Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
The Kremlin has said there are no plans for an Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, Russian state media reported. “So far, there haven’t been any initiatives on this matter but our Holy Week has just begun,” Russia’s state-run Tass news agency quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying. His comments came after the Institute for the Study of War warned that Russia may try to use the upcoming Orthodox Easter holiday on 16 April to delay Ukrainian counteroffensives by calling for a ceasefire out of respect for religion.
Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, has accused Russian troops of using “scorched earth” tactics in the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut. The situation in Bakhmut was “difficult but controllable”, he said, adding that the defence of the city continued. His claims have not been independently verified.
The Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region said Russian forces controlled more than 75% of the besieged city of Bakhmut. It was still too soon to announce a total victory in the battle over Bakhmut, Denis Pushilin said on state television while visiting the embattled city in eastern Ukraine. His claims have not been verified.
A Russian fighter jet nearly shot down a British surveillance plane last year, according to a leaked US military document circulating online. The near miss occurred on 29 September off the coast of Crimea, the Washington Post reported, citing the document which is among a number apparently leaked from the Pentagon. The authenticity of the documents has not been verified.
Ukraine has been forced to amend some of its military plans before an anticipated counteroffensive due to a leak of highly classified Pentagon documents, according to a report. One of the documents, citing signals intelligence collected using intercepted communications, outlines how the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov oblast” using unmanned aerial vehicles. Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Kyiv’s strategic plans remained unchanged but that more specific tactical plans were always subject to change.
The US defence department has said an interagency effort is assessing the impact that leaked intelligence documents, many concerning the war in Ukraine, could have on US national security and on its allies and partners. Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents – which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa – suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
South Korea’s main opposition party has urged the government to verify the Pentagon documents, which include claims that the US attempted to eavesdrop on senior officials in Seoul over arms sales. The floor leader of the Democratic party, Park Hong-keun, made the demand after reports that CIA operatives had been monitoring an internal discussion about concerns that artillery shells South Korea planned to sell to the US could ultimately end up in Ukraine.
The documents suggest that without a huge boost in munitions, Ukraine’s air defences could be in peril, allowing the Russian air force to change the course of the war, the New York Times has reported. One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret”, outlines in detail how Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 air defence systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate.
Russia plans to increase air defences over its north-western border to counter Finland’s accession to Nato, a commander in its aerospace forces has said. Lt Gen Andrei Demin, the deputy commander-in-chief of aerospace forces, also said further reforms of Russian air defences were “undoubtedly planned and will be implemented”.
More than 200 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have returned home in a prisoner swap, according to both sides. Russia’s defence ministry said 106 Russian soldiers were released from Ukrainian custody as part of an agreement with Ukraine. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, said Russia freed 100 Ukrainian prisoners.
Only 1,800 civilians are still living in the “ruins” of Avdiivka, the embattled eastern Ukrainian city that had a prewar population of 32,000, according to the local governor. “The Russians have turned Avdiivka into a total ruin,” said Pavlo Kyrylenko, Donetsk’s regional governor. In a separate statement, the Ukrainian general staff said Russian forces were continuing to mount offensive operations around Avdiivka but were suffering heavy losses of personnel and equipment.
Russia continues to prioritise operations around Donetsk in eastern Ukraine “expending significant resources for minimal gains”, the UK Ministry of Defence has said in its daily briefing. The MoD said that over the past seven days Russia had increased armoured assaults around Marinka, a small town about 12 miles (20km) south-west of Donetsk city.
The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, held a meeting on Monday with Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. Lukashenko said he needed guarantees that Russia will defend Belarus “like its own territory” in the case of aggression, state media reported.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, this week where the pair will talk about the war in Ukraine, Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, said. Lula, who is due to arrive in China on Tuesday and meet Xi on Friday, is hoping to promote his proposal for mediated talks to end the war.
Ukraine would like India to be engaged and involved in helping resolve its conflict with Russia “to a great extent”, its first deputy foreign minister Emine Dzhaparova has said. Dzhaparova, the first Ukrainian minister to travel to India since Russia’s full-scale invasion, said the Ukrainian president had requested a phone conversation with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.
The Kremlin has said it is hard to imagine France playing a role in brokering peace in Ukraine, since Paris is “both indirectly and directly involved in this conflict on the side of Ukraine”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, visited China last week, where he urged his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to bring Russia “back to reason” over the war in Ukraine.
Russian journalists and rights activists have appealed for the release of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent opposition politician who faces up to 25 years in jail on charges including treason. Prosecutors last week requested a 25-year sentence for Kara-Murza, one of a small number of prominent opposition figures who stayed in Russia, who has been on trial in a closed court in Moscow on charges his supporters say are politically motivated.
