Traditional, heavy warfare has returned to Europe with Ukraine conflict

Ideas that future conflicts would be economic or fought in cyberspace have been proved wrong

It was Boris Johnson who declared, in November 2021, four months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that “the old concepts of fighting big tank battles on the European landmass … are over”. Today, dozens of destroyed Russian tanks dot Ukraine’s eastern Donbas fields near Vuhledar, smashed, rusting emblems of a traditional heavy warfare that has returned to Europe.

Events have moved fast since Russia invaded last February, but it is worth restating how far planning for conventional war had gone out of fashion before then. Although it was recognised that Russia was a threat, the dominant military thinking was that the goal of authoritarian regimes was “to win without going to war”, as then chief of general staff Sir Nick Carter said in September 2020.

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Estonia’s PM, Kaja Kallas, secures election win with pro-Ukraine stance

Her Reform party secured 31% against far-right’s 15% but Kallas must now form a coalition to govern

The Reform party of Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, secured first place in Sunday’s parliamentary election, a result that should ensure Tallinn remains one of Europe’s most staunchly pro-Ukraine governments.

Results with 98% ballots counted showed the far-right EKRE party in second place, with 16.1% versus 31.5% for Kallas’ liberal group, reflecting concerns among some voters over the rising cost of living in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Kyiv’s forces ‘repelling attacks’ as Russian troops try to surround Bakhmut

Ukrainian forces ward off numerous assaults in and around besieged eastern city, says military, while resupply routes become ‘increasingly limited’

Western states delivering fighter jets to support Ukraine defending itself against Russia is “only a question of time”, Latvia’s prime minister has said.

Speaking to German news magazine Der Spiegel, Krišjānis Kariņš said his own country would not hesitate to send jets to Kyiv “if we had any.”

Across the whole of Europe we need a lot more reservists: trained people who can be deployed at the shortest notice.”

The lethality of the standard-issue MPL-50 entrenching tool is particularly mythologised in Russia. Little changed since it was designed in 1869, its continued use as a weapon highlights the brutal and low-tech fighting which has come to characterise much of the war.

One of the reservists described being ‘neither physically nor psychologically’ prepared for the action.

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Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 375 of the invasion

Fighting in Bakhmut’s streets but Russia has not taken city, says Ukraine, as civilian casualties rise; families evacuated from Kupiansk amid shelling

The Ukraine military said Russian troops were trying but failing to surround Bakhmut. Defenders had repelled numerous attacks in and around the besieged city in eastern Ukraine, the armed forces’ general staff added in its Facebook post late on Saturday.

There is fighting in Bakhmut’s streets but Russian forces “still haven’t taken control over the city”, its deputy mayor, Oleksandr Marchenko, told BBC Radio.

A woman was killed and two men were badly wounded in Bakhmut by shelling while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of the city on Saturday, according to Ukrainian troops assisting them.

Russian artillery is reported to be pounding the last routes out of Bakhmut, aiming to block Ukrainian forces’ access in and out and complete an encirclement of the city. The UK Ministry of Defence said Ukrainian resupply routes there were becoming “increasingly limited”.

The death toll has risen to 11 from a Russian missile strike that hit a five-storey apartment block in southern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukraine’s emergency services said on Saturday.

Ukraine has ordered a mandatory evacuation of families and vulnerable residents from the frontline city of Kupiansk and adjacent north-eastern territories. The evacuation order was due to the “unstable security situation” caused by Russia’s constant shelling of the town and its surroundings, it said. Russian troops retreated from key cities in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, including Kupiansk, and Ukraine recaptured it last September.

Gen Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato’s former deputy supreme allied commander Europe, has urged speeding up the supply of equipment and support to Ukraine to give the Ukrainians “the tools they need to do the job”,

The Russian defence minister paid a rare visit to Moscow’s forces in Ukraine. In a statement on Telegram, Russia’s defence ministry said Sergei Shoigu “inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the eastern military district in the south Donetsk direction”.

The president of the European parliament, Roberta Metsola, has called for Ukraine to be allowed to begin EU membership negotiations this year, during a visit to the country on Saturday. She was “hopeful” the talks could starts this year, she said.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s description of the Russian invasion as “the war, which we are trying to stop, and which was launched against us using the Ukrainian people” was met with laughter at an event in New Delhi, India.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, an influential far-right Republican in Congress, has called for the US to stop aid to Ukraine, saying President Joe Biden was “putting the entire world at risk of world war three”.

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As it happened: street fighting in Bakhmut as battle rages for control of the city

UK intelligence says Ukraine attempting to reinforce contested city with elite units but resupply lines increasingly limited

More from BBC Radio 4’s Today.

General Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato’s former deputy supreme allied commander Europe, told the programme that some countries view the conflict in Ukraine as a “European war”.

There are many countries, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world where the battle of the narrative has not been won, and that’s something that I think the West absolutely need to focus on.

I think there needs to be a recognition that many of the impacts of the war are hitting particularly African countries and other parts of the world very hard and that support needs to be given… and avoid the perception this is very much seen as a European war.”

The Ukrainians have arguably achieved a strategic success thusfar in forcing the Russians to expend vast amounts of manpower and equipment in what is likely to be, if they take it, a Pyrrhic victory…”

What we’ve seen from the West and Nato countries is a sort of incremental supply … it’s dribbled in rather that coming in in a concentrated way. If they’d had the stuff that they need months ago, we probably wouldn’t be where we are now. So this places a real imperative on speeding up the supply, the integration, the logistics support, the training and all the other stuff that needs to be done to give the Ukrainians the tools they need to do the job.”

There is fighting in the city and there are also street fights but thanks to the Ukrainian armed forces they still haven’t taken control over the city.

Their only goal is killing people and the genocide of the Ukrainian people…the tactic that the Russians are using is the tactic of parched land.

They want to destroy Bakhmut, they want to destroy the city…and I honestly can’t understand why they’re doing this.”

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Russian minister’s claim Ukraine war ‘launched against us’ met with laughter

Sergei Lavrov says Moscow ‘trying to stop’ war in remarks at India’s Raisina Dialogue conference

Comments by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, were met with laughter at an international conference in India, when he said that the Ukraine war had been “launched against” his home country.

Speaking at the Raisina Dialogue, a politics and economics event in Delhi, Lavrov also claimed that Russia was trying to stop the war.

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Race to get last children out of Bakhmut as city becomes ‘hell on earth’

With Russian forces closing in, police try to persuade remaining citizens to get out and access routes come under fire

• Russia–Ukraine war: latest updates

War breeds euphemism and metaphor. In the battle for the Donbas city of Bakhmut, threatened with a closing encirclement by Russian forces after seven months of bitter fighting, there are “White Angels” and “Dark Angels”, the “road of life” (the Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway, which is anything but) and the “Invincibility Centre”.

The White Angels, a police evacuation group, scour the lethal districts of the shell-ruined city to evacuate children and the elderly.

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Ukrainians defending Bakhmut under severe pressure from Russian onslaught

Regular army and Wagner units advancing into northern suburbs of north-east Donetsk city, MoD reports

Ukrainian forces defending Bakhmut are facing increasingly strong pressure from Russian forces, according to British military intelligence, with intense fighting taking place in and around the eastern city.

Ukraine is reinforcing the area with elite units, while the regular Russian army and forces of the Russian private military Wagner group have made further advances into Bakhmut’s northern suburbs, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its daily intelligence bulletin on Twitter.

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Joe Biden meets Olaf Scholz in effort to keep Ukraine strategies aligned

German chancellor’s working visit to the White House focuses on continuing support for Kyiv

Joe Biden has hailed Olaf Scholz for Germany’s “critical military support” for Ukraine, acknowledging in a White House meeting that, in the face of stiff domestic political resistance, such backing had been “very difficult” for the chancellor.

The meeting of the US and German leaders on Friday comes shortly after the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and at a time when both are facing political challenges to their efforts to maintain the flow of military and economic support to Kyiv.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Biden and Scholz hold talks as Russian forces close in on Bakhmut – as it happened

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, says Russian ‘pincers are getting tighter’ around contested city

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Russia “will not let the west blow up gas pipelines again” and said that Moscow would no longer rely on the west as an energy partner.

Reuters reports Lavrov was speaking at an event in India a day after attending a meeting of G20 foreign ministers.

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Australia joins Quad countries to launch new counter-terror talks – as it happened

Australia, the US, India and Japan join to ‘counter new and emerging forms of terrorism, radicalisation to violence and violent extremism’. This blog is now closed

‘A broken promise writ large’

Opposition leader Peter Dutton was also on the Today show (which has clearly been busy this morning).

They want to tax you on the profit before you actually sell the shares, which is unbelievable. And I think it continues to go from disaster to disaster for the government.

You can’t as a prime minister look people in the eye and tell them one thing and do the complete opposite, a broken promise writ large.

It is a modest change ... It only affects people if you have $3m in your superannuation fund. That’s about 0.5% of superannuants.

We inherited a budget from Peter [Dutton] and his crew which was a trillion dollars in debt. There’s nothing to show for it. We need to be responsible. That’s what we’re trying to do.

