Category Archives: Ukraine

‘We have to come to protect you,’ Russian soldiers told Ukrainian man they’d shot

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Hostomel resident Eduard Lysovysk spent week in agony in crowded bomb shelter after sniper shot his leg during evacuation

Two sleepless days after Eduard Lysovysk was carried into a basement bomb shelter, his thigh bone shattered by a Russian sniper’s bullet, soldiers from the army who had shot him came to visit.

Heavy shelling outside had pinned him and dozens of neighbours into the cramped dugout, where he would spend a week in agony, waiting for a chance to flee the neighbourhood he once called home.

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UK grounds plane ahead of inquiry into possible Russian links

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Aircraft owned, operated or chartered by anyone connected with Russia are banned from flying to and landing in UK

UK authorities have grounded another plane to investigate possible links with Russia, the transport secretary has announced.

Russian airlines and private jets are prohibited from landing in the UK and it is a criminal offence for any Russian aircraft to fly or land in the UK.

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Fury greets Johnson’s claim Ukraine fight is like Brexit

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Prime minister says vote is ‘famous recent example’ of ‘instinct of the people … to choose freedom’

Boris Johnson has caused fury among political leaders across Europe – and outrage among opponents of Brexit at home – after he compared the resistance of the Ukrainian people to Russia’s invasion to the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

In a clear attempt to rally the Tory faithful behind a Brexit theme, the prime minister said in a speech to the Conservative spring conference in Blackpool that the world faced a moment of choice “between freedom and oppression”.

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American killed in Ukraine refused to postpone trip to help sick partner

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Jimmy Hill, 68, was killed in a Russian attack on Chernihiv as his partner, Irina Teslenko, received treatment

Jimmy Hill, the American who was killed in Ukraine this week, refused to postpone a trip to the country to bring medical treatment to his longtime partner, Irina Teslenko, who has progressive multiple sclerosis, his family said on Saturday.

Hill, 68, was killed in a Russian attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, as Teslenko received treatment. Hill’s family say Teslenko and her mother are trying to leave the city but would need an ambulance and it is unclear if that can happen.

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Dragons’ Den investor signs up to Homes for Ukraine refugee scheme

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Steven Bartlett says he would donate monthly payment from scheme to Disasters Emergency Committee

An entrepreneur and investor on BBC programme Dragons’ Den has announced he has signed up to offer his home to a Ukrainian family fleeing the war as part of the UK government’s sponsorship scheme.

Steven Bartlett, the 29-year-old author and podcaster, said he had applied to the initiative and hoped to house refugees in the spare room of his home in London.

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Stranded Nigerians accuse UK of ignoring pleas of black refugees fleeing Ukraine

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Critics say race is an issue in treatment of African students fleeing war in Ukraine

Two weeks ago, Alani Iyanuoluwa fled Kyiv as the Russian invasion intensified. Making her way across Europe, the 24-year-old hoped to be reunited with family in London. Yet for 10 days she has been stranded in a French port – because she is Nigerian.

Iyanuoluwa is among a growing number of refugees who claim the British government is ignoring black people who fled Ukraine.

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190,000 civilians have been evacuated since invasion of Ukraine began – as it happened

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Mariupol council says civilians being sent to camps where their phones and documents are checked; Ukraine says 190,000 civilians have been evacuated from the frontline since the invasion began

I’m now handing over to my colleague in London, Clea Skopeliti.

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Gordon Brown and John Major back Nuremberg-style tribunal for Putin

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Former PMs join campaign calling for trial of Russian president and those around him over invasion of Ukraine

The former UK prime ministers Gordon Brown and Sir John Major are among those calling for the creation of a new international tribunal to investigate Vladimir Putin and those who helped plan his invasion of Ukraine.

They have joined a campaign – along with leading names from the worlds of law, academia and politics – aiming to put the Russian president and others on trial.

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Pressure mounts on Koch Industries to halt business in Russia

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While hundreds of companies have paused operations, three Koch subsidiaries are still operating in the country

Pressure is mounting on Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by the rightwing billionaire Charles Koch, to pull out of Russia after it was revealed it was continuing to do business in Russia through three wholly-owned subsidiaries.

Hundreds of companies including Coca-Cola, KPMG, McDonald’s, Netflix and Starbucks have paused operations in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. But, as news site Popular Information revealed last week, three Koch subsidiaries are still operating in the country.

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Don’t mention the Partygate: Boris Johnson is buoyant on the world stage

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The PM seems in his element in the role of ‘war leader’, but have voters forgotten their anger?

Since his premiership nearly sank a few weeks ago, Boris Johnson has done more foreign travel and frantic diplomacy than in all his previous years as prime minister combined.

He has made phone calls almost daily to Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the war with Russia rages, and won praise from the Ukrainian president during his emotive video address to the House of Commons.

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Ukraine’s Zelenskiy calls for urgent peace talks and warns of catastrophe in Mariupol

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Russia has a chance to limit the damage by engaging in ‘meaningful’ talks, says Volodymyr Zelenskiy, amid fierce shelling in the south

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called urgently for “meaningful and fair” peace talks over Russia’s invasion amid further attacks, including a claim by Moscow that it had used a hypersonic missile for the first time, hitting a depot in the west of the country.

