Chinese president is one of Putin’s closest allies and so ‘participation will be very important’, says adviser Igor Zhovkva
Here are some of the latest images coming out of Ukraine:
UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, will visit Ukraine, including its capital and the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), the week after next, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday.
Continue reading...Alexander Stubb says Ukraine invasion spurred his candidacy, as far-right opponent gains ground before Sunday’s vote
Finland’s leading presidential candidate has said foreign policy and security are “existential” issues for the Nordic country, as it prepares to head to the polls for the first time since joining Nato.
Speaking on Friday at a breakfast event in Helsinki two days before Finland’s presidential election at a cafe named after him, Alexander Stubb, who was prime minister from 2014 to 2015, said he had thought he was finished with national politics. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had changed his mind.
Continue reading...Utah senator accuses ex-president of exploiting issue for political gain by directing Republicans to block deal
Donald Trump’s directive to congressional Republicans to not agree to a deal with Democrats on immigration and border control is “appalling”, Mitt Romney said.
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” Romney, the Republican senator from Utah, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
Continue reading...Outlook had appeared grim following reports McConnell was walking away, but now lawmakers say text could be released in coming days
Congressional negotiators said a border deal was within reach on Thursday, despite efforts by Donald Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill to derail the talks.
With the fate of US aid for Ukraine hanging in the balance, the outlook for border compromise had appeared grim following reports on Wednesday night that the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was walking away from a compromise that he suggested could “undermine” Trump’s chances in a November general election against Joe Biden. But by Thursday afternoon, senators involved in the discussions were insisting that the opposite was true: an agreement was in sight and legislative text could be released in the coming days.
Continue reading...Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson says two other Russian military transport planes were simultaneously in airspace
Ukraine’s largest oil and gas company, Naftogaz, has reported that it is suffering “a large-scale cyber-attack” on one of its datacentres. It reports via its Telegram channel that “the website and call centre are currently down”.
Reuters is also carrying some quotes about the apparent attack on the oil refinery in Tuapse. A source told the news agency that Kyiv would continue attacking facilities providing fuel for the Russian military.
Continue reading...Igor Girkin has been critical of war effort; Darya Trepova delivered bomb that killed pro-war blogger
Russian courts have jailed a prominent ultra-nationalist critic of Vladimir Putin and, separately, a woman convicted over a blast that killed a pro-war blogger.
In Moscow, a court sentenced Igor Girkin, a former battlefield commander of Russian proxy forces in east Ukraine who was convicted by a Dutch court over the shooting down of flight MH17, to four years in jail on extremism charges prompted by his criticism of the Russian war effort in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Ministry of Defence clarifies it has no plans for conscription after Gen Sir Patrick Sanders says UK should take steps to place society on war footing
Downing Street has dismissed a warning from the head of the British army that the UK public must be prepared to take up arms in a war against Vladimir Putin’s Russia because today’s professional military is too small.
Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said the prime minister did not agree with comments made by Gen Sir Patrick Sanders in a speech on Wednesday, and was forced to insist there would be no return to national service, which was abolished in 1960.
Continue reading...Moscow says aircraft that went down in border region of Belgorod was carrying prisoners who were to be swapped
Russia has accused Kyiv of downing a large military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war to an exchange on Wednesday, after a crash in the Belgorod region that killed everyone onboard.
Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied that it hit the plane but said Moscow had created a “deliberate threat to the life and safety” of its PoWs by failing to warn Kyiv to deconflict the airspace before the swap.
Continue reading...At least 130 people also injured, says president, with Kharkiv apartment block and Kyiv sports club among buildings hit
Russia has carried out a wave of attacks on Ukraine, killing 18 people and injuring more than 130, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, with a sports club in central Kyiv one of several civilian buildings damaged.
Making his nightly video address on Tuesday, the Ukrainian president said more than 200 sites were struck, including 139 dwellings.
Continue reading...Government uses cyber sanctions powers under Magnitsky laws for first time to target Aleksandr Gennadievich Ermakov, alleged to be responsible for hack
Australia has used its new cyber sanctions powers for the first time against a Russian citizen, Aleksandr Ermakov, in connection with the Medibank Private data breach.
Magnitsky-style sanctions laws that were introduced in Australia in late 2021 include a world-leading measure to allow the imposition of Australian travel bans and asset freezes on those allegedly involved in “significant” cyber-attacks.
Continue reading...Opposition leader says prisoners forced to listen to ‘I am Russian’ by Shaman as part of 5am regime
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has complained of being poisoned, assaulted and deprived of proper medical care, but this week he disclosed he faced a new challenge: being forced to listen to a pro-Putin pop singer at 5am every morning.
