Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Two civilians have been killed in Russian shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, according to regional officials. Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional military administration, said an 81-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man were killed during shelling of the village of Novotyahinka, about 40 km (25 miles) from Kherson city. A Russian missile strike on the northeastern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning has also left two civilians wounded, Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv region, has said.
Joe Biden has boarded Air Force One, concluding a historic trip to Poland and Ukraine ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden vowed that the US will defend “literally every inch of Nato” territory ahead of talks with Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg and leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a collection of nations on the most eastern parts of the Nato alliance and closest to Russia. The alliance includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
All members of the Bucharest Nine (B9) have jointly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Polish presidential adviser said. President Biden and the B9 leaders “reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and underscored their shared commitment to stand with the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes” according to a White House account of Wednesday afternoon’s meeting in Warsaw.
Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, said he urged Joe Biden to seek Nato deployment of additional military equipment, including Himars artillery or attack helicopters, in the Baltic states, during the US president’s meeting with B9 leaders. He said Biden was silent but took notes as he listened to Nausėda and others on deploying air defence systems in the Baltics and other eastern flank countries.
China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as China and Russia reaffirm their close bilateral relationship just days before the first anniversary of the start of the Ukraine war. Wang told Vladimir Putin that Beijing will play a “constructive” role in reaching a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, Russian state-owned Tass news agency reported.
Earlier on Wednesday, Wang met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, where he said he expected to reach a “new consensus” on advancing the relationship between the two allies. Xi Jinping, China’s president, is expected to visit Putin in Russia in the coming months, although an exact date has not been announced.
Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US will not increase the risk of a nuclear war, Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said. Russia’s parliament on Wednesday approved Vladimir Putin’s move to suspend the treaty. Biden has said Putin “made a mistake” by suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US.
Vladimir Putin has praised soldiers who are “fighting heroically, courageously, bravely” to “defend the fatherland” in a speech at a rally in Moscow to mark a year of war in Ukraine. Thousands gathered at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow to attend a concert marking the “Defenders of the Fatherland” Day.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will meet UN secretary general, António Guterres, to discuss ongoing support for Ukraine as the UN’s security council meets this week, the US state department has said. Blinken is expected to travel to New York tomorrow to attend the security council meeting on Ukraine, marking one year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
EU countries have failed to agree on a new set of sanctions against Russia meant to be in place for the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, four diplomatic sources in Brussels have told Reuters. More talks among Brussels representatives of EU member countries were due on Thursday afternoon, said the sources.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has urged member states to speed up delivery of ammunition from their stocks to Ukraine “as a matter or urgency”. Building on comments at the Munich Security conference over the weekend and at Nato headquarters on Tuesday, Borrell said the EU was” looking into the question of joint procurement” of ammunition and “how to ramp up the production capacity of the European defence industry”.
Britain has begun to “warm up” its production lines to replace weapons sent to Ukraine and increase production of artillery shells to try to help Kyiv push back Russian forces, defence minister Ben Wallace has said. In an interview with Reuters, Wallace said he believed Britain was in a good place to help Ukraine but needed to sustain the provision of weapons.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has urged the UN to establish a special tribunal to try Russia for crimes of aggression to ensure Moscow’s invasion “never will be repeated” anywhere. Ukraine’s victory “would mean the victory of human rights over lawlessness, torture and destruction”, Zelenska said in a video address to a special meeting at the UN on human rights violations in Ukraine.
Nato must “seriously plan” for the likely future reality of a Russian-controlled Belarus, the US-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has warned. Putin will “very likely secure significant gains in restoring Russian suzerainty over Belarus” and use it as a launch pad to further threaten Ukraine and Nato’s eastern flank, regardless of the outcome of his invasion of Ukraine, the ISW said in its latest update on the war.
Ukraine will ask Turkey and the UN this week to start talks to roll over the Black Sea grain deal, seeking an extension of at least one year that would include the ports of Mykolaiv, a senior Ukrainian official said. Yuriy Vaskov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of restoration also said he wanted the ports of Mykolaiv included in the deal, and that Russia’s current occupation of the Kinburn spit was an obstacle. The spit of land overlooks the route that ships would use to sail from Mykolaiv’s ports into the Black Sea.
A group of 10 EU member states have called for stronger action to stop Russia sourcing military parts through front companies in neighbouring countries and evading western sanctions. The 10 countries, which include France, Germany, Italy and the Baltic states, write that “2023 must be the year of success in countering circumvention”, warning that public support and international legitimacy of sanctions could wane if they are deemed ineffective.
Women in Ukraine are increasingly vulnerable to sexual violence 12 months after Russia invaded the country, with reports of abuse on the rise, according to a leading humanitarian organisation in the country. Women fleeing from bombed houses and their home towns are reporting attacks occurring in the home and in communal shelters, said Marysia Zapasnik, Ukraine country director for the International Rescue Committee.
India does not want the G20 nations to discuss additional sanctions on Russia during its one-year presidency of the bloc, according to officials. On Tuesday, Japan’s finance minister said financial leaders of the G7 nations would meet tomorrow, on the sidelines of the G20 gathering in India, to discuss measures against Russia.
Belgium has said it is investigating a Russian “spy ship” detected in the North Sea around mid-November last year. It comes after Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD said Russia has been attempting to gain intelligence to sabotage critical infrastructure in the Dutch part of the North Sea.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war live blog today. Thanks for following along, we’ll be back tomorrow.
Updated
UK's Challenger tanks to arrive in Ukraine 'in the spring', says defence minister
Britain has begun to “warm up” its production lines to replace weapons sent to Ukraine and increase production of artillery shells to try to help Kyiv push back Russian forces, defence minister Ben Wallace has said.
Wallace earlier spoke with Ukrainian soldiers who were training to use the UK’s Challenger tanks, which he said would arrive in Ukraine in “the spring”.
In an interview with Reuters, Wallace said he believed Britain was in a good place to help Ukraine but needed to sustain the provision of weapons.
Asked whether the UK had the commercial capacity to continue to provide Ukraine with weapons such as artillery shells, he said:
We have laid contracts ... We’ve started to already now receive some deliveries of that for our own restocking and also some of it to Ukraine.
He said shells could be made fairly quickly but “the key is to make sure that we place the orders, and we’ve started placing those orders over the last 10 months and that starts to sort of warm up those production lines”.
He added:
Absolutely part of the effort this year is sustainability - how can we, the international community, stimulate supply chains, how can we stimulate our own supply chains for our own equipment and that’s been one of the changes
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has urged the UN to establish a special tribunal to try Russia for crimes of aggression to ensure Moscow’s invasion “never will be repeated” anywhere.
Ukraine’s victory “would mean the victory of human rights over lawlessness, torture and destruction”, Zelenska said in a video address to a special meeting at the UN on human rights violations in Ukraine.
She said:
Regardless of our country or nationality, we have the right not to be killed in our own homes. However, Ukrainians are being killed in front of the whole world for already a year now. Ukrainians are being killed in their own cities, villages, apartments, hospitals, theatres.
She added:
In any city of Ukraine, in London, Berlin or New York we have the right to live free, not to be killed or tortured. The right not to be blown to pieces by a Russian missile. Each of us has this right.
CBS News’ Pamela Falk has a clip of Zelenska’s speech to the UN meeting:
"We have a right to live freely, not to be killed or tortured. The right not to be blown to pieces by a Russian missile" ~ First Lady of Ukraine to UN Wednesday @olena_zelenska https://t.co/fUl8C8LuB5@CBSNews | UnitedNations pic.twitter.com/sCyWAy4G8X
— Pamela Falk CBS News Correspondent United Nations (@PamelaFalk) February 22, 2023
Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers meeting in India tomorrow will discuss financial support to Ukraine, according to German finance ministry sources.
