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Glee in Russia and sadness in Ukraine as Boris Johnson quits
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Boris Johnson’s downfall has been met with delight and ridicule in Moscow, while in Kyiv Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed sadness at the resignation of his key ally.
Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine in the early stages of the war and was the first leader of a G7 country to visit Kyiv in April, has emerged as a much-loved figure in Ukraine. “We all heard this news [of Johnson’s resignation] with sadness,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by phone. “Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you.
“We have no doubt that Great Britain’s support will be preserved, but your personal leadership and charisma made it special.”
In a separate Instagram post, Zelenskiy addressed Johnson as a “friend”, writing that “all Ukrainians were saddened by the news of the resignation of the leader of the Conservative party”.
In Russia Johnson’s support for Ukraine made him a frequent target for state media. The Kremlin described him as the “most active anti-Russian leader”.
“He doesn’t like us. We don’t like him either,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Thursday morning.
As news of Johnson’s looming resignation reached Moscow, other senior Russian officials and Kremlin-linked businesspeople used stronger words, saying he had finally got his reward for arming Ukraine against Russia.
“The moral of the story – do not seek to destroy Russia. Russia cannot be destroyed. You can break your teeth on it, and then choke on them,” the foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.
The deputy chair of Russia’s security council, Dmitry Medvedev, gloated that Johnson’s resignation was “the logical result of British arrogance and mediocre policy”.
“Ukraine’s best friends are departing. We are waiting for news from Germany, Poland and the Baltic states,” the former Russian president wrote on Telegram.
Russia’s leading businessman, Oleg Deripaska, said it was an “inglorious end” for a “stupid clown” whose conscience would be plagued by “tens of thousands of lives in this senseless conflict in Ukraine”.
Others used the opportunity to mock Johnson’s recent statements. The Russian embassy in the UK tweeted a Bloomberg headline from last month, which quoted him as saying he planned to stay on as prime minister until the mid-2030s. “Something must have gone wrong,” the embassy’s caption above the headline said.
In Ukraine one adviser to the president, who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the subject, similarly said: “We believe that the UK will remain an important ally, but we are of course saddened. There was a genuine personal bond between the two leaders.”
00:42 Boris Johnson's confidence vote win is 'great news', says Zelenskiy – video
Mikhail Podolyak, another adviser to the Ukrainian president, thanked Johnson in a video address for “realising the threat of the Russian Federation monster and always being at the forefront of supporting Ukraine”.
He said: “Mr Johnson is a person who began to call a spade a spade from the beginning … Thanks to Mr Johnson we understand that victory is a real symbol of the future of Ukraine.”
Zelenskiy’s office has made no secret of its fondness for Johnson, repeatedly praising him as an example to other world leaders.
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When Johnson survived a confidence vote in April, Zelenskiy said he was “very happy” that Ukraine had not lost an important ally.
Johnson, too, appeared to cherish his relationship with Zelenskiy, which he was accused by critics of using to distract from scandals at home.
On the day of the confidence vote, Johnson tweeted an image of himself in 10 Downing Street speaking to Zelenskiy on the phone, along with a message offering long-term support for Ukraine.
As his ratings at home hit dramatic lows, his popularity on the streets of Kyiv, where he was affectionately known by many as Borys Johnsoniuk, only grew over time.
A poll published in June showed that Johnson was the most popular foreign leader in Ukraine, with a 90% approval rating, just three percentage points behind Zelenskiy.
A hipster bakery chain in Kyiv even dedicated a pastry to him in the form of an apple cake topped with a frilly coating of meringue, to reflect his signature mop of unkempt hair.
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The Guardian
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More than 15,000 millionaires expected to leave Russia in 2022
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More than 15,000 millionaires are expected to flee Russia this year, as wealthy citizens turn their back on Vladmir Putin’s regime after the invasion of Ukraine, according to an analysis of migration data.
About 15% of Russians with more than $1m (£820,000) in ready assets are expected to have emigrated to other countries by the end of 2022, according to projects based on migration data by Henley & Partners, a London-based firm that acts as matchmaker between the super-rich and countries selling their citizenships.
“Russia [is] haemorrhaging millionaires,” said Andrew Amoils, the head of research at New World Wealth, which compiled the data for Henley. “Affluent individuals have been emigrating from Russia in steadily rising numbers every year over the past decade, an early warning sign of the current problems the country is facing. Historically, major country collapses have usually been preceded by an acceleration in emigration of wealthy people, who are often the first to leave as they have the means to do so.”
Ukraine is projected to suffer the greatest loss of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) as a proportion of its population, with 2,800 millionaires (or 42% of all HNWIs in Ukraine) expected to have left the country by the end of the year.
The world’s wealthy have traditionally relocated to the US and the UK but Henley said the United Arab Emirates is expected to overtake them as the No 1 destination for millionaire emigrants. “UK has lost its wealth hub crown, and the US is fading fast as a magnet for the world’s wealthy, with the UAE expected to overtake it by attracting the largest net inflows of millionaires globally in 2022,” Henley said in its report, which is based on “systematically tracking international private wealth migration trends”.
About 4,000 HNWIs are expected to have moved to the UAE by the end of the year, ahead of Australia, which is expected to attract about 3,500, Singapore (2,800) and Israel (2,500).
Large numbers of millionaires are also expected to move to “the three Ms”: Malta, Mauritius and Monaco.
“Malta has been one of Europe’s great success stories of the past decade, not just in terms of millionaire migration but also in terms of overall wealth growth,” Amoils said. “It is currently one of the world’s fastest-growing markets, with US dollar wealth growth of 87% between 2011 and 2021. Its citizenship by naturalisation process has brought substantial new wealth to the island nation and has been credited with propelling Malta’s strong growth in multiple sectors including financial services, IT and real estate. Approximately 300 millionaires are expected to move to Malta in 2022.”
The Guardian reported last year that many wealthy people buying “golden passports” to Malta (and thereby the EU) often planned to spend little time in the country. At the time, Henley said it was “proud of the service that it has provided to Malta and its people”.
The Indian Ocean island nation Mauritius is described by Henley as a “wealth magnet” because of the creation of an international financial centre offering significant tax breaks. The country has no capital gains tax, no inheritance tax, and maximum tax rate of 3% of global companies.
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According to the Africa Wealth Report 2022, Mauritius is now home to 4,800 HNWIs compared with 2,700 a decade ago. Approximately 150 millionaires are expected to move to Mauritius in 2022, mainly from South Africa and Europe.
Monaco has long attracted the world’s super-rich because it does not charge income tax, capital gains tax or property tax. Just under seven in 10 people living in Monaco are dollar millionaires.
The UK’s HNWI population is expected to decline by 1,500, taking the number of people with more than $1m in ready assets to 738,000. There are currently just over 15 million HNWIs in the world.
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The Guardian
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Evgeny Lebedev wanted private Russia trip for Johnson when mayor of London
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The Evening Standard owner, Evgeny Lebedev, sought to organise a private weekend trip in Russia in June 2014 for Boris Johnson when he was London mayor, according to emails newly disclosed under freedom of information laws.
The unusual excursion, at one point discussed over dinner in Moscow by Johnson’s then chief of staff, Edward Lister, and Evgeny’s father, Alexander, would have been tacked on to the end of an official visit to Moscow and St Petersburg.
Ultimately, the proposed trip, with its two-day “personal leg”, did not go ahead. But emails sent the previous autumn show there was enthusiasm on both sides for a holiday that sheds fresh light on the relationship between Johnson, Evgeny Lebedev and his father, a former colonel in the KGB.
Evgeny Lebedev’s chief of staff wrote directly to Lister on 7 August 2013 to begin outlining a trip by Johnson to Russia in June the following year. The email makes clear the two had already discussed the idea.
“He is very happy to agree to a June date for the proposed visit to Russia,” the aide wrote. “In terms of the personal leg of the trip, he [Evgeny] was keen this happened at the tail end – ie the weekend following the ‘formal’ business.”
An email from Lister on 16 September indicated plans were developing: “Boris has it in his diary for the 23 June [2014] for a week and I have told him that the end of the week and weekend will be private with Evgeny (I hope that’s right) so we need to build a programme around the rest?”
Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev in London in 2012. Photograph: Wenn Rights Ltd/Alamy
It is not clear from the correspondence why the trip did not go ahead as discussed, but it appears to have become politically impossible after Russia’s invasion of the Ukrainian province of Crimea in spring 2014.
An article in the Evening Standard in March 2014 reported that Johnson had been invited by his mayoral counterpart in Moscow for a “short trade and cultural trip in early October” – but said it could be cancelled after “events in Ukraine”.
Johnson has known Evgeny Lebedev for well over a decade, a relationship marked by the senior politician’s regular attendance at parties hosted by the Evening Standard proprietor in London and Italy. When Johnson was foreign secretary, he visited the proprietor’s Italian palazzo without security for a weekend party in April 2018 – and while he was prime minister handed his friend a peerage.
But a trip to Russia, even before the Crimea crisis, would probably have been different. Western intelligence officials say that Russian spy agencies take an intense interest in visiting western politicians, using their trips as an opportunity to create or develop psychological profiles of key figures.
Kremlin papers from early 2016 seen by the Guardian suggested that, from a Russian perspective, a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump would be the best candidate to win that year’s presidential race. They refer to information obtained from Trump’s earlier “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory”.
Earlier this month, Johnson acknowledged he had met Alexander Lebedev at the family palazzo at the 2018 party – but he told MPs this week that the meeting was not pre-arranged and insisted that “as far as I am aware, no government business was discussed”.
The cache of emails also shows that Lister sought a meeting with Alexander Lebedev in Moscow in December 2013, when he was due to attend the Moscow Urban Forum. An aide of Lister’s inquires “about whether there is potential for a meeting, lunch or dinner with Mr A Lebedev” during his trip.
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It was agreed the two would meet on 5 December at Bistrot, a stylish Italian-themed restaurant, where the idea of a visit by Johnson was discussed. Lebedev paid for the meal; a gift, the emails indicate, that was worth £100 to Lister.
“As we discussed, the mayor is keen to visit Moscow if his diary allows,” Lister wrote in a subsequent thank you letter, which also suggests the plans had become more fluid. Johnson’s aide promised to get back in touch when “we have a firmer idea of when he may be able to travel to Russia”.
Len Duvall, a Labour member of the London Assembly, who helped uncover the correspondence, said the emails “raise questions about some of the international business and investment links that were forged under Boris Johnson’s mayoralty”.
Given recent reporting about Johnson’s links to the Lebedevs, it was “firmly in the public interest” to look back at his record running the city, he added.
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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British pro-Kremlin video blogger added to UK government Russia sanctions list
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A British citizen who video blogs pro-Kremlin material from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine has been added to a UK government sanctions list.
Graham Phillips, who has been accused of being a conduit for pro-Russian propaganda, is one of 42 new designations added to the UK’s Russia sanctions list. Other additions include Russia’s minister and deputy minister of justice and two nephews of the Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who was himself placed under sanctions by Britain in March.
Phillips – the first UK citizen to be added to the growing sanctions list – has long been a controversial figure, receiving medals from the Russian state for his reporting. He has consistently toed the Russian line on the war, suggesting in recent weeks that Ukraine is run by Nazis and that the massacre of Ukrainians in Bucha was staged.
In April Phillips drew condemnation from Boris Johnson and others when he interviewed Aiden Aslin, a British member of the Ukrainian armed forces who had been captured by Russian forces during the siege of Mariupol. Aslin is facing the death penalty.
The new UK sanctions list includes Syrian officials accused of recruiting mercenaries to fight in Ukraine, as well as Vitaliy Khotsenko, the Russian-imposed prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, and Vladislav Kuznetsov, the first deputy chairman of the self-proclaimed republic in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine.
Sarvar and Sanjar Ismailov, the nephews of Alisher Usmanov, have significant interests in the UK and are believed to own homes in Highgate and Hampstead Heath in London.
Phillips – who faces a freeze of his assets – is described on the sanctions list as “a video blogger who has produced and published media content that supports and promotes actions and policies which destabilise Ukraine and undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine”.
Commenting on the newly sanctioned individuals, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said: “We will not keep quiet and watch Kremlin-appointed state actors suppress the people of Ukraine or the freedoms of their own people. We will continue to impose harsh sanctions on those who are trying to legitimise Putin’s illegal invasion until Ukraine prevails.”
Johnson described Phillips’ interview with Aslin as a “propaganda message” for Russia. Aslin’s local MP, Robert Jenrick, said Phillips’ video showed his constituent “handcuffed, physically injured and being interviewed under duress for propaganda purposes”.
Jenrick said the video was a breach of the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and that “the interviewer Graham Phillips is in danger of prosecution for war crimes”.
Aslin was captured by Russian forces while defending the besieged city of Mariupol, although it remains unclear how he ended up being interviewed by Phillips.
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Phillips says his work is self-funded and regularly solicits donations from his 264,000 YouTube subscribers. He also earns money from YouTube adverts paid for by big western companies. YouTube has so far declined to take down Phillips’ videos, despite calls from politicians to remove the channel.
In July 2014 he was banned from entering Ukraine but managed to illegally enter the occupied territories.
His rise from obscure Briton abroad to figure of national political interest was unlikely. According to a 2014 interview with BuzzFeed News, Phillips first went to Ukraine when travelling as an away fan to an England football match.
Aged 30, he quit his job at the now defunct UK government Central Office of Information and moved full-time to Ukraine, where he reinvented himself as a journalist.
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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Russia says it has full control of Luhansk region in Ukraine
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Russia has said it is in control of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region after taking over Lysychansk, the last Ukrainian-controlled city in the region.
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told Vladimir Putin on Sunday that their forces had established “full control” over Lysychansk and several nearby settlements, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Ukraine’s military command confirmed on Sunday evening that its troops had been forced to pull back from the city, saying there would otherwise be “fatal consequences”.
It said: “In order to preserve the lives of Ukrainian defenders, a decision was made to withdraw.”
Earlier in the day Ukraine had disputed the Russian claim. The president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia was not in full control and the battle was continuing on the outskirts of the city. He admitted, however, that Ukraine was in a tough spot.
But by Sunday night, he acknowledged the loss of the city, vowing to retake the area due to the army’s tactics and the prospect of new, improved weaponry.
“If the commanders of our army withdraw people from certain points at the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in fire power, and this also applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing,” Zelenskiy said in his evening video address. “That we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons.”
Fighting in Ukraine’s east has remained intense since Moscow refocused its efforts there. Violence has even spread out of Ukraine, with officials in the Russian city of Belgorod accusing Ukrainian forces on Sunday of bombing a neighbourhood and killing three people and damaging homes.
A Russian takeover of Lysychansk means Moscow has in effect won control of the entire Luhansk region as well as more than half of the Donetsk region, amounting to about 75% of the two eastern regions, which are collectively known as Donbas.
Occupying the whole of the Donbas region has been a key goal of the Russian invasion, with the country concentrating a large chunk of its forces there after failing to occupy northern Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, at the end of March.
The advance would bring Russian forces closer to several other cities and towns in Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk, including the frontline town of Sloviansk, where authorities said six people were killed and 15 injured in shelling on Sunday, and in the post-2014 regional capital of Kramatorsk, where a missile destroyed a hotel, according to its mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko. He said three rockets hit the town on Sunday and that there were no reported victims so far.
The night Russia invaded Ukraine, we were staying at this hotel in Kramatorsk (where the decor and sateen sheets were something else)
Today it was flattened in a Russian missile strike @tonyprod77 @JonHughes1 @DariaSipigina pic.twitter.com/jr8PR1RbC8 — Sarah Rainsford (@sarahrainsford) July 3, 2022
Russian forces published a video online allegedly shot in Lysychansk of Russian soldiers jubilantly holding up Russian and Chechen flags in front of war-damaged buildings.
Last month Ukraine’s army withdrew from the Luhansk city of Sievierodonetsk, just north of Lysychansk, citing the scale of their losses. Though Ukraine does not publicise figures on the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed and in what locations, the Ukrainian president’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said at the time that between 100 and 200 Ukrainian soldiers were dying each day.
The London-based Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces had probably deliberately withdrawn from Lysychansk to avoid encirclement.
The highway and main supply route between the Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk region and Lysychansk had become precarious because of shelling. Several civilians including a French journalist have died driving along the route over the last month.
Inside Lysychansk, according to one aid worker interviewed by France24 who was still doing evacuations from the city, Russia was using its superior artillery capabilities to flatten buildings one by one, which meant Ukrainian troops had nowhere to shelter.
“Russian forces are entrenched in the area of Lysychansk and the city is on fire,” said Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region. “If houses and administrative buildings in Sievierodonetsk survived a month of street fighting, in Lysychansk the same administrative buildings were completely destroyed in a shorter period of time.”
Haidai said that despite Ukrainian forces destroying a Russian ammunitions depot in eastern Ukraine, the Russians were “stubbornly advancing”.
Ukraine’s military intelligence told the Guardian last month that Ukraine had one artillery piece to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces. Since then, several western countries have promised the delivery of more military aid, including artillery.
Separately, Russia blamed Ukraine for a missile attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine, in which it said three people died and four were injured, including a 10-year-old child. Belgorod’s regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said 11 apartment buildings and 39 detached houses were damaged or destroyed in the overnight incident.
The Russian defence ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said it “was intentionally planned and launched at the civilian population”. Russia said it intercepted three Ukrainian missiles, but one fell on to an apartment building.
There have been several instances of explosions in Belgorod since the invasion began. Ukraine has not directly accepted responsibility but has previously described the incidents as “karma” for Russia.
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, a Russian ally, has said the two states have created “a single army” and that Belarus will stick with Russia in its war against Ukraine.
“We were and will act together with our brothers in Russia. Our participation in the ‘special operation’ was determined by me a long time ago,” the Belarusian state news agency Belta reported Lukashenko as saying as he marked Belarusian Independence Day on Sunday.
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On Saturday, Lukashenko claimed that no Belarusian soldier was currently fighting in Ukraine, and that Belarus would only fight in response to a provocation. He then claimed, without providing evidence, that last week Belarusian anti-aircraft systems had shot down several missiles that were fired by Ukraine at Belarusian military installations.
“We are being provoked. I have to tell you – three days ago, maybe a little more, they tried to attack military facilities on the territory of Belarus from the territory of Ukraine. But, thank God, the Panzer anti-aircraft systems managed to intercept all the missiles,” Lukashenko said.
Ukraine has not responded to Lukashenko’s claims but in an interview on 6 June, Zelenskiy played down the risk of a repeat invasion from Belarusian territory.
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Finland and Russia: a photo journey through the border zone
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Antti Kettunen, 44, runs through a slalom consisting of two orange pylons with his pistol drawn. Then, back at the starting point, he kneels behind a construction of two pallets, aims through a gap and hits the target more than eight meters away.
Behind him, intently, two women and six men watch as Kettunen moves. They have all volunteered to take part in reserve exercises. Kettunen, the trainer and chairman of the reserve association, is seeing some of them today for the first time. In a patch of forest about an hour away from Helsinki, weekly shooting exercises are held with four different types of weapons. Since 24 February this year, the reservist association in Vantaa has received more than 400 new members; at the beginning of the year, the entire association counted about 1,000 members.
Antti Kettunen, 44, the coach and chairman of the Vantaa Reservists Association.
On 18 May 2022, Finland submitted its Nato application – a decision Kettunen has been awaiting for a long time. Although there was only about 20% support for Nato membership before Russia’s aggression, Kettunen does not know a single person who would oppose membership. Shortly after the end of the war in Kosovo, Kettunen took part in a peace mission. “You could say the mass graves were still warm when we arrived. The mission changed everything for me. Only alliances like Nato can ensure peace in the long run.” So says Kettunen when asked about Finland’s imminent accession to Nato.
From late April to mid-May we – the Finnish photographer Jonathan Terlinden and German photographer Patrick Junker – travelled through Finland to visit people and places to better understand the history between Finland and Russia.
Suomenlinna fortress, where even today marines are trained. A large part of the island has been a Unesco world heritage Site since 1991.
The first stop on our journey took us to Suomenlinna fortress, a few miles outside Helsinki. Its construction was started in 1748 and became necessary when the Russian tsar Peter the Great tried to assert Russia as a naval power by founding St Petersburg. The fortress surrendered in 1808, and the then Swedish province of Finland became the Grand Duchy of Finland a year later and thus part of Russia.
Tamara Danylova, 26, a journalist from Ukraine, arrived in Finland two weeks ago. She is living with two friends in a hostel that has been converted into a refugee shelter. She comes from Sloviansk, a city in the Donetsk region, and has supported the Ukrainian army with her family since 2014. Most recently, she lived in Lviv. But as the fighting drew closer and closer to the city, she decided to flee.
Juho Moilainen, 20, is completing his military service and has come home for the weekend. He is not worried. “We have always lived here on the Russian border. Nothing has changed,” he says. As is common in rural Finland, he spends his Friday evening in the car with his friends. For the young generation, the threat of war is very abstract.
Fifty years later, tsar Alexander II granted the Finns extensive autonomy. The Finnish language was promoted to weaken the influence of the Swedes and anchor the Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire. But the desire for Finnish independence grew. Only in 1917, after the October Revolution in Russia, did Finland declare independence. But Finland was a divided country. A bloody civil war between the Whites led by the conservative Finnish senate fought against the Red socialists ensued. Almost 30,000 people died in connection with the Finnish civil war.
Helena Seppänen is waiting to watch the bears. She lives right on the Finnish-Russian border, in Ruhtinansalmi.
“People in Russia are not evil. I have many good friends there. But if I hadn’t seen so much of Russia, I would think differently today,” says Helena Seppänen, 71, from Ruhtinansalmi, a town 450 miles north of Helsinki and a walk from the Russian border. Suomussalmi, the nearest major city, is an hour’s drive away. When we arrive here at the end of April, the days are sunny and clear. Nevertheless, the rugged lake landscape ice is still strong enough to carry cross-country skiers and ice fishers. Helena and Eero Seppänen, 77, could already see the first bears. A few weeks ago they woke up from hibernation.
Before 1989, there was an invisible wall here. It was a strange situation. Now we have this invisible wall again Helena Seppänen
A family portrait of Eero Seppänen, taken in 1946. He is the baby on his father’s arm and one year old at the time.
Eero Seppänen has lived here all his life. His mother, Lempi, is revered as a hero in the village. She watched the first Russian soldiers cross the border on 30 November 1939. She took her three children and ran 6 miles to warn the villages and soldiers on the other side of the river. It was the beginning of the winter war and consolidated the national identity of the Finns. In this chapter of Finnish history, especially the battle around Suomussalmi, are many parallels to the situation in Ukraine today.
Russian security interests served as a pretext for attacking a militarily hopelessly inferior nation. But the Finns were able to resist the overwhelming enemy in the impassable terrain and deep winter, a resistance the Soviets did not expect. They actually believed that they would free the Finnish people from the yoke of the landowners and capitalists. But the opposite was the case: the enemy’s attack and the first victories of their own military made the camps, which had been hostile to each other from the civil war, grow together. Through the “spirit of the winter war” Finland gained international prestige and internal strength. A peace treaty was reached, yet Finland had to cede territory to the Soviet Union. Although the country fought alongside Germany in the continuation war from 1941, it remained independent and free of alliances after the second world war.
The Russian memorial on Raate Museum Road was erected on 19 September 1994. The statue’s base bears the text in Russian and Finnish: “To the sons of the fatherland – mourning Russia”.
Veli Merentie, 98
The permanently perceived latent threat from the east forced Finland to perform an often criticised balancing act in its foreign policy in the decades after the second world war, which aimed at not provoking the Soviet Union and later Russia. During the cold war, the term “Finlandisation” was established in the west. Although neutrality was maintained, the influence of the Soviet Union was noticeable. For this reason, the country has consciously refrained from joining Nato.
There has always been a lot of talk about the war in Finland. Especially since we have such an unpredictable neighbour Veli Merentie, 98
“When Putin threatened Finland and said we shouldn’t join the Nato, I changed my mind completely; of course, we should join the Nato,” says Veli Merentie, 98. “He has nothing to say about what we Finns should do.” Merentie himself took part in the continuation war, and two of his brothers died in the winter war. Finland is a country on high alert. It has always been the border between the west and east.
Paavo Terä, is doing his military service in the tank brigade. He comes from a military family, and his great-grandfathers have already fought in the winter war and continuation war.
“Russia already sees us as an enemy since we joined the EU. For them, we are already the frontline, they just haven’t attacked yet,” says Paavo Terä, 19, as we met him at the Arrow 22 military exercise. Unlike many other EU countries, Finland has retained its military service even after joining the EU. The Finnish armed forces have a standing strength of 34,700 and about 900,000 reservists. The armed forces regularly participate in various international exercises. In May 2022, the Finnish army was visited by forces from the UK, Latvia, the US, and Estonia to practice cooperation in the framework of Exercise Arrow 22.
On the day we and more than 40 other media visited the Arrow 22 military exercise, a Russian military helicopter violated Finnish airspace. Such incidents are becoming more frequent. For example, in early April, a Russian army transport aircraft briefly entered Finnish airspace. In parallel, property is being expropriated from Russian oligarchs, and economic cooperations are terminated. Finns have become more aware that Russian oligarchs have suspect properties in Finland in recent years. Large apartment buildings and villas in strategically essential locations have attracted much media attention.
Pentti Seppänen playing his accordion.
Back to Suomussalmi; Pentti Seppänen, 82, has also spent his whole life close to the Russian border. The retired teacher is involved in many associations, including the Veterans Association. He was born when his mother was evacuated, and his father fought in the battle for Suomussalmi in the winter war. Yet, no matter what the politicians decide, all that matters to him is that peace is kept. “The war in Ukraine shows that the Russian government can make absurd decisions. A Finnish Nato membership probably won’t make them start thinking rationally.”
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{'people': ['Antti Kettunen', 'Kettunen', 'Kettunen', 'Kettunen', 'Kettunen', 'Kettunen', 'Kettunen', 'Jonathan Terlinden', 'Patrick Junker', 'Suomenlinna', 'Suomenlinna', 'Peter the Great', 'St Petersburg', 'Tamara Danylova', 'Juho Moilainen', 'Alexander II', 'Helena Seppänen', 'Ruhtinansalmi', 'Helena Seppänen', 'Eero Seppänen', 'Lempi', 'Veli Merentie', 'Putin', 'Veli Merentie', 'Paavo Terä', 'Paavo Terä'], 'organizations': ['the reserve association', 'the Vantaa Reservists Association', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Unesco', 'Site', 'senate', 'Ruhtinansalmi', 'Helsinki', 'Helena Seppänen', 'Raate Museum Road', 'Nato', 'Veli Merentie', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'EU', 'EU', 'EU', 'Pentti Seppänen', 'the Veterans Association', 'Nato'], 'locations': ['Helsinki', 'Vantaa', 'Antti Kettunen', 'Finland', 'Russia', 'Kosovo', 'Finland', 'Finland', 'Finland', 'Russia', 'Helsinki', 'Russia', 'Finland', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Finland', 'Sloviansk', 'Lviv', 'Finland', 'the Russian Empire', 'Russia', 'Finland', 'Finland', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Seppänen', 'Suomussalmi', 'Ukraine', 'Finland', 'Finland', 'the Soviet Union', 'Germany', 'Russia', 'Finland', 'the Soviet Union', 'Russia', 'the Soviet Union', 'Finland', 'Finland', 'Finland', 'Russia', 'Finland', 'UK', 'Latvia', 'US', 'Estonia', 'Finland', 'Pentti Seppänen', 'Suomussalmi', 'Ukraine']}
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The Guardian
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Russia rallies support in Africa as doubt cast on Ukraine grain deal
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Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has reassured Egypt over Russian grain supplies at the start of a four-country tour of Africa, amid uncertainty over the future of a deal to resume Ukrainian exports via the Black Sea.
Egypt, one of the world’s top wheat importers, bought 80% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine last year, and has been torn between ties to Moscow and its close relationship to the west.
“We confirmed the commitment of Russian exporters of cereal products to meet their orders in full,” Lavrov said in Cairo after talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry. “We discussed … cooperation in this area, agreed on further contacts, and have a common understanding of the causes of the grain crisis.”
Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine has massively disrupted grain shipments, with a blockade of Ukrainian ports by Russia’s Black Sea fleet trapping tens of millions of tonnes of grain, dramatically exacerbating existing supply chain problems.
Global commodity prices have soared, prompting the UN to say that an additional 47 million people are facing “acute hunger”. Many of the worst-affected countries are in Africa. Russia has blamed the blockade on Ukrainian mines.
Lavrov’s tour, which will also take in Uganda, Ethiopia and Congo, is aimed essentially at rallying African nations to Russia’s side. In an article published in four African papers, he rejected accusations that Russia was responsible for the food crisis.
He hailed what he called “an independent path” taken by African countries in refusing to join western sanctions against Russia and the “undisguised attempts of the US and their European satellites to gain the upper hand and impose a unipolar world order”.
The Russian foreign minister’s visit came as Ukraine warned that grain exports would not restart as hoped after the signing of a landmark deal aimed at easing the food crisis if a Russian airstrike on a key port on Saturday was a sign of things to come.
The attack, which the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, denounced as “barbarism” and as a sign that Moscow could not be trusted to implement the freshly inked deal, drew international condemnation.
Turkey, which helped broker the accord allowing exports to resume, said immediately after the double cruise missile hits on the strategic southern port that it had received assurances from Moscow that Russian forces were not responsible.
But Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday the strikes had destroyed a naval vessel and arms delivered by Washington. Kyiv said two Kalibr missiles fired from Russian warships hit an area around a pumping station and that two more were shot down.
“High-precision, long-range missiles launched from the sea destroyed a docked Ukrainian warship and a stockpile of anti-ship missiles delivered by the US,” Moscow claimed. “A Ukrainian army repair and upgrade plant has also been put out of order.”
The strike, which Ukrainian armed forces said did not hit the port’s grain storage area or cause significant damage, cast grave doubts on the future of the deal, which allows Ukrainian grain ships to navigate safe corridors that avoid known mines in the Black Sea and was hailed on Friday as a diplomatic breakthrough.
Kyiv said preparations to restore grain shipments to their prewar levels of 5m tonnes a month were continuing, but Zelenskiy’s economic adviser, Oleg Ustenko, warned on Sunday that the airstrike “indicates it will definitely not work like that”.
Ustenko told Ukrainian television that Ukraine had the capacity to export 60m tonnes of grain over the next nine months, but it would take up to 24 months if its ports could not function properly.
Odesa is one of three designated export hubs under the deal brokered by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the UN chief, António Guterres, who presided over the signing ceremony on Friday and – along with the EU, US, UK, Germany and Italy – unequivocally condemned the attack.
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The agreement in Istanbul has brought little reprieve on the battlefield. As the war entered its sixth month on Sunday, Russian forces continued to bombard a sprawling frontline over the weekend, Ukraine’s presidency said on Sunday.
It said that among the attacks in the industrial east and south, four Russian cruise missiles had hit residential areas in the southern city of Mykolaiv on Saturday, injuring five people, including a teenager.
The governor of the eastern Donetsk region, one of two that make up Ukraine’s industrial heartland of the Donbas and are a key focus of Russia’s offensive, said two civilians had been killed and two more injured in the last 24 hours.
The British defence ministry said on Sunday in its daily intelligence update that Russia was making “minimal progress” in its Donbas offensive, which it said remained small-scale and focused on the eastern city of Bakhmut.
The Ukrainian military again referred to Russian operations paving the way for an assault on Bakhmut, while heavy Russian shelling prompted the mayor of Kharkiv to urge people of Ukraine’s second largest city to avoid travelling overground.
“The last week has shown that the aggressor doesn’t even pretend to be firing at military targets any more,” Ihor Terekhov said on Sunday. “Use the metro system more often – as of today it is the safest way to get around.”
In more encouraging news from Kyiv, Serhiy Khlan, an aide to the head of the southern Kherson region, which fell to Russian forces in early March, told Ukrainian television on Sunday that it would be recaptured by Kyiv’s forces by September.
Helped by deliveries of western-supplied long-range artillery, Ukrainian forces have been clawing back territory in the southern Kherson region in recent weeks. “We see that our armed forces are advancing openly. We can say that we are switching from defensive to counteroffensive actions,” Khlan said.
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{'people': ['Sergei Lavrov', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Oleg Ustenko', 'Ustenko', 'Odesa', 'António Guterres', 'Donbas', 'Serhiy Khlan', 'Kherson', 'Kherson', 'Khlan'], 'organizations': ['Lavrov', 'UN', 'Lavrov', 'Zelenskiy', 'Recep Tayyip Erdoğan', 'UN', 'First Edition', 'Bakhmut', 'Ihor Terekhov'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Egypt', 'Egypt', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Cairo', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Uganda', 'Ethiopia', 'Congo', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Turkey', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Washington', 'Kalibr', 'US', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'EU', 'US', 'UK', 'Germany', 'Italy', 'Istanbul', 'Ukraine', 'Mykolaiv', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Donbas', 'Bakhmut', 'Ukraine', 'Kyiv']}
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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The Congolese student fighting with pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine
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Fighting alongside pro-Russia separatists as part of Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine wasn’t mentioned in the brochures of Luhansk University when Jean Claude Sangwa, a 27-year-old student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, moved to the breakaway region last year to study economics.
But when the head of the Kremlin-controlled, self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic announced a full military mobilisation of the region on 19 February, Sangwa, together with two friends and fellow students from DRC and Central African Republic, decided to join the local militia and take up arms against Ukraine.
“I joined because the war came to our republic. What should I have done? I am a man and have to fight,” Sangwa said in broken Russian. “The whole world is fighting against Russia,” he added when asked why he had decided to join the militia.
Sangwa moved to Russia two years ago to study in Rostov, a city close to the Ukrainian border, and then moved to Luhansk, which had been captured by separatists backed by the Russian army in 2014.
There is a long tradition of Africans studying in Russia, beginning from when the Soviet Union started offering scholarships to African students in newly independent socialist and communist states in the post-colonial period.
Between the late 1950s and 1990, about 400,000 Africans studied in the Soviet Union. While the numbers decreased significantly after the fall of communism, Vladimir Putin recently said more than 17,000 Africans were currently enrolled in Russian universities.
Shortly after joining the Luhansk militia, Sangwa was sent into combat and spent two months fighting. During that time, many of his African friends assumed that he was dead and posted goodbye messages on his social media accounts.
Three days after the war started, on 27 February, Sangwa’s photo was posted online by Find Your Own, a Telegram channel created by the Ukrainian internal affairs ministry to identify captured and killed soldiers. The post said Sangwa had been killed by Ukrainian forces alongside another African soldier.
“The Ukrainian enemy found my military ID card and said I was dead. I am alive, as you can see,” Sangwa said. He is currently back patrolling the streets in Luhansk as a member of the militia.
Pro-Russia forces drive past a destroyed residential building in Popasna, Luhansk, in May. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
There is no evidence that apart from Sangwa and his two friends, more African soldiers have been sent to Ukraine. But while Sangwa’s story is unusual, his pro-Moscow sentiments and opinions about who is responsible for the war are mainstream in large parts of Africa.
“Certainly, the west likes to think that sanctions have isolated Russia globally,” said Paul Stronski, a senior fellow and specialist on Russia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “And they did when it comes to the transatlantic community and wealthy Asian nations. But in the eyes of the rest of the world, and particularly the African continent, Russia isn’t that isolated.”
For many years, Stronski said, Moscow has been cultivating ties with African leaders, and in 2019 Putin hosted the first Russian-African summit, attended by the leaders of 43 African nations.
“Many on the African continent now believe the conflict is driven by Nato expansion, by reckless western policies,” Stronski said.
According to Stronski, some of Africa’s support for Russia can be explained by anti-western sentiments stemming from the legacy of European colonialism. Russia has been accused of amplifying those grievances through disinformation campaigns on the continent.
“In Africa, the west has also been accused of double standards, caring more about Ukraine and its refugees than it does about other tragedies unfolding in Africa and across the world,” Stronski added.
Some of Putin’s most enthusiastic supporters since the start of the war have been pan-Africanists – advocates of the doctrine of African unity and anti-imperialism.
Putin just “wants to get his country back,” Kémi Séba, a prominent Franco-Beninese pan-Africanist, said in early March. “He doesn’t have the blood of slavery and colonisation on his hands. He is not my messiah, but I prefer him to all the western presidents.”
Similarly, a leader of the Nigerian community in Moscow told the Guardian that most Nigerians there were sympathetic to Russia. “The issue is complicated, but the west pushed Russia to do this,” he said.
A pro-Russia rally in Bangui, Central African Republic, in March. Photograph: Carol Valade/AFP/Getty Images
Beyond issues of morality, Russia has gained a foothold in Africa through developing defensive alliances, supplying weapons to authoritarian leaders with no strings attached and presenting itself as an ally against armed insurgents.
Several African leaders, most notably South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, have openly said they believe western efforts to expand Nato contributed to the war.
Even though African nations are likely to be disproportionately affected by the impending global food crisis owing to their strong dependence on Russian and Ukrainian wheat, some African leaders have shifted the blame for food shortages and price rises on to the west, parroting Russia’s narratives.
On Friday, during a meeting with Putin in Sochi, Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, the current chair of the African Union, blamed EU sanctions on Russian banks and products for worsening the problem, and steered away from criticising Russia’s actions, including its blockade of Ukrainian ports.
Despite its political clout in parts of Africa, Moscow has not yet indicated an intention to recruit soldiers from the continent or other places to bolster its forces, even though reports have emerged that Russia is facing a shortage of infantry.
Kremlin officials were quick to play down reports that several hundred local men in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, had gathered outside the Russian embassy in April hoping to fight in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, pro-Kremlin voices have embraced Sangwa’s presence in Luhansk as a sign of the growing military ties between Russia and Africa.
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On 31 May the Telegram channel WarGonzo, led by the popular Russian propagandist Semen Pegov, posted a video of Sangwa in full military gear patrolling in Luhansk.
“It is not just our Wagner guys in Congo,” Pegov said, referring to the notorious, Kremlin-linked, private military group that has propped up authoritarian leaders in Mali, Central African Republic and Sangwa’s home country, DRC. “Now our Congo guys are also in Luhansk.”
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 151 of the invasion
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Russia has targeted Ukraine’s main port of Odesa – through which grain shipments would take place – with cruise missile strikes, barely 12 hours after Moscow signed a deal with Ukraine to allow monitored grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports. “The enemy attacked the Odesa sea trade port with Kalibr cruise missiles,” Ukraine’s operational command south wrote on Telegram, raising doubts about the viability of the deal that was intended to release 20m tonnes of grain to ward off famine in large parts of the developing world.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy claimed the strikes on Odesa showed Moscow could not keep its promises. “This proves only one thing: no matter what Russia says and promises, it will find ways not to implement it,” he said during a meeting with US lawmakers, according to a statement from the presidency.
The US secretary of state condemned the Russian attack against Odesa, accusing Russia of deepening the global food shortage. In a statement posted on Twitter, Antony Blinken said: “The United States strongly condemns Russia’s attack on the port of Odesa today. It undermines the effort to bring food to the hungry and the credibility of Russia’s commitments to the deal finalized yesterday to allow Ukrainian exports.”
Ukraine’s defence ministry has urged citizens in Enerhodar, a key area seized by Russia, to reveal where Russian troops are living and who among the local population was collaborating with the occupying authorities. “Please let us know as a matter of urgency the exact location of the occupying troops’ bases and their residential addresses … and the places of residence of the commanding staff,” it said on Saturday, adding that exact coordinates were desirable.
The governor of Zaporizhizhia has said that Russia is keeping 170 people captive in the Zaporizhizhia oblast, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to the governor, Oleksandr Starukh, Russian forces have abducted at least 415 people in the southern region since 24 February – the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine – and at least 170 individuals are still being kept captive.
The UNHCR says 3.7 million Ukrainian refugees have received temporary protection status in the European Union. In a new report released Friday, the UNHCR cited that 3.7 million Ukrainians have registered for Temporary Protection or similar national protection schemes in Europe.
Video footage has emerged of a powerful explosion that took place in the Russian-occupied territory of Horlivka on Saturday in the Donetsk oblast, Euromaidan reports. Reports from outlets have been claiming that Ukrainian armed forces have hit a Russian ammunition depot.
The former deputy secretary of Ukraine’s Security Council has been suspected of high treason, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to a report released on Saturday by the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigations, Volodymyr Sivkovych is suspected of collaborating with Russian intelligence services and managing a network of agents in Ukraine that spied on behalf of Russia.
Germany has delayed weapons delivery to Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports. The outlet, sourcing German media organisation German Welt, reported that anonymous Ukrainian officials had reported that Ukraine’s application for eleven IRIS-T air missile defence systems is currently being held up by Germany’s Federal Security Council.
Hungary’s nationalist prime minister Viktor Orbán called for US-Russian peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, lashing out at the European Union’s strategy on the conflict. In a speech in Romania on Saturday, the 59-year-old rightwing leader also defended his vision of an “unmixed Hungarian race” as he criticised mixing with “non-Europeans”. Orban has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, but maintains an ambiguous position on the conflict.
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{'people': ['Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Odesa', 'Twitter', 'Antony Blinken', 'Enerhodar', 'Oleksandr Starukh', 'Horlivka', 'Euromaidan', 'Volodymyr Sivkovych', 'IRIS', 'Viktor Orbán'], 'organizations': ['Telegram', 'the Kyiv Independent', 'UNHCR', 'the European Union', 'UNHCR', 'Ukraine’s Security Council', 'the Kyiv Independent', 'the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigations', 'the Kyiv Independent', 'Federal Security Council', 'the European Union’s', 'Orban'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Odesa', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Kalibr', 'Ukraine', 'Odesa', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'US', 'US', 'Russia', 'The United States', 'Russia', 'Odesa', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Zaporizhizhia', 'Russia', 'Zaporizhizhia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Germany', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Germany', 'Hungary', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Romania', 'Russia', 'Ukraine']}
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Russia fires missiles at Odesa port hours after signing grain export deal
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Barely 12 hours after Moscow signed a deal with Ukraine to allow monitored grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports, Russia targeted Ukraine’s main port of Odesa – through which grain shipments would take place – with cruise missile strikes.
“The enemy attacked the Odesa sea trade port with Kalibr cruise missiles,” Ukraine’s operational command south wrote on Telegram, raising doubts about the viability of the deal that was intended to release 20m tonnes of grain to ward off famine in large parts of the developing world.
Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately confirm responsibility for the attack.
Eyewitness footage posted on social media, taken in the port area, showed one of the missiles exploding close to the seafront behind rows of containers and not far from a docked ship.
The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said the “appalling” attack hours after the deal was signed was “completely unwarranted” and proof that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, could not be trusted.
The landmark deal signed by Moscow and Kyiv on Friday, which is aimed at easing a supply crunch by allowing certain exports to be shipped from Black Sea ports including Odesa, is seen as crucial to curbing soaring global food prices.
UN officials had said on Friday they hoped the agreement would be operational in a few weeks, restoring grain shipments from the three reopened ports to prewar levels of 5m tonnes a month, but it was not yet clear if that would still be possible, given Saturday’s strikes.
In one of the largest attacks on the city since the war began, explosions rattled buildings in the centre and sent up a plume of smoke that was visible across the city.
On Odesa’s seafront, beachgoers applauded as air defences brought down two of four missiles, with the remaining two hitting the port.
The attacks, coming so soon after the signing of the grain deal in Istanbul, drew immediate condemnation.
