Ramzan Kadyrov promoted to lieutenant-general for his role in invasion of Ukraine
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has promoted Ramzan Kadyrov to lieutenant-general for his role in the invasion of Ukraine, which the Chechen leader is using to showcase his loyalty to Moscow and his own impunity.
This week Kadyrov claimed that a key ally linked to the 2015 murder of the Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, was injured fighting in the besieged port city of Mariupol.
Continue reading...Politicians from the warring countries descended on Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace for another round of negotiations
Sipping on a tulip-shaped glass of Turkish black tea, Roman Abramovich sat on the sunlit terrace of Istanbul’s Shangri-La hotel on Tuesday afternoon and talked intently with the Ukrainian negotiating team.
Despite the seafood and burger restaurant’s extensive menu and large fridge advertising its stock of dry-aged meat, the Russian oligarch did not appear to eat during the entire meeting. Less than 24 hours had passed since he was reported to have suffered symptoms consistent with poisoning.
Continue reading...Peace talks set to start on Tuesday, overshadowed by reports that Roman Abramovich was possibly poisoned during informal negotiations in Kyiv
Continue reading...President says he was not calling for regime change but was expressing personal ‘moral outrage’ over Russia’s invasion
Joe Biden on Monday defended the unscripted remarks he made at the end of an important speech in Poland at the weekend, in which he said that Russian president Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”, which had prompted hurried efforts by other senior figures in the administration to play down the comment in the face of international criticism.
The US president, when questioned on Sunday after attending church following his return to the White House, denied that he was seeking “regime change” as a new policy.
Continue reading...Russia and Ukraine to hold fresh talks; Ukrainian military claims Russian troops withdrawn from around Kyiv after heavy losses
The Kremlin has said peace talks between Russia and Ukraine may get under way in Turkey on Tuesday, adding that it is important the discussions are held face-to-face despite scant progress in negotiations so far.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, used a video interview with independent Russian media outlets to signal his willingness to discuss having Ukraine adopt a “neutral status”, and also make compromises about the status of the eastern Donbas region, in order to secure a peace agreement with Russia. But he said he was not willing to discuss Ukrainian demilitarisation, and that Ukrainians would need to vote in a referendum to approve their country adopting a neutral status.
Russia’s foreign affairs minister, Sergei Lavrov, appears to have ruled out any direct meetings between Vladimir Putin and Zelenskiy, saying it would be counterproductive at this point.
The southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe and must be evacuated, its mayor has warned. Vadym Boichenko said about 160,000 civilians were trapped in the city without power.
Ukraine has no plans to open humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from besieged cities on Monday because of intelligence reports warning of possible Russian “provocations” along the routes, the deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said.
The Ukrainian military claimed in its latest operational report that Russia had withdrawn troops that were surrounding Kyiv after significant losses.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence released its latest intelligence report, claiming there had been “no significant change” to Russian forces’ dispositions in Ukraine over the past 24 hours.
The US president has denied he is calling for regime change in Russia, after saying during a visit to Poland that Putin “cannot remain in power”. When asked by a reporter if he wanted to see the Russian president removed from office, Joe Biden said “no”.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Russian investigators would look into a video circulating on social media that purported to show Ukrainian forces mistreating captured Russian soldiers. He also said Biden’s comments that Putin could not remain in power were a cause for concern.
Schools in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, will reopen today via remote learning online.
The UK government’s Cabinet Office has issued a procurement policy note for public sector organisations holding contracts with Russian or Belarusian suppliers, urging them to investigate where they can cancel contracts.
The UK education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said he had no doubt that Russia had carried out war crimes in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Russian journalists deal would have to be subject to referendum; with in-person talks between negotiating teams to resume this week
Russian artists and performers must not stay silent about the war, according to one of the world’s leading ballet choreographers, Alexei Ratmansky.
The Russian-born former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, who left a new production in Moscow on news of the invasion, was responding to Mikhail Baryshnikov’s call not to punish cultural and sporting figures for failing to stand up to Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Continue reading...Ukrainian general says Moscow unable to ‘swallow’ country but faces guerrilla warfare if it tries to divide it
Vladimir Putin is seeking to split Ukraine into two, emulating the postwar division between North and South Korea, the invaded country’s military intelligence chief has said.
In comments that raise the prospect of a long and bitter frozen conflict, Gen Kyrylo Budanov, who foretold of Russia’s invasion as far back as November, warned of bloody guerrilla warfare.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for calmer language as he distanced himself from Joe Biden’s speech in Poland on Saturday in which the US president called for Putin to be removed from power.