Ukraine’s finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, will also join the talks, chaired by Japan, in the Indian city of Bangalore on Thursday.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva is expected to give an update on a planned aid programme for Ukraine at the meeting, Reuters is citing sources as saying.
The IMF aims to adopt the new aid programme for Ukraine by the end of March, they said.
The G7 meeting will be followed later in the week by a gathering of G20 financial leaders from the world’s major economies, to be hosted in Bangalore by India, which has the G20 presidency.
The president of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda, said he urged Joe Biden to seek Nato deployment of additional military equipment, including Himars artillery or attack helicopters, in the Baltic states.
Nausėda, speaking to reporters, said he made the request to the US president while in a meeting with Bucharest Nine (B9) leaders of countries on Nato’s eastern flank.
He said:
I have talked about deployment of so-called critical enablers - this includes airspace surveillance systems, attack helicopters, Himars artillery. We can hardly afford to purchase this, it but it could be deployed (by allies) to the Baltics on rotational grounds.
He said Biden was silent but took notes as he listened to Nausėda and others on deploying air defence systems in the Baltics and other eastern flank countries.
Some of the B9 leaders discussed the prospect that Ukraine would be “several steps closer” to gaining Nato membership after a planned summit in July in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, Nausėda said.
Russia says nuclear treaty suspension won't bring nuclear war closer
Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US will not increase the risk of a nuclear war, Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said.
Both chambers of Russia’s parliament voted today in favour of Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend the treaty.
Interfax news agency has quoted Ryabkov as saying:
I do not believe that the decision to suspend the New Start Treaty brings us closer to nuclear war.
Meanwhile, a senior Russian defence official said Moscow will stick to agreed limits on nuclear missiles and keep informing the US about changes in its deployments, despite the treaty’s suspension.
A top defence ministry official, Maj-Gen Yevgeny Ilyin, told the Duma that Russia would continue to observe agreed restrictions on nuclear delivery systems - meaning missiles and strategic bomber planes, Russian state-owned Ria news agency reported.
Russia would also continue to provide the US with notifications on nuclear deployments in order “to prevent false alarms, which is important for maintaining strategic stability”, Ilyin was quoted as saying.
President Joe Biden has been pictured boarding Air Force One, following his three-day visit to Poland and Ukraine.
Russia has said it is studying China’s global security initiative (GSI), Xi Jinping’s flagship security proposal.
On Tuesday, Beijing launched a government concept paper on Beijing’s plans for a global security initiative, first announced by Xi at the Boao forum in April 2022.
The paper described the ideals and principles underpinning Beijing’s plan, rather than specific details or logistics.
The initiative would be UN-backed, and “advocate a concept of common security, respecting and safeguarding the security of every country”, to resolve disputes through dialogue and consultation, the paper said.
It also explicitly rejected the use of sanctions – a long-held position of Beijing’s. It emphasised respect for “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries”, which Beijing regularly cites in dismissing international criticism of its activities, including its plans to annex Taiwan.
Speaking today, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said:
The positions of the two countries on the most pressing international issues coincide or are close, which the Russian and Chinese leadership has repeatedly spoken about.
She added that China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, and Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, did not discuss a reported Chinese plan to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.
In a statement, Zakharova said:
We note statements by some Western politicians and media reports regarding some kind of ‘Chinese peace plan’. As usual, they distort the real picture.
She added:
The Chinese partners briefed us on their views on the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis, as well as approaches to its political settlement. There was no talk of any separate plan
Joe Biden and the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9) east European Nato allies “reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and underscored their shared commitment to stand with the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes” according to a White House account of this afternoon’s meeting in Warsaw.
The readout said the leaders “discussed the strengthened defensive posture on Nato’s eastern flank”.
Nato has doubled its presence there over the past year, from four to eight multinational battle groups. There are 10,000 US soldiers now in Poland alone and the US has announced the establishment of a permanent base there, but the Poles and other east European leaders would have liked to see moves to build up eastern defences still further, ensuring a force that could repulse a Russian attack rather than simply acting as a tripwire.
Further reinforcements are likely to be discussed at the Nato summit in Lithuania in July, when the leaders “looked forward to further strengthening alliance unity and collective defence”, according to the White House.
Updated
Biden concludes historic trip to Poland and Ukraine
President Joe Biden has now left the meeting with the Bucharest Nine (B9) in Warsaw, and boarded Air Force One, bringing an end to a historic trip to Ukraine and Poland ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sebastian Smith from AFP news agency writes that the American president stumbled as he climbed the stairs to his plane, before continuing up to the cabin.
President Biden stumbled and fell forward while going up the main stairs of AF1 in Warsaw. He quickly recovered and continued up to the cabin. We are wheels up for Washington. @POTUS is finishing a historic trip that began in Kyiv. pic.twitter.com/1WePS5qd4C
— Sebastian Smith (@SebastianAFP) February 22, 2023
Updated
Two civilians killed in Russian shelling of Kherson, say officials
Two people have been killed in Russian shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine today, according to regional officials.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional military administration, said an 81-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man were killed during shelling of the village of Novotyahinka, about 40 km (25 miles) from Kherson city.
A Russian missile strike earlier today on the northeastern city of Kharkiv has also left two civilians wounded, Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv region, has said.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will meet UN secretary general, António Guterres, to discuss ongoing support for Ukraine as the UN’s security council meets this week, the US state department has said.
Blinken is expected to travel to New York tomorrow to attend the security council meeting on Ukraine, marking one year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The pair will discuss the broad range of economic, security, and humanitarian support the US and other UN member states are continuing to provide to Ukraine, the state department said in a statement.
In particular, they will discuss “the imperative to sustain and expand the Black Sea Grain Initiative as a vital means of addressing the global food security crisis”, it said.
Subversive Slovenian industrial rock band Laibach are set to be the first foreign group to perform a full concert in Kyiv since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The group will play Bel Etage Music Hall on 31 March, under the concert title Eurovision – an arch reference to the fact the Eurovision song contest, won by Ukraine in 2022, will not be hosted in the country this year, but rather Liverpool in the UK.
In a statement announcing the concert, the band said:
While the rest of Europe prepares to celebrate its idea of freedom and solidarity on 9 May in Liverpool, Laibach is taking Eurovision back to Ukraine, where it belongs and where the only true and real vision of Europe is taking place right now.
Proceeds from the concert will be donated to charity.
Speaking to the Guardian via email as a group, they added:
They say that while weapons speak, art is silent. We don’t agree with that. Some of the most important works of art and music were created during war. Even in the most unbearable times of holocaust, art gave meaning and power to life, to resist the violence of war.
All members of the Bucharest Nine (B9), the nations on Nato’s eastern flank, have jointly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Polish presidential adviser said.
Leaders of the B9 have gathered for a meeting in Warsaw, along with President Joe Biden and Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
The Polish adviser told reporters:
All allies agreed that they would support each other in the event of a threat.
The next point of the declaration was the condemnation of the brutal, bloody war against Ukraine, which is being waged by Russia. All members of the Bucharest Nine signed these words.
Updated
Fifteen minutes before midnight, a young Russian conscript named Danila, who had been sent to fight in Ukraine, picked up his phone to write a message to his family and friends back home in a small town in the Samara region. It was 31 December.
“We congratulated each other, wished each other the best for the New Year, and then he was gone,” said a close friend who wrote with him that night.
Minutes later, a US-made Himars rocket slammed into Professional Technical School No. 19 in Makiivka, a city in eastern Ukraine under Russian occupation.
It took nearly 50 days for Danila’s remains to be identified beneath the rubble. His family spent weeks calling local hospitals and a military hotline, where they were told to wait for news that never seemed to come.
The massive strike that killed at least 100 soldiers from a single Russian region, most of them mobilised to fight in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, exhibits the tensions on the home front that have been stoked by the war, and how the Kremlin has dipped into a deep well of patriotism and propaganda to maintain its war effort despite the deaths of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers in the past year.
