This live blog is now closed. For more on Putin’s re-election, you can read our latest reporting:
The EU has said the Russian election took place in a highly restricted environment “exacerbated by Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine”.
The EU said it regretted the decision of Russian authorities not to invite international observers to its elections.
Continue reading...UK, US and Germany denounce poll that was said to give president vote share of 87.28% amid crackdown on dissent
Western nations have widely condemned Russia’s presidential election, in which Vladimir Putin claimed a landslide victory that will keep him in power until at least 2030 amid a crackdown on dissent and opposition.
“These Russian elections starkly underline the depth of repression under President Putin’s regime, which seeks to silence any opposition to his illegal war,” said the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, as EU foreign ministers met to approve new sanctions against 30 individuals and organisations in response to the death of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Continue reading...No direct casualties in attack that Moscow says was a Ukrainian attempt to sabotage the Russian presidential election
Ukraine launched 35 drones at targets across Russia including in the capital region, sparking a fire at an oil refinery and disrupting electricity supplies in several border areas but causing no direct casualties, the defence ministry in Moscow has said.
As Russians cast their ballots in the final day of voting for the country’s presidential election, the ministry accused Kyiv of seeking to sabotage the vote after one of the biggest air operations on Russian territory since the invasion two years ago.
Continue reading...US says vote was ‘obviously not free, nor fair’ with exit poll suggesting 88% of Russians voted for the incumbent
Investment demand and agricultural exports are two of “several factors” which have driven an increase in Ukraine’s GDP seen during the first two months of this year.
According to Reuters, economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on Sunday that Ukraine’s GDP rose 3.6% during this period.
Continue reading...Attack in Belgorod comes day after devastating strike on Ukrainian port city and amid voting in Russia’s election
Nexta is reporting that there have been 11 attempts to set fire to polling stations in Russia, along with 19 cases of ballot boxes being spoiled with greenery and paint.
Russia is proposing eight-year prison sentences for those involved.
The death toll in the Russian attack on civilian infrastructure in Odesa has risen to 21 people after an emergency worker succumbed to injuries at a hospital. The Russian ballistic missile strike on Odesa was Moscow’s deadliest attack in weeks, wounding more than 75.
A man and a woman died in a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Belgorod oblast and three other people were wounded. The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday that Russia’s air defence systems destroyed two additional Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the Belgorod oblast in what is the latest in a series of raids reported in recent days.
Ukrainian drones struck two Rosneft oil refineries in Russia’s Samara region, leaving one facility on fire on Saturday, the region’s governor said. The Volga river region’s Syzran refinery was on fire, Dmitry Azarov said on Telegram. His comments also confirmed an attack on the Novokubyshev refinery. Workers at both plants had been evacuated and there were no casualties, Azarov claimed.
Two men were injured in a Russian unmanned aerial attack on the Kharkiv oblast, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Over the past day, about 20 settlements in the Kharkiv oblast were hit by enemy artillery and mortar attacks.
There has been a record growth in the number of Russian men ages 31 to 59 with disabilities, the UK defence ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing. “The increase in the number of men with disabilities was most likely due to the growth in military invalids,” the UK defence ministry said. “This is almost certainly the case. A significant majority of the over 355,000 casualties that the Russian armed forces have suffered as a result of the conflict in Ukraine have been wounded personnel.”
Voters in Russia headed to the polls across the country’s 11 time zones on Friday in a three-day presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s 24-year rule until at least 2030. Putin 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.
Continue reading...More than 75 injured in Black Sea city during deadliest attack on Ukrainian civilian area in weeks
A Russian ballistic missile attack has killed at least 20 people and injured more than 75 in the Black Sea city of Odesa, Ukrainian officials have said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia would receive a “fair response” from Ukrainian forces for what he said was a “vile” strike on a city that has been attacked by Russian drones or missiles almost every day this month.
Continue reading...Day of mourning declared following devastating attack on Ukrainian port city; Bridget A Brink says ‘cruel attack’ shows Russia ‘will not stop’
Sergei Naryshkin, chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, said on Friday that French president Emmanuel Macron’s remarks about the possibility of sending soldiers from Nato countries to Ukraine were “crazy and paranoid dreams”, Reuters reports
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, is reporting an explosion in Odesa. Regional governor Oleg Kiper has warned residents via Telegram to take shelter.
Continue reading...European military powers try to dampen tensions between them over Russian war and US aid for Kyiv
The three leading military powers in mainland Europe – France, Germany and Poland – are holding an emergency session in Berlin to try to dampen tensions over their different responses to the twin spectres of Russian military advances in Ukraine and US Congress’s refusal to approve substantial further military aid for Kyiv.
The clash in approach – predominantly between the newly hawkish French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the perennially cautious German chancellor, Olaf Scholz – was laid bare in a dramatic French TV interview on Thursday night in which Macron said Europe’s security, even its existence, was at risk.
Continue reading...Members of the Siberia, Freedom of Russia Legion and RDK battalions work closely with the Ukrainian army
Three pro-Ukrainian battalions made up of recruits from Russia have launched a fresh incursion into southern Russia in a cross-border raid meant to sow chaos before Vladimir Putin’s widely expected re-election this weekend.
The three armed groups of Russian exiled fighters, who operate in close coordination with Ukraine’s military, said they had crossed the border into the southern Kursk and Belgorod regions. In a statement, the Russian National Guard acknowledged the raid, saying that together with the armed forces, they were repelling the Ukrainian-backed armed groups’ attack near the village of Tyotkino in Russia’s western Kursk region.