A Russian court has sentenced two men to 19 years in prison each for setting fire to a government building in a demonstration against the war in Ukraine. Roman Nasryev, a former driver for the Russian national guard, and Alexei Nuriev, an officer in the emergency situations ministry, threw a molotov cocktail on 11 October 2022 into an administrative building in the town of Bakal in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region in protest of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s “partial” mobilisation.
Updated
A Russian court has sentenced two men to 19 years in prison each for setting fire to a government building in a demonstration against the war in Ukraine.
Roman Nasryev, a former driver for the Russian national guard, and Alexei Nuriev, an officer in the emergency situations ministry, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson “in order to destabilise the activities of government bodies” and “training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities”, the Moscow Times reported.
On 11 October 2022, the two men threw a molotov cocktail into an administrative building in Bakal, a town in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, in protest of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s “partial” mobilisation. The building houses a military enlistment office.
They were detained by Russian federal security service (FSB) officers shortly after setting fire to the building, and a security guard was able to quickly extinguish the fire. Neither of the men denied involvement, and Nasryev said that he committed the act as a sign of protest against mobilisation in Russia and against the war in Ukraine.
The ruling sets a new record for the longest known prison sentence issued by a Russian court for arson committed as an act of protest against the war in Ukraine, the news outlet Meduza reported.
Solidarity Zone, a civil rights organisation that helped defend the two men in court, suggested that the “unreasonably cruel” sentences may be because both defendants previously worked for the Russian security and emergency services.
Updated
Russian journalists and rights activists have appealed for the release of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent opposition politician who faces up to 25 years in jail on charges including treason.
Prosecutors last week requested a 25-year sentence for Kara-Murza, 41, who has been on trial in a closed court in Moscow on charges his supporters say are politically motivated.
Kara-Murza is one of a small number of prominent opposition figures who stayed in Russia and continued to speak out against Vladimir Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
He was arrested a year ago, accused of spreading false information about the armed forces and declared a “foreign agent”, a term with connotations of spying that Russian authorities have applied to numerous activists and journalists.
A letter calling for his release was signed by many Russian journalists who have fled the country. It said:
We demand that the Russian authorities, law enforcement officers and judges return to the path of justice. Prosecute murderers and criminals rather than honest and responsible citizens who dare to think and speak the truth.
Kara-Murza is an author, former journalist and father-of-three who holds joint British and Russian citizenship. He was a pallbearer at the funeral of the US senator John McCain in 2018, and was a close aide to the Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in central Moscow in 2015.
His lawyers have previously said he suffers from polyneuropathy, a nerve disorder resulting from two alleged poisonings that caused him to fall into a coma in 2015 and 2017. Russian authorities have denied responsibility.
Updated
Russia using ‘scorched earth’ tactics in Bakhmut, says Ukrainian commander
Earlier we reported that a senior Ukrainian commander accused Russian troops of using “scorched earth” tactics in the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut. Here are some more details on those comments from Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces.
Syrskyi, who is overseeing the Ukrainian operation in the east, on Sunday visited frontline areas with the fiercest fighting around Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s military media centre.
The situation in Bakhmut was “difficult but controllable”, he said, adding that the defence of the city continued. He said:
The enemy switched to so-called scorched earth tactics from Syria. It is destroying buildings and positions with airstrikes and artillery fire.
Syrskyi’s claims have not been independently verified. Russian troops were previously accused of using “scorched earth” tactics last summer in its assault on the city of Sievierodonetsk in the eastern Luhansk region.
Updated
Crouching in a freezing basement or risking it all on top of a nine-storey building, the drone squads in the war zone of Bakhmut are ubiquitous.
Some are forced to lurk a few hundred metres from, or even on, the frontline. Without them, Ukraine’s efforts to hold on to the embattled city would be much harder, perhaps impossible.
But the concern for Ukraine, according to three frontline drone operators deployed in the city over the winter, is that the Russians are close to countering the most popular models in operation, those made by the Chinese manufacturer DJI. “They’re adept and they are manufacturing these special jamming systems,” said Yaroslav, 31. The drone specialist said:
So actually, I believe like in three, four months, DJI will not be usable.
It means a scramble has been going on to look for replacements, prompting countless Ukrainian initiatives in probably the most dynamic aspect of the near 14-month war, a conflict in which drones have so far largely helped defenders.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from the news wires from Ukraine.
The Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region said on Monday that Russian forces controlled more than 75% of the besieged city of Bakhmut.
Reuters reports:
The battle for Bakhmut has been one of the bloodiest of the 13-month war, drawing comparisons with world war one due to massive casualties on both sides.