The friend, who agreed to speak with the Guardian anonymously, described Danila, in his early 20s, as a welder who had worked for an uncle in Crimea before returning to his native Samara for the weekend and receiving a summons to go to war.
As a self-professed patriot who said he would “never let Russia be occupied”, he did not try to dodge the draft.
“When he got his call-up papers, he immediately said that he was going,” said the friend. “He said: ‘What am I, some bum or loser to run away from this? That means my fate is to be a soldier.’”
Joe Biden told leaders from the Bucharest Nine countries that the US would defend “every inch” of Nato.
The US president spoke alongside leaders of the eastern European nations in Warsaw, reiterating US support for the alliance.
He said not only Ukraine was at stake, but “freedom”.
At the UN general assembly in New York, a debate is due to begin due on a Ukrainian-drafted resolution calling for a Russian withdrawal and a cessation of hostilities.
The resolution, co-sponsored by at least 70 countries, is intended as an alternative to peace proposals for an immediate ceasefire that would lock in the territorial gains Russia has made from its invasion.
It is the latest in a series of tests of strength at the UN general assembly, all of which Ukraine has won overwhelmingly.
Ukrainian, US and European officials said they expected the resolution to win the support of over 130 of the 193 UN member states, with about 50 states abstaining, absenting themselves, or unable to vote due to unpaid UN membership dues. At a previous vote on the legality of the war in October, only Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, and Syria voted with Russia.
The resolution reaffirms the UN body’s “commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders”
It calls for Russia to “immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine” and for “a cessation of hostilities”.
In particular it appeals for “an immediate cessation of the attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine and any deliberate attacks on civilian objects, including those that are residences, schools, and hospitals.”
The resolution also calls for legal accountability for war crimes “ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes.”
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
EU countries have failed to agree on a new set of sanctions against Russia meant to be in place for the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, four diplomatic sources in Brussels have told Reuters. More talks among Brussels representatives of EU member countries were due on Thursday afternoon, said the sources.
China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as China and Russia reaffirm their close bilateral relationship just days before the first anniversary of the start of the Ukraine war. Wang told Vladimir Putin that Beijing will play a “constructive” role in reaching a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, Russian state-owned Tass news agency reported.
Earlier on Wednesday, Wang met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, where he said he expected to reach a “new consensus” on advancing the relationship between the two allies. Xi Jinping, China’s president, is expected to visit Putin in Russia in the coming months, although an exact date has not been announced.
Joe Biden has vowed that the US will defend “literally every inch of Nato” territory. Biden was speaking ahead of talks with Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg and leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a collection of nations on the most eastern parts of the Nato alliance and closest to Russia. The alliance includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Russia’s parliament has approved Vladimir Putin’s move to suspend the New Start nuclear arms treaty. Putin announced the suspension in a major national address on Tuesday, claiming that Moscow could not accept US inspections of its nuclear sites under the pact while Washington and its allies have openly declared the goal of Russia’s defeat in Ukraine. Biden has said Putin “made a mistake” by suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US.
Vladimir Putin has praised soldiers who are “fighting heroically, courageously, bravely” to “defend the fatherland” in a speech at a rally in Moscow to mark a year of war in Ukraine. Thousands gathered at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow to attend a concert marking the “Defenders of the Fatherland” Day.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has urged member states to speed up delivery of ammunition from their stocks to Ukraine “as a matter or urgency”. Building on comments at the Munich Security conference over the weekend and at Nato headquarters on Tuesday, Borrell said the EU was” looking into the question of joint procurement” of ammunition and “how to ramp up the production capacity of the European defence industry”.
Nato must “seriously plan” for the likely future reality of a Russian-controlled Belarus, the US-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has warned. Putin will “very likely secure significant gains in restoring Russian suzerainty over Belarus” and use it as a launch pad to further threaten Ukraine and Nato’s eastern flank, regardless of the outcome of his invasion of Ukraine, the ISW said in its latest update on the war.
Ukraine will ask Turkey and the UN this week to start talks to roll over the Black Sea grain deal, seeking an extension of at least one year that would include the ports of Mykolaiv, a senior Ukrainian official said. Yuriy Vaskov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of restoration also said he wanted the ports of Mykolaiv included in the deal, and that Russia’s current occupation of the Kinburn spit was an obstacle. The spit of land overlooks the route that ships would use to sail from Mykolaiv’s ports into the Black Sea.
A group of 10 EU member states have called for stronger action to stop Russia sourcing military parts through front companies in neighbouring countries and evading western sanctions. The 10 countries, which include France, Germany, Italy and the Baltic states, write that “2023 must be the year of success in countering circumvention”, warning that public support and international legitimacy of sanctions could wane if they are deemed ineffective.
Women in Ukraine are increasingly vulnerable to sexual violence 12 months after Russia invaded the country, with reports of abuse on the rise, according to a leading humanitarian organisation in the country. Women fleeing from bombed houses and their home towns are reporting attacks occurring in the home and in communal shelters, said Marysia Zapasnik, Ukraine country director for the International Rescue Committee.
India does not want the G20 nations to discuss additional sanctions on Russia during its one-year presidency of the bloc, according to officials. On Tuesday, Japan’s finance minister said financial leaders of the G7 nations would meet tomorrow, on the sidelines of the G20 gathering in India, to discuss measures against Russia.
Belgium has said it is investigating a Russian “spy ship” detected in the North Sea around mid-November last year. It comes after Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD said Russia has been attempting to gain intelligence to sabotage critical infrastructure in the Dutch part of the North Sea.
Good afternoon from London. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong and I’ll be bringing you the latest from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
EU countries fail to agree on new round of sanctions – sources
EU countries on Wednesday failed to agree on a new set of sanctions against Russia meant to be in place for the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, four diplomatic sources in Brussels have told Reuters.
“There are several issues outstanding, including on rubber and reporting obligations of Russian assets in Europe,” said one of the sources, who all spoke under condition of anonymity due to confidentiatlity of the negotiations among the 27 EU states.
More talks among Brussels representatives of EU member countries were due on Thursday afternoon, said the sources.
Russia’s embassy in London has published some quotes from ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin’s interview with Al Arabiya News. In it, he says:
The Kremlin is ready for peace talks at any moment. Peace talks started in April last year, but then the US and the UK decided that Ukraine should fight and they just stopped them, and the president of Ukraine has made a decree that there will not be peace talks at all. We cannot understand this.
Ukraine has become a real danger for Russia. It has a big military potential, and we have to reduce this.
The “special military operation will continue until its goals will be achieved. The common goal is to stop the discrimination and killing of Russians in Donbas. For eight years, the west chose not to see Kyiv regime’s hostilities against the Russia-speaking population in the east. Meanwhile, those people were being discriminated, shelled and killed. The frontline is now more or less stable, but we have to go further because Ukrainian armed forces continue to shell Donetsk.
Kelin also spoke about the prospect of the west sending tanks and perhaps fighter jets to Ukraine. He told viewers “We have already destroyed all tanks that have been in Ukraine before. We have destroyed all tanks that have been sent from different countries. We are going to destroy new tanks when they arrive, as well as the jets.”
The International Federation of Journalists said on Wednesday it had suspended the membership of Russia’s main journalism trade union after it established branches in occupied regions of Ukraine.
“The IFJ is an organisation built on international solidarity, on principles of cooperation between member unions and respect for the rights of all journalists. The Russian Union of Journalists’ actions in establishing four branches in the annexed Ukrainian territories have clearly shattered this solidarity and sown divisions among sister unions,” the IFJ president, Dominique Pradalie, said in a statement, Reuters reported.
The head of the Union of Russian Journalists told state news agency Tass that the move violated the IFJ’s charter and would hurt the world body financially because it would no longer receive substantial membership fees from Russia.
