Volodymyr Zelenskiy stands defiant in face of Russian attack

Analysis: Ukraine’s president has won over critics with his courage and resilience as his country fights for survival

He looked gaunt and unshaven after another sleepless night under Russian attack and bombardment. But Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, struck a defiant tone in a video address on Saturday morning. “I’m here,” he said simply. And he was – in the centre of Kyiv, three days on from Vladimir Putin’s invasion, unbowed and going nowhere.

“Good morning everybody! Ukrainians: there’s a lot of fake information online that I call on our army to lay down arms, and that there’s an evacuation,” he said. “I’m here. We won’t lay down our arms. We will defend our state, our territory, our Ukraine, our children. That’s all I have to say. Glory to Ukraine!”

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Tucker Carlson condemned for Ketanji Brown Jackson ‘Rwanda’ comments

Fox News anchor accused of presenting ‘perfect distillation of white supremacy’ in rant against Biden supreme court nominee

The nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson is an attempt to “defile” the supreme court and “humiliate and degrade” the US, the Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson claimed on Friday night.

If confirmed, Jackson, whose nomination was announced by Joe Biden earlier on Friday, will be the first Black woman on the court.

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Russian strikes pound Kyiv as Zelenskiy refuses US offer to evacuate

‘We are successfully holding back the enemy,’ says Ukraine’s leader amid fierce fighting around the city

Russian troops continued to press their offensive against Kyiv as well as other cities across Ukraine on Saturday, as residents sought shelter in the capital’s metro system and in basements during a third day of fierce bombardment.

As Russian strikes continued to pound Kyiv, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, refused a US offer to evacuate, insisting he would stay. “The fight is here,” he said as street fighting continued, largely around the edges of the city.

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Zelenskiy calls on ‘all friends of Ukraine’ to help fight Russian invasion – video

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has invited Ukraine's 'friends' to join the fight against Russia's assault, adding that weapons would be provided for them. Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian president clarified that Ukraine was not surrendering. 'I’m here. We won’t lay down our arms. We will defend our state,' he said in a video posted on social media.

Fierce fighting broke out in Kyiv as Russian forces failed to push their way towards the city centre from multiple directions in the early hours of Saturday

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The Chagos Islanders taking back their birthplace from the British: ‘They uprooted us’ – video

More than 50 years after they were forcibly removed from their homes, former residents of Britain’s last colony in Africa are challenging the UK’s claim to the archipelago. After a five-day journey across the ocean, from which they returned this week, a small delegation of Chagos Islanders made an emotional return to their homeland. They were there to symbolically lay claim to the islands for Mauritius, in the hope of eventually resettling there. Olivier Bancoult was four years old when his family was deported to Mauritius from the Chagos Islands. We follow his journey 

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Kyiv apartment building hit as Ukrainians fight off Russian attacks – video report

Fierce fighting broke out in Kyiv as Russian forces failed to push their way towards the city centre from multiple directions in the early hours of Saturday. An airstrike hit a residential building in Lobanovsky Avenue 6, in the centre of Kyiv. Video shared by the Ukrainian president's press service showed the missile exploding in a private flat

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Russian forces advance inside Ukraine: what we know so far

Russian forces have pressed towards the capital, Kyiv, as the death toll in the conflict rose to at least 198

Russian troops pressed towards Ukraine’s capital on Saturday after a night of explosions and street fighting that sent Kyiv residents seeking shelter underground.

The death toll so far in the Russian invasion of Ukraine is at least 198, according to the Ukrainian health ministry. Three children are among those dead. The ministry’s head was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying 1,115 people had been injured, including 33 children.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said at press briefing that his country would triumph over Russian forces. He said Ukrainian forces controlled Kyiv and key areas, adding: “We are defending our land and the future of our children.”

More European countries are in favour of cutting Russia out of the Swift global payments system, Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, have said. France supported the move, said Kuleba, while the Cypriot finance minister said his country was not opposed. In Italy, the leader of PD, a main coalition party, said Rome would support a block.

Germany is in talks over approving the delivery of 400 RPGs to Ukraine by a third country but a decision has not been taken yet.

