Closing summary
It’s nearly 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged international leaders to act after disturbing video emerged on Wednesday of Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war lying on the ground. One clip appears to show a member of the Russian army using a knife to cut the head off the soldier. A second video appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian service personnel lying next to a destroyed military vehicle. Ukraine’s president said the world could not ignore the “evil” footage, which has not been verified by the Guardian.
The EU has pledged to hold those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine to account, a spokesperson said, while the UN said it was “appalled by particularly gruesome videos” circulating on social media.
The UK government has imposed sanctions on the “financial fixers” who have allegedly helped Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov hide their assets. The new sanctions, unveiled by the Foreign Office on Wednesday, are targeted at what officials describe as “oligarch enablers” whom they accuse of knowingly assisting the billionaire businessmen to shield their wealth.
The US also imposed sanctions on more than 120 individuals and entities around the world over their ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The sanctions targeted people and entities across more than 20 countries and jurisdictions, including a private military company, a China-based firm and entities linked to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom.
Russia has hit 333 Canadian officials and public figures with sanctions in what it said was a tit-for-tat move in response to Canada’s sanctions against Moscow and support for Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military has rejected claims by Russia that Russian troops have captured more than 80% of the embattled city of Bakhmut. On Tuesday, the head of Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his forces controlled most of Bakhmut including the whole administrative centre, factories, warehouses and municipality buildings. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the eastern military command, insisted on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces controlled “considerably” more than 20% of it in the east.
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its forces struck Ukrainian army reserves attempting to break through to the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut. It also claimed that fighters from Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group had captured three more blocks in their attempt to seize control of the city. The claims were not verified.
Russia has tightened its conscription law, including introducing electronic military draft papers, before a widely anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks. The lower and upper houses of parliament rushed through legislation that will make it significantly harder for Russians to dodge the draft while automatically banning registered conscripts from leaving the country.
Russian-installed authorities in annexed Crimea and the city of Sevastopol have cancelled traditional military parades to celebrate Victory Day and May Day, the Russian-appointed leader of Crimea has said, citing security reasons. Sergei Aksyonov’s statement on Wednesday came a day after he said Crimea was on guard and that Russian forces had built “modern, in-depth defences” and had more than enough troops and equipment to repel a possible Ukrainian assault.
Serbia has agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or has sent them already, according to a classified Pentagon document. The document, a summary of European governments’ responses to Ukraine’s requests for military training and “lethal aid” or weapons, was among dozens of classified documents posted online in recent weeks in what could be the most serious leak of US secrets in years. Serbia is one of the only countries in Europe that has refused to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
US intelligence reportedly warned Ukraine in February that it might fail to amass sufficient troops and weaponry for its planned spring counter-offensive, and might fall “well short” of Kyiv’s goals for recapturing territory seized by Russia, according to a trove of leaked defence documents.
South Korea has agreed to “lend” the US 500,000 rounds of artillery, a newspaper reported on Wednesday, as Seoul attempts to minimise the possibility that the ammunition could end up in Ukraine - a move that could spark domestic criticism of President Yoon Suk-yeol.
South Africa has said that an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war was a “spanner in the works” before a Brics summit in the country in August. The Russian president is due to attend a summit of Brics countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – but the host nation is a member of the international criminal court and would be expected to make the arrest if Putin steps foot in the country. The ICC warrant against Putin stems from accusations that Russia unlawfully deported Ukrainian children.
Belarus has extradited a Russian man who was separated from his daughter and sentenced to two years in prison after she drew anti-war pictures at school. Alexei Moskalyov, a 54-year-old single parent from the town of Yefremov, 150 miles south of Moscow, fled house arrest last month, hours before a court handed him a two-year sentence for “discrediting” the Russian army. The high-profile case was criticised by Russian human rights groups and led to an online campaign to reunite father and daughter.
The German government is very worried about the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s worsening health condition, a government spokesperson has said. Navalny’s spokesperson on Tuesday said he had lost 8kg in 16 days while in solitary confinement, and that he was not receiving any treatment.
More than 120 people and entities added to US sanctions list for supporting invasion of Ukraine
The US imposed sanctions on more than 120 individuals and entities around the world over their ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The sanctions, imposed by the US treasury and state departments, targeted people and entities across more than 20 countries and jurisdictions, including a private military company, a China-based firm and entities linked to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom.
The latest sanctions target a wide network tied to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, including his company, USM Holdings, along with multiple firms under it.
Also targeted was the Patriot private military company, which the US state department said was associated with Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and competed with the Wagner mercenary group.
Separately, the US treasury said it imposed sanctions on Russian financial facilitators and sanctions evaders around the world, including Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and China-based people and companies.
Updated
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, met with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, at the Pentagon today to discuss Washington’s support for Kyiv in the face of Russia’s invasion.
The two leaders “discussed security assistance priorities, such as air defense and artillery, and training for the Ukrainian armed forces”, according to a readout of the meeting by Pentagon press secretary, Brig Gen Pat Ryder.