Updated
Finland and Sweden are proceeding “hand-in-hand” towards Nato membership, the Finnish president, Sauli Niinisto, said on Wednesday, but added that Turkey controlled the decision to ratify the applications for the two Nordic countries.
“We proceed hand in hand in terms of the things that are in our own hands,” Reuters reports Niinisto told a joint news conference with the Swedish and Norwegian prime ministers, but added: “Ratification is not in our hands.”
Updated
Klaus Iohannis, the president of Romania, has tweeted to say that today’s meeting “reconfirms the strength of our ‘Bucharest nine’ format”.
Today at the #B9 summit in Warsaw🇵🇱, with the participation of President Biden @POTUS 🇺🇸 and @NATO SG @jensstoltenberg, almost one year since RU's war against UA🇺🇦 began. This meeting reconfirms the strength of our #Bucharest9 format which I launched with President @AndrzejDuda. pic.twitter.com/5gUfnLtmEi
— Klaus Iohannis (@KlausIohannis) February 22, 2023
China will play 'constructive role' in Ukraine, says Wang Yi
China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, told Vladimir Putin that Beijing will play a “constructive” role in reaching a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, Russian state-owned Tass news agency is reporting.
Wang was quoted as saying:
The Chinese side will, as in the past, firmly adhere to an objective and impartial position and play a constructive role in the political settlement of the crisis.
In its readout of the meeting, the Chinese foreign ministry said Wang pledged to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.
Wang told Putin that Beijing was willing to work with Russia to deepen political trust, extend pragmatic cooperation, and play a constructive role for both countries in promoting world peace and development, the Chinese ministry said.
Updated
The Swiss government is seeking parliamentary approval to send 140m francs (£125m) in further humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Moldova, the government has said.
Switzerland has already allocated 1.3bn francs to support Ukraine, including 270m francs to help people in the country and 1.03bn francs to support Ukrainians who have fled to Switzerland.
The government said continued support was needed to improve the “precarious situation” of the people in Ukraine, where 40% of the population was reliant on aid.
Foreign minister Ignazio Cassis, speaking at a news conference, said:
In a humanitarian way, diplomatically, and with reconstruction in mind, we can support Ukraine.
Most of the money - 114m francs - is earmarked for Ukraine, with 26m francs for Moldova. The aid envisaged includes shelters for schools, repairs to hospitals and energy infrastructure, or small loans to small agricultural businesses. Removal of mines and psychological and social support for the population are also among the projects which could be supported.
Updated
Updated
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, spoke after Joe Biden, where he said he was “so pleased and so impressed” with the US president’s “outstanding leadership”.
Biden’s visit to Kyiv sent a clear message of steadfast support to Ukraine and of the US's “ironclad commitment to the security of Europe”, Stoltenberg said.
He said Vladimir Putin was “preparing for more war” and so Nato allies must sustain and step up support for Ukraine. “We must give Ukraine what they need to prevail,” he urged.
Stoltenberg said:
We don’t know when the war will end but when it does, we need to ensure that history does not repeat itself.
We have seen Russian aggression over many years – Georgia in 2008, Crimea and Donbas in 2014, and then the full fledged invasion of Ukraine last year.
We cannot allow Russia to continue to chip away at European security. We must break the cycle of Russian aggression. Nato allies have never been more united.
US will defend 'literally every inch of Nato', says Biden
President Joe Biden has been speaking ahead of talks with leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9) and Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg.
Biden says leaders of the B9 are the “frontlines” of Nato’s collective defence as well as “for the freedom of democracies through Europe and around the world”.
He says the US has repeatedly stepped up to provide critical security assistance to Ukraine, and critical support to “literally millions” of refugees.
Together we’ll continue our enduring support for Ukraine as they defend their freedom over the past year, with your countries around this table, providing collective leadership,
He says it is “absolutely clear” that the US will defend “literally every inch of Nato”.
Putin 'made a mistake' by suspending nuclear treaty, says Biden
President Joe Biden has said Vladimir Putin “made a mistake” by suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US.
During his state-of-the-nation address yesterday, Putin declared that Moscow was suspending its participation in the 2010 New START treaty.
The Russian leader said Moscow could not accept US inspections of its nuclear sites under the pact while Washington and its Nato allies have openly declared the goal of Russia’s defeat in Ukraine.
Both houses of Russia’s parliament have now voted to suspend the treaty.
In his first comments since Putin’s announcement, Biden condemned the Russian decision to pull back from the treaty.
Joe Biden meets eastern Nato leaders in Warsaw
Joe Biden is now meeting the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a collection of nations on the most eastern parts of the Nato alliance and closest to Russia.
The alliance includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Biden is wrapping up his four-day visit to Poland and Ukraine with talks with B9 leaders, where he will seek to reassure that the US is highly attuned to the looming threats and America’s ironclad commitment to the mutual-defence treaty.
Many within the alliance worry that Vladimir Putin could move to take military action against them next if he is successful in Ukraine.
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Vladimir Putin’s appearance on stage at the rally at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium only lasted a few minutes, but he did take the chance to issue a rallying cry for Russians to get behind the country’s armed forces fighting in Ukraine.
The Russian leader praised soldiers who are “fighting heroically, courageously, bravely” to “defend the fatherland”, adding that the “whole country” supports them.
He then led the crowd in chants of “Russia, Russia, Russia”.
Vladimir Putin has met China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, to discuss cooperation between Beijing and Moscow.
The Russian president also told Wang he was looking forward to a visit to Moscow by his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and to a deepening partnership between the two countries.
Vladimir Putin has arrived at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow to take part in a rally marking one year of the war in Ukraine and “Defender of the Fatherland” Day.
The Financial Times’ Max Seddon has been covering the performances at the event, as well as Putin’s speech.
Invasionpalooza is underway in Moscow's Luzhniki stadium, the site of the 2018 World Cup final, to mark the first anniversary of Russia's war in Ukraine.
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 22, 2023
Mafia-linked crooner Grigory Leps, seen here, was only just recently taken off the US sanctions list pic.twitter.com/R4G20J0X2u
In a sign of how the Kremlin believes spontaneous public outbursts are impossible, you couldn't even buy tickets for this concert.
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 22, 2023
Per Russian media, state employees and students were paid or forced to go. They shut the doors to stop them leaving before Putin's speech at the end pic.twitter.com/CTPNRhn1xF
This soldier has been sent back home from the front lines to... rap, backed up by the Russian army choir pic.twitter.com/G69R6Wahma
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 22, 2023
This is part of an extended bit about how Mariupol, the Ukrainian city Russia razed to the ground, is a Russian city.
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 22, 2023
This guy is rapping in Ukrainian (!) but then said "Glory to Russian weapons!" in Russian. And, yes, that's Ramzan Kadyrov's father Akhmat-Hadji on the flag pic.twitter.com/izh6wRWskx
Arsenal fans may be interested to know that the meeting is being co-hosted by Andrei Arshavin's ex-wife Yulia Baranovskaya. Here she is explaining why it is actually Ukraine's fault that the Russian army destroyed Mariupol pic.twitter.com/UDupU2nV99
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 22, 2023
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Nato must “seriously plan” for the likely future reality of a Russian-controlled Belarus, the US-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has warned.
Vladimir Putin will “very likely secure significant gains in restoring Russian suzerainty over Belarus” and use it as a launch pad to further threaten Ukraine and Nato’s eastern flank, regardless of the outcome of his invasion of Ukraine, the ISW said in its latest update on the war.
It said:
Russia’s likely permanent gains in Belarus present the west with a decision about how to deal with the potential future security landscape on Nato’s eastern flank.
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Russia’s federation council, the upper house of parliament, has approved Vladimir Putin’s move to suspend the New Start nuclear arms treaty, state media is reporting.
