Ukraine-Russia war - live: Moscow warns of full-scale war in Europe as Sweden finally joins Nato
A senior Russian officer has warned of a full-scale war in Europe as Sweden have finally joined Nato. Colonel-general Vladimere Zarudnitsky, head of the Russian army’s Military Academy of the General Staff, made the comments in an article for “Military Thought”, a defence ministry publication, the state RIA news agency reported on Thursday. “The possibility of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine- from the expansion of participants in ‘proxy forces’ used for military confrontation with Russia to a large-scale war in Europe - cannot be ruled out,” RIA cited him a saying. It comes as Sweden officially joins NATOas the 32nd member of the transatlantic military alliance, ending decades of post-World War II neutrality as concerns about Russian aggression in Europe have spiked following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Secretary of State Antony Blinken presided at a ceremony in which Sweden‘s “instrument of accession” to the alliance was officially deposited at the State Department. “This is a historic moment for Sweden. It’s historic for the alliance. It’s historic for the transatlantic relationship,” Blinken said. “Our NATO alliance is now stronger, larger than it’s ever been.
Turkey offers to host Russia-Ukraine peace talks as Erdogan hosts Zelenskyy
Erdogan pitches himself as go-between, Zelenskyy indicates Russia would not be invited to the first meeting.
Turkey is ready to host a summit between Ukraine and Russia to end the war, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Istanbul. Speaking after their meeting on Friday, Erdogan, who has balanced relations with Moscow and Kyiv throughout the two-year war, spoke of “opportunities that Turkey can provide with its stance”. However, the Ukrainian leader, who is on a mission to obtain more munitions and weaponry from allies to halt his foe’s advance on the eastern front, was cited by the Reuters news agency as saying that Russia would not be invited to the first meeting of the summit, due to be held in Switzerland. Zelenskyy also thanked Erdogan for his efforts in negotiating the release of Ukrainian prisoners “held in Russian prisons and camps under extremely harsh and inhumane conditions”.
Follow Britain’s lead and give more to Ukraine, Shapps says in Kyiv
Grant Shapps, the UK defence secretary, has urged Western nations to copy Britain’s example by stepping up their support for Ukraine. In a video posted on social media, Mr Shapps can be seen walking in front of a destroyed tank in Kyiv as he issues a “wake up call” to the world to ensure Vladimir Putin is defeated. “I’m in Kyiv to raise the alarm to the democratic world - we must make sure Ukraine wins this war,” said Mr Shapps. “The UK has stepped up to do more than ever, with our largest military support package to date. Every nation must now do the same and ensure freedom triumphs over tyranny.” The defence secretary encouraged Britain’s allies to reflect on their democratic values, asking: “What would it say if we allow a democratic country to be taken over by a dictator?” Mr Shapps yesterday met with President Zelensky in Kyiv, where he announced Britain’s pledge to purchase an additional 10,000 drones for Ukraine, worth £325 million.
Key moments of today
The UK and US embassies in Russia have warned that a terrorist attack could take place in Moscow within the next 24 hours.
Germany has called for end to the debate about sending European ground troops to Ukraine amid a breakdown in relations with France.
European allies have banded together to purchase 800,000 artillery shells for Ukraine amid acute shortages as the US continues to withhold aid.
India has busted a “major human trafficking network” which lured young men to Russia with the promise of jobs only to force them into military service to fight in Ukraine, its crime agency reported.
Ukraine has announced the mandatory evacuation of Kupiansk amid intensified Russian bombardment.
France is planning to have some of its arms manufacturers start producing much-needed military equipment directly on Ukrainian soil this summer, Sebastien Lecornu, the defence minister has said.
A wave of Russian missile and drone attacks in the past 24 hours have left two people dead and dozens injured.
Joe Biden, the US President, said America “will not walk away” from Ukraine in his State of the Union address.
Ukraine Map Shows Russian-Claimed Advances Near Avdiivka
Russia is continuing to push the front lines in eastern Ukraine as Moscow sustains momentum following its capture of Avdiivka last month, according to maps compiled by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank. After over four months of brutal fighting in the Donetsk region, Russia scored perhaps one of its only major battlefield wins in months, officially pushing Ukraine's troops out of the town of Avdiivka on February 17. The Kremlin has continued its drive since, and fierce battles continue in several pockets along the front lines as Ukraine looks to reorganize its troops to launch another counteroffensive later this year. According to the ISW, geolocated footage published earlier this week indicates Russia has made recent advances west of Avdiivka, including near Orlivka and Tonenke. A handful of Russian milbloggers claimed on Wednesday that Russia had seized control of most of Orlivka and a large part of Tonenke and Pervomaiske.