“Outrageous,” tweeted the US ambassador to Kyiv, Bridget Brink. “Russia strikes the port city of Odesa less than 24 hours after signing an agreement to allow shipments of agricultural exports. The Kremlin continues to weaponise food. Russia must be held to account.”
According to a spokesperson, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, “unequivocally condemns” the strikes, adding that all parties in the Russia-Ukraine war had committed to a deal for the export of grains from Ukrainian ports.
Russia and Ukraine are important global wheat suppliers and the war has sent food prices soaring. A global food crisis has pushed 47 million people into “acute hunger”, according to the World Food Programme.
Friday’s deal seeks to avert famine in poorer countries by putting more wheat, sunflower oil, fertiliser and other products into world markets, including for humanitarian needs, partly at lower prices.
The attack was one of a series of Russian strikes across Ukraine, with the city of Kropyvnytskyi hit by 13 missiles on Saturday morning. The local governor, Andriy Raikovych, said at least one serviceman and two guards were killed, while 13 other people were wounded in Kropyvnytskyi.
Local people in the city said the strikes targeted an airbase on the outskirts, as well as a railway substation.
Strikes were also reported in Kharkiv, where a residential area was hit, killing at least three people, and in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
A man stands inside an apartment damaged by a Russian military strike in Kharkiv on Saturday. Photograph: Reuters
The sudden rise in Russian missile attacks follows several days of relative quiet in Ukraine. In the southern Kherson region, which Russian troops seized early in the invasion, Ukrainian forces preparing for a potential counteroffensive fired rockets at crossings on the Dnieper River to try to disrupt supplies to the Russians, amid claims that Ukrainian troops near the city had surrounded a Russian formation.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in his nightly video address that the agreements offered “a chance to prevent a global catastrophe, a famine that could lead to political chaos in many countries of the world, in particular in the countries that help us”.
Despite progress on that front, fighting raged unabated in eastern Ukraine’s industrial heartland of Donbas, where Russian forces tried to make gains in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance.
Russian troops have also faced Ukrainian counterattacks but largely held their ground in the Kherson region just north of the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
A blockade of Ukrainian ports by Russia’s Black Sea fleet since Moscow’s 24 February invasion has trapped tens of millions of tonnes of grain and stranded many ships.
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Under the export plan signed on Friday, Ukrainian officials would guide ships through safe channels across mined waters to three ports, including Odesa, where they would be loaded with grain.
Moscow has denied responsibility for the crisis, blaming sanctions for slowing its own food and fertiliser exports and Ukraine for mining the approaches to its Black Sea ports.
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{'people': ['Liz Truss', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Odesa', 'António Guterres', 'Strikes', 'Kherson', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Kherson', 'Odesa'], 'organizations': ['Telegram', 'UN', 'Kyiv, Bridget Brink', 'Kremlin', 'UN', 'the World Food Programme', 'Andriy Raikovych', 'Reuters', 'First Edition'], 'locations': ['Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Odesa', 'Kalibr', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Odesa', 'Istanbul', 'US', 'Russia', 'Odesa', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Kropyvnytskyi', 'Kropyvnytskyi', 'Kharkiv', 'Mykolaiv', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Donbas', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukrainian', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 150 of the invasion
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Lithuania has lifted a ban on the rail transport of sanctioned goods into and out of the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, Russia’s RIA news agency said on Friday. The Baltic state had stopped Russia from sending sanctioned goods via rail to Kaliningrad in June, triggering a promise from Moscow of swift retaliation. RIA cited Mantas Dubauskas, a spokesperson for the state railway company, as saying it had informed customers they could ship goods again. “It is possible that some goods will be transported today,” he was quoted as telling Lithuanian TV.
Emergency workers recovered three bodies from a school hit by a Russian strike in eastern Ukraine, officials said on Friday, one of a string of attacks as Russia claims its forces destroyed four Himar (high mobility artillery rocket) systems. The casualties in the city of Kramatorsk followed a barrage Thursday on a densely populated area of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, that killed at least three people and wounded 23.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said he had little confidence in Russia fulfilling its side of a bargain reached with Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations on resuming grain shipments from Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported. “Canada’s confidence in Russia’s reliability is pretty much nil,” Trudeau said on Friday.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine had about $10bn worth of grain available for sale in the wake of the deal. “This is another demonstration that Ukraine can withstand the war,” he said in a late-night address on Friday, Reuters reported. Ukraine would also have a chance to sell the current harvest, he said.
Wheat prices tumbled to levels last seen before the Russian invasion after the deal on resuming grain exports from Ukraine. In Chicago, the price of wheat for delivery in September dropped 5.9% to $7.59 a bushel, which is equivalent to about 27kg and the lowest close since Russia’s invasion on 24 February. On Euronext, wheat prices for delivery in September fell 6.4% to $325.75 a ton.
The US is exploring whether it can send American-made fighter jets to Ukraine, the White House said on Friday. Joe Biden’s administration had started making explorations into the possibility of providing the jets to Ukraine but the move was not something that would be done immediately, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
The US signed off on an additional $270m in military aid to Ukraine, including four new Himar systems. Kirby said on Friday that Russia had “launched deadly strikes across the country, striking malls, apartment buildings, killing innocent Ukrainian civilians”.
A new statement from Europol said the organisation had no records of weapons being smuggled out of Ukraine. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation said it has full confidence in Ukraine, especially because the country had started to implement new measures to monitor and track weapons, Euromaidan reports.
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{'people': ['Mantas Dubauskas', 'Himar', 'Kramatorsk', 'Justin Trudeau', 'Trudeau', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Joe Biden’s', 'John Kirby', 'Himar', 'Kirby', 'Euromaidan'], 'organizations': ['Lithuanian TV', 'Kharkiv', 'the United Nations', 'Agence France-Presse', 'Reuters', 'the White House', 'White House', 'Europol', 'The European Union Agency', 'Law Enforcement Cooperation'], 'locations': ['Lithuania', 'Kaliningrad', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Turkey', 'Ukraine', 'Canada', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Chicago', 'Russia', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine']}
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Ukraine announces largest exchange of prisoners of war since Russia invaded
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Ukraine has announced the largest exchange of prisoners of war since Russia invaded, securing the release of 144 of its soldiers, including 95 who defended the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.
“This is the largest exchange since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion,” said Ukrainian military intelligence in a Telegram message on Wednesday. “Of the 144 freed, 95 are Azovstal defenders.”
It added that most of the Ukrainians released had serious injuries, including burns and amputations, and were now receiving medical care.
A Pro-Russian separatist head confirmed the prisoner swap, saying that 144 Russian and separatist soldiers were returned to Russia.
“We handed over to Kyiv the same number of prisoners from the Ukrainian armed forces, most of whom were wounded. Our main task is to rescue the fighters who took part in a special military operation,” said Denis Pushilin, the head of the pro-Russian separatists Donbas People’s Republic.
Pushilin added that some of the Ukrainian soldiers released were part of “nationalist battalions.”
There was no comment from Moscow about the prisoner swap.
More than a thousand Azovstal defenders were transferred to Russian-held territory in May after they surrendered to Moscow’s forces at the end of a three-month siege. The fate of the soldiers remained a significant concern for officials in Kyiv who said they would swap in a prisoner exchange.
Among the Azovstal defenders swapped on Wednesday, Ukraine said, were 43 members of the Azov regiment, a battalion that has played a central role in Russia’s justification for its invasion.
The Azov regiment was formed in 2014 as a volunteer militia to fight Russia-backed forces in east Ukraine, and many of its original members had far-right extremist views. Since then, the unit has been integrated into the Ukrainian national guard and the regiment now denies being fascist, racist or neo-Nazi.
Russian state media has used the existence of the regiment as proof of its false claim that the Ukrainian state has been infected with nazism, as Russia’s president Vladimir Putin vowed to “denazify” the country.
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After the capture of the Azov soldiers in Mariupol, a number of Russian officials said they should face trial and even execution. Several MPs in Russia’s State Duma also said they would propose new laws that could derail prisoner exchanges of fighters who Moscow claims are “terrorists”.
The decision to exchange prisoners was met with anger by some Russian military bloggers and pro-war politicians.
Andrei Medvedev, a deputy in the Moscow Duma and a state news journalist, took to his Telegram to demand “answers” about the swap.
“Why did we have to change Azov soldiers? Was there no one else we could have swapped?”
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{'people': ['Denis Pushilin', 'Donbas People’s Republic', 'Pushilin', 'Kyiv', 'Azov', 'Azov', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Azov', 'Andrei Medvedev', 'Azov'], 'organizations': ['Azovstal', 'Telegram', 'Azovstal', 'Azovstal', 'First Edition', 'State Duma', 'Telegram'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Mariupol', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'east Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Mariupol', 'Russia', 'Moscow']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 149 of the invasion
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Guterres said “agreement did not come easy”, and described the deal as “a beacon on the Black Sea”. He said “You have overcome obstacles, and put aside differences, to pave the way for an initiative that will serve the common interests of all. Promoting the welfare of humanity has been the driving force of these talks. The question has not been what is good for one side or the other. The focus has been on what matters most for the people of our world. And let there be no doubt – this is an agreement for the world. It will bring relief for developing countries on the edge of bankruptcy, and the most vulnerable people on the edge of famine, and to help stabilise global food prices.”
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{'people': [], 'organizations': ['Guterres'], 'locations': []}
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Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine, says Emmanuel Macron
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Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron has said, to allow an improvement in diplomatic relations between the west and Moscow whenever the war comes to an end.
The French president said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had made a “historic and fundamental” error in invading Ukraine, but that nevertheless a wider escalation in hostilities had to be avoided.
Giving an interview to a group of regional newspapers in his home country, Macron said: “We must not humiliate Russia so that the day the fighting stops, we can build a way out through diplomatic channels.”
The role of France was to be that of “a mediating power”, the president added, saying he had put “time and energy” into ensuring the conflict did not escalate into a wider war, including negotiating with the Russian president.
“I have lost count of the conversations I have had with Vladimir Putin since December,” Macron said. They amounted to 100 hours’ worth, he added, which were “at the request of” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Macron has consistently sought to engage directly with Putin and has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in the conflict, including on an 80-minute phone call at the end of last month with the Russian leader and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
That has led to periodic accusations that the French leader wants Ukraine to make concessions to secure a peace agreement, although the Élysée Palace says any peace agreement must be negotiated between Putin and Zelenskiy, showing “due respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”.
None of the discussions, however, appear to have borne fruit. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine passed the 100-day mark on Friday, with little sign of the war ending amid heavy fighting in the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk.
Macron said he believed Putin had “isolated himself” and did not know what to do next. “Isolating oneself is one thing, but being able to get out of it is a difficult path,” the French president added.
Elsewhere, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said overnight he had spoken to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, in his efforts to deal with Ankara’s resistance to Finland and Sweden joining the military alliance.
Stoltenberg said he had “a constructive phone call” with Erdoğan and welcomed Turkey’s efforts to reach a maritime agreement between Russia and Ukraine to allow for the resumption of food exports from Ukraine’s blockaded ports.
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Turkey is threatening to block the accession of Finland and Sweden, who have sought to join Nato in the aftermath of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, accusing the two countries of supporting Kurdish figures Ankara says are terrorists.
Erdoğan’s office said the president had emphasised that Sweden and Finland should “make it clear that they have stopped supporting terrorism”, lift defence export restrictions placed on Turkey, and be “ready to show alliance solidarity”.
The two Nordic countries had imposed curbs after Turkey launched a military operation to take control of areas in Syria previously held by the country’s Kurdish minority. Stoltenberg tweeted late on Friday that he discussed with Marin “the need to address Turkey’s concerns and move forward” to ensure the Finnish and Swedish membership applications were approved.
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{'people': ['Emmanuel Macron', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Macron', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Macron', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Macron', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Macron', 'Putin', 'Jens Stoltenberg', 'Sanna Marin', 'Stoltenberg', 'Stoltenberg', 'Marin'], 'organizations': ['Olaf Scholz', 'the Élysée Palace', 'Zelenskiy', 'Nato', 'Recep Tayyip Erdoğan', 'Erdoğan', 'First Edition', 'Nato', 'Erdoğan'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'France', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Turkey', 'Finland', 'Ankara', 'Finland', 'Sweden', 'Turkey', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Turkey', 'Finland', 'Sweden', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ankara', 'Sweden', 'Finland', 'Turkey', 'Nordic', 'Turkey', 'Syria', 'Turkey']}
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Russia may seek to occupy more territory in Ukraine, says foreign minister
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Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has said that Moscow wants to permanently occupy broad swaths of southern Ukraine in the clearest signal yet that the Kremlin is preparing to launch a new round of annexations.
In televised remarks, Lavrov also said Russia may seek more territory along the frontlines in Ukraine, calling it a buffer against the Himars long-range rocket artillery provided by the US.
While Lavrov claimed Russia’s new territorial ambitions were driven by the course of the war, the initial invasion sought to occupy much of Ukraine’s south and capture the capital, Kyiv.
Despite that evidence, the Kremlin has maintained that it launched its attack to protect its proxy governments in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
“Now the geography is different,” Lavrov said, in a change of rhetoric from the Russian government. “It’s not just Donetsk and Luhansk, it’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and a number of other territories. And this is an ongoing process, consistent and insistent.”
His remarkswere also an admission that the invasion was designed as a war of conquest, despite early denials from the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that Russia planned to occupy any new Ukrainian territory at all.
The Russian government has sought to integrate Donetsk and Luhansk by introducing the Russian rouble, Russian telecommunications networks and other infrastructure, and by crushing protests and local dissent.
John Kirby, spokesperson for the US national security council, said Russia was planning to annex more Ukrainian territory, possibly in September to coincide with regional elections.
“Russia is beginning to roll out a version of what you could call an annexation playbook, very similar to the one we saw in 2014,” he said, referring to when Russia annexed Crimea.
“The Russian government is reviewing detailed plans to purportedly annex a number of regions in Ukraine, including Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, all of Donetsk and Luhansk,” Kirby said on Tuesday, a day before Lavrov’s interview went public.
It was not clear what other territories Lavrov was referring to in his remarks.
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In remarks to the RT editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, Lavrov also said Russia would seek more territory due to the western military aid to Ukraine, in particular the delivery of Himars missile systems that have destroyed a number of Russian military command posts.
“The west … in a desire to maximally exacerbate the situation have pumped Ukraine with more and more long-range weapons,” he said, citing a Ukrainian defence minister’s remarks that Ukraine was negotiating for munitions that could strike targets 300 km away. “That means our goal will be to move them back from the current line even further.
“Because we can’t allow that in that part of Ukraine which will be controlled by [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy or whoever replaces him, there were weapons that could present a direct threat to our territory.”
Russia has launched cruise missiles into Ukrainian cities far behind the frontlines. A recent attack on the western Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia left 25 dead, including several children.
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{'people': ['Sergei Lavrov', 'Kherson', 'Zaporizhzhia', 'Vladimir Putin', 'John Kirby', 'Kherson', 'Zaporizhzhia', 'Kirby', 'Margarita Simonyan'], 'organizations': ['Kremlin', 'Lavrov', 'Himars', 'Lavrov', 'Kremlin', 'Lavrov', 'Lavrov', 'Lavrov', 'First Edition', 'Lavrov', 'Himars'], 'locations': ['Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Donetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Donetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Russia', 'Donetsk', 'Luhansk', 'US', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Crimea', 'Ukraine', 'Donetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Vinnytsia']}
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Ukrainian boy held hostage by Russia tells of cleaning up torture rooms
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A 16-year-old Ukrainian boy has described how he was held hostage by Russian soldiers for 90 days as he heard other prisoners being tortured in a nearby cell.
Vladislav Buryak, who was separated from his family on 8 April at a checkpoint while attempting to flee the city of Melitopol, was released after a months-long negotiation between his father, Oleg – a local Ukrainian official – and Russian soldiers, who wanted to exchange Vladislav for an individual of interest to the Russian military.
Vladislav’s vivid account of his time in captivity is a depiction of violent interrogations involving brutal beatings, and confirms other reports of Russian and pro-Russian separatist forces mistreating detainees.
He is one of about 500 cases of civilian hostages whose information has been collected by the Centre for Civil liberties in Ukraine, including several other young people, although the organisation says that total is likely to be the tip of the ice berg.
In an interview with the Guardian, Vladislav described his long ordeal and how he was taken from a convoy of vehicles.
“We’d left Melitopol for Zaporizhzhia at 9am in the morning,” he said, sitting next to his father. “Around 11 o’clock we were stopped at the checkpoint, where Russian soldiers started checking documents.
A Russian serviceman guarding a grain elevator in Melitopol on 14 July. Photograph: Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images
“They asked me if I’d filmed the checkpoint and demanded I give them my phone. Then found a video from a Ukrainian Telegram which had Russian soldiers on it talking about how they didn’t want to fight.
“That made them angry, and a soldier with a machine gun pointed it at me and said I needed to follow him and took me to the tent where they were ‘filtering’ people who were leaving. That’s when they found out I was the son of a local official and valuable as a hostage.”
Vladislav said he was taken to a location being used as a prison in Vasylivka, where he was kept for more than 40 days in a single cell before being transferred to a hotel for his last month in captivity.
“They had me working washing the floor of the room they used for interrogations, cleaning officers’ rooms and throwing out the trash. The cell where I was kept was a few metres from where they did the interrogations. I could hear people shouting, and when I cleaned the room I could see bloodstains. Because I could move around when I was cleaning cells, I sometimes had the chance to see what had happened to people and they could sometimes talk to me for a minute or so when the guards weren’t watching.”
Vladislav described the room where the interrogations took place: “There was a metal table and two chairs. One was for the person being questioned and the other was for the person taking notes.
A Russian serviceman on guard in Melitopol. Photograph: Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images
“There were bloodstains and soaked bandages. I could hear the questioning too, at least three times week. ‘Do you have weapons? Who else has weapons?’ They were shouting and the people being tortured were yelling really loudly.
“People were being beaten up and tortured with electric shocks. If someone didn’t say something, the torture would continue, sometimes for several hours.”
“I saw people afterwards as well, and their faces were bruised. I was really scared that they would beat me up as well, so I tried to keep myself emotionless. No one ever told me why they were keeping me but I guessed that it was to exchange me.”
While Vladislav was being held, his father was negotiating with the Russians to try to secure his son’s release.
“They first called me the day after Vladislav was taken on 9 April,” Oleg said. “I was told: ‘I’ve got your son.’ They said: ‘I need this person to exchange.’ It was clear he was a hostage. But I also understood that he was valuable to them and so they probably weren’t going to harm him.
“I couldn’t argue with them and say: he is a child! There was no room for debate. By 4 July they’d made it clear he could be released if this individual was released. In all the 90 days I only managed to speak to Vladislav six times, and even then we knew that Russians were listening.”
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The Buryak family’s account confirms other reports of torture, including a report by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE] that said it had found credible evidence of crimes against humanity committed by Russian forces during the invasion of Ukraine, including “signs of torture and ill-treatment on the corpses of killed civilians … show[ing] disregard of the principle of humanity that should guide the application of international humanitarian law.”
The report added: “Some of the most serious violations include targeted killing of civilians, including journalists, human rights defenders, or local mayors; unlawful detentions, abductions and enforced disappearances of such persons; large-scale deportations of Ukrainian civilians to Russia; various forms of mistreatment, including torture, inflicted on detained civilians and prisoners of war; the failure to respect fair trial guarantees; and the imposition of the death penalty.”
The report also documented the discovery of a “series of torture chambers separated by concrete walls” at a summer camp in Bucha, outside Kyiv, including a room it said appeared to be used for executions, with bullet holes in the walls. In another room, where experts said there was evidence of torture and waterboarding, five dead men were found “covered with burns, bruises, and lacerations”.
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{'people': ['Vladislav Buryak', 'Oleg', 'Vladislav', 'Vladislav', 'Vladislav', 'Melitopol', 'Zaporizhzhia', 'Melitopol', 'Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images', 'Vladislav', 'Vladislav', 'Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images', 'Vladislav', 'Vladislav', 'Oleg', 'Buryak', 'Kyiv'], 'organizations': ['the Centre for Civil', 'Guardian', 'Telegram', 'First Edition', 'the Organisation for Security and Co-operation', 'OSCE'], 'locations': ['Melitopol', 'Ukraine', 'Vasylivka', 'Melitopol', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Bucha']}
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German gas prices could triple as Russia reduces supply, expert says
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German consumers could face a tripling of gas prices in the coming months after Russia’s throttling of deliveries to Europe, a senior energy official has said.
Moscow reduced the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 40% last week, citing technical reasons that Berlin dismisses as a pretext, prompting a four- to sixfold rise in market prices, said the head of Germany’s federal network agency, Klaus Müller.
Such “enormous leaps in price” were unlikely to be passed down entirely to consumers, Müller said, but German citizens had to brace themselves for dramatically rising costs. “A doubling or tripling is possible,” he told the public broadcaster ARD.
He said the rising costs now showing up on people’s energy bills were the result of higher prices on the gas market last autumn.
The German economic ministry announced the second of three energy emergency plan phases on Thursday, warning of a high risk of long-term supply shortages as a result of Russia systematically choking off gas deliveries.
The so-called “alarm phase” enables utility firms to pass on high gas prices to customers and thereby help to lower demand.
Robert Habeck, the minister for economic affairs, said there was some concern that there would be a complete stop to Russian gas deliveries after 13 July, when the Nord Stream 1 has to be closed down for 10 days for an annual inspection.
Asked by the RTL Nachtjournal programme if he was worried that Vladimir Putin might not switch the gas tap on again after the scheduled interruption, Habeck said: “I would be lying if I said that isn’t something I worry about.”
Müller said Germany could go for just over two months without Russian gas supplies. “If the storage facilities in Germany were mathematically 100% full … we could do without Russian gas completely … for just about two-and-a-half months and then the storage tanks will be empty,” he told the Maybrit Illner programme on Thursday evening.
To prepare for the supply crunch, Germany needed to save gas and rapidly diversify its suppliers, he said. “Most of the scenarios are not pretty and mean either too little gas by the end of the winter, or even – and that’s a very tricky situation – in the autumn or winter.”
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{'people': ['Klaus Müller', 'Müller', 'Robert Habeck', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Habeck', 'Müller'], 'organizations': ['ARD', 'the Nord Stream 1', 'Maybrit Illner'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Moscow', 'Berlin', 'Germany', 'Russia', 'Germany', 'Germany', 'Germany']}
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Russia opens artillery barrages in south and east Ukraine
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Russia has unleashed heavy artillery barrages against multiple Ukrainian positions in the south and east of the country, amid conflicting claims over whether Russian forces were attempting to storm the last Ukrainian positions in the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.
While Ukrainian officials and fighters claimed Russian troops had entered the labyrinthine industrial area in the southern city and that heavy fighting was taking place inside, the Kremlin denied its troops had entered and said humanitarian corridors to evacuate trapped civilians were operating there on Thursday.
Ukrainian fighters inside Azovstal said they were fighting “difficult, bloody battles” inside the plant, according to Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov regiment.
Ukraine’s military general staff said the assault on the plant had air support, and pictures released by Russian-backed fighters appeared to show smoke and flames enveloping it.
However, asked to comment on the claim that Russian troops had broken into the plant’s territory, the official Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, referred reporters to president Vladimir Putin’s previous order not to storm the plant.
Asked about a New York Times report that US intelligence helped Ukraine kill a number of Russian generals, Peskov said: “The United States, Britain, Nato, as a whole hand over intelligence … to Ukraine’s armed forces on a permanent basis.
“Coupled with the flow of weapons that these countries are sending to Ukraine, these are all actions that do not contribute to the quick completion of the operation,” he said.
Fears of prolonged war were also voiced by a European official who said that Ukraine is just at the beginning of an “attrition war”, in which resupplying the troops with new weapons, agility, and morale will be decisive. The official suggested that Ukraine had a potential advantage in all three areas.
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Peskov’s comments came as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said civilians would need to be dug from bunkers under the steelworks which is littered with concrete debris.
Ukrainian officials believe that about 200 civilians remain trapped along with fighters in the network of underground bunkers at the sprawling Soviet-era complex.
Having failed to capture the capital, Kyiv, in the early weeks of an invasion that has killed thousands and flattened towns and villages, Russia has accelerated attacks in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Putin called off plans for an assault on the plant last month, telling his defence minister to seal it off instead.
Russia’s defence ministry added on Thursday that its artillery had struck multiple Ukrainian positions and strongholds overnight, claiming it had killed 600 fighters.
The defence ministry also said its missiles destroyed aviation equipment at the Kanatovo airfield in Ukraine’s central Kirovohrad region and a large ammunition depot in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
The Russian claims of Ukrainian fatalities in the hundreds were impossible to verify and reflect statements by both Ukrainian and Russian officials in recent days, both claiming heavy enemy losses.
Ukraine and Russia have both said that fighting had been heavy across the south and east over the past day.
While it is difficult to assess accurate casualty numbers, senior western officials who have briefed journalists recently suggested that Russian losses may have declined somewhat since the heavy casualties incurred during the failed campaign to take Kyiv.
There are also suggestions that Ukrainian losses may be mounting under intense Russian artillery bombardments that have marked Moscow’s conduct of the latest phase of the war.
With Ukraine’s western allies rushing to supply Kyiv with artillery systems and shells to counter Russia’s, the conflict in Ukraine appears to be turning into a grinding artillery duel between the two sides, with Russian advances limited to a small number of kilometres each day.
Despite claims of Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east, these appear to have been limited in scope, with an adviser to Zelenskiy having said that Ukraine was unlikely to launch a significant counteroffensive before mid-June, when it hopes to have received more weapons from its allies.
While senior western officials have spoken openly about their desire to leave Russia “weakened” by its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin on Thursday accused the west of preventing a “quick” end to Russia’s military campaign.
The wives of at least two Ukrainian soldiers inside Azovstal have been in Rome, pleading with the international community for an evacuation of the soldiers there, arguing they deserve the same rights as civilians.
Kateryna Prokopenko, the wife of the Ukrainian commander at the plant, said she gone without word from him for more than 36 hours before finally hearing from him on Wednesday.
Should the Azovstal fighters be taken captive, it’s not clear whether Russia would uphold its commitments under international law regarding prisoners of war, given its alleged previous violations of rules governing wartime conduct and a lack of evidence of its treatment of captured Ukrainian troops.
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: G7 commits to phasing out Russian oil, says Putin’s actions ‘bring shame on Russia’– as it happened
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From 8 May 2022 21.48 60 people confirmed killed at school bombed by Russians Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed late Sunday what many had feared but were hoping would not be true: 60 people who were sheltering in the Bilohorivka school that Russian forces bombed this weekend were killed in the attack. About 90 people had been sheltering in that school at the time of the attack. In news overnight, dozens of people are feared dead after a bomb hit a school in east Ukraine.
About 90 people had been sheltering in the building and 30 were rescued, seven of them wounded, from the rubble of the school in Bilohorivka — Sam Wilkinson (@WilkoSam) May 8, 2022 António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, issued a statement Sunday saying he was “appalled” by the attack on the school. “This attack is yet another reminder that in this war, as in so many other conflicts, it is civilians that pay the highest price,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general. Read more here: Sixty killed in Russian airstrike on Ukraine school Read more
Updated at 22.38 BST
9 May 2022 03.57 Japan will take time to phase out Russian oil imports after agreeing on a ban with other G7 nations to counter Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, prime minister Fumio Kishida has said. “For a country heavily dependent on energy imports, it’s a very difficult decision. But G7 coordination is most important at a time like now,” Kishida told reporters according to Reuters, repeating comments he made at the G7 meeting. As for the timing of the reduction or stoppage of (Russian) oil imports, we will consider it while gauging the actual situation. We will take our time to take steps towards a phase-out. He did not elaborate. The G7 nations committed to the move “in a timely and orderly fashion” at an online meeting on Sunday to put further pressure on president Vladimir Putin, although members such as resource-poor Japan depend heavily on Russian fuel. There have been no ships loading Russian oil for Japan since mid-April, according to Refinitiv data. About 1.9 million barrels were exported from Russia to Japan in April, 33% down from the same month a year ago. Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida. Photograph: Yoshio Tsunoda/AFLO/REX/Shutterstock The Ukraine crisis has highlighted Japan’s energy dependence on Russia even as Tokyo has acted swiftly and in tandem with the G7 in instituting sanctions. The latest ban underlines a turn in Japan’s policy. Japan has said it would be difficult to immediately cut off Russian oil imports, which accounted for about 33 million barrels of Japan’s overall oil imports, or 4%, for 2021. It has already said it will ban Russian coal imports in stages, leaving just liquefied natural gas (LNG). Japan is in a particularly tough spot since it shut down the bulk of its nuclear reactors following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Russia was Japan’s fifth-biggest supplier of crude oil and LNG last year.
9 May 2022 03.33 A Fiji court has suspended the execution of a US warrant to seize a $300 million super yacht Washington claims is owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, prosecutors have said according to AFP. The 348-foot Amadea has been targeted because Kerimov is among a group of oligarchs close to Moscow who have been sanctioned by the United States over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The yacht remains in Fiji police custody and is blocked from leaving the Pacific nation’s waters despite the warrant suspension, prosecutors said. The luxurious Amadea – which has a helipad, pool, jacuzzi and “winter garden” on its sun deck, according to tracking website superyachtfan.com – has been berthed in Lautoka, Fiji in the South Pacific since mid-April. The super yacht Amadea, reportedly owned by a Russian oligarch, berthed at the Queens Wharf in Lautoka, Fiji. Photograph: Leon Lord/FIJI SUN/AFP/Getty Images Last week, Fijian law enforcement, backed by US agents, took control of the super yacht under the warrant, which was lodged with the island state’s High Court. The US Justice Department requested the vessel, which it has estimated to be valued at $300 million, be seized for violating sanctions and for alleged ties to corruption. But the company officially registered as the Amadea’s owner, Millemarin Investment, on Friday obtained a temporary stay on the US warrant’s execution from the Court of Appeal, Fiji prosecutors said. The Court of Appeal “granted an interim stay on the execution of the warrant”, a spokeswoman for Fiji’s office of the director of public prosecutions told AFP on Monday. The case is scheduled to return to court on Thursday and the US warrant remains officially registered with the Fiji courts, she said. “The yacht has been further restrained from leaving the Fiji waters until further notice,” she added. “It is in Fiji police custody at this point.”
9 May 2022 02.50 Joanna Partridge The UK government has expanded its sanctions against Russia to include punitive import tariffs on Russian precious metals, as well as export bans on certain UK products, to increase economic pressure on Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine, Guardian business reporter Joanna Partridge writes. The third wave of sanctions was announced by the Department for International Trade just hours ahead of Russia’s 9 May Victory Day celebrations. The latest £1.7bn sanctions on Russia and neighbouring Belarus – which has joined in the invasion of Ukraine and been used as a base for Russian soldiers – are aimed at knocking Putin’s ability to fund his war. The new package of restrictions includes £1.4bn of UK import tariffs – border taxes paid by buyers on goods shipped from Russia – that will affect imports of platinum, palladium and other products including chemicals from Russia. The international trade department said Russia was highly dependent on the UK for exports of the precious metals, which will be subject to additional 35 percentage point tariffs. The latest measures, announced by the international trade secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, bring the total value of products subject to full or partial trade sanctions since Russia’s invasion to more than £4bn. For more, read on here: UK expands import sanctions against Russia and Belarus Read more
9 May 2022 02.35 Here’s a bit more from Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who gave an interview to Reuters during his unannounced visit to Ukraine on Sunday, telling the newswire the world would do everything possible to ensure that Russian president Vladimir Putin loses his war in Ukraine, including keeping Moscow under sanctions for years. “What Putin needs to understand is that the west is absolutely determined and resolved to stand against what he is doing,” Trudeau said. His illegal war, his escalations, his crossing of red lines by choosing to further invade Ukraine means that we will do as a world everything we can to make sure that he loses. Speaking on the sidelines of an unannounced visit to Ukraine for talks with president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whom he calls a friend, Trudeau said Putin was making a terrible mistake. “He is inflicting atrocities upon civilians, and it’s all something that he is doing because he thought he could win. But he can only lose,” Trudeau said when asked what he would tell Putin on the eve of Russia’s commemorations of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two, which Moscow calls the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau (L) meets with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv. Photograph: EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock Trudeau also echoed a statement from the Group of Seven issued earlier on Sunday, following a video call of G7 leaders with Zelinskiy, on how Putin’s “actions bring shame on Russia and the historic sacrifices of its people” during the second world war.
Quite frankly, on Victory in Europe Day, when we all celebrate the victory over fascism of so many decades ago. Vladimir Putin is bringing shame upon the memory of the millions of Russians who fought and died in the fight for freedom and the fight against fascism. Earlier, Trudeau said Canada would provide new weapons and equipment for Ukraine and will reopen its embassy in Kyiv, the country’s capital.
Trudeau said all the countries that have imposed sanctions on Moscow, which have taken a steep toll on the Russian economy, are determined to keep them in place as long as necessary, even for years.
Vladimir Putin cannot upend over 70 years of stability and growth and prosperity for the world and expect to continue to benefit from that stability, growth and prosperity.
9 May 2022 02.21 Ukraine’s counteroffensive northeast of Kharkiv has likely forced Russian troops to redeploy to the city instead of reinforcing stalled Russian offensive operations elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, the Institute of War has said in its latest analysis of the conflict. Russian forces are likely amassing in Belgorod to deploy to the Kharkiv City region to prevent the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the area from reaching the international border.
Russian forces were also continuing their attempt to reach the administrative borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts but have not made substantial territorial gains since securing Popasna on Saturday, the US-based think tank added. Other potential developments to look out for were: Russian forces will likely continue to merge offensive efforts southward of Izyum with westward advances from Donetsk in order to encircle Ukrainian troops in southern Kharkiv oblast and Western Donetsk.
Russia may change the status of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, possibly by merging them into a single “Donbas Republic” and/or by annexing them directly to Russia.
Russian forces have apparently decided to seize the Azovstal plant through ground assault and will likely continue operations accordingly.
Russian forces may be preparing to conduct renewed offensive operations to capture the entirety of Kherson oblast in the coming days.
#Russian forces did not make any significant advances on any axis of advance on May 8. The #Ukrainian counteroffensive NE of #Kharkiv City has likely forced Russian troops to redeploy to that area.
Read the latest from @TheStudyofWar & @criticalthreats: https://t.co/K87fihFBxY pic.twitter.com/QtaXCwPIy4 — ISW (@TheStudyofWar) May 8, 2022
9 May 2022 01.55 President Volodymyr Zelenskiy presented Ukraine’s famous mine sniffing dog Patron and his owner with a medal on Sunday to recognise their dedicated service since Russia’s invasion, Reuters has reported. The pint-size Jack Russell terrier has been credited with detecting more than 200 explosives and preventing their detonation since the start of the war on 24 February, quickly becoming a canine symbol of Ukrainian patriotism. Zelenskiy made the award at a news conference in Kyiv with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. Patron barked and wagged his tail, prompting laughter from the audience. Trudeau patted his pockets as though looking for a dog treat. “Today, I want to award those Ukrainian heroes who are already clearing our land of mines. And together with our heroes, a wonderful little sapper – Patron – who helps not only to neutralise explosives, but also to teach our children the necessary safety rules in areas where there is a mine threat,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after the ceremony. The award also went to Patron’s owner, a major in the Civil Protection Service, Myhailo Iliev. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau (R) and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy (second from R) present a medal to Patron and his owner Myhailo Iliev. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters Mine sniffing dog Patron. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP Patron the dog has received an official award alongside his colleagues from Ukraine President Zelenskyy, in the presence of Canada PM @JustinTrudeau. What an honour! pic.twitter.com/uig8VFi5z4 — Stratcom Centre UA (@StratcomCentre) May 9, 2022
Updated at 02.35 BST
9 May 2022 01.43 Emma Graham-Harrison An update from one of the Guardian’s correspondents in Ukraine, Emma Graham Harrison, on the evacuees from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol: The convoy arrived in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia after dark, carrying about 170 evacuees. There were 51 civilians who had been sheltering in the Azovstal complex, and about 120 others who had walked or hitched lifts across the city to a pickup point in a ruined shopping mall. The journey of just over 200 kilometres took two days, as the convoy of buses was held for hours at Russian checkpoints and the hungry, weary residents inside interrogated. “I didn’t think we would make it out alive, so I don’t have any plans for my future,” said Natalia, who worked at the Azovstal plant all her adult life and then sheltered for over two months in its network of bunkers. She had fled with little more than a collection of drawings made by children in their shelter; she had organised drawing competitions to occupy them and kept the pictures to remember. “I wouldn’t have given them up even if they shot me. About 36 hours later the group filed slowly off the buses into the late evening dark, and fell upon a hot meal prepared in the registration tent. It also had clothes and toys, as most people fled with just a couple of bags. “It is a breath of fresh air to be on Ukrainian-held land,” said Tatiana, who fled with her daughter and granddaughter. Men, women and children get off a bus in Zaporizhzhia after having arrived from Mariupol. Photograph: ed ram/The Guardian Read on here: ‘I didn’t think we would make it’: last wave of Azovstal evacuees reach safety Read more
Updated at 02.23 BST
9 May 2022 01.05 The Guardian’s Ed Ram has managed to take some pictures of the civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks to Zaporizhzhia: Children eat and drink at a food tent. Photograph: ed ram/The Guardian Men, women and children get off a bus in Zaporizhzhia after having arrived from Mariupol. Photograph: ed ram/The Guardian Women and children eat and drink at a food tent. Photograph: ed ram/The Guardian An elderly women is helped off a bus. Photograph: ed ram/The Guardian
8 May 2022 23.52 Vladimir Putin’s regime is “mirroring” the actions of the Nazis, the UK’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, will say as the Russian leader stages a military parade to celebrate victory over Hitler’s fascists, according to an advance copy of the speech. In a speech on Monday, Wallace will say president Putin and his inner circle should share the same fate as the Nazis, who ended up defeated and facing the Nuremberg trials for their atrocities. In Moscow, Putin will watch the Victory Day parade of military hardware, marking the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. Ukraine speech: Tomorrow Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP will say Russian military leaders are as much to blame for the invasion as President Putin and should face the consequences 👇
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/ckPmf8HhBc — Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) May 8, 2022 According to extracts briefed to the Telegraph and Times, Wallace will say: “Through their invasion of Ukraine, Putin, his inner circle and generals are now mirroring the fascism and tyranny of 70 years ago, repeating the errors of last century’s totalitarian regimes. “Their fate must also, surely, eventually be the same.” Read on here in this report by PA’s political editor David Hughes: Putin’s ‘fascism and tyranny’ equal to Nazis, Ben Wallace says Read more
Updated at 02.38 BST
8 May 2022 23.36 Hello, this is Helen Livingstone taking over from my colleague Vivian Ho to bring you the latest developments from the conflict in Ukraine. “Russia will lose, because evil always loses,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address on Sunday, 8 May, when Ukraine marks the end of the second world war with its remembrance and reconciliation day. The main thing I felt today was the world’s even greater willingness to help us. And the fact that we have already achieved a historic result, because it is clear to the whole free world that Ukraine is the party of good in this war. Russia marks its second world war Victory Day on 9 May, Zelenskiy noted, “when peace should be the main word. For all normal people.” But he said, Russia had killed about 60 people in a “targeted” airstrike on a school in Luhansk, while another missile struck a residential building in the Odesa region. There was further shelling in the regions Sumy, the Donbas and Kharkiv. The Russian army would not be itself if it did not kill today - on the eve of certainly important days for any European.
He also thanked Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who along with several other western leaders visited Kyiv on Sunday, saying that they had agreed to expand economic and defence cooperation and Canada had made the “extremely important decision” to remove all barriers to trade for one year. He also said that Canada had “a strong potential in mine clearance” and that “we expect that this potential will be used in Ukraine - where the Russian occupiers left thousands of mines, tripwire mines, shells.”
8 May 2022 23.08 Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, was one of several western leaders who made a surprise visit to Ukraine today. During his visit, he announced that Canada would be providing an additional $50m in military assistance. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy speak before a meeting in Kyiv on Sunday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters Justin Trudeau and Volodymyr Zelenskiy take part in a video conference involving G7 leaders on Sunday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters Justin Trudeau and Volodymyr Zelenskiy hold a joint news conference in Kyiv. Photograph: Alexey Furman/Getty Images Justin Trudeau and Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a meeting in Kyiv. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
Updated at 23.39 BST
8 May 2022 22.29 US first lady Jill Biden met today with Olena Zelenska, wife of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, outside a public school in Uzhhorod. Here are some photos: US first lady Jill Biden meets with Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Uzhhorod. Photograph: Reuters Jill Biden with Olena Zelenska in Uzhhorod.
Photograph: Reuters Jill Biden and Olena Zelenska join a group of children who were making tissue-paper bears to give as Mother’s Day gifts.
Photograph: Reuters
Updated at 22.51 BST
8 May 2022 21.48 60 people confirmed killed at school bombed by Russians Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed late Sunday what many had feared but were hoping would not be true: 60 people who were sheltering in the Bilohorivka school that Russian forces bombed this weekend were killed in the attack. About 90 people had been sheltering in that school at the time of the attack. In news overnight, dozens of people are feared dead after a bomb hit a school in east Ukraine.
About 90 people had been sheltering in the building and 30 were rescued, seven of them wounded, from the rubble of the school in Bilohorivka — Sam Wilkinson (@WilkoSam) May 8, 2022 António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, issued a statement Sunday saying he was “appalled” by the attack on the school. “This attack is yet another reminder that in this war, as in so many other conflicts, it is civilians that pay the highest price,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general. Read more here: Sixty killed in Russian airstrike on Ukraine school Read more
Updated at 22.38 BST
8 May 2022 21.26 After today’s successful arrival in Zaporizhzhia, the total number of people evacuated from Azovstal and Mariupol is now more than 600. 🔴BREAKING: 170+ people just arrived in Zaporizhzhia, through a @UNOCHA - @ICRC operation. This bring the total number of people evacuated from Azovstal & Mariupol to more than 600.
The @UN will continue its efforts to reach people in need of assistance. https://t.co/is3FgxReLB pic.twitter.com/EU27DKor72 — OCHA Ukraine (@OCHA_Ukraine) May 8, 2022 I'm relieved to confirm that we managed to bring 174 more people to safety from the hell of Mariupol today.
Our work is not yet done. I don't forget those who've been left behind. pic.twitter.com/D7VpVVAl62 — Osnat Lubrani (@OsnatLubrani) May 8, 2022 Mykhaylo Podolyak, aide to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Twitter that they “won’t stop until we evacuate all our people” from Azovstal. “The life of every defender is sacred to the Ukrainian state,” he said. “Every conversation of the president with the leaders of the world begins with the word ‘Azovstal’,” Podolyak said. “We calculate all formats, and if the history of international law does not know such formats - we offer new ones. We managed to get women and children out of the factory, but we will not stop until we get everyone out.”
8 May 2022 21.14 Kyiv has responded to Berlin police confiscating a Ukrainian flag today in Germany. To recap: with tensions heightened on the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender in World War II, the city of Berlin decided to suppress all public displays of support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine - everything from Russian flags to the beeping of horns at car rallies. Officials included Ukrainian flags under this decision, and earlier today police were filmed confiscating a large flag. Berlin made a mistake by prohibiting Ukrainian symbols. It’s deeply false to treat them equally with Russian symbols. Taking a Ukrainian flag away from peaceful protestors is an attack on everyone who now defends Europe and Germany from Russian aggression with this flag in hands. — Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) May 8, 2022
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German gas prices could triple as Russia reduces supply, expert says
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German consumers could face a tripling of gas prices in the coming months after Russia’s throttling of deliveries to Europe, a senior energy official has said.