Moscow-installed regional leader Denis Pushilin published footage of himself on Telegram purportedly visiting the small mining city where battles have raged since last summer.
He is seen among ruins, clad in body armour and with explosions audible in the background. Reuters was not able to independently confirm the location or date of the video.
“I can say with absolute certainty, that more than 75% of the city is under the control of our units,” Pushilin told state-run Rossiya-24 TV channel after his visit, though he cautioned it was too early to talk about Bakhmut’s fall.
Russia says the capture of Bakhmut will open up the possibility for future offensives across Ukraine, while Kyiv and the west say the now smashed city has only symbolic importance.
In video from an unidentified underground location, Pushilin decorated fighters from the Wagner group mercenary army that has been spearheading the assault on Bakhmut.
Updated
Russia has increased its diesel exports to Brazil and other parts of Latin America following an embargo on shipments to Europe, according to traders and data from Refinitiv Eikon.
Reuters reports that Russia has long been the main diesel supplier for Europe, where refineries do not produce enough fuel to meet domestic demand for diesel cars.
But a full EU embargo on Russian oil products since 5 February, has diverted Russian diesel exports to Asia, Africa, the Middle East and STS loadings.
Last month, Russia also sent more than 580,000 tonnes to Latin and South America, with almost 440,000 tonnes of those volumes heading to Brazil, another 140,000 tonnes are destined to Panama, Uruguay and Cuba, Refinitiv data showed.
In total, diesel supplies from Russia-controlled ports to Brazil totalled 663,000 tonnes in January-March 2023 after 74,000 tonnes for the whole 2022, according to Refinitiv data.
At least one diesel cargo from Russia was shipped from one tanker to another near the port of Lomé in Togo last month and was then headed for South America, possibly Brazil, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.
Updated
Russia and Ukraine hold major prisoner swap
Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidency’s office, has said 100 Ukrainians have returned home in another large-scale prisoners of war exchange with Russia.
Yermak, posting to Telegram, said:
We are returning home 100 of our people – soldiers, sailors, border guards, national guardsmen. Among them are defenders of Mariupol, Azovstal, Hostomel.
Some of those who had returned to Ukraine had been “seriously injured and have diseases”, he said, adding:
We will do everything necessary so that each of them receives all the necessary help.
He described the exchange as “difficult” and expressed gratitude to the team at the coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war.
Russia’s defence ministry said 106 Russian prisoners of war had been released by Ukraine.
This week the International Monetary Fund will assess how well Russia’s economy has held up during the Ukraine war and is expected to estimate it had a mild downturn last year, faces a small contraction this year and will enjoy a healthy level of growth in 2024.
This seems to contradict the warning from shortly after the invasion that the country faced a contraction of up to 15% and last month’s prediction from the oligarch Oleg Deripaska that international sanctions would drain the Kremlin’s finances by next year.
However, some experts have criticised the IMF’s focus on traditional economic measures such as gross domestic product (GDP) as inappropriate given there is a war on – meaning the figure is inflated by soaring military spending. An analysis from the Centre for Policy Research (CEPR) network of academics has found that when this is stripped out last year’s recession was twice as bad as official figures suggest.
Read my colleague Phillip Inman’s report on whether the Ukraine war is boosting or damaging the Russian economy:
Updated
The Russian-installed head of the Moscow-controlled part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, has claimed that more than 75% of the city of Bakhmut is under the control of Russian forces.
It was still too soon to announce a total victory in the battle over Bakhmut, Pushilin said on state television while visiting the embattled city in eastern Ukraine.
Pushilin awarded medals to fighters belonging to Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group fighting in Bakhmut, praising them for showing “what the Russian spirit is, what the Russian weapon is”.
Zelenskiy ‘requesting call with Narendra Modi’, says Ukrainian minister
Ukraine would like India to be engaged and involved in helping resolve its conflict with Russia “to a great extent”, its first deputy foreign minister Emine Dzhaparova has said.
Dzhaparova arrived on Monday for a four-day visit to New Delhi, the first time a Ukrainian minister has travelled to India since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
Happy to visit 🇮🇳-the land that gave birth to many sages,saints&gurus. Today, #India wants to be the Vishwaguru,the global teacher and arbiter. In our case, we’ve got a very clear picture:aggressor against innocent victim.Supporting🇺🇦 is the only right choice for true Vishwaguru.
— Emine Dzheppar (@EmineDzheppar) April 10, 2023
She is expected to hold talks with officials from India’s ministry of external affairs, including Meenakshi Lekhi, the minister of state for external affairs and culture. She will also meet India’s deputy national security adviser, Vikram Misri.