The pair also “agreed on the importance of ensuring accountability of security assistance”, he said.
Shmyhal, in remarks reported by CNN, repeated Kyiv’s requests for F-15 and F-16 fighter jets and longer-range missiles directly to Austin.
“We will win this war,” Shmyhal was quoted as saying in English, “but to achieve it faster and with fewer casualties, Ukraine still needs intensive military support.”
Updated
Russia has conducted what it said was the successful test launch of an “advanced” intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday.
In a statement posted to Telegram, the Russian defence ministry said a “combat crew successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] of a mobile ground-based missile system” from its Kapustin Yar test site. It continued:
The missile’s training warhead hit a mock target at the Sary-Shagan training ground [Republic of Kazakhstan] with given precision.
The ministry did not specify the type of missile used in Tuesday’s launch. In February, President Vladimir Putin said a new kind of ICBM would be deployed sometime this year, following US reports that the weapon had failed a recent test.
The move came weeks after Moscow suspended participation in the New Start treaty, Russia’s last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the US.
The former UK prime minister Liz Truss has been speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, where she called on western fighter jets to be supplied to Ukraine.
Truss, who was delivering the annual Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture at the foundation, said she was proud of Britain’s response to Ukraine and warned against allowing a “domino effect”.
She added:
I believe we should fast-track Ukraine’s membership of Nato. We should have done it years ago, but the best time to do it is now.
From my colleague David Smith, who has been following Truss’s speech in Washington:
Truss: "I believe it would make a huge difference if Ukraine joined Nato and we should be fast tracking Ukraine membership of Nato."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) April 12, 2023
Updated
Belarus has extradited a Russian man who was separated from his daughter and sentenced to two years in prison after she drew anti-war pictures at school.
Alexei Moskalyov, a 54-year-old single parent from the town of Yefremov, 150 miles south of Moscow, fled house arrest last month, hours before a court handed him a two-year sentence for “discrediting” the Russian army.
He was detained two days later in neighbouring Belarus, most probably as a result of turning on his mobile phone and giving away his location.
The high-profile case was criticised by Russian human rights groups and led to an online campaign to reunite father and daughter.
“Alexei Moskalyov was extradited from Belarus to Russia,” the OVD-Info rights group said, citing his lawyer in Belarus.
Moskalyov said his family first faced pressure from police last April when his daughter, Maria Moskalyova, 13, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and made several drawings showing rockets being fired at a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another that read “Glory to Ukraine”.
Updated
Ukraine denies Russian claims that it controls 80% of Bakhmut
Ukraine’s military has rejected claims by Russia that Russian troops have captured more than 80% of the embattled city of Bakhmut, insisting that Ukrainian forces controlled “considerably” more than 20% of it in the east.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the eastern military command, told Reuters:
I was just in touch with the commander of one of the brigades holding the defence of the city. And I can confidently say that Ukrainian defensive forces control a considerably larger percent of Bakhmut’s territory.
On Tuesday, the head of Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his forces controlled most of Bakhmut including the whole administrative centre, factories, warehouses and municipality buildings.
In response, Cherevatyi said Prigozhin “needs to show at least some kind of victory in the city, which they have been trying to capture for nine months in a row and that’s why he’s making such statements”.
Neither side’s claims have been independently verified.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its forces struck Ukrainian army reserves attempting to break through to the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut.
The ministry said Russian forces hit “reserves of the enemy that tried to break into Bakhmut from the settlements of Chasiv Yar and Bohdanivka, as well as the units of the 28th Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine close to Kostiantynivka.”
It also claimed that fighters from Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group had captured three more blocks in their attempt to seize control of the city.
The Russian ministry’s claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal arrived at the Pentagon today, where he was welcomed by US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin.
Shmyhal is leading a larger Ukrainian delegation in Washington including finance minister Serhiy Marchenko and central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko.
They are expected to meet bilaterally with finance officials from the Group of Seven countries and others, and take part in a roundtable on Ukraine to be hosted by the World Bank on Thursday, according to sources.
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged international leaders to act after disturbing video emerged on Wednesday of Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war lying on the ground. One clip appears to show a member of the Russian army using a knife to cut the head off the soldier. A second video appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian service personnel lying next to a destroyed military vehicle. Ukraine’s president said the world could not ignore the “evil” footage, which has not been verified by the Guardian.
The EU has pledged to hold those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine to account, a spokesperson said, while the UN said it was “appalled by particularly gruesome videos” circulating on social media.
Russia has tightened its conscription law, including introducing electronic military draft papers, before a widely anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks. The lower and upper houses of parliament rushed through legislation that will make it significantly harder for Russians to dodge the draft while automatically banning registered conscripts from leaving the country.
Russian-installed authorities in annexed Crimea and the city of Sevastopol have cancelled traditional military parades to celebrate Victory Day and May Day, the Russian-appointed leader of Crimea has said, citing security reasons. Sergei Aksyonov’s statement on Wednesday came a day after he said Crimea was on guard and that Russian forces had built “modern, in-depth defences” and had more than enough troops and equipment to repel a possible Ukrainian assault.
