Russia’s foreign minister has clashed with the US and Ukraine’s other supporters at the UN security council after Moscow ruled out any peace plan backed by Kyiv and the west, and China warned that further global chaos could affect the slowing world economy.
Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, told the security council that peace plans presented by Ukraine and the west were “a road to nowhere”. US deputy ambassador Robert Wood countered that it was Vladimir Putin’s “single-minded pursuit of the obliteration of Ukraine and subjugation of its people that is prolonging” the war that began with Moscow’s 2022 invasion.
The Turkish parliament’s general assembly will debate Sweden’s Nato membership bid on Tuesday, three sources from parliament said. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been blocking Sweden’s membership to extract concessions from Sweden and other Nato members. The parliament’s foreign affairs commission has approved the bid, raising hopes that it will be approved by the full parliament and signed into law by Erdoğan.
A Mexican border security deal in the US Senate is being finalised in a painstakingly negotiated compromise aimed at unlocking Republican support to replenish US wartime aid for Ukraine. But far-right House Republicans under the sway of Donald Trump have indicated that they want to block any bipartisan deal in order to hamper Joe Biden’s prospects for re-election as president – even if it leaves chaos at the US-Mexico border. “Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican, told CNN.
Moderate Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw has criticised Maga Republicans not willing to work with Biden on border security and Ukraine aid. Crenshaw told MSNBC that some Republicans were saying “we’ll never vote for it if it’s attached to Ukraine aid. Really? We get meaningful border policy with the Ukraine aid and you’re not going to vote for that? You want Russia to win more than you want border policy changes? Some people say Biden wants it now because it’s helpful to him politically? OK! I want border security, that’s what I told my constituents I would do for them. So if we can get that deal, that’s a no-brainer.”
EU foreign ministers have met to discuss support to Ukraine. With ministers focusing also on the situation in the Middle East, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, insisted that Ukrainians should not worry and that the EU’s support for Kyiv would continue as strong as ever.
Borrell also said Ukraine “needs more and faster military support now”. Latvia’s foreign minister, Krišjānis Kariņš, said that “if we do not help Ukraine stop Russia now, it will be only all the more expensive for us later”.
Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, said there was a need to fulfil Ukraine’s immediate defence needs, but that Europe also needed to ramp up its defence industry and capabilities.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, announced a proposal aimed at allowing ethnic Ukrainians and their descendants abroad to hold Ukrainian citizenship.
Zelenskiy said he had “very productive talks” with Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, who visited Kyiv. The Ukrainian leader said the two countries would be able to resolve problematic issues. Tusk underlined that Warsaw and Kyiv would work in a spirit of friendship to resolve differences.
Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine’s prime minister, said that he “discussed the free movement of goods across the border” with Tusk and that the sides agreed to resume intergovernmental consultations.
There is movement toward a meeting between Zelenskiy and Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a senior Ukrainian official has said.
The UK has updated its travel advice “to advise against all but essential travel” to the regions of Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Chernivtsi in western Ukraine. Previously, there was advice against all travel to the whole of Ukraine.
The UK has provided satellite photographs of North Korean cargo shipments to Russia to a panel of UN experts – supporting condemnation by Ukraine’s western allies of illegal North Korean arms sales to Russia.
The Kremlin has drawn up a bill to confiscate property and valuables from Ukraine war critics convicted of, among other crimes, “discrediting the Russian army” or calling for foreign sanctions.