The State Duma, Russia’s lower house, earlier also voted to approve the decision to suspend the pact – the country’s last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US.
Putin announced the suspension in a major national address yesterday, claiming that Moscow could not accept US inspections of its nuclear sites under the pact while Washington and its allies have openly declared the goal of Russia’s defeat in Ukraine.
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Women in Ukraine are increasingly vulnerable to sexual violence 12 months after Russia invaded the country, with reports of abuse on the rise, according to a leading humanitarian organisation in the country.
Women fleeing from bombed houses and their home towns are reporting attacks occurring in the home and in communal shelters, said Marysia Zapasnik, Ukraine country director for the International Rescue Committee.
“We are noticing higher levels of gender-based violence that is related to displacement,” she said.
So support networks are not there and levels of stress among all members of the community, unfortunately, sometimes manifests itself in gender-based violence. So in collective shelters we’re noticing higher levels of that, as well as having cases referred to us.
The IRC is currently focusing its relief efforts in the east and south-east of Ukraine where there is heavy shelling and fighting. It estimates that 17.6 million people in the country are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, while 6 million have been internally displaced.
Zapasnik gave a recent example of a woman who was attacked in a collective shelter and fled, grabbing only her handbag and a jumper. After being found by police wandering the streets in her slippers, she was referred to the IRC which provided psychological support, money to buy clothes and organised access to a safe house.
Zapasnik said sexual violence and domestic abuse were increasing. “High levels of stress tend to increase levels domestic violence as well,” she said.
It’s a very sensitive topic and it’s something that that wasn’t discussed in Ukraine before the war so it is hard to discuss openly. We need to make sure that we do everything we can to protect women, including those that we’re working with.
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Here are some images we have received from outside Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, where people have been gathering to take part in a pro-war rally and concern marking the “Defenders of the Fatherland” Day.
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India does not want the G20 nations to discuss additional sanctions on Russia during its one-year presidency of the bloc, according to officials.
Six senior Indian government officials have told Reuters that the macroeconomic impact of the war in Ukraine would be discussed in this week’s G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs, but that India does not want to deliberate on additional actions against Russia.
One of the officials said:
India is not keen to discuss or back any additional sanctions on Russia during the G20. The existing sanctions on Russia have had a negative impact on the world.
On Tuesday, Japan’s finance minister said financial leaders of the G7 nations would meet tomorrow, on the sidelines of the G20 gathering in India, to discuss measures against Russia.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has not openly criticised Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, and instead called for dialogue and diplomacy to end the war. India has also sharply raised purchases of oil from Russia, its biggest supplier of defence hardware.
During his meeting with Vladimir Putin, Wang Yi said “a crisis is always an opportunity” with regard to the international situation and said that the Sino-Russian relationship was “never dictated by any third parties”.
Both leaders emphasised the importance of “multipolar” approaches to international affairs – a worldview that rejects what China describes as the United States’ “unipolar” approach to dominating global leadership.
Russia-China relations reaching 'new milestones', says Putin
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi met Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in Moscow on Wednesday as China and Russia reaffirmed their close bilateral relationship ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In brief televised remarks Wang said that China and Russia were ready to deepen their strategic cooperation. Earlier in the day Wang met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, where he said he expects to reach a “new consensus” on advancing the relationship between the two allies.
Putin said that “Russian Chinese relations were proceeding as planned” and talked of reaching “new milestones” in areas such as bilateral trade. Putin also said that the two countries had “ongoing cooperation” in international affairs and expressed Russia’s gratitude to China.
Putin described the international situation as “quite complicated” and said that Sino-Russian cooperation was “important for stabilising the international situation”.
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Spain plans to send six 2A4 Leopard tanks to Ukraine, defence minister Margarita Robles has been quoted as telling lawmakers.
That number could increase over time, she said.
We are repairing right now six Leopard 2A4 vehicles ... with the possibility - if needed and if our allies request it - of increasing that number.
Robles said last month that Spain was open to sending German-made Leopard tanks and would act in coordination with its western allies, after Germany agreed to send the tanks and said Nato allies could do the same.
Spain has 108 2A4 tanks, according to security and defence researcher Felix Arteaga of the Elcano thinktank. About half of Spain’s tanks are in its north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and 53 are mothballed at a military base in Zaragoza and would need to be refitted, he said.
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Belgium has said it is investigating a Russian “spy ship” detected in the North Sea around mid-November last year.
The ship was detected in the Belgian North Sea around mid-November last year, Vincent Van Quickenborne, the Belgian justice and North Sea minister, said in a statement headlined “Russian spy ship off our coast in November”.
While the presence of Russian ships in the North Sea is not forbidden, Belgium said it was monitoring the situation closely, in the context of the war in Ukraine.
Van Quickenborne said:
We don’t know the exact motives of this Russian ship, but let’s not be naive. Especially if it behaves suspiciously close to our wind farms, undersea gas and data cables and other critical infrastructure.
It comes after Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD said Russia has been attempting to gain intelligence to sabotage critical infrastructure in the Dutch part of the North Sea.
A Russian ship was detected at an offshore wind farm in the North Sea as it tried to map out energy infrastructure, MIVD head General Jan Swillens said at a news conference on Monday.
Meanwhile in Moscow, thousands of people are gathering at Luzhniki stadium for a rally-concert marking one year of the war and the “Defenders of the Fatherland” Day.
Vladimir Putin is expected to attend and speak later.
The New York Times’ Valerie Hopkins is at the stadium:
I’m at Luzhniki stadium I. Moscow for a patriotic concert and celebration of Russia’s Defenders of the Fatherland day. Organizers say 200K here. Putin to speak later. pic.twitter.com/j3g50nJMXX
— Valerie Hopkins (@VALERIEinNYT) February 22, 2023
The Moscow Times reports that a governmental institution forced 70% of its workers to go to today’s pro-war rally, where organisers have also promised to distribute hot meals and Russian flags to attendees.
The paper quotes one state employee as saying:
To be honest, I think it’s absurd. We have to go and there’s nothing we can do with it. The authorities are using it as a propaganda tool to show off in the eyes of Z-patriots and those who watch TV. I wouldn’t go to the event voluntarily.
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As we reported, Vladimir Putin is meeting China’s top diplomat Wang Yi in Moscow. The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, had earlier confirmed the Russian leader’s meeting with Wang.
Wang also met with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, earlier today where he said he looked forward to clinching new agreements during his visit.
Wang, speaking through an interpreter, said:
I am ready to exchange views with you, my dear friend, on issues of mutual interest, and I look forward to reaching new agreements.
He added:
No matter how the international situation changes, China has been and remains committed, together with Russia, to make efforts to preserve the positive trend in the development of relations between major powers.
He added that he would work to “strengthen and deepen” relations between Moscow and Beijing.
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Putin meets top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Moscow
President Vladimir Putin is meeting the top Chinese diplomat, Wang Yi, in Moscow, according to pictures.
The pair were pictured sitting at a long table in the Kremlin, as shared by the BBC’s Stephen McDonell.
Images of #China’s Wang Yi meeting Vladimir Putin coming through. Note this is a small table by the Russian leader’s standards. To show a symbolic closeness to #Russia? pic.twitter.com/iHRcrDbvT9
— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) February 22, 2023
Hello everyone, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong taking over the Russia-Ukraine war live blog from Martin Belam. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
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Vladimir Putin’s threat to suspend Russian participation in New Start, the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US, represents a blatant attempt to divide American opinion over the war on Ukraine by raising the specter of nuclear armageddon, experts and policymakers warned on Tuesday.
Putin announced his intention to halt participation in the agreement towards the end of a belligerent 100-minute speech in which he charged the US and western powers with trying to inflict “strategic defeat” on Russia. His fiery rhetoric prompted instant reaction across the political spectrum in Washington.
Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who was a Russian specialist at the White House National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, told the Guardian that Putin was “playing to the rifts in the United States”. The strategy was to increase political discord in an attempt to embolden calls for an end to US support for Ukraine. She said:
It’s playing to all those people who want Ukraine to surrender and capitulate to avoid a massive nuclear exchange and world war three, a kind of nuclear armageddon.
Thomas Graham, Russia director within George W Bush’s National Security Council, agreed that part of Putin’s calculation was to provoke “certain circles in the US to wonder whether the risks of supporting Ukraine are worth it”.
Summary of the day so far …
Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv region, reported that two people have been injured in Russian strikes on the city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has said a shopping mall has been struck by Ukrainian fire in the Russian town of Shebekino, severely injuring one person.
Ukraine will ask Turkey and the United Nations this week to start talks to roll over the Black Sea grain deal, seeking an extension of at least one year that would include the ports of Mykolaiv, a senior Ukrainian official said. Yuriy Vaskov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of restoration also said he wanted the ports of Mykolaiv included in the deal, and that Russia’s current occupation of the Kinburn spit as an obstacle. The spit of land overlooks the route that ships would use to sail from Mykolaiv’s ports into the Black Sea.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has urged member states to speed up delivery of ammunition from their stocks to Ukraine “as a matter or urgency”. Building on comments at the Munich Security conference over the weekend and at Nato headquarters on Tuesday, Borrell said the EU was” looking into the question of joint procurement” of ammunition and “how to ramp up the production capacity of the European defence industry”.
A group of 10 EU member states have called for stronger action to stop Russia sourcing military parts through front companies in neighbouring countries and evading western sanctions. The 10 countries, which include France, Germany, Italy and the Baltic states, write that “2023 must be the year of success in countering circumvention”, warning that public support and international legitimacy of sanctions could wane if they are deemed ineffective.
Russia on Wednesday expressed “deep concern” over the United Nations’ behaviour regarding the rotation of staff at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. In a statement, Russia’s foreign ministry said the United Nations nuclear body was “disrupting” the scheduled changeover of IAEA staff stationed at the plant, which is occupied by Russian forces.
Pope Francis, speaking two days before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on Wednesday called for a ceasefire and peace negotiations, saying no victory could be “built on ruins”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy plans to attend in person a Nato summit taking place in Vilnius in July, Ukraine’s ambassador to Lithuania told local newswire BNS.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reports that in an unspecified number of regions in Russia, some commercial radio stations broadcast air raid alerts as a result of a cyber-attack.
Russia’s flagship frigate equipped with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles has arrived in the South African port of Richards Bay for exercises that will include China.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later on. I am handing you over to Léonie Chao-Fong.
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Anton Gerashchenko, who is former deputy minister in the internal affairs department of Ukraine, and currently acts as an adviser, has suggested in a post on Telegram that Ukraine should work with Moldova to restore territorial integrity to the latter. In a post he tagged “my opinion”, Geraschenko said:
If the people of Moldova and the authorities decide to restore territorial integrity, then with the support of Nato and Ukraine, this can be done in 24 hours.
Now Moldova has a unique geopolitical and historical chance to gain independence from Russia. The separatist enclave of Transnistria, which exists solely due to the support of the Russian Federation, has been “sandwiched” between Moldova and Ukraine for a year now.
Moldova needs to muster up the courage and, with the support of Nato allies and Ukraine, to restore its territorial integrity, using all available methods for this. Thus, Chișinău, instead of Kyiv, should end the 30-year history of mockery of Moldovan independence.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has posted to Telegram to say that a shopping mall has been struck in the Russian town of Shebekino. He wrote:
The shelling of Shebekino. Shells hit the mall, causing it to catch fire. According to preliminary data, there is one victim. A man with shrapnel wounds was taken to the Central district hospital. Doctors assess his condition as extremely serious. All necessary assistance is provided. Operational services are on site, rescuers have begun extinguishing [the fire].
Ukraine will ask Turkey and the United Nations this week to start talks to roll over the Black Sea grain deal, seeking an extension of at least one year that would include the ports of Mykolaiv, a senior Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.
The Black Sea grain initiative brokered by the UN and Turkey last July allowed grain to be exported from three Ukrainian ports. The agreement was extended in November and will expire on 18 March unless an extension is agreed.
“A formal proposal will come out from us this week on the need to work on an extension,” Yuriy Vaskov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of restoration, told Reuters in an interview.
He said the exact date of the talks, which have previously taken place in Turkey, had not yet been set.
“We will request … to extend it not for 120 days but for at least one year because the Ukrainian and global agricultural market needs to be able to plan these volumes in the long term,” Vaskov said.
He said Ukraine would insist on an increase in the number of inspection teams “in order to eliminate the accumulation of vessels waiting for inspections”.
Vaskov said Mykolaiv’s ports, which accounted for 35% of Ukrainian food exports before the Russian invasion, were ready to join the initiative and would need a maximum of two weeks to start operations.
He said Kyiv did not see Russia’s occupation of the Kinburn spit as an obstacle to adding Mykolaiv’s ports to an extended deal. The spit of land overlooks the route that ships would use to sail from Mykolaiv’s ports into the Black Sea.
“If the ports (of Mykoliav) are included in the initiative, there will be an obligation not to attack ships carrying agricultural products, which can work even in the current situation,” Vaskov said.
Pope Francis, speaking two days before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on Wednesday called for a ceasefire and peace negotiations, saying no victory could be “built on ruins”.
Francis, who has appealed for an end to violence in Ukraine at nearly every public appearance since Russia’s invasion of the country on 24 February 2022, spoke at his weekly general audience at the Vatican.
“It has been a year since the start of this absurd and cruel war, a sad anniversary,” he said.
“The number of dead, wounded, refugees and displaced people, the destruction and economic and social damage speak for themselves,” Francis said.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, Andrii Yurash, attended the audience along with a delegation of Ukrainian officials.
“May the Lord forgive so many crimes and so much violence. He is the God of peace. Let us remain close to the martyred Ukrainian people who continue to suffer,” Reuters reports Francis said.
A group of ten EU member states have called for stronger action to stop Russia sourcing military parts through front companies in neighbouring countries and evading western sanctions.
The ten countries, which include France, Germany, Italy and the Baltic states, write that “2023 must be the year of success in countering circumvention”, warning that public support and international legitimacy of sanctions could wane if they are deemed ineffective.
In an informal paper the group argues that special attention should be given to western components used in Russian weaponry and military equipment, parts that are not easily replaced and could disrupt Russia’s military production if they were to disappear. They write:
We see that Russia is transitioning into a full-on military economy with a view to sustaining its war efforts. Alternative supply chains are created through the use of front companies and intermediates in the circle of countries around Russia. Special focus should be put on western components that are crucial to the Russian military industry. A small disruption of these production chains therefore quickly has a significant impact in the Russian ability to produce weapons and military equipment.
The recommendations include:
Better cooperation between national and EU authorities, to ensure good information sharing between customs, tax authorities, prosecutors and intelligence.
Better information sharing between national capitals and Brussels.
Issuing warnings to individuals and companies in non-EU countries helping Russia evade sanctions that their help for Moscow risks “severe consequences for their access to the internal market”.
Diplomatic coordination on how to deal with non-EU countries helping Russia evade sanctions.
Creating a watchlist of companies and sectors of concern to raise awareness.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has urged member states to speed up delivery of ammunition from their stocks to Ukraine “as a matter or urgency”.
Building on comments at the Munich Security conference over the weekend and at Nato headquarters on Tuesday, Borrell said the EU was” looking into the question of joint procurement” of ammunition and “how to ramp up the production capacity of the European defence industry”.