The Kremlin has said the outlook for the Black Sea grain deal was “not so great”, claiming on Wednesday that promises to remove obstacles to Russian exports of agricultural and fertiliser exports had not been fulfilled. On Tuesday no vessels were cleared to travel using the grain initiative, after Russia scrubbed out the names of three ships, submitted by the Ukrainian side, as they returned home. Ukraine’s deputy infrastructure minister for seaports and maritime, Yurii Vaskov, has described the situation as “critical”.
Serbia has agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or has sent them already, according to a classified Pentagon document. The document, a summary of European governments’ responses to Ukraine’s requests for military training and “lethal aid” or weapons, was among dozens of classified documents posted online in recent weeks in what could be the most serious leak of US secrets in years. Serbia is one of the only countries in Europe that has refused to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
US intelligence reportedly warned Ukraine in February that it might fail to amass sufficient troops and weaponry for its planned spring counter-offensive, and might fall “well short” of Kyiv’s goals for recapturing territory seized by Russia, according to a trove of leaked defence documents.
South Korea has agreed to “lend” the US 500,000 rounds of artillery, a newspaper reported on Wednesday, as Seoul attempts to minimise the possibility that the ammunition could end up in Ukraine - a move that could spark domestic criticism of President Yoon Suk-yeol.
South Africa has said that an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war was a “spanner in the works” before a Brics summit in the country in August. The Russian president is due to attend a summit of Brics countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – but the host nation is a member of the international criminal court and would be expected to make the arrest if Putin steps foot in the country. The ICC warrant against Putin stems from accusations that Russia unlawfully deported Ukrainian children.
The UK government has imposed sanctions on the “financial fixers” who have allegedly helped Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov hide their assets. The new sanctions, unveiled by the Foreign Office on Wednesday, are targeted at what officials describe as “oligarch enablers” whom they accuse of knowingly assisting the billionaire businessmen to shield their wealth.
Russia has hit 333 Canadian officials and public figures with sanctions in what it said was a tit-for-tat move in response to Canada’s sanctions against Moscow and support for Ukraine.
The German government is very worried about the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s worsening health condition, a government spokesperson has said. Navalny’s spokesperson on Tuesday said he had lost 8kg in 16 days while in solitary confinement, and that he was not receiving any treatment.
Updated
Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has said the alleged Pentagon document leaks contain “a mix of truth and falsehoods” about his country’s military.
Reznikov played down the negative impact of the classified documents, telling reporters in Madrid:
There is a lot of information there which does not correspond with reality. The information which does correspond with reality has lost its relevance. So it’s a mix of truth and falsehoods.
He said he believed the leaks were a deliberate attempt to sow discord among Ukraine’s allies, adding:
The benefactor of this work is of course Russia and its allies or disciples. The goal of this work is to lower the level of trust among (our) partners, especially the United States and other countries, and to me this is completely obvious and clear.
Reznikov also dismissed as “not true” suggestions in the Pentagon leaks that Nato’s special forces were operating inside Ukraine.
Updated
Russia rushes through law to tighten military conscription
Russia has tightened its conscription law before a widely anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks, including introducing electronic military draft papers.
The lower and upper houses of parliament rushed through legislation that will make it significantly harder for Russians to dodge the draft while automatically banning registered conscripts from leaving Russia.
The changes were pushed through with little public debate, fuelling speculation that Russia plans to announce a second wave of mobilisation, something the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the changes were intended to improve the military registration system and had “nothing to do with mobilisation”.
“When the special military operation began, you and I saw that in some places we had a lot of mess in the military recruitment offices,” he told journalists on Wednesday.
That is exactly the purpose of this legislative initiative: to clear up this mess and to make it [the system] modern, effective and convenient for citizens.
In September last year, Russia’s first mobilisation since the second world war caused unparalleled chaos and anger across the country. More than 300,000 men were conscripted to fight in Ukraine, while an even larger number are believed to have fled Russia.
Under the new legislation, call-up papers will be deemed to be served as soon as they appear on Gosuslugi, a government portal widely used by Russians to pay bills, and will be considered officially received by a prospective draftee after one week, whether or not it has actually been received.
Updated
Driving in his battered car, Valerii Kotenko showed off the spot where a Russian missile had landed. It had fallen next to his wheat field.
“That was in December. Fortunately it didn’t explode,” he said. The enemy frequently bombed southern Ukraine, he said, and his home in Odesa oblast.
They shoot at us like crazy. The Russians target us because they are bastards. And because we feed the world.
Ukraine’s farmers have had a tumultuous time since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Kotenko’s 120-hectare (300-acre) farm is a short journey from the port of Odesa on the Black Sea, hit last week by 17 Iranian drones. The rockets arrive from all directions. Russian frigates fire from the waters around occupied Crimea. Other missiles come from the east and the Sea of Azov.