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Russia blames ‘terrorists’ after reports of fighting near Ukraine border

Anti-Putin émigré group claims its fighters crossed into Russia after Kyiv dismisses reports as ‘false flag’ attack

The Kremlin has claimed Russia has been attacked by “terrorists” after conflicting reports of firefights emerged from the Bryansk and Kursk regions, which Russian media blamed on Ukrainian “sabotage groups” and Ukrainian sources called a “provocation”.

The reports of fighting in Russia near the Ukrainian border began on Thursday morning. The head of the Bryansk region claimed that a “sabotage group opened fire on a moving automobile. As a result, one resident was killed; a 10-year-old child was injured.”

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Blinken tells Lavrov US will support Kyiv for as long as it takes during meeting in margins of G20 summit – as it happened

US secretary of state speaks to Russian foreign minister in what is believed to be their first one-on-one conversation since invasion of Ukraine. This live blog is closed

Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, has tweeted about the overnight attack on Zaporizhzhia, writing:

Zaporizhzhia bravely resists the Russian aggressor. In retaliation, it attacks civilians. A high-rise building was deliberately hit last night. Three floors are completely destroyed. People died. We continue to search under the rubble. My condolences to the victims. We will not forgive this.

This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

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Kherson torture centres were planned by Russian state, say lawyers

Investigators say sites set up during occupation of Ukrainian city were part of ‘calculated plan to terrorise’ locals

Evidence collected from Kherson in southern Ukraine shows Russian torture centres were not “random” but instead planned and directly financed by the Russian state, according to a team of Ukrainian and international lawyers headed by a UK barrister.

The city was under Russian control for eight months, from 2 March last year until Ukrainian forces entered the city on 11 November.

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Kyiv-made: Litkovska brings chic clothes and Ukraine strength to Paris

Camel, toffee and charcoal feature in Ukrainian collection created under Russian bombs

You would never guess from the immaculate tailoring and finely turned silhouettes of the Litkovska collection shown at Paris fashion week that its production was frequently interrupted by air-raid warnings, which forced the 23-strong team of tailors and stylists to flee the design studio for a bomb shelter. It remains the only Ukrainian brand on the Paris catwalks and is still designed and produced in Kyiv by Lilia Litkovska and her team.

The bombardments are just one of the logistical challenges faced by the designer and her team in Kyiv. “There are problems every day, but we find solutions every day,” said Litkovska backstage before her show.

“We are very lucky because our studio is close to a good bomb shelter,” added Olena Iakovenko, one of four team members who travelled to France with Litkovska to stage the event.

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Russian man detained after daughter’s pro-Ukraine drawings

Alexei Moskalyov charged with ‘discrediting Russian army’, while daughter taken into care

A Russian man has been detained for making anti-war statements and his 12-year-old daughter temporarily taken into state care after the family faced pressure from authorities for drawings the girl made at school depicting Russia bombing a family in Ukraine.

Alexei Moskalyov, a single parent from the town of Yefremov, 150 miles south of Moscow, has been arrested for making anti-war statements on Odnoklassniki, a Russian social network.

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Moscow loses at least 130 tanks in Vuhledar, report says; Putin preparing to meet China’s Xi in Moscow – as it happened

Ukraine officials say ‘epic’ fight on plain near Vuhledar produced the biggest tank battle of the war. This live blog is now closed

Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv region, has posted to Telegram to say two people were injured in Chuhuiv as a result of Russian shelling. He wrote:

According to the information of the regional centre of emergency medical assistance, a 52-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy were injured as a result of the morning shelling of Chuhuiv. The man was hospitalised with shrapnel wounds. The boy has minor injuries, was treated at the scene and did not require hospitalisation.

This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

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Finland starts building fence on Russian border as MPs prepare to vote on Nato bid

Construction begins on fence along part of 1,340km boundary amid fears Moscow could weaponise mass migration against Helsinki

Finland has started construction of a fence along parts of its 1,340km (830-mile) border with Russia to boost security and tackle any attempt by Moscow to weaponise mass migration as a result of its invasion of Ukraine.

Finland announced the start of construction on Tuesday. Terrain work would begin “with forest clearance and will proceed in such a way that road construction and fence installation can be started in March”, the Finnish Border Guard said in a statement.

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China spends billions on pro-Russia disinformation, US special envoy says

Beijing propaganda includes messaging aligned with Moscow on Ukraine war, says James Rubin

The west has been slow to respond to China spending billions globally to spread poisonous disinformation, including messaging that is completely aligned with Russia on Ukraine, a US special envoy has claimed.

James Rubin, a coordinator for the Global Engagement Center, a US state department body set up to “expose and counter” foreign propaganda and disinformation, made the remarks during a European tour this week.

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