Moscow reduced the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 40% last week, citing technical reasons that Berlin dismisses as a pretext, prompting a four- to sixfold rise in market prices, said the head of Germany’s federal network agency, Klaus Müller.
Such “enormous leaps in price” were unlikely to be passed down entirely to consumers, Müller said, but German citizens had to brace themselves for dramatically rising costs. “A doubling or tripling is possible,” he told the public broadcaster ARD.
He said the rising costs now showing up on people’s energy bills were the result of higher prices on the gas market last autumn.
The German economic ministry announced the second of three energy emergency plan phases on Thursday, warning of a high risk of long-term supply shortages as a result of Russia systematically choking off gas deliveries.
The so-called “alarm phase” enables utility firms to pass on high gas prices to customers and thereby help to lower demand.
Robert Habeck, the minister for economic affairs, said there was some concern that there would be a complete stop to Russian gas deliveries after 13 July, when the Nord Stream 1 has to be closed down for 10 days for an annual inspection.
Asked by the RTL Nachtjournal programme if he was worried that Vladimir Putin might not switch the gas tap on again after the scheduled interruption, Habeck said: “I would be lying if I said that isn’t something I worry about.”
Müller said Germany could go for just over two months without Russian gas supplies. “If the storage facilities in Germany were mathematically 100% full … we could do without Russian gas completely … for just about two-and-a-half months and then the storage tanks will be empty,” he told the Maybrit Illner programme on Thursday evening.
To prepare for the supply crunch, Germany needed to save gas and rapidly diversify its suppliers, he said. “Most of the scenarios are not pretty and mean either too little gas by the end of the winter, or even – and that’s a very tricky situation – in the autumn or winter.”
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What happens if Russia turns off Europe’s gas supply this winter?
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Vladimir Putin and Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom appear to be turning the screw on Europe by limiting gas supplies. The head of the International Energy Agency has now warned that Europe needs to prepare immediately for the eventuality of Russia turning off all gas exports to the region this winter. The invasion of Ukraine has triggered a scramble by countries to wean themselves off energy imports from Russia, but fresh urgency has been injected into those efforts.
What’s happening?
Russia has begun cutting off countries from supplies in an apparent move to hinder their efforts to fill their gas storage before the winter. Over the past week, Gazprom has cut supplies running through Europe’s major natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 1, by 60%. This has triggered supply cuts in Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Gas has also been shut off to a string of other countries including Poland, Bulgaria, France and the Netherlands. An explosion at a huge Freeport liquified natural gas (LNG) facility in the Texas Gulf Coast – which shipped gas to Europe – has also squeezed supplies.
Can Europe replace Russian gas by the winter?
No chance. Before the war, Russia supplied 40% of Europe’s gas supplies, so limitations on storing gas or ramping up imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in certain countries including Germany make replacing Russian gas entirely near impossible in the short term. EU leaders have downplayed the likelihood of a total ban on Russian gas as it is seen as impractical and politically divisive.
Instead, nations are racing to fill up their storage caverns earlier in the year than usual. Europe’s underground storage caverns are 57% currently full. The European Commission has asked each country to reach 80% storage by the start of November, with Germany targeting 90% by the same point. However, without Russian gas, these targets will be hard to meet. “The only way they’ll get near the target is by paying very high prices. The US is sending LNG to Europe over Asia because countries in Europe are paying more,” said Investec oil and gas analyst Nathan Piper.
Where can European countries turn?
European governments are increasingly turning to the US to supply greater volumes of expensive LNG. The UK could capitalise on the crisis by ramping up natural gas exports to the EU further via interconnectors. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that goods exports to the EU rose for the third consecutive month to £16.4bn in April, the highest monthly level in current prices since comparable records began in 1997, driven by gas and crude oil shipped to the Netherlands and Ireland.
European governments are also attempting to get more piped gas from Norway and Azerbaijan and ramp up the use of renewable energy. Meanwhile, Asian countries, such as Pakistan, are increasingly having to turn back to heavily polluting coal as Europe snaps up all the gas.
What happens if they can’t replace it?
The most likely outcome will be that businesses will scale back on energy use. In Germany, which gets 35% of its gas imports from Russia, energy-intensive industries such as steelmaking will face a squeeze and limits on production. “Either governments will impose limits on energy usage, or prices will become so high that it will become uneconomic to use,” said Piper. “There could be a pinch point if Russia cuts off gas flows this winter when usage is high. Even during the cold war, Russia was a reliable energy supplier. Now that link has been cut.”
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Could Russia’s cutoffs affect the UK?
The UK imported just 4% of its gas needs from Russia last year and appears to be fairly well insulated from the supply issues. The combination of domestic gas supplies, piped supplies from Norway and LNG imports mean Britain is in a good position, although it will continue to be exposed to rocketing prices.
However, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has been attempting to ramp up domestic supply options in case there are knock-on supply problems this winter. This has included extending the lifetime of the West Burton A coal-fired power station in Nottinghamshire. The government is also in discussions with the British Gas owner, Centrica, to reopen the huge Rough gas storage site off the east coast of England, which was closed in 2017.
What effect will this have on consumers?
Consumers are unlikely to see any interruption to the energy supplies in the UK and Europe, as industrial use would be limited first. However, prices that are already high look likely to escalate. The price cap on annual energy bills is expected to hit £2,980 in October, and could reach £3,003 in January, research firm Cornwall Insight said this week. If Russian completely cuts off gas exports, it could be pushed even higher.
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin', 'Freeport', 'Nathan Piper', 'Kwasi Kwarteng'], 'organizations': ['the International Energy Agency', 'Nord Stream 1', 'Slovakia', 'LNG', 'LNG', 'EU', 'The European Commission', 'LNG', 'LNG', 'EU', 'the Office for National Statistics', 'EU', 'Guardian Business', 'LNG', 'British Gas', 'Centrica', 'Rough', 'Cornwall Insight'], 'locations': ['Gazprom', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Gazprom', 'Italy', 'Austria', 'the Czech Republic', 'Poland', 'Bulgaria', 'France', 'Netherlands', 'Russia', 'Germany', 'Germany', 'US', 'US', 'UK', 'Netherlands', 'Ireland', 'Norway', 'Azerbaijan', 'Pakistan', 'Germany', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'UK', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Norway', 'Britain', 'the West Burton', 'Nottinghamshire', 'England', 'UK']}
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Revealed: Russia-linked superyachts ‘going dark’ to avoid sanctions threat
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In the sparkling azure waters of Antigua, the gleaming £95m superyacht Alfa Nero could be seen at anchor last week by sightseers enjoying the Caribbean coastline. But few of the tourists who spotted its sleek black hull would have appreciated that it was quite a find.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, the superyacht, which is linked to the Russian billionaire Andrey Guryev, has vanished off the global tracking maps used to locate marine traffic.
An investigation by the Observer this weekend reveals it is one of at least six superyachts linked to UK-sanctioned oligarchs which have “gone dark” on ocean tracking systems. The owners of these yachts will almost certainly realise they are at risk of being targeted in a global hunt for the assets of Russia’s super-rich.
At least 13 such vessels with a total value of nearly £2bn have already been impounded since the invasion of Ukraine, from southern France to Fiji. In the latter case, the superyacht Amadea, allegedly linked to the gold billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, was seized on behalf of the US.
Analysts report an increase in Russian-linked yachts which are turning off the automatic identification system (AIS) equipment used for tracking large vessels. The system can be turned off for legitimate reasons, but experts believe some vessels want to avoid detection.
An analysis by the Observer of AIS data compiled by the maritime and aviation market intelligence firm VesselsValue reveals other superyachts which have “gone dark” for more than a month include:
The 72-metre (238ft) superyacht Clio, linked to industrialist Oleg Deripaska, which sailed from the Indian Ocean to Turkey after the invasion. Its last transmitted location was on 18 April in the Black Sea, within range of the Russian ports of Sochi and Novorossiysk.
The 70-metre Galactica Super Nova, linked to the oligarch Vagit Alekperov, the sanctioned former president of Lukoil. The last transmitted location of the vessel was on 2 March off the Croatian coast.
The 140-metre Ocean Victory, linked to the sanctioned oligarch Viktor Rashnikov, which last transmitted its location at anchor in the Maldives on 1 March.
One member of crew on a superyacht linked to a Russian oligarch sanctioned by the UK told the Observer last week: “We were told to turn off the AIS. We removed the screws on the power plug and pulled it out.”
There are about 9,300 superyachts on the seas, worth more than £50bn, according to industry data. An estimated 10% of that fleet is owned by Russians.
The swimming pool with waterfall feature on the Galactica Super Nova, which last transmitted a location via AIS on 2 March. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
One of the first superyachts to be impounded was the 86-metre Amore Vero, linked to the oil tycoon Igor Sechin, which was seized by customs officers at a shipyard at La Ciotat, near Marseille, on 2 March.
Italian authorities also impounded the 143-metre Sailing Yacht A on 12 March in Trieste. It is believed to be owned by the billionaire entrepreneur Andrey Melnichenko. He was sanctioned by the UK on 15 March.
Melnichenko’s other superyacht, the futuristic £240m Motor Yacht A, has disappeared from global tracking system. Its last confirmed location was on 10 March in the Maldives.
The last recorded location of the Alfa Nero on AIS was in the Caribbean on 3 March, when it was anchored at Philipsburg in Sint Maarten. The yacht is operating on a skeleton crew and has put its tender, the Alfa Fish, into storage.
Guryev, 62, a Russian who made his fortune with the Russian fertiliser giant PhosAgro, is reported by maritime sources to be the owner of the vessel. He was revealed to have bought London’s largest private residence, the 25-bedroom mansion Witanhurst, for £50m in 2008.
He has regularly enjoyed sailing on the Alfa Nero. The vessel is also used by his family, including his son (also Andrey) and his son’s wife, Valeria, who studied at the London College of Fashion and once reportedly stated on Instagram that she was “too pretty for work”. Like many yachts, it is owned via an opaque offshore structure, and Guryev has denied being the owner.
Other yachts which have not been tracked by AIS for more than a month include the Galactica Super Nova, which has a glass-bottomed swimming pool with a waterfall. It left Tivat in Montenegro on 2 March and promptly disappeared off the system.
The Clio, linked to Deripaska, sailed more than 3,000 miles after the invasion, from the Maldives, through the Suez Canal, across the Mediterranean and into the Bosphorus, gateway to the Black Sea and its Russian ports. In the Clio’s case, one reason it may have gone dark could be the perilous situation in the Black Sea arising from the war.
The Amore Vero, which is linked to the oil tycoon Igor Sechin, after being seized at La Ciotat, near Marseille in March. Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters
Other yachts which have not transmitted a confirmed location via AIS for at least a month include the My Sky, linked to the cigarette tycoon Igor Kesaev, which last reported its location in the Maldives on 30 March. The Maldives has no extradition treaty with the US, and at least five yachts linked to Russian owners have headed for its waters since the invasion. Other vessels, including two owned by Roman Abramovich, have headed to Turkey.
Under maritime rules, AIS should always be in operation when ships are under way or at anchor. All vessels of 300 gross tonnage and upwards must be fitted with it. A cruising vessel will typically transmit its location frequently, but it can turn the system off when in port. The data is relayed by radio receivers and satellites.
Sam Tucker at VesselsValue said: “There are some vessels where we would be previously getting a signal every few minutes from transponders and we are now seeing gaps of months. It’s very likely that some have flicked off the switch and gone into stealth mode.”
None of the sanctioned oligarchs linked to the six superyachts suspected of turning off their AIS responded to a request for comment.
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{'people': ['Andrey Guryev', 'Suleiman Kerimov', 'superyacht Clio', 'Oleg Deripaska', 'Vagit Alekperov', 'Viktor Rashnikov', 'Igor Sechin', 'Andrey Melnichenko', 'Melnichenko', 'Yacht A', 'Witanhurst', 'Andrey', 'Clio', 'Bosphorus', 'Clio', 'Igor Sechin', 'Albert Gea/Reuters', 'Igor Kesaev', 'Roman Abramovich', 'Sam Tucker'], 'organizations': ['Alfa Nero', 'Observer', 'Amadea', 'AIS', 'the Observer of AIS', 'VesselsValue', 'Galactica Super Nova', 'Lukoil', 'Ocean Victory', 'Observer', 'AIS', 'AIS', 'Bloomberg/Getty Images', 'Vero', 'the Alfa Nero', 'AIS', 'Guryev', 'PhosAgro', 'the Alfa Nero', 'the London College of Fashion', 'Guryev', 'AIS', 'the Galactica Super Nova', 'AIS', 'AIS', 'VesselsValue', 'AIS'], 'locations': ['Antigua', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'France', 'Fiji', 'US', 'Turkey', 'Sochi', 'Novorossiysk', 'Maldives', 'UK', 'Marseille', 'Trieste', 'UK', 'Maldives', 'Philipsburg', 'London', 'Valeria', 'Instagram', 'Montenegro', 'Deripaska', 'Maldives', 'Marseille', 'Maldives', 'Maldives', 'US', 'Turkey']}
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Lego to end all operations in Russia after earlier halt to deliveries
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Lego is to cease all operations in Russia “indefinitely” after pausing deliveries to its 81 stores in the country in March.
The world’s largest toymaker said it was ending the employment of most of its staff in Moscow and terminating a partnership with Inventive Retail Group, the company that runs stores on its behalf in the country.
Lego said: “Given the continued extensive disruption in the operating environment, we have decided to indefinitely cease commercial operations in Russia.”
The Danish toymaker had already halted deliveries to Russia in March after the invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions by western countries in protest against the war.
In early May, Russia placed Lego products on a list of goods that could be imported without the agreement of the intellectual property owner in order to bypass restrictions imposed over the conflict in Ukraine.
Among the list published by the industry and commerce ministry were Apple and Samsung smartphones, major car brands, games consoles and spare parts used in various industries.
The measure came as most western companies have now ceased exports to Russia, while goods made in the country have been pulled from the shelves in British, US and European supermarkets.
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Some prominent US and UK retail brands have said they are still operating in Russia because they have been unable to force independent franchise operators to close down.
Burger King’s owner, Restaurant Brands International, said its fast food restaurants were still operating with its brand because its former Russian partner had refused to shut.
UK retailer Marks & Spencer, which was in a similar situation, finally announced it was fully exiting Russia in May at a cost of £31m while McDonald’s sold its business in Russia, after 30 years of operating its restaurants in the country.
Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have paused operations in Russia, as have consumer brands including Burberry, Ikea, Levi’s, Netflix and Unilever, which owns Marmite and Ben & Jerry’s.
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{'people': ['Lego', 'Burberry'], 'organizations': ['Lego', 'Inventive Retail Group', 'Lego', 'Apple', 'Samsung', 'Guardian Business', 'Burger King’s', 'Restaurant Brands International', 'Marks & Spencer', 'McDonald’s', 'Coca-Cola', 'Pepsi', 'Unilever', 'Marmite', 'Ben & Jerry’s'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'British', 'US', 'US', 'UK', 'Russia', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ikea', 'Netflix']}
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Patience is vital tactic in Ukraine’s hopes of turning tide against Russia
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Ukraine hopes to assemble a “million strong” army to try to retake territory occupied by Russia, the defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said over the weekend. Its forces, he added, had also demonstrated to the US they could make good use of newly acquired longer-range rocket artillery, opening the door to the supply of more.
But however impressive sounding the claims were, it is hard to believe Ukraine is yet capable of an effective counteroffensive, even if the much-vaunted US Himars and the British M270 rocket artillery, with their range of 70km to 80km, have begun to arrive and are being put to good use. A turning of the military tide, if it happens at all, will most likely take time.
Ukraine has to talk up its prospects. The idea of a counteroffensive “is a hugely popular idea inside Ukraine”, said Orysia Lutsevych, a research fellow at the Chatham House thinktank, and Kyiv needs to convince the west that with sustained help, its military has a realistic chance of kicking the Russians out.
Ukraine intends to retake Black Sea coastal areas Ukraine intends to retake Black Sea coastal areas
The country began the war with a 125,000-strong army plus 100,000 in national and border guards, according to figures from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) – but says it is lifting that to an army of 700,000 plus 300,000 of the paramilitaries. But if it can assemble that number under arms, a key issue is their quality.
The three-month long battle in Donbas so far has cost the defenders many casualties, as Russia switched tactics to artillery bombardment. Various figures have been bandied about, but Ukrainian military intelligence sources recently told experts at the Rusi thinktank that 100 were being killed a day, on average.
Add in wounded at 300 or 400 a day, and casualties could amount to about 15,000 a month – perhaps 35,000 to 45,000 in total. A further 7,200 Ukrainian soldiers have gone missing since the start of the war, the country estimated on Monday. Many of these losses will have come from Ukraine’s most experienced forces.
The need to enhance the fighting force is well recognised by Ukraine and its western backers. Britain has begun training Ukrainian recruits – 600 are currently receiving a few weeks of basic training around the UK – and there is capacity to train 2,400 at once and 10,000 every 120 days, assuming the UK government sticks to a pledge made by the outgoing prime minister, Boris Johnson.
Some of the Ukrainian recruits, aged between 18 and 60, are people who have never fired a gun. This is an army that has to be replenished from scratch. Elementary learning is quick though. Raw recruits at first were only able to hit targets with rifle fire 50% of the time. It rose rapidly to 80%, one British trainer said.
Such military training is clearly critical for the Ukrainians, but a successful counteroffensive will require more: a strategic use of a combination of arms, an ability to concentrate force on the chosen battlefield of at least three to one or ideally more (Russia is thought to have managed seven to one in Donbas) and advanced western weapons.
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Ukraine has lobbied heavily for Nato standard munitions as it gradually runs out of its traditional Soviet-standard supply. The new weapons, however, create fresh problems as experts Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds noted in a comprehensive analysis for Rusi. For example, while Nato forces use 155mm shells, there is no such thing as a single western howitzer: “Nato standardisation is not very standardised,” they wrote.
At the same time, the US, the lead weapons supplier, remains cautious in the amount it will provide of critical kit. So far, the initial four Himars truck-mounted rocket artillery has been upped to 12. Nevertheless, as Reznikov mentioned, there are encouraging signs.
On Sunday, the Russian nationalist Igor Girkin warned on his Telegram channel that Russian air defence systems were proving “ineffective against” strikes by Himars missiles, and claimed that over the past five to seven days, “more than 10” ammunition and logistics stores had been hit and “about a dozen” command posts. When will the Russians start “fighting in full force?” Girkin asked.
Ukraine will hope that by striking deeper behind enemy lines, the rocket artillery will disrupt Moscow’s ability to continue its grinding offensive in Donbas.
A key indicator of whether Ukraine can halt the Russians is whether Moscow will be able launch a full offensive against the adjacent Donbas cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two largest population centres in Donetsk province that it does not hold. Until now, Russia has been firing about 20,000 shells a day, slowly destroying Sievierodonetsk and other towns and cities in its path.
As for Ukraine, there are key elements in any normal offensive military package still not available to it. Its air power is limited while moves to supply extra Soviet-standard fighter jets advance at glacial speeds. Russian forces have dug in on large parts of the long front, and where Ukraine has made gains, in the south, towards occupied Kherson, they have been modest, reflecting the resources available to it so far.
Ben Barry, a land warfare specialist with the IISS, said: “If the Russian offensive in the Donbas culminates, there will be growing pressure on the Ukrainians to launch a major counterattack. But the longer they have to prepare, to build up training and stockpiles, the more chance it has of succeeding.” Failure, by contrast, could be a political disaster for Kyiv.
Barry highlights Operation Storm, the final winning offensive in Croatia’s war against Serbian separatists in the 1990s. The August 1995 attack was years in the planning, with the Croats receiving training from a US military consultancy, and it ended more than three years of stalemate. “There may be reason why such wars take years not months,” Barry concluded.
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{'people': ['Reznikov', 'Orysia Lutsevych', 'Kyiv', 'Rusi', 'Boris Johnson', 'Elementary', 'Jack Watling', 'Nick Reynolds', 'Reznikov', 'Igor Girkin', 'Girkin', 'Donbas', 'Kramatorsk', 'Kherson', 'Ben Barry', 'Croats', 'Barry'], 'organizations': ['US Himars', 'the International Institute for Strategic Studies', 'First Edition', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Himars', 'Telegram', 'Himars', 'IISS'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'Russia', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Donbas', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Britain', 'UK', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Donbas', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Donbas', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Sloviansk', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Donbas', 'Croatia', 'US']}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 159 of the invasion
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The mayor of Mykolaiv has said an attack on medical facilities in the city today is “nothing more than cynical terrorism by Russian troops”. Oleksandr Syenkevych described the damage, informing residents “For some time, our emergency hospital will not be able to accept patients. Part of the hospital’s main building was also destroyed. There, too, it is necessary to put everything in order. This is an ordinary hospital, which every day received residents of the city, including victims of Russian shelling. Therefore, today’s attack on this medical facility is nothing more than cynical terrorism by Russian troops.”
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{'people': ['Oleksandr Syenkevych'], 'organizations': ['Mykolaiv'], 'locations': []}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 160 of the invasion
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The US announced on Monday a new tranche of weapons for Ukraine’s forces fighting Russia, including ammunition for increasingly important rocket launchers and artillery guns. The $550m package will “include more ammunition for the high mobility advanced rocket systems otherwise known as Himars, as well as ammunition” for artillery, national security council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has said that Russia had destroyed six US-made Himars missile systems since the beginning of the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Three people have reportedly been killed by Russian shelling while evacuating in a minibus near Kherson, Ukraine’s military is reporting. Ukraine’s Operational Command ‘South’ reported that three people died from the attack on the bus near Dovhove.
Turkey’s representative at the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul has said that the first ship carrying Ukrainian grain to world markets was expected to anchor at Istanbul on Tuesday night. At a briefing held at the JCC, general Özcan Altunbulak said the course of the ship was going as planned. Another official said “The plan is for a ship to leave every day. If nothing goes wrong, exports will be made via one ship a day for a while.”
Ukraine’s state security service says it is investigating 752 cases of treason and collaboration. According to the agency, the greatest amount of cases have been documented in the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.
The United Nations’ secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that a misunderstanding could spark nuclear destruction, as the US, Britain and France urged Russia to stop “its dangerous nuclear rhetoric and behaviour”.
Sabina Higgins, the wife of Ireland’s president, Michael D Higgins, has triggered a political row in Ireland by urging Russia and Ukraine to call a ceasefire and enter negotiations. Critics said the intervention amounted to Kremlin propaganda because it appeared to equate Moscow’s aggression with Kyiv’s fight for survival.
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{'people': ['John Kirby', 'Sergei Shoigu', 'Özcan Altunbulak', 'Zaporizhzhia', 'Kherson', 'António Guterres', 'Sabina Higgins', 'Michael D Higgins', 'Kyiv'], 'organizations': ['Himars', 'national security council', 'Himars', 'Operational Command ‘South', 'the Joint Coordination Centre', 'JCC', 'JCC', 'The United Nations', 'Kremlin'], 'locations': ['US', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Kherson', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Dovhove', 'Turkey', 'Istanbul', 'Istanbul', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'US', 'Britain', 'France', 'Russia', 'Ireland', 'Ireland', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow']}
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Keir Starmer and Piers Morgan among new list of Britons banned from Russia
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Russia has banned 39 senior British politicians, businesspeople and journalists from entering the country, including the Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, the former prime minister David Cameron and the presenter Piers Morgan.
“It was decided to include on the Russian ‘stop list’ a number of British politicians, businessmen and journalists who contribute to London’s hostile course aimed at the demonising of our country and contributing to its international isolation,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement published on its website on Monday.
“Given London’s destructive drive to spin the sanctions flywheel on far-fetched and absurd pretexts, work on expanding the Russian stop list will continue,” the ministry added.
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the shadow levelling up secretary, Lisa Nandy, are also on the list.
The journalists banned include the Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, as well as British journalists working for the BBC, the Sunday Times, the Economist, the Daily Telegraph and Sky News.
Moscow banned dozens of British journalists, media figures and defence figures from entering the country in June in what the foreign ministry said was a response to western sanctions and the “spreading of false information about Russia”. In total, more than 200 Britons, including most of the country’s leading politicians, are banned from entering the country.
Russia has launched an unprecedented crackdown on Russian and foreign independent news outlets since its 24 February invasion of Ukraine, as well as on foreign social media networks. Legislation was introduced soon after the war began to criminalise media outlets that disseminate “false information” about the Russian army. Russia has already barred dozens of US and Canadian officials and journalists from entering.
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A number of media groups have stopped operating in Russia as a result, with the far-reaching law in effect threatening to punish independent journalism with prison sentences of up to 15 years.
Russia has also blocked access to several foreign news organisations’ websites, including the BBC and Deutsche Welle.
In a separate move, the Russian ministry of justice on Monday labelled the British-based Calvert 22 cultural foundation as an “undesirable organisation”, effectively criminalising its operation in Russia.
“It has been established that its activity poses a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and the security of the Russian Federation,” it said in a statement.
Calvert 22 was established in London in 2009 by the Russian-born economist Nonna Materkova and focuses on arts and culture in Russia and eastern Europe.
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{'people': ['Keir Starmer', 'David Cameron', 'Morgan', 'David Lammy', 'Lisa Nandy', 'Dan Sabbagh', 'Deutsche Welle', 'Calvert', 'Nonna Materkova'], 'organizations': ['Labour', 'Guardian', 'BBC', 'the Sunday Times', 'Economist', 'the Daily Telegraph', 'Sky News', 'First Edition', 'BBC', 'Calvert 22'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'London', 'London', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'US', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'the Russian Federation', 'London', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 160 of the invasion
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The US announced on Monday a new tranche of weapons for Ukraine’s forces fighting Russia, including ammunition for increasingly important rocket launchers and artillery guns. The $550m package will “include more ammunition for the high mobility advanced rocket systems otherwise known as Himars, as well as ammunition” for artillery, national security council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has said that Russia had destroyed six US-made Himars missile systems since the beginning of the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Three people have reportedly been killed by Russian shelling while evacuating in a minibus near Kherson, Ukraine’s military is reporting. Ukraine’s Operational Command ‘South’ reported that three people died from the attack on the bus near Dovhove.
Turkey’s representative at the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul has said that the first ship carrying Ukrainian grain to world markets was expected to anchor at Istanbul on Tuesday night. At a briefing held at the JCC, general Özcan Altunbulak said the course of the ship was going as planned. Another official said “The plan is for a ship to leave every day. If nothing goes wrong, exports will be made via one ship a day for a while.”
Ukraine’s state security service says it is investigating 752 cases of treason and collaboration. According to the agency, the greatest amount of cases have been documented in the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.
The United Nations’ secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that a misunderstanding could spark nuclear destruction, as the US, Britain and France urged Russia to stop “its dangerous nuclear rhetoric and behaviour”.
Sabina Higgins, the wife of Ireland’s president, Michael D Higgins, has triggered a political row in Ireland by urging Russia and Ukraine to call a ceasefire and enter negotiations. Critics said the intervention amounted to Kremlin propaganda because it appeared to equate Moscow’s aggression with Kyiv’s fight for survival.
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{'people': ['John Kirby', 'Sergei Shoigu', 'Özcan Altunbulak', 'Zaporizhzhia', 'Kherson', 'António Guterres', 'Sabina Higgins', 'Michael D Higgins', 'Kyiv'], 'organizations': ['Himars', 'national security council', 'Himars', 'Operational Command ‘South', 'the Joint Coordination Centre', 'JCC', 'JCC', 'The United Nations', 'Kremlin'], 'locations': ['US', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Kherson', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Dovhove', 'Turkey', 'Istanbul', 'Istanbul', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'US', 'Britain', 'France', 'Russia', 'Ireland', 'Ireland', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow']}
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Keir Starmer and Piers Morgan among new list of Britons banned from Russia
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Russia has banned 39 senior British politicians, businesspeople and journalists from entering the country, including the Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, the former prime minister David Cameron and the presenter Piers Morgan.
“It was decided to include on the Russian ‘stop list’ a number of British politicians, businessmen and journalists who contribute to London’s hostile course aimed at the demonising of our country and contributing to its international isolation,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement published on its website on Monday.
“Given London’s destructive drive to spin the sanctions flywheel on far-fetched and absurd pretexts, work on expanding the Russian stop list will continue,” the ministry added.
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the shadow levelling up secretary, Lisa Nandy, are also on the list.
The journalists banned include the Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, as well as British journalists working for the BBC, the Sunday Times, the Economist, the Daily Telegraph and Sky News.
Moscow banned dozens of British journalists, media figures and defence figures from entering the country in June in what the foreign ministry said was a response to western sanctions and the “spreading of false information about Russia”. In total, more than 200 Britons, including most of the country’s leading politicians, are banned from entering the country.
Russia has launched an unprecedented crackdown on Russian and foreign independent news outlets since its 24 February invasion of Ukraine, as well as on foreign social media networks. Legislation was introduced soon after the war began to criminalise media outlets that disseminate “false information” about the Russian army. Russia has already barred dozens of US and Canadian officials and journalists from entering.
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A number of media groups have stopped operating in Russia as a result, with the far-reaching law in effect threatening to punish independent journalism with prison sentences of up to 15 years.
Russia has also blocked access to several foreign news organisations’ websites, including the BBC and Deutsche Welle.
In a separate move, the Russian ministry of justice on Monday labelled the British-based Calvert 22 cultural foundation as an “undesirable organisation”, effectively criminalising its operation in Russia.
“It has been established that its activity poses a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and the security of the Russian Federation,” it said in a statement.
Calvert 22 was established in London in 2009 by the Russian-born economist Nonna Materkova and focuses on arts and culture in Russia and eastern Europe.
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{'people': ['Keir Starmer', 'David Cameron', 'Morgan', 'David Lammy', 'Lisa Nandy', 'Dan Sabbagh', 'Deutsche Welle', 'Calvert', 'Nonna Materkova'], 'organizations': ['Labour', 'Guardian', 'BBC', 'the Sunday Times', 'Economist', 'the Daily Telegraph', 'Sky News', 'First Edition', 'BBC', 'Calvert 22'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'London', 'London', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'US', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'the Russian Federation', 'London', 'Russia']}
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Russia claims five injured in Ukraine drone attack on Black Sea fleet HQ
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Russia has claimed that its Black Sea fleet headquarters in Sevastopol have been hit by a Ukrainian drone strike, wounding five people and prompting officials to cancel festivities planned for Navy Day.
The attack was reported by Mikhail Razvozhayev, the head of the local Russian administration in Sevastopol in Crimea, which was occupied and then annexed in 2014.
“Early this morning, [Ukraine] decided to spoil our Navy Day,” he posted. “An unidentified object flew into the yard of the fleet headquarters, according to preliminary data, it was a drone. Five people were injured, these are employees of the fleet headquarters, there were no fatalities.
“All celebratory events have been cancelled due to safety concerns,” he wrote. “I ask you to stay calm and stay at home if possible.”
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, Natalia Gumenyuk, did not confirm Ukrainian involvement in the strike. But she said Ukraine was conducting operations to liberate Russian-occupied areas by targeting Russian military facilities inside Ukraine, not Russia, and that it considered Crimea part of Ukraine.
“Ukraine’s armed forces are carrying out activities to liberate our occupied territories, using the weapons models that are available for this purpose. Our targets are exclusively the military facilities of the Russian Federation. We do not strike on the territory of the Russian Federation. Crimea is Ukraine,” she said.
Photographs posted on Razvozhayev’s account showed bloodstains and broken glass at the entrance to a military building. A popular Russian military account said the location was the entrance to a cafeteria, 40 to 50 metres from the internal courtyard where Russian officials said the drone had struck.
No names or ranks were given for those injured in the attack.
The strike is the latest setback for the Black Sea fleet in the five-month-old war against Ukraine. Ukraine sank the flagship of the Black Sea fleet, the Moskva cruiser, in a missile strike in April. Authorities took days to confirm the attack, leading families of the conscript sailors onboard to take to social media demanding more information on their loved ones’ fates.
It is still unclear how many sailors were killed in the Moskva attack. Russia has confirmed only one death onboard, while dozens of sailors are listed as missing.
The Russian navy also lost the Saratov Alligator-class landing ship to a fire reportedly caused by a Ukrainian missile strike on the Berdiansk port in March, as well as a landing craft and a number of patrol boats to drone strikes near Snake Island.
The Moskva would have been conspicuously absent from Russia’s Navy Day festivities, which were meant to include a tour of the ships in Sevastopol Bay by the fleet commander, as well as a concert and fireworks, according to Russian state media.
Sevastopol is at the southern tip of Crimea and is located hundreds of miles from the frontlines, making it more likely that the attack was launched from Russian-controlled territory. A spokesperson for the Black Sea fleet called the drone “homemade” and said it was carrying a small explosive onboard.
Vladimir Putin has travelled to Kronstadt in St Petersburg, the main base of Russia’s Baltic Fleet, to mark the Navy Day celebrations.
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{'people': ['Mikhail Razvozhayev', 'Razvozhayev', 'Sevastopol', 'Vladimir Putin'], 'organizations': ['Navy', 'Natalia Gumenyuk', 'Crimea', 'Photographs', 'Saratov Alligator', 'Kronstadt', 'Baltic Fleet', 'Navy'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Sevastopol', 'Crimea', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'the Russian Federation', 'the Russian Federation', 'Crimea', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Berdiansk', 'Snake Island', 'Russia', 'Crimea', 'St Petersburg', 'Russia']}
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Russia now synonymous with Bucha killings, says Zelenskiy
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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Russia’s public image is now one of torture and execution after the retreat of Russian forces in the town of Bucha led to the discovery of the killing of hundreds of civilians.
Calling Russian soldiers “murderers”, “butchers” and “rapists”, Zelenskiy said late on Sunday: “your culture and human appearance perished together with the Ukrainian men and women”. He warned that “even worse things” may be found in other occupied regions.
Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 410 civilians have been found in Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces. Satellite images taken late last week show a 14-metre (45ft) mass grave in Bucha near the Church of St Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints. Maxar, the company that took the pictures, said the first signs of excavation for a mass grave there were seen on 10 March, several weeks into the invasion.
Witnesses of alleged atrocities in Bucha told the Guardian that Russian soldiers had fired on men fleeing the town, and had killed civilians at will. Taras Schevchenko, 43, said Russian soldiers had refused to allow men to leave through a humanitarian corridor, instead shooting at them as they fled across an open field. Bodies, he said, were scattered on the pavements, with some of those killed having been “squashed by tanks … like animal skin rugs”.
Shevchenko’s mother, Yevdokia, 77, said she had witnessed an elderly man who had challenged a Russian soldier being shot dead as his wife stood next to him. “They shot him dead, and ordered the woman to leave,” she said. The accounts could not be independently verified.
01:48 Civilians lie dead in the street as Russian forces retreat from Bucha – video
Photographs from the town showed a scene of devastation, with hunks of charred and destroyed tanks and armoured vehicles lined up along one street, along with dead bodies.
Zelenskiy on Sunday made a surprise video appearance at the Grammy Awards celebration in Las Vegas and appealed to viewers to support his country “in any way you can”.
“Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today, to tell our story. Support us in any way you can. Any, but not silence,” Zelenskiy said in English in a video introducing John Legend’s performance of Free and featured Ukrainian musicians and a reading by Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuck.
Russia denied responsibility for the killing of civilians. Its defence ministry described the photos and videos from towns such as Bucha as “another staged performance by the Kyiv regime”, echoing a similar claim made after the bombing of a children’s and maternity hospital in Mariupol.
Figures around the world have condemned the brutality of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s forces.
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said the “despicable” killings added to evidence of Russian war crimes, while the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, expressed shock about the “terrible and horrifying” footage from Bucha. “Streets littered with bodies. Bodies buried in makeshift conditions. There is talk of women, children and the elderly among the victims,” Scholz said. His defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, said the European Union should consider a ban on gas imports from Russia.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken described the images from retaken towns as “a punch in the gut” while United Nations secretary general António Guterres called for an independent investigation.
The head of the European Council, Charles Michel, said he was shocked by “haunting images of atrocities committed by [the] Russian army”, adding that “further EU sanctions and support are on their way”.
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she was “appalled by reports of unspeakable horrors in areas from which Russia is withdrawing”. An independent investigation was urgently needed, she said, and “perpetrators of war crimes will be held accountable”.
01:34 Bucha resident recounts finding husband dead in basement – video
Zelenskiy said he expected a UN security council meeting on Tuesday to discuss the atrocities, and was scathing on Sunday night of a historic western policy of “appeasing” Russia by failing to make Ukraine a Nato member 14 years ago at a summit in Bucharest. He invited former German and French leaders Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy to visit Bucha “to see what the policy of concessions” to Russia has led to, and urged Ukraine’s allies to do more than increase sanctions.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia warned on Monday against inferring much from the withdrawal of Russian forces around Kyiv. “They are now regrouping. They are using it as an operational pause and I’m sure they will mount another assault and therefore we need support of the free world to help us fight,” said ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko.
“We see civilians’ dead bodies lying around the city, many of them have their hands tied up. We are now collecting the evidence from the witnesses,” Myroshnychenko said of the recent discoveries in town such as Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel. “Multiple rapes of women, children killed. This is a massacre.”
The west needed to provide heavy weapons, air defence systems, anti-ship missiles, armoured, vehicles, tanks and planes to help Ukraine, the ambassador said. “It’s only two and a half flight from Kyiv to Paris. We’re in the middle of Europe and this is happening now in the 21st century.”
In other developments:
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{'people': ['Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Bucha', 'Maxar', 'Bucha', 'Shevchenko', 'Photographs', 'John Legend’s', 'Lyuba Yakimchuck', 'Bucha', 'Kyiv', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Boris Johnson', 'Christine Lambrecht', 'Antony Blinken', 'António Guterres', 'Charles Michel', 'Ursula von der', 'Angela Merkel', 'Nicolas Sarkozy', 'Bucha', 'Vasyl Myroshnychenko', 'Myroshnychenko', 'Hostomel'], 'organizations': ['Zelenskiy', 'the Church of St Andrew', 'Pyervozvannoho All Saints', 'Guardian', 'Yevdokia', 'Bucha', 'Zelenskiy', 'Olaf Scholz', 'Bucha', 'Scholz', 'the European Union', 'United Nations', 'the European Council', 'EU', 'the European Commission', 'Zelenskiy', 'UN', 'Nato', 'Bucha'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Bucha', 'Las Vegas', 'Russia', 'Mariupol', 'UK', 'Russia', 'US', 'Leyen', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Australia', 'Irpin', 'Ukraine', 'Kyiv', 'Paris']}
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Plan needed to make Russia pay reparations to Ukrainians, says report
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Western and Ukrainian rhetoric claiming Russia will be required to pay reparations for the damage caused by its invasion of Ukraine is not backed by a coherent roadmap based on international law to achieve justice for Ukraine’s victims, a new report prepared by the British thinktank Ceasefire has warned.
The report, one of the first detailed studies on how reparations for Ukraine might work, says little progress has been made in setting up a global mechanism to require Russia to pay compensation and says the delays must end.
It says it is remarkable how far plans are lagging in comparison with the number of war crimes investigations being launched, even though history suggests the numbers of Russian soldiers or politicians likely to be prosecuted is low.
The Ceasefire report says payment of state reparations is well established in international law but basic questions remain to be answered.
Questions that need answering include: “What form should such reparations take? To whom would they be made and on what authority? What sort of mechanism could be entrusted to take on the task of awarding and administering reparations on such a scale? Where will the money come from?”
Ceasefire’s director, Mark Lattimer, proposes a UN general assembly or multilateral mechanism to take charge of administering reparations to civilian claimants, with the UK and other national governments using national and international law to put sanctions on assets to make Russia pay.
“The legal obligation to pay reparations falls most heavily on Russia, but self-evidently it will not pay of its own accord. The example of the Iran-US claims tribunal set up in the wake of the US embassy hostage crisis shows, however, that sanctioned assets can be used as leverage to ensure that reparations are paid – or in the alternative those assets could be used to pay reparations directly.”
The report finds for differing reasons that neither the international court of justice, the international criminal court nor the European court of human rights “are in a position to award reparations any time soon with the scope and scale required by the conflict in Ukraine”. It suggests the UN general assembly does have powers following an example in Syria to set up an investigating body to determine reparations, but even then the UN body would have no power of enforcement. “Russia’s veto-wielding power means that the UN security council – and with it the UN system – is effectively prevented from taking enforcement action against Russia.”
The lack of consensus on reparations has led individual national legislatures to start ad hoc proceedings. The US and Canada have begun legal steps whereby reparations could be paid, by repurposing frozen assets, including yachts and property, held overseas by Russian oligarchs. The EU has so far set out plans that largely focus on criminal accountability, as opposed to financial redress, for Russia’s war crimes and other breaches of humanitarian law. Germany alone, for instance, claims to have frozen €4.5bn (£3.9bn) of Russian assets since May.
It is a major step to move from simply freezing an oligarch’s assets to seizing them, and then handing them to an international body to pay reparations to the Ukrainian people, especially if there is little evidence that these private assets were gained corruptly.
The second source of potential revenue is the $300bn (£250bn) of Russian central bank reserves held in G7 territories.
There is resistance in Europe, and British Conservative circles, to the simple seizure of Russian bank reserves. The former Conservative foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a strong supporter of Ukraine, admitted he had concerns about the impact on faith in the global financial system. He said: “We are a country that believes in the rule of law and due process. You do not confiscate other people’s assets on a political judgment on the spur of the moment just because you feel sorry for people. It creates a very very disturbing precedent. The consequences go far beyond Ukraine.”
Although the US has seized state assets in the cases of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Venezuela, it has not yet declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, illegitimate or an adversary in a declared war, the previous legal bases for their seizure of assets.
The Ceasefire report proposes that it would be better that Russia’s arm was twisted to make it pay reparations “voluntarily”, by making the lifting of global sanctions contingent on payment, as opposed to a straightforward clause in a humiliating peace agreement. This could follow the model used after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and carve out a set slice of oil revenue to pay for reconstruction costs.
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Dedicating a proportion of Russian oil revenues to compensation – as Iraq was required to do to fund a UN compensation commission – might, for example, prove more advantageous to Russia than being forced to sell its oil at a discount, the report suggests.
“As the combined effect of sanctions produces severe economic contraction and, according to predictions by the Bank of Russia, ‘years of reverse industrialisation’, the incentives to come to the negotiating table could well intensify.”
But the body that was used to transfer the Iraq cash – the UN compensation commission – has just been closed down, and it is unlikely Russia would allow a new body to be established.
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{'people': ['Ceasefire', 'Ceasefire', 'Mark Lattimer', 'Malcolm Rifkind', 'Ceasefire'], 'organizations': ['UN', 'the European court of human', 'UN', 'UN', 'UN', 'UN', 'EU', 'British Conservative', 'First Edition', 'UN', 'the Bank of Russia', 'UN'], 'locations': ['Ukrainian', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Iran', 'US', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Syria', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'US', 'Canada', 'Russia', 'Germany', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Afghanistan', 'Iraq', 'Iran', 'Venezuela', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Kuwait', 'Iraq', 'Russia', 'Iraq', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 158 of the invasion
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Ukrainian officials have denounced a call by Russia’s embassy in Britain for fighters from the Azov regiment to face a “humiliating” execution, Agence France-Presse has reported. Twitter said the embassy had violated its rules on “hateful conduct” but put a warning on the tweet rather than ban the post about the Azov, a Ukrainian battalion that retains some far-right affiliations. Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, responded on Telegram on Saturday: “Russia is a terrorist state. In the 21st century, only savages and terrorists can talk at the diplomatic level about the fact that people deserve to be executed by hanging. Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism. What more evidence is needed?”
Renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline have left one person dead in the south of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said. The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv said one person was killed when rockets pounded two residential districts overnight, AFP reported. In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility, local authorities said.
Russia announced it was banning 32 New Zealand officials and journalists from entering its territory, in response to similar measures taken by Wellington against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, AFP reported. Among those subjected to sanctions are the mayor of Wellington, Andrew Foster; the mayor of Auckland, Philip Goff; the commander of New Zealand’s navy, Commodore Garin Golding; and the journalists Kate Green and Josie Pagani, Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Ukrainian military said it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines. Reuters reported the military’s southern command as saying rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.
Gazprom has suspended gas supplies to Latvia following tensions between Moscow and the west over the conflict in Ukraine and sweeping sanctions against Russia, AFP reports. The company drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20% of its capacity. European Union states have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The United States ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intended to dismantle Ukraine, Reuters reported. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN security council that the US was seeing growing signs of Russia laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Russia is “running out of steam” in its war on Ukraine, the chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said in a brief comment on Twitter on Saturday. Moore made the remark above an earlier tweet by the Ministry of Defence that said the Kremlin was “growing desperate”.
Russia and Ukraine have both launched criminal investigations into strikes that have reportedly killed at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were held at a pre-trial detention centre in the village of Olenivka, after both countries blamed the other side for the attack. The UN is prepared to send a group of experts to Olenivka to investigate the incident, if it gets consent from both parties.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of a “petrifying war crime” over the killings and called on world leaders to “recognise Russia as a terrorist state”.
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{'people': ['Azov', 'Twitter', 'Azov', 'Andriy Yermak', 'Andrew Foster', 'Garin Golding', 'Kate Green', 'Josie Pagani', 'Kherson', 'Kyiv', 'Kherson', 'Linda Thomas-Greenfield', 'Kherson', 'Zaporizhzhia', 'MI6', 'Richard Moore', 'Dmytro Kuleba'], 'organizations': ['Agence France-Presse', 'Kharkiv', 'Mykolaiv', 'AFP', 'Kharkiv', 'AFP', 'Auckland, Philip Goff', 'Reuters', 'AFP', 'Nord Stream', 'European Union', 'the United Nations', 'Reuters', 'UN', 'the Ministry of Defence', 'Kremlin', 'UN', 'Olenivka'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Britain', 'Telegram', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'New Zealand', 'Wellington', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Wellington', 'New Zealand’s', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Crimea', 'Latvia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'The United States', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukrainian', 'Donetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Britain', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Olenivka', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 157 of the invasion
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Russia and Ukraine have both launched criminal investigations into strikes that have reportedly killed at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were held at a pre-trial detention centre in the village of Olenivka, after both countries blamed the other side for the attack.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of a “petrifying war crime” over the killings and called on world leaders to “recognise Russia as a terrorist state”.
Ukraine has said it is ready for grain exports to leave its ports again but is waiting for the go-ahead from the United Nations, which it hoped it would receive later on Friday.
Horrific video has emerged that appears to show a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian prisoner, who other reports suggest was subsequently murdered. The footage, reviewed by the Guardian, was originally posted on pro-Russian Telegram channels. Aric Toler at investigative outlet Bellingcat, suggested that the video – featuring a Russian soldier, wearing a distinctive black wide-brimmed hat, approaching another figure who has his hands bound and is lying face down with the back of his trousers cut away – appeared to be authentic .
At least five people have been killed and seven injured in a strike on a bus stop in the city of Mykolaiv, according to the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim. Graphic images from the scene show the street littered with bodies.
Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that Russia staunchly supported China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, warned the US president, Joe Biden, against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a phone call on Thursday.
Germany’s economy minister said on Friday that putting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into operation was not an option as this would only play into the hands of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. There is growing anger in Germany over soaring energy prices.
Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a Russian operative who was subjected to US sanctions on Friday, has been charged with using political groups in the US to advance pro-Russia propaganda, including during the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
The US treasury department said on Friday it had imposed sanctions on another individual alongside Ionov, as well as on four entities that support the Kremlin’s global malign influence and election interference operations, including in the US and Ukraine.
Belarus recalled its UK ambassador on Friday in response to what it called “hostile and unfriendly” actions by London.
North Macedonia plans to donate an unspecified number of Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine as it seeks to modernise its own military to meet Nato standards, its defence ministry said on Friday.
Germany would deliver 16 Biber bridge-layer tanks to Ukrainian forces, the German defence ministry said.
A Ukrainian court on Friday reduced to 15 years a life sentence handed to a Russian soldier in May for pre-meditated murder in the country’s first war crimes trial.
A Russian ammunition depot in the southern Kherson region had been destroyed, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.
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{'people': ['Dmytro Kuleba', 'Aric Toler', 'Vitaliy Kim', 'Vladimir Putin’s', 'Dmitry Peskov', 'Xi Jinping', 'Joe Biden', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Viktorovich Ionov', 'Ionov', 'Belarus', 'Kherson'], 'organizations': ['the United Nations', 'Guardian', 'Bellingcat', 'the Nord Stream 2', 'Kremlin', 'Nato'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Olenivka', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Mykolaiv', 'Russia', 'China', 'US', 'Taiwan', 'Germany', 'Germany', 'Aleksandr', 'US', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'London', 'Ukraine', 'Germany', 'Ukrainian']}
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Man arrested at Gatwick airport on suspicion of spying for Russia
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Security officials trying to thwart Russian spying in Britain have arrested a man at Gatwick airport as he was trying to board a flight to leave the UK.
The arrest followed a joint intelligence-led operation by Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command – which deals with arrests for espionage matters – and the British security services.
It is understood detectives knew the man might be trying to leave the UK and were waiting for him at Gatwick airport.
The man in his 40s was arrested on Monday under the Official Secrets Act, under a provision that outlaws spying on the UK.
He is still in custody, and detectives have up to 96 hours to hold him, with approval from a court to extend his detention. They then have to charge the man, or release him and drop the case, or release him while he is still under investigation.
The Metropolitan police said: “We can confirm that officers from the Met’s counter terrorism command arrested a man in his 40s at Gatwick airport on Monday 13 June on suspicion of offences under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. He has been taken to a London police station, where he currently remains in police custody. Inquiries continue.”
Tension between Russia under Vladimir Putin and the UK has been high for years, but worsened after a nerve agent attack on British soil in 2018 targeting a critic of the Russian leader, and again after this year’s invasion of Ukraine.
The British security services have intensified their counter-espionage work as they try to stop Russian efforts to spy on the UK, and warned publicly of the growing threat.
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin'], 'organizations': ['Scotland Yard’s', 'Met'], 'locations': ['Britain', 'UK', 'UK', 'UK', 'Metropolitan', 'London', 'Russia', 'UK', 'Ukraine', 'UK']}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 156 of the invasion
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The UK defence minister, Ben Wallace, has said that Russian forces in Ukraine are in “a very difficult spot”, and said that Vladimir Putin’s strategy is akin to putting his forces through a meat grinder. In his opinion, he said Russia was “certainly not able to occupy the country. They may be able to carry on killing indiscriminately and destroying as they go, but that is not a victory”.
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{'people': ['Ben Wallace', 'Vladimir Putin’s'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': ['UK', 'Ukraine', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 155 of the invasion
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A former state TV journalist charged with discrediting Russia’s armed forces by protesting against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was found guilty on Thursday, after she told a court that the charge against her was absurd. Marina Ovsyannikova defiantly repeated her protest, refused to retract her words and said she did not understand why she was there and what she was being judged for. She faces up to 15 years in jail for discrediting the armed forces under a law passed in March.
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{'people': ['Marina Ovsyannikova'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine']}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 155 of the invasion
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A former state TV journalist charged with discrediting Russia’s armed forces by protesting against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was found guilty on Thursday, after she told a court that the charge against her was absurd. Marina Ovsyannikova defiantly repeated her protest, refused to retract her words and said she did not understand why she was there and what she was being judged for. She faces up to 15 years in jail for discrediting the armed forces under a law passed in March.
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{'people': ['Marina Ovsyannikova'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine']}
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UK energy bills forecast to hit £3,850 as Russia cuts gas supply further
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British households face being told shortly before Christmas to brace for annual energy bills of £3,850, three times what they were paying at the start of 2022, after Russia further squeezed Europe’s gas supplies.
Consumers have also been warned that annual charges of more than £3,500 a year, or £300 a month, could become the norm “well into 2024”.
The grim forecasts came a day after MPs said millions of people would fall into “unmanageable debt” without more government help to pay bills, following a surge in wholesale gas prices to near-record levels.
After Russia cut flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Wednesday, British wholesale gas for delivery this winter climbed to as high as 535p per therm, while European prices also rose.
The energy-focused management consultancy BFY said the increase meant it now expected October’s price cap – set by the energy regulator, Ofgem – to hit £3,420 for the average dual-fuel tariff. Ofgem is expected to lift the cap higher in January, and BFY is forecasting it could reach £3,850.
The cap is revised every six months but if Ofgem goes ahead with plans to shorten that period to three months, the new ceiling would take effect in January and would be announced in December, as consumers who are already wrestling with the cost of living crisis enter the traditionally high-spending Christmas period.
A source at one of the UK’s largest energy firms told the Guardian its analysts believed the forecast for the price cap – which factors in what energy suppliers pay for gas on the wholesale markets – was realistic.
BFY said the average customer could end up “facing a bill of £500 in January alone”, reflecting increased consumption during the coldest months.
Cornwall Insight, which has typically forecast price caps with a high degree of accuracy, will not update its predictions for January until next week. It said it expected October’s figure to hit £3,500, with bills remaining at least that high “well into 2024”.
On Wednesday, runaway energy bills took centre stage in the race between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to be the next leader of the Conservative party and prime minister of the UK.
Sunak, who repeatedly dismissed Labour’s call to scrap the 5% VAT rate on energy bills while he was chancellor, suddenly backed the policy, in a change of heart that the Truss-supporting business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, called a “screeching U-turn”.
Sunak said removing VAT on domestic energy would save households £160 a year, although that would rise to nearly £200 if the BFY’s forecast of an average £3,850 bill proves to be correct.
Under current proposals, which were unveiled earlier this year by Sunak as chancellor, households will get £400 off their bills, with the most vulnerable receiving support worth up to £1,200.
But if the BFY forecast proves accurate, the energy price cap, which affects 22m households, would have increased by more than £2,500 within a year, more than tripling from £1,271 to £3,850 for the average dual-fuel tariff.
A spokesperson for Greenpeace said the government had done “practically nothing” to offset the energy bill crisis, while Cornwall Insight said the £400 rebate on bills was “only scratching the surface”.
MPs on the business and energy committee said this week that the price cap should be replaced by a “social tariff”, with the lowest-income households paying discounted bills, funded either by taxation or by wealthier bill payers.
The gloomier prognosis for bills came in response to Russia cutting supplies of gas through pipelines to Europe, against the backdrop of a prolonged standoff over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin-controlled gas firm Gazprom said earlier this week it would cut flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% of capacity, a threat it has followed up on. It blamed problems with turbines, which it said had been made worse by sanctions imposed by the west because of the invasion of Ukraine.
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Europe is scrambling to reduce reliance on Russian gas, with rationing now an option for the coming winter. While the UK sources relatively little gas from Russia compared with highly dependent countries such as Germany, European wholesale markets have a significant knock-on effect on prices paid in Britain.
02:43 'We will share the pain': EU to ration gas this winter in case Russia cuts supply – video
As concern about the price and availability of gas mounted, data showed how reliant Europe was on gas, not only for heating in winter but also for electricity, depending on conditions. A relatively windless day meant gas was generating 50% of the UK’s electricity on Wednesday, with similar data reflected across Europe.
Greenpeace UK’s political campaigner, Ami McCarthy, said: “Even more wild than the astronomical price energy bills are set to reach in January, is the fact that the government’s known for ages that this was going to happen but done practically nothing to prevent it or support the millions of families that will be forced to freeze this winter.
“The real solution is reducing our energy use and ending our reliance on gas, which is now more expensive than ever.”
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “Unlike Europe, Britain isn’t dependent on Russian gas. The UK’s secure and diverse energy supplies will ensure households, businesses and industry can be confident they can get the electricity and gas they need.
“However, we are vulnerable to volatile gas markets. While no national government can control the gas price, we have introduced an extraordinary £37bn package to help households, including £1,200 each for 8m of the most vulnerable households.”
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{'people': ['MPs', 'Ofgem', 'Rishi Sunak', 'Liz Truss', 'Truss', 'Kwasi Kwarteng', 'wealthier bill payers', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Ami McCarthy'], 'organizations': ['BFY', 'Ofgem', 'BFY', 'Guardian', 'BFY', 'Cornwall Insight', 'the Conservative party', 'Labour', 'VAT', 'VAT', 'BFY', 'BFY', 'Greenpeace', 'Cornwall Insight', 'Kremlin', 'Gazprom', 'Guardian Business', '@BusinessDesk\n\nEurope', 'EU', 'The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Russia', 'UK', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Germany', 'Britain', 'Russia', 'UK', 'UK', 'Britain', 'n’t', 'UK']}
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Risk of nuclear war from cutting off China and Russia, says security tsar
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The west risks the initiation of nuclear conflict with China or Russia because of a “breakdown of communication” with the two countries, the UK’s national security adviser has warned.
Sir Stephen Lovegrove, 55, said that the erosion of backdoor channels had resulted in an increased chance of an accidental escalation into war.
In a speech in Washington at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, he said he believed the deterioration of communication with China and Russia had created a higher risk of “rapid escalation to strategic conflict”.
“The cold war’s two monolithic blocks of the USSR and Nato – though not without alarming bumps – were able to reach a shared understanding of doctrine that is today absent,” he said. “Doctrine is opaque in Moscow and Beijing, let alone Pyongyang or Tehran.”
Lovegrove, who was appointed to Whitehall’s most senior defence role in March 2021, added: “During the cold war, we benefited from a series of negotiations and dialogues that improved our understanding of Soviet doctrine and capabilities, and vice versa. This gave us both a higher level of confidence that we would not miscalculate our way into nuclear war.
“Today, we do not have the same foundations with others who may threaten us in the future – particularly with China. Here the UK strongly supports President Biden’s proposed talks with China as an important step.”
A Russian MIG-31 fighter jet carrying a Kinzhal hypersonic missile. The missiles have been deployed in Ukraine and are said to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA
Joe Biden, the US president, is expected to have a phone call with China’s president, Xi Jinping, on Thursday – their first conversation since March – in an attempt to defuse tensions over Taiwan.
Taiwanese troops have practised fighting off an invasion as tensions with Beijing intensified over plans by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, to visit the self-governing island.
China insists Taiwan, which has its own democratically elected government, is its sovereign territory and is determined to reunify the island, by force if necessary.
Last year, Beijing tested a hypersonic missile that circumnavigated the globe before hitting a target. China, Russia and the US are also developing hypersonic missiles that travel at more than five times the speed of sound and can manoeuvre in the air.
Lovegrove praised the White House’s decision to re-engage with China but also highlighted the risks of technological advances.
“We have clear concerns about China’s nuclear modernisation programme that will increase both the number and types of nuclear weapon systems in its arsenal,” he said.
Sir Stephen Lovegrove, left, meeting with his US counterpart Jake Sullivan at the Nato headquarters in Brussels in October. Photograph: Virginia Mayo/EPA
Russia became the first country to use hypersonic systems during a war when Moscow deployed its Kinzhal missiles in Ukraine. The Kremlin claims the missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia, said in a speech earlier this month that western support for Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the west since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Despite the increased risks, Lovegrove said much of the existing architecture remains “vital”, such as the chemical weapons convention and the biological and toxin weapons convention, and the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. However, he added that the reality is “that current structures alone will not deliver what we need a modern arms control system to achieve”.
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On the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence said: “We recently passed the grim milestone of 150 days since Putin launched this unprovoked, illegal war, bringing untold suffering to the innocent people of Ukraine.
“I’m afraid the conflict fits a pattern of Russia acting deliberately and recklessly to undermine the global security architecture.
“That’s a pattern that includes the illegal annexation of Crimea, the use of chemical and radiological weapons on UK soil, and the repeated violations that caused the collapse of the INF [intermediate-range nuclear forces] treaty.
“And we will continue to hold Russia to account for its destabilising actions as an international community.”
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{'people': ['Stephen Lovegrove', 'Biden', 'Kinzhal', 'Maxim Shipenkov', 'Joe Biden', 'Xi Jinping', 'Nancy Pelosi', 'Stephen Lovegrove', 'Jake Sullivan', 'Dmitry Medvedev', 'Lovegrove', 'Putin'], 'organizations': ['Nato', 'EPA', 'the US House of Representatives', 'the White House’s', 'Nato', 'EPA', 'Kinzhal', 'Kremlin', 'First Edition', 'the Ministry of Defence', 'INF'], 'locations': ['China', 'Russia', 'UK', 'Washington', 'China', 'Russia', 'USSR', 'Moscow', 'Beijing', 'Pyongyang', 'Tehran', 'China', 'UK', 'China', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'China', 'Taiwan', 'Beijing', 'China', 'Taiwan', 'Beijing', 'China', 'Russia', 'US', 'China', 'China', 'US', 'Brussels', 'Virginia', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Crimea', 'UK', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 132 of the invasion
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The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said alternative routes to retrieve grain stuck in Ukraine would need to be looked at, including through Europe’s Danube River, if it cannot be moved via the Bosphorus strait in Turkey. “The Turks are absolutely indispensable to solving this. They’re doing their very best … We will increasingly have to look at alternative means of moving that grain from Ukraine if we cannot use the sea route, if you can’t use the Bosphorus,” he told parliament on Monday.
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{'people': ['Boris Johnson', 'Bosphorus'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': ['UK', 'Ukraine', 'Turkey', 'Ukraine']}
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US accuses Russia of holding food supplies hostage | First Thing
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Good morning.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine entering its 86th day, the US is accusing Russia of holding the world’s food supply hostage amid growing fears of famine in developing countries. Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, demanded at a UN security council meeting yesterday that Russia lift its blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and enable the flow of food and fertiliser around the world.
“The Russian government seems to think that using food as a weapon will help accomplish what its invasion has not: to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people,” he said at the meeting called by the Biden administration.
Ukraine’s grain exports fell from 5m tons a month before Russia’s February invasion to 200,000 tons in March and about 1.1m tons in April, said Serhii Dvornyk, a member of Ukraine’s mission to the UN, who pointed out that 400 million people around the world depended on grain from Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former president of Russia, warned that Russia would not continue food supplies unless the west eased its sanctions against the Kremlin.
Pete Buttigieg at Berlin’s central station. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt/The Guardian
As the discussions about the food crisis continue, Pete Buttigieg, the US transportation secretary, is in Berlin and backing a recovery program for Ukraine similar to the Marshall plan, which helped rebuild Europe after the second world war.
“With the memory of the Marshall plan in mind, what we’re talking about is not only about how we fund immediate needs and support their ability to maintain the war effort, but how we support the ability of Ukraine to be economically viable and generate a sustainable future for themselves, even as they’re under attack,” Buttigieg told the Guardian.
This comes as the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $40bn infusion of military and economic aid for Ukraine. “Help is on the way, really significant help. Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious,” said the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.
Former special agent: FBI is failing to address white supremacist violence
The FBI headquarters building in Washington DC. Photograph: Yuri Gripas/Reuters
A former FBI special agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups in the 1990s has told the Guardian that his former agency is failing to address the rising scourge of white supremacist violence – even amid stark warnings that such attacks pose the greatest domestic terrorism threat in the US.
“US law enforcement is failing, as it long has, to provide victimized communities like Buffalo’s with equal protection under the law. They are not actually investigating the crimes that occur,” said Michael German, a fellow with the Brennan Center at NYU School of Law.
The Buffalo mass shooting suspect was heckled in court yesterday, with some calling him a coward. Payton Gendron, 18, is accused of killing 10 Black people in a racist, targeted attack on a Buffalo supermarket.
Oklahoma passes nation’s strictest abortion ban
Pro-choice demonstrators rally at the state capitol in Oklahoma City. Photograph: Sue Ogrocki/AP
Oklahoma’s Republican-led legislature passed a bill yesterday allowing citizens to sue anyone, anywhere who “aids or abets” a patient in terminating a pregnancy. The bill bans abortion from conception, even before an egg implants in the uterus, and would go into effect immediately if signed by the Republican governor, Kevin Stitt.
In other news …
A pro-Trump mob storms the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
Stat of the day: more than 5,000 firefighters are battling wildfires blazing across the American south-west
Vadix Armendarez looking for hot spots along state highway 434 north of Mora last week as firefighters from all over the country converged on northern New Mexico. Photograph: Jim Weber/AP
Wildland blazes have been burning across New Mexico, Texas and Colorado for weeks now, with thousands of fire personnel battling flames in dry, windy weather. A fire in west Texas has destroyed dozens of structures and the gusty winds, high temperatures and extremely low humidity in New Mexico have authorities expecting that the number of structures destroyed there will reach 1,000.
Don’t miss this: Sex, death and Benediction
The British film director Terence Davies photographed at his home in Essex. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
Director Terence Davies spoke to the Guardian about reconstructing trauma on screen, the use of humor and his upcoming Siegfried Sassoon biopic. “Being in the past makes me feel safe because I understand that world,” Davies said, on how he has largely avoided contemporary settings.
Climate check: A mustard shortage
A man walks past a mustard shop in Dijon. Photograph: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images
French mustard producers said seed production in 2021 was down 50% after poor harvests, which they are attributing to the changing climate in France’s Burgundy region and Canada, the second largest mustard seed producer in the world. The result is that supermarkets in France are now running out of dijon mustard, raising questions about whether the shortage may spread to other countries as well.
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Last Thing: A chaos creature
Aidan Harte’s sculpture of a púca. Photograph: Aidan Harte
It was the horse that launched a thousand memes. Eighteen months ago, sculptor Aidan Harte was commissioned to create a 2-meter-tall bronze statue of a púca for the town square in Ennistymon, County Clare in Ireland. When photographs of the clay mould for the sculpture leaked in April 2021, they elicited an immediate response on social media: the parish priest called it “sinister”. An artist painted it in a mural. One songwriter composed a song lauding the sculpture but another composer wrote a a piece that envisaged blowing it up. “Your ugly horse can kiss my ’orse,” said one line.
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Get in touch
If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com
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{'people': ['Antony Blinken', 'Biden', 'Serhii Dvornyk', 'Dmitry Medvedev', 'Pete Buttigieg', 'Christian Jungeblodt', 'Pete Buttigieg', 'Marshall', 'Marshall', 'Buttigieg', 'Chuck Schumer', 'Yuri Gripas/Reuters', 'Michael German', 'Payton Gendron', 'Sue Ogrocki/AP', 'Kevin Stitt', 'Vadix Armendarez', 'Mora', 'Jim Weber', 'Alicia Canter', 'Dijon', 'Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images', 'dijon mustard', 'Down', 'Aidan Harte', 'Aidan Harte', 'Aidan Harte', 'County Clare'], 'organizations': ['state', 'UN', 'UN', 'Kremlin', 'Guardian', 'Guardian', 'Senate', 'Senate', 'FBI', 'FBI', 'FBI', 'Guardian', 'the Brennan Center at NYU School of Law', 'Leah Millis/Reuters', 'Terence Davies', 'Guardian', 'Terence Davies', 'Guardian', 'Davies', 'Burgundy', 'First Thing'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'US', 'Russia', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Berlin', 'US', 'Berlin', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Washington DC', 'US', 'US', 'Buffalo', 'Buffalo', 'Buffalo', 'Oklahoma', 'Oklahoma City', 'Oklahoma', 'US', 'New Mexico', 'Wildland', 'New Mexico', 'Texas', 'Colorado', 'Texas', 'New Mexico', 'Essex', 'France', 'Canada', 'France', 'Ennistymon', 'Ireland', 'US']}
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Sloviansk mayor urges residents to flee city as Russia steps up shelling
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The mayor of Sloviansk has called on its remaining residents to evacuate as the Russian invaders stepped up their shelling of the frontline Ukrainian city after the capture of Lysychansk on Sunday.
Vadim Lyakh said 40 houses had been shelled on Monday – while other officials later said two people were killed and seven injured after Russian forces struck a market and a residential area in the city.
“It’s important to evacuate as many people as possible,” Lyakh said in an interview with Reuters, noting separately that 144 people had been evacuated on Tuesday, including 20 children, from a city now deemed at risk from Russian bombardment.
A day earlier, six people were killed and 20 injured in missile attacks aimed at the city, one of the main population centres in the Donbas region that remains outside Russian military control.
00:49 Firefighters battle a blaze after a Russian missile strike in Sloviansk – video
The strikes came as Nato’s 30 members signed an accession protocol that formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. The agreement has to be ratified by every member state’s parliament, although last week Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, warned that Ankara may not sign off on the deal.
Turkey had raised objections to Sweden and Finland’s membership amid concerns about the latter two countries’ relationship with Turkey’s Kurdish minority, but these were dropped after an agreement between the three last week.
At a news conference, the foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland both denied that the two countries had agreed to extradite specific people to Turkey. “There is, of course, no lists or anything like that in the memorandum,” Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde, said.
Russia had concentrated its forces to capture the cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk between May and July, the last two cities in Luhansk province it did not control, through an unrelenting and often untargeted artillery barrage.
Ukraine said on Monday it had retreated from Lysychansk, prompting speculation that Russia would now focus on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk to the south, the two main cities in Donetsk province held by Kyiv. The provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk make up Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region.
Sloviansk had a population of 107,000 and Kramatorsk 210,000 before the war. Despite the threat of a Russian attack, thousands had remained, reluctant to abandon their homes despite being just a few miles from the frontlines.
It is unclear if Moscow will immediately attempt to seize Sloviansk. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said on Monday that Russian troops who fought in Luhansk needed to “take some rest and beef up their combat capability”.
On Tuesday, Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said the war in Ukraine would continue until all Putin’s goals were achieved – but added that “the main priorities” for Moscow at the moment were “preserving the lives and health” of the troops, as well as “excluding the threat to the security of civilians”.
Ukraine hopes to bring forward recently obtained western weapons into the battlefield, most notably rocket artillery donated by the US and the UK, pointing to a critical point in the conflict in which Kyiv hopes to demonstrate it will be able to push the Russian invaders back.
“This is the last victory for Russia on Ukrainian territory,” Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a video posted online.
“Taking the cities in the east meant that 60% of Russian forces are now concentrated in the east and it is difficult for them to be redirected to the south,” he said. “And there are no more forces that can be brought in from Russia. They paid a big price for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.”
One western analyst said he believed that assessment was optimistic. Nick Reynolds, a land warfare expert at the Rusi thinktank, said: “The loss of Lysychansk is a bad sign, and I fear that it is indeed a sign of sustainable Russian momentum.” While it was possible that Russia would run out of steam, he added, “I fear that the Ukrainian army will continue to be pushed back.”
Both sides suffered heavy losses in the battle for the two Luhansk cities, but Ukraine almost certainly more so because Russia, with as much as 10 times the artillery, was able to shell the defenders from a distance before moving in ground forces. Estimates provided to Rusi from Ukraine’s military were that 100 people a day on average were killed.
Four missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv on Tuesday, according to Roman Kostenko, an MP and special forces commander. Kostenko said infrastructure targets had been hit and some civilians suffered minor injuries.
“As they do every morning, Russia used their missiles as an alarm clock,” Kostenko said. “There were a few mornings when we woke up and didn’t hear any strikes. That was unusual. Today there were four missiles from either Kherson direction or from the Black Sea.”
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Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine its troops all but encircled Mykolaiv and its port on the Bug River, seizing the airport after advancing from the north-east. However, after weeks of fighting the Ukrainian army managed to push the Russians back, and the city has become a symbol of anti-Russian resistance.
According to Ukrainian authorities, Mykolaiv province is still regarded as a strategic target by Moscow and central to its goal of annexing Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, making it a “non-sea country”.
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{'people': ['Vadim Lyakh', 'Lyakh', 'Ann Linde', 'Kramatorsk', 'Kyiv', 'Kramatorsk', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Sergei Shoigu', 'Putin', 'Kyiv', 'Oleksiy Arestovych', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Nick Reynolds', 'Rusi', 'Rusi', 'Roman Kostenko', 'Kostenko', 'Kostenko', 'Kherson', 'Mykolaiv'], 'organizations': ['Sloviansk', 'Reuters', 'Nato', 'Recep Tayyip Erdoğan', 'Sloviansk', 'Sloviansk', 'First Edition'], 'locations': ['Lysychansk', 'Donbas', 'Sloviansk', 'Sweden', 'Finland', 'Turkey', 'Ankara', 'Turkey', 'Sweden', 'Finland', 'Turkey', 'Sweden', 'Finland', 'Turkey', 'Sweden', 'Russia', 'Lysychansk', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Lysychansk', 'Russia', 'Sloviansk', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Donbas', 'Moscow', 'Luhansk', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Ukrainian', 'Russia', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Lysychansk', 'Lysychansk', 'Russia', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Mykolaiv', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Mykolaiv province', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine']}
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Germany accuses Russia of ‘power play’ as gas pipeline supply drops by half
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Germany has accused Moscow of engaging in “power play” over energy exports, as Russian state-run Gazprom further throttled gas supplies into Europe.
As announced two days earlier, the energy giant on Wednesday reduced the gas flow through Nord Stream 1 to 33m cubic metres a day – about 20% of the pipeline’s total capacity and half the amount it has been delivering since resuming service last week after 10 days of maintenance work.
According to network data from the gas transfer station in Lubmin, north-east Germany, only about 17m kilowatt hours of gas arrived between 8am and 9am, compared with more than 27m kWh between 6am and 7am.
Meanwhile, the Italian energy major Eni said it had been told by Gazprom it would only receive “approximately 27m cubic metres” of natural gas on Wednesday, down from around 34m cubic metres in recent days.
The Russian gas firm said gas flow was down because one of the last two operating turbines had to be halted due to a “technical condition of the engine” – an argument the German government in strong terms dismissed as a made-up pretext.
“The turbine is there, it has been serviced,” said the government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann in Berlin, referencing a turbine Russia had previously cited as a reason for reduced deliveries.
“At this point in time supply contracts aren’t being honoured,” she added. “What we are seeing is indeed power play, and we won’t allow ourselves to be impressed by that.”
A Kremlin spokesperson blamed supply shortages on European sanctions.
“Technical pumping capacities are down, more restricted. Why? Because the process of maintaining technical devices is made extremely difficult by the sanctions adopted by Europe,” Dmitry Peskov said.
“Gazprom was and remains a reliable guarantor of its obligations ... but it can’t guarantee the pumping of gas if the imported devices cannot be maintained because of European sanctions.”
On Tuesday, the operator Eugas announced a booking of extra capacity for its Transgas pipeline via Slovakia and Ukraine, raising hopes in Germany that Gazprom was looking to make up for lower deliveries by pumping gas via a different route.
However, on Wednesday no increased deliveries via Transgas were reported.
“Transgas has plenty of spare capacity,” said Andreas Schröder, an energy expert for the market analyst ICIS. “If Russia really wanted to deliver its gas to Europe it could easily reroute via Slovakia. However, that would also entail paying higher transit fees to Ukraine.”
Deliveries of Russian gas through the Yamal pipeline, which passes through Belarus and Poland, ceased in May due to sanctions.
On Tuesday, energy ministers from all of the European Union’s 27 member states except Hungary backed a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, a target that could become mandatory if the Kremlin ordered a complete shutdown of gas to Europe.
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Ministers agreed opt-outs for island nations and possible exclusions for countries little connected to the European gas network, which will blunt the overall effect in the event of a full-blown gas crisis. Germany, which is more reliant on Russian gas than its neighbours, is expected to have to make bigger savings to help the bloc of states meet its reduction targets.
“Germany has to consume less gas,” said Klaus Müller, the head of the country’s federal network agency. He said it was unrealistic to expect Nord Stream 1 to resume delivering at 40% of capacity.
Müller said Germany had already started to make significant savings, in part due to warm temperatures in the spring and summer. Private households and industry consumed “five, six, seven per cent less gas” than usual.
However, Müller warned of difficult months ahead. “In the autumn the situation will change, gas consumption will rise,” he said, noting the country’s strong reliance on gas for its heating.
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{'people': ['Eni', 'Christiane Hoffmann', 'Peskov', 'Eugas', 'Andreas Schröder', 'Yamal', 'Klaus Müller', 'Müller', 'Müller'], 'organizations': ['Gazprom', 'ICIS', 'Slovakia', 'the European Union’s', 'Kremlin', 'First Edition', 'Nord Stream 1'], 'locations': ['Germany', 'Moscow', 'Lubmin', 'north-east Germany', 'Berlin', 'Russia', 'Transgas', 'Slovakia', 'Ukraine', 'Germany', 'Gazprom', 'Transgas', 'Transgas', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Belarus', 'Poland', 'Hungary', 'Germany', 'Germany', 'Germany']}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 154 of the invasion
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Self-appointed authorities in the occupied Kherson region have closed the bridge to traffic, but said it was structurally sound and that repairs would begin shortly. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-imposed administration, said “There are hits on the bridge, the bridge has not been destroyed. More holes have been added”. He claimed that the attack would make life slightly more difficult for the resident of Kherson, but “it will not affect the outcome of hostilities in any way.”
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{'people': ['Kherson', 'Kirill Stremousov', 'Kherson'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': []}
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 153 of the invasion
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The UK’s Ministry of Defence has issued its intelligence briefing on the situation in Ukraine for the day, in which it disputes Russia’s account of Sunday’s missile attack on Odesa, saying “The Russian MoD claimed to have hit a Ukrainian warship and a stockpile of anti-ship missiles. There is no indication that such targets were at the location the missiles hit”. Russia initially told Turkey that it was not responsible for the attack. Yesterday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov contradicted this, and said that the attack was on military infrastructure.
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{'people': ['Odesa'], 'organizations': ['Ministry of Defence', 'Kremlin'], 'locations': ['UK', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Turkey']}
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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Russia says 771 more Ukrainian troops ‘surrender’ at Mariupol steelworks
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Russia has said a further 771 Ukrainian troops have “surrendered” at Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal steelworks, bringing the total number to 1,730 this week, while the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had started registering the Ukrainian prisoners of war who left the plant.
The Russian defence ministry said on Thursday that 80 soldiers who surrendered in the past day were being treated for injuries in hospitals in the Russian-held cities of Novoazovsk and Donetsk. Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said on Wednesday that more than 900 troops from Azovstal had been sent to a former prison colony in the town of Olenivka, but it was not immediately clear where the latest group to surrender had gone.
Ukraine has not commented on the evacuation of the soldiers since Tuesday, when its deputy defence minister said the soldiers would be swapped in a prisoner exchange, without providing further details.
It is not clear how many soldiers remain inside the plant. The deputy commander of the Azov regiment, Capt Svyatoslav Palamar, released a video on Thursday evening in which he said he had not surrendered and remained in the steel mill. “The operation is continuing. I can’t give more information now,” Palamar said. He did not say how many other fighters were with him.
Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, said on Thursday that more than half the Ukrainian fighters in the bunkers below the steel plant had surrendered.
Pushilin also repeated statements made earlier by Russian officials that the soldiers should be tried in court.
“Let them surrender, let them live, let them honestly face the charges for all their crimes,” Pushilin said.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, earlier said the combatants would be treated in line with international norms for PoWs, though several senior Russian politicians demanded they be put on trial and one even called for their execution.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has not publicly commented on the fate of the soldiers since their evacuation started on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the ICRC said it had registered “hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war” this week from the Azovstal plant.
“The ICRC started on Tuesday 17 May to register combatants leaving the Azovstal plant, including the wounded, at the request of the parties. The operation continued Wednesday and was still ongoing Thursday. The ICRC is not transporting PoWs to the places where they are held,” the Geneva-based humanitarian agency, which has experience in working with prisoners of war, said in a statement.
“In accordance with the mandate given to the ICRC by states under the 1949 Geneva conventions, the ICRC must have immediate access to all PoWs in all places where they are held. The ICRC must be allowed to interview prisoners of war without witnesses, and the duration and frequency of these visits should not be unduly restricted,” the agency added.
Several Russian media outlets and pro-Kremlin telegram channels reported on Thursday that some Ukrainian soldiers from the Azovstal plant had already been transported outside Donbas to Russian territories.
According to 161, a local news outlet, 89 Ukrainian soldiers had been transferred to a detainment facility in the Russian border city of Taganrog where they will face charges of extremism in a military court for fighting in the Azov regiment, one of the main forces defending the steelworks.
The Azov regiment was formed in 2014 as a volunteer militia to fight Russia-backed forces in east Ukraine, and many of its original members had far-right extremist views. Since then, the unit has been integrated into the Ukrainian national guard and the regiment now denies being fascist, racist or neo-Nazi. The Azov movement has been used as a key part of the Russian propaganda narrative to justify the war in Ukraine.
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Next week, Russia’s supreme court will hear an application to designate Ukraine’s Azov regiment as a “terrorist organisation”, opening the way for sentences of up to 20 years for those convicted of involvement.
Experts believe that a trial of the Ukrainian troops, described by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as “heroes”, would further complicate efforts to resume the stalled peace negotiations.
The Russian presidential aide Sergey Kiriyenko said on Thursday that Putin personally decided that his country would “take oversight” of the two breakaway territories that make up the Donbas, which Moscow has already recognised as independent. It was another sign that the Kremlin was looking to further annex Ukranian territory, after previously hinting that it was open to annexing seized Ukranian territories, including the southern port cities of Kherson and Mariupol.
Such moves would further complicate any peace negotiations with Ukraine. Zelenskiy has repeatedly stated that the war with Russia would end only when Ukraine reclaimed everything that Russia had taken from it since the start of the war in late February.
Moscow also said on Thursday that it would open access to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports if the west reviewed the sanctions it had imposed on the country. Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest grain producers, has been unable to export its goods through ports since Russia sent troops into Ukraine, causing a spike in food prices and fears of a global food crisis.
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{'people': ['Maria Zakharova', 'Azov', 'Capt Svyatoslav Palamar', 'Palamar', 'Denis Pushilin', 'Pushilin', 'Pushilin', 'Dmitry Peskov', 'PoWs', 'Vladimir Putin', 'PoWs', 'PoWs', 'Azov', 'Azov', 'Azov', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Sergey Kiriyenko', 'Putin'], 'organizations': ['Mariupol’s', 'Azovstal', 'the International Committee of the Red Cross', 'ICRC', 'Azovstal', 'Kremlin', 'ICRC', 'Azovstal', 'ICRC', 'Azovstal', 'ICRC', 'ICRC', 'ICRC', 'Azovstal', 'First Edition', 'supreme court', 'Kremlin', 'Zelenskiy'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukrainian', 'Novoazovsk', 'Donetsk', 'Russia', 'Olenivka', 'Ukraine', 'Donetsk', 'Geneva', 'Donbas', 'Russia', 'east Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Donbas', 'Moscow', 'Kherson', 'Mariupol', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine']}
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The Guardian
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 131 of the invasion
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The president of Belarus and Vladimir Putin’s closest ally has said his ex-Soviet state stands fully behind Russia, adding that the country’s “have practically a unified army”. Alexander Lukashenko said he had thrown his weight behind Putin’s campaign against Ukraine “from the very first day” in late February. “We are being criticised for being the only country in the world to support Russia in its fight against nazism,” a video on the state BelTA news agency showed Lukashenko telling a gathering. “We will remain together with fraternal Russia.”
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin', 'Alexander Lukashenko', 'Putin', 'Lukashenko'], 'organizations': ['BelTA news agency'], 'locations': ['Belarus', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia']}
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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Zelenskiy ‘didn’t want to hear’ warnings of Russia invasion, says Biden
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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, “didn’t want to hear” warnings of the Russian invasion, according to the US president, Joe Biden.
Speaking at a fundraising reception in Los Angeles on Friday, Biden said “there was no doubt” Vladimir Putin had been planning to “go in”.
“Nothing like this has happened since World War Two,” he told donors. “I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating.
“But I knew we had data to sustain [Putin] was going to go in, off the border. There was no doubt … and Zelenskiy didn’t want to hear it.”
Biden was talking about his work to rally and solidify support for Ukraine as the war continues into its fourth month.
However, despite the west’s ongoing support for Ukraine and Zelenskiy, a former head of the British army accused leaders of lacking a long-term strategy in the conflict.
Gen Lord Richards said the British government had adopted a “let’s see how it goes strategy” and was failing to show “decisiveness”.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said: “There is, at best, what might be termed incremental strategy with again no early and decisive synchronisation of ends, ways and means. It is a ‘let’s see how it goes strategy’, in other words not really strategy at all.
“There is still little idea in London, Washington or elsewhere how ‘we’ want the war to pan out, or what sort of Russia we are seeking to shape, especially on the vital long-term issue of relations with China.”
He said leaders ought to be considering if there was an opportunity to “persuade a weakened Russia to align with the west” rather than be drawn into China’s influence.
“Britain remains one of the world’s leading economies and military powers even if it is a decidedly regional strategic power these days,” he added.
“Strategy is about choices and the more choices one needs to make to balance the ends, ways and means when pursuing the national interest, the more informed they need to be.”
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Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Ukraine was on course to win the grinding war with Russia, as fighting becomes focused on a key city in the east.
Russian forces have been trying to seize Sievierodonetsk in an eastern advance, turning it into one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict to date.
“We are definitely going to prevail in this war that Russia has started,” Zelenskiy told a conference in Singapore by video link. “It is on the battlefields in Ukraine that the future rules of this world are being decided.”
But neither side’s forces have so far been able to steal a march despite ferocious street fighting, which has seen much of the city reduced to rubble, the Reuters news agency reported.
Britain’s defence ministry said on Saturday that Russian forces had not made advances into the south of the city as of Friday.
“Intense street-to-street fighting is ongoing and both sides are likely suffering high numbers of casualties,” the ministry said in an intelligence update posted on Twitter.
Addressing the Shangri-La Dialogue event from a secret location in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said it was crucial that the nations sending aid did not let up.
“If … due to Russian blockades we are unable to export our foodstuffs, the world will face an acute and severe food crisis and famine in many countries in Asia and Africa,” he said.
He said that Russia is blocking ports in the Black Sea and Azov Sea, preventing Ukraine from exporting food to the rest of the world.
It comes as the governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, said Russians were in control of most of the city, after days of grinding advances and slow retreats by both sides in a conflict that one Ukrainian military official said had become “an artillery war”.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Mariupol said sanitation systems were broken and corpses were rotting in the streets of the southern city decimated by Russian bombardment.
The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said on Telegram that at least 287 children had died in the war so far, after it said it had learned about the deaths of 24 more children in Mariupol.
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{'people': ['Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Joe Biden', 'Biden', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Putin', 'Biden', 'Azov Sea', 'Serhiy Haidai'], 'organizations': ['Zelenskiy', 'Zelenskiy', 'the Daily Telegraph', 'First Edition', 'Zelenskiy', 'Zelenskiy', 'Reuters', 'Zelenskiy', 'Mariupol'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'US', 'Los Angeles', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'London', 'Washington', 'Russia', 'China', 'Russia', 'China', 'Britain', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Singapore', 'Ukraine', 'Britain', 'Kyiv', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Telegram', 'Mariupol']}
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Europe at risk of recession amid concerns Russia could cut gas supplies
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Europe faces a rising risk of recession because of rising oil and gas prices amid concerns that Russia could turn off supplies completely, economists have said.
