resources as conflict creeps nearer to its eastern border with Ukraine.
Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the World Food Programme, said so far, Moldova is the only country bordering Ukraine where the WFP is providing support for refugees – help that has come at the government’s request. “The capacity of the local community to continue to help these people will run out,” Etefa said, adding that the WFP intends to give financial stipends to host families as well as food aid to refugees.
Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, has asked the international community to help with the cost of hosting refugees from Ukraine. This week, the US pledged $30m (£23m) to Moldova to assist with relief efforts. The European Union earlier pledged €90m (£70m) for support in Ukraine and Moldova. Money from both will go to UN agencies and local civil society organisations.
Olga Ghilca, a volunteer with Moldova for Peace, a group that started helping with relief efforts soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, says they are doing their best to prepare for more refugees but she fears an influx would overwhelm them. “Nobody can promise that we can deal with that because we’ve never dealt with that,” she said.
You can read more of Betsy Joles and Paula Erizanu’s report here: The poor help the desperate – Moldova struggles to aid its fleeing neighbours
Reuters are reporting that the Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Valentyn Reznichenko, has reported that there is “serious destruction” after two missiles hit a Ukrainian military unit on the outskirts of Dnipro.
The report says rescuers are looking for people among the debris.
On Sky News in the UK, transport minister Grant Shapps has been asked whether Britain is doing all it can to assist Ukraine. He said:
We were there for eight years before, training the Ukrainian army, 22,000 members of the Ukrainian army. And of course we provided defensive weapons – the ones which are taking out a lot of Russian tanks – in advance of this war starting.
When I speak to my opposite number in Kyiv … he tells me that Britain has been pioneering with its aid and assistance, and of course with our generosity in lots of different ways. The British people feel very aligned to what’s going on and know that it’s in our interest to defend Europe
On Nato sending additional military hardware, he said:
The whole Nato thing will be a collective decision. You know Ukraine is not a member of Nato, of course. We are doing everything we can to help and assist but we don’t want to create a wider war. But be in no doubt whatsoever, Ukraine is a completely innocent country who were invaded.
What we are doing is providing defensive weaponry, Britain, even before the war, and now as you rightly say another 6,000 missiles and other support. What we don’t want to do is enter the war directly.
Humanitarian corridor to be opened from Mariupol today – reports
A quick snap from Reuters here that Ukraine is hoping a humanitarian corridor is to be opened from Mariupol today, for those who can go by private car.
In recent days humanitarian corridors have been agreed in several areas in Ukraine, but always excluding the besieged port city which has been devastated by weeks of artillery fire.
Updated
Summary
It is 9:15am in Ukraine and the country has battled against Russian forces in a war that has now drawn out for one month.
Here is where the crisis currently stands:
- Ukraine’s emergency services are reporting an oil depot in the village of Kalinovka in north-west Ukraine was hit by Russian shelling and caught fire overnight.
- Russia and Ukraine exchanged prisoners in the first swap of soldiers since Moscow ordered troops into Ukraine one month ago, Ukraine’s vice-prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said writing the first “full-fledged exchange of prisoners of war took place” where 10 “captured occupiers” were exchanged for 10 Ukrainian servicemen. In a recent update published to her official Telegram channel just before midnight local time, Vereshchuk said the humanitarian hostages taken in Mangush have been released.
- Ukraine accused Moscow of forcibly taking hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to give up. Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, have been taken against their will. The United Nations told the BBC that Ukrainians are being arbitrarily detained and subjected to enforced disappearances in Russian-controlled areas.
- Zelenskiy shared his appearance at the EU summit where he thanked European Council members for putting sanctions on Russia but said it was “a little late”, in a video message posted to his official Facebook account.
- Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev said it is “foolish” to believe that western sanctions against Russian businesses could have any effect on the Moscow government. The sanctions will only consolidate the Russian society and not cause popular discontent with the authorities, Medvedev told Russia’s RIA news agency in an interview.
- US president Joe Biden will travel to a town near the Polish-Ukrainian border on Friday, in an attempt to signal Western resolve. He is expected to meet with experts on the humanitarian response and US troops stationed in Poland. On Saturday, he is to meet Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda to discuss “the humanitarian and human rights crisis” resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- The UK’s ministry of defence said Ukrainian forces have reoccupied towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometres east of Kyiv. In an earlier report, the ministry said Ukraine is striking “high value targets” that is forcing Russian forces to divert resources to defend their supply lines. It cited the attacks on a landing ship and ammunition storage depots at Berdyansk as examples of valuable targets. “It is likely that the Ukrainians will continue to target logistical assets in Russian-held areas. This will force the Russian military to prioritise the defence of their supply chain” and reduce ability to carry out offensive operations.
