UK aims sanctions at Russians accused of abducting Ukrainian children

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.

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Champions League final chaos leaves French official with ‘many regrets’

  • Michel Cadot says it was ‘an important failure that damages us’
  • He insists use of teargas ended up being only viable response

The French government official investigating the chaos at the Champions League final in Paris in which police used teargas and pepper spray against Liverpool fans admitted there were “many regrets” over what happened but said preparations had been robust.

Michel Cadot, the sports ministry’s delegate on major events, said those involved in planning for the match – including the French Football Federation and the police – had acted in a “strong and satisfactory” manner, but admitted the occasion was “an important failure that damages us”.

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British Gas owner signs deal with Norway firm for extra UK supplies

Centrica says Equinor will deliver enough gas for next three years to heat 4.5m extra homes

The British Gas owner, Centrica, has signed a major supply deal with the Norwegian state oil company, Equinor, as ministers scramble to secure domestic energy supplies.

Equinor has agreed to deliver an additional 1bn cubic metres of gas supplies to the company for each of the next three years, enough to heat an additional 4.5m UK homes.

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Scholz, Macron and Draghi vow support for Ukraine’s EU bid on Kyiv visit

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.

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European leaders expected to visit Kyiv to show support for Ukraine

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.

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UK food price rises could hit 15% over summer, report says

Ukraine war, China lockdowns and Brexit help push up inflation, with products that rely on wheat worst hit

Food price rises in the UK could hit 15% this summer – the highest level in more than 20 years – with inflation lasting into the middle of next year, according to a report.

Meat, cereals, dairy, fruit and vegetables are likely to be the worst affected as the war in Ukraine combines with production lockdowns in China and export bans on key food stuffs such as palm oil from Indonesia and wheat from India, the grocery trade body IGD warns.

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Ex-Russian football captain Igor Denisov condemns invasion of Ukraine

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.

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Why is the ECB still fiddling over a potential eurozone crisis? | Nils Pratley

Christine Lagarde is failing to heed the lesson of last decade’s crisis: act quickly and act clearly

Perhaps the European Central Bank was feeling left out as the financial world turned its attention to the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike. But emergency meetings of major central banks are supposed to produce more substance than the weak offering that emerged from Frankfurt after a morning of contemplation: a plan to accelerate work on a “new anti-fragmentation instrument”.

The fragmentation in question is the widening of bond yields between eurozone countries. In short, as interest rate rises have come into view, weaker economies are having to pay meaningfully greater rates to borrow than the likes of Germany – about 2.4 percentage points more in the case of Italy.

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Ukraine ignores Russian ultimatum to surrender Sievierodonetsk

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.

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US to provide an additional $1bn in security assistance to Ukraine for its efforts in Donbas – as it happened

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.

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US announces plan to build silos on Ukraine border to export grain

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”.

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Italian woman admits killing ‘kidnapped’ four-year-old daughter

Martina Patti claimed her child was taken by three men, before confessing a day later in Mascalucia

A woman in Sicily has been arrested after admitting killing her four-year-old daughter, having initially claimed the child was taken by hooded kidnappers for a ransom.

The body of Elena Del Pozzo was found in a field close to her home in Mascalucia, a town in the province of Catania, on Tuesday.

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Markets brace for sharpest rise in US interest rates in almost 30 years

Federal Reserve expected to increase cost of borrowing by 0.75 percentage points to curb rising inflation

The world’s financial markets are bracing themselves for the sharpest rise in US interest rates in almost 30 years, as America’s central bank takes action to halt rising inflation.

After days of frenzied investor speculation and signs of growing central bank anxiety, the Federal Reserve is expected to increase the official cost of borrowing by 0.75 percentage points for the first time since 1994.

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‘Justice’ for Ukraine overshadowed by cost of living concerns, polling shows

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.

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RHS garden with burnt-out cottage ‘shows Ukraine’s spirit cannot be erased’

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.

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Bulk of Tory MPs stand firm behind Northern Ireland protocol bill

Feared backlash fails to emerge despite leading Conservative warning of international law breach

Ministers believe they have largely muted Conservative opposition to the Northern Ireland protocol bill, even though one leading Conservative critic has said no MP should be voting for a breach of international law.

Leading opponents of Boris Johnson held off from publicly rejecting the legislation after it was published, despite the government’s fears beforehand that it would provoke a backlash.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg plan to axe EU laws sparks cabinet row

Exclusive: At least two ministers have railed against proposal while others say goal is impossible

A cabinet row has broken out over Jacob Rees-Mogg’s plans to axe all remaining EU laws in under four years, given concerns about the feasibility of combing through at least 2,000 pieces of legislation while the civil service faces severe cutbacks.

The Brexit opportunities minister is pushing for the laws carried over after Brexit to expire by a “cliff-edge” deadline of 23 June 2026, marking 10 years since the EU referendum.

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Barcelona to install sound level monitors in bid to beat noise pollution

Noise meters will be deployed to confirm ‘acoustically stressed’ areas where action will be taken

Barcelona’s streets and plazas have long been home to a raucous cacophony of restaurant patios, buskers and throngs of residents and tourists. Now the city is on a mission to find out just how noisy these spaces can get, with the installation of sound level monitors in 11 areas.

“It’s an absolute priority,” said Eloi Badia, the Barcelona city councillor for climate emergency and ecological transition. “Noise pollution – with all of its sleep disorders, pathologies and stress – is one of the most important public health issues we have in the city, second only to air pollution.”

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Russia bans 29 UK journalists, including Guardian correspondents

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”.

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Appeal trial for jailed Golden Dawn leaders to start amid anti-fascist protests

MPs from Greece’s neo-Nazi organisation return to court 18 months after original criminal convictions

The imprisoned protagonists of Greece’s once powerful neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party will seek to overturn prolonged prison terms in an appeals court trial due to open amid anti-fascist protests in Athens this week.

Eighteen months after members were convicted of operating a criminal organisation that masqueraded as a political party, appellate judges will start hearing the case afresh on Wednesday.

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