Europe’s economy will be hit by a variety of factors including falling demand in the US – its biggest export market – the continued fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and related increases in food and energy prices, according to Nomura, a Japanese investment bank with significant operations in London.
Nomura said it expected the European economy to start contracting over the course of the second half of 2022 and for the recession to continue until the summer of 2023, with a total decline of 1.7% of GDP.
Energy prices had already surged in the second half of 2021 as leading economies lifted coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added an extra layer of difficulty, as the EU, the US and UK have sought to isolate Russia economically. Europe is still heavily reliant on Russia for its energy supply, and Vladimir Putin has responded to sanctions by slowing gas supplies.
Russia has cut gas supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany and the TurkStream pipeline to Bulgaria, and has shut off supplies to Poland via the Yamal pipeline.
Europe is struggling with “conditions that are very much global in nature (surging energy prices and inflation, rising geopolitical risks and uncertainty), which leads us to believe that European economies will suffer the same fate – recession – as the US,” wrote George Buckley, a Nomura economist. Inflation in the eurozone hit an annual rate of 8.6% in June, the highest since the bloc was created in 1999.
Analysts at JP Morgan Chase, the US investment bank, said last week that Russia could also cause “stratospheric” oil price increases if it used output cuts to retaliate against efforts to cap prices by the G7 group of large economies. Analysts including Natasha Kaneva wrote that prices could more than triple to $380 (£314) a barrel if Russia cut production by 5m barrels a day. One barrel of Brent crude oil for September delivery was worth $111 at the end of last week on futures markets.
“It is likely that the [Russian] government could retaliate by cutting output as a way to inflict pain on the west,” wrote JP Morgan’s analysts. “The tightness of the global oil market is on Russia’s side.”
Kay Neufeld and Jonas Keck, economists at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had created “a veritable pan-European crisis” and said there was a least a two in five chance of a European recession.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is particularly vulnerable because of Russia’s control over the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. The pipeline is scheduled to close for a 10-day period starting on 11 July for planned annual maintenance. The German economy minister, Robert Habeck, told German media last week that the government feared Russia would decline to reopen the pipeline, a move that could cause shortages over the winter.
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“It seems clear that in the case of European gas shortages, a severe recession will be a near certainty,” wrote Neufeld and Keck. “This is because European countries are linked to each other not only via energy interconnectors but also through highly integrated supply chains.
“A tight gas supply will lead to further increases in energy prices for consumers, adding to inflationary pressures and claiming an even greater share of households’ disposable income, which is a recession risk in itself.”
European countries that are dependent on Russian gas are racing to find alternative supplies. The German government is hoping that two floating terminals that can accept liquid natural gas will be in operation this winter.
While the UK does not directly import gas from Russia, European shortages could still exacerbate the cost of living crisis by raising the price of gas on open markets. That would force the UK to pay more, a cost likely to be reflected in bills for consumers and businesses. Nomura has forecast a UK GDP decline of 1.5% during an expected recession.
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin', 'Yamal', 'George Buckley', 'Natasha Kaneva', 'Morgan', 'Kay Neufeld', 'Jonas Keck', 'Robert Habeck', 'Keck'], 'organizations': ['Nomura', 'Nomura', 'EU', 'TurkStream', 'Nomura', 'JP Morgan Chase', 'Brent', 'the Centre for Economics and Business Research', 'Guardian Business', 'Neufeld', 'Nomura'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'London', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Germany', 'Bulgaria', 'Poland', 'US', 'US', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Germany', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'UK', 'Russia', 'UK', 'UK']}
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The Guardian
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 130 of the invasion
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Russia claims it has taken full control of Lysychansk, the eastern Ukraine city that had become Ukraine’s last major stronghold in the Luhansk region. The defence ministry reportedly made the announcement on Sunday, after initially stating the area had been encircled.
Ukraine’s defence ministry has denied the claims, saying that the city was not under “full control” of Russia. But spokesman Yuriy Sak added that if the entire Donbas region were to fall, it would not be “game over” for Ukraine.
It comes after an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the loss of Ukraine’s last large bastion in Luhansk was “indeed a threat”. Oleksiy Arestovych added: “I do not rule out any one of a number of outcomes here. Things will become much more clear within a day or two.”
Former British army chief Lord Dannatt said “meaningful negotiations” could arise out of Russia potentially taking full control of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. His comments came before the Russian defence ministry reportedly claimed to have taken full control of Lysychansk, the last major Ukrainian stronghold in the region.
At least three people were killed and dozens of residential buildings damaged in the Russian city of Belgorod on Sunday, the region’s governor said, after reports of several blasts in the city near the Ukrainian border. Vyacheslav Gladkov said at least 11 apartment buildings and 39 residential houses were damaged, including five houses destroyed. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports and there was no immediate reaction from Ukraine. Gladkov said earlier on the Telegram messaging app: “Reasons for the incident are being investigated. Presumably, the air defence system worked.”
The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has claimed Ukraine attempted to strike military facilities on Belarusian territory. Reuters, citing the state-run Belta news agency, reported that Lukashenko said – without providing evidence – that Ukrainian armed forces tried to strike facilities in Belarus three days ago but the missiles were intercepted. He claimed Ukraine was attempting to provoke Belarus but his country did not plan to intervene in the conflict.
Rescue workers have recovered as many as 29 body fragments amid the rubble of deadly Russian missile strikes on a shopping centre in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, Ukraine’s state emergency service said. At least 19 people were killed on Monday after two Russian X-22 cruise missiles hit a crowded shopping centre in Kremenchuk, officials said.
The British government has condemned the exploitation of prisoners of war as two more British men held by Russian proxies in east Ukraine and charged with “mercenary activities” could face the death penalty. Andrew Hill of Plymouth and Dylan Healy of Huntingdon were reported to have been charged with “forcible seizure of power” and undergoing “terrorist” training, according to a state news agency in Russian-controlled Donetsk.
A series of recent assassination attempts targeting pro-Russian officials suggests a growing resistance movement against Russian-backed authorities occupying parts of southern Ukraine, according to US officials. The resistance could grow into a wider counterinsurgency that would pose a significant challenge to Russia’s ability to control captured Ukrainian territories, CNN cited officials as saying.
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{'people': ['Yuriy Sak', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Lord Dannatt', 'Vyacheslav Gladkov', 'Gladkov', 'Alexander Lukashenko', 'Lukashenko', 'Andrew Hill', 'Plymouth', 'Dylan Healy'], 'organizations': ['Oleksiy Arestovych', 'Reuters', 'Telegram', 'Reuters', 'Belta', 'Belarus', 'CNN'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Lysychansk', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Donbas', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'Lysychansk', 'Belgorod', 'Ukraine', 'Belarus', 'Ukraine', 'Belarus', 'Ukraine', 'Kremenchuk', 'Ukraine', 'Kremenchuk', 'Ukraine', 'Huntingdon', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Russia']}
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The Guardian
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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 152 of the invasion
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The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has said Russia’s war against Ukraine is also a “war against the unity of Europe”. “We must not let ourselves be divided, we must not let the great work of a united Europe that we have begun so promisingly be destroyed,” he said in a speech in the western German city of Paderborn. “This war is not just about the territory of Ukraine, it is about the double shared foundation of our values and our order of peace.”
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{'people': [], 'organizations': ['Frank-Walter Steinmeier', 'Paderborn'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine']}
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What fantasies of a coup in Russia ignore | Rajan Menon
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Vladimir Putin’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine aimed at toppling the Kyiv government – based on the preposterous claim that it’s run by “neo-Nazis” – has produced Europe’s worst war in a generation, and it has taken a terrible toll on civilians. The Russian armed forces have hit hospitals, apartment buildings, a shopping center and a theater that was serving as a shelter. The immense suffering has been made worse by sieges, above all the one around Mariupol, large parts of which have also been reduced to rubble.
The war has also forced millions from their homes. The UN high commissioner for refugees reports that more than 3.7 million Ukrainians have fled their homeland and that another 6.7 million have been internally displaced. The two figures together – children account for nearly half the total – comprise 20% of Ukraine’s population.
The shock and outrage at these and other dreadful consequences of Putin’s invasion are understandable, indeed appropriate. Animus toward Putin and the desire to make him pay a steep price, without delay, are running deep in the west, so much so that some believe that war cannot end so long as he remains in power.
Some American foreign policy specialists welcomed the prospects of regime change in Russia, while others opined that it should be the objective of US policy – or said so only to backpedal once critics weighed in. Not one for subtlety, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina declared that the war in Ukraine won’t end until someone in Russia decides to “take this guy out” and followed up by saying that the only solution was for Russians to “rise up” and, referring to the 2011 uprisings in the Arab world, create a “Russian spring”. Carl Bildt, a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden, averred that peace in Europe requires regime change in Russia.
Although the Biden administration has disavowed regime change, its direct appeals to the Russian people are an obvious attempt to turn them against their government. President Biden’s off-script remark, during a visit to Poland following the 24 March Nato summit, that Putin “cannot remain in power” gave rise to speculation about his Russia policy and left his team scrambling to explain that toppling Putin was in fact not one of its goals.
Protests in Russia against Putin’s war, criticisms of it by prominent Russian tycoons and celebrities, and growing evidence that western economic sanctions are making Russians’ quotidian life much harder – because of shortages of basic necessities and rising prices – may strengthen the belief that this is the moment to bring Putin, and perhaps even his authoritarian political system, down.
Let’s assume for a moment that Putin does fall. What happens next?
One possibility: a new authoritarian leader replaces him, winds down the war in Ukraine in order to save Russia’s economy from disaster, and eventually seeks to repair the rupture with the west. Yet any successor to Putin who emerges from Russia’s current political order is more likely to share his animus toward Nato, and the west more generally, as well as his proprietorial attitude toward Ukraine. He – it’s certain to be a man – may continue the war, using different tactics, for fear that a defeat could imperil his position even before he has time to solidify it.
A second outcome might be that Russians, weary of the war and enraged by the economic pain created by western sanctions, rise up and overthrow their government, eventually clearing a path to democracy. But a rebellion could fail, so those who hope for this result must ask themselves if it’s responsible to encourage a mass revolt when they are in no position to protect protesters from the massive repressive machinery at Putin’s disposal.
There’s a third plausible scenario. Unrest in Russia segues into prolonged chaos, even a civil war pitting those who have a huge stake in the survival of the existing political order against their opponents who want to consign it to history’s rubbish heap. That could produce political turmoil, bloodletting, and a disarray in the world’s only other nuclear superpower – one that extends from Europe to the Pacific Ocean, has an area nearly twice that of the United States and land borders with 14 countries.
Theories of nuclear stability have always assumed that the countries that deter one another remain stable. We have no conceptual framework for understanding, let alone experience coping with, anarchy in a nuclear-armed country.
Can proponents of regime change in Russia be certain that the denouement will be the one they have in mind and are confident about? The dismal record of the United States and its allies in predicting the results of the regime changes they precipitated – in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya – are grounds for caution, not least because the consequences of getting this particular attempt wrong might prove disastrous.
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Lindsey Graham', 'Carl Bildt', 'Biden', 'Biden', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin'], 'organizations': ['UN', 'Nato', 'Nato'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'Mariupol', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'US', 'South Carolina', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Sweden', 'Russia', 'Poland', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'the United States', 'Russia', 'the United States', 'Afghanistan', 'Iraq', 'Libya']}
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Burger and two fries? Russia unveils logo as it replaces McDonald’s
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The replacement for McDonald’s in Russia has unveiled its new logo, ahead of a grand reopening on Sunday. The reopening is timed to coincide with Russia Day, marking the creation of the federation, at the very same location in Moscow’s Pushkin Square where McDonald’s first opened in Russia in 1990.
Then it was seen as a potent symbol of the opening up of the old Soviet economy to western companies, but now more than 1,000 former McDonald’s restaurants in Russia will be part of a new chain, partly as a result of western sanctions on economic activity with Russia.
Workers use a crane to dismantle a McDonald’s ‘golden arch’ in the town of Kingisepp in the Leningrad region. Photograph: Anton Vaganov/Reuters
The new logo features a burger and two french fries in the shape of an M, although the name of the new brand is yet to be revealed.
Critics of the new logo have pointed out its similarity to that of the Marriott hotel chain, which operates in Russia. One person on social media described it as “the Marriott hotel logo crossed with the flag of Bangladesh”.
According to reports from Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, the McDonald’s app in Russia has been renamed as “My Burger”. The agency was informed that this was a temporary name, to comply with the requirement to remove the McDonald’s brand.
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In what will be seen as another sign of western economic sanctions impacting on the Russian economy, Reuters reports Russia’s industry ministry expects car sales to halve in 2022 as the country’s automobile industry grapples with supply issues.
Tigran Parsadanyan, deputy head of the ministry’s automotive and railway engineering department, said on Thursday: “We saw a sharp fall in April and May. We expect that some 750,000 cars will be sold on the market by the end of the year.”
That figure represents a 51% drop in sales year-on-year.
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{'people': ['Kingisepp', 'Anton Vaganov/'], 'organizations': ['McDonald’s', 'McDonald’s', 'McDonald’s', 'McDonald’s ‘', 'Reuters', 'RIA Novosti', 'McDonald’s', 'McDonald’s', 'First Edition', 'Reuters'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Leningrad', 'Russia', 'Bangladesh', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia']}
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Switzerland adopts wholesale EU sanctions against Russia
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Switzerland, a bastion of neutrality through two world wars, has decided to adopt wholesale swingeing EU sanctions against Russia, potentially freezing billions of dollars in assets and further increasing the pressure on the Russian economy. Swiss national bank data showed that Russian companies and individuals held assets worth more than $11bn in Swiss banks in 2020.
The Federal Council also announced it had banned five oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin from entering the country. Flights from Russia are being banned, although this will not apply to flights carrying diplomats.
Switzerland had until now adopted very limited measures, including barring Swiss companies from taking on new business with three Russian oligarchs named by the EU as sanctions targets last week. Switzerland is obliged by law to adopt UN sanctions but has a choice over how it responds to EU measures. Its refusal to do more last week was heavily criticised by the EU for letting neutrality and Swiss banking laws become complicity.
The Swiss president, Ignazio Cassis, said it was possible a precedent had been set, but added: “Never since the second world war has the rights of one country been so violated by another. You cannot stand aside. To play into the hands of an aggressor is not neutral.” He insisted it did not mean Switzerland’s role as an active mediator was over.
The government is not imposing a ban on commodity trading. Nearly 80% of Russian commodity trading takes place virtually via financial service centres in Switzerland. Russian energy and raw materials groups such as Gazprom and Russian state banks have major branches in Switzerland.
The new steps are qualitatively different from anything Switzerland has done previously to shackle Russia, partly because the measures adopted by the EU itself are so sweeping. It is not clear if Russia’s Central Bank holds large foreign reserves in Switzerland, but the country no longer becomes a haven for Russian cash.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Swiss-based global financial umbrella body nicknamed the “bank for central banks”, has said it will not be an avenue for any circumvention of western sanctions placed on Russia for invading Ukraine.
More than 20,000 people marched though Berne on Sunday in protest at the invasion, and the Swiss socialist party had urged the executive Federal Council to take stronger measures.
Last week, Ignazio Cassis condemned Russian aggression in a strongly worded statement, but he has been trying to balance calls for sanctions with the country’s traditional commitment to neutrality.
Formally, the measures do not undermine that widely supported neutrality principle, as Switzerland says it is acting in defence of international law, but Moscow is hardly likely to accept that explanation.
Meanwhile Finland has taken the “historic” decision to supply weapons to Ukraine, the country’s government announced. Finland is a member of the EU but not of Nato, although it does have partnership status with the US-led military alliance.
Switzerland did not adopt the EU’s sanctions after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, citing the work it was doing through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help bring about a ceasefire.
Germany and Sweden have similarly found longstanding political shibboleths challenged by Russia’s actions.
Switzerland, alongside London, is probably the single biggest home for Russian oligarchs seeking to house their cash. Attracted to the country’s strict banking secrecy laws, Russians held nearly 10.4bn Swiss francs ($11.24bn) in Switzerland in 2020, Swiss National Bank data shows.
The government said on Friday that financial “intermediaries” in Switzerland were now banned from starting new business relationships with 363 Russian people and four Russian companies. Any existing business must be reported to the Swiss economic affairs secretariat. Further steps are under consideration.
The Swiss embassy in Moscow reported last year that “Switzerland has for years been by far the most important destination worldwide for rich Russians to manage their wealth,” and that net transfers by Russian taxpayers to Switzerland totalled $2.5bn in 2020.
The Swiss government represents the interests of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in Moscow and Russia’s interests in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, under an arrangement set up after those two countries broke off bilateral ties during their conflict in 2008.
On Sunday the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked his Swiss counterpart to act as a neutral mediator between Ukraine and Russia and help work towards a ceasefire, notably in the context of a Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva opening on Monday.
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 129 of the invasion
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The UK government has condemned the exploitation of prisoners of war after two more British men held by Russian proxies in east Ukraine and charged with “mercenary activities” could face the death penalty. Andrew Hill of Plymouth and Dylan Healy of Huntingdon were reported to have been charged with “forcible seizure of power” and undergoing “terrorist” training, according to a state news agency in Russian-controlled Donetsk.
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{'people': ['Andrew Hill', 'Plymouth', 'Dylan Healy'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': ['UK', 'Ukraine', 'Huntingdon']}
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Seven die in fire at Russia defence institute – reports
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Seven people have been killed after a huge fire broke out at a key Russian defence research institute in Tver, north-west of Moscow, according to reports.
Local authorities said 25 people had also been injured in Thursday’s fire, Tass news agency reported, citing emergency services, and that at least 10 people were missing.
The death toll was initially put at five but Tass said it had increased to seven.
“We confirm a number of seven deaths at the moment,” Tass cited the source as saying. It added that the number of casualties could increase.
Firefighters hose down the burning building of the Central Research Institute of the Aerospace Defense Forces in the Russian city of Tver Photograph: Vitaliy Smolnikov/AP
The fire erupted in an administrative building of the aerospace defence forces’ central research institute, which operates under the Russian defence ministry. It quickly engulfed the building’s upper three floors, forcing those inside to jump from windows and causing the roof to cave in.
Photographs of the main building showed it completely gutted by fire. Video footage from the scene, which is about 160km (100 miles) north-west of Moscow, showed thick smoke and flames billowing from the institute’s windows.
BREAKING: Massive Fire at #Russia’s Air-Space Defense Research Institute in Tver, 110 mile/180Km NW of Moscow.
RT reporting at least one killed and 16 injured. Cause unknown: pic.twitter.com/E2xCHEkuJR — Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) April 21, 2022
The incident was followed hours later by unconfirmed reports of a fire at one of Russia’s largest chemical plants.
Images on social media purported to show a large fire at the Dmitrievsky chemical plant in Kinsehma about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Moscow.
They showed smoke billowing from the facility, which describes itself on its website as the largest producer of butyl acetate and industrial solvents in Russia and eastern Europe.
There was no official cause given for either of the fires.
Initial reports said regional military prosecutors were investigating the cause of the blaze in Tver. The state-run news agency Tass said early findings pointed to ageing wiring as a contributing factor.
The defence institute is engaged in aerospace research, including on a unified air defence system for the CIS bloc of former Soviet republics, according to the Russian defence ministry’s website.
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Burger and two fries? Russia unveils logo as it replaces McDonald’s
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The replacement for McDonald’s in Russia has unveiled its new logo, ahead of a grand reopening on Sunday. The reopening is timed to coincide with Russia Day, marking the creation of the federation, at the very same location in Moscow’s Pushkin Square where McDonald’s first opened in Russia in 1990.
Then it was seen as a potent symbol of the opening up of the old Soviet economy to western companies, but now more than 1,000 former McDonald’s restaurants in Russia will be part of a new chain, partly as a result of western sanctions on economic activity with Russia.
Workers use a crane to dismantle a McDonald’s ‘golden arch’ in the town of Kingisepp in the Leningrad region. Photograph: Anton Vaganov/Reuters
The new logo features a burger and two french fries in the shape of an M, although the name of the new brand is yet to be revealed.
Critics of the new logo have pointed out its similarity to that of the Marriott hotel chain, which operates in Russia. One person on social media described it as “the Marriott hotel logo crossed with the flag of Bangladesh”.
According to reports from Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, the McDonald’s app in Russia has been renamed as “My Burger”. The agency was informed that this was a temporary name, to comply with the requirement to remove the McDonald’s brand.
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In what will be seen as another sign of western economic sanctions impacting on the Russian economy, Reuters reports Russia’s industry ministry expects car sales to halve in 2022 as the country’s automobile industry grapples with supply issues.
Tigran Parsadanyan, deputy head of the ministry’s automotive and railway engineering department, said on Thursday: “We saw a sharp fall in April and May. We expect that some 750,000 cars will be sold on the market by the end of the year.”
That figure represents a 51% drop in sales year-on-year.
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{'people': ['Kingisepp', 'Anton Vaganov/'], 'organizations': ['McDonald’s', 'McDonald’s', 'McDonald’s', 'McDonald’s ‘', 'Reuters', 'RIA Novosti', 'McDonald’s', 'McDonald’s', 'First Edition', 'Reuters'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Leningrad', 'Russia', 'Bangladesh', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia']}
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Pro-Russia officials open trial against Britons captured fighting in Ukraine
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Russian proxy fighters in east Ukraine have said they are opening a trial against two Britons, Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, who were captured fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol.
The two men, who are serving in the Ukrainian military, and Ibrahim Saadun, a captive from Morocco, were shown sitting in a courtroom cage reserved for defendants in a video released on pro-Russian social media channels on Tuesday.
Prosecutors from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, a proxy government in east Ukraine controlled by Russia, have said that the men face the death penalty for “terrorism” and for fighting as “mercenaries” against the Russian invasion.
Aslin and his fellow defendants have said they were regular soldiers fighting in the Ukrainian military and should be treated as prisoners of war.
If the images from the courtroom are confirmed, the men would be the first Ukrainian soldiers to be tried by pro-Russian forces in what observers say could be a series of show trials meant to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Do you know the information in your indictment?” an interpreter asked Aslin, 28, from Newark, Nottinghamshire. “Tak tochno,” he replied, a military response meaning “affirmative”. Shaun Pinner, 48, from Watford and Bedfordshire, also said he understood the charges against him.
Russian officials have threatened to hold military tribunals they have called “Nuremberg 2.0”, meant to mirror war crimes trials being held in Kyiv for atrocities committed by invading Russian soldiers. Observers say the trials may be deliberately constructed to put maximum pressure on the west and to prompt prisoner exchanges for Russian soldiers captured and tried in Ukraine.
In a statement, Aslin’s family asked for privacy from the media. “This is a very sensitive and emotional time for our family, and we would like to say thank you to all that have supported us,” they said.
“We are currently working with the Ukrainian government and the Foreign Office to try and bring Aiden home. Aiden is a much-loved man and very much missed, and we hope that he will be released very soon.”
Ukraine has sentenced three Russian soldiers to prison for war crimes tied to the Russian offensive that began on 24 February. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was sentenced to life in prison for killing a 62-year-old civilian in Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region early in the war. And two soldiers, Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov, were each sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for shelling attacks on population centres that “violated the laws and customs of war”.
Prosecutors said Aslin and his co-defendants were charged with four separate offences: committing a crime as part of a criminal group; forcible seizure of power or forcible retention of power; being a mercenary; and the promotion of training in terrorist activities.
But the two men were serving in Ukraine’s marines while taking part in the defence of Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks. Aslin, who had previous volunteered with a Kurdish militia against Islamic State fighters, ran a popular Twitter account and had been pictured being sworn into the Ukrainian armed forces.
Nonetheless, both men have been paraded before television cameras since they surrendered alongside hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in May after months spent in a desperate defence of the Ukrainian steelworks.
Andrew Hill, 35, a father of four from Plymouth, was also captured during fighting in southern Ukraine.
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 129 of the invasion
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The UK government has condemned the exploitation of prisoners of war after two more British men held by Russian proxies in east Ukraine and charged with “mercenary activities” could face the death penalty. Andrew Hill of Plymouth and Dylan Healy of Huntingdon were reported to have been charged with “forcible seizure of power” and undergoing “terrorist” training, according to a state news agency in Russian-controlled Donetsk.
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{'people': ['Andrew Hill', 'Plymouth', 'Dylan Healy'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': ['UK', 'Ukraine', 'Huntingdon']}
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Police scout for pro-Russian collaborators in eastern Ukraine
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Oleksandr Malish, the patrol police chief for the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk in the Donetsk region, is reluctant to call people suspected of collaborating with Russia Ukrainians.
“I cannot even call these people Ukrainians, even though they have Ukrainian passports and were born here and lived here all their lives,” said Malish. “These are not professional spies who were trained in Moscow and sent here.”
The two cities he oversees are in the pocket of the Donetsk region still controlled by Ukraine but surrounded by Russian forces on three sides. Part of his team’s job is rooting out and detaining suspected collaborators. Pro-Russian feeling still exists, he said, especially among marginalised sections of the population.
Malish said there were pro-Russia Telegram groups with the “Z” branding that were targeting residents. The administrator of the Telegram group would put out a notice asking for coordinates or photos of a certain place in exchange for money. When a person sent the “goods” to the administrator, they received up to £500 on their bank card, Malish said.
Oleksandr Malish, patrol police chief for the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. Photograph: Ed Ram/The Guardian
He said his team had found evidence of such Telegram exchanges and bank transfers on the phones of “numerous” suspected collaborators they had detained. He said declined to say exactly how many.
The Guardian was not able to find the Telegram groups Malish described. But it did find public Telegram groups for Kramatorsk and Slovyansk with “Z” branding that carry pro-Russia messaging about the war.
The groups have about 15,000 subscribers. The Guardian was not able to confirm that they were all genuine residents of the two cities and neighbouring villages, though some appeared to be.
Malish said police were asked by residents to inspect a man on Saturday. When they searched his phone, he said, they saw he had received about £400 from a Russian bank account on 8 April. As the man was not able to explain the transfer, and the Kramatorsk railway station was hit the same day, they decided to detain him as a suspect.
More than half the cities’ populations have left. According to one lieutenant patrol officer on duty, Ihor Yunusov, this makes it easier for the police to identify suspicious behaviour. “If before there could be 500 people on the main square in the evening, now there are around 10,” Yunusov said.
Damage from a double rocket attack apparently intended for the Kramatorsk regional security services headquarters. Photograph: Ed Ram/The Guardian
Driving around Kramatorsk, the police struggled to find cars or people to inspect in the deserted city. Instead, they took the Guardian to see the damage from a double rocket attack apparently intended for the Kramatorsk regional security services headquarters.
One of the rockets was caught by Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems and exploded between the security services building and an apartment block. The second rocket, which hit in succession, landed in a children’s nursery empty because of the war.
One of the three officers on patrol that day, Volodymyr Filonenko, lived in one of the 40 buildings that were damaged in the two attacks. Filonenko had just evacuated his wife and two children from the building.
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{'people': ['Oleksandr', 'Kramatorsk', 'Oleksandr Malish', 'Kramatorsk', 'Ed Ram/The Guardian', 'Kramatorsk', 'Kramatorsk', 'Ihor Yunusov', 'Yunusov', 'Kramatorsk', 'Ed Ram/', 'Kramatorsk', 'Kramatorsk', 'Volodymyr Filonenko', 'Filonenko'], 'organizations': ['Slovyansk', 'Z', 'Telegram', 'Slovyansk', 'Guardian', 'Slovyansk', 'Z', 'Guardian', 'Guardian'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Telegram', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 128 of the invasion
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Ursula von der Leyen has told Ukraine that there is “a long road ahead” for its bid to become a European Union member, but that “Europe will be at your side every step of the way”. In a speech via video link to Ukraine’s parliament this morning, the president of the European Commission said “There is a long road ahead but Europe will be at your side every step of the way, for as long as it takes, from these dark days of war until the moment you cross the door that leads into our European Union.”
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{'people': ['Ursula von der'], 'organizations': ['European Union', 'the European Commission', 'European Union'], 'locations': ['Leyen', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine']}
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War in Ukraine: where has Russia attacked?
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Russia’s attack on Ukraine began at about 5am local time, with multiple missile and air raids and a three-pronged invasion from the north, east and south that appeared to be targeting the capital, Kyiv, and the cities of Kharkiv and Kherson respectively.
Hostomel airbase
As of Thursday evening, a fierce battle for the strategic airbase close to Kyiv appeared to be continuing after Russian helicopters and airborne troops attempted to establish a bridgehead outside the city.
Videos on social media – among the most dramatic to have emerged since the invasion began – depicted a swarm of Russian Ka-52 and Mi8 helicopters descending on the Antonov military airfield.
Ukraine said it had downed three helicopters in the initial assault, but a lunchtime report from CNN showed Russian forces in control of at least some of the base. Shortly after, however, Ukraine’s armed forces chief said Kyiv’s forces were fighting back in a critical early battle.
Justin Bronk, of the Rusi thinktank, said if airborne assault troops could take and hold the airbase, the Russians could use it to rapidly build up forces ahead of heavy ground troops to put pressure on the capital. “However, it’s high risk because until ground forces link up, the airborne assault forces are deep in Ukrainian territory and dependent on aerial resupply, casualty evacuation and fire support,” he said.
Chernobyl and the north
A Ukrainian presidential adviser said Ukraine had lost control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in the north, where fighting raged after Russian troops crossed the border from Belarus. The adviser said authorities did not know the current condition of the facilities at the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Ukraine’s interior ministry warned that if artillery fire was to hit waste stored after the 1986 disaster, it could lead to “radioactive nuclear dust” being spread “over the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and the countries of the EU”.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone lies directly in the path of what western experts believe is the principal invasion route from Belarus to the west of Kyiv, where Ukraine’s presidential palace and key buildings are located.
Russian troops also advanced from the north on the city of Chernihiv. One axis of advance appears to have centred around the Senkivka border crossing to the north-east of Chernihiv. Crucial, perhaps, in this calculation is the fact that south of Chernihiv – which lies to the east of the Dnieper river – lies the E95 highway to Kyiv.
Russian military vehicles crossing at the Senkivka border crossing. Photograph: Ukraine border guard
Kharkiv and the east
A substantial attack appeared aimed towards the eastern city of Kharkiv, which has a population of more than 1 million. Multiple reports from Kharkiv described explosions nearby – while Ukraine’s defence ministry said mid-morning that “fierce fights” were taking place in that area.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defence minister, said Russian forces were trying to surround Kharkiv. “It seems like Kharkiv at the moment is the main target,” he said.
Kherson and the south
Russian forces heading north into Ukraine from Crimea were not meeting any obvious resistance, at least initially. Border guards released security camera footage on Thursday showing a line of Russian military vehicles crossing into Ukraine’s government-held territory from Russian-annexed Crimea.
Social media footage appeared to show Russian forces reaching the city of Kherson on the Dnieper, 80 miles (130km) inside Ukraine. Shortly after, around lunchtime, the presidential adviser said fierce fighting was taking place there.
Film posted online was said to show Russian helicopters over the nearby Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. Russian forces had also moved north-eastwards from Crimea to Melitopol, where the presidential adviser said they would meet resistance.
Zagorodnyuk said: “They are quite close to the city of Kherson now. The situation is really critical there.”
Missile strikes
Air and missile strikes appear so far to be mostly focused on military targets, including an air defence site in the frontier down of Mariupol, the Ukrainian naval base in Ochakiv and an arms depot in Kalynivka, 124 miles (200km) south-west of Kyiv, according to the defence intelligence specialists Rochan Consulting.
Smoke rises from an air defence base in the aftermath of a strike in Mariupol. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had destroyed 74 “objects of above-ground military infrastructure”, though this could not be confirmed. The US said it believed Russia launched 100 missiles and used 75 aircraft in the first wave of bombing.
Casualties
Information on casualties has been hard to verify, though on Thursday evening Ukraine’s health minister said 57 people had been killed and 169 injured.
Ukraine’s armed forces earlier reported that at least 40 soldiers had died. The Ukrainian presidential adviser said up to 10 civilians had been killed. The mayor of Mariupol said three civilians had been killed there and emergency services in Kharkiv said a boy had been killed after shelling struck an apartment building. The local administration in Odesa said 22 people had died in a strike on a military base.
How the militaries compare
Russia has amassed more than 150,000 combat troops on the borders of Ukraine, with a further 34,000 lightly armed separatist forces in the pro-Russian self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk. That amounts to an estimated two-thirds of Russia’s total ground forces. Half of Moscow’s air force is also deployed in the region.
Ukraine’s forces are considerably smaller. It has a regular army that numbers 125,600, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, but has mobilised reserves of at least 36,000.
Some of the Russian ambition has been aimed explicitly at demoralising Ukrainian civilians with the reach of the offensive. While much of the initial barrage was aimed at the east of Ukraine, so far, more sporadic strikes on cities in the west, from Uman to Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, seem designed to demonstrate the reach of Russian weapons.
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Russia takes Donbas town but Ukrainian frontline ‘still holding’
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Russia’s large-scale offensive to seize the Donbas region was under way on Tuesday when troops overran the city of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine and began advancing towards the strategic Ukrainian military hub of Kramatorsk.
The regional governor said Ukrainian soldiers had abandoned Kreminna, a city of more than 18,000 people, after it came under ferocious Russian attack. The assault took place “from all sides”, he said. It is the first victory for Moscow since its battle for the Donbas began on Monday.
“Kreminna is under the control of the ‘Orcs’ [Russians]. They have entered the city,” Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, told a briefing. “Our defenders had to withdraw. They have entrenched themselves in new positions and continue to fight the Russian army.”
Haidai said it was “impossible” to know how many civilians had been killed: “We have official statistics – about 200 dead – but in reality there are many more.” He said that “street fighting” was taking place, with four people shot by Russians as they tried to escape by car.
The city had already been pulverised by extensive Russian shelling. It is located close to territory held by pro-Moscow separatists. Russian forces are now creeping towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, 40 miles (60km) south-east.
Meanwhile in the south, Moscow is edging closer to full control of Mariupol in what would be its biggest prize since it invaded Ukraine in February. Relentless bombardment and street fighting have left much of the city pulverised, killing at least 21,000 people by Ukrainian estimates.
On Tuesday evening, according to reports that could not be independently verified by the Guardian, the Russian defence ministry offered a ceasefire for Wednesday to the outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers holed up with thousands of civilians in the Azovstal iron and steelworks, one of Europe’s biggest metallurgical plants.
Earlier in the day, Russia called on Ukrainian forces to “immediately lay down arms” by issuing a new ultimatum for the defenders to end their resistance, after Ukrainian forces ignored a previous ultimatum on Sunday.
In a video address late on Monday night, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the second phase of Vladimir Putin’s invasion had begun – a statement Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, confirmed during a visit to India. “A significant part of the entire Russian army is now concentrated on this offensive,” Zelenskiy said.
Late last month the Kremlin gave up its violent attempt to seize Kyiv. It says its new war goal is to conquer the administrative borders of Luhansk and Donetsk regions. To do so will involve overcoming Ukraine’s experienced and well dug-in eastern army.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a Zelenskiy aide, predicted the new Russian offensive would fail because of insufficient forces to achieve a breakthrough.
Another senior adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said a hubristic Kremlin was making the same mistake as with Kyiv, which it reportedly expected to capture in 72 hours. “Russians love to tell fairytales,” he tweeted sarcastically.
So far, according to Ukrainian officials, the frontline in Ukrainian-controlled Donbas is still holding. Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov described Kreminna in the northern Luhansk region as a “weak spot”.
Moscow’s troops frequently attack Ukrainian positions from all sides, said Zhdanov, and were occupying jumping-off points on three sides of the Donbas region: north, east and south.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, said Russian forces may be able to take some territory because of superior numbers and artillery.
It stressed, however: “Russian operations are unlikely to be dramatically more successful than previous major offensives around Kyiv. The Russian military is unlikely to have addressed the root causes – poor coordination, the inability to conduct cross-country operations, and low morale – that impeded prior offensives.”
In the northern Kharkiv region, Ukrainian forces mounted several successful counterattacks. They recaptured the villages of Bairak and Bobrivka north-east of Kharkiv city, and Hurisivka, another village between Kharkiv and Izyum, where Russia has assembled a formidable attack force.
A destroyed house in the village of Yatskivka, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
On Monday, Oleksandr Motuzianyk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s ministry of defence, said Izyum was the area with the highest concentration of Russian troops.
Izyum, regarded for centuries as the gateway to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and, from there, to the Black Sea, fell fully to Russian forces on 1 April, trapping thousands of civilians in a city where as many as 80% of its residential buildings have been destroyed.
“The enemy has accumulated its forces in Izyum and, unfortunately, has a predominant number of manpower and heavy equipment,” Maksym Strelnyk, the deputy mayor, who managed to leave with thousands of fellow citizens before the town was captured, told the Guardian.
“The Russians are trying to move in the direction of Donetsk region, but there are no serious successes. They are using Izyum as a foothold for the offensive and concentrating all their forces in the city. They set up their barracks, ammunition depots, hospitals, canteens.”
Russian military vehicles on a highway near Mariupol on Monday. Photograph: Alexei Alexandrov/AP
The mayor of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol alleged that about 40,000 civilians had been forcibly moved to Russia or Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine.
“Unfortunately I have to declare that as of today they are forcibly deporting [people],” Vadym Boichenko told Ukrainian TV. “We have verified through the municipal register that they have already deported over 40,000 people.”
01:20 Smoke rises from Mariupol steel factory as Russia continues bombardment – video
The fall of Mariupol, the largest trading port in the Sea of Azov, from which Ukraine exports grain, iron and steel, and heavy machinery, would be an economic blow to Ukraine and a symbolic victory for Russia. The town is a base for Ukrainian armed forces, and serves as a land corridor from the Donbas to Crimea.
If Moscow were to capture Mariupol, it would be the first big city to fall and mark perhaps Russia’s biggest gain of the nearly two-month war.
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{'people': ['Kramatorsk', 'Kreminna', 'Donbas', 'Kreminna', 'Serhiy Haidai', 'Kramatorsk', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Vladimir Putin’s', 'Sergei Lavrov', 'Kyiv', 'Oleksiy Arestovych', 'Mykhailo Podolyak', 'Kyiv', 'Donbas', 'Oleh Zhdanov', 'Kreminna', 'Zhdanov', 'Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images', 'Oleksandr Motuzianyk', 'Izyum', 'Maksym Strelnyk', 'Vadym Boichenko'], 'organizations': ['Haidai', 'Mariupol', 'Guardian', 'Zelenskiy', 'Kremlin', 'Zelenskiy', 'Kremlin', 'The Institute for the Study of War', 'Hurisivka', 'Kharkiv and Izyum', 'Guardian', 'Izyum', 'Alexandrov/AP', 'Mariupol', 'Ukrainian TV', 'Mariupol steel', 'Mariupol'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Donbas', 'Kreminna', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Luhansk', 'Moscow', 'Sloviansk', 'south-east', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Ukrainian', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'India', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Ukrainian', 'Luhansk', 'Moscow', 'Donbas', 'north,', 'US', 'Kyiv', 'Bairak', 'Bobrivka north-east', 'Russia', 'Yatskivka', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Donbas', 'Ukraine', 'Izyum', 'Mariupol', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Mariupol', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Donbas', 'Crimea', 'Moscow', 'Russia']}
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WNBA star Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia extended by month
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The lawyer for American basketball star Brittney Griner said on Friday that her pre-trial detention in Russia has been extended by one month.
Griner’s lawyer, Alexander Boikov, told the Associated Press he believed the relatively short extension of the detention indicated the case would come to trial soon.
Griner, one of the WNBA league’s biggest stars, has been detained in Russia since arriving at a Moscow airport in mid-February.
Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges that allegedly contained cannabis oil, which could carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
She had arrived in Russia to play professional basketball in the WNBA off-season.
A US embassy consular officer attended Friday’s hearing and spoke to Griner, the state department spokesperson, Ned Price, said.
“The officer was able to confirm that Brittney Griner is doing as well as can be expected under what can only be described as exceedingly difficult circumstances,” Price said.
Images of the athlete showed her at the courthouse with bowed head, her face shielded by her long hair, and wearing an orange hoodie. She had her wrists handcuffed in front of her.
Washington and Moscow have kept diplomatic channels open since Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine, despite the dire state of bilateral relations.
“I want to take a moment to reiterate the WNBA’s support for Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner,” the WNBA commissioner, Cathy Engelbert, said last month.
She added: “Please know that getting her home safely continues to be our top priority and while we are facing an extraordinarily complex challenge, there is strength in community, especially the WNBA.”
The US and Russia agreed a prisoner swap last month that saw the US marine veteran Trevor Reed freed from prison in Russia, where he had been serving a nine-year sentence on assault charges.
He was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who had been serving a 20-year sentence in the United States after being convicted of drug trafficking.
Russia continues to hold Paul Whelan, another US marine veteran who was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage in 2020.
The Biden administration says Griner, 31, is being wrongfully detained. The WNBA and US officials have worked toward her release, without visible progress.
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War
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Russia and Ukraine
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{'people': ['Brittney Griner', 'Griner', 'Alexander Boikov', 'Griner', 'Griner', 'Ned Price', 'Brittney Griner', 'WNBA', 'Brittney Griner', 'Cathy Engelbert', 'Trevor Reed', 'Konstantin Yaroshenko', 'Paul Whelan', 'Biden', 'Griner'], 'organizations': ['the Associated Press', 'WNBA', 'the state department spokesperson', 'Phoenix Mercury', 'WNBA', 'WNBA'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'WNBA', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'US', 'Washington', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Russia', 'US', 'Russia', 'the United States', 'Russia', 'US', 'US']}
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Can anyone in Russia stop Putin now? | Angus Roxburgh
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Western leaders have spent the past 20 years trying to guess what Vladimir Putin “really wants”. Very often, it’s enough just to read his words, very carefully. Because usually he means exactly what he says. And in the case of his early morning television address announcing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, his words and hints about his intentions were truly terrifying.
It would be good to start with his warning to the west not to interfere, because just as people like David Davis call for the west to provide air support to Ukraine, Putin had this to say: “Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history. All the necessary decisions in this regard have been taken.”
There can be little doubt that what he means is that he is prepared to deploy nuclear weapons against any country that takes military action to help Ukraine. He added, with great emphasis: “I hope that my words will be heard.” Apparently not by Davis.
As for Putin’s intentions in Ukraine itself, there was a strong indication that he plans to incorporate the Donbas (including the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions, most of which are still in Ukrainian hands) into the Russian Federation, just as he did with Crimea in 2014. He said that the peoples living in Ukraine (by which he meant the Russians) have the right to make a “free choice”, and added that in 2014 Russia “was obliged to protect the people of Crimea” and that those people then chose to “be with their historic homeland, Russia”. There is no other way to interpret those words than as a threat to annex the eastern regions of Ukraine.
As for his declared intention to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine, it is hard to see how this could be achieved without a wholesale occupation of the country and change of government.
True, Putin denied that his purpose was to occupy Ukraine. But there was a big “but”: there were, he said, “statements” coming from the west to the effect that there was no need any more to “abide by the documents setting forth the outcomes of world war two”. So it’s goodbye Yalta, it seems, as Putin sets about redrawing the map of Europe.
