A summary of today's developments
Air raid alerts were in place across much of western and southern Ukraine early on Saturday, with Ukrainian officials reporting that Russia had fired four Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea.
Two people were injured in a strike on the western city of Khmelnytskyi, according to the local mayor.
One civilian was also reported killed in shelling in the eastern city of Vovchansk, just a few miles from the Russian border.
The number of Russian soldiers killed since the invasion has reached 142,270, according to the Ukrainian military.
Discussions at the Munich security conference, where world leaders have gathered this weekend, have focused in large part on the war.
Ukraine must win its battle against Russia’s invasion, Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said, warning that a Russian victory might embolden Moscow to attack other countries. Pistorius said he assured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Germany and its allies would help Kyiv “for as long as it takes”.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, called on the west to “double down” on its military support to Ukraine. “When Putin started this war, he gambled that our resolve would falter,” he said. “But we proved him wrong then, and we will prove him wrong now.”
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said there was “no doubt” that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU wants to work with the defence industry to quicken and scale up the production of ammunition, both for the Ukrainian military and to replenish stocks at home.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence said it is becoming “increasingly difficult” for the Russian government to “insulate the population” from the reality of the war.
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The EU is urgently exploring ways for its member countries to team up to buy ammunition to help Ukraine, following warnings from Kyiv that its forces need more supplies quickly, diplomats and officials said.
EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the idea of joint procurement of 155mm artillery shells at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.
“It is now the time, really, to speed up the production, and to scale up the production of standardised products that Ukraine needs desperately,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
Von der Leyen later said she was confident the urgency of the situation would convince EU members to set aside their longstanding preference for buying arms at national level.
“In this atrocious war that Russia unleashed against Ukraine, we see that we can move mountains under pressure,” she told Reuters.
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South Korea’s foreign minister, Park Jin, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the global attention on that war had emboldened North Korea which launched a long-range ballistic missile into the sea off Japan’s west coast earlier in the day.
The missile launch – North Korea’s first since 1 January – clearly signalled “its intent to conduct additional provocations”, Park said at a panel during a global security conference in Munich, Germany.
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The Dutch government said it would close its consulate in St Petersburg, Russia, and that it would limit the number of Russian diplomats allowed at the Russian embassy in The Hague.
“Russia keeps trying to secretly get intelligence agents into the Netherlands under cover of diplomacy. We cannot and shall not allow that,” the foreign minister, Wopke Hoekstra, said.
“At the same time Russia refuses to give visas to Dutch diplomats who would work at the consulate in St Petersburg or the embassy in Moscow.”
The government said it had decided to limit the number of diplomats at the Russian embassy in The Hague to match the number of those at the Dutch embassy in Moscow.
“A number of diplomats shall therefore have to leave the country within two weeks,” the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement, without giving a specific number.
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Hungar’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, said Europe was “indirectly at war with Russia” as several European countries pledge to send battle tanks to help Ukraine fight Moscow’s invasion.
Nationalist Orban, who was reelected in 2022 for a fourth consecutive term, reiterated that being a NATO member was “vital” for Hungary, but said his government would not send arms to Ukraine or sever its economic relations with Moscow.
Landlocked Hungary is heavily reliant on Russian natural gas and crude oil imports, and Russian energy giant Rosatom is building a nuclear plant in the country based on a 2014 contract.
Orban said: “Europe is drifting into the war in these very minutes, it is doing a dangerous balancing act.
“Actually, they are in fact already indirectly at war with Russia.”
“It started with helmets … now we are at sending tanks, and fighter jets are on the agenda, and soon we will hear about so-called peacekeeping troops.”
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Ukraine must win its battle against Russia’s invasion, Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said, warning that a Russian victory might embolden Moscow to attack other countries.
Pistorius told the Munich Security Conference he had assured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Germany and its allies would help Kyiv “for as long as it takes”.
“I made clear: Ukraine must win this war,” Pistorius said in a speech, Reuters reports.
“Russia is waging a brutal war of aggression and conquest against Ukraine, and if Putin had his way, this would only be the beginning.”
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Kamala Harris: Russia’s actions in Ukraine are “crimes against humanity”
Here is footage of US vice-president Kamala Harris’s comments to the Munich security conference that Russia’s actions in Ukraine constitute “crimes against humanity”.
