Top story: ‘They want to raze it to the ground’
Hello, Warren Murray bringing you the top stories.
Almost 100,000 people trapped in the ruined city of Mariupol face starvation amid “constant” Russian bombardment, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said. More than 7,000 people escaped the city in the past 24 hours, he said. The besieged southern port city has been left a “freezing hellscape riddled with dead bodies and destroyed buildings”, Human Rights Watch says. According to 39-year-old Viktoria Totsen, who fled to Poland: “During the last five days, the planes were flying over us every five seconds and dropped bombs everywhere on residential buildings, kindergartens, art schools, everywhere.” A local official said: “It is clear that the occupiers are not interested in the city of Mariupol, they want to raze it to the ground, to reduce it to ashes of a dead land.”
There have been signs of Ukrainian forces going on the offensive, retaking a town near Kyiv and launching counterattacks in the south. The Pentagon has said Russia’s forces may have been reduced by as much as 10% in the four weeks of fighting. Ukraine’s military, meanwhile, has alleged the Russian invasion forces have only three further days of fuel, food and ammunition after breakdowns in their supply lines. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, speaking on CNN, has refused to rule out that Russia might use nuclear weapons if it sees itself as facing “existential threat”. The US defence department spokesman John Kirby branded the remarks “dangerous … not the way a responsible nuclear power should act”. Russian forces “looted and destroyed” a laboratory at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukrainian officials have said, with “highly active samples” falling into the invaders’ hands.
The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has said it is time for Russia to end its “absurd” and “unwinnable” war, as the EU prepares to set up a “trust fund” to help Ukraine repel the invasion and rebuild afterwards. “Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house,” Guterres said. Russian forces have “kidnapped” 2,389 children from the Russian-controlled areas of Luhansk and Donetsk, the US embassy in Kyiv has said, citing figures by Ukraine’s foreign ministry. The embassy said: “This is not assistance. It is kidnapping.” Keep up with further developments at our live blog.
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‘For me, this is right’ – Ash Barty, the world No 1, has stunned the tennis world by announcing her retirement at the age of 25. Barty delivered the bombshell news in an online interview released this morning. “I just know at the moment in my heart [that] for me as a person, this is right … I’m so grateful for everything tennis has given me – it’s given me all my dreams plus more.” Barty said she had been thinking about retiring “for a long time” and had “a gut feeling” after last year’s Wimbledon win but there was “a little part of me that wasn’t quite satisfied, wasn’t quite fulfilled”. Winning the Australian Open “feels like the perfect way, my perfect way to celebrate what an amazing journey my tennis career has been”.
“I just know that I am absolutely – I am spent – I just know physically I have nothing more to give. And that to me is success. I have given absolutely everything I can to this beautiful sport of tennis.” Barty departs at the peak of her powers, as the reigning Australian Open and Wimbledon champion who has held the world No 1 position since winning the 2019 French Open. It was the Queenslander’s second coming after she took an indefinite break in 2014, while ranked outside the Top 200, because “it was too much too quickly for me as I’ve been travelling from quite a young age”, saying she wanted to experience life “as a normal teenaged girl”. Barty was the Wimbledon girls’ singles champion in 2011, aged 15.
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‘Confront this challenge’ – Rishi Sunak will promise “security” to cash-strapped families today as he announces measures to tackle the cost of living crisis while committing to fixing the public finances. Sunak is predicted to use his spring update to announce a cut in fuel duty of at least 5p a litre, but hinted on Tuesday night there may be a more extensive package of support. Options include raising the threshold at which workers start paying national insurance contributions (NICs); deferring the 1.25-point NICs increase; uprating state benefits in line with the 8% inflation rate expected for April; and providing help to energy-intensive businesses.
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has accused the chancellor of introducing the controversial NICs rise to give himself the scope to promise tax cuts ahead of the next general election. The statement has been turned by Russia’s war on Ukraine into the latest of a string of mini-budgets. In pre-released extracts of his speech, Sunak says: “We will confront this challenge to our values not just in the arms and resources we send to Ukraine but in strengthening our economy here at home.” The cross-party Treasury select committee has warned the invasion of Ukraine will damage the UK economy. In its report on the impact of sanctions on Vladimir Putin, the committee said Russia was heading for “economic catastrophe” but the war would have as yet unquantifiable costs to the UK.
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Midweek catch-up
> P&O has revealed it is paying £36.5m compensation for the 800 seafarers it sacked without warning. It is understood those who accept will have to sign agreements not to disparage the company. The RMT union has said seafarers from abroad are being brought in on as little as £1.80 an hour.
> The UK appears set to criminalise illicit refugee crossings of the Channel and could ship asylum seekers to other countries for processing, after the government won a string of votes in the Commons to wind back changes by the House of Lords.
> Severe damage to the airliner that crashed in China on Monday with 132 people on board poses “a very high level of difficulty” in establishing a cause, authorities say.