So what hope is there that Putin can be deterred from going this far? Inside Russia, opposition voices have been utterly squashed. Politicians who might have led public protests, such as Alexei Navalny, are in prison, and his entire network of activists has been outlawed. Would-be protesters in Moscow were detained as soon as they left their flats.
The editor of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, who won last year’s Nobel peace prize, put out a desperately sad statement: “President Putin has ordered our country to start a war with Ukraine. And there is nobody to stop this war. For that reason, as well as grief, I feel shame.”
Anyone who watched Monday’s meeting of Putin with his security council will understand Muratov’s despair. This was a gathering of those who in theory advise the president, whose job is to assess options and their outcomes. Not one of them dared step out of line. They knew what Putin wanted them to say and they said it. When the foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, fluffed his lines, he got a tongue-lashing (shown on TV) from the president. A couple of officials did suggest giving diplomacy a few days longer, but they were ignored. Dmitry Medvedev was seen as a flickering light of reason when he swapped the presidency with Putin in 2008-12, but on Monday he too fell into line.
There is, literally, nobody in Russia who can stop this war, because Putin has total control. The ostensibly elected parliament – the Duma and the Federation Council – is full of his placemen. The presidential administration and the foreign ministry almost certainly contain doubters, people who might want to point out that invasion is hardly compatible with the president’s statements about Ukrainians and Russians being “one people”. But I would be astonished if any of them offered to resign.
Can the west stop him? The history of sanctions, ever tougher and more far-reaching, is ignominious. Putin sneers at them, because he will always put his version of what Russia needs for its security above economic considerations. He also has a huge reserve fund to soften the blow.
All wars end in either victory for one side or in a negotiated settlement. Today, the prospect of the latter appears bleak. I find it hard to comprehend why it would have been so wrong to agree to the negotiations Putin wanted last year, to seriously review Europe’s security system, if that had a chance of avoiding the war that has now begun. Surely a neutral Ukraine, safe between its neighbours, would be preferable to war. But the time for that is gone. Putin is now hell-bent on revenge for what he perceives as years of western slights. He alone will decide his neighbour’s fate.
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin', 'David Davis', 'Putin', 'Davis', 'Putin', 'Donbas', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Alexei Navalny', 'Novaya Gazeta', 'Dmitry Muratov', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Sergei Naryshkin', 'Dmitry Medvedev', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin'], 'organizations': ['Crimea', 'Muratov', 'the Federation Council'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Donetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Ukrainian', 'the Russian Federation', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Crimea', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine']}
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Thursday briefing: Russia launches attack on Ukraine
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Top story: Kremlin invokes ‘demilitarisation’ as excuse
Hello – Warren Murray introducing the news on a day we feared would come.
Russian forces have attacked Ukraine on the orders of Vladimir Putin, who announced what he called a “special military operation” at dawn. Explosions and airstrikes have been heard this morning near major Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, and air raid sirens went off. Our correspondent Luke Harding reported earlier: “At least seven ‘powerful’ airstrikes on Vasilkovsky airport outside Kyiv, where Ukraine’s military fighter bombers are kept, Kyiv command says.” The Ukraine foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, confirmed what he called the “full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes.”
00:54 Ukraine: Russian missile strikes reported in Kharkiv and Kyiv – video
In a bid to justify the invasion, Putin branded Ukraine an “anti-Russia … created on our historic lands” and claimed the campaign was for the “demilitarisation and denazification” of Russia’s neighbour – echoing a false theme of Kremlin propaganda that the Kyiv government is controlled by the far right. Joe Biden said: “The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces. President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.” Boris Johnson said: “I am appalled by the horrific events in Ukraine and I have spoken to President Zelenskiy to discuss next steps. President Putin has chosen a path of bloodshed and destruction by launching this unprovoked attack on Ukraine. The UK and our allies will respond decisively.” Here’s what we know so far about the Russian invasion. Make sure you keep up with the rapid developments in Ukraine at our live blog.
00:43 Russia-Ukraine crisis: Putin orders military operation in Ukraine – video
As Putin was speaking and the first detonations were reported, the UN security council was holding an emergency session, chaired by Russia itself, which holds the rotating presidency, and at which the Russian and Ukrainian representatives traded barbs. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, earlier put out an address appealing directly to the Russian people to “listen to the voice of reason”. Russia’s leadership, he said, was “telling you that this flame will liberate the people of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people are free”. He warned: “If someone attempts to take away our land, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. By attacking, you will see our faces, not our backs, but our faces.”
01:26 'We will defend ourselves' from Russia, says Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in speech– video
With international condemnation growing, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, the commanders-in-chief of the Russian air force and Black Sea fleet, leading state “propagandists” and 351 Duma deputies are expected to be identified in EU sanctions that go further than the US, and further still than Boris Johnson’s Russia sanctions. Larry Elliott thinks that targeting Putin’s regime economically has mixed prospects: “Putin has been actively seeking to insulate Russia from the west ever since the invasion of the Crimea in 2014 … [and] Russia has used the money from its oil and gas exports to build up substantial financial defences. Moscow is sitting on foreign currency reserves of about $500bn (£369bn) and, by international standards, has extremely low levels of national debt.” The latter has a bearing on sanctions that stop Russia issuing or trading its sovereign debt in London and New York: the amount of bonds Russia needs to sell is relatively small.
Europe’s dependence on gas from Russia looms large in all of this, of course. According to calculations by the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne shared with the Guardian, current levels of gas held in European reserves “could compensate for a loss of Russian deliveries” over the next six weeks unless temperatures were to drop dramatically in February or March. The US and other countries have said they are ready to step in with supplies of gas if Russia cuts Europe off.
Another 10 years of debt – Students in England will have to continue paying back university loans over 40 years instead of 30. The number of graduates repaying in full is expected to double from under a quarter to more than half. They will face repayments sooner as the government cuts the wage threshold from £27,295 to £25,000 for new borrowers from September 2023. Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, said: “It’s effectively a lifelong graduate tax for most.” Larissa Kennedy, president of the UK National Union of Students, said ministers were “saddling young people with unimaginable debt for the next 40 years of their lives”.
Student loan repayments for students in England will be extended from 30 to 40 years. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA
In a concession, interest rates on student loans will be slashed for new borrowers and set no higher than the rate of inflation from next year – but Labour’s shadow education secretary accused the government of delivering a stealth tax that hits those on low incomes hardest. The government is also launching consultations on introducing minimum eligibility requirements to access student loans; and a lifelong loan entitlement for the equivalent of four years of post-18 education.
Meat and cancer – Vegetarians have a 14% lower chance of developing cancer than meat eaters, according to a large study by Oxford researchers. Compared with people who eat meat more than five times a week, those who consumed small amounts had a 2% lower risk of cancer. The authors made clear that their findings did not conclusively prove regular meat-eating increased the risk of cancer. Smoking and body fat could also help explain the differences found, they said. Low meat eaters in the study had a 9% lower risk of developing bowel cancer than regular meat eaters. Vegetarian women were 18% less likely than those who ate meat regularly to develop postmenopausal breast cancer, though that may be due to their lower body mass index. Vegetarian men had a 31% lower risk of prostate cancer, while among males who still ate fish it was 20% lower.
Starmer v Sunak – Keir Starmer will today pledge to “reimagine the role of government” as a partner to the private sector and take advantage of the opportunities of Brexit. Speaking in Huddersfield, the Labour leader will promise to value private companies as a partner to the state, and lay into Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives for “increasing taxes more than any other chancellor in half a century”. Labour’s strategy is for Starmer to drill issues such as tax and the cost of living to inflame Tory divisions and put Sunak in the spotlight given his ambitions to succeed Johnson as leader. Sunak will be delivering the annual Mais lecture at Bayes business school, in which he will say he wants to cut taxes “sustainably” and downgrade the role of the state as an engine of growth – aiming to quell concern among Tory backbenchers about the tax burden rising to its highest level in 70 years.
Ikea but it’s Lidl – Today, Ikea’s £170m experiment on the former Kings Mall in Hammersmith will be tested with the opening of Livat, its first city centre shopping mall globally and the first to be refurbished rather than built from scratch.
Ikea’s new shopping centre in Hammersmith. Photograph: Ikea
Ikea has 47 other shopping centres worldwide, but Livat is just over a third of the size of its typical site, and its first in the UK. It houses Ikea’s only high street store in the UK, a quarter the size of a typical store, as well as a Lidl, a Library of Things, and Sook, a rent-by-the hour retail or events space.
Today in Focus podcast: Covid gets free rein
Today marks the first day in nearly two years that no laws will be in place in England to deal with the spread of Covid-19. But is the government still following the science?
Today in Focus Covid gets free rein Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp3 00:00:00 00:26:08
Lunchtime read: One person’s influence is someone else’s profit
More and more young people are enticed by the glittering promises of a career as an influencer – but it’s usually someone else getting rich.
Composite: Alamy/Guardian design
Sport
Ralf Rangnick admitted Manchester United’s plan was in the “dustbin” after Atlético Madrid scored on seven minutes before Anthony Elanga’s second half equaliser snatched a draw for the interim manager’s team in the Champions League last-16 first leg. Antonio Conte has questioned whether he is the right manager to turn Tottenham’s fortunes around after Burnley inflicted their fourth defeat in five games. England manager Sarina Wiegman said her side have taken “lots of information” from their 3-1 victory against Germany and inaugural Arnold Clark Cup win but will not get carried away before the European Championship in the summer.
In the Premier League, Liverpool hammered Leeds 6-0 at Anfield, with two goals each for Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané and one apiece for Joël Matip and Virgil van Dijk. England coach Eddie Jones is expected to deploy Manu Tuilagi at centre for the Six Nations encounter with Wales, who have dropped Louis Rees-Zammit. After four Olympic Games, seven gold and two silver medals, Sir Jason Kenny, Britain’s most decorated Olympian, has announced his retirement. Joe Root has declined to divulge his role in the decision to drop Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad for the West Indies tour but said it does not shut the door on their record-breaking careers. And Lewis Hamilton has accused Formula One stewards of potential bias towards specific drivers and teams as old wounds were reopened on the first day of pre-season testing in Barcelona on Wednesday.
Business
Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has wreaked havoc on already-wobbly financial markets this morning with shares falling precipitously in Asia Pacific overnight. Hong Kong was the worst hit, down more than 3%, and the FTSE100 is set to shed around 2.5% at the opening bell. Brent crude soared past $100 a barrel in a sign of increasing nerves about the impact on supplies, the Russian rouble hit a record low and the Moscow stock exchange suspended trading on all markets. The US dollar strengthened on all the uncertainty and left the pound at $1.349 and €1.201.
The papers
The print editions were slightly overtaken by events today. The Guardian’s splash is “State of emergency in Ukraine as US warns Putin ready to invade”. “Welcome to hell” – the Mirror says that is the “warning from Ukraine” to Russian soldiers if they invade. But the Express says Putin is “Hell-bent” and has “gone full tonto” – the latter having been said by the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, and the former by Liz Truss, the foreign secretary. Wallace clearly had the better line: “Putin’s gone ‘full tonto’” is the Metro’s page one headline.
Guardian front page, 24 February 2022.
The Financial Times says “Brussels hits Putin’s inner circle as US hardens invasion warning”. The i has a front-page Ukraine picture overlaid with “State of emergency declared as nation feels ‘knot of fear’”. Its splash though is “Students to face ‘lifelong graduate tax’”, the same story that leads the Times: “Students set to shoulder £100k bill for degrees”. “Sunak vows to slash tax burden” says the Telegraph, while at this moment the Mail is most worried about Britain’s spies being told, as it puts in its own words, to “go woke” by an internal guide to diversity and inclusion. The Sun says mock royal jewels from TV show The Crown have been stolen.
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{'people': ['Warren Murray', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Kyiv', 'Luke Harding', 'Dmytro Kuleba', 'Putin', 'Joe Biden', 'Putin', 'Boris Johnson', 'Zelenskiy', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Sergei Shoigu', 'Boris Johnson’s', 'Larry Elliott', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Martin Lewis', 'Larissa Kennedy', 'Chris Ison/PA', 'Starmer', 'Keir Starmer', 'Brexit', 'Rishi Sunak', 'Johnson', 'Mais', 'Livat', 'Livat', 'Lidl', 'Sook', 'Covid', 'Anthony Elanga’s', 'Antonio Conte', 'Burnley', 'Arnold Clark Cup', 'Leeds 6-0', 'Mohamed Salah', 'Sadio Mané', 'Joël Matip', 'Virgil van Dijk', 'Eddie Jones', 'Manu Tuilagi', 'Louis Rees-Zammit', 'Jason Kenny', 'Joe Root', 'Jimmy Anderson', 'Stuart Broad', 'Lewis Hamilton', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Ben Wallace', 'Liz Truss', 'Wallace', 'Putin', 'Putin'], 'organizations': ['Kremlin', 'Kremlin', 'UN', 'EU', 'Crimea', 'the Institute of Energy Economics', 'the University of Cologne', 'Guardian', 'MoneySavingExpert.com', 'the UK National Union of Students', 'Labour', 'Oxford', 'Labour', 'Labour', 'Starmer', 'Bayes', 'Ikea', 'Ikea’s', 'Ikea', 'Focus Covid', 'Manchester United’s', 'Atlético Madrid', 'Sarina Wiegman', 'Liverpool', 'Wales', 'Formula One', 'Guardian', 'Mirror', 'Express', 'Guardian', 'The Financial Times', 'Times', 'Telegraph', 'Sun', 'Crown'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'Vasilkovsky', 'Kyiv', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukrainian', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'US', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'London', 'New York', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'US', 'Russia', 'England', 'England', 'Huddersfield', 'Hammersmith', 'UK', 'UK', 'Focus', 'England', 'Tottenham', 'England', 'Germany', 'Anfield', 'England', 'Britain', 'Barcelona', 'Ukraine', 'Hong Kong', 'Moscow', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'Brussels', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Britain']}
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Russia claims to have targeted western-supplied tanks in Kyiv airstrikes
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Russia launched airstrikes on Kyiv for the first time in five weeks on Sunday, claiming it had targeted western-supplied tanks – while the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warned more targets would be struck if weapons deliveries continued.
Several explosions were heard around the eastern Kyiv suburbs of Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi early on Sunday morning, wounding one person. The strikes represented a change of tack on the part of the invading forces.
Russia’s ministry of defence said the strikes had destroyed T-72 tanks that had been provided to Ukraine by European countries that were being stored in the buildings of a car repair business, although the claim could not immediately be verified.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, the chair of the board of Ukrainian Railways, said the Russian claims were false. “There are no such tanks at the plant, as well as no military equipment. There are only cars that we repair. These carriages we need for export – these are, in particular, grain carriages,” he said.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said “one victim was hospitalised” in the incident. Sergei Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian railway company’s supervisory board, added that its facilities had been struck.
They were the first bombing raids on any part of the capital since the end of April and appear to represent an attempt to strike supply lines from Kyiv to the east, where both sides are embroiled an intense battle for control of Donbas.
Perhaps signalling the new approach, Putin told Rossiya state television that Russia would hit fresh targets in Ukraine if the US delivered the longer-range rockets that it had promised to Kyiv last week.
01:11 Russia will strike harder if Ukraine is supplied with longer-range missiles, says Putin – video
If such missiles were supplied, “we will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting”, said Putin, who is believed to be closely involved in military decision-making. The Russian leader did not specify what would be struck, although logistics points would be amongst the most logical targets.
Russia has been irritated by the US decision to supply Ukraine with Himars truck-mounted multiple-launch rocket systems, with missiles that have a range of about 20 to 40 miles, greater than anything in Kyiv’s armoury.
“All this fuss around additional deliveries of weapons, in my opinion, has only one goal: to drag out the armed conflict as much as possible,” Putin said in his TV interview.
Ukraine and the west believe the rockets could help Kyiv prevent Russian forces massing behind the frontlines for future attacks, but Putin argued it would not bring on any significant change to the military balance.
“We understand that this supply [of advance rocket systems] from the United States and some other countries is meant to make up for the losses of this military equipment,” Putin said. “This is nothing new. It doesn’t change anything in essence.”
Ukraine’s nuclear energy company Energoatom also warned that a Russian cruise missile had come dangerously close to the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, in the south of the country, at about 5.30am, apparently heading for Kyiv.
It said the missile “flew critically low” over the site and that Russian forces “still do not understand that even the smallest fragment of a missile that can hit a working power unit can cause a nuclear catastrophe and radiation leak”.
The last time Kyiv was hit was on 28 April, when a Russian missile killed a producer for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Since then Moscow has ignored the capital as it tries to push Ukraine out of Donbas.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said that Ukrainian forces had counterattacked in Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, “likely blunting the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained” – but offered no assessment whether the effort was pushing the invaders back.
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On Saturday, Serhiy Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk province, said his country’s forces had regained about 20% of the Donbas city, which had been under days of sustained attack by concentrated Russian shelling and airstrikes.
Haidai repeated that claim on Sunday, adding that eight Russians had been taken prisoner and that the occupiers had “lost a huge number of personnel”. A humanitarian headquarters in neighbouring Lysychansk had been struck with 30 shells overnight, the governor said.
01:00 Ukrainian police document shelling aftermath in Lysychansk – video
Ukrainian forces were “successfully slowing down Russian operations” in Donbas and were making “effective local counterattacks in Sievierodonetsk”, said the Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, overnight.
The research group, which closely monitors the fighting, said that Russia “may still be able to capture Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk” and that it appeared that “Ukrainian defences remain strong in this pivotal theatre”.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Russia was relying on “poorly equipped and trained” separatist forces from Luhansk to conduct the clearance of the city, a tactic it said had been previously employed by Moscow’s forces in Syria. “This approach likely indicates a desire to limit casualties suffered by regular Russian forces,” it added.
One Ukrainian presidential adviser urged European nations to respond with “more sanctions, more weapons” to the missile attacks – and appeared to criticise the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who had said in an interview on Friday that Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine so that a diplomatic solution could eventually be found.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the President’s Office, tweeted: “While someone asks not to humiliate Russia, the Kremlin resorts to new insidious attacks. Today’s missile strikes at Kyiv have only one goal – kill as many Ukrainians as possible.”
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin', 'Oleksandr Kamyshin', 'Vitali Klitschko', 'Sergei Leshchenko', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Energoatom', 'Kyiv', 'Serhiy Haidai', 'Emmanuel Macron', 'Mykhailo Podolyak'], 'organizations': ['Ukrainian Railways', 'Rossiya', 'Himars', 'Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty', 'Ministry of Defence', 'First Edition', 'Lysychansk', 'the Institute for the Study of War', 'Lysychansk', 'Ministry of Defence', 'the President’s Office', 'Kremlin'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Darnytskyi', 'Dniprovskyi', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Donbas', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Kyiv', 'Ukraine', 'the United States', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Donbas', 'Britain', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk province', 'Donbas', 'Haidai', 'Ukrainian', 'Lysychansk', 'Donbas', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'US', 'Russia', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Britain', 'Russia', 'Luhansk', 'Moscow', 'Syria', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 126 of the invasion
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In an interview with the NBC network in the US, Zelenskiy has compared scenes he saw at Bucha to a war movie, saying “It was just so quiet, everything was destroyed, dead people, destroyed army equipment. There was this sense of death. When they found people in the bottom of wells, hands bound, raped, and murdered – they’d done everything to them. I just didn’t know that this could be done by people who, 30 years previously, we had lived together in the Soviet Union, in one country. I just never had thought that humanity could be capable of this, and this changes how you look at people.”
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{'people': [], 'organizations': ['NBC', 'Zelenskiy', 'Bucha'], 'locations': ['US', 'the Soviet Union']}
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Letting Russia win in Ukraine would be ‘absolutely chilling’, says Boris Johnson
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Boris Johnson has argued that continued international support for Ukraine is a price worth paying, saying that to let Russia prevail would be “absolutely chilling” for nearby countries and usher in a period of global anxiety.
Likening the need to oppose Russia to the situation in the second world war, Johnson said that while opposing fascism brought enormous costs, it then created decades of prosperity and stability.
The need for long-term support for Ukraine is one of Johnson’s key messages at the G7 summit of world leaders in Bavaria, Germany. The issue was set to be discussed on Monday with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukraine president, due to address the gathering virtually.
Speaking to BBC News, Johnson said there was a need for “strategic endurance”, predicting that even if the war continued, “the economic impacts on the UK will start to abate”.
He said: “But just in terms of staying the course, imagine if we didn’t. Imagine if we allowed Putin to get away with the violent acquisition of huge chunks of another country, a sovereign independent territory – the lessons for that would be absolutely chilling in all of the countries of the former Soviet Union.
“In terms of the economic effects, that would mean long-term instability, and anxiety across the world.”
Overall, the prime minister argued, “the price of freedom is worth paying”. He said: “Just remember, it took the democracies in the middle of the last century a long time to recognise that they had to resist tyranny and aggression. It was very expensive.
“But what it bought in the end, with the defeat of the dictators, particularly of Nazi Germany, it bought decades and decades of stability, a world order that relied on a rules-based international system. And that is worth protecting, that is worth defending, and that delivers long-term prosperity.”
Johnson has said G7 leaders are united on the issue, although it remains to be seen if the summit, which ends on Tuesday, will deliver any notable concrete achievements in areas such as new sanctions, or efforts to get millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain out of a Russian blockade.
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At the gathering, Johnson has warned against a temptation to push Zelenskiy into potentially accepting a deal that would bring peace in exchange for Russian control of eastern areas in Ukraine, saying no other countries could make such a choice.
“You can’t be more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians,” he told the BBC. “And I think it is for Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his people to decide what they want. And what they want is their land, they want their country to be able to live in peace and freedom.
“And I totally support that. And so I think the difficulty is that no one here at the G7 can really see any alternative to simply supporting them in regaining their sovereignty.”
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The Guardian
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Zelenskiy visits Ukrainian troops on frontline as Russia pushes them back
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The Ukrainian president has visited the frontline close to the fiercest fighting between his country’s troops and Russian forces in the east, where a regional official said the situation had worsened for Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the beleaguered city of Lysychansk on Sunday, just a few kilometres south from Sievierodonetsk, the main battlefield in the east where Russia has concentrated its forces.
Ukrainian troops had a slight reversal of fortunes after managing to retake half of Sievierodonetsk, Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk province where the city is located, told national television.
Haidai did not go into details but said Ukrainian troops were still holding their positions in the city’s industrial zone. “The fiercest fighting is in Sievierodonetsk. Fast-moving fighting is happening right now,” he said.
The fight to push Russian forces back received a boost on Sunday when the UK government said it would supply long-range rocket artillery to Ukraine, despite a threat on Sunday from Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to bomb fresh targets if similar weapons from the US were delivered to Kyiv.
Zelenskiy also visited the Donbas city of Soledar in a rare outing by the Ukrainian president outside the capital Kyiv since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February that could be his closest yet to the frontline.
“I went with the head of [my] office to the east. We were in Lysychansk and Soledar,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, adding he would not elaborate on the visit.
In two videos released later, Zelenskiy was shown talking to troops in confined, bunker-like structures, presenting some with awards and addressing others.
“What you all deserve is victory – that is the most important thing. But not at any cost,” Zelenskiy said in one of the videos.
Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk are in the Luhansk region and Soledar is in the Donetsk region. Both regions make up the broader Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, which Russia claims is on a mission to “liberate”.
Earlier on Sunday, Zelenskiy said he had also visited frontline troops in the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhia, whose governor claims that 60% of the area is under Russian occupation.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy signs the arm of a supporter in Zaporizhzhia in images released on Sunday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
The UK will send a handful of tracked M270 multiple launch rocket systems, which can hit targets up to 50 miles (80km) away, in the hope they can disrupt the concentrated Russian artillery that has been pounding cities in eastern Ukraine.
Spain is also increasing its support for Ukraine, according to government sources cited by El País newspaper. Spain is to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and Leopard battle vehicles along with training for the equipment. Spain had previously sent only ammunition, individual protection equipment and light weapons to Ukraine.
The additional military support for Ukraine came after Nato began almost two weeks of naval exercises led by the US in the Baltic Sea on Sunday.
More than 7,000 sailors, airmen and marines from 16 countries will take part, including two aspiring to join the military alliance, Finland and Sweden, in the annual Baltops (Baltic operations) exercise that has been running since 1972.
Nato said with Sweden and Finland participating, it was “seizing the chance in an unpredictable world to enhance its joint force resilience and strength”.
The US warship Kearsarge docked in Stockholm. Photograph: Jonas Gratzer/Getty Images
Finland and Sweden have a long history of military non-alignment before their governments applied to join Nato in May, a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the past years, Moscow has repeatedly warned Helsinki and Stockholm against joining the western military alliance and warned of retaliatory measures if they did.
“It is important for us, the United States and the other Nato countries to show solidarity with both Finland and Sweden in this exercise,” the US general Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, said on Saturday during a news conference aboard the large amphibious warship USS Kearsarge, which was moored in central Stockholm.
Milley, speaking to the Swedish prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, stressed that the Baltic was a strategically important body of water and “one of the great seaways of the world”.
He said from Moscow’s perspective, Finland and Sweden joining Nato would be “very problematic” and leave Russia in a difficult military position as the Baltic’s coastline would be almost completely encircled by Nato members, except for Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad and the Russian city of St Petersburg and its surrounding areas.
As Nato’s close partners, Finland and Sweden have participated in the naval drill since the mid-1990s. This year’s Baltops exercise is scheduled to end in the German port of Kiel on 17 June.
Reuters contributed to this report
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{'people': ['Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Serhiy Haidai', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Kyiv', 'Zaporizhzhia', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Zaporizhzhia', 'Jonas Gratzer/Getty Images\n\n', 'Mark Milley', 'Milley', 'Magdalena Andersson', 'Kiel'], 'organizations': ['Zelenskiy', 'Zelenskiy', 'Zelenskiy', 'Zelenskiy', 'Soledar', 'Zelenskiy', 'Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters', 'El País', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Kearsarge', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Nato', 'Reuters'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'Lysychansk', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Russia', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'UK', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'US', 'Donbas', 'Soledar', 'Lysychansk', 'Lysychansk', 'Luhansk', 'Donbas', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'UK', 'Ukraine', 'Spain', 'Ukraine', 'Spain', 'Ukraine', 'Spain', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Finland', 'Sweden', 'Baltops', 'Sweden', 'Finland', 'US', 'Stockholm', 'Finland', 'Sweden', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Helsinki', 'Stockholm', 'the United States', 'Finland', 'Sweden', 'US', 'Stockholm', 'Moscow', 'Finland', 'Sweden', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'St Petersburg', 'Finland', 'Sweden', 'Baltops']}
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The Guardian
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Russia bans Facebook and Instagram under ‘extremism’ law
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A Russian court has banned Facebook and Instagram in the country, labelling its parent company Meta as “extremist” amid the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown on western social media giants.
Access to Facebook and Instagram had already been restricted earlier this month after Meta confirmed it was relaxing its policies on hate speech towards Russian soldiers and Vladimir Putin in relation to the country’s war in Ukraine. Meta later said the laxer rules would only apply to people posting from inside Ukraine.
The court in Moscow said that Facebook and Instagram –both of which are widely used among Russians – were “carrying out extremist activities”. But it said that Meta’s WhatsApp messenger service would not be prohibited because it “was means of communication, not a source of information”.
During Monday’s hearing in Moscow, Russia’s FSB security service accused Meta of creating an “alternative reality” in which “hatred for the Russians was kindled”.
“The activities of the Meta organisation are directed against Russia and its armed forces,” FSB representative Igor Kovalevsky told the court, the Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Previously, groups such as the Taliban, Jehovah’s Witnesses and an organisation led by the jailed Kremlin opponent Aleksei Navalny have been targeted under the same extremism law.
Russian prosecutors said in court they would not seek to charge Russian citizens and organisations that access the two banned platforms, as hundreds of thousands of Russians have sought to circumvent the social media ban using a VPN.
“The use of Meta’s products by individuals and legal entities should not be considered as participation in extremist activities,” Kovalevsky told the court on Monday. “Individuals will not be held liable for using Meta’s services,” he added.
It was not immediately clear if Russians and foreign companies that purchase ads on Facebook and Instagram could be prosecuted under the Russian law of “financing an extremist organisation”.
According to TASS, Meta’s lawyer, Victoria Shagina had said in court that the corporation opposed any type of Russophobia and was not carrying out extremist activities.
The move to label Meta as “extremist” comes as Russia continues its unprecedented crackdown on protesters, independent news outlets and foreign social media networks.
Russian parliament earlier this month passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military.
“Since the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the authorities have sought to fully control the information sphere in the country. We should be prepared for more censorship,” said Alexander Isavnin, a Russian internet privacy advocate and member of the Pirate Party of Russia.
“The move to ban Meta is also a final warning sign to YouTube, the last major remaining western platform in the country,” Isavnin added, pointing to the recent criticism YouTube received from Russia’s communications regulator and politicians.
Russia’s communication watchdog last Friday slammed YouTube for engaging in acts “of a terrorist nature” by allowing ads on the video-sharing platform to be used that could “harm Russian citizens”.
“The actions of the YouTube administration are of a terrorist nature and threaten the life and health of Russian citizens,” the regulator said in a statement.
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin', 'Igor Kovalevsky', 'Jehovah', 'Victoria Shagina', 'Alexander Isavnin'], 'organizations': ['Facebook and Instagram', 'Meta', 'Kremlin', 'Meta', 'Facebook and Instagram', 'Meta', 'Meta', 'Meta', 'TASS', 'Taliban', 'Kremlin', 'Aleksei Navalny', 'Meta', 'Meta', 'Facebook and Instagram', 'TASS', 'Meta', 'Meta', 'the Pirate Party', 'Meta', 'YouTube', 'YouTube', 'YouTube', 'YouTube'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russophobia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 123 of the invasion
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Kyiv has come under attack for the first time since 5 June, with Russian missiles striking at residential buildings and a Kindergarten in the Shevchenkivskyi district of the capital. At least five people were injured, including a seven-year-old girl. There are unconfirmed reports that her father was killed in the attack. A Russian woman was among the injured.
Another civilian was killed in a missile attack on Cherkasy south-east of the capital. A bridge over the Dnipro river was also hit.
Both the attacks on Kyiv and Cherkasy are being seen message of defiance by Russia to G7 leaders gathering at a summit in Bavaria, Germany. Russia said it hit military targets in Chernihiv, Zhytomyr and Lviv. Joe Biden condemned the Russian attacks as “more barbarism”. Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz said they showed the importance of G7 unity.
Members of the G7 have confirmed a ban on imports of Russian gold. The move by Britain, the United States, Japan and Canada is part of efforts to tighten the sanctions squeeze on Moscow. Gold exports were worth $15.2bn to Russia in 2021, and their importance has increased since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The UK and France have agreed to provide more support for Ukraine, according to Downing Street. Leaders of the G7 have spoken of their solidarity for Ukraine. “We have to stay together,” Joe Biden said.
Russian forces are trying to cut off the strategic twin city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine, having reduced Sievierodonetsk to rubble. Lysychansk is set to become the next main focus of fighting, as Moscow has launched massive artillery bombardments and airstrikes on areas far from the heart of the eastern battles. Ukraine called its retreat from Sievierodonetsk a “tactical withdrawal” to fight from higher ground in Lysychansk on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river.
Russian news footage has showed defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s visiting troops involved in the Ukraine war. It is unclear if he visited Ukrainian territory, but the footage appeared to confirm that colonel-general Gennady Zhidko is now commanding troops in Ukraine.
The mayors of several European capitals have been duped into holding video calls with a deepfake of their counterpart in Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko. The mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey, took part in a scheduled call on the Webex video conferencing platform on Friday with a person she said looked and sounded like Klitschko. “There were no signs that the video conference call wasn’t being held with a real person,” her office said in a statement.
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Russia and Ukraine
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{'people': ['Kyiv', 'Joe Biden', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Joe Biden', 'Sergei Shoigu', 'Gennady Zhidko', 'Vitali Klitschko', 'Franziska Giffey', 'Klitschko'], 'organizations': ['Olaf Scholz', 'Downing Street', 'Lysychansk', 'Webex'], 'locations': ['Cherkasy', 'Cherkasy', 'Russia', 'Bavaria, Germany', 'Russia', 'Chernihiv', 'Zhytomyr', 'Lviv', 'Germany', 'Britain', 'the United States', 'Japan', 'Canada', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'France', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Lysychansk', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Lysychansk', 'Ukraine', 'Kyiv', 'Berlin']}
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The Guardian
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A new ‘iron curtain’ is descending between Russia and the west, Russia’s foreign minister says – as it happened
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From 30 Jun 2022 17.43 New ‘iron curtain’ already descending between Russia and the west, says Lavrov Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said, a new “iron curtain” was descending between Russia and the west, and that Moscow would not trust Washington and Brussels “from now on”.
Speaking to reporters, Lavrov said: As far as an iron curtain is concerned, essentially it is already descending. The process “has begun”, he said after talks with his counterpart from Belarus, AFP reports. Lavrov accused the EU of not being “at all” interesting in understanding Russia’s interests, adding: It is interested in what has been decided in Brussels. And what has been decided in Washington has been decided in Brussels.
30 Jun 2022 00.32 Satellite images shows smoke rising from Snake Island, off the coast of Ukraine, on Thursday. Ukrainian forces say they pushed Russian forces from the strategic Black Sea island. A satellite image shows smoke rising from Snake Island, off the coast of Ukraine. Photograph: Planet Labs Pbc/Reuters A general view of Snake Island purportedly taken by Ukraine Operational Command South. Photograph: Ukraine Operational Command South/Reuters
30 Jun 2022 23.52 Eva Corlett New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has assured Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy of her continued support in the country’s fight against Russia, just days after turning down an invitation to visit the country. Eva Corlett reports to us from New Zealand. Ardern had been invited to visit Kyiv during her trade mission in Europe but was unable to accept due to timing constraints. Instead, Ardern called Zelenskiy from Brussels on Thursday morning following the Nato Leader’s Summit in Spain: I passed on New Zealand’s solidarity, and our commitment to keep standing with Ukraine as they fight the illegal invasion of their country.” A spokesperson from the prime minister’s office says Ardern had also assured the president of New Zealand’s continued support through sanctions on those connected to the Russian government. In a statement on Twitter, Zelenskiy thanked New Zealand for its support and solidarity, particularly in security: Discussed further strengthening of sanctions on Russia and ways of bringing the aggressor to justice. Invited to join the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.”
30 Jun 2022 23.37 Erdoğan warns Turkey may still block Nordic Nato drive Just two days after agreeing to lift deal-breaking objections to Sweden and Finland’s Nato accession, Turkey’s president has warned that Ankara could still block the process if the two countries fail to fully meet his expectations. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at the close of the alliance’s summit in Madrid that the 10-article agreement with the Nordic pair was a victory for Ankara and addressed all its “sensitivities”. He particularly stressed the satisfying of Turkey’s demand for Sweden and Finland to extradite terror suspects with links to outlawed Kurdish groups or the network of an exiled cleric accused of a failed 2016 coup in Turkey. But Erdoğan added that if the two Nordic countries renege on their promises, Turkey’s parliament could refuse to ratify the deal reached on Tuesday. Nato accession must be formally approved by all 30 member states, which gives each a blocking right. This business will not work if we don’t pass this in our parliament,” Erdoğan said. First, Sweden and Finland must fulfil their duties and those are already in the text … But if they don’t fulfil these, then of course there is no way we would send it to our parliament.”
30 Jun 2022 23.27 US president, Joe Biden, accidentally announced that he had called the leader of Switzerland to discuss abandoning two centuries of neutrality to join Nato — before quickly correcting himself to say he actually meant Sweden. Speaking at a press conference in Madrid following a Nato summit, he let slip: Some of the American press will remember when I got a phone call from the leader of Finland saying could he come and see me, then he came the next day and said, ‘Will you support my joining — my country joining Nato?’ We got the telephone. He suggested we call the leader of Switzerland,” Biden said. Biden quickly clarified: Switzerland, my goodness, I’m getting really anxious here about expanding Nato — of Sweden.”
Updated at 00.05 BST
30 Jun 2022 23.02 Summary It’s 1am in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand: Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced the finalization of the agreement to transfer 39 armored combat support vehicles to Ukraine. At the conclusion of the Nato summit in Madrid, Trudeau said that the ACVSs were originally supposed to be for the Canadian army and were in the process of being delivered but will instead be redirected to Ukraine.
At the conclusion of the Nato summit in Madrid, Trudeau said that the ACVSs were originally supposed to be for the Canadian army and were in the process of being delivered but will instead be redirected to Ukraine. A five-year-old Ukrainian refugee died Thursday after being hit by an electric scooter in Nice, French police said. The child and his mother were crossing the Promenade des Anglais, the famous palm-lined street overlooking the Mediterranean, at a pedestrian crossing when the accident happened on Wednesday.
The child and his mother were crossing the Promenade des Anglais, the famous palm-lined street overlooking the Mediterranean, at a pedestrian crossing when the accident happened on Wednesday. Estonian and Latvian defense ministers signed a letter of intent on Thursday at the Nato summit in Madrid for joint procurement of medium-range anti-aircraft systems. “The aggression of Russia in Ukraine clearly shows the need for air defence systems,” Latvian defence minister Artis Pabriks said in a statement.
“The aggression of Russia in Ukraine clearly shows the need for air defence systems,” Latvian defence minister Artis Pabriks said in a statement. The situation in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk is “extremely difficult” as Russian forces’ continous shelling makes it impossible for civilian evacuation, the regional governor of Lugansk said on Thursday. “There is a lot of shelling and from multiple directions. The Russian army is approaching from different directions towards Lysychansk,” Serhiy Haidai said, adding that Russian forces remain on city outskirts where there is currently no street fighting.
“There is a lot of shelling and from multiple directions. The Russian army is approaching from different directions towards Lysychansk,” Serhiy Haidai said, adding that Russian forces remain on city outskirts where there is currently no street fighting. The United States on Thursday blocked a US-based company worth more than $1 billion linked to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, saying the ally of President Vladimir Putin used it to funnel and invest shadowy funds. The Treasury Department said that Kerimov, a billionaire active in Russian politics, secretly managed the Delaware-based Heritage Trust which put its money into a number of large public companies.
The Treasury Department said that Kerimov, a billionaire active in Russian politics, secretly managed the Delaware-based Heritage Trust which put its money into a number of large public companies. French president Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will deliver six CAESAR howitzers and armored vehicles to Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports. Macron added that the Nato allies meeting in Madrid “unanimously decided” to boost humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine as it attempts to fight of Russian forces. That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as I hand the blog over to my colleagues in Australia who will bring you the latest updates. I’ll be back tomorrow, thank you.
Updated at 00.20 BST
30 Jun 2022 22.30 Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced the finalization of the agreement to transfer 39 armored combat support vehicles to Ukraine. At the conclusion of the Nato summit in Madrid, Trudeau said that the ACVSs were originally supposed to be for the Canadian army and were in the process of being delivered but will instead be redirected to Ukraine. “The light armoured vehicles we will be sending over will be extremely effective,” Trudeau told summit reporters. “We’re just glad to help and we’re going to continue to look and respond to things that they need.” He reassured reporters that the Canadian army will continue to remain stocked, saying, “Stocks for the Canadian military will be replenished as quickly as possible... We need to make sure that the women and men of the Canadian Forces have the equipment they need to continue their mission and step up as necessary.” Trudeau added, “We also recognize that the best use, right now, of things like howitzers and sniper rifles and all of the other equipment we’ve been sending to Ukraine — the best use for Canadian security, for geopolitical stability — is to put them in the hands of Ukrainians.” Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference after the NATO Summit at the IFEMA Convention Center in Madrid, Spain on June 30, 2022. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Updated at 00.20 BST
30 Jun 2022 21.51 A five-year-old Ukrainian refugee died Thursday after being hit by an electric scooter in Nice, French police said. The child and his mother were crossing the Promenade des Anglais, the famous palm-lined street overlooking the Mediterranean, at a pedestrian crossing when the accident happened on Wednesday. The boy “was holding a bag that his mother was also holding, but was walking a bit ahead of her”, police said, adding they were “hidden by street furniture”. A 40-year-old on an electric scooter who was going “at excessive speed” could not avoid the child, they said. “Despite being injured and having fallen, the rider of the electric scooter immediately cared for the child,” they added. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi, on Twitter, expressed his “deep emotion” over the incident and opposition to self-service scooters. “We are studying all possible solutions for avoiding these tragedies,” he said. Immense émotion suite au décès du petit garçon renversé hier soir par une trottinette électrique à #Nice06. J'adresse mes pensées à sa famille et ses proches et leur souhaite beaucoup de courage dans cette terrible épreuve. https://t.co/FaNVWmmZIv — Christian Estrosi (@cestrosi) June 30, 2022 The boy’s family had arrived in France at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the head of a French-Ukrainian association in the Riviera, Iryna Podyriako, told the Nice-Matin regional daily.
Updated at 00.21 BST
30 Jun 2022 21.27 Estonian and Latvian defense ministers signed a letter of intent on Thursday at the Nato summit in Madrid for joint procurement of medium-range anti-aircraft systems. “The aggression of Russia in Ukraine clearly shows the need for air defence systems,” Latvian defence minister Artis Pabriks said in a statement. He added that the move would support regional cooperation and common defense among Baltic countries as the region reacts to to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The Nato summit has sent a clear message that help will be given to those who are ready also to defend themselves,” added Pabriks’ Estonian counterpart Kalle Laanet.
Both Estonia and Latvia are EU and Nato members. A specific proposal on the procurement of the systems is expected to be unveiled at the end of July, but no details have yet been made public about the cost or delivery dates.
Updated at 00.22 BST
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 125 of the invasion
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said there can be no return to prewar ties with Russia. Scholz said that with its attack on Ukraine, Russia has broken “all the rules, all the agreements we have made with each other on countries’ cooperation” after the G7 summit. He said G7 leaders agree that it has led to long-term changes “which will mark international relations for a very, very long time. So it is clear that, in relations with Russia, there can be no way back to the time before the Russian attack on Ukraine.”
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{'people': [], 'organizations': ['Olaf Scholz', 'Scholz'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: South Korea set to reopen embassy in Kyiv; Lavrov says Russia working to prevent nuclear war – as it happened
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From 2 May 2022 01.55 Around 100 civilians were on Sunday evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, the last holdout of Ukrainian forces in the city. Around 1,000 civilians and 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are thought to be sheltering in bunkers and tunnels underneath the plant, enduring a weeks-long siege with little food or water. One of the civilians evacuated spoke to Reuters, telling the news agency, “We didn’t see the sun for so long”: Cowering in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers far beneath the vast Azovstal steel works, Natalia Usmanova felt her heart would stop she was so terrified as Russian bombs rained down on Mariupol, sprinkling her with concrete dust. Usmanova, 37, spoke to Reuters on Sunday after being evacuated from the plant, a sprawling complex founded under Josef Stalin and designed with a subterranean network of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attack. “I feared that the bunker would not withstand it – I had terrible fear,” Usmanova said, describing the time sheltering underground. “When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that: I was so worried the bunker would cave in.” “We didn’t see the sun for so long,” she said, speaking in the village of Bezimenne in an area of Donetsk under the control of Russia-backed separatists around 30 km (20 miles) east of Mariupol. She recalled the lack of oxygen in the shelters and the fear that had gripped the lives of people hunkered down there. Usmanova was among dozens of civilians evacuated from the plant in Mariupol, a southern port city that has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks and left a wasteland. Usmanova said she joked with her husband on the bus ride out, in a convoy agreed by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), that they would no longer have to go to the lavatory with a torch. “You just can’t imagine what we have been through - the terror,” Usmanova said. “I lived there, worked there all my life, but what we saw there was just terrible.” Azovstal steel plant employee Natalia Usmanova, 37, who was evacuated from Mariupol, as she arrived at a temporary accommodation centre in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk Region, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
2 May 2022 05.42 US first lady Jill Biden is set to visit Romania and Slovakia on Thursday for five days to meet with US service members and embassy personnel, displaced Ukrainian parents and children, humanitarian aid workers, and teachers, her office has said. On Sunday, celebrated as Mother’s Day in the United States, Biden will meet with Ukrainian mothers and children who have been forced to flee their homes because of Russia’s war against Ukraine, her office said according to Reuters. The wife of president Joe Biden will meet with US military service members at Mihail Kogalniceau Airbase in Romania on Friday, before heading to Bucharest to meet with Romanian government officials, US embassy staff, humanitarian aid workers, and teachers working with displaced Ukrainian children. The trip also includes stops in the Slovakian cities of Bratislava, Kosice and Vysne Nemecke, where Biden will meet with government officials, refugees and aid workers, her office said. Biden’s visit is the latest show of support for Ukraine and neighbouring countries that are helping Ukrainian refugees by top US representatives.