Zelenskiy told a group of Russian journalists that Ukraine was prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status as part of a peace deal with Russia but it would have to be guaranteed by third parties and put to a referendum.
The Kremlin said it was “not up to the president of the US and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia,” as US officials sought to backtrack on Biden’s comments.
Vadym Denysenko, a Ukrainian interior ministry adviser, said Russia was trying to destroy Ukrainian fuel and food storage depots, as firefighters battled for 13 hours to put out a blaze in the western city of Lviv after multiple missile attacks on Saturday night.
Zelenskiy urged the west to hand over military hardware that was “gathering dust” in stockpiles, saying his country needed just 1% of Nato’s aircraft and 1% of its tanks. “We’ve already been waiting 31 days,” he said. “Who’s in charge of the Euro-Atlantic community? Is it really still Moscow, because of intimidation?”
Ukraine enjoyed its most significant counteroffensive success so far as it retook the city of Trostyanets, unblocking a resupply road from the besieged regional capital, Sumy, to Poltava.
The United Nations human rights office said at least 1,119 civilians had been killed and 1,790 wounded in the war, with 15 girls and 32 boys, as well as 52 children whose sex was as yet unknown, among the dead. The true figures were likely to be considerably higher, the UN said.
Continue reading...The Ukrainian president has told Europe its own security is at stake while Joe Biden has pledged ‘further defence cooperation’ with Ukraine
Russian ex-president and deputy head of the security council Dmitry Medvedev has said western sanctions against Russian businesses will not influence Moscow or prompt popular discontent.
Reuters has published a summary of his comments, which were made in an interview with Russia’s RIA news agency:
Continue reading...Ukraine strategic attacks are forcing Russian forces to defend their supply lines, says UK, amid reports Moscow has forcibly removed more than 400,000 civilians to Russia
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy voices concerns for seized humanitarian convoy and decries ‘constant bombing’ of besieged Mariupol
Continue reading...Leaders from the bloc to meet on Thursday to discuss support above the €1.2bn emergency fund already agreed
The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has said it is time for Russia to end its “absurd” and “unwinnable” war in Ukraine, as the EU prepared to set up a “trust fund” aimed at helping Kyiv repel the invasion and rebuild afterwards.
Speaking to reporters at the UN’s headquarters in New York, Guterres said the war was “going nowhere, fast”. For more than two weeks, the devastated southern city of Mariupol had been encircled by Russian forces, bombed and shelled, he said.
Continue reading...Senate minority leader dodges invitation to say such Republicans should be ejected from party or face disciplinary measures
Republicans who support Vladimir Putin over the Russian invasion of Ukraine are “lonely voices” in the party, Mitch McConnell said.
But the Senate minority leader dodged an invitation to say such Republicans should be ejected from the party or at least face disciplinary measures.
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations warned on Sunday there was little immediate hope of a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, as pressure continued to build on the US president ahead of a crucial Nato summit in Europe this week.
Biden, who faces growing dissatisfaction over his approach to the war, will travel to Brussels on Thursday and then on to Poland, it was announced on Sunday night. He will hear a proposal from Poland for Nato to send a peacekeeping force into Ukraine, something Linda Thomas-Greenfield said was unlikely.
Continue reading...Essay on US site republished in China before being censored, reflecting balancing act between Russia and west
When an essay from a prominent Shanghai scholar suggested China needed to cut ties with Vladimir Putin as soon as possible over the Ukraine war, the online reaction was swift.
Despite being published late on a Friday evening in the Carter Center’s US-China Perception Monitor, Hu Wei’s essay soon gained a million views in and outside China, and was republished into Chinese blogs, non-official media sites and social media accounts.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy says parties such as Viktor Medvedchuk’s Opposition Platform for Life are ‘aimed at division or collusion’
Eleven Ukrainian political parties have been suspended because of their links with Russia, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The country’s national security and defence council took the decision to ban the parties from any political activity. Most of the parties affected were small, but one of them, the Opposition Platform for Life, has 44 seats in the 450-seat Ukrainian parliament.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed. You can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
There are a few more updates of specific attacks and recent casualties. The Guardian has not independently verified these.
According to the Kyiv Independent, three people were killed in Rubizhne, including two chidren. The outlet cited Luhansk Oblast Governor, Serhiy Haidai, saying that in the last 24 hours 24 houses and apartment buildings were destroyed in Rubizhne and Severodonetsk over the past 24 hours.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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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