Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian spy plane on Friday, the air force chief said. If confirmed, it would be a major win for the country as the war enters its third year. Gen Mykola Oleshchuk thanked Ukraine’s military intelligence for helping down the A-50 early warning and control aircraft. Ukrainian media carried footage purportedly showing a huge fire that erupted when the big warplane crashed in the Krasnodar region on the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov. Russia’s military did not comment, but emergency officials in the Krasnodar region said a plane crashed in the area, without identifying it. Several Russian military bloggers confirmed the plane’s loss. It would be the second such aircraft Ukraine shot down in just over a month.
Ukraine on Saturday marked two years since Russia’s invasion, entering a new year of war weakened by a lack of western aid and ammunition while Russia is emboldened by fresh gains. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that decisions on arms supplies had to be “the priority”. The anniversary of the invasion on 24 February 2022 will see visits by western leaders including the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, but the overall picture remains uncertain for Kyiv due to the US Congress blocking a vital $60bn (£47bn/€55bn) aid package and delays in promised European deliveries.
Russian drones attacked Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa on Friday for the second night running, hitting a residential building, killing one person and injuring three, the regional governor said. In all, six people died and 12 were injured in various Ukrainian regions over 24 hours. Odesa’s regional governor, Oleh Kiper, said on Telegram that the body of a man had been recovered from under rubble in the city. Three people were taken to hospital with serious injuries.
A Russian drone hit an apartment building in the city of Dnipro in Ukraine’s south-east and a search and rescue operation overnight on Friday uncovered two dead. The top two floors were damaged, Serhiy Lysak, the Dnipropetrovsk region governor, said on Telegram.
One civilian was killed in the town of Myrnohrad and 21 houses, a school and a multi-storey residential building were damaged in an attack on the Donetsk region near the front, said Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office.
The US and the EU on Friday heaped hundreds of new sanctions on Russia in connection with the war’s second anniversary and the death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony last week. Washington imposed about 600 new sanctions on Russia and its war machine in the largest single round of penalties since Moscow’s invasion. The EU added sanctions on several foreign companies, also targeting scores of Russian officials, including members of the judiciary and local politicians.
Canada announced additional sanctions against 10 individuals and 153 entities over Russia’s “illegal and unjustifiable invasion”.
On a surprise visit to Ukraine to meet with Zelenskiy, US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer directly challenged House speaker Mike Johnson to take up a $95bn national security package that includes aid for the besieged country. Schumer said in Lviv on Friday that “the weight of history” was on Johnson’s shoulders. Schumer and four other Democratic senators met Zelenskiy and other officials.
A small group of Ukrainian child survivors of war will address a private meeting at the UN in New York, timed to coincide with a meeting of the security council on Friday, as part of an effort by Kyiv to remind Americans of the human costs of a conflict increasingly affected by US domestic politics.
Navalny’s mother has been given an ultimatum – to “agree to secret funeral or he is buried in prison” – by Russian authorities holding her son, she says. Lyudmila Navalnaya accused Russian investigators of “blackmailing” her on Thursday over the logistics of the funeral for Navalny.
Ukraine’s prime minister went to the border with Poland on Friday hoping to end weeks of protests by Polish farmers but he said no one from the neighbouring government turned up for talks. Polish authorities said they had never agreed to a border meeting and there was no end in sight to the protests that Ukraine says threatens its exports and are holding up deliveries of crucial weapons.
The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, speaking in New York, has said support for Ukraine is “fundamentally about US security” in a direct appeal to US politicians to pass the aid bill facing an uphill battle in Congress.
Switzerland is set to hold a Ukraine peace conference “by the summer”. Addressing the UN general assembly on Friday, the Swiss foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, said: “At Ukraine’s request, we intend to organise by the summer a high-level conference on peace in Ukraine.”
