Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu on Sunday hailed ties with Moscow during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. "We have very strong ties. They surpass the military-political alliances of the Cold War era... They are very stable," he said in translated remarks broadcast on Russian TV. Read our live blog to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT + 2).
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01:04am: Ukraine says it is finding more Chinese components in Russian weapons
Ukrainian forces are finding a growing number of components from China in Russian weapons used in Ukraine, a senior adviser in President Volodymyr Zelensky's office told Reuters, as Western supplies are squeezed by sanctions.
In "the weapons recovered from the battlefield we continue to find different electronics," said Vladyslav Vlasiuk, who advises the president's chief of staff on sanctions policy.
"The trend is now that there is less Western-made components but more – not hard (to) guess which country – made components. Of course, China," he said via a video call.
China has repeatedly denied sending military equipment to Russia since Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The assault triggered Western sanctions, including on sending military and dual-use technology such as microchips that could be used in either ordinary appliances or weapons.
6:39pm: Putin meets with China's defense minister in Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with China's defense minister on Sunday, underscoring Beijing's strengthening engagement with Moscow, with which it has largely aligned its foreign policy in an attempt to diminish the influence of the United States and other Western democracies.
Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu met with Gen. Li Shangfu less than a month after Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a three-day state visit to Moscow.
In comments opening the meeting, Putin praised the general development of Russia-China relations.
“We are also working actively through the military departments, regularly exchanging information that is useful to us, cooperating in the field of military-technical cooperation, conducting joint exercises, moreover, in different theaters: in the Far East region, and in Europe, and at sea, and on land and in the air,” he said, according to the Kremlin.
Li said that the countries' relations “outperform the military-political unions of the Cold War era. They rest on the principles of nonalignment, and are very stable.”
5:29pm: Brazil's Lula calls for 'peace group' to broker Ukraine-Russia deal
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday again proposed establishing a group of countries not involved with the Russia-Ukraine war to broker peace, saying he had discussed the matter with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping earlier this week.
"I think we need to sit on a table and say, 'that's enough, let's start talking' because war never brought and will never bring any benefit to humanity," said Lula, who has been critical of the United States and the European Union for their role in the conflict.
The Brazilian president told reporters in Abu Dhabi, where he finished a trip his Asia, that he was trying to gather a group of leaders that "prefer to talk about peace rather than war."
He cited Xi and the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, both of whom he met this week.
Lula had previously said the group should gather countries not "encouraging" war. He added that nations that are supplying weapons should be convinced to stop doing so.
5:00pm: Ukraine foreign minister to visit Iraq on Monday
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is expected in Baghdad on Monday on his first visit to Iraq since Russia invaded his country, the foreign ministry said.
Kuleba is due to hold talks with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein as well as Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
They will discuss "bolstering bilateral ties, as well as regional and international" issues, said the statement quoting foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahhaf.
2:28pm: Russia's Wagner chief speaks on POW release
Russia's most powerful mercenary group, Wagner, released a statement about the Ukrainian prisoners of war being returned home to mark Orthodox Easter, according to a video posted by the group's shadowy founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Sunday.
"Prepare all of them, feed and water them, check the wounded," Prigozhin was shown saying in a video posted on Telegram by his press service.
The video showed an armed Wagner mercenary saying to the Ukrainian soldiers as they climbed into a truck to head back to their homeland, "I hope you don't fall back into our hands."
2:19am: EU says unilateral action on trade unacceptable after grain import bans
Unilateral action on trade by European Union member states is unacceptable, a European Commission spokesperson said on Sunday, after Poland and Hungary announced bans on grain and other food imports from Ukraine to protect the local agricultural sector.
After Russia's invasion blocked some Black Sea ports, large quantities of Ukrainian grain, which is cheaper than that produced in the European Union, ended up staying in Central European states due to logistical bottlenecks, hitting prices and sales for local farmers.
The issue has created a political problem for Poland's ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party in an election year as it has angered people in rural areas where support for the PiS is usually high.
FRANCE 24's correspondent Emmanuelle Chaze reports:
11:25am: Ukrainian celebrates return of 130 soldiers in Easter prisoner exchange
Ukrainian prisoners of war have been released and returned home in a "great Easter exchange", a senior Ukrainian presidential official said on Sunday, the day of Orthodox Easter.
"We are bringing back 130 of our people. It (the exchange) has been taking place in several stages over the past few days," President Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian and Russian forces have held regular prisoner exchanges during Moscow's invasion, now in its 14th month.
It is not clear how many Russians were returned in the swap.
8:30am: G7 diplomats gather in Japan to discuss Ukraine crisis
Top diplomats from the Europe and North America were arriving for the G7 meeting in Japan to discuss the world's most intractable crises, including ways to end Russia's war in Ukraine.
Amid widespread skepticism that the UN, which is often paralysed by the oversized power on the Security Council of Russia and China, can do anything about these issues, many will be watching to see what, if anything, G7 ministers from Japan, the US, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Italy and the EU might do.
The three-day talks will also see the first real test of the Biden administration's assertion that there has been minimal damage from the disclosure of highly classified documents related to the war in Ukraine and US views of its allies and partners.
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Key developments of Saturday, April 15
The death toll from Russian missile strikes on eastern Ukraine's city of Sloviansk rose to 11 Saturday as rescue crews tried to reach people trapped in the rubble of an apartment building, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Earlier, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the US should stop "encouraging war" in Ukraine "and start talking about peace" on the third day of his state visit to China.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