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Summary
If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick round-up of all the latest from the war in Ukraine.
Air raid alerts were in place across much of western and southern Ukraine early on Saturday, with Ukrainian officials reporting that Russia had fired four Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea.
Two people were injured in a strike on the western city of Khmelnytskyi, according to the local mayor.
One civilian was also reported killed in shelling in the eastern city of Vovchansk, just a few miles from the Russian border.
The number of Russian soldiers killed since the invasion has reached 142,270, according to the Ukrainian military.
Discussions at the Munich Security Conference, where world leaders have gathered this weekend, have focused in large part on the war.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak called on the west to “double down” on its military support to Ukraine. “When Putin started this war, he gambled that our resolve would falter,” he said. “But we proved him wrong then, and we will prove him wrong now.”
US vice-president Kamala Harris said there was “no doubt” that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU wants to work with the defence industry to quicken and scale up the production of ammunition, both for the Ukrainian military and to replenish stocks at home.
The UK Ministry of Defence said it is becoming “increasingly difficult” for the Russian government to “insulate the population” from the reality of the war.
Updated
Celtic Park in Glasgow is among the most partisan football grounds in Europe – you don’t want to be on the wrong end of this crowd.
But Celtic fans know the world, and last September was different: home supporters lined the approach to the stadium, to greet and applaud the visitors’ coach as it arrived for a big night in the Champions League.
Aboard it: Shakhtar Donetsk, the Ukrainian champions who had not played a game at home for nine years, since Russian separatists and armed forces occupied their city in 2014.
Among the home fans’ Irish tricolours were flags of blue and yellow, those of Ukraine, waved by a group of children – refugees from the war that ravages their homeland, now settled in Glasgow.
Among them were two sisters from north-eastern Ukraine, Bohdana and Nevena, whose village of Balakliia was overrun by Russian forces early in the present war.
“I love these boys,” said Nevena, “I wonder whether I’ll see my home again – but when Shakhtar play, we are all like back there together.”
Read the full story from Ed Vulliamy here:
One killed in Kharkiv region
One civilian has been killed by Russian shelling in eastern Ukraine this afternoon, local officials have said.
Posting on Telegram, Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said a shell hit a private home in the city of Vovchansk, just a few miles from the Russian border, and that one person had been killed.
He added that shelling in the village of Kivsharivka, further south, had wounded a 57-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man, adding that both had been taken to hospital.
He said that shelling across the region had also damaged civilian infrastructure as well as a building for the provision of emergency medical aid.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak and US vice-president Kamala Harris met this afternoon for a bilateral meeting at the Munich Security Conference.
The meeting came after each delivered a speech to the conference. Sunak used his address to call on Ukraine’s allies to “double down” on their support, while Harris said she was in “no doubt” that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
Ahead of the meeting, Harris said she and Sunak would be discussing “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and our transatlantic community, and how it has risen to meet the needs of supporting the Ukrainian people”.
Sunak said there could be “no better illustration of [the strength of the US-UK relationship] than our joint response to the awful conflict in Ukraine, where we stood together and led, I think, the world in providing steadfast support to Ukraine so it can defend itself and push back against Russian aggression”.
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The Netherlands has agreed in principle to establish an international organisation in The Hague to record information about the damage caused to Ukrainian households, businesses and infrastructure by the war.
The creation of the register – to be named the Register of Damages Caused by Russian Aggression to Ukraine – was recommended in a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in November.
A statement from the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice said it should become “the first component of a comprehensive reparations mechanism… designed to ensure that the aggressor state pays Ukraine full reparations for the damage caused, in accordance with international law”.
The announcement followed a visit to Kyiv by the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, on Friday.
Ukraine’s Minister of Justice, Denys Malyuska, said it was only fitting that the register be based in “the capital of international justice”.
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Sean Penn has said the US has to accept “a level of shame” for not helping Ukraine with weapons supplies quicker at the start of the war.
Speaking after the premiere of his new documentary about the conflict in Berlin on Friday night, Penn said he believed the war in Ukraine was one that the West cannot ultimately afford to see Kyiv lose.
If you imagine what it is if Russia wins, we are all fucked. Just dead fucked. We are already as Americans, I can say, we are having to take on board a level of shame for not having scaled up sooner with the weapons.