In the first months of all-out war, Kotenko had to stockpile his harvest: grain, sunflower oil and tomatoes. With ports closed and road transport expensive, the market collapsed. In July 2022, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government signed a UN-brokered deal with Moscow to resume shipments to international destinations including Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The Black Sea grain corridor worked. Kotenko was able to sell his crop to a commodities merchant, albeit at a low price. By the end of last week, 881 Ukrainian vessels had set off from Odesa and the ports of Pivdenny and Chornomorsk along the coast. They carried more than 27.5m tonnes of agricultural products. Much of it went to the EU.
Updated
There has been further international reaction to the emergence of a video on social media that appears to show Russian soldiers beheading a Ukrainian service personnel.
Tom Tugendhat, the UK’s minister of state for security has tweeted:
The British government has brought nations together to support the ICC to bring prosecutions against Russian murderers in Ukraine. We will not forget.
Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s prime minister has tweeted:
The evil empire has been reborn in the East. Russian barbarians threaten not only Ukraine. They threaten all of Europe and the whole free world. This is no mere incident, no coincidence, no maniac’s impulse. Putin has been building his evil empire for 23 years, in preparation for this conflict. New Europe understands this. It is time that old Europe understood it too.
President of the European Council, Charles Michel, said on social media platform Twitter:
Mortified by atrocious video showing murder of Ukrainian prisoner of war by Russian soldier. Accountability and justice must prevail over terror and impunity. The EU will do all possible to ensure that. The EU will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.
Edgars Rinkēvičs, Latvia’s foreign minister tweeted:
Russian military and Wagner group thugs are worse than Isis.
Updated
Associated Press has some additional quotes about the video that appears to show a Ukrainian service personnel being beheaded by Russian forces.
Andrei Medvedev, a Russian state TV journalist and a member of the Moscow city legislature, speculated that the timing of the video’s release was “fairly opportune” for the Ukrainian army, saying it could help “fire up personnel ideologically” ahead of a planned major counteroffensive.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, also linked the video’s release to the expected offensive, but said it was meant to “demoralise the public mood or at least change the psychological perception of the war right now.”
Ukraine’s ombudsman said he would ask the UN Human Rights Committee to investigate the video. Dmytro Lubinets said he has written letters to the UN commissioner for human rights, the UN monitoring mission in Ukraine, the UN secretary general and the international committee of the red cross.
He wrote on Telegram that “a public execution of a captive is yet another indication of a breach of Geneva conventions norms, international humanitarian law, a breach of the fundamental right to life.”
Updated
A quick snap from Reuters that Russia has hit 333 Canadian officials and public figures with sanctions in what it said was a tit-for-tat move in response to Canadian sanctions on Moscow and support for Ukraine.
The list, published by Russia’s foreign ministry on Wednesday, includes Canada’s governor general Mary Simon, more than 250 members of regional legislative assemblies, and dozens of Canadian athletes who have publicly supported a ban on Russian athletes competing at the 2024 Olympics.
Updated
South Africa describes Putin arrest warrant as 'spanner in works' for Brics summit
South Africa said on Wednesday an international arrest warrant for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war was a “spanner in the works” before a Brics summit in the country in August.
Pretoria, which has close ties with Moscow, has been faced with a diplomatic dilemma since the international criminal court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March.
The Russian president is due to attend a summit of the Brics – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – in South Africa in August.
But the host nation is a member of the ICC and would be expected to make the arrest if Putin steps foot in the country.
“All heads of state would be expected to attend the summit. But now we have a spanner in the works in the form of this ICC warrant,” AFP reports Vincent Magwenya, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, told a press briefing on Wednesday.
“What that dictates is that there be further engagements, in terms of how that is going to be managed and those engagements are under way. Once they’ve been concluded, the necessary announcements will be made.”
The ICC warrant against Putin stems from accusations that Russia unlawfully deported Ukrainian children.
Russia does not recognise the ICC, and while the Kremlin has described it as “outrageous and unacceptable”, it has also said that “any decisions of this kind are null and void for the Russian Federation from the point of view of law.”
Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, was also accused by the ICC of the war crime of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.
Updated
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock will visit China from 13-15 April, Reuters reports the Chinese foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
China and Germany will hold diplomatic and security strategic talks, ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular news briefing.
Russian-installed authorities in annexed Crimea and the city of Sevastopol have cancelled traditional military parades to celebrate Victory Day and May Day, the Russian-appointed leader of Crimea has said, citing security reasons.
Sergei Aksyonov posted to Telegram that there would be no parades or marches to mark May Day on 1 May, or Victory Day on 9 May, which celebrates Soviet defeat over Nazi Germany. Victory Day is celebrated across Russia and has become central to Vladimir Putin’s idea of Russian identity.
Aksyonov wrote:
The local authorities will certainly visit them [veterans] and congratulate them on Victory Day.
His comments conflicted with those made by the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, who said on his Telegram that a 9 May military parade has not been cancelled. He wrote:
The decision to cancel the military parade on May 9 in Sevastopol has not been made at the moment. Now there are consultations with the Ministry of Defense, the decision to hold the Parade in Sevastopol is the prerogative of the military department.
