Ukrainian president attends Paris trade show as electronic apparition, urging tech companies to aid ‘digital revolution’ on lend-lease terms
Volodymyr Zelenskiy referenced Star Wars and the second world war as the Ukrainian president appeared as a hologram at a conference in Paris to seek aid from big tech firms.
He told a crowd of hundreds at the VivaTech trade show that he was offering technology firms a unique chance to rebuild Ukraine as a fully digital democracy.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
Children born in Ukraine’s Kherson region since 24 February will automatically receive Russian citizenship, according to a statement by an official.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-imposed military-civilian administration in the occupied Kherson region has told Russian news agency RIA Novosti:
Children born after 24 February in the Kherson region will automatically receive citizenship of the Russian Federation. Plus, orphans will also be registered as citizens of the Russian Federation.
All of the main bridges over the Siverskyy Donets River, which link the contested town of Sieverodonetsk and Ukrainian-held territory, have now highly likely been destroyed.
Ukraine has probably managed to withdraw a large proportion of its combat troops, who were originally holding the town. The situation continues to be extremely difficult for the Ukrainian forces and civilians remaining east of the river.
Continue reading...Maria Lvova-Belova accused by Ukraine of organising capture of vulnerable children in Luhansk and Donetsk
A fresh wave of sanctions against Russia has been imposed by the government, as the UK signalled its disapproval of the Russian abduction of Ukrainian children into Russia, by aiming new sanctions at people involved with the “barbaric treatment of children in Ukraine”.
Those targeted by sanctions include the Russian children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, the so-called mastermind behind the shadowy abduction programme.
Continue reading...Symbolic visit of German, French and Italian leaders comes as Russia continues attacks across country
The leaders of France, Germany and Italy have vowed to support Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union on a visit to Kyiv intended as a show of unity in the face of Russian advances and complaints from the Ukrainians about the pace of weapons supplies.
“My colleagues and I came here to Kyiv today with a clear message: ‘Ukraine belongs to the European family,’” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said at a joint press conference with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy to push leaders of Germany, France and Italy to send more weapons to help army withstand Russian invasion
The leaders of the European Union’s three biggest countries, Germany, France and Italy, are expected in Kyiv on Thursday to show their backing for Ukraine as it struggles to withstand a relentless Russian assault.
The visit by the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, the French president Emmanuel Macron and the Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has taken weeks to organise with the three men looking to overcome criticism within Ukraine over their response to the war.
Continue reading...The pair’s disappearance, the first believed to have been captured in Ukraine, would add another layer of complexity to US efforts against Russia
Two American volunteers in Ukraine have gone missing and are feared to have been taken prisoner by Russia, officials and family members said on Wednesday.
Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, are both US military veterans who had been living in Alabama and went to Ukraine to assist with war efforts. Relatives have been in contact with Senate and House offices seeking information on the men’s whereabouts.
Continue reading...Former captain of national team said he fears he could be ‘jailed or killed’ for speaking out against the conflict
Igor Denisov, the former captain of Russia’s national football team, has said he feared he could be “jailed or killed” as he spoke out to condemn his country’s war against Ukraine.
The 38-year-old has become the most senior former or current athlete who still lives in Russia to publicly condemn the conflict.
Continue reading...‘China claims to be neutral, but its behavior makes clear that it is still investing in close ties to Russia,’ state department says
Xi Jinping has assured Vladimir Putin of China’s support on Russian “sovereignty and security” prompting Washington to warn Beijing it risked ending up “on the wrong side of history”.
China has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and has been accused of providing diplomatic cover for Russia by blasting western sanctions and arms sales to Kyiv.
Continue reading...Fears grow over the hundreds of civilians believed to be sheltering in the city’s Azot chemical plant
Ukraine has ignored a Russian ultimatum to surrender the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, as fears grow over the hundreds of civilians trapped in the city’s Azot chemical factory.
Russia ordered Ukrainian forces a day earlier to stop “senseless resistance and lay down arms” from Wednesday morning, as Moscow controls 80% of Sievierodonetsk, a city that has become a focal point of Russia’s advances in the east of the country.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
Dmitry Medvedev, a long-term ally of Vladimir Putin who is currently deputy chair of the Security Council of Russia, has posted this morning to Telegram a message which gives some insight into the current state of senior level Russian thinking about the situation in Ukraine.
In the message, Medvedev questions a Ukrainian request that it receive energy imports this winter with an option to delay payment for two years. Medvedev says:
Just a question. Who said that in two years Ukraine will even exist on the world map?
There is a lot of excitement. More and more people want to obtain citizenship of the Russian Federation. Residents of the Kherson region today are en masse in queues to submit documents for obtaining Russian citizenship just because Russia can protect, Russia can feed and provide socially for a person in the country, in which a person is the highest social value of the state.
