Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Finland will become the 31st member of the world’s biggest military alliance on Tuesday, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said. Stoltenberg said Turkey, the last country to ratify Finland’s membership, would hand its official texts to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Tuesday. Stoltenberg said he would then invite Finland to do the same.
Stoltenberg’s announcement prompted a warning from Russia that it would bolster its defences near their joint border if Nato deployed any troops inside the country. “We will strengthen our military potential in the west and in the north-west,” Grushko said in remarks carried by the RIA Novosti state news agency.
Ukraine’s western allies have sent the country €65bn (£57bn) in military aid to help in its fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion, Stoltenberg said. He was speaking as Nato foreign ministers prepare to meet in Brussels on Tuesday to “discuss how we can step up our support, including by continuing to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has paid tribute to the courage of nearly 400 villagers in north Ukraine who were held in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago. The Ukrainian leader travelled to Yahidne on Monday, where he gave an emotive speech recalling how villagers were kept captive in a space of less than 200 sq metres during the first month of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, will visit the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on Wednesday, an IAEA spokesperson said.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy is scheduled to visit Poland on Wednesday for talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Zelenskiy will be accompanied by his wife, Olena Zelenska, during his first official visit to Warsaw since Russia’s invasion 13 months ago. Zelenskiy is also expected to hold talks with Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
Poland has already delivered the first batch of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to the Polish presidential office’s head of international policy, Marcin Przydacz. He did not specify how many jets had been transferred. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, last month said Warsaw would hand over the first four MiG-29 to Ukraine.
Ukraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag. “Bakhmut is Ukrainian, and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesperson for the eastern military command said.
President Zelenskiy has said overnight the fighting in Bakhmut is “especially hot”. His comments came as the Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building. However, there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made premature claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city.
Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday. Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he hosted a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of the city. Police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect and that she was arrested in a flat in St Petersburg after a search on Monday morning.
Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist arrested on espionage charges in Russia last week, has appealed against his detention through his lawyers, according to a report. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Gershkovich’s arrest was “of concern” and called for his “immediate release”. The US government is “pushing hard” for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the White House said on Monday.
Updated
Many people could have wanted to kill Vladlen Tatarsky, the pro-war Russian blogger who died in a bomb blast in a St Petersburg cafe on Sunday.
Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was notorious for his vehement support for the invasion of Ukraine, where he regularly called for Russia to commit to a total war and advocated for extreme violence that included war crimes. “We’ll defeat everyone, we’ll kill everyone, we’ll loot whoever we need to, and everything will be just as we like it,” he said last year on camera after a Kremlin ceremony confirming the “annexation” of four Ukrainian regions.
A former coalminer from east Ukraine, Fomin was convicted of bank robbery and was serving a prison sentence in east Ukraine when Russian proxy forces launched their war against the government. Fomin claimed he then fled custody and joined the Russian-backed forces. Later, he became a blogger and moved to Moscow several years before Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in 2022. After the war began, he claimed to have joined a volunteer battalion and fought in Mariupol.
At the beginning of the war he became a member of a small but influential group of military bloggers who have been vocally supportive of the conflict, regularly posting updates citing troops on the frontlines or dangling scoops about potential offensives or big political decisions such as mobilisations.
At the same time, they have also been some of the most virulent critics of Russia’s military effort, condemning the army’s top brass as ineffective and lazy, and uncaring for the lives of Russian troops sent into battle.
The German arms maker Rheinmetall is building a military maintenance and logistics hub in Satu Mare, Romania, that is expected to begin operation this month to service weapons used for the war in Ukraine, the company has said.
The hub, located near the Ukrainian border, will service self-propelled howitzers, Leopard 2 and Challenger tanks, Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Fuchs armoured transport vehicles and military trucks, it said.
A Rheinmetall spokesperson said on Sunday:
The service hub should play a central role in maintaining the operational readiness of western combat systems in use in Ukraine and ensuring the availability of logistical support.
The chief executive of the company, Armin Papperger, said it was a “key concern” to provide Nato forces and Ukraine “with the best possible support”.
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, travelled to Romania today for talks with its president, Klaus Iohannis, that focused on security, economy and energy. They also discussed defence cooperation on Nato’s eastern flank and security in the Black Sea region.
