Aircraft owned, operated or chartered by anyone connected with Russia are banned from flying to and landing in UK
UK authorities have grounded another plane to investigate possible links with Russia, the transport secretary has announced.
Russian airlines and private jets are prohibited from landing in the UK and it is a criminal offence for any Russian aircraft to fly or land in the UK.
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...A report from the International Energy Agency makes clear that viable alternatives are limited
As Boris Johnson flew to the Gulf this week to ask for more oil to replace supplies from Russia, he was accused by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, of “going cap in hand from dictator to dictator”.
At the same time, a report produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA) underlined just how limited the options are for any economy seeking to replace Russian crude and other oil products.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Maria Adonyeva, who gave arts centre at least £380,000, also steps down as Tate patron
The wife of a Russian businessman who at one stage pleaded guilty to defrauding the Kazakh government out of $4m (£3m) has stepped down as a patron of the Tate and from a prestigious advisory board at Somerset House, where she was a major donor.
Maria Adonyeva, who has a London-based charitable foundation and has been pictured as recently as 2018 on her husband’s yacht with close friends, including the actor Melanie Griffith, has given at least £380,000 in the past two years to Somerset House, where she sat on the arts centre’s development advisory board.
Continue reading...While hundreds of companies have paused operations, three Koch subsidiaries are still operating in the country
Pressure is mounting on Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by the rightwing billionaire Charles Koch, to pull out of Russia after it was revealed it was continuing to do business in Russia through three wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Hundreds of companies including Coca-Cola, KPMG, McDonald’s, Netflix and Starbucks have paused operations in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. But, as news site Popular Information revealed last week, three Koch subsidiaries are still operating in the country.
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...Head of Russian space agency has made provocative comments about ending cooperation with US but missions are proceeding
The Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson, has played down hostile comments by the head of the Russian space agency, after Russia said it would stop supplying rocket engines to US companies.
“That’s just Dmitry Rogozin,” Nelson told the Associated Press. “He spouts off every now and then. But at the end of the day, he’s worked with us.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Continue reading...Trio appeared to get changed shortly before arrival at space station and one said every crew could choose their own suit
Three Russian cosmonauts have arrived at the International Space Station wearing yellow flight suits with blue accents, colours that match the Ukrainian flag.
The men were the first new arrivals on the space station since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine last month.
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.”
Continue reading...Fuel sellers in Narvik say they will not sell to crew of Ragnar, which is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky
A 223-foot (68-metre) luxury yacht owned by a former KGB agent and longtime acquaintance of Vladimir Putin is currently stranded at a Norwegian port after locals’ persistent refusal to sell it fuel.
The vessel, called Ragnar, an old norse word meaning “warrior”, is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, and its crew has been told by Norwegian fuel suppliers in the northern port of Narvik to “row home” or “raise the sails”. They say they will not refuel it because of the owner’s links to the Russian president.
Continue reading...Alexei Mordashov sold most of 34% stake in world’s biggest tourism operator to entity controlled by his wife
Germany is investigating deals under which most of the stake in Tui held by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov was transferred to an entity controlled by his wife, Marina Mordashova, Tui said on Friday.
Tui, the world’s biggest holiday company, was informed this week that Mordashova controls Ondero Ltd, which bought stakes in Mordashov’s Unifirm Ltd, Tui’s top shareholder, from two of his subsidiaries on 28 February.
Continue reading...Analysis: Safe in his palace, Syrian leader appears to have given Moscow carte blanche to airlift his army
After 11 years of war, the destruction of towns, cities and much of the Syrian military, Bashar al-Assad’s army has launched a recruitment drive. But the recruits are not fresh from bootcamps and will not fight on the home front. They are the vanguard of what could be the biggest state-backed mercenary force in the world. Within days, Syrian troops could be deployed to reinforce the stalled Russian frontlines in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin is about to extract a lethal price for Moscow’s rescue of the Syrian leader.
The first Syrian troops to join Putin’s ranks – an advance force of 150 – arrived in Russia on Thursday, European intelligence officials claim. Ukrainian military intelligence, echoing a claim by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, believes 40,000 Syrians have signed up to fight – a figure that would represent a sizeable chunk of the battle-ready capacity of the country’s entire military.
Continue reading...Food supply fears as Biden plans to warn Chinese president against providing military support for Russia
Russia’s bombardment in the east of Ukraine continued on Friday. In the streets of Mariupol, where 350,000 civilians have been stranded with little food or water, Russia’s armed forces were “tightening the noose” around the city, a spokesperson for the Russian defence ministry said. In the eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s state emergency service said a multistorey teaching building had been shelled on Friday morning, killing one person, wounding 11 and trapping one other in the rubble.
Russian missiles struck an aircraft repair plant in Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, 50 miles from the border with Poland and a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Ukrainians. Blasts were heard at about 6am on Friday, preceded by the sound of air raid sirens, and a mushroom-shaped plume of smoke could be seen rising in the sky.
Continue reading...Analysis: the world faces the possibility of a dramatic shift in the geopolitical balance of power as Beijing mulls support for Russia over the Ukraine war
Joe Biden is due to make a phone call to Xi Jinping on Friday at a potential tipping point in China’s role in the world as it decides how far to go in backing Russia’s war on Ukraine.
While China has abstained on United Nations security council resolutions on the invasion, it has sided with Moscow rhetorically, echoing Russian talking points blaming Nato, and recycling conspiracy theories, and the Biden administration believes it has already decided to bail Russia out economically.
Continue reading...Western officials say Russia is struggling to make progress around the capital and question ‘whether Moscow now intends to try to assault Kyiv’
Hungary says it expects a “bigger wave” of refugees to arrive from Ukraine next week, prime minister Viktor Orban said in a video message posted to his official Facebook page.
Visiting a border crossing point near Hungary’s border with Romania and Ukraine, Orban said more border guards would be posted there next week to handle an increased number of refugees.
Continue reading...It’s been a busy day so far, with the US political landscape dominated by foreign affairs, with focus on US-news related to Russia’s war in Ukraine. We’ll have more coming up.
Meanwhile, it if you want to follow our global, round-the-clock blog on the war in Ukraine itself, that is here.
Continue reading...Former California governor, 74, calls on Putin to stop attack on Ukraine and says ‘this is not the Russian people’s war’
Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday told the Russian people that they are being fed misinformation about their country’s assault on Ukraine and appealed to President Vladimir Putin to stop the attack.
The Hollywood star said in the nine-minute video on Twitter that the Kremlin was intentionally lying to Russians by saying the invasion was intended to “denazify” Ukraine. Russia describes its actions as a “special operation”.
Continue reading...The ESA has commissioned a study of how to get ExoMars off the ground without Roscosmos involvement
The European Space Agency has suspended its €1bn (£844m) ExoMars mission, a joint project with Russia that was due to launch a robotic rover in September. Member states of the ESA voted on Thursday to cancel the launch because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The decision was made that this launch cannot happen, given the current circumstances and especially the sanctions that are imposed by our member states,” said agency director general Josef Aschbacher. “This makes it practically impossible, but also politically impossible to have a launch of [the rover] in September.”
Continue reading...Retailer says it has stopped supplying its franchisee’s business in Russia, but the shops remain open
A Conservative MP has backed calls for dozens of Marks & Spencer stores across Russia to be shut immediately, suggesting Vladimir Putin is funnelling every rouble made in the country into the invasion of Ukraine.
Alicia Kearns, who hosted four Ukrainian parliamentarians in the House of Commons on Thursday, said any profits generated would be tainted by the killings and war crimes committed during the conflict.
Continue reading...