Penn’s film, Superpower, tells the story of the first year of the war, and features an interview with President Zelenskiy on the first day of the Russian invasion.
Read the full story here:
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The conference in Munich also heard this morning from the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, who said in a speech that she was in “no doubt” that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine.
Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population – gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape and deportation.
Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine to Russia, including children. They have cruelly separated children from their families.
Harris said that, as a former prosecutor and former head of California’s Department of Justice, she knew “the importance of gathering facts and holding them up against the law”.
In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt. These are crimes against humanity.
The Biden administration formally concluded last March that Russian troops had committed war crimes in Ukraine. A determination of crimes against humanity goes a step further, indicating that attacks against civilians are being carried out in a widespread and systematic manner.
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More now from Rishi Sunak’s speech to the Munich security conference.
The prime minister said the world needed to “rebuild the international order on which our security depends”.
The whole world must hold Russia to account. We must see justice through the [international criminal court] for their sickening war crimes.
He added that “we should consider together how to ensure that Russia pays” towards the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Sunak said the treaties and agreements of the post-cold war era had failed Ukraine, and that a “new framework” was needed to guarantee its security.
Russia has committed violation after violation against countries outside the collective security of Nato, and the international community’s response has not been strong enough.
Ukraine will become a member of Nato, but until that happens we need to do more to bolster Ukraine’s long-term security.
We must give them the advanced Nato-standard capabilities that they need for the future and we must demonstrate that we’ll remain by their side.
He concluded by quoting President Zelenskiy, who last week said during an address in Westminster Hall that Ukraine and its allies were marching “towards the most important victory of our lifetime”, a victory over “the very idea of war”.
Sunak said: “We could have no greater purpose than to prove him right.”
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'Now is the time to double down on our support to Ukraine,' Sunak tells conference
Now is the time for the west to “double down” on its support for Ukraine, prime minister Rishi Sunak has told the Munich Security Conference.
In a speech early this afternoon, Sunak said that the west’s “collective efforts are making a difference”, but that “with every day that passes, Russia’s forces are inflicting yet more pain and suffering”.
“The only way to change that is for Ukraine to win. So we need a military strategy for Ukraine to gain a decisive advantage on the battlefield to win the war, and a political strategy to win the peace.
Now is the moment to double down on our military support. When Putin started this war, he gambled that our resolve would falter. But we proved him wrong then, and we will prove him wrong now.
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In pictures: Leaders gather in Munich
Pictures show world leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference, which is taking place this weekend.
Discussion among western nations at the conference is expected to focus in large part on how to maintain and increase military support to Ukraine.
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Two people were injured in this morning’s strike on Khmelnytskyi, the city’s mayor has said.
Reports said two explosions were heard in the city, which sits in the west of Ukraine, early on Saturday.
Posting on Telegram, Oleksandr Symchyshyn said two people had been treated for injuries following the incident, though added that the injuries were not life-threatening.
He added that the strikes had caused damage to three schools and a number of business properties as well as several hundred windows in high-rise buildings.
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Two Russian cruise missiles have been shot down over Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force.
In a post on Facebook, it said that Russia fired four Kalibr missiles over Ukraine from the Black Sea on Saturday.
“Two missiles were destroyed by air defense forces,” it said.
It added that the “threat of missile attacks remains” and urged civilians to follow guidance from officials.
It comes after explosions were reported in the western Khmelnytskyi region of Ukraine on Saturday morning. Air raid alerts were also issued across much of western and southern Ukraine but were subsequently lifted.
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It is becoming “increasingly difficult” for the Russian government to “insulate the population” from the reality of the war in Ukraine, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.
In its daily intelligence update on Saturday, the ministry said a Russian poll conducted in December found that 52% had either a friend or relative who had served in the war.
It added that a report presented to President Putin last week by the parliamentary group that is monitoring the war is likely to have covered issues such as social support to those mobilised and their families.
“This issue is likely to become more salient if any further mobilisation (be it overt or tacit) takes place,” the ministry said.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 18 February 2023
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) February 18, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence: https://t.co/x3aeOez0RC
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/pS0lHr0MKX
The European Union wants to work with its defence industry to increase the supply of ammunition to both Ukraine and the armed forces of its member states, the bloc’s chief has said.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen suggested that the EU’s delivery of the Covid vaccine could serve as a model for how to up production.