In a letter to EU defence ministers seen by the Guardian, he promised proposals ahead of a meeting in Stockholm on 7-8 March. The European Commission intends to reimburse member states for ammunition sent to Ukraine and carry out joint procurement through the European Peace Facility, an EU military fund. The EPF has released €3.6bn to pay for military equipment for Ukraine over the last twelve months.
Borrell writes “As a matter of urgency, I call on all of you to speed up the delivery of ammunition that you could provide from your stocks… The future of Ukraine is at stake.”
Just a few miles from the Ukraine’s southern frontline, Russian missiles have been pummelling a village near Zaporizhzhia, and turned a newly refurbished medical clinic into a ravaged, abandoned shell. The Guardian’s Luke Harding and Christopher Cherry meet civilians who have refused to flee the bombardment and troops who are determined to fight back.
Two injured in strikes on Kharkiv – regional governor
Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv region, has posted to Telegram to report that two people have been injured in Russian strikes on the city of Kharkiv this morning, where there have been reports of at least four explosions being heard. He wrote:
According to preliminary data, ‘arrivals’ were recorded in Kharkiv. Infrastructure objects were in the sights of the occupiers. According to the regional centre of emergency medical assistance, two people were injured. They are in a light condition and are being treated by specialists.
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Early reports seem to indicate there have been at least four explosions in Kharkiv this morning so far.
Four loud explosions in Kharkiv city center. Just saw people running into the metro to find a shelter. Damned terroists. pic.twitter.com/MKPomBR0pV
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) February 22, 2023
Explosions reported in Kharkiv
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reports its correspondents in Kharkiv have heard explosions. Several people have posted to social media to note the same.
#Kharkiv, loud blasts right now. Windows trembled #Ukraine
— Julia Kalashnyk (@JuliaKalashnyk) February 22, 2023
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Denis Pushilin, who is the leader of the occupied Donetsk region which Russia claims to have annexed, has posted a message to the Telegram app warning citizens that he anticipates increased Ukrainian military activity as the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of approaches. He told residents:
Dear friends, we know from experience that the enemy is always active on anniversaries. There is information that in the next two-three days shelling by Ukrainian armed forces will intensify. Our artillery units are engaged in active battery and counter-battery combat, air defence is in an enhanced mode. Nevertheless, please be careful, do not move around the streets without unnecessary need.
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy plans to attend in person a Nato summit taking place in Vilnius in July, Ukraine’s ambassador to Lithuania told local newswire BNS.
Reuters reports the Lithuania presidential office has said the Vilnius summit on 11-12 July will be attended by most leaders of the Atlantic alliance, including the US president, Joe Biden.
“That is our plan,” ambassador Petro Beshta said about the Zelenskiy visit in an interview with BNS published on Wednesday.
Zelenskiy has made only two foreign trips since Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago – one to Washington in December and another to London, Paris and Brussels in February.
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Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reports that in an unspecified number of regions in Russia, some commercial radio stations broadcast air raid alerts as a result of a cyber-attack.
Tass reports the Russian emergencies ministry issued the following statement:
The ministry of emergency situations of Russia reports that this information is fake and does not correspond to reality. We kindly ask you to follow the messages in official sources.
Tass reports the department added that as a result of a hacker attack on the servers of some commercial radio stations in several regions, information about the alleged announcement of an air raid alert and the threat of a missile strike was broadcast.
During the last twelve months Russia has claimed that targets within Russia, most usually in the Kursk and Belgorod regions which border Ukraine, have been struck by fire from inside Ukraine.
Russia on Wednesday expressed “deep concern” over the United Nations’ behaviour regarding the rotation of staff at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
Reuters reports that in a statement, Russia’s foreign ministry said the United Nations nuclear body was “disrupting” the scheduled changeover of IAEA staff stationed at the plant, which is under the control of Russian forces, without good reason.
Russian officials on Wednesday continued to blame the US and the west for President Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend Moscow’s participation in the New Start treaty, as Russia’s parliament looked set to rubber-stamp the move.
Reuters reports ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of the Russian security council, said the move was a “long overdue” response to the US and Nato in effect declaring war on Russia.
“This decision was forced on us by the war declared by the US and other Nato countries on our country. It will have a huge resonance in the world overall and in the United States in particular,” Medvedev said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
The head of Russia’s Duma, the lower house of parliament, also blamed the US for the breakdown.
“By ceasing to comply with its obligations and rejecting our country’s proposals on global security issues, the US destroyed the architecture of international stability,” Vyacheslav Volodin said in a statement.
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My colleague Peter Beaumont reports that air raid sirens are sounding again in Kyiv.
Air raid sirens in Kyiv …. It’s been very quiet since I got here on Monday. US presidents aside
— petersbeaumont (@petersbeaumont1) February 22, 2023
Here are some images that have been sent over the news wires from Russian-oocupied Mariupol in southern Ukraine.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleague Martin Belam will take you through the rest of the day’s news.
What are the implications of Russia suspending New Start?
While the foreign ministry has said it would continue abiding by the treaty’s restrictions, a suspension of the treaty may mean that it will be harder for the US to monitor compliance.
Russia has already suspended mutual inspections of nuclear weapons sites and participation in a bilateral consultative commission. Experts say it would be a serious blow if Putin went further and stopped routine reporting and data exchange on nuclear weapon movements and other related developments.
John Erath, senior policy director for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said in an interview with the Washington Post that the move is “entirely symbolic”.
He believes that Putin made the announcement to pressure Biden into approaching Russia about ending the war, “so Russia can dictate the terms under which that would happen”.
What is the New Start nuclear treaty?
In a speech ahead of the upcoming one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New Start.
Signed by then US president Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2010, the New Start treaty caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy. Together, the US and Russia own 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.
In this context, “deploy” means ready for immediate use, rather than have in storage. Weapons kept in storage are “non-deployed”. According to an explainer of the treaty written by the EU parliament, “Warheads count as deployed if loaded onto a missile that is itself deployed”.
Under the agreement, Moscow and Washington are committed to deploying no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads and a maximum of 700 long-range missiles and bombers. Each side can conduct up to 18 inspections of strategic nuclear weapons sites every year to ensure the other has not breached the treaty’s limits.
The treaty came into force in 2011 and was extended in 2021 for five more years after Joe Biden took office.
Russia's warship with hypersonic missiles arrives for drills with South Africa and China
Russia’s flagship frigate equipped with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles has arrived in the South African port of Richards Bay for exercises that will include China, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported on Wednesday.
South Africa was due to launch the joint exercises on Friday. It calls the drills routine but they have fuelled domestic criticism and fears they could endanger relations with western partners.
The beginning of the exercises coincides with the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend its last major nuclear arms control treaty with the United States
The ship, named “The Admiral Gorshkov of the Fleet of the Soviet Union”, had arrived at Richards Bay “performing the tasks of a long-range voyage”, RIA reported, citing a statement from the Russian Northern Fleet.
The Gorshkov warship, which was sent off from Russia on 4 January, carries the Zircon missiles which have a range of 900 km (560 miles) and can travel at several times the speed of sound, making it difficult to defend against them.
In late January, the ship tested its strike capabilities in the western Atlantic Ocean.
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UN general assembly to vote on draft resolution calling for peace
The UN general assembly meets today, two days ahead of the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Kyiv and its allies hoping to garner broad support for a resolution calling for a “just and lasting peace.”
The draft resolution, sponsored by 60 countries, is to be voted on after the close of debate – not expected until at least Thursday.
The text “underscores the need to reach, as soon as possible, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine in line with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Like previous resolutions, it reaffirms the UN’s “commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine” and calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
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Russia's first criminal case against Ukranian forces goes to court
Russia’s first criminal case against a member of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, accused of forcibly seizing power and ill-treatment of civilians, has gone to court, the state TASS news agency reported on Wednesday.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said on the Telegram messaging platform in June that it had charged Senior Sergeant Anton Cherednik of the Marine Corps of Ukraine’s forces with the alleged crime of cruel treatment of civilian population.