Scholz highlighted the strong relations between Germany and Romania and again promised to “give Ukraine military support for as long as it is necessary, and we are working on that constantly and together”. He did not directly answer questions on the Rheinmetall facility being set up in Romania.
Iohannis and Scholz were later joined by Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, for talks on ways to support her embattled country. Moldova is Ukraine’s “most vulnerable neighbour”, Mandu told reporters, adding that “when our values are under attack, democratic countries must help each other”.
Updated
Ukraine has received the first $2.7bn (£2.2bn) tranche under the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) extended fund facility programme, finance minister Sergii Marchenko has said.
Today Ukraine received the first $2,7bn tranche under the new @IMFNews EFF program. Grateful to our partners for supporting Ukraine on the way to victory. @IMFinEurope
— Sergii Marchenko (@SergiiMarchenk3) April 3, 2023
The IMF said on Friday that its executive board had approved a four-year $15.6bn (£12.6bn) loan programme for Ukraine, part of a global $115bn (£92.8bn) package to support the country’s economy as it battles Russia’s invasion.
The extended fund facility (EFF) loan is the first major conventional financing programme approved by the IMF for a country involved in a large-scale war.
The decision cleared the way for the immediate disbursement of $2.7bn to Kyiv, and requires Ukraine to carry out ambitious reforms, especially in the energy sector, the Fund said in a statement.
While we’re on the subject of western aid for Ukraine, the White House has said the US will send a new package of assistance to Ukraine this week.
Ukraine is still fighting hard for the eastern city of Bakhmut and the battle is not over, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
Ukraine’s allies have sent £57bn in military aid, says Nato chief
Ukraine’s western allies have sent the country €65bn (£57bn) in military aid to help the country in its fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said.
“We cannot allow Russia to continue to chip away at European security,” Stoltenberg told a news conference as Nato foreign ministers prepare to meet in Brussels tomorrow to “discuss how we can step up our support, including by continuing to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces”.
Earlier we reported that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled to Yahidne in northern Ukraine, where nearly 400 residents were kept captive in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago. Eleven people died during the ordeal, Zelenskiy said.
The Ukrainian leader was joined on the visit to the village in Chernihiv region by the German vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, and the Council of Europe secretary general, Marija Pejčinović Burić. Zelenskiy thanked Habeck and Burić for attending and said the basement was important for Ukraine’s allies to see. He said:
It’s important to see this and to be in these basements to understand whether to help Ukraine or to keep thinking how to find a way to talk with Russia.
Russian troops and the country’s leadership, including Vladimir Putin, were responsible for the tragedy, he said. He added:
Having seen all this, I can wish the president of Russia to spend the rest of his days in a basement with a bucket for a toilet.
Updated
US ‘pushing hard’ for Wall Street Journal reporter’s release from Russia, says White House
The US government is “pushing hard” for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia on espionage charges, the White House has said.
National security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters:
We have been pushing hard since the moment we found out the reporter was detained.
The US is “keenly, strongly, closely” tracking his detention, he added.
Updated
The UN’s nuclear watchdog has said its head, Rafael Grossi, will travel to Russia’s Kaliningrad territory on Wednesday for talks on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
Russian news agencies had earlier reported that Grossi would visit Moscow, citing a senior diplomat. But a spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said he would visit the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
Grossi will visit Kaliningrad “as part of his ongoing consultations aimed at ensuring the protection of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during the military conflict”, the IAEA spokesperson said.
Grossi visited the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is in territory occupied by Russia since early in its invasion, last week. He said the situation had grown worse and military activity around the site had intensified in recent months.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Finland will become the 31st member of the world’s biggest military alliance on Tuesday, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said. Stoltenberg said Turkey, the last country to ratify Finland’s membership, would hand its official texts to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Tuesday. Stoltenberg said he would then invite Finland to do the same.