- Ukrainian forces have been bolstered by the destruction of the major Russian landing ship as it brought in supplies to its troops. Dramatic pictures showed billowing fire and black smoke as the ship, docked in Berdyansk on the Azov Sea, was hit by Ukrainian ballistic missiles.
- The Ukrainian defence ministry said its troops had pushed back Russian forces from some areas around the capital, Kyiv. Russian troops did not have enough resources to push ahead with their offensive in Ukraine, Oleksander Motuzyanyk, Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesperson said.
- These accounts appear to be corroborated by a senior Pentagon official who said Russia is running out of precision guided munitions and it is more likely to rely on so-called dumb bombs and artillery. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said Russia is suffering high failure rates as high as 60% for some of its precision-guided missiles while its forces have taken heavy casualties and are low on supplies.
For a more comprehensive rundown, please see our earlier update.
Ukraine reoccupies towns east of Kyiv, UK defence says
Ukrainian forces have reoccupied towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometres east of Kyiv, according to British intelligence.
The latest UK defence intelligence update reads:
Ukrainian counter-attacks, and Russian Forces falling back on overextended supply lines, has allowed Ukraine to re-occupy towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometres east of Kyiv.
Ukrainian Forces are likely to continue to attempt to push Russian Forces back along the north-western axis from Kyiv towards Hostomel Airfield.
In the south of Ukraine Russian Forces are still attempting to circumvent Mykolaiv as they look to drive west towards Odesa with their progress being slowed by logistic issues and Ukrainian resistance.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 25 March 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 25, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/shZZIe6cBq
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/gdCRYuQvvp
Ukraine’s emergency services are reporting an oil depot in the village of Kalinovka in north-west Ukraine was hit by Russian shelling and caught fire overnight.
“As a result of the shelling, ammunition hit the oil depot in Kalynivka, Fastiv district, with subsequent fire,” the agency said in an update this morning.
Overnight a Russian attack hit an oil depot in the village of Kalinovka pic.twitter.com/FJirkuiBc2
— Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) March 25, 2022
Updated
Ukraine’s prosecutors office is reporting 135 children have died so far as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“As of the morning of March 25, 135 children died in Ukraine due to Russia’s armed aggression. 184 children were injured,” it said in an update shared by Ukraine’s parliament.
🔷 135 дітей станом на ранок 25 березня загинуло в Україні через збройну агресію росії. 184 дитини були поранені.
— Верховна Рада України (@verkhovna_rada) March 25, 2022
ня. pic.twitter.com/aCLhiImmaq
Some powerful snaps to emerge out of Ukraine today show people sheltering in metro stations in Kharkiv while others show people travelling by train to escape towns under Russian attack.
The major Russian landing ship destroyed by Ukrainian forces in a dramatic fiery attack early on Thursday morning is believed to have been the Saratov ship and not the Orsk, as previously reported.
A recent report published by Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces reads: “According to updated information, a large landing ship Saratov was destroyed during the attack on the occupied Berdyansk port. Large landing ships Caesar Kunikov and Novocherkassk were damaged”.
“Instead of the enemy landing ship Orsk, a large enemy landing ship Saratov was destroyed and two more large landing ships - Novocherkask and Caesar Kunikov were damaged,” he said.
“There were 20 tanks, 45 armored personnel carriers and 400 personnel in the Saratov ship destroyed” Gerashchenko added.
The Russian ship was bringing in supplies to its troops at the port of Berdiansk.
Dramatic pictures were aired of billowing fire and black smoke as the ship, docked in Berdiansk on the Azov Sea, was hit by Ukrainian ballistic missiles.
The ship contained weapons and supplies for forces fighting in Mariupol.
Potentially significant shifts may be occurring on the battlefield of Russia’s war in Ukraine, some western officials say.
Air vice-marshal Mick Smeath, London’s defence attaché in Washington, said British intelligence assesses that Ukrainian forces probably have retaken two towns west of Kyiv, the capital.
It is likely that successful counterattacks by Ukraine will disrupt the ability of Russian forces to reorganise and resume their own offensive towards Kyiv,” Smeath said.