India’s Hindu newspaper reported that Dzhaparova would call on India to send a “strong message for peace” to Vladimir Putin, who will visit India in July for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
Dzhaparova, in an interview with broadcaster CNBC TV18, said:
We believe intensification of political dialogue on the highest level is first step towards this big goal. My president is requesting a phone conversation with the prime minister. We are looking forward to welcome him in Kyiv one day.
She added that Ukraine expected India, which holds the rotating presidency of the G20 this year, to invite Kyiv officials to participate in G20 events and intensify political dialogue.
Updated
Russia’s detention of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is a “brazen act” and violates the vital freedom of the press, the president of the World Bank has said.
David Malpass told reporters:
It’s a brazen act by Russia. It violates press freedom, freedom of the press, which the World Bank Group has long recognised as vital. That includes the safety of journalists.
He added:
Press freedom increases transparency and accountability. It keeps a check on governance, it exposes corruption, transmits ideas, promotes innovation.
He added that he hoped Gershkovich and his family could be reunited as quickly and safely as possible.
Updated
The Kremlin has said there are no plans for an Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, Russian state media reported.
Russia’s state-run Tass news agency quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying the idea of an Easter truce “has not been proposed by anyone, it has not been put forward”. He added:
So far, there haven’t been any initiatives on this matter but our Holy Week has just begun. There have been no such initiatives so far.
His comments came after the Institute for the Study of War warned that Russia may try to use the upcoming Orthodox Easter holiday on 16 April to delay Ukrainian counteroffensives by calling for a ceasefire out of respect for religion.
The US-based thinktank said the Kremlin had selectively called for ceasefires in the past and one at Easter would disproportionately benefit Russian troops preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Only 1,800 civilians are still living in the “ruins” of Avdiivka, the embattled eastern Ukrainian city that had a prewar population of 32,000, according to the local governor.
“The Russians have turned Avdiivka into a total ruin,” said Pavlo Kyrylenko, Donetsk’s regional governor.
Those who still remain in Avdiivka, which lies about 90km (56 miles) south-west of Bakhmut, “risk their lives every day”, he said.
He said a Russian airstrike hit the city on Monday, destroying a multistorey building, adding:
Fortunately, there were no casualties as all the residents of the building evacuated in time.
In a separate statement, the Ukrainian general staff said Russian forces were continuing to mount offensive operations around Avdiivka but were suffering heavy losses in both manpower and equipment.
Updated
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, this week.
The two leaders will talk about the war in Ukraine, Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, told reporters.
Lula, who is expected to arrive in China on Tuesday and meet Xi on Friday, is hoping to promote his proposal for mediated talks to end the war. The Brazilian leader, who has been keen to position Brazil as a go-between, proposed creating a group of countries to mediate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Lula came under fire last year for saying that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, bore equal responsibility for the war. He has also refused to join western nations in sending weapons to Ukraine.
He said on Thursday that “Putin cannot keep Ukrainian territory” but also insisted that Zelenskiy “cannot want everything”. He suggested Kyiv renounce its claim to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Updated
Russia nearly shot down British spy plane near Ukraine – leaked document
A Russian fighter jet nearly shot down a British surveillance plane last year, according to a leaked US military document circulating online.
The near miss occurred on 29 September off the coast of Crimea, the Washington Post reported, citing the document which is among an apparent leak from the Pentagon. The authenticity of the documents has not been verified.
Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, had disclosed the incident to parliament in October, when he said a Russian fighter jet had “released a missile” in the vicinity of an unarmed British spy plane patrolling in international airspace over the Black Sea.
Wallace said at the time that the UK did not consider the case as a deliberate escalation, but that it had been down to a technical malfunction. He also accused Moscow of acting recklessly.
The leaked Pentagon document refers to the incident as a “near-shoot down of UK RJ,” a reference to the Rivet Joint moniker common for RC-135 reconnaissance planes. It also detailed several other encounters between Russian jets and US, British and French aircraft on surveillance flights between October and February.
Under article 5 of Nato’s treaty, an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against the alliance as a whole.
The report shows the incident was more significant than was previously disclosed and that it could have drawn the US and Nato allies directly into the Ukraine war, the Post reported. US defence officials declined to comment on the contents of the leaked document, as did the British embassy in Washington. Russia did not respond to a request for comment.
Updated
Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidency’s office, has said Russian shelling hit the town of Orikhiv in the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhia.
A bakery was damaged but no casualties were reported, he said.
The Russians shelled the town of Orihiv in the Zaporizhzhia region.
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) April 10, 2023
A bakery was damaged.
