Good morning. Defence minister Peter Dutton is due to make two speeches to promote a tough message on national security: one announcing Australia may establish a US-style space force in the future and accusing some countries – including Russia – of seeing “space as a territory for their taking”. The second will acknowledge Australia is “in the crosshairs” for cyber-attacks and that China has the capability to mount “an unprecedented digital onslaught”.
Ukraine has rejected out of hand an ultimatum from Moscow to surrender the devastated city of Mariupol, as authorities in Odesa accused Russia of striking residential areas in what would be the invading forces’ first attack on the Black Sea port. Ukraine also turned down Moscow’s offer to open two humanitarian corridors out of Mariupol in exchange for its residents’ capitulation. Officials have said at least 2,300 residents have died, with some buried in mass graves. Overnight shelling in the capital, Kyiv, reduced a large shopping mall to rubble and killed at least eight people. A Russian attack on Kharkiv has killed a 96-year-old man who survived a string of Nazi concentration camps. More than $17bn (£13bn) of global assets have been linked to 35 oligarchs and Russian officials alleged to have close ties to Vladimir Putin in an ongoing project to track the wealth of Russia’s most powerful operators.