Ukraine says it is now shifting to the offensive and has pushed back Russian forces, including north of Kyiv after repelling five Russian attacks in the country’s east on Thursday.
Russian troops did not have enough resources to push ahead with their offensive in Ukraine, Oleksander Motuzyanyk, Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesperson said.
The latest UK ministry of defence intelligence report claimed Ukraine is now striking “high value targets” that is forcing Russian forces to divert resources to defend their supply lines. It cited the attacks on a landing ship and ammunition storage depots at Berdyansk as examples of valuable targets.
Ukrainian forces have launched strikes against high value targets in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including a landing ship and ammunition storage depots at Berdyansk.
It is likely that the Ukrainians will continue to target logistical assets in Russian-held areas. This will force the Russian military to prioritise the defence of their supply chain and deprive them of much needed resupply for forces.
This will reduce Russia’s ability to conduct offensive operations, and further damage already dwindling morale.”
Russia is running out of precision guided munitions, Pentagon official says
Russia is running out of precision guided munitions and it is more likely to rely on so-called dumb bombs and artillery, a senior Pentagon official said on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl speculated that he did not believe President Vladimir Putin wanted to have an all out conflict with Nato.
Earlier, we reported that three US officials claimed Russia is suffering high failure rates as high as 60% for some of its precision-guided missiles while its forces have taken heavy casualties and are low on supplies.
According to an Associated Press report, Russian shortcomings in Ukraine might be the biggest shock of the war so far. After two decades of modernisation and professionalisation, Putin’s forces have proved to be “ill-prepared, poorly coordinated and surprisingly stoppable”, the news agency said.
The extent of Russian troop losses is not known in detail, although Nato estimates that between 7,000 and 15,000 have died in the first four weeks — potentially as many as Russia lost in a decade of war in Afghanistan. Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces have claimed Russian losses to be as high as 15,600.
Robert Gates, the former CIA director and defense secretary, said Putin “has got to be stunningly disappointed” in his military’s performance.
“Here we are in Ukraine seeing conscripts not knowing why they’re there, not being very well trained, and just huge problems with command and control, and incredibly lousy tactics,” Gates said at a forum recently.
Updated
In case you missed this earlier interview with UK prime minister Boris Johnson on BBC Newsnight, here is a quick recap.
Johnson told the broadcaster he’s not optimistic that Russian President Putin wants peace.
I’m not optimistic that Vladimir Putin really wants that [peace].
I think he’s decided to double down and try to Groznify the great cities of Ukraine in the way that he’s always tried to do and I think that’s a tragic mistake.”
“Groznify” is a reference to the Chechen city of Grozny, which Russia bombed and besieged in 1999-2000.
"I'm not optimistic Putin really wants [peace]. I think he’s decided to double down and try to Groznyfy the great cities of Ukraine."
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) March 24, 2022
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the prospects for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine
Watch at 2230 on @BBCTwo#Newsnight | @nicholaswatt pic.twitter.com/cO47BN28il
Watch Ukraine’s president deliver his stern remarks to the EU summit in the video below.
You applied sanctions. We are grateful. These are powerful steps but it was a little late.
If it had been preventative, Russia would not have gone to war.”
Whether Russia wins the ground war remains to be seen, but it is on course to lose at least one part of the economic war, according to some interesting research by analysts at the investment bank Natixis in Hong Kong.
It rates how each stock index has performed this year and it’s not surprising that Russia’s main bourse is ranked bottom of the class. It is followed by two of China’s main indices – the CSI300 and the Shenzhen SE composite – although they have also suffered amid uncertainty about Covid, and regulation in the tech and property sectors.
Worst:
— Trinh (@Trinhnomics) March 25, 2022
Russia. Yes, a key loser of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Second worst - China.
China is doing badly for its own reasons - zero Covid + tightening of regulations. Higher commodity prices aren't good either.
But this is a short-term shock story. Longer term? pic.twitter.com/WNFqzwRKwO
This year’s winner is Brazil’s Ibovespa index, a reflection of how resource-rich economies have prospered from the invasion-driven spike in commodity prices. Australia’s ASX200 is also in the black.
That 2022 trend is borne out in Friday trading where the Chinese markets are all being hammered again. The Hang Seng is off 2.20%, for example, and Shanghai’s CSI300 is down 0.56%. Sydney, by contrast, is up 0.26% while futures trade is indicating that European bourses will open down in a couple of hours’ time.