In a video address early on Saturday, Zelenskiy said: “It’s time to meet. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise Russia’s losses will be so huge that several generations will not be enough to rebound.”

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Russian cosmonauts board ISS wearing colours of Ukraine flag

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Trio appeared to get changed shortly before arrival at space station and one said every crew could choose their own suit

Three Russian cosmonauts have arrived at the International Space Station wearing yellow flight suits with blue accents, colours that match the Ukrainian flag.

The men were the first new arrivals on the space station since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine last month.

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Ukrainian refugees with UK relatives frustrated by Home Office visa delays

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People who have applied to join relatives in the UK face long waits for visa approvals

Ukrainian refugees waiting to travel to join relatives in Britain have voiced frustration at the length of time the Home Office is taking to process UK visas, despite government promises to streamline the system.

As the Homes for Ukraine scheme launched on Friday, allowing UK residents to sponsor visas for non-family members, Ukrainians who had already applied to join relatives in Britain under an earlier scheme expressed dismay at the long waits for visa approvals.

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Fighting reaches central Mariupol as shelling hinders rescue attempts

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Russia claims to be ‘tightening noose’ around south-eastern port city as thousands still stranded

Fighting has reached the centre of the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, as attempts to rescue people trapped under the rubble of a bombed-out theatre were again hampered by Russian shelling.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces were “tightening the noose” around the city, and that “fighting against nationalists” was taking place in the city centre. Mariupol’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, appeared to confirm the claims, telling the BBC that fighting was “really active”. “Tanks and machine-gun battles continue,” he said. “Everybody is hiding in bunkers.”

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Gay rights activist among latest known victims of Ukraine war

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Details emerge of deaths of a Kharkiv Pride volunteer, an actor, and an American visiting his partner

A gay rights activist from Kharkiv, Shchemur was killed during the Russian bombardment of the city centre, her colleagues at Kharkiv Pride said on Thursday. She was killed at the local territorial defence office where she volunteered, they said.

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Russian oligarch’s yacht stuck in Norway as suppliers refuse to refuel

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Fuel sellers in Narvik say they will not sell to crew of Ragnar, which is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky

A 223-foot (68-metre) luxury yacht owned by a former KGB agent and longtime acquaintance of Vladimir Putin is currently stranded at a Norwegian port after locals’ persistent refusal to sell it fuel.

The vessel, called Ragnar, an old norse word meaning “warrior”, is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, and its crew has been told by Norwegian fuel suppliers in the northern port of Narvik to “row home” or “raise the sails”. They say they will not refuel it because of the owner’s links to the Russian president.

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Syrians join Russian ranks in Ukraine as Putin calls in Assad’s debt

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Analysis: Safe in his palace, Syrian leader appears to have given Moscow carte blanche to airlift his army

After 11 years of war, the destruction of towns, cities and much of the Syrian military, Bashar al-Assad’s army has launched a recruitment drive. But the recruits are not fresh from bootcamps and will not fight on the home front. They are the vanguard of what could be the biggest state-backed mercenary force in the world. Within days, Syrian troops could be deployed to reinforce the stalled Russian frontlines in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin is about to extract a lethal price for Moscow’s rescue of the Syrian leader.

The first Syrian troops to join Putin’s ranks – an advance force of 150 – arrived in Russia on Thursday, European intelligence officials claim. Ukrainian military intelligence, echoing a claim by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, believes 40,000 Syrians have signed up to fight – a figure that would represent a sizeable chunk of the battle-ready capacity of the country’s entire military.

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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 23 of the invasion

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Food supply fears as Biden plans to warn Chinese president against providing military support for Russia

Russia’s bombardment in the east of Ukraine continued on Friday. In the streets of Mariupol, where 350,000 civilians have been stranded with little food or water, Russia’s armed forces were “tightening the noose” around the city, a spokesperson for the Russian defence ministry said. In the eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s state emergency service said a multistorey teaching building had been shelled on Friday morning, killing one person, wounding 11 and trapping one other in the rubble.

Russian missiles struck an aircraft repair plant in Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, 50 miles from the border with Poland and a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Ukrainians. Blasts were heard at about 6am on Friday, preceded by the sound of air raid sirens, and a mushroom-shaped plume of smoke could be seen rising in the sky.

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China’s decisive turning point: will it side with Russia and divide the world?

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Analysis: the world faces the possibility of a dramatic shift in the geopolitical balance of power as Beijing mulls support for Russia over the Ukraine war

Joe Biden is due to make a phone call to Xi Jinping on Friday at a potential tipping point in China’s role in the world as it decides how far to go in backing Russia’s war on Ukraine.

While China has abstained on United Nations security council resolutions on the invasion, it has sided with Moscow rhetorically, echoing Russian talking points blaming Nato, and recycling conspiracy theories, and the Biden administration believes it has already decided to bail Russia out economically.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: Russian casualties estimated at 7,000; western officials say Kyiv assault now in doubt – live

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Western officials say Russia is struggling to make progress around the capital and question ‘whether Moscow now intends to try to assault Kyiv’

Hungary says it expects a “bigger wave” of refugees to arrive from Ukraine next week, prime minister Viktor Orban said in a video message posted to his official Facebook page.

Visiting a border crossing point near Hungary’s border with Romania and Ukraine, Orban said more border guards would be posted there next week to handle an increased number of refugees.

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