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A bit more from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessment earlier, in which the US-based think tank said Russian forces were continuing to suffer shortages of reserve manpower.
An unnamed US defense official reported that Russian forces still have 106 BTGs (battalion tactical groups) operating in Ukraine but had to disband and combine some to compensate for losses.
Ukrainian general staff main operations deputy chief Oleksiy Gromov reported that Russian forces are combining units of the Pacific and Northern Fleets at the permanent locations of the 40th Separate Marine Brigade and the 200th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, respectively.
Gromov added that Russian forces are training servicemen in Krasnodar Krai to replenish units of the 49th Combined Arms Army and are trying to restore combat power of Russian units withdrawn from the battlefront in occupied Crimea.
The ISW also said Ukrainian officials were reporting that some Russian troops withdrawn from the failed offensive around the city of Kharkiv had been redeployed to Donetsk, in the Donbas, to replace the “significant combat losses that the 107th Motorized Rifle Battalion has taken approximately 20 km southwest of Donetsk City.”
It added:
The Ukrainian Military Directorate (GUR) intercepted a Russian serviceman’s call suggesting that some of the 400 servicemen from the Kharkiv City axis who had arrived elsewhere in Donbas were shocked by the intensity of the fighting there compared with what they had experienced in Kharkiv Oblast.
Unknown Russian perpetrators have conducted a series of Molotov cocktail attacks on military commissariats throughout the country this month, likely in protest of covert mobilisation, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
Russian media and local Telegram channels reported deliberate acts of arson against military commissariats in three Moscow Oblast settlements – Omsk, Volgograd, Ryazan Oblast, and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District between May 4 and May 18.
Ukrainian General Staff main operations deputy chief Oleksiy Gromov said that there were at least 12 cases of deliberate arson against military commissariats in total and five last week.
Russian officials caught two 16-year-olds in the act in one Moscow Oblast settlement, which suggests that Russian citizens are likely responsible for the attacks on military commissariats.
There have been many reports of poor morale within Russian forces since the start of the war with some reportedly abandoning their equipment and fleeing the battlefield and others refusing to fight at all or even launching legal action against their deployment to Ukraine.
For more on that subject, check out our correspondent Pjotr Sauer’s report from the end of last week:
This is Helen Livingstone taking over the blog from my colleague Maanvi Singh.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now senior security official, says the west should not expect Russia to continue food supplies if it slaps Moscow with devastating sanctions over Ukraine.
“Our country is ready to fulfil its obligations in full. But it also expects assistance from trading partners, including on international platforms,” Medvedev said on messaging app Telegram on Thursday according to AFP.
“Otherwise, there’s no logic: on the one hand, insane sanctions are being imposed against us, on the other hand, they are demanding food supplies. Things don’t work like that, we’re not idiots,” said Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s security council.
“Countries importing our wheat and other food products will have a very difficult time without supplies from Russia. And on European and other fields, without our fertilisers, only juicy weeds will grow,” added Medvedev, who served as president between 2008 and 2012.
“We have every opportunity to ensure that other countries have food, and food crises do not happen. Just don’t interfere with our work.”
Russia and Ukraine alone produce 30% of the global wheat supply.
Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine and a barrage of unprecedented international sanctions on Russia have disrupted supplies of fertiliser, wheat and other commodities from both countries, pushing up prices for food and fuel, especially in developing nations.
The UN has called on Russia to allow exports of Ukrainian grain that is held up in Black Sea ports.
Updated
Catch up
- Russia’s foreign ministry said it will only consider opening access to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports if the removal of sanctions against Russia is also considered. Remarks by the Russian deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, came after the UN food chief, David Beasley, pleaded with Vladimir Putin, saying millions would die around the world because of the Russian blockade of the ports.
- Ukraine’s top presidential adviser and member of the negotiating team, Mykhailo Podolyak, said a ceasefire with Russia is “impossible without total Russian troops withdrawal”. Podolyak said Kyiv is not interested in a new “Minsk”, referring to the 2015 Minsk agreement, brokered by France and Germany, which attempted to secure a ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine.
- Russia’s defence ministry said 1,730 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered from Azovstal since Monday. That includes a further 771 who surrendered, they said, in the last 24 hours. Eighty were wounded. The ministry said “those in need of inpatient treatment receive assistance in medical institutions” in Novoazovsk and Donetsk.
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The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, said more than half of the Ukrainian fighters who were inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have now left the plant. The reports are unclear on an exact number and have not been independently verified. There has been confusion over exactly how many fighters were besieged in the plant.
- The US president, Joe Biden, said Finland and Sweden “meet every Nato requirement and then some” to join the alliance and have the “full, complete backing” of the US. Speaking at a joint press conference at the White House, Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, said Russia’s “full-scale aggression” against Ukraine led to the “watershed moment” for her country to decide to apply for Nato membership. Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, said his country was open to discussing Turkey’s concerns over its application to join Nato.
- Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he had told allies he would “say no” to Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership bid. He also accused Sweden and Finland of harbouring and financing “terrorists” and supplying them with weapons, adding: “Nato is a security alliance and we cannot accept terrorists to be in it.”
- Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, expressed confidence that there was a way to assuage Turkish concerns over bids by Sweden and Finland to join Nato. “We believe that the Turkish concerns about the accession of Sweden and Finland that have been expressed by Erdogan and others can be addressed and can be resolved,” he said. British defence minister Ben Wallace delivered a similar message to UK parliament
- A court in Kyiv met for a second hearing in the first war crimes trial arising from Russia’s 24 February invasion. Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old tank commander, asked a Ukrainian widow to forgive him for the murder of her husband after pleading guilty yesterday to killing an unarmed 62-year-old civilian in the north-east Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
- The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, held a phone conversation with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to discuss military support and global food security. The pair looked at options to “open up critical sea and land supply routes for Ukrainian grain stocks”, Downing Street said. Zelenskiy said he also updated Johnson about “the course of hostilities and the operation to rescue the military from Azovstal”.
- The evacuation of Ukrainian troops from the southern port city of Mariupol continues, according to a Ukrainian general. Oleksiy Gromov, the deputy chief of the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, said: “In the Mariupol direction, measures are being taken to evacuate our heroes.” He did not provide details.
- The US Congress on Thursday approved $40bn in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, with both parties eagerly backing the latest effort to support an ally under brutal assault by Russia. Biden thanked Congress for working together – a rarity these days.
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G7 financial leaders have agreed on $18.4bn (£14.7bn) to help Ukraine and said they were ready to stand by Kyiv and “do more as needed”, according to a draft communique seen by Reuters. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the US, Japan, Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are holding talks as Ukraine is running out of cash.
- More than a million Ukrainian refugees have already returned home, according to the country’s ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko. He said that the mayors of Kyiv and Kharkiv had had to tell people not to return to the cities as it was still unsafe.
- In his nightly address, Zelenskiy gave a dire assessment of the situation Donbas. “There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration,” he said. “Donbas is completely destroyed.” As the war drags on, the monthly budget deficit in Ukraine is $5b, he said. “And to endure the war for freedom, we need quick and sufficient financial support.”
– Léonie Chao-Fong, Lauren Gambino
'Donbas is completely destroyed,' says Zelenskiy
In his nightly address, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave a dire assessment of the situation in Donbas. “There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration,” he said. “Donbas is completely destroyed.”
He continued:
The brutal and absolutely pointless bombing of Severodonetsk... 12 dead and dozens wounded in just one day. The bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army - all this is not just hostilities during the war.
Russian strikes at the Chernihiv region, in particular the terrible strike at Desna, debris clearance continues, many dead; constant strikes at the Odesa region, at the cities of central Ukraine, Donbas is completely destroyed - all this doesn’t and cannot have any military explanation for Russia.
This is a deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible. Destroy as many houses, social facilities and enterprises as possible.
This is what will be qualified as the genocide of the Ukrainian people and for which the occupiers will definitely be brought to justice.