Continue reading...Joe Biden working with European governments to avert global crisis and help lower food prices
Temporary silos will be built along the Ukraine border, including in Poland, in an attempt to help export more grain from the country and avert a global food crisis, Joe Biden has announced.
The US president told a Philadelphia union convention on Tuesday that he was working with European governments on the plan “to help bring down food prices”.
Continue reading...Survey across 10 European countries and UK shows respondents favouring an end to the conflict rather than holding Russia accountable
Europe’s unity over the war in Ukraine is at risk as public attention increasingly shifts from the battlefield to cost of living concerns, polling across 10 European countries suggests, with the divide deepening between voters who want a swift end to the conflict and those who want Russia punished.
The survey in nine EU member states – Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden – plus the UK found support for Ukraine remained high, but that preoccupations have shifted to the conflict’s wider impacts.
Continue reading...Victoria and Oleksiy Manoylo, who were in Milan when Russia invaded, have poured their trauma into garden
A burnt-out cottage decorated with embroidered cloths and surrounded by swaying barley, designed by a Ukrainian couple unable to return to their war-ravaged village, is set to be one of the unexpected highlights of the RHS’s largest flower show.
Victoria and Oleksiy Manoylo, landscape designers who were at a garden festival in Milan, Italy, when Russian troops invaded their village near Bucha and destroyed their home, have poured their trauma and defiance into the garden, which will feature at the RHS Hampton Court Palace garden festival next month.
Continue reading...Military figures and MPs on list along with staff from most major British newspapers and broadcasters
Russia has banned 29 members of the British media, including five Guardian journalists, from entering the country, its foreign ministry has said.
Moscow said the sweeping action was a response to western sanctions and the “spreading of false information about Russia”, as well as “anti-Russian actions of the British government”.
Continue reading...Drastic cuts to World Food Programme assistance will leave people ‘looking death in the face’ unless global donors offer support
The World Food Programme has said it is suspending food aid to 1.7 million people in South Sudan, as the war in Ukraine sucks funding from the world’s crisis-plagued youngest country and causes the price of staples to soar.
The UN’s emergency food assistance agency said it had planned to deliver aid to more than 6 million acutely food-insecure people in South Sudan this year, as it did in 2021, albeit with smaller rations.
Continue reading...President reveals fighting in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk was particularly intense and said there was ‘no justification’ for countries to delay sending aid
The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has refused to be drawn on whether she would negotiate directly with the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic over the situation of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner. The two British men have been sentenced to death in eastern Ukraine by what Truss called a “sham trial”. She told listeners of the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme:
The two people were fighting for the Ukrainian army. They were permanently located in Ukraine and they are prisoners of war. And the case is being taken up by the Ukrainians, by the Ukrainian foreign minister.
I am doing everything I can, in the best way I can, in the way that I judge is most effective, to deliver these people’s release.
These people are prisoners of war, fighting for the Ukrainian army. And it’s important to maintain that principle. And the Russian proxies are violating the Geneva Convention. And we need to be very, very clear about that.
That’s why the best route is through the Ukrainians, and I can’t go into the details of my discussions with the Ukrainians, but I can assure you, and I can assure the families, that we’re working flat out on this.
Crews of ground attack aviation launched rocket air strikes on military facilities and equipment of units of the armed forces of Ukraine. Missile launches were carried out in pairs from low altitudes. As a result of the combat use of aviation weapons, camouflaged fortified field positions and armoured vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
An industrial zone where about 500 civilians are sheltering is under heavy artillery fire from Russian forces, Reuters reported the regional governor saying.
Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine that includes Sievierodonetsk, said on Facebook that Russian forces controlled about 70% of the city and fighting there was fierce.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy adviser says far more hardware is needed to reach ‘heavy weapons parity’ with Russia and drive out its forces
Ukraine has called on the west to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers before a key meeting on Wednesday amid concern in some quarters it is pushing its demands for Nato-standard weapons to the limit.
The maximalist request was made publicly by Mykhailo Podolyak, a key presidential adviser, on Twitter on Monday where he argued that Ukraine needed “heavy weapons parity” to defeat Russia and end the war.
Continue reading...Britain’s goods exports to EU a record £16.4bn in April despite impact of Brexit
The UK has drastically increased the volume of natural gas being pumped to the EU amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, powering a record monthly rise in goods exports to the continent despite Brexit.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show EU goods exports rose for the third consecutive month to £16.4bn in April, the highest monthly level in current prices since comparable records began in 1997.
Continue reading...Russian artillery bombarding industrial area of Sievierodonetsk; Finnish president says Russia using ‘weapons of mass destruction’
Continue reading...