TASS, citing unnamed sources at the Southern District Military Court in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don, said that Cherednik was also charged with murder and training for the purpose of carrying out terrorism.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports and the charges.
TASS said the court will consider the case “in the near future.
More now on Biden’s meeting today with the Bucharest Nine. Most members of the group – made up of the countries on Nato’s eastern flank who joined the western military alliance after being dominated by Moscow during the cold war – are strong supporters of military aid to Ukraine, and officials from countries in the group have called for additional resources such as air defence systems.
At the meeting, Biden plans to reaffirm commitments over their security and discuss support for Ukraine before he returns to Washington.
Russia regards Nato, which could soon expand to include Sweden and Finland, as an existential threat.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda’s message to Biden will be that it wants “greater involvement of the US in Europe, Nato’s eastern flank and, of course, more aid to Ukraine,” his chief foreign policy adviser told Lithuanian radio on Tuesday.
“Lithuania and other like-minded countries have several requests, which concern air defence, forward defence presence, air defence systems, and greater investments in the defence industry,” Asta Skaisgiryte said.
The former Soviet republic on Russia’s doorstep joined Nato in 2004 and plans to host Biden in July for the security alliance’s leaders’ summit.
Who is winning in Ukraine – and what will happen next?
As the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches on Friday, the picture looks very different to the first weeks of the war, when hundreds of Russian tanks poured over the border and airborne forces attempted to capture Hostomel airfield, outside Kyiv, as a springboard to take the capital. Here we look at the status of the conflict and what might happen next.
There are different ways to assess who is winning the war. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is close to achieving its stated war aims, which in Ukraine’s case involves liberating all occupied territory.
It is probably safe to say that the current trajectory of the conflict is going much better for Ukraine than for Russia – and that the continuing influx of new weapons from the west will maintain that trajectory.
But Ukraine, as the EU’s head of foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, warned recently, is heavily dependent on the west for arms, including artillery ammunition, which has exposed a potential vulnerability for Kyiv in the east, where artillery has dominated the battles.
What is also unclear is how much of a gamechanger weapons such as main battle tanks are likely to be in bringing the war towards a close, or how quickly.
So for now, the war grinds on. Read more on where things stand here:
Kazakhstan may send the first batch of oil via Russia’s Druzhba pipeline to Germany in the coming days, possibly on Wednesday, Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Kazakhstan’s Energy Minister Bolat Akchulakov as saying on Wednesday.
“I really hope that it will go today,” Akchulakov said.
Kazakh supplies are meant to replace those of Russian crude that the European Union pledged to stop buying as part of wider sanctions prompted by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline remains exempt from sanctions, but Germany’s refineries in Leuna and Schwedt - which are connected to the pipeline - have not ordered any Russian crude for this year.
Where is Transnistria?
Transnistria is a predominantly Russian-speaking region wedged between the Dniester River and the Ukraine border. It seceded from Moldova after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1992, the separatists fought a war with Moldova’s pro-western government, which ended in hundreds of deaths and the intervention of the Russian army on the rebels’ side.
In a 2006 referendum that was not recognised by the international community, 97.1% of voters backed joining Russia, dealing a blow to Moldova’s hopes of following Romania and other ex-communist eastern European states into the EU.
Transnistria is controlled by pro-Russian separatists and permanently hosts 1,500 Russian troops as well as a large arms depot.
Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, has made clear her opposition to Transnistria’s secession.
She wants Russian troops stationed along Transnistria’s frontier with Moldova to be replaced with an observer mission from the Organisation for Security and cooperation in Europe, a proposal rejected by Moscow.
More on Transnistria here:
Russian military responds to Wagner chief’s ‘treason’ claim
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has said Moscow’s military chiefs are refusing to supply the group with munitions and are seeking to destroy it, accusing them of “treason”, in an escalation of the war of words between senior Russian officials and the private army boss.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenary force, which has recruited from prisons across Russia to bolster its ranks, is playing a key role in the efforts to capture the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s east. The battle has exposed tensions between the Wagner group and the Russian army, though the Kremlin denies any rift.
“[Moscow’s] chief of general staff and the defence minister give out orders left and right not only to not give ammunition to PMC Wagner, but also to not help it with air transport,” Prigozhin said in a voice message shared by his press service on Tuesday.
“There is just direct opposition going on, which is nothing less than an attempt to destroy Wagner. This can be equated to high treason,” he added.
Russia’s defence ministry has denied limiting ammunition shipments to volunteers at the front, but made no mention of the Wagner group private army or of Prigozhin’s accusations.
“All requests for ammunition for assault units are met as soon as possible,” it insisted, promising new deliveries on Saturday and denouncing as “absolutely false” reports of shortages.
“Attempts to create a split within the close mechanism of interaction and support between units of the Russian [fighting] groups are counter-productive and work solely to the benefit of the enemy,” the statement read:
Putin revokes decree underpinning Moldovan sovereignty
Putin has revoked a 2012 decree that in part underpinned Moldova’s sovereignty in resolving the future of the Transdniestria region – a Moscow-backed separatist region which borders Ukraine and where Russia keeps troops.
The decree, which included a Moldova component, outlined Russia’s foreign policy 11 years ago which assumed Moscow’s closer relations with the European Union and the United States.
The order revoking the 2012 document was published on the Kremlin’s website and states that the decision was taken to “ensure the national interests of Russia in connection with the profound changes taking place in international relations”.
It is part of a series of anti-western moves announced by Putin on Tuesday.
Biden to meet Nato secretary and 'Bucharest Nine' in Poland
US President Joe Biden is still in Poland, where he will meet with leaders of the so-called “Bucharest Nine” countries, Nato’s eastern European members, and Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg.
The Bucharest Nine, or B9, was formed in 2015 in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Its members are Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and Slovakia.
Biden is expected to return to Washington on Wednesday evening.
On Tuesday he delivered a speech in Warsaw in which he rallied the allies, saying, “When Russia invaded, it wasn’t just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages.”
Summary and welcome
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest.
Coming up today: US President Joe Biden is in Warsaw, Poland, where he will meet with Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the ‘Bucharest Nine’ nations, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and Slovakia.
And Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin launched two verbal attacks against top brass on Tuesday, accusing them of depriving his Wagner fighters of munitions in what he called a treasonous attempt to destroy his private military company.
More on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:
Ukraine told schools on Tuesday to hold classes remotely from 22-24 February because of the risk of Russian missile strikes around the first anniversary of Moscow’s 2022 invasion.
Speaking before a crowd of thousands in the gardens of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, Joe Biden hailed the resilience of Ukraine’s people and the benevolence of Poland and other western allies in helping fend off the Russian invasion.
The US president said the attack on Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, and said new sanctions against Russia will be announced this week.
The foreign ministers of the G7 have said their countries would continue to impose economic costs on Russia and urged the broader international community to reject what they described as Moscow’s “brutal expansionism”.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has given a long televised national address to the joint houses of the Russian parliament, in which he blamed the west for starting the war in Ukraine and promised a new fund to help those who had lost loved ones in what he referred to as Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Putin also announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). The foreign ministry later said Moscow intended to continue abiding by the restrictions outlined in the treaty on the number of warheads it could have deployed.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he regretted Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New Start bilateral nuclear arms control treaty and urged Moscow to reconsider.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces were maintaining their positions on the frontline in the east after Russia reported it was advancing on its main target in the area. Russia, trying to secure full control of two eastern provinces forming Ukraine’s Donbas industrial region, has launched repeated assaults, securing its biggest gains around the mining city of Bakhmut.
Eighteen Russian MPs are expected to attend a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna on Friday, the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and have been invited to a nationalist ball.