US and Nato intelligence officials have assessed that Russia is deploying a piecemeal approach to taking parts of Donbas, facing fierce Ukrainian resistance.
As the war drags on, Zelenskiy also said that “the monthly budget deficit in Ukraine now is $5bn. And to endure the war for freedom, we need quick and sufficient financial support.
“And it’s not just expenditures or a gift from partners. This is their contribution to their own security,” he said:
Because the defense of Ukraine also means their defense from new wars and crises that Russia may provoke. If it succeeds in the war against Ukraine. That is why we must all work together to ensure that there is no success for Russia in its aggression against our state.
Updated
Since the start of his military campaign against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has railed aggressively against pro-western Russians, whose appetite for European cuisine and climates he said meant “their mentality is there, not here, with our people”.
Yet his own daughter’s enthusiasm for sojourns to western Europe at least matches that of the oligarch “scum and traitors” he has decried, a joint investigation by independent Russian media outlet iStories and German magazine Der Spiegel suggests.
According to flight records obtained by the two publications, Putin’s youngest daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, flew to Munich in southern Germany “more than 50 times” between 2017 and 2019, travelling on chartered flights with full state support and in the company of employees of Putin’s own presidential security service.
Among the leaked cache of documents relating to a series of flights between Moscow and Munich in spring 2020 are the passports of a then two-year-old girl – apparently a previously unknown granddaughter of the Russian president – and Igor Zelensky, the former director of the Munich state ballet. The report said it is likely that Zelensky is Tikhonova’s partner and the father of her child.
Unrelated to the Ukrainian president of the same surname, 52-year-old Igor Zelensky was an internationally feted dancer before he became artistic director of the Bayerisches Staatsballet in 2016. He stepped down from his role on 4 April citing “private family reasons”, having failed to react to calls to condemn Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
Zelensky still has a job on the supervisory board of Russia’s National Cultural Heritage Foundation, which is building a cultural centre in Crimea and is understood to be close to Putin.
An anonymous source at the Bavarian state ballet told Der Spiegel that Zelensky was “most likely a partner of Putin’s daughter”, before journalists had specifically asked about his family ties.
Read more:
The Associated Press reports:
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a $40bn infusion of military and economic aid for Ukraine and its allies on Thursday as both parties rallied behind America’s latest, and quite possibly not last, financial salvo against Russia’s invasion.
The 86-11 vote gave final congressional approval to the package, three weeks after Joe Biden requested a smaller $33bn version and after a lone Republican opponent delayed Senate passage for a week. Every voting Democrat and all but 11 Republicans – including many of the chamber’s supporters of Donald Trump’s isolationist agenda – backed the measure.
“I applaud the Congress for sending a clear bipartisan message to the world that the people of the United States stand together with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their democracy and freedom,” Biden said in a written statement afterwards.
Biden’s quick signature was certain as Russia’s attack, which has mauled Ukraine’s forces and cities, slogs into a fourth month with no obvious end ahead. That means more casualties and destruction in Ukraine, which has relied heavily on US and Western assistance for its survival, especially advanced arms, with requests for more aid potentially looming.
“Help is on the way, really significant help. Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious,” said the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, underscoring a goal that seemed nearly unthinkable when Russia launched its assault in February.
Final passage came as Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, said the US had authorized shipping Ukraine another $100m worth of weapons and equipment from Pentagon stocks. That brought the total US spend sent to Kyiv since the invasion began to $3.9bn, exhausting the amounts Congress previously made available but that will be replenished by the newest legislation.
Here’s more from the Guardian’s Julian Borger on today’s White House visit between Biden and Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, and the Swedish prime minister, Magdalena Andersson.
The US president, Joe Biden, has welcomed the Finnish and Swedish leaders to the White House promising full support for their membership applications to what he called a “revived Nato” in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.
In their remarks in the Rose Garden, the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, and the Swedish prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, addressed the only major barrier to their countries’ accession to the alliance: the objections of the Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who restated on Thursday his resolve to veto their membership.
“We will continue our policy in a determined way. We have told allies that we will say no to Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership,” Erdoğan told Turkish students in a video uploaded on his official Twitter account. All 30 alliance members have to approve the acceptance of a new ally.
Erdoğan accused Sweden and Finland of harbouring and financing the Kurdistan Workers party militant group and Syrian Kurdish YPG, who he deems to be “terrorists”.
In his Rose Garden comments, Niinistö addressed those accusations directly.
“Finland has always had proud and good bilateral relations with Turkey. As Nato allies, we will commit to Turkey’s security, just as Turkey will commit to our security,” the Finnish president said. “We take terrorism seriously. We condemn terrorism in all its forms and we are actively engaged in combating it. We are open to discussing all the concerns Turkey may have concerning our membership in an open and constructive manner. These discussions have already taken place and they will continue in the next days.”
He emphasised the contribution that Finland would make to the alliance.
“Finland’s armed forces are one of the strongest in Europe,” Niinistö said. “We have also consistently invested in developing capabilities. The Finns’ willingness to defend the country is one of the highest in the whole world.”
In her speech, Andersson said that the Swedish government was “right now having a dialogue with all Nato member countries, including Turkey, on different levels to sort out any issues at hand”.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, expressed confidence to reporters aboard Air Force One that there was a way to assuage Turkish concerns over bids by Sweden and Finland to join Nato.
“We believe that the Turkish concerns about the accession of Sweden and Finland that have been expressed by Erdogan and others can be addressed and can be resolved,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan said the leaders of Sweden and Finland told Biden today that they would “speak directly to president Erdogan”. As for the US’ role, he said: “We’re prepared to support that effort in any way.”
Reporters asked several more questions about the Nordic countries efforts to join Nato, but the briefing was patchy for us earthbound-listeners of the press briefing. Biden is en route to South Korea for his first visit to Asia as president.
Here’s a look at what’s in the massive aid bill that the US says will rush urgent supplies and military equipment to Ukraine’s frontlines.
- more than $9bn to replenish stocks of US weapons sent to Ukraine
- roughly $6 bn to train and supply the Ukrainian military
- almost $4bn for European Command operations
- $900 million to provide refugee support services, such as housing, English language classes, trauma and support services, community support and case management, for arrivals and refugees from Ukraine
- Nearly $9bn in general economic support for Ukraine
- roughly $5bn in global food aid to alleviate food scarcity sparked by the collapse of Ukraine’s agricultural economy
- nearly $1bn in combined support for refugee
- $67m to aid the US Department of Justice in its efforts to seize and sell forfeited property such as the yachts and artwork of Russian oligarchs
The package brings the total amount of aid the US has given to Ukraine since the start of the war in late February to $53bn.
Updated
The documentary Mariupolis 2, pieced together from the salvaged footage of a new project in Ukraine being made by the Lithuanian film-maker Mantas Kvedaravičius debuted at the Cannes Film festival on Thursday, according to the Guardian’s Vanessa Thorpe.
Kvedaravičius was killed in the conflict, but his fiancee Hanna Bilobrova brought the footage the director had already completed to a special screening set up in the Palais des Festivals.
(Reuters) - "Mariupolis 2," a documentary showing a close-up view of life under bombardment in Ukraine, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival Thursday with an emotional tribute to slain director Mantas Kvedaravicius by his fiancée.
— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) May 19, 2022
British defence minister Ben Wallace told the UK parliament on Thursday that he believed there was a way to assuage Turkey’s concerns over Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
Finland and Sweden formally applied on Wednesday to join NATO, a decision spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Turkey has objected, accusing the countries of supporting groups that it deems terrorists, according to Reuters.
“I think there is a way through. I think we will get there in the end and it is very important that we listen to all members and their concerns in that process and we will certainly be listening to Turkey,” Wallace told the parliament. He said he would soon speak to his Turkish counterpart.
The US Congress on Thursday approved $40bn in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, with both parties eagerly backing the latest effort to support an ally under brutal assault by Russia.