Biden ‘determined’ not to deploy U.S. troops to Ukraine; Chinese delegation meets in Kyiv
In his State of the Union speech, U.S. President Joe Biden vowed not to send American troops to Ukraine, saying that with U.S. military and financial support, Kyiv can defeat Moscow on its own. He once again implored members of Congress to support a new aid package for the embattled country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Turkey today for talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ukraine faced a deadly Russian attack on the southern port city of Odesa on Thursday, which killed 12 people, five of them children. The strikes took place while Zelenskyy and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were meeting there. EU leaders called the attack “vile” and “reckless.” On the same day, Sweden officially joined the NATO alliance, a triumph for the transatlantic organization in its push against Russia two years after the Nordic country first applied to join, ending its historic position of nonalignment.
Ukraine knocks out Russian refinery in major attack
Ukraine pounded targets in Russia on Tuesday with dozens of drones and rockets in an attack that inflicted serious damage on a major oil refinery and sought to pierce the land borders of the world's biggest nuclear power with armed proxies. Russia and Ukraine have both used drones to strike critical infrastructure, military installations and troop concentrations in their more than two-year war, with Kyiv hitting Russian refineries and energy facilities in recent months. Russia said Ukrainian proxies had sought to cross the Russian border in at least seven attacks that Russian forces had repelled. The Russian-speaking Ukrainian proxies said they had breached the border, a claim denied by Russia. In one of the biggest Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia to date, Moscow said it downed 25 Ukrainian drones over regions including Moscow, Leningrad, Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk, Tula and Oryol. Waves of drone attacks continued through the day, the defence ministry said.
After Ukrainian Strikes, Russia Fires Top Naval Commander
American officials estimated that Ukraine, a country without a traditional navy, has sunk 15 Russian ships in the past six months.
The Kremlin has fired its top naval commander, the biggest fallout yet from a series of devastating attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, according to a Ukrainian and a Western official. Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, the head of the Russian Navy for the past five years, was removed from command and replaced by the head of the Russia’s Northern Fleet. Russian publications, citing anonymous sources, reported on Sunday that Admiral Yevmenov had been fired. The Financial Times, citing Ukrainian officials, reported the development on Monday. The Russian government, however, has declined to confirm any of the personnel changes. U.S. officials have assessed that while Kyiv’s counteroffensive last year in eastern and southern Ukraine largely failed, its strikes on the Crimean Peninsula and attacks on the Black Sea Fleet were unexpectedly effective.
Russia-Ukraine war: at least 16 killed and 70 wounded in Odesa strike – as it happened
Day of mourning declared following devastating attack on Ukrainian port city; Bridget A Brink says ‘cruel attack’ shows Russia ‘will not stop’
It has just gone 6pm in Kyiv, and 7pm in Moscow. Here are the headlines …
A Russian ballistic missile attack hit civilian infrastructure in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa on Friday, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 70 in Moscow’s deadliest attack in weeks, Ukrainian officials said. Two Russian Iskander-M missiles fired from the Moscow-occupied peninsula of Crimea struck a residential area in Odesa, Oleh Kiper, the region’s governor said on national television. A medic and rescuer were killed by a second missile after rushing to the scene to treat people hurt in the initial strike, he added.
114 million Russians are eligible to vote in a presidential contest that began on Friday, and will end on Sunday with an almost inevitable victory for president Vladimir Putin. He is running against Communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party. Two anti-war candidates, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova were barred from running by the electoral commission.
Voting is also taking place in the four occupied regions of Ukraine which Russia claims to have annexed despite its forces only partially controlling the territory. Ukraine has said the election there is illegal. Speaking at a meeting of Russia’s security council, Putin accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the voting process and people in the border regions with “a number of criminal armed actions”. Putin said the attempts to break into Russia did not succeed. He said the acts would not go unpunished.
The election has not been without incident so far. Authorities in St Petersburg “stopped a woman from throwing a molotov cocktail at a polling station sign” and in Moscow a woman was arrested after appearing to pour ink into a ballot box.
Macron switches from dove to hawk on Russia's invasion of Ukraine What came over Emmanuel Macron to turn him from appeaser to warmonger in the matter of Russia and Ukraine?