The uniformed thugs continue environmental and food terror. They keep hitting civilian infrastructure including bread-making facilities. The criminal state must be punished. pic.twitter.com/08XXAorBV1
Updated
Here’s more from Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who said it was hard to imagine France playing a role in brokering peace in Ukraine.
Paris is “both indirectly and directly involved in this conflict on the side of Ukraine”, he said.
Therefore, it is still difficult to imagine any mediation efforts here.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, visited China last week, where he urged his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to bring Russia “back to reason” over the war in Ukraine. After the meeting, Macron said France and China had agreed nuclear weapons should be excluded from the conflict.
Updated
The Kremlin, responding to accusations that Russia may have been behind the leak of classified Pentagon documents, has said there was a general tendency to always blame Moscow for everything.
US officials are scrambling to identify the source of the leak of secret military documents, the authenticity of which has not been verified.
Three US officials on Friday told Reuters that Russia or pro-Russian elements were likely behind the leak, but other US officials have said the breadth addressed in the documents – which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa – suggest they may have been leaked by an American.
When asked about allegations that Russia may have been responsible, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters:
I cannot comment on this in any way. You and I know that there is in fact a tendency to always blame everything on Russia. It is, in general, a disease.
We reported earlier that Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, held a meeting with Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu where he reportedly said he needed guarantees that Moscow will defend Minsk “like its own territory” in the case of aggression.
Kyiv Post has a picture of the pair meeting in the Belarusian capital today:
⚡️Alexander #Lukashenko met with Russian Defence Minister Sergei #Shoigu for an unannounced meeting in the Belarusian capital #Minsk, Belarusian state-owned news agency BelTA reported. pic.twitter.com/3yzIosqiR0
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) April 10, 2023
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Ukraine has been forced to amend some of its military plans ahead of an anticipated counteroffensive due to a leak of highly classified Pentagon documents, according to a report.
One of the documents, citing signals intelligence using intercepted communications, outlines how President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov oblast” using unmanned aerial vehicles.
A source close to the Ukrainian president told CNN that the US spying on Zelenskiy was unsurprising, but that Ukrainian officials were deeply frustrated about the leak.
The intelligence could explain public statements from Washington about not wanting to supply Ukraine with long-range missile systems over fears Kyiv will use them to strike inside Russia. Ukraine has pledged it would not use US-provided weapons to do so.
The authenticity of the Pentagon documents has not been verified. When asked about the CNN report, Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters that Kyiv’s strategic plans remained unchanged but that more specific tactical plans were always subject to change.
He added:
Operational and tactical scenarios are constantly refined, based on an assessment of the situation on the battlefield, resource provision, intelligence data on the enemy’s resources, etc.
“Right now its impossible to reassess plans, because they are only being worked out,” he added.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, told Reuters:
We are working on our own plans ... The opinion of people who have nothing to do with this do not interest us ... The circle of people who possess information is extremely restricted.
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here, taking over the live blog from Jennifer Rankin to bring you all the latest developments from the Russia-Ukraine war.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, scene of some of the most intense fighting in Europe since the second world war. A senior Ukrainian commander said on Monday that Russia was using the same scorched earth tactics it had deployed in Syria.
Updated
The authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, held a meeting in Minsk with Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, on Monday, reports Reuters, citing a Belarusian state-owned news agency.
According to the Belta agency, Lukashenko said he needed guarantees that Russia will defend Belarus “like its own territory” in the case of aggression.
Belarus is Russia’s closest ally and provided a launchpad for the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The meeting follow’s Russia agreement with Minsk last month to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory, bringing some of its nuclear arsenal closer to Europe. At the time of the Kremlin announcement, the US said it had no indication Russia was planning to use nuclear weapons.
Updated
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said his country is united in grief with Poland in remembering the 2010 Smolensk air disaster that killed 96 people, including Poland’s then president, Lech Kaczyński.
Writing in Ukrainian and Polish, Zelenskiy tweeted:
Today, on the 13th anniversary of the Smolensk disaster, we unite in grief with the Polish people and honour the memory of the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński, his wife and all those who died in the name of serving their country. Eternal memory!
Poland entered deep mourning after the 2010 air crash that killed all 96 passengers, including the president, his wife, the central bank chief and senior military figures. Warsaw is now one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies, and since 2014 Russia’s aggression has helped end historic tensions between Poland and Ukraine, especially along their shared border.
Updated
The view from the Ukrainian town of Ochakiv appears idyllic. Beyond the beach, a narrow strip of land stretches out across the sea. The peninsula in Mykolaiv province is known as the Kinburn spit. In happier times holidaymakers would take a boat from Ochakiv and camp among the dunes. The nature reserve is home to swans, pelicans and migrating birds.