The US Senate gave final approval to the measure in a vote of 86-11, with all Democrats and most Republicans in favor. The measure will next go to Biden for signature, nearly three weeks after the US president asked Congress for a smaller, $33bn version of the bill.
In a statement, Biden thanked Congress for working together – a rarity these days – to send a “clear bipartisan message to the world that the people of the United States stand together with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their democracy and freedom.”
The resources that I requested will allow us to send even more weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, replenish our own stockpile, and support U.S. troops stationed on NATO territory,” Biden continued. “Together with the contributions of our allies and partners, we will keep security, economic, food, and humanitarian assistance flowing to Ukraine, across the region, and around the world, and further strengthen Ukraine — both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.
“Help is on the way, really significant help,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious.”
Updated
Russia’s promise to use lasers to shoot down drones in Ukraine has prompted widespread scepticism that the novel and possibly nuclear-powered weaponry could be deployed on the battlefield or have any significant impact on the war, Dan Sabbagh and Pjotr Sauer report.
Yuri Borisov, Russia’s deputy prime minister, told the country’s Channel One television station that the new Zadira directed-energy weapon could destroy targets up to 5km away, and had incinerated a drone in five seconds in a test.
But there was no immediate evidence to back up the claim, while Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, belittled the claim, describing it as a “wunderwaffe” – a nonexistent “wonder weapon” that was originally a propaganda invention of the Nazis.
“The clearer it became they [the Nazis] had no chance in the war, the more propaganda there was about the wonder weapon,” Zelenskiy said. “Russia is trying to find its wunderwaffe. Allegedly laser. All this clearly indicates the complete failure of the invasion.”
Laser systems designed to shoot down drones are being gradually developed by the world’s militaries – but most are at a test or prototype stage, and their military utility in a conflict is untried.
Last month Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, said the country’s military had successfully tested a laser interception system called Iron Beam. “It may sound like science fiction, but it’s real,” he said on Twitter.
An accompanying video showed lasers locking on to and shooting down rockets, mortars and a large drone with similarities to a Turkish TB2, which has been used by Ukraine in defending against the Russian invasion.
Updated
More than a million Ukrainian refugees have already returned home, according to the country’s ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko.
Speaking at an event in Westminster, Prystaiko said:
We see Ukrainians are frustrated with the growing discomfort, the growing struggle with different systems around the European Union, because they are missing their loved ones, they’re missing their homes, they’re missing their jobs.
He added that the mayors of Kyiv and Kharkiv had had to tell people not to return to the cities as it was still unsafe.
One of the things I’d like to address is how we can still be able to hold them here somewhere in Europe, the European Union, sometimes across the pond in Canada and the United States.
Prystaiko also emphasised the need to put senior Russian figures on trial for war crimes committed in Ukraine.
He told PA news agency:
The example of post-world war two has already sort of vanished from people’s memory, so they have to be revitalised, the image itself.
Updated
G7 agrees on £14.7bn to help Ukraine ‘and are prepared to do more’
G7 financial leaders have agreed on $18.4bn (£14.7bn) to help Ukraine and said they were ready to stand by Kyiv and “do more as needed”, according to a draft communique seen by Reuters.
Finance ministers and central bank governors of the US, Japan, Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are holding talks as Ukraine is running out of cash.
G7 countries have “mobilised $18.4 billion of budget support, including $9.2 billion of recent commitments” in 2022, the draft said.
It said:
We will continue to stand by Ukraine throughout this war and beyond and are prepared to do more as needed.
It also welcomed the European Commission’s proposal to lend €9bn to Ukraine. The draft said:
We call on all partners to join us in supporting Ukraine’s long-term recovery and to ensure the massive joint effort for reconstruction is closely coordinated, including with the Ukrainian authorities and international financial institutions.
The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said G7 finance leaders had agreed to provide Ukraine with the financial resources it needs, but did not confirm the $18.4bn figure.
Speaking to reporters after the first day of meetings, Yellen said:
The message was, ‘We stand behind Ukraine. We’re going to pull together with the resources that they need to get through this.’
Updated
Updated
The dissident Russian film director Kirill Serebrennikov is calling for the lifting of sanctions on Roman Abramovich, one of the investors behind his latest film. The Russian oligarch, now trying to sell Chelsea football club because of financial restrictions imposed on him by the British government, was a valuable patron of the arts, said the director.
Abramovich’s record as a sponsor of important cinema should be taken into account, Serebrennikov added, speaking at the Cannes film festival. “We have to lift the sanctions against Abramovich. He has been a real patron of the arts and in Russia this has always been appreciated,” the director said after Wednesday night’s premiere of his film Tchaikovsky’s Wife, which is in competition for the festival’s coveted Palme d’Or prize.
Serebrennikov is one of the few Russian film-makers asked to participate in the festival this year and he is using the platform to argue against a blanket boycott of art and culture from Russia in Europe.
According to festival organisers, Serebrennikov’s competition entry is eligible because its production predated the war in Ukraine, although it is not clear if the decision is in line with current European sanctions on the financial interests of Russian oligarchs.
Ukrainian delegates at Cannes have questioned the timing of the filming itself, which they allege may have continued into April. Questioned on Thursday, Serebrennikov said he had not received money directly from the Russian state since he was a student. Funds, he said, came then through the civil service, not directly from wealthy individuals. “Up to that point it was not toxic money,” he said. “There was nothing shameful about it.” He added that Abramovich’s film foundation, Kinoprime, had helped to fund his last two films.
Updated
12 civilians killed in Russian shelling in Luhansk region, says Ukraine’s military administration
Twelve civilians have been killed and more than 40 wounded in a day of heavy shelling by Russian forces in the city of Severodonetsk, the head of the military administration in the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said.
Among the victims were two women found dead in a flat hit by a missile, Haidai said. He described the shelling as chaotic, adding that “mostly the Russians targeted hits on residential buildings”.
He said the number of casualties was not final “as it is impossible to inspect the area under fire”.
Sigmund Freud was unavailable for comment, but George W Bush saying Iraq instead of Ukraine when condemning “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion” certainly suggests he still has a lot on his unconscious mind.
The former president jokingly attributed the slip to his 75 years, but there has always been a faulty connection between his brain and his tongue. There are whole books full of “Bushisms”, like his boast that people “misunderestimated” him, and how much he felt for single mothers “working hard to put food on your family”.
There may have been something Freudian about his 2004 warning that America’s enemies “never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we”. And then there was the time he was thanking an army general for his service in 2008, telling him he “really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq”.
Bush has already told us that the fiasco of Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) still troubles him.
“No one was more shocked and angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons,” he wrote in his memoir, Decision Points.
“I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do.”
But Bush sought to justify the 2003 invasion anyway, on the grounds that Saddam Hussein was a vicious despot “pursuing” WMDs and therefore the US was safer without him in the world.
The 43rd president was making a similar argument to an audience at his presidential library in Dallas on Wednesday when he made his latest gaffe.
Bush was making a distinction between a democratically elected Volodymyr Zelenskiy, “the Churchill of the 21st century”, and the rigged elections and despotism of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where the absence of checks and balances led to “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq – I mean Ukraine”.
The audience laughed along, but the mistake was a reminder that the world is still living with the consequences of that invasion, which broke Iraq, set off a sectarian civil war, and left hundreds of thousands of people dead.
Nearly two decades on, it continues to weaken the US on the world stage, and is undoubtedly a factor in the ambivalence of countries in Africa and the Middle East over joining a decisive global response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Putin has cynically copied from the Iraq playbook the Bush administration left behind, with spurious claims of Ukrainian WMDs. The US’s refusal to prosecute war crimes by US troops and contractors, its use of torture in the “global war on terror” and Bush’s campaign to undermine the international criminal court, all contributed to a more permissive environment for the many crimes against humanity that have followed Iraq, from Syria to Ukraine and well beyond.
Wednesday’s Bushism was a reminder that for all the former president’s “aw shucks” self-deprecatory jokes about Iraq, it was never funny.
Updated
Today so far...