That - crudely put - is the question being asked in chancelleries across Europe, as the French president warms to his new role as the continent's resister-in-chief to Vladimir Putin. Certain countries - the Baltics, Poland - welcome President Macron's apparent conversion to their "realistic" assessment of the Moscow threat. Others - notably Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Germany - are aghast at this new-found va-t-en-guerre (gung-ho) French spirit. All are confused and uncertain. How genuine is the new Macron line? Is his recent refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine just another of his surprises - testimony to his insatiable need to cut a diplomatic dash? And how much of his new positioning is purely politics? European elections are approaching, and the hard-right of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella looks set to trounce the Macronites. So is Emmanuel Macron using Ukraine to create a fault line between his side and the opposition, setting a contrast between his own lucid belligerence and Ms Le Pen's turbid complicity with Moscow in the past?
Russia elections - live: Thousands of protesters defy Putin as exit poll reveals predictable victory
Thousands of Russians have crowded outside polling stations on the last day of a presidential election, heeding an opposition call to protest against President Vladimir Putin in a vote that offered them no real alternatives. Exit polls published in the few minutes after voting closed in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad suggested that Putin had, unsurprisingly, emerged victorious in what is his fifth election campaign. They claimed that he was projected to win more than 87 per cent of the vote, a full 11 per cent higher than his total vote count in 2018. “The percentages drawn for Putin, of course, have not the slightest relation to reality,” said Alexei Navalny’s chief of staff, Leonid Volkov.
Russia-Ukraine war – live: West slams Putin’s sham election as he threatens Nato with ‘World War 3’
Alexei Navalny’s widow calls Putin ‘killer’ and ‘gangster’ as she joined scores of Russians in protest vote
The West has criticised Vladimere Putin’s sham elections as the Russian president sent a sinister warning to Nato. Putin warned against any move that would risk direct conflict with Russia, saying it would be “one step away from World War 3”. It is the latest example of the Russian president dangling the threat of a larger, or even nuclear, conflict in Europe as he attempts to pressure Ukraine’s Western allies against an escalation of their involvement in his war. The comments came as Putin claimed a landslide victory in Russia’s sham presidential election with 87.8 per cent of the vote. The US, Germany, the UK and other nations have said the vote was neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship.
The biggest attack happened in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar, where an oil refinery was targeted. The attacks come as Russia holds a general election in which President Vladimir Putin is guaranteed to win. In Ukraine, officials reported an overnight barrage of Russian drones and missiles on the port city of Odesa. The Ukrainian governor of the north-eastern city of Kharkiv said 15 settlements had been shelled by Russia over the past 24 hours. In Russia, authorities said 17 drones had been launched against an oil refinery and had been neutralised, but one sparked a fire as it fell.
No deaths were reported as a result of the fire, which has been extinguished. One person is thought to have died of a heart attack during the strike. It is the sixth oil refinery attacked in Russia over the past week. A source has confirmed to the BBC that Ukrainian forces targeted the Slovyansk oil refinery in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia. The security source referred to a "successful result", and a "large fire". It said again that Ukraine's aim was to undermine the Russian economy and its oil exports.
Ukraine war: Thousands of children to be evacuated from Belgorod after strikes
Around 9,000 children will be evacuated from the Russian city of Belgorod and the wider region after shelling that authorities have blamed on Ukraine.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said three people, including a child, were injured in the latest attacks, while part of the region - which borders Ukraine - was without power.
He added that a total of 16 people have been killed and 98 wounded this week. It comes days after strikes forced closures across the city. Students in Belgorod were ordered not to attend school on Monday and Tuesday. Shopping centres in Belgorod were also closed on Sunday and Monday. The new evacuation order affects several villages in the city of Belgorod and several villages in other parts of the region,
Mr Gladkov told a gathering of the Kremlin's United Russia party. The first group of 1,200 children will be evacuated on Friday. Russia's defence ministry said its forces shot down what is said were nine Ukrainian shells over Belgorod on Tuesday. The ministry later added it had destroyed two groups of Ukrainian "saboteurs" in pre-emptive strikes near the border with the Belgorod and Kursk regions
Earlier this week, authorities in the north-eastern Sumy region said that more than 150 people had been forced to flee due to intensified shelling. The mayor of Bilopil, a village in Sumy, suggested on Tuesday that the situation remained the same and highlighted two further explosions. "A critical infrastructure object has been hit," Yuriy Zarko told Ukrainian media. "The houses of local residents were also damaged."
Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow using ‘fear’ to rule occupied Ukraine, says UN human rights report – as it happened
Russia tortured and arbitrarily detained people in occupied country, creating ‘climate of fear’ and suppressing Ukrainian identity, UN report says
Here is a recap of today’s latest developments:
Russia has tortured and arbitrarily detained people in occupied Ukraine, creating a “climate of fear” and suppressing Ukrainian identity, a UN report saidon Wednesday. The report, which the UN human rights office said was based on more than 2,300 interviews, accused Moscow of “committing widespread violations” of human rights law.