Continue reading...Source tells Reuters incident occurred as Grant Shapps travelled back from Poland. This live blog is closed
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg will shortly be presenting the annual Nato report. You can view it at the video below.
Earlier today, Stoltenberg and Polish president Andrzej Duda met at the Nato headquarters in Brussels.
Continue reading...Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova says war could expand geographically. This live blog is closed
Leonid Volkov told Reuters hours before an assailant attacked him with a hammer and tear gas outside his home in Lithuania that he and other exiles feared for their lives.
Volkov, the top aide to Alexei Navalny, said leaders of the late Russian opposition leader’s organisation knew they were facing “high individual risks” in an interview filmed on Tuesday hours before an unidentified attacker assaulted him outside his home.
Continue reading...Apparent sacking of Adm Nikolai Yevmenov highlights fallout over Kyiv’s ability to sink Russian warships
The Kremlin has fired its top naval commander after a series of spectacular attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s Black Sea fleet, Russian media reports.
Vladimir Putin sacked Adm Nikolai Yevmenov, who has been in command of the navy since 2019, and replaced him with the commander of its northern fleet, Adm Alexander Moiseyev, reported the newspaper Izvestia, owned by one of Putin’s closest confidants.
Continue reading...Ukraine is running dangerously low on munitions as efforts to get fresh funds for weapons have stalled amid Republican opposition
The Pentagon will rush about $300m in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts, even though the military remains deeply overdrawn and needs at least $10bn to replenish all the weapons it has pulled from its stocks to help Kyiv in its desperate fight against Russia, the White House announced on Tuesday.
It’s the Pentagon’s first announced security package for Ukraine since December, when it acknowledged it was out of replenishment funds. It wasn’t until recent days that officials publicly acknowledged they weren’t just out of replenishment funds, but $10bn overdrawn.
The announcement comes as Ukraine is running dangerously low on munitions and efforts to get fresh funds for weapons have stalled in the House because of Republican opposition. US officials have insisted for months that the United States wouldn’t be able to resume weapons deliveries until Congress provided the additional replenishment funds, which are part of the stalled supplemental spending bill.
The replenishment funds have allowed the Pentagon to pull existing munitions, air defense systems and other weapons from its reserve inventories under presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, to send to Ukraine and then put contracts on order to replace those weapons, which are needed to maintain US military readiness.
Continue reading...Monument has long been a source of tension between Canada’s Ukrainian diaspora and Jewish and Polish communities
A controversial memorial to Ukrainian soldiers who served in a Nazi unit during the second world war has been removed from a Canadian cemetery following years of protests by community groups who described the shrine as “painful” and offensive.
The cenotaph, which had stood in the privately owned St Volodymyr Ukrainian cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, was removed on Saturday.
Continue reading...Schools in Kursk switch to online classes after Ukraine-based armed groups claim to have crossed Russian border
French President Emmanuel Macron’s Ukraine strategy will be put to a symbolic vote in parliament’s lower house on Tuesday as political tensions rage in the run-up to June’s European Parliament elections.
AFP reports:
Continue reading...International organisation under growing pressure as Russian group’s activities appear to defy neutrality principle
The international Red Cross movement is under pressure to take action against the Russian Red Cross (RRC) over close links between the group and the Kremlin’s war and propaganda machine.
The evidence includes the RRC president’s central role in a pro-Putin “patriotic” organisation, senior RRC staff who speak of the impossibility of peace with “Ukrainian Nazis”, and RRC participation in military training for children.
A series of documents leaked from the Russian presidential administration, the most recent of which are dated December 2023, were obtained by Estonia’s Delfi. These documents were shared for joint investigation with the Guardian as well as VSquare and Frontstory.pl (Poland), Expressen (Sweden), Meduza and iStories (independent Russian outlets), Paper Trail Media, Der Spiegel and ZDF (Germany), Der Standard (Austria), and Tamedia publications (Switzerland).
Continue reading...Jens Stoltenberg distanced himself from Macron’s suggestion that western allies should not rule out deploying troops in Ukraine
Kyiv said an Oscar awarded to 20 Days in Mariupol was an important success that showed the “truth about Russia’s crimes” to the world.
The film, directed by Ukrainian film-maker Mstyslav Chernov, won the Best Documentary Oscar at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday night.
Continue reading...Activists say public debate has been shut down by overhyped claims of imminent war since Ukraine invasion
The Swedish flag will be raised on Monday outside Nato’s HQ in Brussels. But while the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, basks in the glow of his country finally joining the western military alliance after months of delays, Sweden’s once thriving peace movement is smarting.
Once widely visible in debates and on the streets – particularly over nuclear weapons, disarmament and the Vietnam war – the movement had already been on the wane since the end of the cold war.
Continue reading...Analysis shows link between Copper Technologies and Jonatan Zimenkov, who was later hit with US sanctions over Ukraine invasion
A cryptocurrency firm transferred digital assets worth more than $4.2m to a crypto wallet belonging to a member of an alleged Russian arms-dealing network who was later hit with US sanctions, it can be revealed.
Details of the transactions involving Copper Technologies raise questions about whether UK laws governing crypto have adapted quickly enough to keep pace with a rapidly evolving sector that has come under increasing scrutiny over the level of anonymity it can provide.
Continue reading...David Cameron says placing foreign soldiers would provide targets for Russia, even if on training missions
Pope Francis has been criticised after saying Ukraine should have the courage of the “white flag” and negotiate an end to the war with Russia.
Some politicians and commentators in Europe reacted with anger after the pontiff appeared to stay silent on Russia’s crimes as aggressor in the invasion, which has killed tens of thousands, and placed the onus on Ukraine to make peace.
Continue reading...