It is almost 7.30pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
- Russia’s foreign ministry said it will only consider opening access to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports if the removal of sanctions against Russia is also considered. Remarks by the Russian deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, came after the UN food chief, David Beasley, pleaded with Vladimir Putin, saying millions would die around the world because of the Russian blockade of the ports.
- Ukraine’s top presidential adviser and member of the negotiating team, Mykhailo Podolyak, said a ceasefire with Russia is “impossible without total Russian troops withdrawal”. Podolyak said Kyiv is not interested in a new “Minsk”, referring to the 2015 Minsk agreement, brokered by France and Germany, which attempted to secure a ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine.
- Russia’s defence ministry said 1,730 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered from Azovstal since Monday. That includes a further 771 who surrendered, they said, in the last 24 hours. Eighty were wounded. The ministry said “those in need of inpatient treatment receive assistance in medical institutions” in Novoazovsk and Donetsk.
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The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, said more than half of the Ukrainian fighters who were inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have now left the plant. The reports are unclear on an exact number and have not been independently verified. There has been confusion over exactly how many fighters were besieged in the plant.
- The US president, Joe Biden, said Finland and Sweden “meet every Nato requirement and then some” to join the alliance and have the “full, complete backing” of the US. Speaking at a joint press conference at the White House, Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, said Russia’s “full-scale aggression” against Ukraine led to the “watershed moment” for her country to decide to apply for Nato membership. Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, said his country was open to discussing Turkey’s concerns over its application to join Nato.
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Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he had told allies he would “say no” to Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership bid. He also accused Sweden and Finland of harbouring and financing “terrorists” and supplying them with weapons, adding: “Nato is a security alliance and we cannot accept terrorists to be in it.”
- A court in Kyiv met for a second hearing in the first war crimes trial arising from Russia’s 24 February invasion. Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old tank commander, asked a Ukrainian widow to forgive him for the murder of her husband after pleading guilty yesterday to killing an unarmed 62-year-old civilian in the north-east Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
- The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, held a phone conversation with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to discuss military support and global food security. The pair looked at options to “open up critical sea and land supply routes for Ukrainian grain stocks”, Downing Street said. Zelenskiy said he also updated Johnson about “the course of hostilities and the operation to rescue the military from Azovstal”.
- The evacuation of Ukrainian troops from the southern port city of Mariupol continues, according to a Ukrainian general. Oleksiy Gromov, the deputy chief of the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, said: “In the Mariupol direction, measures are being taken to evacuate our heroes.” He did not provide details.
Hello from London. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong and I’ll continue to bring you the latest developments from the war in Ukraine for the next few hours. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said he spoke with his British counterpart, Liz Truss, about how to “hold Russia accountable for its aggression and unblock Ukraine’s food exports”.
Kuleba tweeted:
Russia bears full responsibility not only for killing, torturing, and raping Ukrainians, but also for starving people across the world, including in Africa.
Spoke with my UK friend @trussliz on ways to hold Russia accountable for its aggression and unblock Ukraine’s food exports. Russia bears full responsibility not only for killing, torturing, and raping Ukrainians, but also for starving people across the world, including in Africa.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) May 19, 2022
Sweden ‘will be best protected within Nato’, says Andersson
Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, said Russia’s “full-scale aggression” against Ukraine led to the “watershed moment” for her country to decide to apply for Nato membership.
Speaking at a joint press conference with the US president, Joe Biden, and the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, Andersson said:
My government has come to the conclusion that the security of the Swedish people will be best protected within the Nato alliance, and this is backed by very broad support in the Swedish parliament.
Nato will be stronger with both Sweden and Finland as members, she said.
We are security providers with sophisticated defence capabilities. And we are champions of freedom, democracy and human rights.
Sweden looks forward to a “swift ratification process”, she said, adding that she was also looking forward to a dialogue with Turkey to address its concerns.
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Finland ‘open to discussing Turkey’s concerns over Nato bid’
The Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, said his country was open to discussing Turkey’s concerns over its application to join Nato.
Finland was ready to commit to Ankara’s security, Niinistö said at a joint news conference with the US president, Joe Biden, and Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson.
Addressing Turkey directly, he said:
Finland has always had broad and good bilateral relations with Turkey. As Nato allies, we will commit to Turkey’s security, just as Turkey will commit to our security.
We take terrorism seriously. We condemn terrorism in all its forms and we are actively engaged in combating it.
We are open to discussing all the concerns Turkey may have concerning our membership in an open and productive manner.
Niinistö added that Finland’s decision to seek Nato membership was made with “an overwhelming parliamentary majority and huge, strong popular support”.
Finland will be a strong Nato ally, he said, adding that the Finnish armed forces “are one of the strongest in Europe”.
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Biden: Finland and Sweden have ‘full, complete backing’ of the US
The US president, Joe Biden, has been speaking at a news conference after a meeting with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö, and Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, at the White House.
Biden said the two Nordic countries have strong democratic institutions, strong militaries, strong and transparent economies and a strong moral sense of what is right, adding:
They meet every Nato requirement and then some. Having two new Nato members in the high north will enhance the security of our alliance and deepen our security cooperation across the board.
Biden described today as “momentous, very good” and that he was proud to offer the “strong support” of the US for the applications of “two great democracies, and two highly capable partners” to join “the strongest, most powerful defensive alliance in the history of the world”.
He said:
This is about the future. It’s about a revived Nato that has the tools and resources and the clarity and conviction to defend our shared values and lead the world.
The alliance would be “enhanced for all time” by Sweden and Finland joining, he said.
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Our Geneva Abdul speaks to Ruhullah Haji, an Afghan surgeon who fled Ukraine and says he was treated differently at Polish border.
Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and later building a life in Ukraine, Ruhullah Haji has been displaced by war twice in 34 years.
So when the heart surgeon made it to Britain after fleeing Russia’s invasion, he was desperate for security and the right to remain as a Ukrainian. Many other Afghans have struggled to secure such rights since the fall of Kabul last year, and remain in limbo.
Haji’s application to the Ukrainian family scheme was accepted on Thursday, about a month after he applied and a day after the Guardian approached the Home Office about his case.
However, his lawyer said a decision for his wife and daughter has yet to come.
It marks the end of a long and arduous road. A week after Ukraine was invaded in February, Haji crossed the Polish border alone in search of his wife and child who had already fled. At the border, he said he was treated differently. Other black, Asian and minority ethnic refugees have reported similar experiences.
“Because they [volunteers] saw me: that I’m not white and I don’t have green eyes and I’m not blond,” said Haji, who waited at the border for three days with no belongings. “But … I serve for Ukraine, more than [many] Ukrainians.”
He then travelled by train from Poland through Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany over two days in search of his family, before flying to the UK. “I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink, I was just walking and running, in two days,” he said.
Haji had left Afghanistan for Ukraine in his teens to join his older brother. He studied Russian, adding a seventh language to his arsenal, and completed his medical degree to become a heart surgeon. He also held language classes for more than 100 Afghan refugees, worked as a refugee doctor across the Odesa region where the family lived, and later founded a clinic of his own.
After reuniting with his family in Britain in March, they visited the Home Office and the following day were sent to a hotel in Blackpool to await news of their asylum application.
Haji’s solicitor, Nicola Burgess, of the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, has been helping Haji’s family, and others who have applied for asylum, switch to existing Ukrainian schemes.
Burgess recognises that without the Ukrainian scheme, the family would be stuck in a hotel without the right to work – the experience of many Afghans. “If you just had to flee a war zone, you have been subjected to trauma. And if you’re stuck in a box room hotel, it is going to have a negative effect on a person.”
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Stoltenberg ‘confident’ in quick Nato decision for Finland and Sweden
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said he is confident that Nato members will come to a quick decision to welcome Finland and Sweden into the alliance.
Speaking during a visit to Copenhagen, Stoltenberg said it was not unusual for members of the alliance to have different opinions, referring to Turkey’s reluctance to accept the Nordic countries’ membership bid.