Last June it got a new and unwelcome visitor: Russia. Soldiers captured the rustic territory, with its summer houses and mini-lakes, and turned it into a military base. Ever since, the Russian army has bombarded Ochakiv, which is 5 miles (8km) away. Truck-mounted launchers release Grad missiles, sending them over the Black Sea. Afterwards the crews speed off and take cover amid the mazy sands.
On Friday, the Russians launched their biggest attack yet. At 5am they hit Ochakiv with 72 rockets. Another 50 fell in the district. The barrage lasted for more than an hour. The town’s 7,000 residents woke in darkness to the sound of explosions. Two people were injured, one badly. Thermite projectiles fell from the sky and bathed the waterfront in a strange white light.
“They are swine, savages. They are killing peaceful people,” Serhii Kaminiev, a 52-year-old coffee shop owner, said. Kaminiev’s cafe is in Ochakiv’s central market. One of the Grads landed on the roof of a business selling clothes, setting it on fire. The pavilion was a twisted ruin. Charred T-shirts lay in a heap. Homeless dogs wandered among alleys of broken glass.
Read Luke Harding’s full report from Ochakiv: ‘Savages’: Ukrainian resort town resisting Russian attempts to repeat past glories
Updated
Russia 'expending significant resources for minimal gains' in eastern Ukraine, says UK's MoD
Russia continues to prioritise operations around Donetsk in eastern Ukraine “expending significant resources for minimal gains”, the UK Ministry of Defence has said in its daily briefing.
The MoD said that over the past seven days Russia had increased armoured assaults around Marinka, a small town around 12 miles (20km) south-west of Donetsk city.
Marinka has been on the frontline of fighting since 2014 and now lies in ruins. Before 2014 it had a population of around 9,000 people.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 10 April 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 10, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/kQe3LB4QU7
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/6SKhqe02eM
Updated
Russia 'to increase air defences to counter Finland's Nato accession'
Russia plans to increase air defences over its north-western border to counter Finland’s accession to Nato, a commander in its aerospace forces has said, Reuters reports.
Lt Gen Andrei Demin, the deputy commander-in-chief of aerospace forces, also said further reforms of Russian air defences were “undoubtedly planned and will be implemented”.
In an interview published on Monday with the defence ministry’s official Red Star newspaper, Demin said the purpose of upcoming changes was “the development of the armed forces, aimed at improving the air defence system of the Russian Federation”.
Russia shares a 1,300km (800-mile) border with Finland, which joined Nato last week – a decision prompted by the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“In these conditions, the air defence forces are working out issues of protecting the state border in the north-west of the country in accordance with the increased threat level,” Demin said.
This is Jennifer Rankin, taking over from Helen Livingstone.
Updated
The commander of the Ukrainian ground forces has accused Russian troops of switching to “scorched earth” tactics in the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, in comments quoted by Ukraine’s Media Military Centre and Reuters.
“The enemy switched to the so-called scorched earth tactics from Syria. It is destroying buildings and positions with air strikes and artillery fire,” said Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi. “The situation is difficult but controllable.”
Syrskyi said Russian forces were bringing in special forces and airborne assault units to help their attack on the city as members of Russia’s Wagner military group had become “exhausted”. Russia’s assault on Bakhmut, a small city in the Donetsk region, has been the focus of the biggest battle of Moscow’s full-scale invasion launched in February 2022.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a summary of the key developments:
The US Department of Defense says an interagency effort is assessing the impact that leaked intelligence documents, many concerning the war in Ukraine, could have on US national security and on its allies and partners. Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
South Korea’s main opposition party has urged the government to verify the Pentagon documents, which include claims that the US attempted to eavesdrop on senior officials in Seoul over arms sales. The floor leader of the Democratic party, Park Hong-keun, made the demand after reports that CIA operatives had been monitoring an internal discussion about concerns that artillery shells South Korea planned to sell to the US could ultimately end up in Ukraine.
The documents suggest that without a huge boost in munitions, Ukraine’s air defences could be in peril, allowing the Russian air force to change the course of the war, the New York Times has reported. One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret”, outlines in detail how Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 air defence systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate.
Moscow may try to use the upcoming Orthodox Easter holiday on 16 April to delay Ukrainian counteroffensives by calling for a ceasefire out of respect for religion, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its daily update. It said the Kremlin had selectively called for ceasefires in the past and one at Easter would disproportionately benefit Russian troops preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Russian shelling killed at least seven civilians in the cities of Kupiansk and Zaporizhzhia over the weekend, Ukrainian authorities said. “This is how the terrorist state marks Palm Sunday,” said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly address. “This is how Russia places itself in even greater isolation from the world.” Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christian.