Stoltenberg’s announcement prompted a warning from Russia that it would bolster its defences near their joint border if Nato deployed any troops inside the country. “We will strengthen our military potential in the west and in the north-west,” Grushko said in remarks carried by the RIA Novosti state news agency.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has paid tribute to the courage of nearly 400 residents of a village in north Ukraine who were held in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago. The Ukrainian leader travelled to Yahidne on Monday, where he gave an emotive speech recalling how villagers were kept captive in a space of less than 200 sq metres during the first month of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, will visit Moscow on Wednesday, Russia’s permanent representative to international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, has said. Ulyanov said Grossi would meet a Russian delegation and that they would discuss the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, located in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine, near the frontline of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy is scheduled to visit Poland on Wednesday for talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Zelenskiy will be accompanied by his wife, Olena Zelenska, during his first official visit to Warsaw since Russia’s invasion 13 months ago. Zelenskiy is also expected to hold talks with Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
Poland has already delivered the first batch of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to the Polish presidential office’s head of international policy, Marcin Przydacz. He did not specify how many jets had been transferred. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, last month said Warsaw would hand over the first four MiG-29 to Ukraine.
Ukraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag. “Bakhmut is Ukrainian, and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesperson for the eastern military command said.
President Zelenskiy has said overnight the fighting in Bakhmut is “especially hot”. His comments came as the Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building. However there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city that were premature.
Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday. Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he was hosting a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of St Petersburg. Police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect and that she was arrested in a flat in St Petersburg after a search on Monday morning.
Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist arrested on espionage charges in Russia last week, has appealed against his detention through his lawyers, according to a report. Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Gershkovich’s arrest was “of concern” and called for his “immediate release”.
Updated
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, has said Moscow will strengthen its military in its western and north-western regions in response to Finland joining Nato tomorrow.
He told Russian state-owned Ria news agency:
In the event that the forces and resources of other Nato members are deployed in Finland, we will take additional steps to reliably ensure Russia’s military security.
Finland has a 1,300km (810 mile) border with Russia, and joining Nato will roughly double the alliance’s frontier facing Moscow.
Updated
Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist arrested on espionage charges in Russia last week, has appealed against his detention through his lawyers, Interfax news agency reported, citing the court.
Gershkovich, 31, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was detained on Wednesday in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg and accused by Russia’s FSB internal security agency of collecting “classified information” on a company in its military industrial complex.
The WSJ says it “vehemently denies the allegations” and the White House has described the charges as “ridiculous”.
Updated
Zelenskiy and Habeck visit village where residents were held for month in school basement
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday paid tribute to the courage of nearly 400 residents of a village in north Ukraine who were held in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago.
The Ukrainian leader travelled to Yahidne, where he gave an emotive speech recalling how villagers were kept captive in a space of less than 200 sq metres during the first month of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
He said that 11 people died during the ordeal.
“These people somehow lived and waited for Ukraine in the dark,” said Zelenskiy, who appeared visibly moved on the anniversary. “They lived standing and sitting.”
Reuters reports that Zelenskiy was joined on the visit to Yahidne, a village in Chernihiv region, by the German vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, and the Council of Europe secretary general, Marija Pejčinović Burić.
On his official Telegram channel, Zelenskiy wrote:
I want to thank the residents of Yahidne. They endured torture, a terrible path, the path of absolute heroes. I thank Ukraine for having such fighters for life.
Updated
Catherine Russell, the executive director of Unicef, the UN children’s fund, has commented on the announcement by the OHCHR Ukraine civilian casualty update team that the number of children killed in the conflict since February 2022 has risen to at least 501. She said:
This is another tragic milestone for Ukraine’s children and families.
Since the escalation of the war in February 2022, at least 501 children have been killed. This is just the UN-verified number. The real figure is likely far higher, and the toll on families affected is unimaginable.
Almost 1,000 children have been injured, leaving them with wounds and scars – both visible and invisible – that could last for life.
Children and families in Ukraine are paying the highest price for this brutal war. Behind every number is a family torn apart and changed for ever. It is heart-wrenching.
War is always the worst enemy of children, whether in Ukraine, or countless other conflicts around the world. Every child, no matter where they live, deserves to grow up in a peaceful environment.
Updated
Tatiana Moskalkova, commissioner for human rights in the Russian Federation, has told the Russian state-owned news agency Tass that Ukraine and Russia have swapped five injured prisoners of war in recent days.
It quotes her saying: “Today, five wounded servicemen of the armed forces of Ukraine have been repatriated to Ukraine. We continue to work in this direction.”
Tass reports that according to her, at the end of March, Ukraine handed over five wounded Russian soldiers who are currently being treated.