Stoltenberg said:
We have much experience in Nato, when there is a difference of opinion, of sitting down and finding solutions.
He said Nato was “in close contact” with Finland, Sweden and Turkey, adding:
We are addressing the concerns that Turkey has expressed.
Also addressing Turkey’s opposition to the two countries joining Nato was the British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, who said he believed there was a way to address Ankara’s concerns.
Wallace told the UK parliament that he would be speaking to his Turkish counterpart, adding:
I think there is a way through. I think we will get there in the end and it is very important that we listen to all members and their concerns in that process and we will certainly be listening to Turkey.
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We reported earlier that the UK’s Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy had spoken on the phone about military support and global food security, according to a No 10 spokesperson.
President Zelenskiy has now tweeted about the conversation, saying that he also updated the prime minister about “the course of hostilities and the operation to rescue the military from Azovstal”.
Had a phone conversation with @BorisJohnson. Informed about the course of hostilities and the operation to rescue the military from Azovstal. Discussed defense support, ways to export agricultural products from Ukraine and import fuel to Ukraine.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 19, 2022
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Joe Biden welcomes Finnish and Swedish leaders to White House
President Joe Biden has welcomed Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, and Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, to the White House. The visit follows both nations applying to join Nato, which Biden has said he strongly supports.
Yesterday Biden issued a statement saying he looked forward “to working with the US Congress and our Nato allies to quickly bring Finland and Sweden into the strongest defensive alliance in history.”
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Germany removes perks accorded to former chancellors from Gerhard Schröder
Germany has removed official perks accorded to the former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, saying that he has failed to uphold the obligations of his office by refusing to sever ties with Russian energy giants.
“The coalition parliamentary groups have drawn consequences from the behaviour of former chancellor and lobbyist Gerhard Schröder in view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the parliament decided.
“The office of the former chancellor shall be suspended,” it said, noting that Schröder “no longer upholds the continuing obligations of his office”, Agence France-Presse reports.
The Bundestag’s decision came as EU lawmakers separately called in a non-binding resolution on the bloc to apply sanctions to Schröder and other Europeans who refuse to give up lucrative board seats at Russian companies.
Schröder, who was Germany’s chancellor from 1998 to 2005, has been under fire for refusing to quit his posts with the Russian energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom following Moscow’s war in Ukraine. He has issued a statement condemning the invasion as unjustified but also said that dialogue must continue with Moscow.
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Russian soldier in war crimes trial asks widow for forgiveness
A 21-year-old Russian soldier asked a Ukrainian widow to forgive him for the murder of her husband, as a court in Kyiv met today for a second hearing in the first war crimes trial arising from Russia’s 24 February invasion.
Vadim Shishimarin, a tank commander, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing an unarmed 62-year-old civilian in the north-east Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
“I acknowledge my blame … I ask you to forgive me,” he told the widow, Kateryna Shalipova, Reuters reports.
The widow told the court she had heard distant shots fired from their yard and that she had called out to her husband the day he was killed.
“I ran over to my husband, he was already dead. Shot in the head. I screamed, I screamed so much,” she said.
Shalipova told the court she would not object if Shishimarin was released to Russia as part of a prisoner swap to get “our boys” out of the port city of Mariupol, a reference to hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who have given themselves up to Russia.
The Kremlin has said it has no information about the trial and that the absence of a diplomatic mission in Ukraine limits its ability to provide legal assistance.
Read more here: Russian soldier asks Ukrainian widow to forgive him during first war crimes trial
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Russia has suggested it may cut off Ukraine from Europe’s largest nuclear plant unless Kyiv pays Moscow for electricity, AFP reports.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in south-eastern Ukraine was captured by Russian troops after they invaded the country on 24 February.
Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying:
If the energy system of Ukraine is ready to receive and pay, then (the plant) will work for Ukraine. If not, then (the plant) will work for Russia.
Khusnullin’s remarks came after Russian officials indicated that Moscow intended to remain in territories it had occupied in southern Ukraine, such as the Kherson region and large parts of Zaporizhzhia.
Khusnullin said there was “no doubt” the Zaporizhzhia plant will remain operational, adding:
We have a lot of experience of working with nuclear power plants, we have companies in Russia that have this experience.
Ukraine’s nuclear agency, Energoatom, said today that the Zaporizhzhia plant continued to feed the national power grid.
A spokesperson for Energoatom said Russians “do not have the technical capacity to supply energy from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to Russia or Crimea”.
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The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, raised “significant concerns” about rising food prices linked to Russia’s invasion in a call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The two leaders spoke this morning to discuss “a range of issues, including military support and global food security”, Downing Street said.
The pair looked at options to “open up critical sea and land supply routes for Ukrainian grain stocks”, and committed to directing their teams to “work urgently on the next steps”, it said in a statement.
A No 10 spokesperson added:
The prime minister raised his significant concerns about the growing global fallout from Russia’s illegal invasion and President (Vladimir) Putin’s craven and reckless blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, including rising food prices in developing countries.
Johnson stressed his “undimmed admiration for the brave defenders of Mariupol” and urged Russia to treat any prisoners of war with dignity and respect, the spokesperson said.
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Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, said the “first shells” in the Ukraine war were fired in cyberspace when Russian intelligence – FSB, GRU and SVR – launched a malware attack dubbed FoxBlade against key infrastructure sites a few hours before fighting began.
Speaking in London, the technology executive said it demonstrated that the conflict was “the world’s first major hybrid war” beginning with an attack aimed at “300 targets across the Ukrainian government” and was “fired simultaneously by the Russian military in a coordinated way”.
It is unclear how much impact the Russian cyber-attack had, but Smith said that Russia had “more precisely targeted” its cyber-attacks in the run-up to and during the war, in contrast to the 2017 NotPetya malware attack which spread around the world and even affected Russian systems.
Cyber-operations had continued to evolve both before and throughout the conflict, Smith said. They started with a wave of denial of service attacks designed to knock out websites in January and February that were intended to “wage psychological warfare” against the people of Ukraine and convince them “they had no chance of winning this war”.
When war started, that changed to the precise targeting of “a number of critical sectors”. But the Russians had now moved on to a combination of conventional and cyber-attacks, which Smith said amounted to a “new form of amphibious warfare in cyberspace”.
There had been “40 different waves of destructive attacks”, against hundreds of different targets during the conflict, he added.
“We saw how, within a matter of days, Russians would go from taking down a network in a nuclear power plant through attacking that nuclear power plant,” Smith added, an apparent reference to the facility at Zaporizhzhya captured by the Russians in March.
Microsoft had been closely involved in helping Ukraine, providing $100m of free services to help Kyiv, Smith said. A week before the war started, Smith said the company had helped 16 of 17 government ministry systems move from physical servers in official buildings to the cloud so they could survive bombing.
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The evacuation of Ukrainian troops from the southern port city of Mariupol continues, according to a Ukrainian general.
Oleksiy Gromov, deputy chief of the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, is quoted by Reuters as saying:
In the Mariupol direction, measures are being taken to evacuate our heroes.
Gromov did not provide further details about the evacuation during the online briefing.
Our Pjotr Sauer writes for us about Belgorod, the Russian city of the Ukraine frontline:
The sounds of war have become louder in Belgorod, a mid-sized Russian city about 25 miles (40km) from the Ukrainian border. And the blasts are more frequent.
“On Sunday, we were woken up again by explosions. You never know if it’s them or us firing,” said Vladimir, a shopkeeper in the city.
Locals such as Vladimir first witnessed Russia’s military buildup at the start of the year, when thousands of troops amassed near Belgorod prior to Moscow’s attack in late February.
“When the conflict started, we would hear rockets being launched into Ukraine. But now we get hit too. It is a different sound.”
As the war has dragged on and Russia failed in its objective to quickly seize Kyiv, officials in Belgorod and other border cities have in recent weeks reported a series of attacks by Ukrainian forces. Ukraine has not directly accepted responsibility but has described the incidents as payback and “karma” for Russia, almost three months after it invaded its neighbour.
