Category Archives: Europe

Biden adviser rejects Republican call to ‘close skies’ over Ukraine

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Rob Portman of Ohio urges US and Nato as US intelligence community says creating no-fly zone risks escalation of conflict

A senior Republican senator on Sunday urged the US and Nato to “close the skies” over Ukraine, hours after a logistics hub and training base for foreign fighters 11 miles from the Polish border was struck by Russian forces, killing 35.

“The message coming loud and clear is close the skies,” said Rob Portman, a senator from Ohio on a visit to Poland. “Because the skies are where the bombs are coming, whether it’s the missile attacks or the airplane attacks or with artillery.”

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Russia sends message with Yavoriv strike but attack on Poland unlikely

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Analysis: proximity to Nato border may appear unnerving but steps have been taken to reinforce air defences

Russia’s deadly multiple missile strike on Ukraine’s military base in Yavoriv, less than 15 miles from the border with Poland, was clearly designed to send a message.

Not only can Russian forces strike the western limits of Ukraine, killing at least 35 people near where western arms will be crossing into the country, but the Kremlin does not care if US or other volunteer fighters were training there.

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Tanks, bombs, shootings: Ukrainians describe Russian takeover of villages

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Witnesses describe soldiers shooting people dead in the street and confiscating phones and laptops

Russian soldiers have shot people dead in the street as they took over Ukrainian villages, according to fleeing residents.

Soldiers shot randomly at buildings, threw grenades down roads and went from house to house confiscating phones and laptops, witnesses said.

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US film-maker Brent Renaud reportedly killed by Russian forces in Ukraine

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Award-winning journalist and a colleague, who survived, were fired on near checkpoint in Irpin

Brent Renaud, an award-winning US film-maker whose work has appeared in the New York Times and other outlets, has been killed reportedly by Russian forces in the flashpoint town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. A US photographer, Juan Arredondo, was wounded.

Renaud, 51, was hit in the neck and died after coming under Russian fire while working on Sunday, according to local police officials, however, that could not be independently verified.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: UK says Russian navy has blockaded Black Sea coast; Zelenskiy urges Nato to implement no-fly zone

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Call from Ukrainian president comes after death toll from Russian rocket attack on military base at Yavoriv rises to at least 35 people

Russian forces may have also hit an airbase in Ivano-Frankivsk early on Sunday morning, according to the city’s mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv.

“According to preliminary information, this morning’s explosions were from an attack at the airport,” Martsinkiv said, urging those who live close to the airport to relocate in a Facebook post about 7.30 local time.

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Dublin welcomes dazed Ukrainian arrivals with food, buggies and toys

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An airport building is turned into one-stop shop for life essentials and legal support

“Thank you very much Ireland,” said Kate Kolva, waving a little blue and yellow flag in the arrivals hall at Dublin Airport.

As she waited to collect her best friend’s mother, Ukrainians with no family connections with the country were all too easy to identify.

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Russia missile strike on Ukraine base close to Polish border reportedly kills 20

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Bombing close to Lviv follows Kremlin warning that supply lines were ‘legitimate targets’; town of Volnovakha ‘ceases to exist’ after bombardment

Russia has escalated its war in Ukraine with a strike on a major military base in western Ukraine, reportedly killing 20 people, only hours after the Kremlin warned that western supply lines into the embattled country were “legitimate targets”.

Two large explosions were seen on Sunday at the base in Yavoriv, a garrison city 12km (7.5 miles) from the Polish border. The rocket attack took place at 5.45am.

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‘My mother says I am betraying Russia’: Putin’s invasion divides the generations

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Families torn apart as younger Russians opposing war in Ukraine fall out with older relatives reliant on diet of state propaganda

On day three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Victoria Gogh realised her mother was slipping away from her.

“I noticed on the phone that mum was starting to parrot the government’s narrative about this war – that this was all the fault of Nato, that Russia had no choice but to defend itself,” said Gogh, 28, a fashion consultant originally from a small town in Siberia who moved to Moscow.

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Charity that supported St Petersburg ballet and opera closes its doors

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Prince Charles was a patron of trust set up by friend of Putin to back the Russian Mariinsky theatre

A UK charity set up to support one of Russia’s oldest theatres has closed. The Anglo-Russian Opera and Ballet Trust, founded in 1992, raised millions for Russian arts organisations and boasted the Prince of Wales as its patron.

The charity was set up by conductor Valery Gergiev, a high-profile friend of Vladimir Putin, with the main goal of supporting St Petersburg’s Mariinsky theatre – one of the best-known cultural institutions in Russia – and promoting its work in the UK.