A Ukrainian government minister is due to visit India on Monday and will seek humanitarian aid and equipment to repair energy infrastructure damaged during Russia’s invasion, according to the Hindu newspaper. Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzhaparova, will make the first visit to India by a minister from Kyiv since the Russian invasion.
Pope Francis and the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, used their Easter messages to call for peace. The pope asked God to “shed the light of Easter upon the people of Russia”, appearing to ask Russians to seek the truth about their country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had destroyed a depot containing 70,000 tonnes of fuel near Zaporizhzhia as well as Ukrainian military warehouses in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
That’s it from me, Helen Livingstone, as I hand over to a colleague in London.
Updated
South Korea’s main opposition party has urged the government to verify the Pentagon documents, which include claims that the US attempted to eavesdrop on senior officials in Seoul over arms sales.
The floor leader of the Democratic party, Park Hong-keun, made the demand after reports that CIA operatives had been monitoring an internal discussion about concerns that artillery shells South Korea planned to sell to the US could ultimately end up in Ukraine, according to the Yonhap news agency.
South Korea has backed international sanctions against Russia and provided non-lethal aid to Kyiv, but has stopped short of sending weapons. Despite being a major arms exporter, Seoul has a long-standing policy of not selling weapons to countries at war – a stance that has led to charges that the South wants to avoid antagonising Russia, whose support it needs to pressure North Korea into abandoning its nuclear weapons.
The documents highlight South Korea’s ambivalent place in the global weapons trade. While it has baulked at arming Ukraine, its arms sales rose 140% to a record $17.3 billion last year, according to the defence ministry. Currently the world’s eighth-biggest exporter of weapons, the South is aiming to make it into the top four by 2027.
Referring to the New York Times article that reported the alleged eavesdropping, Park said: “If the report is true, it would be an action that can never be acceptable between allies of 70 years, and an infringement of sovereignty and diplomatic foul play that breaks bilateral trust head-on.”
About 28,500 US troops are based in South Korea as a deterrent against nuclear-armed North Korea, while forces from the US and the South regularly conduct joint military exercises.
Park asked the South Korean national assembly to convene meetings of its foreign affairs, intelligence and defence committees to look into the unverified claims, adding that Washington should issue a “polite apology” if they were found to be true, Yonhap said.
The office of the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, is also facing accusations of a security lapse.
“While it is absurd that a nation’s presidential office is penetrated by eavesdropping, it is also difficult to accept eavesdropping on the offices of an ally’s presidential office,” the Democratic party’s leader, Lee Jae-myung, said.
Earlier this year, the Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, called on South Korea to reconsider its stance on arms to Ukraine.
Speaking in Seoul in January, Stoltenberg said the South needed to “step up on the specific issue of military support,” noting that several Nato members and allies, including Germany, Norway and Sweden, had lifted their ban on exporting weapons to countries in conflict to support Ukraine.
Over the last seven days, Russia has likely increased its armoured assaults around the Donetsk Oblast town of Marinka, 20km south-west of Donetsk city, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its daily intelligence update:
Marinka has been fought over since 2014 and has been largely destroyed by artillery exchanges. It commands the approaches to Donetsk and the key H15 road.
Russia continues to give a high priority to resourcing operations in the broader Donetsk sector, including the Marinka and Avdiivka areas, expending significant resources for minimal gains.
Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine has slowed significantly, with Moscow gaining just three small settlements and part of the city of Bakhmut this year and advancing a total of five miles, according to an analysis by the New York Times last week.
Updated
Most of Ukraine’s 41 million people are Orthodox Christians and will mark Easter next weekend. This weekend however was Palm Sunday and worshipers were out in force.
Moscow may try to use the upcoming Orthodox Easter holiday on 16 April to delay Ukrainian counteroffensives by calling for a ceasefire out of respect for religion, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its daily update.
The Kremlin has selectively called for ceasefires around religious holidays to influence the situation on the frontlines. The Kremlin, for example, refused a ceasefire during Orthodox Easter of 2022 “in order not to give the Kyiv nationalists a break” during the Battle of Mariupol.
The Kremlin likely refused a ceasefire because Russian forces still held the initiative on the frontlines at the time, but sought a ceasefire months later over Orthodox Christmas to obtain additional time to prepare Russian forces for the winter offensive.