“We could think of, for example, advanced purchase agreements that give the defence industry the possibility to invest in production lines now to be faster and to increase the amount they can deliver,” she said.
Recent months have seen repeated warnings that Ukraine is currently using ammunition faster than Western countries are able to produce and supply it.
“It is now the time to speed up the production and to scale up the production of standardised products [such as ammunition] that Ukraine needs desperately,” von der Leyen said.
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The taboo on supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine has been “lifted”, President Zelensky has said.
The country’s Western allies have so far been reluctant to provide long-range missiles for fear they could be used to strike Russian territory and lead to an escalation of the war.
Speaking in his nightly address on Friday, Zelensky, who has visited a number of Western capitals in recent months, said his “diplomatic marathon continues” and is making headway.
“A tank coalition has already been created for Ukraine, the taboo on the supply of long-range missiles has already been lifted, there have already been new successes in strengthening our artillery,” he said.
He added that the world has “heard how necessary” the creation of an “aviation coalition for Ukraine is for global security”. As well as long-range missiles, Ukraine is calling on its allies to provide its air force with fighter jets.
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Two explosions heard in city of Khmelnytskyi
Two explosions were heard in the west Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi on Saturday morning, Reuters reports, citing local officials.
The city sits in the west of the country, around 170 miles southwest of capital Kyiv.
Air raid alerts were also issued across much of western and southern Ukraine but were subsequently lifted.
Authorities in several southern and eastern regions have warned of possible precautionary power outages to limit any damage in the event of a strike against the grid.
Recent months have seen Russian forces repeatedly target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
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The West must give Ukraine the “advanced, Nato-standard capabilities” it needs to expel Russian forces from its territory, prime minister Rishi Sunak is set to tell the Munich Security Conference.
Sunak is due to arrive in Munich this morning and to deliver a speech to the conference around midday.
He is also expected to attend a number of bilateral meetings throughout the day, including with German chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and US vice-president Kamala Harris.
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More than 142,000 Russian soldiers killed, says Ukraine
More than 142,000 Russian soldiers have now been killed since the invasion of Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian military.
In its daily update on combat losses, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces estimated the death toll on the Russian side to be 142,270, up by 1,010 since Friday.
It said that 3,303 tanks and 6,533 armoured vehicles had also been destroyed, increases on yesterday of five and 13 respectively.
Загальні бойові втрати противника з 24.02.22 по 18.02.23 орієнтовно склали / The total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02.22 to 18.02.23 were approximately: pic.twitter.com/xiO4Dg9Weg
— Генеральний штаб ЗСУ (@GeneralStaffUA) February 18, 2023
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The Pentagon said on Friday that the first Ukrainian battalion with about 635 soldiers had completed a roughly five-week-long US course of combined arms training on the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Germany. Additional battalion-level combined arms training was already underway, it said.
The United States has announced plans to give Ukraine more than 50 of the armoured vehicles, which have a powerful gun and have been used by the US Army to carry troops around battlefields since the mid-1980s.
Moscow accused the United States of fuelling an escalation of the war and now being directly involved.
“The American warmongers... supply weapons in huge quantities, provide intelligence and participate directly in the planning of combat operations,” said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, on Friday.
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Rishi Sunak has boarded his flight from Stansted to Germany to attend the Munich security conference, according to the Press Association.
The prime minister will give a speech and meet with a number of world leaders while at the summit.
He is also expected to meet European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on the fringes to talk about a deal to fix the Northern Ireland Protocol.
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The governor of Luhansk province in Ukraine’s east says ground and air attacks from Russian forces are increasing.
Serhiy Haidai told local TV of fighting near the city of Kreminna:
Today it is rather difficult on all directions. There are constant attempts to break through our defence lines.
Luhansk is one of two provinces in the Donbas region that Russia partially controls and wants to take fully.
Reuters also reported that Russia said in its latest update that a barrage of missile strikes on Thursday around Ukraine had achieved their goals in hitting facilities providing fuel and ammunition to Kyiv’s forces.
Ukraine reported 36 missiles, saying 16 were shot down and that its largest oil refinery, Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, was hit.