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Stranded and desperate, Ukrainian refugees wait for the Home Office reply. But it never comes

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Evacuees queue for hours but still can’t get past bureaucratic chaos – and flights to Britain leave with empty seats

Inside the cavernous confines of the airport in Iași, Romania, volunteers were offering food, drink and translation services to the continuous influx of Ukrainians fleeing war.

Those arriving knew that bagging a place on a flight required patience, tenacity and no little luck. Routes to Italy, Austria, Poland and Ireland were all fully booked. Yet one destination stood out.

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Boris Johnson to host Nordic and Baltic leaders for talks on Ukraine invasion

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Prime minister to host summit of Joint Expeditionary Force as he seeks to bolster European resilience

Boris Johnson is preparing to embark on a series of meetings with Nordic and Baltic leaders as he seeks to bolster European resilience after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The prime minister will host a summit of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) in London, where he will urge leaders to work together to ensure no further nations fall victim to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s aggression, No 10 said.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Russia will only take Kyiv if city is ‘razed to the ground’, Zelenskiy says, as Moscow threatens western shipments – live

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Ukraine’s president says the capital will only fall to Russian troops if it is completely destroyed, while Moscow warns western shipments of arms to Ukraine could be attacked

In an early morning update on Telegram, Ukraine’s State Emergency Services (SES) said rescuers in Kharkiv had recovered the bodies of five people including two children, who were killed when Russian bombs hit a residential building in the village of Slobozhanske, outside the city.

It also said workers had visited 40 separate addresses to dispose of unexploded ordnance.

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Why has Abramovich’s billionaire friend been left off the UK sanctions list?

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Eugene Shvidler has stepped down as a director of Ervaz, the steel company accused of possibly supplying steel for tanks

In March 2000, five of Russia’s richest oligarchs met in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel in London to discuss a multibillion-pound merger involving some of the biggest assets in the world aluminium industry.

The tycoons - one of whom arrived from a legal hearing in the House of Lords - discussed Russian politics, the aluminium wars in their country in the 1990s and the creation of the industrial giant Rusal.

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Putin did not show willingness to end Ukraine war during call, French official says

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German chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Emmanuel Macron called for an immediate ceasefire on call

Vladimir Putin did not show a willingness to end the war with Ukraine during a call on Saturday with French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz, a French presidency official said.

Scholz and Macron called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine during the 75-minute phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin, a German government spokesman added.

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How Ukraine has become the crucible of the new world order

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From Russia’s threat of nuclear weapons to the patriotic courage of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an A to Z of how the world has changed

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been described by politicians and commentators as a watershed moment in modern history, a turning point comparable in importance to the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and even the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963.

Whether this portentous view of the war turns out to be justified, only time – and future historians – will tell. But there’s no doubt that in the violent, tumultuous days after 24 February, the established international order has been shaken and, in some respects, upended in extraordinary, unexpected and often unwelcome ways.

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Putin propagandist news host has British home and citizenship

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Labour MP Stephen Kinnock calls for Sergei Brilev of state-controlled Rossiya 1 to be banned from UK and have assets frozen

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest news

One of Russia’s most popular television news presenters, who has been accused of being a propagandist for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has British citizenship and a family flat in west London.

Sergei Brilev has been reporting on the war in Ukraine on the state-controlled Rossiya 1, which tightly follows the Kremlin’s messaging. The channel describes the war as a “special military operation” launched to protect Ukrainian citizens from “abuse and genocide”.

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US and allies set to revoke normal trade relations with Russia over Ukraine war, says Biden – as it happened

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Bates only took one question before he was interrupted by the pilot asking passengers to take their seats. Shortly thereafter the feed your live-blogger was using to follow the mid-flight briefing cut out.

Asked to elaborate on what consequences Russia could face if it used chemical weapons against Ukraine, Bates deferred to the president’s remarks and said the “meaning was unmistakable”.

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Russia makes claims of US-backed biological weapon plot at UN

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Fears claims of plot to use birds to spread disease could be pretext for biological attack by Russia itself

Russia has accused Ukraine and the US at the UN security council of a plot to use migratory birds and bats to spread pathogens, raising alarm among other council members that the accusations could be intended to provide cover for future Russian use of biological weapons.

The Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, delivered a lengthy account of the alleged biological weapons plot, and said the birds, bats and insects supposedly intended to spread disease would cross Ukraine’s western border.

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EU leaders announce intention to collectively rearm in face of Putin threat

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Versailles declaration says Russia’s war in Ukraine has heralded ‘tectonic shift in European history’

EU leaders have announced their intention to collectively rearm and become autonomous in food, energy and military hardware in a Versailles declaration that described Russia’s war as “a tectonic shift in European history”.

At a summit in the former royal palace, the 27 heads of state and government said on Friday that the invasion of Ukraine had shown the urgent need for the EU to take responsibility for its own security and to rid itself of dependencies on others.

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