“I wish them a speedy recovery and I believe that they will soon return to their families and friends, who will greet them as real heroes,” she is reported as saying.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that in the last day, in the Ukrainian-held areas of Kherson region, pyrotechnicians defused 56 explosive object in de-occupied settlements.
Updated
IAEA chief to visit Russia on Wednesday – Russian official
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, will visit Russia on Wednesday, Russia’s permanent representative to international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, told state television on Monday.
Reuters reports Ulyanov said Grossi would meet a Russian delegation and that they would discuss the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, located in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine, near the frontline of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Russian forces captured Europe’s largest nuclear power station in March 2022, and since then have been forcing Ukrainian staff to continue to operate it. Both sides have accused the other of shelling the power plant and risking a nuclear accident. Grossi recently visited and inspected the plant for a second time since the war began.
Updated
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has called for the “immediate release” of the US national Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested in Russia last week.
Stoltenberg, speaking at a news conference, said he joined the US in their call on Russia to release Gershkovich. He added:
His arrest is of concern. It is important to respect freedom of the press, the rights of journalists, and the rights to ask questions and to do their jobs. Therefore, we call on his immediate release.
Updated
Russian police have been pictured guarding the site of yesterday’s explosion in a cafe in central St Petersburg that killed the prominent pro-war Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.
Tributes have been laid near the scene of the blast, which took place as Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was hosting a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of the city.
More than 30 people were wounded and 10 of them remain in grave condition from the explosion, according to authorities.
Police have arrested a woman, Darya Trepova, whom they have identified as the suspect. Authorities claim she was a supporter of the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Updated
Belarus has started combat readiness inspections of its armed forces, the defence ministry has said in a statement published on Telegram.
The ministry said inspections would determine the capacity of military units to perform at “the highest levels of combat readiness”.
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Nato has not seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture since Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Stoltenberg says.
So far, we haven’t seen any changes in their nuclear posture that requires any change, changing our nuclear posture.
Nato’s position on Ukraine’s bid “remains unchanged” and that is that “Ukraine will become a member of the alliance”, Stoltenberg says.
The main focus however is to “ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign independent nation in Europe”, he says. So the first and most urgent step is for Kyiv’s allies to sustain and further step up military, lethal, non-lethal and economic support to Ukraine, he says.
Nato is also looking into how it can develop a political relationship with Ukraine, and how it can expand its work on more long-term reforms in institutional building, he says.
It is extremely important to continue to demonstrate that Nato’s door remains open, as we’ll do tomorrow, when Finland will become a full member. As we do when we finalise the accession process for Sweden hopefully in the near future.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has been speaking at a news conference after the announcement that Finland will officially join the military alliance tomorrow.
Finland joining Nato on Tuesday “will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security and for Nato as a whole”, he says.
On the subject of Sweden – which applied to join Nato at the same time as Finland last May but whose membership bid is still being blocked by Turkey – Stoltenberg said the raising of Finland’s flag “is also good for Sweden”. He says he will continue to work on finalising the Swedish accession process.
Updated
Finland to officially join Nato on Tuesday
Finland will officially become a member of the Nato military alliance on Tuesday, the Finnish president’s office has said.
Suomesta tulee puolustusliitto Naton jäsen tiistaina 4. huhtikuuta 2023.
— TPKanslia (@TPKanslia) April 3, 2023
Presidentti @Niinisto matkustaa Brysseliin ja osallistuu Naton päämajassa järjestettävään viralliseen liittymisseremoniaan. https://t.co/OKwG0pMQhU
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, confirmed Finland will join the alliance tomorrow.
Updated
Germany’s vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, has been pictured arriving in Kyiv for talks in an unannounced visit.
A spokesperson for Germany’s energy and economy ministry confirmed the visit, saying Habeck, who also serves as minister for energy and the economy, arrived in the Ukrainian capital early today.
🇩🇪German Vice-Chancellor Robert #Habeck has arrived in #Kyiv today, Spiegel reported.
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) April 3, 2023
This is his first visit to Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. pic.twitter.com/FkzXfJ1tO4
Habeck was accompanied by a small business delegation including Siegfried Russwurm, president of the federation of German industries. It is Habeck’s first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion 13 months ago.
Habeck said the aim of the talks was to “give Ukraine hope” that the country will be rebuilt after the war. He said the purpose of his visit was to send a clear signal to Kyiv:
A signal that we believe it will be victorious, that it will be rebuilt, that there is an interest from Europe not only to support it in times of need, but that Ukraine will also be an economically strong partner in the future.