On Tuesday, Aksyonov said Crimea was on guard and that Russian forces had built “modern, in-depth defenses” and had more than enough troops and equipment to repel a possible Ukrainian assault.
His comments came days after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reaffirmed Kyiv’s intention to take back the Black Sea peninsula that Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Updated
The UN has said it is appalled by what it described as gruesome videos, including one of Russian troops apparently beheading a captured Ukrainian soldier, and another appearing to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian servicemen lying next to a destroyed military vehicle.
The UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, part of its office of the high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR), said in a statement that the apparent executions were “not an isolated incident.”
It said:
The UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine is appalled by particularly gruesome videos posted on social media.
In recent reports the mission documented a number of serious violations of international humanitarian law, including those committed against prisoners of war. The latest incidents must also be properly investigated, and the perpetrators must be held accountable.
Updated
The German government is very worried about the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s worsening health condition, a government spokesperson has said.
Navalny, 46, is serving combined sentences of 11 and a half years in a high-security penal colony for fraud and contempt of court on charges that he says were trumped up to silence him.
Navalny’s team said on Tuesday that his health had deteriorated seriously and that an ambulance had been called for him on Friday because of acute stomach pain.
Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, tweeted that he had lost 8kg in 16 days while in solitary confinement, and that he was not receiving any treatment.
She said he had been released from solitary on Friday but was sentenced to another 15 days there on Monday, adding that he had been forced to endure “extremely hellish” conditions.
Dozens of Russian doctors signed an open letter to Vladimir Putin in January urging him “to stop abusing” Navalny and demanding he be given a full examination and access to proper medical treatment.
Updated
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has appealed to the international community to act after videos circulated on social media that appeared to show Russian forces beheading a Ukrainian soldier. He said:
This is not an accident. This is not an episode. This was the case earlier. This was the case in Bucha. Thousands of times. Everyone must react. Every leader.
Updated
Russia’s upper house of parliament has voted to introduce electronic call-up papers via an online portal for the first time.
The Federation Council’s vote came a day after the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, gave its approval to changes in the law. The bill will now go to the president, Vladimir Putin, who is expected to sign it into law.
As of now, conscription papers in Russia have to be delivered in person by the local military enlistment office or via an employer.
Under the new bill, conscription papers will be sent via recorded mail and online. Once an electronic summons is received, citizens who fail to show up at the military enlistment office will be automatically banned from travelling abroad, have their driving licences suspended and be barred from selling their homes and other assets.
After a chaotic rollout last year, Russia has moved to streamline its process of drafting soldiers into the army by digitising its military records.
The legislation has been put on fast track as the Russian military prepares for an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive, fuelling speculation that Moscow may be poised to announce another wave of mobilisation – something the Kremlin has denied.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said at his regular briefing on Wednesday that the move was needed to sort out the “mess” at military recruitment offices. He told reporters:
That is exactly the purpose of this legislative initiative: to clear up this mess and to make it modern, effective and convenient for citizens.
Updated
EU pledges to hold war criminals to account after beheading video
The EU has pledged to hold those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine to account, a spokesperson said, after disturbing video emerged of Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war lying on the ground.
Nabila Massrali said:
We don’t have more information on the veracity of the video. Having said that, if confirmed, this is yet another brutal reminder about the inhumane nature of the Russian aggression.
Updated
The US president, Joe Biden, and UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, are currently meeting at a hotel in central Belfast, where the pair are expected to discuss the war in Ukraine.
In a briefing to journalists earlier this morning, the US national security council’s Europe director, Amanda Sloat, said the focus of the meeting will be Northern Ireland, as well as touching on the war in Ukraine.
She added:
I expect the leaders will also have the opportunity to touch base on the latest developments in Ukraine including our continuing joint efforts to support the people in Ukraine.
My colleague Andy Sparrow is covering President Biden’s visit to Belfast on our UK politics live blog.
Updated
In the new packages of measures, Whitehall officials have also focused on the complex financial holdings of Alisher Usmanov, a Russian metals magnate, and imposed sanctions on companies and associates linked to him.
This includes Christodoulos Vassiliades, a Cypriot lawyer, alleged to be “at the centre of a web of trusts and offshore companies” that link Usmanov to Sutton Place, a Tudor manor in Surrey.
Neither Ioannides nor Vassiliades responded to requests to comment from the Guardian.
The new steps indicate the UK government is prepared to expand its Russia sanctions regime to include “enablers”, whom it has characterised as professional advisers and intermediaries who facilitate sanctions evasion and associated money laundering.
In July last year UK enforcement agencies warned that sanctioned individuals were using enablers to distance themselves from their assets by, for example, transferring ownership to trusted intermediaries such as family members.
A former senior US sanctions enforcement official said the focus on “professional enablers” by authorities in London and recently in Washington represents a new development, though they have long had legal powers to target those providing material support to a sanctioned individual.