The Kremlin may call for an Easter ceasefire because such a pause would disproportionately benefit Russian troops and allow them to secure their gains in urban Bakhmut and to prepare defenses against Ukraine’s spring 2023 counteroffensive.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has condemned Russian shelling of the city of Zaporizhzhia on Orthodox Palm Sunday, in which a father and his 10-year-old daughter were killed. A woman, the wife and mother of the dead, was critically injured. In his nightly address Zelenskiy said:
They hit a house, an apartment building. Three people were inside. A man, a woman and a child - a girl, her name was Iryna, she would have turned 11 this year. She died. The man died too. My condolences... The woman is in critical condition, in the hospital, she is being provided with medical care.
This is how the terrorist state spends this Palm Sunday. This is how Russia puts itself in even greater isolation from the world, from humanity.
The majority of Ukraine’s 41 million people are Orthodox Christians who celebrate Easter a week from now.
Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said another two men were killed by shelling in the city of Kupiansk on Sunday.
A bit more on the leak: One of the most eye-opening revelations from the documents is that Ukraine’s air defences risk running out of missiles and ammunition within weeks, according to the New York Times, potentially changing the course of the war.
One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret”, outlines in detail how Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 air defence systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate. It is unclear if the usage rate has since changed.
Ukraine’s Buk air defence systems, which it relies on along with the S-300 to protest vital sites from Russian air power, could run into trouble by mid-April, and air defences protecting troops on the front line could be “completely reduced” by 23 May.
Russian fighter jets and bombers gaining more opportunity to attack Ukrainian forces could prove a major challenge for Kyiv, the Times reported, citing senior military officials.
Colonel Yuri Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, did not comment specifically on the information contained in the documents but told the Wall Street Journal that Ukraine faced serious challenges in finding the Soviet-designed ammunition for its crucial S-300 and the Buk batteries.
“If we lose the battle for the skies, the consequences for Ukraine will be very serious,” he told the paper. “This is not the time to procrastinate,” he said, urging western allies to speed up their assistance.
For more on that, read on here:
Pentagon assessing impact of leaked documents on national security
The US Department of Defense says it has launched an interagency effort to assess the impact that leaked intelligence documents could have on US national security and on its allies and partners, as it hunts for the source of the leak.
“The Department of Defense continues to review and assess the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media sites and that appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material,” the department said in a statement.
The Pentagon has also referred the issue to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation, Reuters reports.
One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret,” outlines in detail how Ukraine’s S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate.
Such closely-guarded information could be of great use to Russian forces, and Ukraine said its president and top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks.
Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
“The focus now is on this being a US leak, as many of the documents were only in US hands,” Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview.
US officials said the investigation is in its early stages and those running it have not ruled out the possibility that pro-Russian elements were behind the leak, which is seen as one of the most serious security breaches since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.
The documents first appeared last month on social media websites, beginning with Discord and 4Chan. While some of the documents were posted weeks ago, their existence was first reported on Friday by the New York Times.
Some giving battlefield casualty estimates from Ukraine appeared to have been altered to minimize Russian losses. It is not clear why at least one is marked unclassified but includes top secret information. Some documents are marked “NOFORN,” meaning they cannot be released to foreign nationals.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the conflict in Ukraine. I’m Helen Livingstone and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments as they happen.
The US Department of Defense says an interagency effort is assessing the impact that leaked intelligence documents, many concerning the war in Ukraine, could have on US national security and on its allies and partners.
Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
The cache is a growing source of anxiety for US intelligence agencies, while US allies have been forced into denials over the contents.
Among other things, the documents suggest that without a huge boost in munitions, Ukraine’s air defences could be in peril, allowing the Russian air force to change the course of the war, the New York Times has reported.
Other recent developments:
Russian shelling killed at least seven civilians in the cities of Kupiansk and Zaporizhzhia over the weekend, Ukrainian authorities said. “This is how the terrorist state marks Palm Sunday,” said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly address. “This is how Russia places itself in even greater isolation from the world.” Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christian and will celebrate Easter on 16 April.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, chaired a full security council session on 5 April, the first since 2022, according to the latest intelligence update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence. The main report was presented by interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, a choice the MoD said was likely an attempt by the Kremlin to portray the situation in those territories as being “normalised”. However “in reality, much of the area remains an active combat zone, subject to partisan attacks, and with extremely limited access to basic services for many citizens”.
A Ukrainian government minister is due to visit India on Monday and will seek humanitarian aid and equipment to repair energy infrastructure damaged during Russia’s invasion, according to the Hindu newspaper. Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzhaparova, will make the first visit to India by a minister from Kyiv since the Russian invasion.
Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, used their Easter messages to call for peace. The pope asked God to “shed the light of Easter upon the people of Russia”, appearing to ask Russians to seek the truth about their country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had destroyed a depot containing 70,000 tonnes of fuel near Zaporizhzhia as well as Ukrainian military warehouses in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