> Gambling addiction rates in the UK may be nine times higher than the betting industry claims, according to a study that found 1.4 million people are being harmed by their own gambling while a further 1.5 million are at risk.
> Three girls have been held in an all-boys prison for at least eight months owing to “appalling” and systemic failures in the prison system, MPs and campaigners have said.
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Government by WhatsApp – Communication within government during the pandemic was often by instant messaging, such as by WhatsApp, a senior Cabinet Office official has accepted. It has emerged a series of messages were lost from Boris Johnson’s phone in April 2021 amid security precautions after it was found that the prime minister’s phone number was listed on the internet, according to Sarah Harrison, the chief operating officer at the Cabinet Office. The loss of the messages comes despite ministers being “required to make a separate record of any conversation” relevant to work. WhatsApp is only supposed to be allowed “for ephemeral chat and/or unclassified material”. A court challenge over the use of private messaging in government is being undertaken by the Good Law Project and the Citizens, a non-profit media organisation.
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Takes the biscuits – It was about 9pm in late November when a rare Marsican brown bear nicknamed Juan Carrito sauntered into Roccaraso, a ski resort town in Italy’s Abruzzo region, before turning into a side alley, smashing a small window of Dolci Momenti (Sweet Moments) bakery and clambering in to scoff a batch of biscuits.
Juan Carrito, who was a fixture in the town, has since been tranquilised and moved away, though some residents want him back. “It was a disaster at the time, we had to throw everything away and disinfect everything,” says the bakery owner, Marina Valentini. “Now I have to deal with the crazy publicity: tourists come in and ask: ‘Are these the biscuits the bear ate’?”
Today in Focus podcast: What comes after the pandemic
Two years after the first UK coronavirus lockdown, Laura Spinney reflects on what the years after the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic looked like, and what we might expect in a post-Covid era.
Lunchtime read: ‘They’re entitled to know the world isn’t always a safe place’
With the Ukraine invasion still raging, Covid cases rising again and the ongoing climate crisis, young people are picking up anxieties from social media and the playground. So what’s the best way to talk to your children about the permacrisis?
Sport
Jason Roy has been hit with a suspended two-match ban from international cricket and a £2,500 fine, the reasons for which are being kept out of the public domain by the England and Wales Cricket Board. An ECB statement said the limited‑overs opener had accepted a charge of bringing the game into disrepute, with the suspended element of his ban “dependent on good behaviour” over the next 12 months. Left-arm spinner Jack Leach heads into the deciding third Test against West Indies today, fresh from a gruelling workload of 94.5 overs during the drawn second Test at Kensington Oval that returned six of his 11 wickets on tour but in which both he and England were thwarted by Kraigg Brathwaite’s stickability.
Two late goals saw Barcelona beat Real Madrid by three goals to two in their Women’s Champions League quarter-final first leg; while Paris Saint-Germain’s record goalscorer Marie-Antoinette Katoto showed her class yet again as she scored twice to help secure a 2-1 victory against Bayern Munich. Paul Canoville, the first black footballer to play for Chelsea, has increased the pressure on the Ricketts family by becoming the latest figure to speak out against their attempt to buy the club. Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba has revealed his World Cup winner’s medal was among the items stolen during a recent burglary at his home. Rafael Nadal’s preparations for the upcoming clay-court season have hit a setback after he was diagnosed with a rib stress fracture following his straight-sets defeat against Taylor Fritz in the Indian Wells final on Sunday. Nadal will be out for four to six weeks.
Business
The government has drawn up plans to take over the funding of the UK operation of the Russian energy giant Gazprom, should the state-backed supplier collapse as customers cut supply contracts due to the invasion of Ukraine. The war continues to cause great volatility on financial markets with stocks surging in Asia overnight as investors fled a rout in government bonds. Oil was up 1.7% to $117 a barrel. The FTSE100 is set to lift 0.6% this morning while the pound has risen to $1.328 and €1.120.
The papers
The Guardian leads today with “‘Ashes of a dead land’: Russia lays waste to Ukrainian port”. Also on the front, the continuation of the Russian asset tracker project – “Revealed: Usmanov ‘donated’ assets to family trust”. “Landmine danger in Ukraine for decades” says the i while the Times warns “Ukrainian troops are running out of weapons”. The Telegraph is more hopeful, with “Ukrainians regain key territory in fightback”. The Metro has “Sling your hook” after the floating “gin palace” of Roman Abramovich was intercepted on approach to a Turkish port by Ukrainians in a dinghy. It says sanctioned oligarchs are playing “cat and mouse” at sea to avoid their superyachts being seized.
In news at home, the Mirror has a “Spring statement plea – we need your help, Rishi”. Rachel Vango, a “mum with two jobs”, is shown with children and quoted as saying “Please help us with fuel and bills and don’t put up national insurance”. The Daily Mail assures the chancellor that “You CAN spike the hike” and the Daily Express is sure he will – “Rishi: I’ll ease economic pain”. Don’t count on it, the Financial Times reckons: “Sunak to lay aside windfall cash rather than helping households”.
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