Russia now has at least 50% of its invasion force inside Ukraine but is making slow progress due to unexpectedly stiff resistance, a senior US defence official has said. The official said that the Russian military had still not taken control of any Ukraine city, nor has it gained air superiority over the country, and the US had “indications that the Russians are increasingly frustrated by their lack of momentum over the last 24 hours.”

Russia’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev, said Russia could cut diplomatic ties with the west. The Russian RIA news agency reported that the senior lawmaker Andrei Klimov said Russia would decide in which areas it would work with the west and where it no longer made sense to cooperate.

A Russian shell has hit a residential building in the centre of Kyiv, Ukraine says. Video shared by Zelenskiy’s press service shows the missile exploding in a private flat, sending smoke and debris into the living room.

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African countries spending billions to cope with climate crisis

Report says average 4% of GDP will be spent on adapting to climate breakdown, risking deeper poverty

African countries are being forced to spend billions of dollars a year coping with the effects of the climate crisis, which is diverting potential investment from schools and hospitals and threatens to drive countries into ever deeper poverty.

Dealing with extreme weather is costing close to 6% of GDP in Ethiopia alone, equating to a spend of more than $1 repairing climate damage for every $20 of national income, according to research by the thinktank Power Shift Africa.

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Video of Ukrainian ‘tank man’ trying to block Russian military convoy goes viral

Thirty-second clip shared by Ukrainian news outlet HB shows a man standing in front of what appears to be military vehicles

A video which apparently shows a Ukrainian man attempting to block a Russian military convoy has gone viral online, with comparisons being drawn to the “tank man” of Tiananmen Square.

The 30-second clip, shared by Ukrainian news outlet HB, shows a man standing in front of what appear to be military vehicles. As the vehicles try to swerve around him, the man jockeys to the side, seemingly in an attempt to block their progress.

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Russian forces tighten hold on Kyiv in attempt to topple government

Bombing intensifies as Volodymyr Zelenskiy warns ‘This night will be the hardest’

Russian forces have tightened their stranglehold on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and carried out amphibious assaults on the country’s Sea of Azov coast in an attempt to topple the government.

Almost exactly 30 years after the devastating siege of Sarajevo, another major European capital came under heavy bombardment with shells hitting apartment blocks, driving up the civilian death toll. The onslaught of bombing intensified on Friday night, accompanied by artillery rounds and heavy gunfire on the city’s streets.

Ukrainians prepared a last-ditch defence of their capital, with barricades, and called for civilians to arm themselves with molotov cocktails.

According to US estimates, Russia has fired 200 ballistic and cruise missiles at Ukraine, mostly hitting military targets but some landing in residential areas.

As human rights groups accused Russia of war crimes, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court issued a reminder he has jurisdiction to investigate atrocities committed inside Ukraine.

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Argentina scientists unearth dinosaur with ‘puny arms’ and hard head

Dinosaur probably belongs to carnivorous group called abelisaurs and may have used its head to ram its prey

Scientists in Argentina have unearthed the remains of a previously unknown species of meat-eating dinosaur that lived about 70m years ago that had puny arms and may have used its powerful head to ram its prey.

The fossil skull of the Cretaceous period dinosaur, named Guemesia ochoai, was discovered in Argentina’s north-western Salta province. The researchers said it likely belongs to a carnivorous group of dinosaurs called abelisaurs, which walked on two legs and possessed only stub-like arms, even shorter than those of North America’s Tyrannosaurus rex.

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‘We just keep going’: the Tongan resort destroyed by nature’s fury – for the third time

Despite a narrow escape from last month’s tsunami and the arrival of Covid in Tonga, Ha’atafu owner Moana Paea is determined to rebuild her resort once again

When the Ha’atafu beach resort was levelled by the tsunami that hit Tonga last month, it was the third time that the family-run business had been completely destroyed by a natural disaster.

In 1982, the resort was wiped out by Cyclone Isaac and a year later by Cyclone Kina.

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Fears mount for safety of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors amid Russian invasion

Core meltdowns due to operational challenges cause concern even as direct strikes to facilities remain remote possibility

Concerns are mounting about the safety of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors and the possibility of an ecological disaster in the midst of the Russian invasion.

