Summary
As the time approaches 9pm in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, here is a round-up of today’s news.
Russia said its patience should not be tested over nuclear weapons in another repeat of hardline rhetoric over their use. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Russia will do “everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario … but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests”. Vladimir Putin has previously made comments saying he wants to avoid nuclear war, but his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told a UN hearing on Monday that the world was “possibly more dangerous” than during the cold war.
The Kremlin said that relations with European countries are at their “lowest possible level” amid more expulsions of diplomats.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it welcomed anything that could hasten the end of the Ukraine conflict when asked about Wednesday’s phone call between the Chinese and Ukrainian leaders.
Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed the discussion between president Xi and president Zelenskiy and repeated the possibility of the war ending at the “negotiating table”.
Stoltenberg said 98% of promised combat vehicles have now been delivered to Ukraine. This comprises 1,550 armoured vehicles and 230 tanks. This equates to nine new Ukrainian brigades.
The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has voted that the forced detention and deportation of children from Russian occupied territories of Ukraine is “genocide”, at a session on Thursday.
A resolution on “deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to Russian Federation or to Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied: create conditions for their safe return, stop these crimes and punish the perpetrators” passed with 87 votes in favour, meaning an overwhelming majority. One representative voted against and another abstained.
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed that its forces had taken four blocks in north-western, western and south-western Bakhmut, Russia state-owned news agency RIA reported.
Russia’s foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May. It said the measure was taken in response to Washington’s failure to process visas for “representatives from the journalistic pool” of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has invited Pope Francis to visit Ukraine during a visit to the Vatican. He asked the pontiff for help to return children from the east of Ukraine who have been forcibly taken to Russia by Kremlin forces.
Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s former ambassador to Berlin – has said Germany was still failing to provide the support it should. “The Germans are helping much more than they were, and for that we Ukrainians are very grateful, but the government is only delivering as much as it feels it should,” he told Die Zeit in an interview in Kyiv.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner, has said he was joking when he said the mercenary group would suspend fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to show the city to visiting US journalists.
At least seven civilians were killed and 33 injured between Wednesday and Thursday, Ukraine’s presidential office has said, including one person killed and 23 wounded – including a child – when four Kalibr cruise missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Russia has reinforced its defences ahead of a much-expected counterattack by Ukrainian forces, analysts have suggested. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the 500 miles (800km) of Russian lines protecting occupied Ukraine have been triple-fortified and included a “gush of manpower”. The timing comes as the usual winter freeze has begun to thaw and dry, making mobilisation more likely.
Britain’s opposition Labour party has asked the government why there has been no new weapons announcement since February and no fresh update from ministers to parliament since January.
That’s all for today. Thanks for following along. We’ll be back tomorrow.
Council of Europe says Russian-forced deportation of children from Ukraine is 'genocide'
The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has voted that the forced detention and deportation of children from Russian occupied territories of Ukraine is “genocide”, at a session on Thursday.
A resolution on “deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to Russian Federation or to Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied: create conditions for their safe return, stop these crimes and punish the perpetrators” passed with 87 votes in favour, meaning an overwhelming majority. One representative voted against and another abstained.
In its resolution, the assembly called for “immediate and urgent action to be taken to halt the practices of unlawful forcible transfer and deportation currently being carried out by the Russian Federation against the Ukrainian population, and especially its policy and practices relating to the removal of children from their families and homes and their subsequent absorption into Russian citizenship, identity and culture.”
It added: “The assembly highlights the need for the recording and monitoring of individual cases, both in order to permit mechanisms for rapid redress, and to collect evidence of accountability in order to bring the perpetrators, at all levels of responsibility, to justice.”
The assembly called for the practice to stop “immediately and unconditionally”. It also demanded Russia give access to NGOs and charities, as well as information about where the children now are.
The international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in March in relation to the “unlawful deportation” of minors. One was also issued for Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova who is believed to have 18 adopted children, including a teenager from Mariupol.
The resolution claims that Russia began moving children from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk before its invasion on 24 February last year. In a report earlier this month, the Ukrainian government said it had collected reports of more than 19,000 children who had been deported.
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