Closing summary
Ukraine said it had not seen the €16bn (£13.7bn) in proceeds from two donor conferences held in Poland in 2022, early on into Russia’s full-scale invasion. The two events in 2022 had raised 10 billion and six billion euros, respectively, the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmygal, told a press conference.
A first-of-its-kind training exercise involving more than 20,000 soldiers from over a dozen countries has launched across northern Norway, Sweden and Finland as the region prepares to become a fully Nato territory within days. The training exercise across air, land and sea – which will also include soldiers from the UK, US, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada – will incorporate a cross-border operations exercise in the Arctic Circle.
The Kremlin said a purported recording of German military discussions showed Germany’s armed forces were discussing plans to launch strikes on Russian territory. Russian media on Friday published a 38-minute recording of a call in which German officers were heard discussing weapons for Ukraine and a potential strike by Kyiv on a bridge in Crimea. Germany’s ambassador to Moscow, Alexander Graf Lamsdorff, was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry on Monday in order to explain the leaked discussion. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the leaked discussions showed that the appetite for war in Europe “still remains very very high”, and the aim was to ensure “Russia’s strategic defeat on the battlefield”. The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev commented that: “Germany is planning a war with Russia”. Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, dismissed the reactions as “completely absurd”, accusing Moscow of wanting to sow distrust and discord in Germany.
Disqualified Russian presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin said he would keep filing challenges against his exclusion from this month’s election after his latest appeal was rejected by the supreme court.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency launched a cyber-attack against the servers of the Russian defence ministry, gaining access to “a bulk of classified service documents,” the agency said.
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Ukraine says it has not received over £13bn from fundraisers
Ukraine said it had not seen the €16bn (£13.7bn) in proceeds from two donor conferences held in Poland in 2022, early on into Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The announcement comes amid concerns in Kyiv surrounding military and financial support, with the war entering its third year.
The two events in 2022 had raised 10 billion and six billion euros, respectively, the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmygal, told a press conference.
“Ukraine received nothing from them. The funds were raised by Poland together with the European Commission to support Ukraine,” he said.
“Where did they go, what did they support … Ukraine has received nothing,” he added.
Kyiv has warned it desperately needs more military and financial assistance as it waits for a fresh $60bn package of US aid held up in Washington.
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