“Given the focus on oligarchs,” the former sanctions officials said, “this is the next obvious step because of the way these individuals have relied heavily on a network of people in the service sector to access finance and the life they’d like to live”.
The new round of sanctions has also imposed restrictions on family members and associates alleged to be acting as proxies for sanctioned oligarchs including Viktor Medvedchuk, a loyal ally of Putin.
Announcing the new measures, the British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said the government was “closing the net on the Russian elite and those who try to help them hide their money.” He added:
We will keep cutting them off from assets they thought were successfully hidden.
The UK government has imposed sanctions on the “financial fixers” who have allegedly helped Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov hide their assets.
The new sanctions, unveiled by the Foreign Office on Wednesday, are targeted at what officials describe as “oligarch enablers” whom they accuse of knowingly assisting the billionaire businessmen to shield their wealth.
The latest round of restrictions include asset freezes and travel bans on two Cyprus-based individuals alleged to have provided services to Abramovich and Usmanov.
The fresh measures come after the Guardian’s Oligarch Files project revealed in January that trusts holding billions of dollars of assets for Abramovich, the former owner of Chelsea football club, were rapidly reorganised shortly before sanctions were imposed on him.
The measures are the latest round of asset freezes and travel bans that the UK has imposed on close associates of Abramovich and Usmanov, both of whom were hit with sanctions last year shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Officials have said that in response to an unprecedented package of international sanctions, oligarchs “scrambled to shield their wealth with the help of financial fixers, offshore trusts, shell companies, and even using their family members”.
According to leaked files seen by the Guardian, 10 of Abramovich’s secretive offshore trusts were amended to transfer beneficial ownership to his seven children in the weeks leading up to the invasion, raising questions about whether the changes were made to shield the oligarch’s vast fortune from the threat of asset freezes.
Documents suggest the sweeping reorganisation was executed by Demetris Ioannides and his company, who has helped manage Abramovich’s financial interests for more than 20 years.
The UK has now sanctioned both Ioannides and the offshore service provider he runs, Meritservus HC Limited. Ioannides is accused by UK officials of “crafting the murky offshore structures which Abramovich used to hide over £760m assets ahead of being sanctioned”.
UK and EU officials have cast Abramovich as a pro-Kremlin oligarch and last year imposed sanctions on him for allegedly benefiting from close relations with Putin. Abramovich has denied financial ties to the Kremlin and filed legal action to overturn the EU’s measures.
Updated
The Kremlin has said the outlook for the Black Sea grain deal was “not so great”, claiming that promises to remove obstacles to Russian exports of agricultural and fertiliser exports had not been fulfilled.
On Tuesday no vessels were cleared to travel using the grain initiative, after Russia scrubbed out the names of three ships, submitted by the Ukrainian side, as they returned home.
Russia has voiced its dissatisfaction with the deal. Although the west has not placed sanctions on Russia’s food and fertiliser exports, Moscow says it is compromised by obstacles – such as insurance and payment hindrances – that it says must be removed for the deal to work properly.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, speaking to reporters today, said the current agreement was not working for Russia.
He said:
No deal can stand on one leg: it must stand on two legs. In this regard, of course, judging by the state of play today, the outlook (for its extension) is not so great.
Ukraine’s deputy infrastructure minister for seaports and maritime, Yurii Vaskov, yesterday described the situation as “critical”. If the standoff continues, global food prices are likely to go up by 15%, he said.
UK sanctions financial network of Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov
Britain’s Foreign Office has announced sanctions on individuals and companies with financial links to the Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov.
The UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, posted on Twitter:
Today we are cracking down on oligarch enablers, including the financial fixers for Abramovich and Usmanov.
We are closing the net on the Russian elite and those who try to help them hide their money for war.
We won’t stop until Putin does.
Today we are cracking down on oligarch enablers, including the financial fixers for Abramovich and Usmanov.
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) April 12, 2023
We are closing the net on the Russian elite and those who try to help them hide their money for war.
We won't stop until Putin does.
Updated
Kremlin says beheading video is ‘awful’
The Kremlin has described a video of Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war lying on the ground as “awful”.
The video’s authenticity needed to be checked, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov added. He added:
It could be a pretext to check whether or not this is true, whether it happened, and if it did, where and by whom.
The clip, which has circulated on social media channels, shows a member of the Russian army using a knife to cut the head off the soldier. It is unclear when or where the video was shot. It may have been filmed last summer, judging by the green foliage in the background.
A second video appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian servicemen lying next to a destroyed military vehicle. A voice says: “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off.”
The Guardian has not independently verified the origins and veracity of the two videos, but Ukrainian authorities are treating them as genuine.
Updated
South Korea has agreed to “lend” the US 500,000 rounds of artillery, a newspaper reported on Wednesday, as Seoul attempts to minimise the possibility that the ammunition could end up in Ukraine - a move that could spark domestic criticism of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Citing unidentified government sources, the Dong-A Ilbo said South Korea had decided to lend the shells rather than sell them - an approach it believes would lower the likelihood of them eventually being supplied to Kyiv.