The apparent Ukrainian attacks, which started when two helicopters struck an oil depot in Belgorod on 1 April, have brought a new element into the war, raising the previously unthinkable possibility that some of the devastating damage that Moscow has inflicted on Ukraine will come to Russia’s own territory.
“We talk a lot about what is happening, of course. The atmosphere in the city is sort of tense,” said Anna, a local teacher.
“Life goes on, but sometimes it is impossible to ignore it, like the time the city was in thick smoke,” she said, referring to the fuel depot attack.
In this week alone, officials in Belgorod reported at least three attacks. Last week, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region, claimed a strike on a small town in the area had killed one Russian civilian.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he spoke with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, about Russia’s role in global health matters and the situation in Ukraine.
Ghebreyesus tweeted that he “requested safe access to Mariupol, Kherson, southern Zaporizhzhia and other besieged areas to deliver health aid”, adding that “civilians must be protected”.
Spoke with Foreign Minister Lavrov about 🇷🇺's participation in global health matters, work with @WHO & the health situation in #Ukraine. I requested safe access to Mariupol, Kherson, Southern Zaporizhzhia & other besieged areas to deliver health aid. Civilians must be protected.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 19, 2022
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Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he had told allies he would “say no” to Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership bid.
Erdoğan was speaking in an interview late on Wednesday, posted to his Twitter account today, where he was quoted as saying:
We will continue our policy in a determined way. We have told allies that we will say no to Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership.
He also accused Sweden and Finland of harbouring and financing “terrorists” and supplying them with weapons.
Ankara says the two countries support people linked to groups it deems terrorists, namely the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) militant group and the Syrian Kurdish YPG, which it also views as a terrorist group closely tied to the PKK.
Erdoğan added:
Nato is a security alliance and we cannot accept terrorists to be in it.
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Russia 'will only open Ukraine's ports if sanctions are reviewed' after UN appeal
Russia’s foreign ministry said it will only consider opening access to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports if the removal of sanctions against Russia is also considered, the Interfax news agency reports.
Russian deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, was quoted as saying:
You have to not only appeal to the Russian Federation but also look deeply at the whole complex of reasons that caused the current food crisis and, in the first instance, these are the sanctions that have been imposed against Russia by the US and the EU that interfere with normal free trade, encompassing food products including wheat, fertilisers and others.
Rudenko’s remarks come after the United Nations food chief, David Beasley, pleaded with Vladimir Putin, saying millions would die around the world because of the Russian blockade of Black Sea ports.
Addressing the Russian president directly, Beasley said:
If you have any heart at all for the rest of the world, regardless of how you feel about Ukraine, you need to open up those ports.
Beasley’s World Food Programme feeds some 125m people and buys 50% of its grain from Ukraine. Ukraine is among the top five global exporters of several vital agricultural products, including corn, wheat and barley, as well as being a key exporter of sunflower and meal.
Earlier today, the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, warned that the food shortages stoked by the war in Ukraine could cause “malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years” across the world.
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Ukraine’s top presidential advisor and member of the negotiating team, Mykhailo Podolyak, said a ceasefire with Russia is “impossible without (a) total Russian troops withdrawal”.
Podolyak tweeted that Kyiv is not interested in a new “Minsk”, referring to the 2015 Minsk agreement, brokered by France and Germany, which attempted to secure a ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine.
Podolyak added:
Until Russia is ready to fully liberate occupied territories, our negotiating team is weapons, sanctions and money.
Do not offer us a ceasefire - this is impossible without total Russian troops withdrawal. Ukraine is not interested in new "Minsk" and the war renewal in a few years. Until 🇷🇺 is ready to fully liberate occupied territories, our negotiating team is weapons, sanctions and money.
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) May 19, 2022
Russia has expelled five Portuguese diplomats in a retaliatory move, its foreign ministry said. Embassy staff are required to leave Moscow within 14 days, it said.
It comes after the Russian ministry kicked out a total of 85 diplomats – 34 from France, 27 from Spain and 24 from Italy – on Wednesday in response to similar moves by those countries.
Last month, Russia also sent home 45 Polish staff and 40 Germans. It has announced tit-for-tat moves against Finland, Romania, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Japan, among others.
Today so far …
- Russia’s defence ministry has said 1,730 fighters have surrendered from Azovstal since Monday. That includes a further 771 who surrendered, they say, in the last 24 hours. 80 were wounded. The Russian defence ministry says “those in need of inpatient treatment receive assistance in medical institutions” in Novoazovsk and Donetsk.
- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has issued a statement saying “The ICRC started on Tuesday, 17 May to register combatants leaving the Azovstal plant, including the wounded, at the request of the parties. The registration process that the ICRC facilitated involves the individual filling out a form with personal details like name, date of birth and closest relative. This information allows the ICRC to track those who have been captured and help them keep in touch with their families.”
- Russia’s news agency Tass has quoted Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, as saying that more than half of the Ukrainian fighters who were inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have now left the plant.
- Kursk regional governor Roman Starovoy has posted details of a claimed attack on the village of Tyotkino in Russia which he says has killed one person, and damaged houses and factories.
- Serhiy Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, has claimed that overnight “Russians used aircraft to destroy civilian objects in the areas of the settlements of Loskutivka, Katerynivka and Orikhove”. He also claimed that “sixteen enemy attacks were repulsed in Luhansk and Donetsk last night”.
- The UK’s ministry of defence has claimed that Russia’s Lieutenant General Serhiy Kisel has been suspended for failing to capture Kharkiv and Vice Admiral Igor Osipov has been suspended from commanding the Black Sea Fleet. Their intelligence briefing states “A culture of cover-ups and scapegoating is probably prevalent within the Russian military and security system. Many officials involved in the invasion of Ukraine will likely be increasingly distracted by efforts to avoid personal culpability for Russia’s operational set-backs.”
- The trial of 21-year-old Vadim Shishimarin continues in Kyiv. He is a Russian tank commander charged with the murder of a 62-year-old civilian as he rode his bicycle down a village road. Shishimarin has pleaded guilty.
- Finland’s prime minister Sanna Marin has said in an interview in an Italian newspaper that she does not anticipate Nato opening a permanent base or locating nuclear weapons on Finnish soil. “This issue is not on the agenda,” she told Corriere della Sera.
- Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said that his nation would defend Sweden and Finland if they were attacked even before they joined Nato.
- Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has called for an urgent ceasefire in Ukraine so that serious negotiations can begin to end the war. Draghi said it was important to maintain pressure on Russia through economic sanctions “because we have to bring Moscow to the negotiating table.”
- G7 finance ministers will meet in Germany on Thursday hoping to thrash out a plan to bolster Ukraine’s war-ravaged economy. United States treasury secretary Janet Yellen said ahead of the meeting in Koenigswinter that what had been agreed so far was “not enough” and called on US partners to “join us in increasing their financial support”.
- UN secretary general António Guterres has warned that the food shortages stoked by the war in Ukraine could cause “malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years” across the world.
- Russia’s Aeroflot, Ural Airlines and Rossiya Airlines have been targeted with new sanctions to prevent them selling off landing slots at UK airports.
- The US embassy in Kyiv has reopened after closing at the beginning of the war nearly three months ago. Staff ran the star-spangled banner up the flagpole outside the embassy at a ceremony on Thursday morning.
- Switzerland’s department of foreign affairs has announced that it will reopen its embassy in Kyiv.
Léonie Chao-Fong will be with you shortly to continue our live coverage for the next few hours.
The BBC’s Sarah Rainsford has been tweeting from the court in Kyiv where 21-year-old Vadim Shishimarin is on trial for the murder of a 62-year-old man as he rode his bicycle down a village road. He pleaded guilty yesterday.
Kateryna Shelipova, the dead man’s wife, has given evidence.