2 May 2022 04.52 South Korean ambassador Kim Hyung-tae has returned to Kyiv along with some embassy staff, the news agency Yonhap has reported citing the Foreign Ministry in Seoul. The South Korean embassy was evacuated at the beginning of the Russian invasion and staff had been working at a temporary office in the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi since March. The ministry said Kim would start working from Kyiv on Monday and that it was considering the phased return of remaining staff in accordance with the future security situation there. [They] plan to carry out tasks on diplomatic affairs and protecting [South Korean] nationals under closer cooperation with the Ukrainian government. More than 20 embassies, including those of the EU, UK, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, have already reopened in the Ukrainian capital. US secretary of state Antony Blinken said US diplomats would gradually begin returning to the country during a visit to Kyiv last week.
2 May 2022 04.08 Associated Press has filed a story saying that the Ghost of Kyiv, an unnamed fighter pilot who was praised for supposedly shooting down several Russian planes, is in fact a myth. Ukrainian authorities admitted that the legendary pilot was a myth. “The Ghost of Kyiv is a super-hero legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!” Ukraine’s air force said in Ukrainian on Facebook. The statement came after multiple media outlets published stories wrongly identifying Major Stepan Tarabalka as the man behind the moniker. Tarabalka was a real pilot who died on March 13 during air combat and was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force said last month. But he was not the Ghost of Kyiv, the force said in Saturday’s statement. “The information about the death of the The Ghost of #Kyiv is incorrect,” Ukraine’s air force wrote in a separate post Saturday on Twitter. “The #GhostOfKyiv is alive, it embodies the collective spirit of the highly qualified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who are successfully defending #Kyiv and the region.”
2 May 2022 03.52 Adam Schiff, chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, has told CNN “it’s only a matter of time” before US president Joe Biden visits Ukraine. I have to think that a presidential visit is something under consideration, but only a question of how soon that will be feasible.
On Sunday US House speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest ranking US official to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv since the start of Russia’s invasion at the end of February. The House delegation had discussed Zelenskiy’s priorities for the next phase of the war, which is concentrated in the east of the country after Russian forces withdrew from around the capital, and Biden’s request for a $33bn aid package for Ukraine, Schiff said: We wanted to discuss with him, within that really vast sum, what is the priority in terms of what weapons that he needs, what other assistance that he needs,” Schiff said. “We went through a detailed discussion of the next phase of the war. It’s moving from a phase in which Ukrainians were ambushing Russian tanks -- it was close-quarters fighting -- to fighting more at a distance using long range artillery, and that changes the nature of what Ukraine needs to defend itself.
2 May 2022 03.19 Report: Russia's top uniformed officer visited Ukraine last week Russia’s top uniformed officer, General Valery Gerasimov, visited dangerous frontline positions in eastern Ukraine last week in a bid to reinvigorate the Russian offensive there, the New York Times has reported citing Ukrainian and US officials. The Guardian was unable to verify the report. During the visit, Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff, narrowly escaped a deadly Ukrainian attack on a school being used as a military base in the Russian-controlled city of Izium late Saturday, the Times reported. Around 200 soldiers including at least one general were killed in the strike, a Ukrainian official told the paper, but Gerasimov had already departed for Russia. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, earlier said that Ukrainian forces had “likely conducted a rocket artillery strike on a Russian command post in Izyum on April 30 that struck after Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov had left but killed other senior Russian officers.” US officials could not confirm the attack and the Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Our working assumption is that he was there because there’s a recognition they haven’t worked out all their problems yet,” one of the US officials told the Times. The Russian offensive has been slow, with widespread disarray and poor morale reported among Russian forces.
The Kremlin appears to be focusing its operations around the city of Izium as part of renewed efforts to seize the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Gerasimov has reportedly been put in command of the push. Russian chief of the general staff General Valery Gerasimov (L) with defence minister Sergei Shoigu. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/AP
2 May 2022 02.37 Explosions reported in Russian city of Belgorod Two explosions have taken place in the early hours of Monday in Belgorod, the southern Russian region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor has written in a social media post. “There were no casualties or damage,” Gladkov wrote, according to Reuters. On Sunday Gladkov had said one person was injured in a fire at a Russian defence ministry facility in Belgorod, while seven homes had been damaged. Posts on social media said fighter jets and loud explosions had been heard above the city overnight. The Guardian was unable to verify the reports. Russia last month accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, for which Kyiv denied responsibility, as well as shelling villages and firing missiles at an ammunition depot. Russian air defense units are targeting unknown targets (possible UAVs?) above #Belgorod:
pic.twitter.com/oKhTYRxz5C — Justin Peden 🦀🇺🇦 (@IntelCrab) May 1, 2022 Possible explosion, or sonic boom from aircraft overhead in Belgorod. pic.twitter.com/lwwaeuPHxk — Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) May 2, 2022 3 hours after Belgorod enters a state of emergency, fighter jets storm over and 2 loud explosions are heard. pic.twitter.com/TrDtB1LiJO — spook (@spook_info) May 2, 2022
Updated at 03.22 BST
2 May 2022 02.17 A few more images captured by Reuters of the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, showing emotional scenes as people were reunited with family members in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk region: Azovstal steel plant employee Maxim, last name withheld, hugs his son Matvey, who had left the city earlier with some relatives. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters Natalia Usmanova sits with children. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters Civilian evacuees enter a tent at a temporary accommodation centre in Bezimenne. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters Valeria, last name withheld, hugs her son Matvey, who had left the city earlier with some relatives. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
2 May 2022 01.55 Around 100 civilians were on Sunday evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, the last holdout of Ukrainian forces in the city. Around 1,000 civilians and 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are thought to be sheltering in bunkers and tunnels underneath the plant, enduring a weeks-long siege with little food or water. One of the civilians evacuated spoke to Reuters, telling the news agency, “We didn’t see the sun for so long”: Cowering in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers far beneath the vast Azovstal steel works, Natalia Usmanova felt her heart would stop she was so terrified as Russian bombs rained down on Mariupol, sprinkling her with concrete dust. Usmanova, 37, spoke to Reuters on Sunday after being evacuated from the plant, a sprawling complex founded under Josef Stalin and designed with a subterranean network of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attack. “I feared that the bunker would not withstand it – I had terrible fear,” Usmanova said, describing the time sheltering underground. “When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that: I was so worried the bunker would cave in.” “We didn’t see the sun for so long,” she said, speaking in the village of Bezimenne in an area of Donetsk under the control of Russia-backed separatists around 30 km (20 miles) east of Mariupol. She recalled the lack of oxygen in the shelters and the fear that had gripped the lives of people hunkered down there. Usmanova was among dozens of civilians evacuated from the plant in Mariupol, a southern port city that has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks and left a wasteland. Usmanova said she joked with her husband on the bus ride out, in a convoy agreed by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), that they would no longer have to go to the lavatory with a torch. “You just can’t imagine what we have been through - the terror,” Usmanova said. “I lived there, worked there all my life, but what we saw there was just terrible.” Azovstal steel plant employee Natalia Usmanova, 37, who was evacuated from Mariupol, as she arrived at a temporary accommodation centre in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk Region, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
1 May 2022 00.36 Hello, this is Helen Livingstone taking over the blog from Maanvi Singh to bring you the latest from the war in Ukraine. First a bit more from Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s interview with Italy’s Mediaset broadcaster. He said that Russia was not demanding the “surrender” of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a condition for peace. We do not demand that he surrender. We demand that he give the order to release all civilians and stop the resistance. Our goal does not include regime change in Ukraine. This is an American speciality. They do it all over the world. We want to ensure the safety of people in the east of Ukraine, so that they are not threatened by either the militarisation or the nazification of this country, and that there are no threats to the security of the Russian Federation from the territory of Ukraine. He also denied that Russia would attempt to claim victory in Ukraine by 9 May – when Russia marks the end of the second world war with Victory Day – saying that the Russian military would not “artificially adjust their actions to any date, including Victory Day.”
The pace of the operation in Ukraine depends, first of all, on the need to minimise any risks for the civilian population and Russian military personnel.
Asked about recent rumours concerning the health of president Vladimir Putin, he did not answer directly, saying instead: Ask the foreign leaders who spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin recently, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. I think you will understand what is at stake.
Updated at 01.34 BST
1 May 2022 00.01 Catch up Civilians are being evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, where about 1,000 people are thought to be sheltering. The effort is being led by the Red Cross and UN, and coordinated with Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy said that evacuations from Mariupol will continue tomorrow if “all the necessary conditions” are met. “Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vital corridor has started working,” he said. “For the first time there were two days of real ceasefire on this territory.”
US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has become the highest-ranking US official to visit Ukraine since the outbreak of war, where she met president Zelenskiy. In a press conference afterwards, Pelosi said that the US would not be bullied. “If they are making threats, you cannot back down,” she said. Pelosi was presented with the order of Princess of Olga medal by Zelenskiy. German chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to continue supporting Ukraine with money, aid and weapons, saying a pacifist approach to the war is “outdated.”
His remarks to a May Day rally in Dusseldorf were an implicit rebuke to a group of intellectuals, lawyers and creatives who condemned Russia’s war of aggression in an open letter, but urged Scholz not to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. Pope Francis described the war in Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him “suffer and cry”, in a Sunday noon address in St Peter’s Square. “My thoughts go immediately to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city of Mary, barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” he said of the mostly Russian-controlled south-eastern port city, which is named after the Virgin Mary. Russia’s latest strikes, including on grain warehouses and residential neighbourhoods, “prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army,” Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, asking, “What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war?” The “The ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia,” he continued. Russia’s defence ministry has confirmed an attack on an airfield near Odesa on Saturday. It said its forces had destroyed a runway and hangar at an airfield, which contained weapons supplied by the US and EU. The governor of the north eastern city of Kharkiv has urged people not to leave shelters on Sunday due to intense shelling. Posting on Telegram, Oleh Synyehubov said: “In connection with the intense shelling, we urge residents of the northern and eastern districts of Kharkiv, in particular Saltivka, not to leave the shelter during the day without urgency.” The European Union could phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year, under the latest set of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine being discussed in Brussels.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said for weeks that the EU is working on sanctions targeting Russian oil, but the key question is how and when the commodity is phased out. Russia’s online trolling operation is becoming increasingly decentralised and is gaining “incredible traction” on TikTok with disinformation aimed at sowing doubt over events in Ukraine, a US social media researcher has warned. Darren Linvill, professor at Clemson University, South Carolina, who has been studying the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) troll farm operation since 2017, said it was succeeding in creating more authentic-seeming posts. A Russian defence facility near the border with Ukraine was on fire.Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor, posted on Telegram that there were no details yet about damage or casualties at the building in the southern region of Belgorod. Images on social media showed a large funnel of smoke rising above the ground.
– Jennifer Rankin, Harry Taylor, Maanvi Singh, Rob Booth
Updated at 01.39 BST
1 May 2022 23.36 In Kherson, the first major city to fall, Russia is replacing Ukrainian currency with Russian rubles. Per AFP, Kirill Stremousov, a civilian and military administrator of Kherson said that “beginning 1 May, we will move to the ruble zone,” according state news agency RIA Novosti. It is a tactic to legitimize Russia’s “control of the city and surrounding areas through installing a pro-Russian administration,” according to an intelligence update released by Britain’s Defense Ministry. The move is “indicative of Russian intent to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term,” the Defense Ministry said.
1 May 2022 22.59 Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that the county is working to prevent nuclear war, Reuters reports. In an interview with Italian TV, Lavrov said: “Western media misrepresent Russian threats. Russia has never interrupted efforts to reach agreements that guarantee that a nuclear war never develops”. Lavrov also doubled down on Russian conspiracy theories and propaganda about Nazism in Ukraine. This week, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called Russia’s justification for the war in Ukraine “BS”. “It’s hard to square [Vladimir Putin’s] … BS that this is about Nazism in Ukraine, and it’s about protecting Russians in Ukraine, and it’s about defending Russian national interests, when none of them, none of them were threatened by Ukraine,” Kirby said. “It’s brutality of the coldest and the most depraved sort.”
Updated at 23.19 BST
1 May 2022 21.50 Eight have died after Russian attacks on Donetsk and Kharkiv, according to the governors of those regions. AFP reports: The deaths came as the Russian army refocuses its efforts on eastern Ukraine, notably the Donbas region, which incorporates Donetsk and Lugansk. Four were killed in shelling in the town of Lyman in Donetsk, the regional governor said. “On May 1, four civilians were killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk region, all in Lyman. Eleven other people were injured,” governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. Another person had died of his injuries in a town near Lyman, he added. Lyman, a former railway hub known as the “red town” for its redbrick industrial buildings, is expected to be one of the next places to fall to the Russian army after Ukrainian forces withdrew. Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces appeared to have made notable advances around the town, advancing on their positions by several kilometres, an AFP team in the area said. Another three people were killed in shelling on residential areas in and around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, the regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram. “As a result of these shellings, unfortunately, three people were killed and eight civilians were injured.” The Ukrainian army has also withdrawn from Kharkiv, its troops now in outlying positions, according to AFP journalists who recently visited the city.
1 May 2022 20.59 Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy said that evacuations from Mariupol will continue tomorrow if “all the necessary conditions” are met. “Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vital corridor has started working,” he said. “For the first time there were two days of real ceasefire on this territory.” In his latest address, he said: We will continue to do everything to evacuate our people from Azovstal, from Mariupol in general. The organization of such humanitarian corridors is one of the elements of the ongoing negotiation process. It is very complex. But no matter how difficult it was, more than 350,000 people were rescued from the areas of hostilities... Today, Russian troops continued to strike at the territory of our state. The targets they choose prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army. They targeted the warehouses of agricultural enterprises. The grain warehouse was destroyed. The warehouse with fertilizers was also shelled. They continued shelling of residential neighborhoods in the Kharkiv region, Donbas, etc. They are accumulating forces in the south of the country to try to attack our cities and communities in the Dnipropetrovsk region. What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war? Honestly, I do not know. The ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia. It will only increase the toxicity of the Russian state and the number of those in the world who will work to isolate Russia.
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 124 of the invasion
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A number of civilians have died and dozens were injured after a missile strike hit a crowded shopping centre in Kremenchuk, a city in central Ukraine on the banks of the Dnipro river. Zelenskiy has said that over 1,000 civilians were in the shopping centre at the time of the strike, where a fire remains raging.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has virtually addressed the meeting of world leaders at the G7 summit in Germany. He told them he wants the war to be ended by the end of the year before winter sets in, and asked for anti-aircraft defence systems, further sanctions on Russia and security guarantees, as well as help to export grain from Ukraine and for reconstruction aid.
Russian-backed separatists said they were pushing into Lysychansk, the last major city still held by Ukrainian troops in eastern Luhansk province. Lysychansk’s twin city of Sievierodonetsk fell on Saturday in a victory for Moscow’s campaign to seize the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk on behalf of pro-Russian separatists. Serhai Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, has called on civilians to evacuate Lysychansk, saying that the situation is “very difficult”.
Russia stepped up air strikes on Ukraine over the weekend, including on the capital of Kyiv, while the strategic eastern city of Sievierodonetsk fell to pro-Russian forces. There had been no major strikes on Kyiv since early June.
Zelenskiy said a wounded seven-year-old girl was pulled from the rubble of a nine-storey apartment block in Kyiv. The girl’s father was killed in the strike, he said. “She was not threatened by anything in our country. She was completely safe, until Russia itself decided that everything was equally hostile to them now - women, children, kindergartens, houses, hospitals, railways,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly address.
Russia’s defence ministry said that a missile hitting a Kyiv residential building over the weekend could have been the result of a failure of Ukraine’s air defence system. In a statement, the Russian defence ministry said it believes a Ukrainian Buk missile system intercepted a S-300 air defence missile which then “fell down to a residential building”. Russia said all four of its missiles launched against an arms factory in Kyiv hit their target. Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilian areas.
A 21-year-old woman and a 57-year-old woman died in the Kharkiv region as a result of Russian shelling, according to an update from the regional governor Oleh Synyehubov.
Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since 1998, according to reports, further alienating the country from the global financial system after sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine. The country missed a deadline of Sunday night to meet a 30-day grace period on interest payments of $100m on two Eurobonds originally due on 27 May, Bloomberg reported. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia had made the bond payments due in May but the fact they had been blocked by Euroclear because of western sanctions on Russia was “not our problem”.
UK environment secretary George Eustice has said the UK is supporting Ukrainian attempts to form a land bridge to facilitate the export of grain from Ukraine. He also said the UK was investing £1.5m in determining the origins of grain supplies to prevent stolen Ukrainian grain reaching world markets.
State and private institutions in Lithuania have been hit by a denial-of-service cyber attack, the Baltic country’s National Cyber Security Centre said in a statement released by the defence ministry.
Moldova’s president said during a visit to Ukraine that her country was “fragile and vulnerable” and needed help to remain “part of the free world”. President Maia Sandu visited three towns where Ukraine suspects Russian forces of committing atrocities. “This shouldn’t happen. And, you know, it is heartbreaking to see what we see here and to hear the stories. Ukraine and Moldova need help. We want this war to stop, this Russian aggression against Ukraine to be stopped as soon as possible. We want to stay part of the free world.”
The US is likely to announce this week the purchase of an advanced medium- to long-range surface-to-air missile defence system for Ukraine. Washington is also expected to announce other security assistance for Ukraine, including additional artillery ammunition and counter-battery radars to address needs expressed by the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said G7 countries should respond to the latest missile strikes by imposing further sanctions on Russia and providing more heavy weapons to Ukraine.
Zelenskiy urged Belarusians to stand in solidarity with Ukraine. “Russian leadership wants to drag you into the Ukraine-Russian war because it doesn’t care about your lives. But you aren’t slaves and can decide your destiny yourself,” Zelenskiy said in a video address to Belarusians.
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{'people': ['Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Serhai Haidai', 'Kyiv', 'Oleh Synyehubov', 'Bloomberg', 'George Eustice', 'Maia Sandu', 'Dmytro Kuleba'], 'organizations': ['Zelenskiy', 'Lysychansk', 'Lysychansk', 'Zelenskiy', 'Zelenskiy', 'Kremlin', 'Euroclear', 'National Cyber Security Centre', 'the defence ministry', 'Zelenskiy', 'Zelenskiy'], 'locations': ['Kremenchuk', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Germany', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Lysychansk', 'Luhansk', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Moscow', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Kyiv', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Kyiv', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'UK', 'UK', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'Ukrainian', 'Lithuania', 'Moldova', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Moldova', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Washington', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine']}
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The Guardian
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Ukraine must agree a peace deal with Russia. But at what price? | Letters
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Jonathan Powell’s call for readiness for negotiations with Russia when the time comes (Putin is not yet ready to end the Ukraine war. When he is, we must be prepared, 23 June) is starkly complemented by your report of the murderous exploitation of Aiden Aslin (British man facing death sentence in Donetsk told: ‘Time is running out’, 22 June). Our leaders have – at least publicly – failed to confront Russia’s propagandistic calling of the tune. We fail to challenge the medieval tactic of razing cities and the cynically calculated mass murder of civilians.
Putin cites Russia’s history in justification of his war, talking of Nuremberg-style processes to menace prisoners of war and please his supporters at home. He, and they, should be less selective in their recall, and remember those who were condemned under Nuremberg protocols for failure to protect prisoners from execution under the infamous commando and commissar orders.
Why is no representative of our government telling them this? Why are we not hammering home to Russian field officers that “following orders” will be no defence against being thrown under the bus when Putin finds it expedient to de-escalate via the Colombian-style transitional justice that Powell refers to?
Peter Millen
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
Jonathan Powell is absolutely right to point out that a lasting peace cannot be achieved in Ukraine if Russia feels humiliated, as Germany did after the first world war. Ukraine, by definition, cannot defeat Russia – therefore, however unpalatable it may be, it will have to make some territorial concessions, probably in the pro-Russian areas that were de facto Russian territory before the invasion.
But this choice is not Ukraine’s alone. The US-led western powers have pumped defensive weapons into the country to hurt Russia and slow its advance. These will not change the outcome, only delay it, and the more pain that is inflicted on Russia, the more it will press a hard bargain for peace.
If the west really wants to see peace in Ukraine and an end to the suffering of its people, it must press Volodymyr Zelenskiy to negotiate and agree concessions, with the lever of stopping military supplies. We are driving the agenda by prolonging the conflict, and it is within our power to bring it to an end, if we want to.
Des Senior
Aylesbeare, Devon
Jonathan Powell argues, quite rightly, that a negotiated settlement is necessary in Ukraine. If this happens, however, it will still be after tens of thousands have been killed and millions have been made refugees, and countless houses and other buildings have been destroyed.
Would it not have been better to have accepted the Russian invasion when it started and used peaceful methods to resolve the situation? Could Russia really expect to govern a country with most of the population against it? Although painful, would this really have been worse than all the death and destruction so far?
Countries are rearming and generals all over the world are licking their lips at the extra resources coming their way. Arms manufacturers are delighted at the forthcoming new orders. Meanwhile, even as people in the UK are short of accommodation and food and our NHS is struggling, there will be demands for more expenditure on our armed forces.
Humans must come up with alternatives to wars as ways of settling differences. I am sorry to see that not even the Guardian is reporting the alternative ideas coming from organisations like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War Coalition.
Martin Wright
Otley, West Yorkshire
Jonathan Powell says “even ‘winners’ have to negotiate, as at Versailles in 1919”. But in 1919 the winners negotiated with themselves. Germany was excluded from the conference until the treaty terms were settled. After a couple of weeks to study the treaty, on 28 June the German delegation was made to sign it, unaltered, under the threat of resumed warfare. Not much negotiation there.
George Baugh
Much Wenlock, Shropshire
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War
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Russia and Ukraine
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{'people': ['Jonathan Powell', 'Putin', 'Aiden Aslin', 'Putin', 'Putin', 'Powell', 'Peter Millen', 'Jonathan Powell', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Devon', 'Jonathan Powell', 'Martin Wright', 'Jonathan Powell', 'George Baugh'], 'organizations': ['Huddersfield', 'NHS', 'Guardian', 'the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament', 'Otley'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Nuremberg', 'Nuremberg', 'West Yorkshire', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Germany', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'UK', 'West Yorkshire', 'Germany', 'Wenlock', 'Shropshire']}
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The Guardian
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 122 of the invasion
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German consumers could face a tripling of gas prices in the coming months after Russia’s throttling of deliveries to Europe, a senior energy official has said. Moscow reduced the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 40% last week, citing technical reasons that Berlin dismisses as a pretext, prompting a four- to sixfold rise in market prices, said the head of Germany’s federal network agency, Klaus Müller. Such “enormous leaps in price” were unlikely to be passed down entirely to consumers, he said, but German citizens had to brace for dramatically rising costs. “A doubling or tripling is possible,” he told public broadcaster ARD.
Ukrainian forces are preparing to retreat from the strategic eastern city of Severodonetsk after weeks of fierce fighting. Sergiy Gaiday, governor of the Lugansk region that includes Severodonetsk, said Ukrainian military forces in the city had received the order to withdraw and remaining in the positions “just doesn’t make sense”, adding that 90% of the industrial city had been damaged. Severodonetsk’s military administration head, Roman Vlasenko, told Radio Svoboda that the Ukrainian army was still in the city and it would “take them some time to retire”.
The European Council has approved €9bn of financial aid to Ukraine. In a statement made by the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, at the European Council summit in Brussels on Friday, he said: “There is a war in Ukraine and there is nothing to pay nurses, teachers, police, border guards or many other public services.”
Russia has condemned the European Union’s decision to accept Ukraine and Moldova as membership candidates. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, said: “With the decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidate countries, the European Union has confirmed that it continues to actively exploit the CIS on a geopolitical level, to use it to ‘contain’ Russia,” referring to Russia’s sphere of influence within the Commonwealth of Independent States, consisting of former Soviet countries.
Canada will be able to seize and dispose of assets sanctioned as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, following the Canadian Senate’s passage of the budget of the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on Thursday. The government will then be able to use the funds from seized assets to support Ukraine.
Ukraine’s main domestic security agency said on Friday it had uncovered a Russian spy network involving Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, who was previously accused by the US of being a Russian agent. The state security service said Derkach, whose whereabouts were not made clear, set up a network of private security firms to use them to ease and support the entry of Russian units into cities during Moscow’s 24 February invasion.
More than 3,000 dolphins in the Black Sea have died as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian scientists working in the “Tuzlovsky Lymans” reserve, a national nature park. Nexta reports that the “work of sonar and explosions prevent them from finding food” and that dead dolphins have been increasingly found on the coasts of Bulgaria and Romania, in addition to Ukraine.
Mass kidnappings have been occurring in Melitopol, the mayor of the south-eastern Ukrainian city said. “More than 500 people have been abducted in the last four months,” Ivan Fedrov said, adding that mass kidnappings resumed in the Russian-occupied territory last week.
It would require Ukraine a decade to rebuild infrastructure of its Black Sea ports, whose blockade by Russia is preventing global grain exports, according to Ukraine’s deputy agriculture minister. “For alternative routes, it would take 10 years of investment to try to build the necessary infrastructure to replace this Black Sea port infrastructure, which we spent about 20 years building, starting in 2000,” Taras Vysotskiy said on Friday.
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Russia and Ukraine
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{'people': ['Klaus Müller', 'Sergiy Gaiday', 'Roman Vlasenko', 'Mateusz Morawiecki', 'Maria Zakharova', 'Justin Trudeau', 'Andriy Derkach', 'Derkach', 'Ivan Fedrov'], 'organizations': ['ARD', 'Radio Svoboda', 'The European Council', 'the European Council', 'the European Union’s', 'the European Union', 'CIS', 'the Commonwealth of Independent States', 'Senate'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Moscow', 'Berlin', 'Germany', 'Severodonetsk', 'Lugansk', 'Ukraine', 'Brussels', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Moldova', 'Ukraine', 'Moldova', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Canada', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Bulgaria', 'Romania', 'Ukraine', 'Melitopol', 'Ukrainian', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine']}
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The Guardian
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 121 of the invasion
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The last Ukrainian forces fighting in the heavily contested eastern city of Sievierodonetsk have been ordered to withdraw in order to avoid being encircled, as fears grow that the neighbouring city of Lysychansk could also fall to Russia within days. The anticipated loss of Sievierodonetsk is the latest battlefield reverse for Kyiv after its defeat in the port city of Mariupol. According to some estimates about 12,000 civilians remain in Sievierodonetsk, out of a prewar population of 160,000. All three bridges offering escape routes west over the Siverskyi Donets River to the twin city of Lysychansk have been destroyed in fighting, and the mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, says the humanitarian situation is critical.
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War
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Russia and Ukraine
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{'people': ['Kyiv', 'Oleksandr Striuk'], 'organizations': ['the Siverskyi Donets River'], 'locations': ['Sievierodonetsk', 'Lysychansk', 'Russia', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Mariupol', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Lysychansk']}
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The Guardian
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Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 143 of the invasion
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At least three people were killed and 15 injured following a missile attack on Friday on Dnipro in central Ukraine, the country’s fourth-largest city with more than 1 million inhabitants. “The rockets hit an industrial plant and a busy street next to it,” the regional governor, Valentyn Rezynchenko, said on his Facebook page.
The UK said the Kremlin was “fully responsible” for the death of a British captive in east Ukraine as rescue workers in Vinnytsia scoured debris for missing people after devastating Russian rocket attacks. The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said: “I am shocked to hear reports of the death of British aid worker Paul Urey while in the custody of a Russian proxy in Ukraine. Russia must bear the full responsibility for this.” Rescue workers were still clearing debris in the wake of strikes in Vinnytsia, central Ukraine, that killed at least 23 people.
A top Ukrainian official has accused Russia of deliberately escalating its deadly attacks on civilian targets. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told the Guardian that monitoring of Russian strikes suggested an increased emphasis in recent weeks on terrorising Ukraine’s civilian population. “That’s not my emotions but what our monitoring is telling us.”
A wounded soldier who returned from Russian captivity has recounted how Russian forces would threaten Ukrainian soldiers with the death penalty if they refused to cooperate. Denys Piskun, an Azov soldier, told Azov Media: “They said that if you don’t testify, if you don’t cooperate, there will be the death penalty. You all have the death penalty on trial as a Nazi terrorist organisation.”
Ukrainian officials have confirmed that the US House of Representatives approved $100m in funding to train Ukrainian pilots to operate American aircraft as part of the National Defence Authorisation Act. The pilots will be trained on F-15 and F-16 jets, according to Andriy Yermak, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff.
Ukraine’s military losses peaked in May, the defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said in a new interview aired on Friday. Speaking to the BBC, Reznikov said: “The biggest peak of our losses was in May,” with up to 100 soldiers being killed a day.
Europe has “shot itself in the lungs” with sanctions aimed at Russia over its war in Ukraine, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said on Friday. Orbán, a nationalist who has ruled Hungary since 2010 and frequently clashes with Brussels, has been a fierce critic of European Union sanctions on Russian oil. In an address on national radio, Orbán urged EU leaders to change the sanctions policy.
Ukrainian rocket strikes have destroyed more than 30 Russian military logistics centres in recent weeks and significantly reduced Russia’s attacking potential, Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesperson said on Friday. The official, Oleksandr Motuzianyk, emphasised the role played by US Himars (high mobility artillery rocket systems) rocket systems, one of several types of long-range weapon supplied by the west to assist Ukraine in the war.
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Russia and Ukraine
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{'people': ['Valentyn Rezynchenko', 'Liz Truss', 'Paul Urey', 'Oleksiy Danilov', 'Azov', 'Azov Media', 'Andriy Yermak', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Reznikov', 'Reznikov', 'Viktor Orbán', 'Oleksandr Motuzianyk'], 'organizations': ['Kremlin', 'national security council', 'Guardian', 'Denys Piskun', 'the US House of Representatives', 'the National Defence Authorisation Act', 'BBC', 'Orbán', 'European Union', 'Orbán', 'EU', 'US Himars'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'UK', 'Ukraine', 'Vinnytsia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Vinnytsia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Hungary', 'Brussels', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine']}
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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Russia ‘turning wave of food crises into tsunami’ by blocking grain exports
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Russia has transformed an existing life-threatening wave of food crises into a tsunami by blocking the export of 25m tonnes of grain from Ukraine’s ports, the Germany’s foreign minister has said.
Speaking at the start of an inter-ministerial food conference in Berlin, a precursor to the G7 meeting in Germany starting this weekend where aid groups will demand a big financial commitment to help Africa, Annalena Baerbock said 345 million people worldwide were currently threatened by food shortages.
She said the hunger crisis was building “like a life-threatening wave before us” but it was Russia’s war that had “made a tsunami out of this wave”, and she said Russia was using hunger as a weapon of war.
In an international blame game playing out across Africa, Russia claims it is western sanctions that are slowing the flow of Russian food.
As many as 25 African countries, including many of the least developed, import more than one-third of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia, and 15 of them more than half.
Her remarks led Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and prime minister, to make a reference to the German starvation tactics in the second world war. He said: “German officials are accusing Russia of using hunger like a weapon. It is amazing to hear this from officials whose country kept Leningrad in blockade for 900 days, where almost 700 thousand people died of starvation.”
But Baerbock’s criticism of Russia was backed by Arif Husain, the chief economist at the UN World Food Programme, who said it was not sanctions that were causing the food crisis but war. “We tend to address the symptoms and forget the root cause, and the root cause is war,” he said.
He said more than 40 countries were now facing food inflation of over 15%, and upwards of 30 economies had seen depreciation of their currency of more than 25%.
“The numbers do not lie. Pre-Covid we were looking at about 135 million people in crisis or the worst type of food security situation. Today, including Ukraine’s impact, that number is 345 million. There are about 50 million people in the world who are what we call in hunger emergencies, meaning one step away from famine. That is not in one, two or five countries, but upwards of 45 countries. That’s the magnitude, that’s the scale of the problem you’re talking about.”
He also said the “affordability crisis” caused by high prices could turn into an “availability crisis” next year largely because fertilisers are not moving at the rates required. He said funding shortfalls caused by rising costs and demand meant the WFP was “having to cut rations left right and centre”.
Speaking at a Chatham House conference, he rejected suggestions that the loss of Ukraine exports by sea could be substituted by road and rail. He said UN estimates showed only 1.5m to 2m tonnes of grain a month could be transported by road and rail routes, compared with the 5m to 6m a month normally exported through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. He said the road routes would require 9,000 trucks a day.
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“Think about the dynamic of 9,000 trucks on the road in a war zone. It would be prohibitively expensive by road even if you could do it. The premium for the grain would put you out of the market on the global stage. It is not about getting 1-2m tonnes out – that will not make a dent on world market prices.”
The talks between Russia, the UN, Turkey and Ukraine centre on the terms for safe passage of grain convoys out of Odesa, as well as Russian claims that western sanctions are restricting its shipment of fertilisers. The EU insist it has exempted foodstuffs from sanctions, and says the Russian position is a diversion from its refusal to give guarantees that it will not attack Odesa.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said: “A combination of Covid, climate and now conflict is creating an even graver crisis of food insecurity. Let us be very, very clear: the only reason for this now is the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the Russian blockade of grain and foodstuffs moving out.”
On Sunday during the Economic Forum in Saint-Petersburg, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin channel RT, seemed to be betting on famine changing westerners’ attitudes towards Moscow. “The famine will begin and they will lift the sanctions,” she said.
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{'people': ['Dmitry Medvedev', 'Arif Husain', 'Pre-Covid', 'Odesa', 'Antony Blinken', 'Margarita Simonyan'], 'organizations': ['Annalena Baerbock', 'Baerbock', 'the UN World Food Programme', 'WFP', 'UN', 'First Edition', 'UN', 'EU', 'state', 'the Economic Forum'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Germany', 'Berlin', 'Germany', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Leningrad', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Turkey', 'Ukraine', 'Odesa', 'US', 'Covid', 'Ukraine', 'Saint-Petersburg', 'Moscow']}
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Democratic
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The Guardian
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Russia: journalist arrested for ‘fake news’ about armed forces
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A criminal case has been opened against a Siberian journalist whose news website published content critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian media reported on Thursday.
Mikhail Afanasyev, chief editor of Novy Fokus in the Russian region of Khakassia, was arrested by security forces on Wednesday over the website’s reporting on 11 riot police who allegedly refused deployment to Ukraine.
Afanasyev was accused Thursday of disseminating “deliberately false information” about the Russian armed forces, an offence that carries a maximum 10-year jail sentence under a law passed last month.
The charges come amid an unprecedented crackdown on independent media and anti-war dissent. Last month, the Russian parliament passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military.
Afanasyev has published numerous investigations into sensitive issues in Khakassia, such as organised crime and alleged abuses of power by local officials.
In 2009, he was accused of libel after publishing stories that criticised the Russian government’s response to an explosion at the country’s largest hydroelectric plant that year. And in 2016, he reportedly faced death threats from a criminal gang active in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, after he detailed the group’s illegal activities and suspected ties to local police.
Another Siberia-based journalist was also arrested Wednesday on suspicion of breaching Russia’s new laws on media coverage of the situation in Ukraine. Sergei Mikhailov, founder of the LIStok weekly newspaper, based in the republic of Altay, was reportedly placed in pre-trial detention over the outlet’s alleged “calls for sanctions against Russia”.
LIStok’s website has been blocked since March for “promoting” activities opposing Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
Four student journalists were sentenced on Wednesday to two years’ “corrective labour” over an online video in which they defended young Russians’ freedom of assembly.
Former Doxa journalists Armen Aramyan, Natasha Tyshkevich, Alla Gutnikova and Volodya Metelkin had been under house arrest for almost a year after they were detained in April 2021 for posting a three-minute video on YouTube in which they said it was illegal to expel and intimidate students for participating in rallies in support of the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
A Moscow court on Tuesday said the video had encouraged “the involvement of minors” in anti-Kremlin protests.
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War
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Russia and Ukraine
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{'people': ['Mikhail Afanasyev', 'Afanasyev', 'Afanasyev', 'Sergei Mikhailov', 'Altay', 'Armen Aramyan', 'Natasha Tyshkevich', 'Alla Gutnikova', 'Volodya Metelkin', 'Alexei Navalny'], 'organizations': ['LIStok', 'LIStok', 'YouTube', 'Kremlin'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Khakassia', 'Ukraine', 'Khakassia', 'Krasnoyarsk', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow']}
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The Guardian
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Russia confirms it carried out Vinnytsia strike as fears grow in east Ukraine
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Russia has confirmed it carried out a missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, the latest in a string of deadly attacks on civilian areas, as worries in Ukraine grow that Russia is preparing a new assault in the east.
The Russian defence ministry claimed in a military briefing on Friday that Thursday’s cruise missile attack was directed at a building where top officials from Ukraine’s air forces were meeting foreign arms suppliers.
“The attack resulted in the elimination of the participants,” the ministry said.
Ukraine has rejected Russian claims that any military target was hit, saying the attack, which took place hundreds of kilometres from the frontlines, killed at least 23 people – including three children – and struck a cultural centre used by retired veterans.
Among the horrific images from the scene posted by Ukrainian officials was one of a dead child in a buggy next to a severed foot. The child’s mother is in critical condition in hospital, Serhiy Borzov, an official in Vinnytsia, said.
Ukrainian rescuers on Friday continued search operations in the city, where 18 people were still missing, according to the president’s office. In his nightly address to the nation on Thursday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death toll was likely to rise.
Russia has repeatedly denied it is targeting civilians in Ukraine, despite mounting evidence collected by independent journalists and human rights groups that contradict these claims.
Moscow on Friday continued to shell infrastructure across Ukraine. At least 10 missiles hit two major universities in the southern city of Mykolaiv, the regional governor, Vitali Kim, said.
Kim said four S-300 missiles hit the National University of Mykolaiv and five hit the National University of Shipbuilding in central Mykolaiv. Two floors of the National University were destroyed, Kim said, adding that it was “impossible to restore the premises before the beginning of the academic year”.
Local authorities did not immediately release an official tally of casualties. Footage posted online in the aftermath of the strikes showed heavily damaged classrooms and destroyed laboratories filled with debris and research equipment.
In eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s “operational pause largely continued”, with small-scale offensives on Thursday centred on the Ukraine-controlled Donetsk cities of Slovyansk, Siversk and Bakhmut, according to a report published by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. The ISW also assessed that Russia “will likely launch a larger-scale and more determined offensive along the Slovyansk-Siversk-Bakhmut line soon”.
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Last week, Putin ordered his senior generals to carry on their advance towards western parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk province after the Russian army seized the country’s far eastern Luhansk area following months of heavy fighting.
Ukraine’s military in a Facebook post on Friday said Russian forces were regrouping in the direction of Kramatorsk, in order to resume the offensive towards Siversk.
Moscow-backed separatists said on Friday they were surrounding Siversk, claiming that Ukrainian troops were pulling out of the town.
“The Ukrainian command has decided to gradually pull out its units out of the town of Siversk,” Andrey Marochko, a spokesman for the separatist forces, told Russian state news agency Tass. The Guardian could not independently verify these claims.
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{'people': ['Serhiy Borzov', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Vitali Kim', 'Kim', 'Mykolaiv', 'Kim', 'Siversk', 'Putin', 'Kramatorsk', 'Siversk', 'Andrey Marochko'], 'organizations': ['the National University of Mykolaiv', 'the National University of Shipbuilding', 'the National University', 'Slovyansk', 'Bakhmut', 'Institute for the Study of War', 'ISW', 'Slovyansk', 'First Edition', 'Tass', 'Guardian'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Vinnytsia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Vinnytsia', 'Ukrainian', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Mykolaiv', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Ukraine', 'Washington', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Siversk']}
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US accuses UK of exploiting Russia tensions to fish highly prized species
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A diplomatic row has broken out between the UK and the US over efforts to conserve a deepwater species of fish near Antarctica, as Russia obstructs attempts to set catch limits.
Last year, amid tensions with the west over Ukraine, Russia rejected catch limits for Patagonia toothfish – also known as Chilean seabass – set by a 26-member fishing regulatory body, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).
This spring, the UK responded by issuing licences to four British flagged vessels to fish for the species off the coast of South Georgia, a remote uninhabited island controlled by the UK, almost 1,000 miles (1,600km) east of the Falkland Islands.
The Patagonia toothfish, also called Chilean seabass (Dissostichus eleginoides). Illustration: Wildlife GmbH/Alamy
US officials say the UK’s actions breach the commission’s rules, rendering the catch illegal. The feud has also sparked fears it could threaten wider international cooperation over the fishery and risks reviving Britain’s tensions with Argentina, which invaded South Georgia in 1982 as part of its war with the UK over the Falklands.
It is the first time in the 40 years since CCAMLR was set up to protect Antarctic marine life that deepsea fishing of Patagonia toothfish, one of the world’s highest-priced wild-caught fish, is going ahead without any catch limits from the commission.
Will McCallum, head of oceans at Greenpeace, fears the UK’s actions set a risky precedent in one of the world’s best-managed fisheries.
The fishery has been held up as a positive example of international cooperation between powers such as Russia, China and the US to protect the Southern Ocean against increasing commercial interest in Antarctic krill – a key component of the marine ecosystem – and other marine resources.
McCallum said: “Russia’s willingness to abuse the process cannot excuse unilateral action by other members. We’re worried that the precedent the UK has set, by acting in its national interest, could be used by other countries like China, that is building krill vessels.”
US officials have privately told their UK counterparts that their actions are likely to bar imports of any toothfish caught near South Georgia, according to correspondence between US fisheries managers and members of Congress, seen by the Associated Press.
Krill are transferred from a fishing vessel to a reefer. The crustaceans are a key part of the marine ecosystem. Photograph: Andrew McConnell/Greenpeace
The row risks a breakdown in carefully negotiated limits for the fishery. “It sets a dangerous precedent,” Evan Bloom, who led the US delegation to the CCAMLR until 2020, told AP.
“What the Russians did clearly violates the spirit of science-based fisheries management,” said Bloom, now an expert on polar issues at the Wilson Center in Washington. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the UK can act unilaterally.”
Three of the four vessels authorised by the UK to fish near South Georgia belong to Argos Froyanes, a British-Norwegian company that pioneered techniques credited with dramatically reducing seabird mortality in the south Atlantic.