The possibility that South Korean weapons could be used by Ukraine would be deeply problematic for Yoon, as it would violate the country’s longstanding policy – supported by a majority of voters – of not exporting weapons to countries at war.
Officials in Seoul declined to comment on the report or claims by the newspaper that the 155mm artillery shells would be used primarily by the US to fill its stockpile.
The US bought 100,000 of the same type of shell last year and had asked South Korea for a similar number in February, prompting the government in Seoul to seek another way to supply the ammunition.
The Dong-A Ilbo quoted a source as saying:
We have opted to significantly increase the volume of shells, but to take the rental route after exploring how to respond to the [US] request in good faith, while sticking to the government principle of not providing lethal weapons to Ukraine..
South Korea’s foreign minister, Park Jin, told reporters that he could not confirm the report, but added that the government position against providing lethal aid to Ukraine remained unchanged. The country backs sanctions against Russia and has provided non-lethal assistance to Kyiv.
South Korean assistance to Ukraine was included in recently leaked Pentagon documents, some of which suggested that the US eavesdropped on internal discussions among top South Korean security officials who voiced concern that artillery shells bound for the US could find their way to Ukraine.
Aides to Yoon, who is due to meet Joe Biden in Washington late this month, attempted to play down the significance of the documents, saying that an initial investigation had concluded that there was “little chance” that internal discussions had been intercepted by US intelligence officials.
Kim Tae-hyo, South Korea’s deputy national security adviser, said the information reportedly gleaned from the discussions was “untrue” and had been “altered”.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued a strong statement urging international leaders to act after videos circulated on social media that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers beheaded by Russian forces. One video being circulated appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle. A voice says: “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off”. A second clip, which may have been filmed in summer last year, judging by the appearance of foliage in the clip, claims to show a member of Russian forces using a knife to cut off the head of a Ukrainian soldier.
Serbia, one of the only countries in Europe that has refused to impose sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or has sent them already, according to a classified Pentagon document. The document, a summary of European governments’ responses to Ukraine’s requests for military training and “lethal aid” or weapons, was among dozens of classified documents posted online in recent weeks in what could be the most serious leak of US secrets in years.
The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Tuesday said the United States will investigate the leak until the source is found. “We will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it,” Austin said during a press conference at the state department.
US intelligence reportedly warned Ukraine in February that it might fail to amass sufficient troops and weaponry for its planned spring counter-offensive, and might fall “well short” of Kyiv’s goals for recapturing territory seized by Russia, according to a trove of leaked defence documents.
The same leaked US military documents indicate that the UK has deployed as many as 50 special forces to Ukraine. The documents suggest that more than half of the western special forces personnel present in Ukraine between February and March this year may have been British. It is unclear what activities the special forces may have been engaged in or whether the numbers of personnel have been maintained at this level.
The leak of a trove of highly sensitive documents online could be a move by the US to “deceive” Russia, its deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying Wednesday. “It’s probably interesting for someone to look at these documents, if they really are documents or they could be a fake or it could be an intentional leak,” Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies.
Ryabkov also said Russia was currently considering granting US diplomats consular access to Evan Gershkovich, but that the US designation of the Wall Street Journal reporter as “wrongfully detained” meant nothing to Russia and would not change its approach to his case. “We will not tolerate any attempts to pressure us, and it has no significance what status they assign to this person in Washington. We will act in accordance with our own internal needs, norms and laws that apply in this situation, and nothing more,” Tass quoted Ryabkov as saying.
The UK added 11 new designations to its Russia-related sanctions list, an update to the government website showed on Wednesday morning.
Updated
Ukraine foreign minister compares Russia to Islamic State over beheading video
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has compared Russian fighters in Ukraine to Islamic State after a video circulated online that appeared to show a beheading.
Kuleba said on Twitter: “A horrific video of Russian troops decapitating a Ukrainian prisoner of war is circulating online.”
“It’s absurd that Russia, which is worse than Islamic State, is presiding over the UNSC,” he said, referring to the UN security council where Russia took up the rotating presidency this month. “Russian terrorists must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN and be held accountable for their crimes.”
Reuters reports Ukraine’s domestic security agency said it had launched an investigation into a suspected war crime over the video.
“Yesterday, a video appeared on the Internet showing how the Russian occupiers are showing their beastly nature – cruelly torturing a Ukrainian prisoner and cutting off his head,” the SBU agency wrote on Telegram.
Updated
Inspections resumed on Wednesday aboard ships operating under the Ukraine Black Sea grain deal, after a one-day halt the day before, Ismini Palla, UN spokesperson for the initiative, has told Reuters.
Protests by European farmers are political and shipments of Ukrainian grain are not reducing the profitability of their business, Ukrainian food producers’ union UAC claimed on Wednesday.
Poland last week said it would temporarily halt Ukrainian grain imports after farmers’ protests led Poland’s agriculture minister to resign, but transit would still be allowed.