Sanctions 'a little late', Zelenskiy tells EU council
In a video message posted to his official Facebook account, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy shared his appearance at the EU summit where he thanked European Council members for putting sanctions on Russia but said it was “a little late.”
Zelenskiy said if the sanctions had been preventative, there was a chance Russia would not have gone to war. He told the council:
You applied sanctions. We are grateful. These are powerful steps but it was a little late.
If it had been preventative, Russia would not have gone to war ...
You blocked Nord Stream 2. We are grateful to you. And rightly so. But it was also a little late. Because if it had been in time, Russia would not have created a gas crisis. At least there was a chance.
The Russian military does not see what dignity is. They do not know what conscience is. They do not understand why we value our freedom so much. This is what determines how the country will live.”
He said Russia has already destroyed 230 schools, 155 kindergartens and killed 128 children in Ukraine.
Whole cities, villages. Just to ashes. Nothing remains.
The Russian military killed journalists. Although they saw the inscription ‘Press’ on them. They may not have been taught to read. Only to kill.”
Updated
US President Joe Biden is today expected to announce increased shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe, part of a long-term initiative to wean the continent off Russian energy after the invasion of Ukraine.
He plans to discuss the issue with Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Union’s executive arm, shortly before leaving for Poland, the final leg of his four-day trip, Reuters reports.
Earlier this week, Von der Leyen said “we are aiming at having a commitment for additional supplies for the next two winters.” And Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, recently told reporters that the administration wants to quickly “surge” gas to Europe.
Russian energy is a key source of income and political leverage for Moscow. Almost 40% of the European Union’s natural gas comes from Russia to heat homes, generate electricity and power industry.
Recent images from inside the Ukrainian southern city of Mariupol show long, winding lines of trapped citizens waiting to collect humanitarian aid.
Others show Russian troops driving armoured vehicles past local residents through the city.
Biden to visit Polish town less than 50 miles from Ukraine border
We are getting more detail on the plan for US President Joe Biden’s visit to Poland later today.
AFP says Biden will travel to a town near the Polish-Ukrainian border on Friday, in an attempt to signal Western resolve against a Russian invasion that has increasingly turned to a grinding war of attrition.
Air Force One will jet into the eastern Polish town of Rzeszow - bringing the US president less than 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Ukrainian soil.
He will travel to Warsaw in the evening. In Poland, Biden will also receive a briefing on the dire humanitarian situation in Ukraine, which has seen more than 3.5 million people pour out of the country.
A quick take here from Russian ex-president, Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev said it is “foolish” to believe that western sanctions against Russian businesses could have any effect on the Moscow government, the former president and deputy head of security council was quoted as saying on Friday.
The sanctions will only consolidate the Russian society and not cause popular discontent with the authorities, Medvedev told Russia’s RIA news agency in an interview.
The west has imposed an array of sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, but one month into the war, the Kremlin says it will continue the assault until it accomplishes its goals of Ukraine’s “demilitarisation and denazification”.
Some of the sanctions have specifically targeted billionaire businessmen believed to be close to President Vladimir Putin. Medvedev said:
Let us ask ourselves: can any of these major businessmen have even the tiniest quantum of influence of the position of the country’s leadership?
I openly tell you: no, no way.”
Updated
Summary
Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you as we continue our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
It is now one month since Russia invaded Ukraine. If you’re just joining us, here is a comprehensive rundown on where the crisis currently stands:
- Russia and Ukraine exchanged prisoners in the first swap of soldiers since Moscow ordered troops into Ukraine one month ago, Ukraine’s vice-prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said writing the first “full-fledged exchange of prisoners of war took place” where 10 “captured occupiers” were exchanged for 10 Ukrainian servicemen. In a recent update published to her official Telegram channel just before midnight local time, Vereshchuk said the humanitarian hostages taken in Mangush have been released.
- Ukraine accused Moscow of forcibly taking hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to give up. Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, have been taken against their will. The United Nations told the BBC that Ukrainians are being arbitrarily detained and subjected to enforced disappearances in Russian-controlled areas.
- Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered a powerful late night nation address, suggesting Russia may not have invaded had it known the war would drag on for more than a month. “The 30th day. It’s been a month. Had Russia known that this was expecting them, I’m sure, they would have been scared to come here,” he said.
- Zelenskiy also shared his appearance at the EU summit where he thanked European Council members for putting sanctions on Russia but said it was “a little late”, in a video message posted to his official Facebook account.