Biden will be 'messaging' Putin in Poland speech
President Joe Biden will be “messaging” his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, when he speaks in Warsaw on Tuesday, while hailing Nato’s unprecedented effort to help Ukraine, the US says.
Agence France-Presse reports that Biden is to give the speech in Poland – a key US ally – on the same day Putin is set to give his own speech in Moscow, three days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Biden will touch down in Warsaw on Tuesday and meet with Polish president, Andrzej Duda. On Wednesday he meets with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of Nato members in eastern Europe.
In addition, the White House said, he would speak by phone next week with the leaders of Britain, France and Italy. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is due in Washington on 3 March.
But Biden’s main public event will be the speech delivered on Tuesday from Warsaw’s Royal Castle on “how the United States has rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and democracy”, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday.
President Biden will make it clear that the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine ... for as long as it takes.
… And I would suspect that you’ll hear him messaging Mr Putin as well, as well as the Russian people.
Kirby said Biden had no plans to meet with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during the trip or travel into Ukraine.
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Hello, this is Adam Fulton bringing you the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged the west to speed up its support for Ukraine, telling world leaders gathered in Munich, Germany, for a major security conference that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, would gain a military advantage unless arms deliveries arrived soon.
Zelenskiy said in a video address opening the summit on Friday:
We need to hurry up. We need speed – speed of our agreements, speed of our delivery … speed of decisions to limit Russian potential.
About 40 heads of state and government as well as politicians and security experts from nearly 100 countries – including the US, Europe and China – are expected to attend the three-day conference to discuss Europe’s security situation amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the US president, Joe Biden, will be “messaging” his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, when he speaks in Poland on Tuesday, the US says. More on that story soon.
In other developments at it approaches 9am in Kyiv and 10am in Moscow:
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, urged allies to intensify their military support for Ukraine to help it carry out a needed counter-offensive against Russia. There could be no peace in Ukraine until Russia was defeated, Macron said at the Munich conference, adding that Russia was doomed to “a defeat in the future”.
Zelenskiy warned a possible consequence of delaying western weapons to Ukraine could be a Russian invasion of Moldova. He said neighbouring Belarus would make a mistake of historic proportions if it joined in the Russian offensive and claimed polls showed 80% of its people did not wish to join.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, gave Zelenskiy an indirect rebuff, saying caution was better than hasty decisions and unity was better than going it alone. Scholz said Germany was the biggest supplier of weapons in continental Europe, and that the region was in uncharted territory and there was no blueprint for confronting a nuclear-armed aggressor, making it vital to avoid an unintended escalation.
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, will call on world leaders to ensure a “lasting peace” for Ukraine with the establishment of a new Nato charter to help it defend itself “again and again” in the face of any future declarations of war by Russia. Sunak is expected at the Munich conference to call for countries to “double down on our military support”, and to warn that “the security and sovereignty of every nation” is at stake.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has said the US is inciting Ukraine to strike directly at Russian territory, after comments by the US undersecretary of state, Victoria Nuland, about Crimea. Nuland said the US supported Ukraine striking at targets in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move that is only recognised by a handful of mostly rogue states.
As many as 60,000 Russian forces may have been killed in just under a year of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. The casualty rate “has significantly increased since September 2022 when ‘partial mobilisation’ was imposed”. Convict recruits used by Wagner may have had a casualty rate of one in every two men.
Russia’s defence ministry website has confirmed Lt Gen Andrey Mordvichev is the new head of the central military district, replacing Col Gen Alexandr Lapin, who in January was appointed chief of staff of Russia’s ground forces. Mordvichev’s appointment follows other sweeping changes to Russia’s military leadership.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the Dutch ambassador over what it called “obsessive attempts” by authorities in the Netherlands to hold it responsible for the downing of flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014. In a statement Russia accused the joint investigation team set up to establish who was responsible of being “politicised”.
The World Health Organization has appealed for more funds to support Ukraine’s health sector, which has been severely damaged by the war. Ukraine needed more funds to ensure mental health, rehabilitation and community access to health services, said the WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, in a briefing in the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr.
A British embassy security guard has been jailed for more than 13 years after a judge told him his “treachery” spying for Russia had put his former colleagues at “maximum risk”. David Ballantyne Smith, 58, originally from Paisley, Scotland, copied secret documents he found in unlocked filing cabinets and on desks at the embassy, including a letter to the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson.
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