Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Russian authorities have arrested a US journalist working in the country and accused him of espionage, a charge that could carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Evan Gershkovich, a well-respected reporter from the Wall Street Journal, was detained on Wednesday during a reporting trip to the Urals city of Ekaterinburg. On Thursday, he appeared at the Lefortovo courthouse in Moscow, where he was ordered to be held in pre-trial detention until at least 29 May, local media reported. The Wall Street Journal “vehemently denies” allegations of espionage against Gershkovich.
The US is “deeply concerned over Russia’s widely reported detention of a US citizen journalist”, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said, after the arrest of the Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich. The White House has confirmed that the US state department “has been in direct touch” with the Russian government over Gershkovich’s detention, “including actively working to secure consular access” for him.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will chair a UN security council meeting in April when Russia assumes the international body’s presidency, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said. Russia’s upcoming UN security council presidency is “the worst joke ever for April Fools’ Day”, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said, and a “stark reminder that something is wrong with the way international security architecture is functioning”.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Moscow will continue to give the US advance notice about its missile tests despite suspending participation in the New Start nuclear arms treaty, reversing a statement he made just yesterday. The White House on Tuesday said the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging certain data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.
Russian forces have had some success in the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday evening, adding that their fighters were still holding on in a battle that has lasted several months. The US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War’s regular update appeared to support this, saying: “Geolocated footage published on 28 and 29 March indicates that Russian forces advanced in southern and south-western Bakhmut.”
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to call up 147,000 Russian citizens for statutory military service as part of the country’s spring conscription campaign, Russian state media reported. The Russian leader last signed a routine conscription campaign in September, calling 120,000 citizens up for statutory service, the state-run Tass news agency said.
Russian authorities are preparing to launch a significant recruitment campaign aimed at signing up 400,000 new troops to fight in Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update, citing Russian media. Moscow is presenting the campaign “as a drive for volunteer, professional personnel, rather than a new, mandatory mobilisation”, it said, adding that in practice regional authorities might try to coerce men to join up. “It is highly unlikely that the campaign will attract 400,000 genuine volunteers,” it said.
Some parents have been hiding their children in basements to prevent them from being taken, Ukrainian volunteers who have been evacuating civilians from the frontlines of the war with Russia have said. While parents have given different reasons, most volunteers have attributed the phenomenon to a combination of poverty and the psychological condition of the families, who have been living under bombing for months.
A Russian man who fled house arrest after being sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting Russia in social media posts, after an investigation prompted by his daughter’s anti-war drawings, has been arrested in Belarus, his lawyer said. Alexei Moskalyov, 54, was sentenced to two years in prison as punishment for his criticism of Kremlin policies in social media posts. Police investigated him after his 13-year-old daughter, Maria, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and made drawings showing rockets being fired at a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another that said “Glory to Ukraine!”
Four bankers who helped a close friend of Putin move millions of francs through Swiss bank accounts have been convicted of lacking diligence in financial transactions. The four were found guilty on Thursday of helping Sergey Roldugin, a concert cellist who has been nicknamed “Putin’s wallet” by the Swiss government. The executives – three Russians and one Swiss citizen – helped Roldugin, who is godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, deposit millions of francs in Swiss bank accounts between 2014 and 2016.
The US has imposed sanctions on a Slovakian citizen for trying to arrange the sale of more than two dozens types of North Korean weapons and munitions to Russia, the treasury department said. Ashot Mkrtychev has had the sanctions placed on him “for having attempted to, directly or indirectly, import, export, or re-export to, into, or from the DPRK any arms or related materiel” to Russia to help Moscow replace military equipment lost in its war with Ukraine, it said.
Lawmakers from the pro-Russia, far-right Freedom party walked out of the lower house of Austria’s parliament on Thursday during a speech by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claiming it violated Austria’s neutrality. Austria says its neutrality prevents it from military involvement in the conflict and while it supports Ukraine politically it cannot send the country weapons in its fight against the Russian invasion. The Freedom party had said days before that it would hold some form of protest against the address.
The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, has hit back at criticism by some European governments – including Ukraine’s – of a plan for a full return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international sport. “It is deplorable to see that some governments do not want to respect the majority within the Olympic movement and all stakeholders, nor the autonomy of sport,” Bach said on Thursday.
King Charles III has lauded the current unity between the UK and Germany in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “the scourge of war is back in Europe”. Both the UK and Germany had shown “vital leadership”, the king said in a bilingual speech in the Bundestag, praising Berlin’s decision to provide large military support to Ukraine as “remarkably courageous, important and appreciated”.
China must play a part in pressing for a “just peace” in Ukraine and its role in the conflict will be vital in shaping relations with the EU, the European Commission president has said. “Any peace plan which would in effect consolidate Russian annexations is simply not a viable plan. We have to be frank on this point,” Ursula Von der Leyen said in a speech in Brussels on the eve of a trip to Beijing.
That’s is from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog today. Thank you for following. We’ll be back tomorrow.
Updated
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to call up 147,000 Russian citizens for statutory military service as part of the country’s spring conscription campaign, Russian state media reported.
The Russian leader last signed a routine conscription campaign in September, calling 120,000 citizens up for statutory service, the state-run Tass news agency said.
At the time, Russia’s defence ministry was quoted as saying that the autumn conscription was “not in any way related to the special operation” – Russia’s official term for its military campaign in Ukraine.
All men in Russia are required to do a year’s military service between the ages of 18 and 27, or equivalent training while in higher education.
Updated