‘My husband was a tractor driver, we didn’t have any weapons. He was in civilian clothes’
— Sarah Rainsford (@sarahrainsford) May 19, 2022
‘The loss of my husband is everything for me. he was my protector’
Shishimarin has also given evidence.
Russian tank commander Shishimarin is now giving his testimony, standing in the metal & glass cage in court. He's speaking Russian. Voice not wavering. Looking straight ahead.
— Sarah Rainsford (@sarahrainsford) May 19, 2022
He says he refused to shoot Oleksandr at first, but was ordered & threatened by another soldier
Yesterday our Emma Graham-Harrison reported from Kyiv that Shysimarin comes from Ust Illyinsk in the south-east Irkutsk region of Russia and was a commander of the Kantemirovskaya tank division on the day of the killing, 28 February, in Chupakhivka village. The case is being heard by three judges, who must reach an unanimous verdict for the suspect to be convicted and sentenced, even after the guilty plea. He faces life in jail for the killing.
Russia’s Aeroflot, Ural Airlines and Rossiya Airlines have been targeted with new sanctions to prevent them selling off landing slots at UK airports.
The slots, which are now unused as a result of the ban on Russian airlines, could have been worth around £50m.
PA Media quotes foreign secretary Liz Truss saying: “As long as Putin continues his barbarous assault on Ukraine, we will continue to target the Russian economy.
“We’ve already closed our airspace to Russian airlines. Today we’re making sure they can’t cash in their lucrative landing slots at our airports.
“Every economic sanction reinforces our clear message to Putin, we will not stop until Ukraine prevails.”
The Swiss department of foreign affairs has announced that it will reopen its embassy in Kyiv. Reuters reports five staff members, including the ambassador, are set to return to the Ukrainian capital over the next few days.
The decision to reopen Switzerland’s embassy after it was temporarily closed two and a half months ago was based on an in-depth analysis of the security situation, the ministry said.
Kursk regional governor Roman Starovoy has posted again to Telegram with further details of what he claims was an attack on the village of Tyotkino in Russia, which is right on the border with Ukraine. His message says he is visiting the area:
According to updated information, the truck driver from the Voronezh region died. I express my condolences to the family. Another driver from the Voronezh region was injured. He was sent for treatment to the Kursk Regional Hospital, with a moderate wound. We will give him all the help he needs.
Communicated with residents. Affected residential buildings will be promptly repaired. Two families with children live in the most destroyed house. They will be temporarily transferred to Kursk.
The task for today is to close the windows and roofs of the affected houses and begin repairs. The gas is already being restored. Buildings on the territories of the distillery and the sugar factory were also damaged.
The message states that his visit continues. Earlier he posted some images to Telegram purporting to be from the scene of the alleged attack.
Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has called for an urgent ceasefire in Ukraine so that serious negotiations can begin to end the war that began with Russia’s latest invasion almost three months ago.
“A ceasefire must be achieved as soon as possible,” Reuters reports Draghi told the upper house Senate in Rome, opening a debate on Italy’s role in supporting Ukraine, which is creating growing tensions in the premier’s ruling majority.
Draghi said it was important to maintain pressure on Russia through economic sanctions “because we have to bring Moscow to the negotiating table.”
Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said that his nation would defend Sweden and Finland if they were attacked even before they joined Nato.
“I consider the accession of Sweden and Finland to Nato as an important signal of strengthening security in Europe,” Reuters report he said during a conference.
“I want to make it clear that in the event of an attack on Sweden or Finland during their accession, Poland will come to their aid.”
Finland’s prime minister Sanna Marin has given an interview to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, and the key lines appear to be that she is ruling out Nato locating a permanent base or nuclear weapons on Finnish soil. She says (in translation):
It is not a current debate, the issue is not part of the negotiation. These are national decisions. Nobody will impose nuclear weapons or permanent bases on us if we don’t want them. This issue is not on the agenda. It does not seem to me that there is even interest in deploying nuclear weapons or opening NATO bases in Finland.
She said that, even without Nato assistance, Finland was well placed to defend itself:
We have good defensive capabilities, we already spend more than 2% of our GDP on defence, and for decades we have invested heavily in our security, precisely because of the large and aggressive neighbour we have on our borders.
She had strong words about Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, telling the newspaper:
The decision to apply for Nato membership is an act of peace, not an act of war. We must make sure that there is never a war on Finnish soil and we will always try to solve problems through diplomacy.
Unfortunately, not all countries think so.
Russia does not think so. It has attacked Ukraine by killing civilians, children, mothers, old people, acting in an unacceptable way. This is why we must support Ukraine and ensure that it wins the war by providing weapons, financial and humanitarian aid, by launching new sanctions against Russia, which will not stop until it is stopped
Here is the statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross over prisoners of war who have surrendered from Azovstal:
The ICRC started on Tuesday, 17 May to register combatants leaving the Azovstal plant, including the wounded, at the request of the parties. The operation continued Wednesday and was still ongoing Thursday. The ICRC is not transporting POWs to the places where they are held.
The registration process that the ICRC facilitated involves the individual filling out a form with personal details like name, date of birth and closest relative. This information allows the ICRC to track those who have been captured and help them keep in touch with their families.
In accordance with the mandate given to the ICRC by States under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the ICRC must have immediate access to all POWs in all places where they are held. The ICRC must be allowed to interview prisoners of war without witnesses, and the duration and frequency of these visits should not be unduly restricted.
Russia claims total of 1,730 fighters have now surrendered from Azovstal
Russia’s defence ministry, according to their morning briefing on Telegram, has said 1,730 fighters have surrendered from Azovstal since Monday. That includes a further 771 who surrendered, they say, in the last 24 hours. 80 were wounded. The Russian defence ministry says “those in need of inpatient treatment receive assistance in medical institutions” in Novoazovsk and Donetsk.
The International Committee for Red Cross has stated that it has now registered “hundreds” of Ukrainian POWs who left the Azovstal steel plant this week.
Here are some of the latest images we have been sent across the newswires from Ukraine.
Russia’s news agency Tass is quoting Denis Pushilin, who is head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, as saying that more than half of the Ukrainian fighters who were inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have now left the plant.
The reports are unclear on an exact number, and have not been independently verified. There has been confusion over exactly how many fighters were besieged in the plant.
Yesterday Russia claimed that 959 Ukrainian service personnel had surrendered, of which 51 were taken to hospital. The remainder had been sent to a former prison colony in the town of Olenivka in a Russian-controlled area of Donetsk region.
Serhiy Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, has published his latest assessment of overnight events in Ukraine. He told his Telegram followers:
During 18 May, the Russians used aircraft to destroy civilian objects in the areas of the settlements of Loskutivka, Katerynivka and Orikhove. They carried out assaults in the Ustynivka and Zolotoho-4 areas, but were unsuccessful. Settlements have numerous destructions. Damage to houses was also recorded in Vrubivka, Nyrkovo and Komyshuvas.
As previously reported, in Lysychansk yesterday afternoon, the Russians cut off a powerful power substation. The area was left without light.
Sixteen enemy attacks were repulsed in Luhansk and Donetsk last night, eight tanks, seventeen units of armoured combat vehicles, four special armoured vehicles and six conventional enemy vehicles were destroyed. Air defence units shot down an enemy Su-34 fighter-bomber.
The claims have not been independently verified.
UK's MoD: 'culture of cover-ups and scapegoating' impacting Russian military efforts
The UK’s ministry of defence has issued its daily public intelligence briefing on the situation with Russia and Ukraine, and this morning it is concentrating on the situation within Russia’s military. The ministry claims that Lieutenant General Serhiy Kisel has been suspended for failing to capture Kharkiv and Vice Admiral Igor Osipov has been suspended from commanding the Black Sea Fleet. It says:
A culture of cover-ups and scapegoating is probably prevalent within the Russian military and security system. Many officials involved in the invasion of Ukraine will likely be increasingly distracted by efforts to avoid personal culpability for Russia’s operational set-backs.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 19 May 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 19, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/qqKi2Uagzx
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/1JYJHtSWRT
- This is Martin Belam in London taking over the blog from Martin Farrer. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
Financial markets have wobbled again over concerns that the war and inflation is pushing the global economy into recession.