Navalny, 47, a former lawyer who rose to prominence more than a decade ago by lampooning president Vladimir Putin’s elite and voicing allegations of vast corruption, is now in a jail about 60 km (40 miles) north of the Arctic Circle.
Continue reading...‘Looking for a solution in the Middle East doesn’t mean that we are not continuing supporting Ukraine,’ says Josep Borrell
In an intelligence update published today, the British defence ministry said: “Ukraine’s ports exported more agricultural products in December 2023 than at any other point since Russia’s invasion, almost certainly driven by the reopening of Ukraine’s main Black Sea ports and the establishment of a unilateral shipping export channel.”
It added:
Ukraine has achieved this because it has largely prevented the Russian Black Sea fleet from operating in the western Black Sea, where it is held at risk by Ukrainian missiles and uncrewed surface vessels.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Report shows Russian ships loading at North Korean port, amid accusation that Pyongyang supplies missiles and shells
The UK has provided satellite photographs of North Korean cargo shipments to Russia to a panel of UN experts as part of an attempt to trigger an official investigation into arms deals in violation of international sanctions.
North Korea has been accused of supplying ballistic missiles and hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to the Russian government for its war in Ukraine since Vladimir Putin met with Kim Jong-un in Russia’s far east in September.
Continue reading...Rescue teams find charter ambulance flight from Thailand to Moscow after it disappeared from radar screens
Four people are reported to have survived after a private jet carrying out a medical evacuation from Thailand to Russia disappeared from radar screens and crashed in a remote and mountainous area of north-eastern Afghanistan on Saturday.
Russian aviation authorities said two passengers and four crew members were onboard the charter ambulance flight, which was travelling from Utapao airport, near Pattaya, to Moscow via India and Uzbekistan.
Continue reading...Local officials are now saying that at least 25 were killed in the strike; cause of fire at gas plant unknown but drones were reported in area
Further information has come in on claims by Russia that it had captured the small village of Krakhmalnoye in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine.
“The village of Krakhmalnoye in the Kharkiv region was liberated,” the Russian defence ministry said in its daily bulletin on operations in Ukraine, citing “successful active operations”, reports AFP.
Continue reading...Russian-installed mayor and governor say another 20 people were injured in attack on occupied city in eastern Ukraine
At least 25 people have been killed after Ukrainian forces shelled a busy suburban shopping area in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to local officials.
Alexei Kulemzin, the city’s Russian-installed mayor, said Ukrainian artillery had fired on a bustling district where shops and a market are located. Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the Donetsk region, said emergency services were working at the scene, adding that a further 20 people, including two children, had been injured in the strike on the suburb of Tekstilshchik.
Continue reading...State-owned railway company RZhD apologises as conductor faces calls to be sacked and potentially prosecuted
A cat has died in Russia after being thrown off a train in freezing temperatures by a conductor who has faced calls to be sacked and potentially prosecuted.
The state-owned railway company RZhD has apologised to the owners of Twix, the ginger-and-white cat who was dumped into the snow in Kirov on 11 January.
Continue reading...Ukrainian leader invited Trump to Ukraine but says if he returns to White House he could make unilateral concessions to Russia
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, fears that if Donald Trump returns to the White House next year he could make unilateral concessions to Russia that override Ukraine’s interests and branded the former US president’s claims he could stop the war in 24 hours as “very dangerous”.
In an interview with the UK’s Channel 4 News, Zelenskiy said he was “stressed” that the former president “is going to make decisions on his own, without … I’m not even talking about Russia, but without both sides, without us.”
Continue reading...Strike on Friday targeted a Rosneft oil storage facility about 50km from the Ukrainian border, in Russian town of Klintsy, officials said
Russian troops have reinstalled mines along the perimeter of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in the occupied Zaporizhzhia oblast, the Euromaidan Press website has reported, citing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Although the plant, the largest in Europe, has been under Russian occupation since 4 March 2022, it continues to work.
Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the IAEA expressed concern over this development, emphasising that the presence of mines contradicts IAEA safety standards. This area is restricted and not accessible to operational plant personnel.
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Continue reading...Trial of local activist provokes one of largest reported demonstrations in country since Ukraine invasion
Hundreds of protesters have clashed with police in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan in a rare display of public outrage after a court convicted a local activist and sentenced him to prison, according to media reports and rights groups.
The unrest on Wednesday – one of the largest reported demonstrations since the war in Ukraine began in 2022 – erupted amid the trial this week of Fail Alsynov in the town of Baymak, about 870 miles (1,400km) south-east of Moscow, in the southern Ural mountains.
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