Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of dropping bombs on Ukrainian cities despite negotiations to end the conflict between the two parties occurring at the same time. Zelenskiy also accused Russia of committing war crimes in Kharkiv and said his country had applied to join the European Union
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Discrimination and racism as people flee Ukraine shared on social media – video
A deluge of reports and footage posted on social media appears to show acts of discrimination and violence against African, Asian and Caribbean citizens while fleeing Ukrainian cities and at some of the country’s border posts. They are among hundreds of thousands of people trying to escape after Russia's invasion
Continue reading...Godfather of Vladimir Putin’s daughter among latest names on EU sanctions list
Sergei Roldugin, 71, formerly a high-profile orchestra cellist, is one of 26 new additions to 680-strong list
A Russian oligarch, who is part of a financial network known as ‘Putin’s wallet’ in Moscow, according to the EU, is one of 26 businessmen, officials and military figures who have been added to the bloc’s expanding sanctions list.
Sergei Roldugin, 71, the former principal cellist of the Kirov Opera Theatre’s orchestra in the 1980s and godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, is among those who it is claimed are threatening the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Weapons from the west vital if Ukraine is to halt Russian advance
Analysis: previously there has been a reluctance to supply arms to the under-siege state, but that appears to be changing
Since the outbreak of fighting last week and after years of reluctance, western countries have promised to send thousands of anti-tank and hundreds of anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine, but they will have to get supplies to the frontline quickly if they are to be effective.
Germany in the past few days broke with decades of anti-rearmament tradition to send 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems, while Sweden agreed to send 5,000 next generation light anti-tank weapons (NLAWs).
Continue reading...‘I left everything’: Tens of thousands of Ukrainians seek safety in neighbouring Poland
Poland is facing what could become Europe’s largest wave of refugees since the second world war
When, at the end of January, Poland’s deputy interior minister, Maciej Wąsik, said his country had “to be prepared for a wave of up to a million people” in the event of a major Russian invasion of Ukraine, many thought he was exaggerating. Just five days after the military attack ordered by Putin, over 280,000 Ukrainians have entered Poland. At this rate, Warsaw could be facing Europe’s largest wave of refugees since the second world war.
The village of Medyka in south-eastern Poland is the main border crossing with Ukraine. Thousands of refugees have crossed the border by bus, car and on foot. They are mostly women and children. After Kyiv decreed a full military mobilisation, Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are forbidden to leave the country.
Continue reading...UK politics live: Truss warns of ‘some economic hardship’ as she gives more detail of Russian sanctions
Truss says officials ‘working through the night’ to draw up sanctions against oligarchs; Kwasi Kwarteng in Commons on economic crime bill
- UK law firms aiding Russian oligarchs could face penalties, No 10 suggests
- Ukrainians denied entry to UK despite being eligible for visa
- No 10 distances itself from Truss comments on UK volunteers
- Russia-Ukraine crisis: live news
In a thread on Twitter, Rob Ford, the politics professor and co-author of Brexitland, a book explaining the attitudinal shifts (including on immigration) that led to Brexit, says that the public may be much more supportive of opening the borders to Ukrainian refugees than people (like Priti Patel?) assume. It starts here.
And here is one of Ford’s conclusions.
Continue reading...Shell to exit joint ventures with Gazprom and pull out of Nord Stream 2
Decisive move to end tie-up with Russian state gas firm follows BP pledge to sell its 20% Rosneft stake
Shell is to exit its joint ventures with Russian state energy firm Gazprom, a day after BP said it would offload its 20% stake in Kremlin-owned oil firm Rosneft, as British businesses scrambled to distance themselves from Vladimir Putin.
The oil company said it would “exit its joint ventures with Gazprom and related entities”, which are worth about $3bn.
Continue reading...Biden under pressure on Ukraine, inflation and more as State of the Union looms – live
- Tuesday night speech comes as approval rating drops to 40.4%
- President warns crisis and sanctions could drive up gas prices
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The Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, has come under fire for saying he needs the support of a far-right state senator who told a white nationalist event in Florida she fantasises about building gallows on which to hang her enemies.
State progressive groups said Ducey should “stop catering to hate”.
Continue reading...Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Turkey will limit Russian warship access to Black Sea, says Erdoğan – live
Turkish president confirms Ankara will invoke Montreux Convention on day that rocket strikes killed ‘dozens’ in Ukrainian city of Kharkiv
- Deadly Russian rocket strikes Kharkiv as Kyiv-Moscow talks begin
- Rockets kill dozens in Kharkiv as Russia ‘adapts its methods’
- Belarus may be about to send its troops into Ukraine, says US official
- Russia’s war in Ukraine: complete guide in maps, video and pictures
- Tell us: how have you been affected?
Here’s a report from the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, on how the phone has become the Ukrainian president’s most effective weapon.
In a string of phone calls from a besieged Kyiv, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has persuaded the west to agree to a set of sanctions against Russia that were inconceivable a week ago.
Continue reading...Nigeria condemns treatment of Africans trying to flee Ukraine
Government says citizens are being denied entry into Poland amid growing reports of discrimination
The Nigerian government has condemned the treatment of thousands of its students and citizens fleeing the war in Ukraine, amid growing concerns that African students are facing discrimination by security officials and being denied entry into Poland.
A deluge of reports and footage posted on social media in the past week has shown acts of discrimination and violence against African, Asian and Caribbean citizens – many of them studying in Ukraine – while fleeing Ukrainian cities and at some of the country’s border posts.