- US president Joe Biden heads to Warsaw, Poland, today where he is expected to meet with experts on the humanitarian response and US troops stationed in Poland. On Saturday, he is to meet Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda to discuss “the humanitarian and human rights crisis” resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- The UK’s ministry of defence said Ukraine is striking “high value targets” that is forcing Russian forces to divert resources to defend their supply lines. It cited the attacks on a landing ship and ammunition storage depots at Berdyansk as examples of valuable targets. “It is likely that the Ukrainians will continue to target logistical assets in Russian-held areas. This will force the Russian military to prioritise the defence of their supply chain” and reduce ability to carry out offensive operations.
- Ukrainian forces have been bolstered by the destruction of the major Russian landing ship as it brought in supplies to its troops. Dramatic pictures showed billowing fire and black smoke as the Orsk, docked in Berdyansk on the Azov Sea, was hit by Ukrainian ballistic missiles.
- The Ukrainian defence ministry said its troops had pushed back Russian forces from some areas around the capital, Kyiv. Russian troops did not have enough resources to push ahead with their offensive in Ukraine, Oleksander Motuzyanyk, Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesperson said.
- These accounts appear to be corroborated by a senior Pentagon official who said Russia is running out of precision guided munitions and it is more likely to rely on so-called dumb bombs and artillery. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said Russia is suffering high failure rates as high as 60% for some of its precision-guided missiles while its forces have taken heavy casualties and are low on supplies.
- Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said there were 40 buses waiting to take civilians out of Mariupol, but that Russian forces were not letting them through. There were meant to be seven humanitarian corridors open on Thursday – although Mariupol was not included among them.
- Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcibly taking 402,000 civilians, including 84,000 children, from Ukrainian cities to Russia - and raised concerns that they would be used as hostages. Russia corroborated the numbers but said the civilians has been evacuated willingly.
- Nato leaders have agreed to strengthen their defences in the east in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. About 40,000 troops have been placed on its eastern flank along with significant air and naval assets, and four new battlegroups will be sent to Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.
- The US and its allies announced new sanctions on more than 400 Russian elites and institutions. Among those sanctioned were Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, and 328 of its members. The US treasury department also issued guidance, warning that US authorities may impose sanctions on gold-related transactions involving Russia.
- Biden said China understands the economic consequences that would ensue if it provides help to Russia in its war with Ukraine and understands that its economic future is “much more closely tied to the west than it is to Russia”. The US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl also said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made it more of a strategic burden on China.
- G7 leaders said they are resolved to impose severe consequences on Russia and stand ready to apply additional measures “as required”. In a joint statement, they condemned Vladimir Putin’s “war of choice” and his “unjustifiable, unprovoked and illegal” aggression in Ukraine.
- The Biden administration and the European Union are expected to announce a major initiative to direct shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe during the US president’s visit to Brussels this week, the Washington Post reported, citing three US officials familiar with the plan.
- Russia has been hit with 65 new sanctions by the UK, in a move the Foreign Office said was designed to target “key strategic industries and individuals”. Among those hit were six banks and a defence company that produces drones, as well as the Wagner Group, which Britain said had reportedly been tasked with assassinating the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
- The UK and allies will “ramp up” lethal aid to Ukraine, Boris Johnson said following a meeting of G7 leaders. The UK will send an additional 6,000 missiles and provide £25m in funding for Ukraine’s armed forces, he said, with kit provided “in the quantity and with the quality” needed by Ukraine to defend itself against “its bullying neighbour”.
- Asked about the Kremlin’s claim that he was the “most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian”, Boris Johnson said he was not “remotely anti-Russian”. “I think I’m probably the only prime minister in UK history to be called Boris,” he told reporters in Brussels. He also told BBC Newsnight that he’s not optimistic that Russian President Putin wants peace. “I’m not optimistic that Vladimir Putin really wants that [peace].I think he’s decided to double down and try to Groznify the great cities of Ukraine in the way that he’s always tried to do and I think that’s a tragic mistake.”
- The United Nations general assembly voted overwhelmingly to call on Russia to stop its war on Ukraine immediately and to provide more aid access and civilian protection in Ukraine. The resolution received 140 votes in favour and five votes against - Russia, Syria, North Korea, Eritrea and Belarus - while 38 countries abstained.
As usual, for any tips and feedback please contact me through Twitter or at samantha.lock@theguardian.com
The Guardian keeps you up to the minute on the crisis in Ukraine with a global perspective and from our team around the world and around the clock. Thank you for reading and please do stay tuned.
Updated
