Ukraine has received two types of air defence systems ahead of the Rammstein military group meeting on Thursday where they will ask for more supplies.
The Patriot air defence system delivery was confirmed by defence minister Oleksii Reznikov on Wednesday.
The second of four promised German Iris-T system were also delivered, according to German newspaper who had spoken to government officials. No official announcements have been made about it.
The United States announced a new military aid package for Ukraine on Wednesday to help the Ukrainian military in its war against Russia, Reuters reports. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told the daily press conference the package will include more ammunition and artillery rounds. It is the 36th security package since the war began in February 2022. Further details of funding has not been announced.
The European Commission is proposing €100m (£88m) in compensation for EU farmers affected by the recent influx of Ukrainian grain as well as restrictions on selling wheat and maize in affected countries, in a move to calm tensions with central and eastern Europe. Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the commission, has written to the leaders of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, setting out support measures after four of those countries banned the import or sale of grain and other food products inside their borders earlier this week. Bulgaria had confirmed its temporary halt on Wednesday.
Inspections of ships are resuming after a two day hiatus under a UN-brokered agreement on the safe export of grain from Ukrainian Black Sea ports, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, said on Wednesday.
Russia on Wednesday accused Ukraine of sabotaging the Black Sea grain deal by demanding bribes from shipowners to register new vessels and carry out inspections. There was no immediate comment on the allegation, levelled by Russia’s foreign ministry, from Ukraine. Russia did not produce any evidence to back up the allegation.
Ukrainian agriculture minister Mykola Solsky confirmed on Wednesday that the transit of Ukrainian grain and food products will resume through Poland following an agreement reached in talks with Warsaw.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said on Wednesday during a visit to Sweden that the US looks forward to welcoming Sweden as a Nato member before the alliance’s summit in July, and will encourage Turkey and Hungary to ratify accession. Along with Finland, Sweden applied to join Nato in May last year. Finland’s application was processed in record time and it became the 31st member of the alliance earlier this month.
The Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin has lost an appeal against what his supporters say was a politically motivated decision to jail him for eight and a half years for criticising Moscow’s assault on Ukraine – in a case that has echoes of Monday’s jailing of Vladimir Kara-Murza. The former Moscow councillor’s appeal was rejected as authorities continue to repress freedoms in Russia, with independent media shut down and leading opposition figures behind bars or in exile.
Russia has said it summoned the UK ambassador Deborah Bronnert on Tuesday after she criticised the 25-year jail term given to Kara-Murza. She spoke to reporters outside Moscow city court alongside the US and Canadian ambassadors. She described the sentence as “shocking” and called for Kara-Murza, who holds joint UK and Russian citizenship, to be released immediately.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the Volyn region of Ukraine which borders with Belarus and Poland, where he praised the work of border guards.
Russian drones struck Ukraine’s southern Odesa region overnight and caused a fire at an infrastructure facility, the head of the military command of the Odesa region, Yuri Kruk, said on Wednesday. No casualties have been reported and firefighters were working at the scene, he said.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that late in the evening of Tuesday 18 April, the Russian army dropped two aerial bombs on Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region. It says that houses were damaged, about 60 stalls burned down in the market, two people were injured, and rescuers are looking for two more people under the rubble.
Rodion Miroshnik, one of the Russian-imposed officials in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, has posted to Telegram to report that the occupied city of Nova Kakhovka, on the left-bank of the River Dniepr in the Kherson region, is under fire from Ukrainian forces. Citing the city administration, he writes “The whole city is under fire. There are already wounded.”
A former Wagner mercenary has admitted to killing and torturing dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war, in one of the most detailed first-person accounts of atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. Alexey Savichev, 49, a former Russian convict recruited by Wagner last September, told the Guardian in a telephone interview that he participated in summary executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war during his six months of fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency is reporting that authorities in Crimea claim to have thwarted a sabotage plot aimed at energy infrastructure. The FSB states that a man has been detained.
South Korea might extend its support for Ukraine beyond humanitarian and economic aid if it comes under a large-scale civilian attack, President Yoon Suk Yeol said, signalling a shift in his stance against arming Ukraine for the first time.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the security council of the Russian Federation, threatened South Korea that if it changed its stance, a “quid pro quo” would be to see the latest Russian weapon designs in the hands of “our partners from the DPRK”.
Russia is carrying out a surveillance programme aimed at energy infrastructure in Nordic waters around Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden according to a new investigation by media companies in the region.
Moldova has summoned the Russian ambassador in order to declare a member of staff at the Russian embassy there persona non grata.
Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has condemned the “violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” by Russia and again called for mediation to end the war, as he came under fire for his previous comments on the conflict. Speaking at a lunch on Tuesday with Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, Lula said a group of neutral nations must come together to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. Lula faced criticism from the US over comments he made over the weekend that they were prolonging the fighting by supplying arms to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited Ukrainian troops on Tuesday in Avdiivka, Donetsk region, his office have said. Zelenskiy listened to commanders’ reports on the battlefield situation and gave awards to soldiers, it said.
Zelenskiy and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy held a phone call on Tuesday in which they discussed Ukraine’s need for weapons as well as increasing sanctions pressure on Russia. On Twitter, Zelenskiy said he thanked McCarthy for bipartisan support in Congress for Ukraine.
A Moscow court Tuesday rejected an appeal from US journalist Evan Gershkovich to be freed from pre-trial detention, meaning he will stay in a former KGB prison until at least 29 May while a spying case against him is investigated. Gershkovich denies the espionage charges.
Vladimir Putin appeared to make a rare visit to a military headquarters in Russian-occupied Ukraine in an area where his troops are bracing themselves for an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks. Video put out by the Kremlin on Tuesday showed the Russian president stepping off a military helicopter and then being driven to a military headquarters in southern Ukraine.
The G7 has criticised Russia’s threat to station nuclear weapons in Belarus, promising to intensify sanctions on Moscow for its war on neighbouring Ukraine. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko held a meeting with the Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Tuesday, the state-run Belta news agency reported.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss the Ukraine Black Sea grain export deal with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York next week, just weeks before the pact could expire unless Russian demands regarding its own exports are met.
Poland nnounced plans to install thousands of cameras and motion sensors along its border with Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave to prevent what Warsaw says are illegal migrant crossings orchestrated by Moscow. Polish interior minister Mariusz Kaminski said the system would join a barbed wire fence being built on the 200-kilometre frontier.
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The maker of Sweden’s Absolut vodka has said it is ceasing all exports to Russia after calls to boycott the brand flared up in Sweden and on social media, Agence France-Presse reported.
Security concerns have prompted Russian authorities this year to cancel traditional nationwide victory day processions where people carry portraits of relatives who fought against Nazi Germany in the second world war, a lawmaker said on Tuesday.