Poland delivers first MiG-29 jets to Ukraine, says official
Poland has already delivered the first batch of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to the Polish presidential office’s head of international policy, Marcin Przydacz.
Przydacz, in an interview with Polish radio RMF today, said:
According to my information, this process has already been completed, i.e., the transfer of this first part. Of course, there will be talks about possible further support.
He did not specify how many jets had been transferred. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, last month said Warsaw would hand over the first four MiG-29 to Ukraine. Duda said at the time:
We still have a dozen of these [aircraft]. We got them in the early 1990s from the East German army. These are the last years of their operation in accordance with their technical capabilities but are still functional.
Kyiv has urged its allies to provide fighter jets to defend its airspace and more effectively counterattack the Russian forces on its territory. So far, only Poland and Slovakia, which approved the transfer of 13 MiG-29 jets, have answered that call.
Updated
Zelenskiy to visit Poland on Wednesday
We reported earlier that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is scheduled to visit Poland on Wednesday for talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. We have some more details of the visit.
Zelenskiy will be accompanied by his wife, Olena Zelenska, during his first official visit to Warsaw since Russia’s invasion 13 months ago. He has held a number of secret working meetings in the country while travelling to other countries.
The visit will begin with an official meeting at the royal castle between Zelenskiy and Duda, with the pair expected to discuss security issues, regional politics, and economic cooperation, as well as the transit of Ukrainian grain and other farm produce through Poland, according to Marcin Przydacz, the head of Duda’s international office.
The talks with be followed by a meeting with the public, according to Duda’s office. Zelenskiy is also expected to hold talks with Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, regarding regional security, the situation at the front, and bilateral cooperation including the situation at border crossings and with Ukrainian grain, according to Morawiecki aide Michal Dworczyk.
Summary of the day so far …
Ukraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag. “Bakhmut is Ukrainian, and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesperson for the eastern military command said.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy had said overnight the fighting in Bakhmut, the heavily fought over city in Ukraine’s Donbas region, is “especially hot”. His comments came as the Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building. However there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city that were premature.
Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday. Russian authorities say Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb explosion as he was hosting a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of St Petersburg.
Russian police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect, adding that she was arrested in an apartment in St Petersburg after a search on Monday morning. Sources in the country’s interior ministry told the RBK news outlet that the attack was “carefully planned in advance by several people”.
Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be moved close to Belarus’ borders with its Nato neighbours, the Russian ambassador to Belarus has said amid tensions between Russia and the west over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that in the last 24 hours “the Russian army carried out 29 strikes on 12 populated areas of Donetsk region”. It adds “46 residential buildings, a kindergarten, an administrative building, factory workshops, power lines, gas pipelines and cars were destroyed and damaged.”
The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting an explosion in occupied Melitopol. It reports the city administration said a car was blown up in the city centre, and that one person was injured. The Telegram channel of the Russian-imposed authority in the city has named the injured person as Maxim Zubarev, the head of the occupying authority in the Yakymivka settlement in the region.
Germany’s vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, has arrived in Ukraine on a surprise visit, the German energy and economy ministry has said, in his first trip to the country since the outbreak of war.
Poland’s president has said he expects Zelenskiy, to visit on 5 April. The visit would coincide with the next summit of Nato foreign ministers, which is taking place in Brussels, and which the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected to attend.
Russia’s security forces are confiscating the passports of senior officials and state company executives due to paranoia over potential leaks and defections, the Financial Times is reporting.
Russia plans to form a division of special-purpose submarines that will carry Poseidon nuclear-capable torpedoes as part of the country’s Pacific Fleet by the end of 2024 or first half of 2025, Russia’s Tass news agency has reported.
Updated
Our video team have also put together this report on the death of Vladlen Tatarsky at the weekend.
Pjotr Sauer rounds up the latest developments after Sunday’s St Petersburg café explosion:
Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday.
Russian authorities say Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he was hosting a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of St Petersburg.
Russian news reports said the bomb was hidden in a bust of the blogger that the suspect had given to him as a gift moments before the explosion, which also wounded more than 30 people. Russian police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect, adding that she was arrested in an apartment in St Petersburg following a search on Monday morning. Sources in the country’s interior ministry told the RBK news outlet that the attack was “carefully planned in advance by several people”.