Continue reading...Germany’s ‘Putin-caressers’ start coming to terms with their naivety
Analysis: politicians who believed Putin could be ‘tamed by empathy and accommodation’ are having to hurriedly rethink their positions
Prominent figures in Germany are coming under increasing pressure to publicly distance themselves from Vladimir Putin amid accusations that they are bringing shame on the country and themselves.
The range of so-called Putin-Versteher (Putin-understanders) – those who have sought to explain or justify the Russian leader’s actions – include figures from the far-left Die Linke and the far-right AfD, as well as members of the Social Democrats and some conservatives who have tried to keep him on side in the interests of their constituents and German energy security.
Continue reading...Switzerland adopts wholesale EU sanctions against Russia
Measures do not undermine neutrality principle as Switzerland says it is acting in defence of international law
Switzerland, a bastion of neutrality through two world wars, has decided to adopt wholesale swingeing EU sanctions against the Russian central bank, freezing as much as billions of dollars in assets and massively increasing the pressure on the Russian economy.
The government also announced it had banned five oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin from entering the country. Flights from Russia are being banned, although this will not apply to flights carrying diplomats.
Continue reading...Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – stunning TV that is suddenly unmissable
Filmmaker James Jones had no idea when he started it two years ago that a terrible synchronicity would make his blistering documentary about the nuclear accident in northern Ukraine a must-watch
Had it been released at any point in the past few years, Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes would have been an important documentary; a feature-length blend of audio interviews and largely unseen archive footage that puts the 1986 disaster into horrifying new perspective. That it comes out now – just days after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including an attack on the Chernobyl site itself – makes it as unmissable as it is harrowing.
Obviously, this timeliness was never the intention. Indeed, the film-maker James Jones had a different historical event in mind when he started work on it two years ago. “I initially thought the relevance was Covid,” he says. Like Chernobyl, the early days of the pandemic were marked with mysterious illnesses that the local government attempted to keep a lid on. “I was interested in the idea that this invisible enemy was threatening us,” he says. “An authoritarian regime was lying about it, and Chinese citizens were starting to voice their disquiet publicly.”
Continue reading...A family flees Kyiv
Thousands of Ukrainians are streaming out of the capital. As the Russian attack continues, the residents who remain are taking cover and taking up arms, Emma Graham-Harrison reports
When the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, began his invasion of Ukraine he expected to quickly take control of the capital, Kyiv, and install a pro-Kremlin government. But the resistance his forces have encountered has been greater than he anticipated, Emma Graham-Harrison tells Michael Safi.
Continue reading...Russian rocket strikes kill ‘dozens’ in Kharkiv as Kyiv-Moscow talks begin
Negotiations come as western nations agree to send advanced arms to Ukraine and rouble enters free fall
Russian rocket attacks killed “dozens” of people in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv as officials from both countries met for ceasefire talks, with Moscow facing unprecedented western sanctions that it said had created “a new economic reality”.
The Élysée Palace said after a call between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin that the Russian president had said he was “willing to commit” to ending attacks on civilians and civil infrastructure while the talks were taking place.
Continue reading...Belarus may be about to send its troops into Ukraine, US official says
Move could happen this week as official says Minsk is ‘now an extension of the Kremlin’
Belarus may be preparing to send its soldiers into Ukraine in support of the Russian invasion, perhaps as soon as this week, according to a US defence official, amid mounting concern about Minsk’s military preparations.
Belarus has already been used as a staging post by Russian forces, who gathered there on the pretext of joint military exercises before last week’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now there is increasing evidence that Minsk may be moving towards becoming an explicit participant in the war.
Continue reading...Ukraine conflict leads EU to rid itself of Russian sacred cows
Analysis: Images of war, US and UK allies and Volodymyr Zelenskiy have all helped create a new political necessity
A bonfire of EU shibboleths on the economy, conflict, finance, energy supply, migration, and even the bloc’s future shape and size, has been lit by the conflict raging in Ukraine.
Battlefield images, the leadership of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has framed the war as being between European democracy and brute bullying power, and the challenge of coordinating with UK and US allies who are pushing for more while having less to lose, has created a new political necessity.
Continue reading...Ukrainians denied entry to UK despite being eligible for visa
British citizens trying to bring their families to the UK are grappling bureaucracy in Paris despite new visa rules
A Ukrainian woman and her 15-year-old diabetic daughter say they are feeling increasingly distraught after escaping the conflict in Ukraine only to be blocked from a visa the UK government announced on Sunday evening for which they are eligible.
Yakiv Voloshchuk, 60, a British citizen, rescued his wife, Oksana Voloshchuk, 41, and their daughter, Veronika, from Poland on 26 February.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson urged by Tory MPs to do more for Ukraine refugees
PM receives letter from 37 of his MPs calling on him to share responsibility with other European countries
Boris Johnson is facing demands from 37 Tory MPs that Britain must go further in welcoming Ukrainians fleeing war after a backlash against the government’s refugee policy.
The prime minister has received a letter from members of the One Nation Conservatives group led by the former Home Office minister Damian Green calling for his government to “act decisively”and “share responsibility” with other European countries.
Continue reading...Would Vladimir Putin actually use nuclear weapons?
Russian president has ordered nuclear deterrence forces on high alert. We look at what that means
Russia’s president summoned the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and military chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, to a public meeting on Sunday and ordered them to “transfer the deterrence forces” – a reference to nuclear weapons – “of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty”.
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