Barry Markman, the CEO of one of Argos Froyanes’ customers, New-York based Mark Foods, the largest US supplier of seabass certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, said his company would not import any product deemed illegal by US authorities.
Bags of krill aboard a fishing vessel. The fishery has been hailed as an example of international cooperation to protect against increasing commercial interest in krill. Photograph: Andrew McConnell/Greenpeace
Chilean seabass from South Georgia is sold at Whole Foods and Orlando-based Darden Restaurants. Neither company responded to a request for comment from AP.
An official from the government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which issued the licences in coordination with the UK Foreign Office, said it took action so as not to give in to obstructionist tactics by Russia that it does not expect to see an end to soon.
Before CCAMLR was set up, the population of the Patagonia toothfish, a bottom-dwelling species that lives up to 50 years, almost collapsed because of poaching, but it has recovered.
The financial hit for the seafood industry from any import ban could be significant, as US imports of the MSC-certified fish are worth about $50m (£40m).
Under US law, fishing in a way that disregards conservation measures adopted by international fishery organisations to which the US is a party – including catch limits – is considered illegal. Vessels engaging in such activity can be denied access to US ports and blacklisted within the Antarctic commission framework.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “Russia egregiously blocked the agreed catch limits citing spurious scientific concerns not recognised by any other member of the CCAMLR. The UK will continue to operate the toothfish fishery within the framework agreed by all CCAMLR members.”
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{'people': ['Will McCallum', 'McCallum', 'Krill', 'Andrew McConnell', 'Evan Bloom', 'Barry Markman', 'Andrew McConnell'], 'organizations': ['Falklands', 'CCAMLR', 'Greenpeace', 'Congress', 'the Associated Press', 'CCAMLR', 'AP', 'Argos Froyanes', 'Argos Froyanes', 'Mark Foods', 'the Marine Stewardship Council', 'Whole Foods', 'Darden Restaurants', 'AP', 'the UK Foreign Office', 'CCAMLR', 'CCAMLR', 'CCAMLR'], 'locations': ['UK', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Patagonia', 'UK', 'South Georgia', 'UK', 'the Falkland Islands', 'Patagonia', 'US', 'UK', 'Britain', 'Argentina', 'South Georgia', 'UK', 'Patagonia', 'UK', 'Russia', 'China', 'US', 'Russia', 'UK', 'China', 'US', 'UK', 'South Georgia', 'US', 'US', 'Washington', 'UK', 'UK', 'South Georgia', 'New-York', 'US', 'US', 'South Georgia', 'Orlando', 'South Georgia', 'the South Sandwich Islands', 'Russia', 'Patagonia', 'US', 'US', 'US', 'US', 'Russia', 'UK']}
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Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 142 of the invasion
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At least 23 people, including three children, were killed and up to 66 others wounded after Russian missiles struck civilian buildings and a cultural centre in the city of Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine. The attack on Vinnytsia, far from the war’s front lines, occurred mid-morning on Thursday when the streets were full of people. Ihor Zhovkva, deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine, said that “more than 70 people are still in hospital” and “18 people are missing, and the rescue operation is going on”. Eleven bodies, including two children, remain unidentified.
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{'people': ['Ihor Zhovkva'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': ['Vinnytsia', 'Ukraine', 'Vinnytsia', 'Ukraine']}
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Most of Sievierodonetsk has fallen to Russia, says governor of Luhansk
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Russian forces have taken control of most of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk but have not surrounded it, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk province has said as heavy fighting continued in and around the key city and civilians were told to stay underground.
Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post late on Tuesday that Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies or evacuate people.
Earlier, the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, said artillery bombardments were threatening the lives of the thousands of civilians still sheltering in the ruined city, with evacuations not possible.
“Half of the city has been captured by the Russians and fierce street fighting is under way,” Striuk said. “The situation is very serious and the city is essentially being destroyed ruthlessly block by block.
“The Ukrainian military continues to resist this frenzied push and aggression by Russian forces. Unfortunately … the city has been split in half. But at the same time the city still defends itself. It is still Ukrainian,” he said, advising those still trapped inside to stay in cellars.
Striuk estimated that about 13,000 people remained in the city out of a prewar population of about 100,000 but said it was impossible to keep track of civilian casualties amid round-the-clock shelling.
He said more than 1,500 people in the city who died of various causes have been buried since the war began in February. “Civilians are dying from direct strikes, from fragmentation wounds and under the rubble of destroyed buildings, since most of the inhabitants are hiding in basements and shelters,” he said.
The leader of the pro-Moscow self-proclaimed republic of Luhansk earlier admitted that Russian and pro-Moscow forces were moving more slowly than they hoped. “We can say already that a third of Sievierodonetsk is already under our control,” Russia’s Tass state news agency quoted Leonid Pasechnik as saying.
Amid mounting concern for the civilians still trapped in the city Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency, which had long operated out of Sievierodonetsk, said he was “horrified” by its destruction.
“We fear that up to 12,000 civilians remain caught in crossfire in the city, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine or electricity. The near-constant bombardment is forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, with only few precious opportunities for those trying to escape.”
The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, on Tuesday evening reiterated calls for residents to stay in shelters after he said a Russian airstrike had hit a nitric acid tank, risking the release of toxic fumes. In a post on the Telegram app he added a photograph of a large pink cloud over residential buildings.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, there were few reports of major action on Tuesday.
In the east, Ukraine says Moscow is trying to assault other areas along the main front, including pressing towards the city of Sloviansk.
In the south, Ukraine claimed in recent days to have pushed back Russian forces on a bank of the Inhulets River that forms a border of Russian-held Kherson province.
After having failed to capture Kyiv, been driven out of northern Ukraine and made only limited progress elsewhere in the east, Moscow has concentrated the full force of its armed might in recent days on Sievierodonetsk.
Victory there and in adjoining Lysychansk would let Moscow claim control of Luhansk province, one of two eastern regions it claims on behalf of separatist proxies, partly achieving one of President Vladimir Putin’s stated war aims.
But the huge battle has come at a massive cost, which some western military experts say could hurt Russia’s ability to fend off eventual Ukrainian counterattacks elsewhere, regardless of who wins the battle for Sievierodonetsk.
“Putin is now hurling men and munitions at the last remaining major population centre in [Luhansk], Sievierodonetsk, as if taking it would win the war for the Kremlin. He is wrong,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War thinktank wrote this week.
“When the Battle of Sievierodonetsk ends, regardless of which side holds the city, the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will likely have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back.”
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The latest fighting came as Russia said on Tuesday that it will hand over the bodies of 152 Ukrainian soldiers found underneath the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, now under Moscow’s control.
Russia’s defence ministry said its troops found “152 bodies of dead militants and servicemen of Ukraine’s armed forces” that it claims were stored inside a cooling unit and that “four mines” were found underneath the bodies.
“The Russian side plans to hand over the bodies of Ukrainian militants and servicemen found on the territory of the Azovstal plant to representatives in Ukraine,” the ministry added.
News agencies contributed to this report
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{'people': ['Serhiy Gaidai', 'Oleksandr Striuk', 'Leonid Pasechnik', 'Jan Egeland', 'Serhiy Gaidai', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Putin'], 'organizations': ['Striuk', 'Striuk', 'pro-Moscow', 'Tass', 'the Norwegian Refugee Council', 'Lysychansk', 'Kremlin', 'Institute for the Study of War', 'First Edition', 'Azovstal', 'Azovstal'], 'locations': ['Sievierodonetsk', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'Moscow', 'Luhansk', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Russia', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Sloviansk', 'Ukraine', 'Kherson', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Moscow', 'Luhansk province', 'Russia', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Washington', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Mariupol', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 120 of the invasion
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Russia’s Tass news agency is carrying a report that British citizens Sean Pinner and Aiden Aslin, alongside Moroccan Saadoun Brahim, are preparing an appeal against their death sentences. Tass quotes Pinner’s lawyer Yulia Tserkovnikova saying “my colleagues and I are preparing the full text of the appeal against the verdict in the interests of our clients”. British authorities have described the trial as a “sham”, with one MP saying the men were essentially being held as hostages. The men argue that they were part of Ukraine’s armed forces, and should be subject to the Geneva convention on prisoners of war.
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{'people': ['Sean Pinner', 'Aiden Aslin', 'Pinner', 'Tserkovnikova'], 'organizations': ['Tass', 'Moroccan Saadoun Brahim', 'Tass'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Yulia', 'Ukraine']}
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Most of Sievierodonetsk has fallen to Russia, says governor of Luhansk
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Russian forces have taken control of most of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk but have not surrounded it, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk province has said as heavy fighting continued in and around the key city and civilians were told to stay underground.
Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post late on Tuesday that Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies or evacuate people.
Earlier, the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, said artillery bombardments were threatening the lives of the thousands of civilians still sheltering in the ruined city, with evacuations not possible.
“Half of the city has been captured by the Russians and fierce street fighting is under way,” Striuk said. “The situation is very serious and the city is essentially being destroyed ruthlessly block by block.
“The Ukrainian military continues to resist this frenzied push and aggression by Russian forces. Unfortunately … the city has been split in half. But at the same time the city still defends itself. It is still Ukrainian,” he said, advising those still trapped inside to stay in cellars.
Striuk estimated that about 13,000 people remained in the city out of a prewar population of about 100,000 but said it was impossible to keep track of civilian casualties amid round-the-clock shelling.
He said more than 1,500 people in the city who died of various causes have been buried since the war began in February. “Civilians are dying from direct strikes, from fragmentation wounds and under the rubble of destroyed buildings, since most of the inhabitants are hiding in basements and shelters,” he said.
The leader of the pro-Moscow self-proclaimed republic of Luhansk earlier admitted that Russian and pro-Moscow forces were moving more slowly than they hoped. “We can say already that a third of Sievierodonetsk is already under our control,” Russia’s Tass state news agency quoted Leonid Pasechnik as saying.
Amid mounting concern for the civilians still trapped in the city Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency, which had long operated out of Sievierodonetsk, said he was “horrified” by its destruction.
“We fear that up to 12,000 civilians remain caught in crossfire in the city, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine or electricity. The near-constant bombardment is forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, with only few precious opportunities for those trying to escape.”
The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, on Tuesday evening reiterated calls for residents to stay in shelters after he said a Russian airstrike had hit a nitric acid tank, risking the release of toxic fumes. In a post on the Telegram app he added a photograph of a large pink cloud over residential buildings.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, there were few reports of major action on Tuesday.
In the east, Ukraine says Moscow is trying to assault other areas along the main front, including pressing towards the city of Sloviansk.
In the south, Ukraine claimed in recent days to have pushed back Russian forces on a bank of the Inhulets River that forms a border of Russian-held Kherson province.
After having failed to capture Kyiv, been driven out of northern Ukraine and made only limited progress elsewhere in the east, Moscow has concentrated the full force of its armed might in recent days on Sievierodonetsk.
Victory there and in adjoining Lysychansk would let Moscow claim control of Luhansk province, one of two eastern regions it claims on behalf of separatist proxies, partly achieving one of President Vladimir Putin’s stated war aims.
But the huge battle has come at a massive cost, which some western military experts say could hurt Russia’s ability to fend off eventual Ukrainian counterattacks elsewhere, regardless of who wins the battle for Sievierodonetsk.
“Putin is now hurling men and munitions at the last remaining major population centre in [Luhansk], Sievierodonetsk, as if taking it would win the war for the Kremlin. He is wrong,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War thinktank wrote this week.
“When the Battle of Sievierodonetsk ends, regardless of which side holds the city, the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will likely have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back.”
Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BST
The latest fighting came as Russia said on Tuesday that it will hand over the bodies of 152 Ukrainian soldiers found underneath the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, now under Moscow’s control.
Russia’s defence ministry said its troops found “152 bodies of dead militants and servicemen of Ukraine’s armed forces” that it claims were stored inside a cooling unit and that “four mines” were found underneath the bodies.
“The Russian side plans to hand over the bodies of Ukrainian militants and servicemen found on the territory of the Azovstal plant to representatives in Ukraine,” the ministry added.
News agencies contributed to this report
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{'people': ['Serhiy Gaidai', 'Oleksandr Striuk', 'Leonid Pasechnik', 'Jan Egeland', 'Serhiy Gaidai', 'Vladimir Putin', 'Putin'], 'organizations': ['Striuk', 'Striuk', 'pro-Moscow', 'Tass', 'the Norwegian Refugee Council', 'Lysychansk', 'Kremlin', 'Institute for the Study of War', 'First Edition', 'Azovstal', 'Azovstal'], 'locations': ['Sievierodonetsk', 'Ukraine', 'Luhansk', 'Moscow', 'Luhansk', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Russia', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Sloviansk', 'Ukraine', 'Kherson', 'Ukraine', 'Moscow', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Moscow', 'Luhansk province', 'Russia', 'Sievierodonetsk', 'Luhansk', 'Washington', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Mariupol', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine']}
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Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 141 of the invasion
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The global economic outlook has “darkened significantly” following the consequences of the war in Ukraine, according to the head of the International Monetary Fund. Kristalina Georgieva said the global outlook remains “extremely uncertain” with an increased risk of recession. “The human tragedy of the war in Ukraine has worsened. So, too, has its economic impact … and it’s only getting worse,” she said. G20 finance ministers and central bank governors are preparing to meet in Bali this week.
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{'people': ['Kristalina Georgieva'], 'organizations': ['the International Monetary Fund', 'G20'], 'locations': ['Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Bali']}
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Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 140 of the invasion
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Russia has launched a criminal case against one of the last opposition figures remaining in the country, for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Ilya Yashin, 39, a Moscow city councillor, was sentenced to 15 days in jail last month for disobeying police. He had been set to be released in the early hours of Wednesday.
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{'people': ['Ilya Yashin'], 'organizations': [], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Moscow']}
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Pro-Russia cavalcade provokes shock and anger in Ireland
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A pro-Russian cavalcade in Dublin led by a car with the Z symbol has provoked astonishment and condemnation in Ireland.
About 10 cars with Russian and Irish flags drove in a convoy down the M50 motorway last Sunday afternoon in an apparent display of support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The bonnet of the lead vehicle, a green Jeep-style 4x4, bore the Z symbol that Russian forces use in Ukraine.
The rally is believed to have been organised through a private Facebook group for Russians living in Ireland. Pro-Russia rallies were held in Germany on the same day, including a motorcade rally in Hanover.
Seen them all on the M50 today pic.twitter.com/pufC97xnzZ — Dave (@JustDave87) April 10, 2022
“It’s absolutely disgusting that these Russians living in Ireland demonstrate their complete disrespect for [their] country of residence and the Irish people who stand against Russia’s war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian embassy in Dublin said in a tweet that included video footage of the rally. The embassy said Z symbolised killings and atrocities and should be banned.
The cavalcade occurred three days after Irish legislators gave a standing ovation to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who thanked Ireland for its support for Ukraine in a video address to both chambers of parliament.
It’s absolutely disgusting that these russians living in🇮🇪demonstrate their complete disrespect for country of residence&the Irish people who stand against russia’s war in Ukraine. 🇷🇺“Z”, the symbol of killings & atrocities, must be prohibited by law in every democratic state pic.twitter.com/ttGwbYReNF — UKR Embassy in Ireland (@UKRinIRL) April 10, 2022
The Irish government has called for tougher sanctions on Russia and supports Ukraine’s ambitions to become a member of the EU. Ireland is hosting more than 20,000 Ukrainian refugees, many of them staying with Irish families.
The cavalcade reportedly set out from near Dublin airport and made its way down the M50, Ireland’s busiest motorway, bearing Russian, Soviet and Irish flags.
Many people on social media condemned the pro-Moscow display as an affront to the victims of Russia’s invasion and an insult to Ireland’s solidarity with Ukraine. Others expressed disapproval but defended the right of people to show support for Russia.
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{'people': ['pic.twitter.com/pufC97xnzZ — Dave', '@JustDave87', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy'], 'organizations': ['Z', 'Jeep', 'Z', 'killings & atrocities', 'EU'], 'locations': ['Dublin', 'Ireland', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Ireland', 'Russia', 'Germany', 'Hanover', 'Ireland', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Dublin', 'Ukraine', 'Ireland', 'Ukraine', 'russia', 'Ukraine', 'Embassy', 'Ireland', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ireland', 'Dublin', 'M50', 'Ireland', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Ireland', 'Ukraine', 'Russia']}
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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 119 of the invasion
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Members of the Russian delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have been denied British visas to attend the next session, according to Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy head of Russian upper house’s international affairs committee. A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “There are currently no restrictions or limitations for Russian nationals to work in the UK on long-term work visas.” The spokesperson said the UK was prioritising applications from Ukrainians, and that applications for study, work and family visas were taking longer to process.
The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, visited Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss Russia’s war crimes, a justice department official said. Garland met with Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, and announced a war crimes accountability team to identify and prosecute perpetrators. “There is no hiding place for war criminals,” Garland said.
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{'people': ['Vladimir Dzhabarov', 'Merrick Garland', 'Iryna Venediktova', 'Garland'], 'organizations': ['the Organization for Security and Co-operation', 'OSCE', 'the Home Office', 'justice department'], 'locations': ['UK', 'UK', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Garland', 'Ukraine']}
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Russia summons UK ambassador over new sanctions on media outlets
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The British ambassador to Moscow, Deborah Bronnert, has been summoned to the Russian foreign ministry to be warned over new UK sanctions imposed on Russian media outlets, in a move seen as likely to presage reprisals on British press operations in Russia.
In a statement late on Friday, the ministry said Russia would continue to react “harshly and decisively” to all sanctions imposed by London.
The UK earlier this week announced sanctions against the state-owned television station Channel One, accusing it of “spreading disinformation in Russia, justifying Putin’s illegal invasion as a ‘special military operation’”.
Britain also imposed sanctions on a group of Russian journalists embedded with the Russian army in Ukraine, including Evgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, and Dmitry Steshin, a special correspondent for the same outlet.
Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BST
The UK also acted against the websites of RT and Sputnik, claiming: “For too long RT and Sputnik have churned out dangerous nonsense dressed up as serious news to justify Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
An Ofcom ban already existed on RT’s UK broadcasting licence after it was the subject of repeated complaints for breaching the terms of its licence .
The Russian foreign ministry has been taking a harder line with diplomats from liberal democracies in the past weeks, partly in response to the expulsion of a large number of Russian diplomats from Europe.
The UK has been one of the few western diplomacies not to expel Russian diplomats in the past two months, but it has been at the forefront of countries imposing sanctions on oligarchs.
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{'people': ['Deborah Bronnert', 'Putin', 'Evgeny Poddubny', 'Alexander Kots', 'Dmitry Steshin', 'BST', 'Sputnik', 'Sputnik', 'Putin'], 'organizations': ['Channel One', 'Radio Broadcasting Company', 'Komsomolskaya Pravda', 'First Edition', 'Ofcom', 'RT’s'], 'locations': ['Moscow', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'London', 'UK', 'Russia', 'Britain', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'RT', 'Ukraine', 'UK', 'UK']}
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US volunteer fighters captured in Ukraine could face death penalty, says Russia
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The Kremlin has said that two captured US volunteers are not covered by the Geneva conventions and could face the death penalty.
“We are talking about mercenaries who threatened the lives of our service personnel,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said. “And not only ours, but also the service personnel of the DPR and LPR,” he added, referencing the Russian-controlled self-proclaimed peoples’ republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russian media has claimed that two of three US volunteers missing in Ukraine have been captured and are being held by pro-Russian separatist forces.
The Kremlin, however, denied that it knew the location of the two men.
Asked whether the Americans could be put on trial in Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk and sentenced to death, Peskov said: “We cannot exclude anything because these are decisions for the court. We never comment on them and have no right to interfere in court decisions.”
The two men were taken into detention by Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk after being captured last week, according to Russian state media.
Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, both from Alabama, were filmed on Russia’s RT channel at a detention centre in the DPR on Friday.
The threat of the death penalty against the two men follows the sentencing to death of two Britons and a Moroccan who surrendered in Mariupol after fighting with Ukrainian forces, amid some suggestions that Russia may use the men to bargain for the release of captured Russians.
While Russia has a moratorium on the death penalty, that moratorium does not extend to the DPR, despite being a proxy of Moscow.
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The two Americans went missing earlier this month during a battle north of Kharkiv.
Despite claims by Russia and its allies in Ukraine that the Geneva conventions do not cover captured foreign fighters – who it characterises as “mercenaries” – all of those being threatened with the death penalty were serving with the Ukrainian armed forces, which means they should be treated as prisoners of war.
The Geneva conventions also forbid the prosecution of captured combatants for lawful participation in conflict as opposed to illegal acts committed as combatants.
A State Department spokesperson told CNN on Friday they “have seen the photos and videos of these two US citizens reportedly captured by Russia’s military forces in Ukraine” and were “closely monitoring the situation”.
“We are in contact with Ukrainian authorities, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and with the families themselves. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment on these cases.”
On 9 June – the day the two US volunteers were captured – a Donetsk court sentenced British citizens Sean Pinner and Aiden Aslin, and the Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim to death. Concern over the men’s welfare has been raised further by a statement by the head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, that he did not plan to swap them for Russian prisoners of war.
“The exchange of the British men sentenced to death in the DPR is not under discussion, there are no grounds for pardoning them,” Pushilin told independent Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta last week.
A third American missing in action in Ukraine has been identified as the former US Marine veteran Grady Kurpasi, who has been out of contact with his family since late April.
The State Department also confirmed on Tuesday that US citizen Stephen Zabielski was killed in mid-May, apparently by a landmine, fighting with Ukrainian forces. “We can confirm the death of US citizen Stephen Zabielski in Ukraine,” a spokesperson said.
Zabielski is the second American citizen to have died after Willy Joseph Cancel, a 22-year-old ex-Marine, was killed fighting in late April.
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{'people': ['Dmitry Peskov', 'Peskov', 'Alexander Drueke', 'Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh', 'Sean Pinner', 'Aiden Aslin', 'Saaudun Brahim', 'Denis Pushilin', 'Pushilin', 'Novaya Gazeta', 'Grady Kurpasi', 'Stephen Zabielski', 'Stephen Zabielski', 'Zabielski', 'Willy Joseph Cancel'], 'organizations': ['Kremlin', 'Kremlin', 'DPR', 'LPR', 'Kremlin', 'RT channel', 'DPR', 'DPR', 'First Edition', 'State Department', 'CNN', 'the International Committee of the Red Cross', 'DPR', 'The State Department'], 'locations': ['US', 'Donetsk', 'Luhansk', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Donetsk', 'Donetsk', 'Alabama', 'Russia', 'Mariupol', 'Russia', 'Russia', 'Moscow', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Ukrainian', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'US', 'US', 'Ukraine']}
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Russia ‘doesn’t have the courage’ to admit defeat, says Zelenskiy – as it happened
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From 12 Jul 2022 22.37 Zelenskiy: Russia 'doesn't have the courage' to admit defeat Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat in Ukraine, and is warning the occupying military force that it is not safe “anywhere on our land”. Ukraine’s president delivered the remarks in a blistering video address to the nation on Tuesday night, the 139th day since Moscow’s invasion, and posted to his official website. ⚡️Zelensky: Russia does not have courage to admit defeat.
“They no longer have strategic power, character, or understanding of what they are doing here, on our land. There is not an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from the Ukrainian territory,” Zelensky said. — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 12, 2022 Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”: The occupiers have already felt very well what modern artillery is, and they will not have a safe rear anywhere on our land. They have felt that the operations of our reconnaissance officers to protect their homeland are much more powerful than any of their ‘special operations’. Russian soldiers, and we know this from interceptions of their conversations, are truly afraid of our armed forces. The so-called second army of the world is afraid of Ukrainians and is able to do something only on the basis of bottomless stocks of old Soviet weapons. They no longer have strategic strength, character, or understanding of what they are doing here on our land. They also don’t have even an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from Ukrainian territory. Ukraine, he said, will “be able to defend itself, rebuild itself, and realise all its foreign policy goals”: When millions of people work sincerely for this, each and every one at their own level, the result will be certain. Zelenskiy’s remarks came as fierce fighting continues for control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and Russia appears to be stepping up its attacks on civilians, with at least 45 people now known to have died in a weekend missile strike on a block of flats in Chasiv Yar. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Polish defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak meet in Kyiv Tuesday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters The president also revealed he had met Poland’s deputy prime minister and defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak in Kyiv on Tuesday, and discussed cooperation over defence. He said: “It is important not only what we talked about, but also how we talked. With absolute confidence in the Ukrainian future, in the Ukrainian-European future”. Zelenskiy added: A really difficult road is ahead. Unfortunately, it is impossible to do otherwise when you are protecting your home from a terrorist assault. But it is also clear that what lies ahead is the success of our state.
13 Jul 2022 01.10 Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. We will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning. In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below. The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, rose to at least 45 on Tuesday. Saturday’s strike destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city. Nine people have been pulled out alive, with a rescue operation still ongoing. At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson, in a strike attributed to recently acquired US weapons. The explosion hit a warehouse close to a key railway line and a dam on the Dnipro River. Footage on social media showed a large explosion lighting up the night, burning ammunition and towering smoke. Russia has reportedly heavily shelled the eastern town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region overnight in response to the Nova Kakhovka strike. Kyiv Independent reporter Illia Ponomarenko tweeted alongside footage purportedly of the assault: “Meanwhile, Russia responds by sweeping Bakhmut off the earth with artillery in the night.” Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat. In a nationally televised address, Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”. Grain shipments via the Danube River have increased with the reopening of the Bystre canal. The number of foreign ships reaching Ukraine ports to help with grain exports has doubled to 16 within the last 24 hours, according to Ukraine deputy infrastructure minister, Yuriy Vaskov. Ukraine has restored the long-decommissioned ports to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade, and expects to increase monthly exports to 500,000 tons. The US treasury announced on Tuesday it was sending an additional $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services”. The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May. Russian president Vladimir Putin is set to visit Tehran next week to hold talks with Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The meeting comes as the US has accused Iran of preparing to supply Russia with hundreds of weapons-capable drones for use in Ukraine. Military delegations from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey will meet UN officials in Istanbul on Wednesday to discuss a possible deal to resume safe exports of Ukraine grain from the major Black Sea port of Odesa as a global food crisis worsens. The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday that more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, adding that the real toll was probably much higher. The European Union has so far frozen €13.8bn (£11.7bn) worth of assets held by Russian oligarchs, other individuals and entities sanctioned for Moscow’s war against Ukraine, the bloc’s top justice official said on Tuesday. Russia has claimed to have killed a significant number of foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine in the last three weeks, including 23 from Great Britain. The appeals over the death sentences of captured Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Saaudun Brahim will be dealt with within a month, an official from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said. UK foreign secretary Liz Truss has said she “utterly condemns” the sentencing, stating: “They are prisoners of war. This is a sham judgement with absolutely no legitimacy.” Brazil is looking to buy as much diesel as it can from Russia and the deals closed “as recently as yesterday,” Brazilian foreign minister Carlos Franca said on Tuesday, without giving further details.
12 Jul 2022 00.50 The Virgin Mary seen hanging on the wall of a destroyed church due to Russian shelling in the south of Ukraine. Photograph: Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock An Ukrainian serviceman of Khartia battalion rests after patrolling at the frontline near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday, July 12. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
12 Jul 2022 00.15 Russia shelling east Ukrainian town of Bakhmut - reports Russia has reportedly responded to an earlier Ukrainian strike on the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka by shelling the eastern town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region overnight. Kyiv Independent reporter Illia Ponomarenko tweeted alongside footage purportedly of the assault: “Meanwhile, Russia responds by sweeping Bakhmut off the earth with artillery in the night.” According to multiple reports, Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, is currently under heavy shelling. pic.twitter.com/dTi0aU2FGi — Oleksiy Sorokin (@mrsorokaa) July 12, 2022
12 Jul 2022 00.00 Ships begin to pass through Danube to export Ukraine grain Here is a little more detail regarding an increase in Ukraine’s grain exports as ships reportedly begin to pass through an important mouth of the Danube river. Deputy infrastructure minister Yuriy Vaskov was quoted as a saying in a ministry statement: In the last four days, 16 ships have passed through the Bystre rivermouth. We plan to maintain this pace.” The ministry said the 16 vessels were now waiting to be loaded with Ukrainian grain for export to foreign markets, while more than 90 more vessels were awaiting their turn in Romania’s Sulina canal. Only four ships could be received per day along the Sulina route, he said, while a rate of eight per day was needed. But Ukraine was negotiating with Romanian colleagues and European Commission representatives about increasing the rate of crossings, he added. If such conditions were met, and with the opening of the Bystre, he said Ukraine expected this ship congestion would end within a week and that monthly exports of grain would increase by 500,000 tonnes.
12 Jul 2022 23.04 Summary It’s 1am in Kyiv and Moscow, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 140th day. Here’s what we’ve been following: Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat, and that the occupying forces are not safe anywhere in the country. In a nationally televised address, Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”.
In a nationally televised address, Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”. The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, rose to at least 45 on Tuesday. Saturday’s strike destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city. Nine people have been pulled out alive, the Kyiv Independent reported, with a rescue operation ongoing.
Saturday’s strike destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city. Nine people have been pulled out alive, the Kyiv Independent reported, with a rescue operation ongoing. Footage from social media appears to show a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson. The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont in Kyiv reports that at least seven people were killed, and that the missile used in the strike was among a batch of recently acquirted weapons from the US.
The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont in Kyiv reports that at least seven people were killed, and that the missile used in the strike was among a batch of recently acquirted weapons from the US. The US treasury announced on Tuesday it was sending an additional $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services”. The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May.
The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May. The number of foreign ships reaching Ukraine ports on the Danube to help with grain exports has doubled to 16 within the last 24 hours, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing the country’s infrastructure ministry. Ukraine has restored the long-decommissioned ports to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade, and expects to increase monthly exports to 500,000 tons.
Ukraine has restored the long-decommissioned ports to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade, and expects to increase monthly exports to 500,000 tons. Russian president Vladimir Putin will visit Iran next week, the Kremlin said, a day after the US warned that Tehran could provide Moscow with drones for its action in Ukraine.
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday that more than 5,000 civilians had been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, adding that the real toll was probably much higher.
The European Union has so far frozen €13.8bn (£11.7bn) worth of assets held by Russian oligarchs, other individuals and entities sanctioned for Moscow’s war against Ukraine, the bloc’s top justice official said on Tuesday.
Russia has claimed to have killed a significant number of foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine in the last three weeks, including 23 from Great Britain.
An official at the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic says that the appeals over the death sentences of Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Saaudun Brahim will be dealt with within a month. UK foreign secretary Liz Truss has said she “utterly condemns” the sentencing, stating: “They are prisoners of war. This is a sham judgement with absolutely no legitimacy.” That’s it from me, Richard Luscombe, in the US. My colleagues in Australia will be along shortly to guide you through the rest of the day’s developments in Ukraine.
12 Jul 2022 22.48 Ukraine’s air force has carried out about 1,700 attacks on Russian forces since the start of the war on 24 February, the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda is reporting, citing military officials. Air force command spokesman Yuriy Ignat told the outlet that Ukraine’s pilots had been able to overcome strong air defence systems employed by the “temporary” occupiers, and “continue to provide air support to ground troops in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine” using Su-25 attack aircraft and Su-24M bombers: In total, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia, air force strike aircraft have conducted 1,700 group airstrikes against the positions, warehouses, equipment and manpower of the Russian occupying forces on the front lines... despite the large number of enemy air defenses that the occupiers have concentrated in the temporarily occupied territories.
12 Jul 2022 22.37 Zelenskiy: Russia 'doesn't have the courage' to admit defeat Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat in Ukraine, and is warning the occupying military force that it is not safe “anywhere on our land”. Ukraine’s president delivered the remarks in a blistering video address to the nation on Tuesday night, the 139th day since Moscow’s invasion, and posted to his official website. ⚡️Zelensky: Russia does not have courage to admit defeat.
“They no longer have strategic power, character, or understanding of what they are doing here, on our land. There is not an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from the Ukrainian territory,” Zelensky said. — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 12, 2022 Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”: The occupiers have already felt very well what modern artillery is, and they will not have a safe rear anywhere on our land. They have felt that the operations of our reconnaissance officers to protect their homeland are much more powerful than any of their ‘special operations’. Russian soldiers, and we know this from interceptions of their conversations, are truly afraid of our armed forces. The so-called second army of the world is afraid of Ukrainians and is able to do something only on the basis of bottomless stocks of old Soviet weapons. They no longer have strategic strength, character, or understanding of what they are doing here on our land. They also don’t have even an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from Ukrainian territory. Ukraine, he said, will “be able to defend itself, rebuild itself, and realise all its foreign policy goals”: When millions of people work sincerely for this, each and every one at their own level, the result will be certain. Zelenskiy’s remarks came as fierce fighting continues for control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and Russia appears to be stepping up its attacks on civilians, with at least 45 people now known to have died in a weekend missile strike on a block of flats in Chasiv Yar. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Polish defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak meet in Kyiv Tuesday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters The president also revealed he had met Poland’s deputy prime minister and defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak in Kyiv on Tuesday, and discussed cooperation over defence. He said: “It is important not only what we talked about, but also how we talked. With absolute confidence in the Ukrainian future, in the Ukrainian-European future”. Zelenskiy added: A really difficult road is ahead. Unfortunately, it is impossible to do otherwise when you are protecting your home from a terrorist assault. But it is also clear that what lies ahead is the success of our state.
12 Jul 2022 21.25 The number of foreign ships reaching Ukraine ports on the Danube to help with grain exports has doubled to 16 within the last 24 hours, the Kyiv Independent reports, citing the country’s infrastructure ministry. The Guardian reported on Saturday that Ukraine was restoring and expanding some of its long-decommissioned river ports on the Danube to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade. The Kyiv Independent said Tuesday that 16 vessels have now entered through the Danube-Black Sea Canal to load Ukrainian grain, with the assistance of the Ukraine navy. More than 90 ships are currently waiting for their turn, the ministry said, as Ukraine expects to increase the monthly export of grain by 500,000 tons. The use of the canal opened up after Ukraine liberated Snake Island from Russian forces on 30 June.
12 Jul 2022 20.36 Chasiv Yar death toll rises to 45 The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, rose to at least 45 on Tuesday, according to the Kyiv Independent. The newspaper reported that the state emergency service said it had now pulled 45 bodies out of the rubble, including a child. Saturday’s missile attack destroyed the five-storey building and damaged several others in the Donetsk region city. Nine people have been rescued, the newspaper says, and the rescue operation is ongoing.
12 Jul 2022 19.55 US and EU send billions more in Ukraine aid The United States treasury announced on Tuesday it was sending an additional $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services”. The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers late on Monday approving €1bn (£850m), the first instalment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May. #UPDATE The United States Treasury announced Tuesday it will send an additional $1.7 billion in economic aid to Ukraine to help fund the country's recovery from Russia's invasion pic.twitter.com/JQYoaSPGMO — AFP News Agency (@AFP) July 12, 2022 Like the European money, the US payment is also part of a wider package, $7.5bn (£6.3bn) in aid signed off by Joe Biden in May, and brings to almost £2.5bn the amount approved in aid for Ukraine from both sides of the Atlantic in just the last 24 hours. In a statement, the US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said the money was intended to directly help those suffering from Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine: This latest contribution of economic assistance for Ukraine is part of President Biden’s commitment to support the government of Ukraine as it defends Ukraine’s democracy against Russia’s unprovoked and unjustifiable war. This aid will help Ukraine’s democratic government provide essential services for the people of Ukraine. The funds will go towards critical operations in Ukraine, such as paying health care worker salaries, according to the treasury statement. Yellen is currently in Tokyo, where she met Japanese finance minister Shunichi Suzuki on Tuesday to discuss strengthening economic sanctions against Russia. According to AFP, Zbynek Stanjura, finance minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the European money would be immediately beneficial, as EU member nations debate a timetable for the release of the rest of the approved package. He said: This will give Ukraine the necessary funds to cover urgent needs and ensure the operation of critical infrastructure.
Updated at 19.59 BST
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E-scooter scheme could close over ‘dubious’ Russia links
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A metro mayor has threatened to halt a popular e-scooter scheme if the Swedish company behind it does not do more to sever links with Russia.
The west of England mayor, Dan Norris, said he is deeply concerned that Stockholm-based Voi still has two major Russian shareholders who own millions of pounds of stock in the company.
Labour politician Norris met the CEO of Voi Technology, Fredrik Hjelm, in Bristol, where the scheme operates, to “grill” him about the shareholders.
He warned he would look elsewhere for e-scooter providers if he was not satisfied the company was doing everything in its power to distance itself from the investors.
Speaking after the meeting, Norris said: “The people of western England want to know that Voi is not linked with the bad things we are hearing about in Ukraine.
“Voi has got a difficult call to make. For me it’s very clear – I want the west of England to have minimum links with the Russian regime. I accept in this joined-up world it is difficult to have zero involvement with Russia but it’s my job, knowing the strength of feeling, that we minimise those dubious links wherever they are.”
Since the invasion of Ukraine, the investments in Voi of the Russian businessmen Alexander Eliseev and Ilya Yushaev have come under the spotlight.
Mayor of the west of England Dan Norris (left) and Voi Technology’s Fredrik Hjelm in Bristol on 11 April 2022. Photograph: Tess De La Mare/PA
Norris said: “I’m not happy with these people being shareholders in Voi. I’m not happy there is that connection and I want it severed.”
The men have not been placed under sanctions, but Norris said: “I believe that if you become fabulously wealthy as these people are, that is because the [Russian] state allows it and presumably Mr Putin allows it and that makes me concerned.
“I hope they sell [their shares] quickly. But they probably want to hold out for as much money as they can get. That’s how capitalism works. But my view is, the sooner they leave the better. Ultimately other e-scooters are available.”
Voi e-scooters can be found in British cities including Birmingham, Cambridge, Oxford and Liverpool, and also across Europe.
Speaking at the same press conference, Hjelm said the Bristol scheme was by far the biggest in the UK. There have already been 4m trips on the scooters and 250,000 unique users.
He said the two Russians, who together owned just under 4% of the company, had transferred their voting rights to him, adding: “We are exploring what we can do while respecting Swedish law and shareholder right. You can’t just take shares from an investor, they own the shares.”
Hjelm, who learned Russian in the Swedish armed forces and has lived and worked in Russia, characterised the regime as “Putin and his bandits” and said the day after Moscow invaded Ukraine, Voi had cut its ties and would not take any future investments from Russians. But he added: “We cannot rewrite history.”
He said he was regularly talking to the two investors and said that privately they had made their opposition to Putin and the invasion clear. Hjelm also warned Norris that he might find that other e-scooter companies had links to Russia or other regimes that the mayor might not like.
The e-scooter trial in Bristol is due to run until November at which point it is to be evaluated to see if it should continue. Norris said that if he was not satisfied with Voi’s actions he would look for other providers.
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Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 139 of the invasion
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At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson. The claims of fatalities were made by the Russian-installed administration in the town and could not be immediately verified, though footage on social media showed a large explosion lighting up the night, burning ammunition and towering smoke. Pro-Russia officials and some Ukrainian commentators were quick to suggest that the explosion was the result of a strike by Ukraine’s newly supplied US Himars missile system. A number of recent strikes on ammunition warehouses and Russian command centres have been attributed to Himars.
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{'people': ['Kherson'], 'organizations': ['US Himars'], 'locations': ['Russia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Himars']}
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Putin due in Tehran as US says Iran to supply drones to Russia
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The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is set to visit Tehran next week as the US has accused Iran of preparing to supply Russia with hundreds of weapons-capable drones for use in Ukraine.
Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told reporters the US had information indicating Tehran was “preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, on an expedited timeline”.
“Our information further indicates that Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use these UAVs, with initial training sessions slated to begin as soon as early July.”
Sullivan added that the information received by the US supported views that Russia’s heavy bombardments in Ukraine, which have led it to consolidate gains in the country’s east in recent weeks, were “coming at a cost to the sustainment of its own weapons”.
Sullivan said it was not clear whether Iran had yet delivered any of the drones to Russia. He noted that Iran’s drones had been used by the Houthi rebels in Yemen to attack Saudi Arabia.
Sullivan’s claim comes as the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Putin would travel to Iran’s capital next week to hold talks with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Erdoğan, who has positioned himself as the main mediator between the two countries at war, on Monday held calls with Putin as well as his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to discuss the situation in Ukraine and grain shipments.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian state media also reported that Putin would visit Tehran next week to discuss deepening economic ties.
Drones have played a crucial role on both sides of the war in Ukraine, for everything from firing missiles from a distance, to dropping small bombs on targets, to conducting reconnaissance for artillery forces and ground troops.
Ukraine’s forces have had particular success in using Turkish-made Bayraktar armed combat UAVs, and the US and other allies have supplied Kyiv with many types of smaller drones.
“From our perspective, we will continue to do our part to help sustain the effective defence of Ukraine and to help the Ukrainians show that the Russian effort to try to wipe Ukraine off the map cannot succeed,” Sullivan said.
The Guardian has previously reported that Russia was receiving munitions and military hardware sourced from Iraq with the help of Iranian weapons smuggling networks.
Tehran has repeatedly expressed readiness to sign long-term economic agreements with Russian businesses that have come under unprecedented western sanctions since the start of the war.
The Iran-Russia Joint Chamber of Commerce has claimed that Iran’s exports to Russia have increased since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden will travel to Israel and Saudi Arabia this week – two regional foes of Iran – where Tehran’s nuclear programme and malign activities in the region will be a key subject of discussion.
The US decision to publicly blame Iran for planning to rearm Russia also comes as both Israel and Saudi Arabia have resisted joining western efforts to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed to this report
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Russia and Ukraine
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{'people': ['Vladimir Putin', 'Jake Sullivan', 'Sullivan', 'Sullivan', 'Sullivan', 'Peskov', 'Putin', 'Erdoğan', 'Putin', 'Volodymyr Zelenskiy', 'Putin', 'Drones', 'Bayraktar', 'Kyiv', 'Sullivan', 'Joe Biden'], 'organizations': ['White House', 'Houthi', 'Kremlin', 'Recep Tayyip Erdoğan', 'Guardian', 'Agence France-Presse', 'the Associated Press'], 'locations': ['Tehran', 'US', 'Iran', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Tehran', 'Russia', 'Iran', 'US', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Iran', 'Russia', 'Iran', 'Yemen', 'Saudi Arabia', 'Iran', 'Ukraine', 'Tehran', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'US', 'Ukraine', 'Ukraine', 'Russia', 'Iraq', 'Tehran', 'Iran', 'Iran', 'Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Israel', 'Saudi Arabia', 'Iran', 'Tehran', 'US', 'Iran', 'Russia', 'Israel', 'Saudi Arabia', 'Russia', 'Ukraine']}
|
Democratic
| null | null | null | null | null | null |
The Guardian
| null | null |
Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 118 of the invasion
|
Putin fears the “spark of democracy” spreading to Russia, according to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who said the Russian president was trying to divide Europe and return to a world dominated by spheres of influence. “The Russian President must accept that there is a community of law-based democracies in his neighbourhood that is growing ever closer together. He clearly fears the spark of democracy spreading to his country,” Scholz told the Muenchner Merkur newspaper.
|
news
| null | null | null | null |
War
|
Russia and Ukraine
|
{'people': ['Putin', 'Olaf Scholz'], 'organizations': ['Scholz', 'Muenchner Merkur'], 'locations': ['Russia']}
|
Democratic
| null | null | null | null | null | null |
The Guardian
| null | null |
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