Experts said that those reactors, at four power plants around the country, had layers of safeguards to prevent a catastrophic meltdown of their cores, but in a full scale war of the kind Vladimir Putin has unleashed, there was a heightened risk of those safety layers all failing at once.

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Putin references neo-Nazis and drug addicts in bizarre speech to Russian security council – video

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Friday briefed his country’s security council on the invasion of Ukraine. He claimed that most Ukrainian military units have been reluctant to engage with Russian forces and said the units offering resistance are mostly volunteer battalions made up of rightwing Ukrainian nationalists. He offered no evidence for his claims, which could not be independently verified

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Zelenskiy tells Ukrainians he will remain in Kyiv – video

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Friday said he is remaining in Kyiv, even as Russian forces pounded the capital and other cities with airstrikes for a second day. Russian troops bore down on Ukraine’s capital, with gunfire and explosions resonating ever closer to the government quarter, in an invasion of a democratic country that has fuelled fears of wider war in Europe and triggered worldwide efforts to make Russia stop

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Ukrainian man survives after military vehicle swerves and drives over his car – video

An armoured vehicle has been filmed crashing into and then crushing a civilian car in a Kyiv suburb. Before the incident, recorded from multiple angles, the vehicle was being driven down a main road leading through a residential area. Separate footage showed that the driver survived after local residents helped free him from the wreckage. It is not yet clear whether Russian or Ukrainian forces were driving the vehicle.

Russian forces are approaching Kyiv from the north and north-east, Ukraine's army said, with many fearing that the capital could fall on the second day of Moscow's offensive

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‘It’s not rational’: Putin’s bizarre speech wrecks his once pragmatic image

Analysis: President makes appeal to Ukraine’s military to abandon its ‘drug-addicted, neo-Nazi’ leaders

• Russia-Ukraine crisis: live news

Looking dead-eyed into the camera on Friday, Vladimir Putin gave one of the most bizarre speeches of his 22 years as Russia’s leader, a directive that managed to sound alarming even in a week when he has ordered tanks into Ukraine and missile strikes on Kyiv.

“Once again I speak to the Ukrainian soldiers,” he said, addressing his enemy. “Do not allow neo-Nazis and Banderites to use your children, your wives and the elderly as a human shield. Take power into your own hands. It seems that it will be easier for us to come to an agreement than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.”

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Nato to deploy extra troops to alliance nations in eastern Europe

Forces not being sent to Ukraine itself to avoid ‘existential’ war with Russia, say UK ministers

Nato will deploy significant extra troops to countries in eastern Europe which are part of the alliance, but UK ministers warned there would be no forces going to Ukraine itself to avoid an “existential” war between Russia and the west.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, chaired a virtual summit of 30 leaders on Friday, where the agreement was made to amass forces in eastern Europe.

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Newborn babies moved to bomb shelter from hospital in eastern Ukraine – video

Footage shows newborn babies after they were moved to a makeshift bomb shelter from a neonatal intensive care unit at a children's hospital in Dnipro, eastern Ukraine, the New York Times reported. Dr Denis Surkov, chief of the neonatal unit at Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Children's Clinic hospital, said in a statement: 'This is our reality' 

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‘So many rabbit holes’: Even in trusting New Zealand, protests show fringe beliefs can flourish

Researchers say country’s successful Covid pandemic response and high-trust society is no inoculation against misinformation

New Zealand’s anti-vaccine convoy is hoping to be there for the long haul. Once a ragtag collective of tents, it has become a fully fledged encampment: it has free clothing tents, admin checkpoints, yellow-vested security guards, portable toilets, tents for charging phones, and a “blues lounge” where the band plays a light, jazzy reimagining of Pink Floyd’s Brick in the Wall. “We don’t need no vaccination, we don’t need no thought control,” a woman croons, tapping the bongos.

On the surface, the occupation of parliamentary grounds evokes a poorly planned but amiable music festival, but an undercurrent of violence – or its threat – throbs below. As well as chalked messages of peace and love, some protesters came bearing nooses, promises of a “war crimes trial” for politicians, journalists, and scientists, or outright demands to “hang them high”.

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