Poor figures from American retailers sparked a rout on Wall Street on Wednesday which has continued in Asian trading on Thursday.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell below 20,000 points for the first time in more than five years earlier, while Tokyo is off 1.88% and the Sydney market closed down 1.5%.
Hebe Chen, market analyst at IG in Sydney, said: “It must be said that the concern for inflation has never gone away since we stepped into 2022, however, while things haven’t reached the point of no return, they are seemingly heading in the direction of ‘out of control’. That, is probably the most worrying part for the market.”
The US embassy in Kyiv has reopened after closing at the beginning of the war nearly three months ago.
Staff ran the star-spangled banner up the flagpole outside the embassy at a ceremony on Thursday morning.
Russian president Vladimir Putin is “weaponising” global food supplies by ordering his forces to deliberately destroy grain supplies and farm equipment in Ukraine in order to create shortages, according to report in the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Quoting unnamed western officials, the Telegraph’s lead story on Thursday morning says Russia’s military has targeted “silos and other food production infrastructure in cities including Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk”.
The paper then quotes an official saying: “[Russia] has exacerbated a pre-existing bad situation and has created a major threat to global food security through a deliberate policy of weaponisation of global food supply.”
The front page of tomorrow's Daily Telegraph:
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) May 18, 2022
'Putin turns screw on global food supplies'#TomorrowsPapersToday
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It’s an intriguing story and it comes amid growing concern among western leaders about the impact of the war in stoking commodity prices and now critical shortages caused by Russia’s blockade of ports in Ukraine, which is a major exporter of grain.
As we posted earlier, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned that the food crisis “could last years”, and the World Bank is so concerned it has committed another $12bn to relieving shortages.
There’s also a full report on the food story.
George W Bush: 'A wholly unjustified invasion of Iraq... I mean Ukraine'
George W Bush was always good for a verbal slip during his eight years as president of the United States.
And he’s proved that he’s still got what it takes with a spectacular slip at an event in Dallas on Wednesday when he was criticising Russia’s political system. He said: “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq”
He quickly corrected himself to say “I mean Ukraine” but it seems certain to launch a thosuands memes – or more.
Bush authorised an invasion of Iraq in 2003 to find and destroy alleged weapons of mass destruction that were never found. The prolonged conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many more.
In another update on what’s happening on the actual battleground, Ukraine’s territorial defence force said on Wednesday night that its fighters had blown up an armoured train carrying Russian troops.
However, an adviser to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy later said the alleged attack near the occupied southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol had been confined to rails near the train.
The defence force – the reservist branch of Ukraine’s armed forces – said in an online posting that explosives had detonated under a rail car carrying military personnel. It did not elaborate on the extent of the damage, according to Reuters.
Hours later, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said: “The partisans got it, although they did not blow up the armoured train itself,” he said in a video posted on social media, saying the Russians “got off lightly.”
Updated
Ukrainian forces have shelled a Russian village close to the border between the countries at dawn on Thursday, killing at least one civilian, the regional governor said.
Shells hit an alcohol factory in the village of Tyotkino in the Kursk region and several other buildings, Roman Starovoit wrote on messaging app Telegram.
G7 ministers to discuss how to fix Ukraine's finances
G7 finance ministers will meet in Germany on Thursday hoping to thrash out a plan to bolster Ukraine’s war-ravaged economy.
United States treasury secretary Janet Yellen said ahead of the meeting in Koenigswinter that what had been agreed so far was “not enough” and called on US partners to “join us in increasing their financial support”.
The United States has forged ahead with a $40bn aid package to fill Kyiv’s coffers and military stores.
Japan said on Thursday morning that it will double aid for Ukraine to $600m in a coordinated move with the World Bank.
Food crisis could last years, says UN chief
UN secretary general António Guterres has warned that the food shortages stoked by the war in Ukraine could cause “malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years” across the world.
Speaking at a food summit in New York, Guterres implored Russia to lift its Black Sea blockade which is preventing shipments of Ukrainian grain to overseas markets.
“Let’s be clear: there is no effective solution to the food crisis without reintegrating Ukraine’s food production,” Guterres said. “Russia must permit the safe and secure export of grain stored in Ukrainian ports.”
However, he said he was in “intense” talks with Russia to try to find a solution.
Between them, Ukraine and Russia produce 30% of the world’s wheat and experts are concerned a lack of supply will mean millions of people will go hungry.
The blockade has also exacerbated already high grain prices with wheat almost doubling in the past year. High energy prices – also in part caused by the war – has made production of fertiliser more expensive, further pushing up prices.
Here’s our full story:
Updated
Hello. I’m Martin Farrer and welcome to our rolling coverage of the war in Ukraine.
If you’re just waking up or dropping in for an update on what’s been happening, these are some of the main developments in the past few hours.
- UN secretary general António Guterres has warned that the food shortages stoked by the war in Ukraine could last years and cause mass hunger and famine across the world. Speaking at a food summit in New York, Guterres implored Russia to lift its Black Sea blockade which is preventing shipments of Ukrainian grain to overseas markets.
- The World Bank will make $30bn available to help stem a food security crisis threatened by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has cut off most grain exports from the two countries. The total will include $12bn in new projects and over $18bn funds from existing food and nutrition-related projects that have been approved but have not yet been disbursed, the bank said.
- Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy used his nightly address to say that Russia’s alleged use of laser weapons systems “indicates the complete failure of the invasion” and that mistakes had been made at the highest level. He compared their use to propaganda efforts by Nazi Germany promoting a “wunderwaffe” or “wonder weapon”. Russia has claimed it is using a new generation of laser weapons to burn up drones.
- Zelenskiy said he had signed a decree to extend martial law by 90 days in order to allow further time to expel invasion forces. The decree needs to be approved by parliament.
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Financial markets have endured another torrid day amid concerns that the war in Ukraine, along with inflation and supply problems, was pushing the world towards recession. In the US the Dow Jones average closed down 3.57% on Wednesday while the broader S&P500 suffered its worst session since June 2020, plunging 4.04%. Markets in Asia Pacific followed suit on Thursday.
- A Russian tank commander has pleaded guilty to shooting dead a civilian on a bicycle, in Ukraine’s first trial for war crimes committed during the Russian invasion. Vadim Shysimarin, 21, has been accused of firing his AK-47 at a 62-year-old man from the window of a car in the north-eastern Sumy region in late February.
- Sweden and Finland have formally submitted their applications to join the Nato military alliance. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, accepted the Nordic neighbours’ membership applications. The United States will work with Finland and Sweden in the event of the ‘threat of aggression’ while the two countries’ Nato membership is being considered, president Joe Biden said.
- Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said Sweden should not expect to approve its Nato application without returning ‘terrorists’. Ankara has accused Sweden and Finland of harbouring people it says are linked to groups it considers terrorists. A spokesperson for Erdoğan later said progress on Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership bids will only be possible if concrete steps are taken to address Turkey’s national security concerns.
- G7 finance ministers meet in Germany on Thursday hoping to find a solution for Kyiv’s budget troubles. The European Commission has proposed an extra €9bn (£7.6bn) in EU loans to Ukraine to keep the country running as well as a €210bn plan for Europe to end its reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027. Zelenskiy said the €9bn support package would “help Ukraine win the war.
- Russia has expelled a total of 85 diplomatic staff from France, Spain and Italy in response to similar moves by those countries, its foreign ministry said. It said it was ordering out 34 embassy staff from France, 27 from Spain and 24 from Italy.
- The US embassy in Kyiv has resumed operations, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said after nearly three months of closure. A small number of diplomats will return initially to staff the embassy, according to a spokesperson.
- At least 10 Ukrainian civilians, including two children, were killed by Russian forces Donetsk, regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko said. A further seven people had been injured, he said.