The UN report also said Russia had tried to suppress Ukrainian identity among children, replacing the curriculum in schools with a Russian one which sought to “justify” Moscow’s invasion, the report added. UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk said in a release linked to the report, that “the actions of the Russian Federation” had resulted in “profound and long-lasting consequences for Ukrainian society as a whole”.
The European Commission disbursed the first €4.5bn of support under the EU’s new Ukraine Facility. In a statment publishd on Wednesday by the commission, its president Ursula von der Leyen said: “Today is a good day for Ukraine, as more EU funds are flowing to meet urgent needs.” Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal said in a social media post on X that the disbursement “strengthens our economic and financial stability”.
Two people were killed and two more were injured when Ukraine attacked Russia’s Belgorod region with multiple-launch rocket systems, its regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Wednesday. Earlier, had said one person had been killed in separate shelling of the regional capital, and two others injured.
Authorities also said on Wednesday that Belgorod would be expanding its closure of schools and colleges amid a major evacuation plan. The measures were announced a day after Gladkov unveiled plans to evacuate about 9,000 children from the region.
Putin vowed on Wednesday to provide support for Belgorod civilians who have lost their homes and businesses. “There is a lot to do and we will do everything which depends on us,” he said at a televised meeting at the Kremlin.
Russia and Ukraine each said they had repelled numerous air attacks late on Tuesday and early on Wednesday, with intensified pounding of border regions forcing evacuations of civilians on both sides. Russia’s defence ministry said it intercepted 13 Ukrainian rockets over the Belgorod region around mid-morning on Wednesday.
A Russian attack on Ukraine’s northern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday hit an eight-storey building and a factory, killing three people and injuring at least five others, the head of the investigative unit of the regional police said. The attack also sparked a fire across more than 1,000 square metres.
The European Commission has proposed transferring to Ukraine profits of €2.5-3bn a year generated by Russian central bank assets frozen in Europe. The exact amount available for Kyiv each year will depend on global interest rates as the profits are the returns on €210bn of Russian central bank assets held in various currencies in the 27-nation EU.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said he will propose the EU use 90% of revenue from Russian assets frozen in Europe to buy arms for Ukraine via the European Peace Facility fund. Russia criticised the plan on Wednesday, saying it would lead to decades of lawsuits. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Borrell’s proposals to use revenues from frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine amount to banditism and theft.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi held separate phone calls on Wednesday with Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy and discussed strengthening ties with both. The Indian government said in its own statement that Modi had reiterated India’s “consistent position in favour of dialogue and diplomacy as the way forward” in the Ukraine crisis.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba will visit India next week as Kyiv looks to build support for its peace plan, two Indian officials aware of the matter said. It would be the first visit by a top Ukrainian official since Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian drones operated by the GUR military intelligence agency attacked the Engels airbase deep inside Russian territory early on Wednesday and Kyiv was assessing the damage, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters. The governor of the Saratov region, where the base is located, said Ukrainian drones had been downed near the city of Engels but did not report any damage.
Russia’s defence ministry said that its forces had cleared the Russian border village of Kozinka in Belgorod region of Ukrainian forces, according to the state news agency RIA. Ukrainian forces have made several attacks on Kozinka and nearby frontier settlements in recent weeks.
The US Treasury said in a statement on Wednesday that it had imposed sanctions on the two people and two entities for providing services to Russia’s government in connection with a foreign malign influence campaign, including attempting to impersonate legitimate media outlets. Reuters reports that those targeted are: Moscow-based Social Design Agency, its founder Ilya Andreevich Gambashidze, Russia-based Company Group Structura LLC and its CEO and owner Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tupikin.
On Wednesday, the EU reached provisional agreement to extend Ukrainian food producers’ tariff-free access to its markets until June 2025 – albeit with new limits on grain imports. Polish protest leaders said they were not happy with the latest deal as it included the last few years as a reference for import limits. Polish police said they knew of more than 580 protests planned for Wednesday, with an estimated participation of 70,000 people.
France’s defence ministry called remarks made by the chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence service disinformation and irresponsible after he suggested Paris was preparing to send 2,000 troops to Ukraine. Sergei Naryshkin, director of Russian foreign intelligence, was quoted by the Russian state news agency Tass as saying France was preparing to send 2,000 troops to Ukraine and that French troops would be a legitimate target for Russian forces if they “ever come to the territory of the Russian world with a sword”.
The Czech Republic said it is on the verge of delivering thousands of extra artillery shells to Ukraine, just weeks after it announced an initiative to source the much-needed supplies from outside the EU. Its foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, said it had so far secured 300,000 shells and that the ammunition would provide a vital “few months’ breathing space” on the frontline.