Tatarsky, who had more than 560,000 followers on Telegram, was one of the country’s most influential military bloggers. He emerged as one of the loudest critics of Russia’s defence ministry over the last year for its inability to achieve military gains in Ukraine, and frequently travelled with Russian troops on the frontlines. In one instance he called for a tribunal for the Russian military leadership, describing Moscow’s top officers as “untrained idiots”.
He was also among the attendees at a Kremlin ceremony last September where Vladimir Putin proclaimed Russia’s annexation of four partly occupied regions of Ukraine, a move widely condemned by the international community.
Read more here: Russian police arrest woman over bombing that killed pro-war blogger
Russian forces 'very far' from capturing Bakhmut – Ukrainian official
Ukraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag.
“Bakhmut is Ukrainian, and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesperson for the eastern military command, told Reuters by telephone.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy had said overnight the fighting in Bakhmut, the heavily fought over city in Ukraine’s Donbas region, is “especially hot”.
“I am grateful to our warriors who are fighting near Avdiivka, Maryinka, near Bakhmut … Especially Bakhmut! It’s especially hot there today!” he said in his nightly address without elaborating further.
His comments came as Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building.
However there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city that were premature.
Russian forces have for months been trying to encircle and capture Bakhmut, a town of 70,000 before the Russian invasion launched over a year ago.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that in the last 24 hours “the Russian army carried out 29 strikes on 12 populated areas of Donetsk region”.
It adds “46 residential buildings, a kindergarten, an administrative building, factory workshops, power lines, gas pipelines and cars were destroyed and damaged.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Suspect in St Petersburg explosion detained by Russian authorities
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reports that the suspect in the explosion that killed military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky has been detained by the authorities. She has been named as Daria Trepova.
Tass quotes a statement from employees of the investigative committee which says:
On suspicion of involvement in the explosion in a cafe in St Petersburg, employees of the Russian investigative committee, together with operational services, detained Daria Trepova.
Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, had more than 560,000 followers on Telegram and was one of the country’s most influential military bloggers. More than 30 people were wounded in the blast on Sunday.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that in the last 24 hours, Russian forces have shelled 16 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Zaporizhzhia is one of the partially occupied areas of Ukraine which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed.
Russia’s interior ministry on Monday named a woman called Darya Trepova as a suspect in the killing of prominent war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a St Petersburg cafe and placed her on its wanted list, Reuters reports, citing Interfax.
The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting an explosion in occupied Melitopol. It reports the city administration said a car was blown up in the city centre, and that one person was injured.
The Telegram channel of the Russian-imposed authority in the city has named the injured person as Maxim Zubarev, the head of the occupying authority in the Yakymivka settlement in the region. This is unconfirmed.
Video circulating on social media appears to show a damaged car in the street. The claims have not been independently verified.
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Reuters has a quick snap to say that Poland’s president has said he expects Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to visit on 5 April.
The visit would coincide with the next summit of Nato foreign ministers, which is taking place in Brussels, and which the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected to attend.
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Germany’s vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, has arrived in Ukraine on a surprise visit, the German energy and economy ministry has said, in his first trip to the country since the outbreak of war.
A spokesperson for the ministry confirmed the visit, saying Habeck, who also serves as minister for energy and the economy, arrived in Kyiv early on Monday.
The spokesperson did not give further details to Reuters, citing security precautions.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
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In case you missed it, the Guardian reporters Shaun Walker, Pjotr Sauer and Tom Phillips have the story of a pair of highly unusual Russian spies who left emotional devastation in their wake when they fled back to Russia earlier this year, amid fears they were about to be unmasked.
Gerhard Daniel Campos Wittich managed 3D printing companies in Brazil, which among other things produced novelty resin sculptures for the Brazilian military and sausage dog key chains. His alleged wife, Irina Romanova, posed as a Greek-Mexican photographer named Maria Tsalla and ran a knitting supplies shop in Athens.
Here’s an excerpt:
Illegals often work in pairs as married couples, but the case of Campos Wittich and Tsalla is the first alleged example of two halves of an illegal couple working in separate countries with separate lives.