Russia has lost 433,090 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, according to the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces. This number, reported on 20 March via the Kyiv Independent, includes 700 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day.
Ukraine could make 2m drones a year – double the existing rate of production – with extra financial support from the US, other western governments and private citizens, the country’s minister for digital transformation has claimed. Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview that Ukraine’s government was “contracting much less than our manufacturers are capable of” because it did not have enough funds on hand.
A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced a St Petersburg woman to eight days in jail for writing “no to war” on a ballot paper during the country’s presidential election in protest at Putin’s Ukraine campaign. St Petersburg’s Dzerzhinsky district court said it ordered Alexandra Chiryatyeva to be jailed for eight days and fined 40,000 rubles (€399/$433/£341). It said she was guilty of hooliganism and “discrediting the Russian armed forces”.
A man living in Russia’s far east who allegedly spied for Ukraine to help it carry out sabotage has been charged with high treason, local FSB security services said on Wednesday. The FSB did not name the suspect, but said he was a resident of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a remote Russian city in the far eastern region of Khabarovsk.
Foreign soldiers captured by Ukraine say they travelled to escape poverty from homes in Asia, the Caribbean and Africa but were tricked into fighting for Russia on the frontlines. At a recent press event organised by Ukrainian officials, organisers defined the men as “mercenaries” from the “global south” and said they were treating them the same as Russian PoWs.
The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to ban Russia’s athletes from the opening parade of the Paris Olympics in July does not paint the IOC in a good light, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. Peskov called it a violation of the athletes’ interests that ran against the entire ideology of the Olympics.
Zakharova said on Wednesday that a decision by the European Organization for Nuclear Research to cut cooperation with Russian scientists was politicised and unacceptable. The organisation, better known as Cern, said in December it would cut cooperation with Russia from November 2024.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said Ukraine will not back down in face of the Russian invasion of the country and neither will the United States. Austin today convened the 20th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, praising the "countries of conscience" that are working together to aid Ukraine in its fight. Austin and Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with representatives of more than 50 countries and organizations to channel aid, training and capabilities to Ukraine.
In remarks opening the meeting, Austin detailed the sheer loss that Russian President Vladimir Putin has caused his own country in its brutal war on Ukraine. "For more than two years, Ukraine's forces have fought Putin's aggression with defiance and skill," he said. "Russia has paid a staggering cost for Putin's imperial dreams. At least 315,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded."
Since the invasion, Russia has wasted up to $211 billion to equip, deploy, maintain and sustain its needless war on its neighbor. "Putin's war of choice will cost Russia $1.3 trillion in previously anticipated economic growth through 2026," the secretary said. "And Ukraine's defenders continue to degrade the Kremlin's capabilities."
Ukraine war updates: Moscow amassing 100,000 troops for possible summer offensive, Kyiv says; Ukraine’s energy grid hit
Washington urged Kyiv to cease drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, cautioning that the attacks risk driving up global oil prices, the FT reported Friday. Despite sanctions, Russia remains one of the world’s most important energy exporters, and the White House is concerned that such strikes could result in retaliatory attacks on Western energy infrastructure, according to sources familiar with the discussions. Ukraine’s energy grid began receiving urgent assistance from abroad Friday after a series of Russia air strikes damaged energy facilities, leaving more than 1 million people without power. The country’s occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — the largest in Europe — was on the verge of blackout after Moscow struck a nearby hydroelectric dam. Russian management said main power line was later restored. Meantime, European Union leaders on Thursday agreed in principle to use proceeds from frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine. The International Monetary Fund also approved a third review of Ukraine’s $15.6 billion loan program, allowing the embattled country to draw budget support of $880 million.
Europe gears up for a showdown with Orban over money for Ukraine
Leaders of the 27 member states of the European Union will meet in Brussels on Thursday and try to unlock 50 billion of funding for Ukraine that was blocked by Hungary in December, in a crucial summit at a pivotal moment in the war. Failure to reach an agreement would mark a major blow to Ukraine, at a time when outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian forces are struggling on the battlefield in the face of a renewed Russian assault, and military aid from the United States has dried up amid an ongoing battle in Washington over future funding for Kyiv.
Brussels sources told CNN this will most likely mean individual governments sending money directly to Ukraine, rather than through the EU. They say that this is less desirable as it will be more expensive and make it harder to coordinate how the money is spent with existing EU programs in Ukraine. There are other suggestions that the EU could generate revenue for Ukraine from frozen Russian assets within the block.
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By: CeeJay | February 4, 2022