“We have very little doubt that they were married,” said the Greek official, adding that it was an unusual case. He claimed that the pair had engineered meetings in Greece, Cyprus and France in recent times, possibly romantic encounters mixed with espionage catch-ups.
Interviews in Greece and Brazil suggest both halves of the couple left emotional devastation in the wake of their hurried departures. Both had long-term romantic partners in their cover identities, who had no suspicion they were involved with Russian spies.
Campos Wittich lived for at least two years in Rio with his Brazilian girlfriend, who coordinated the social media search for him when he disappeared. She is a veterinarian who works for the country’s ministry of agriculture.
Read on here:
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Russia plans to form a division of special-purpose submarines that will carry Poseidon nuclear-capable torpedoes as part of the country’s Pacific Fleet by the end of 2024 or first half of 2025, Russia’s Tass news agency has reported.
Russia said in January that it had produced the first set of the Poseidon torpedoes, four years after president Vladimir Putin announced the fundamentally new type of strategic nuclear weapon, confirming it would have its own nuclear power supply, according to Reuters.
In late March, Russia said that the coastal infrastructure for the submarines that would carry the Poseidon torpedoes will be finished on the Kamchatka Peninsula, where Russia’s Pacific Fleet’s ballistic nuclear missile submarine base is located.
“The decision to form a division of special-purpose nuclear submarines in Kamchatka has been made,” Tass cited an unidentified defence source as saying. “We are talking about December 2024 or the first half of 2025.”
There are few confirmed details about the Poseidon in the public domain, but military analysts say it is essentially a cross between a torpedo and a drone which can be launched from a nuclear submarine.
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Russia’s security forces are confiscating the passports of senior officials and state company executives due to paranoia over potential leaks and defections, the Financial Times is reporting.
Citing several people familiar with the matter, the paper’s Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon writes in a paywalled report:
The increased pressure reflects deep suspicion in the Kremlin and FSB, the KGB’s successor agency, about the loyalty of Russia’s civilian elite, many of whom privately oppose the war in Ukraine and are chafing over its impact on their lifestyles.
A spokesperson for Putin confirmed that Russia had tightened its restrictions on foreign travel for some people workers in “sensitive” areas.
The assassination of prominent pro-war Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, may reveal further fractures within the Kremlin and its inner circle, the US-based Institute for the Study of War has written in its daily analysis.
The Russian Foreign Ministry blamed Kyiv for the attack – which took place in a St Petersburg cafe reportedly belonging to Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin – and praised Russian military bloggers for their war coverage, “seemingly ignoring the fact that Fomin and other milbloggers routinely criticize the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Foreign Ministry,” ISW analysts wrote.
They also noted that Prigozhin stated on 2 April that he would not “blame the Kyiv regime” for the deaths of Fomin and Russian ultranationalist figure Daria Dugina, who was assassinated in August, suggesting that Ukrainian agents were not in fact responsible.
The ISW continued:
Fomin’s assassination at Prigozhin’s bar is likely part of a larger pattern of escalating Russian internal conflicts involving Prigozhin and Wagner. Fomin had attended another event earlier in the day without incident, so it appears that the attack was deliberately staged in a space owned by Prigozhin.
Advisor to Ukrainian Presidential Office Mykhailo Podolyak stated that Fomin’s death was a result of antifighting and political competition among Russian actors. Some Russian political analysts also speculated that Prigozhin was supposed to attend Fomin’s event, although there is no confirmation of that speculation.
Fomin’s assassination may have been intended as a warning to Prigozhin, who has been increasingly questioning core Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine and even obliquely signaling an interest in the Russian presidency, whether in competition with Putin or as his successor.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the fighting in Bakhmut, the heavily fought over city in Ukraine’s Donbas region, is “especially hot”.
“I am grateful to our warriors who are fighting near Avdiivka, Maryinka, near Bakhmut... Especially Bakhmut! It’s especially hot there today!” he said in his nightly address without elaborating further.
His comments came as Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building, according to Reuters.
However there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city that were premature.
Russian forces have for months been trying to encircle and capture Bakhmut, a town of 70,000 before the Russian invasion launched over a year ago.
Prigozhin, in an audio message posted on his press service’s Telegram account, said:
From a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken. The enemy is concentrated in the western parts.”
A senior Ukrainian official had earlier described the situation around the town as “tense,” with the military command carefully considering every move.
Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian forces were continuing to defend their positions, with Russian forces paying scant attention to their losses as they mounted attacks.
The situation in Bakhmut remains tense,” Maliar said on Telegram. “But every military decision and every step is weighed carefully ... We respond to the prevailing situation appropriately, taking into account all circumstances, tasks and the principle of military feasibility.”
Zelenskiy and military commanders agreed last month to maintain the defence of Bakhmut amid public debate over whether it was best to remain or adopt other defensive positions.
Russia to station tactical nuclear weapons near Belarus's western border
Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be moved close to Belarus’ borders with its Nato neighbours, the Russian ambassador to Belarus has said amid tensions between Russia and the west over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Associated Press reports:
Ambassador Boris Gryzlov’s comment followed Russian president Vladimir Putin’s recent statement about plans to station tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Russia’s neighbour and ally. The announcement marked another attempt by the Russian leader to dangle the nuclear threat to discourage the west from supporting Ukraine.
Putin has said that construction of storage facilities for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus will be complete by 1 July and added that Russia has helped modernise Belarusian warplanes to make them capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
The two neighbours have an agreement envisioning close economic, political and military ties. Russia used Belarusian territory as a staging ground for invading Ukraine and has maintained a contingent of troops and weapons there.
Gryzlov, speaking in remarks broadcast late Sunday by Belarusian state television, said the Russian nuclear weapons will be “moved up close to the western border of our union state” but did not give any precise location.
“It will expand our defence capability, and it will be done regardless of all the noise in Europe and the United States,” he said in a reference to western criticism of Putin’s decision.
Belarus shares a 1,250-kilometre border with Nato members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Tactical nuclear weapons, which are intended to destroy enemy troops and weapons on the battlefield, have a relatively short range and a much lower yield compared with nuclear warheads fitted to long-range strategic missiles that are capable of obliterating whole cities.
The deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus would put them closer to potential targets in Ukraine and Nato members in Eastern and Central Europe.
Belarus’ authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko said Friday that some of Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons might be deployed to Belarus along with part of Russia’s tactical nuclear arsenal.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Helen Livingstone and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments as they happen.
Our top story this morning:
Russia’s ambassador to Belarus says Moscow will deploy tactical nuclear weapons close to Belarus’s border with Nato neighbours Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The comment follows Russian president Vladimir Putin’s recent statement about plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
The weapons “will be moved to the western border of our union state and will increase the possibilities to ensure security”, Boris Gryzlov told Belarusian state television. “This will be done despite the noise in Europe and the United States.”
We’ll have more on this stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:
Prominent pro-war Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky has been killed in a blast at a cafe in central St Petersburg, Russia’s interior ministry has said. Russian media said a bomb was hidden in a statue presented to Tatarsky in a box as a gift. Another 30 people were injured.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has called for Russia to free the detained American journalist Evan Gershkovich in a rare phone call with his Moscow counterpart. The American’s plea was rejected by Sergei Lavrov, who responded by saying that US officials and media outlets must “not make a fuss” or try to politicise the plight of the Wall Street Journal reporter.
More than three dozen editors of news organisations from across the world have signed a letter condemning Gershkovich’s detention. “Russia is sending the message that journalism within your borders is criminalized and that foreign correspondents seeking to report from Russia do not enjoy the benefits of the rule of law,” says the letter.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the heavily fought over city of Bakhmut is “especially hot” right now. The comment, in his regular evening address, came as the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that his forces had raised the Russian flag over Bakhmut’s administration building. Prigozhin has issued some premature success claims before and the Guardian could not verify his claim.
Saudi Arabia and other Opec+ oil producers including Russia have announced further cuts in their production amounting to around 1.16 million barrels per day in a surprise move that analysts said would cause an immediate rise in prices.
Russia has suffered up to 200,000 casualties in the war in Ukraine but a “significant number” of these are due to “non-combat causes”, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update. “Other leading causes of non-combat casualties likely include poor weapon handing drills, road traffic accidents and climatic injuries such as hypothermia,” it said.
Russia plans to form a division of special-purpose submarines that will carry Poseidon nuclear-capable torpedoes as part of the country’s Pacific Fleet by the end of 2024 or first half of 2025, Russia’s Tass news agency has reported.