“The political nature of the European farmers’ strikes is obvious. Ukraine sells some grain to Poland, and this is not a massive amount,” Reuters reports Denys Marchuk, deputy chair of the Ukrainian agrarian council (UAC), said in a statement.
“However, certain forces need to demonstrate that this is due to an oversupply of Ukrainian grain,” he said, noting that the country faced elections later this year.
Logistical bottlenecks have kept large quantities of Ukrainian grains, which are cheaper than those produced in the European Union, in central European states. Farmers there have staged protests, claiming the grain reduces prices and sales for them.
Marchuk said that the decline in global grain and oilseed prices was a trend and that Ukraine was using Poland and Romania as transit routes rather than directly exporting to them.
The leak of a trove of highly sensitive documents online could be a move by the US to “deceive” Russia, its deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying Wednesday.
“It’s probably interesting for someone to look at these documents, if they really are documents or they could be a fake or it could be an intentional leak,” Associated Press reports Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies.
“Since the US is a party to the Ukraine conflict and is essentially waging a hybrid war against us, it is possible that such techniques are being used to deceive their opponent, the Russian Federation,” he said.
The breach – which has sparked a criminal investigation by the US department of justice – includes classified information about Ukraine’s fight against Russian forces, as well as secret assessments of US allies.
Yesterday my colleague Alex Hern wrote this piece about how the documents emerged online at some point seemingly to win internet arguments among video game players.
Zelenskiy makes appeal to international leaders over beheading videos
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued a strong statement urging international leaders to act after videos circulated on social media that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers beheaded by Russian forces.
Zelenskiy issued a video on his social media channels in which he said:
There is something that noone in the world can ignore. How easily these beasts kill. This video, the execution of a Ukrainian captive. This is a video of Russia as it is. What kind of people there are.
There are no people for them. A son, a brother, a husband, someone’s child. This is a video of Russia just trying to make that the new norm. Such a habit of destroying life.
This is not an accident. This is not an episode. This was the case earlier. This was the case in Bucha. Thousands of times. Everyone must react. Every leader.
Don’t expect it to be forgotten. That time will pass. We are not going to forget anything. Neither are we going to forgive the murderers. There will be legal responsibility for everything. The defeat of terror is necessary.
No one will understand if the leaders don’t react. Action is required now.
And we in Ukraine must focus on the frontline as much as possible. Help as much as possible. Expel the occupier from our land.
The main goal is to win. The main goal is strength for Ukraine to win. Defeat of the occupier, sentences to murderers. Tribunal for the evil state. Eternal memory to every person whose life was taken by the Russian terror. Glory to all who fight against this evil. Glory to Ukraine.
One video being circulated appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle. A voice says: “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off.”
A second clip, which may have been filmed in summer last year, judging by the appearance of foliage in the clip, claims to show a member of Russian forces using a knife to cut off the head of a Ukrainian soldier.
The Guardian has not independently verified the origins and veracity of the two videos, but Ukrainian authorities are treating them as genuine.
Updated
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has issued an update on casualties there on Telegram. He posted:
On 11 April, it became known about one dead resident of Donetsk region – in Vugledar. In addition, eight people in the region were injured. Currently, it is impossible to establish the exact number of victims in Mariupol and Volnovakha.
The claims have not been independently verified.
A quick snap from Reuters that Britain added 11 new designations to its Russia-related sanctions list, an update to the government website showed on Wednesday morning.
Updated
Russian official: we will not tolerate US 'attempts to pressure us' over Gershkovich
A senior Russian official said on Wednesday that the US designation of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” meant nothing to Russia and would not change its approach to his case, Reuters reports, citing Russia’s Tass news agency.
Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia was currently considering granting US diplomats consular access to Gershkovich, who has so far had only minimal contact with his legal team since his detention two weeks ago. But he criticised US attempts to “pressure” Moscow over the issue.
“We will not tolerate any attempts to pressure us, and it has no significance what status they assign to this person in Washington. We will act in accordance with our own internal needs, norms and laws that apply in this situation, and nothing more,” Tass quoted Ryabkov as saying.
Biden spoke to Gershkovich’s family by telephone on Tuesday and said Washington was doing “everything in its power” to secure Gershkovich’s release. He is the first American reporter jailed in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the cold war.
A Moscow court next week will hear an appeal by Gershkovich’s legal team against a ruling that he be held in pre-trial detention at Moscow’s Lefortovo prison until at least 29 May.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has added his words to Ukraine’s diplomatic efforts with India. In a message posted to Telegram, he writes:
We are fortunate to have warm diplomatic relations with India, and I believe I am right in saying that our views are similar in two important respects.
Firstly, we did not seek war with the Russian Federation. Just like India, we only fight when we are attacked. Second, we share India’s belief that the world has been experiencing an imbalance of international institutions for a long time.
Russia has discredited itself as a permanent member of the UN security council, undermining global faith in the outdated structure.
Russia kills Ukrainians, kidnaps children, commits genocide of our people. The council was created after the second world war with the mission of maintaining world peace, a task it clearly failed to accomplish.
However long it takes to rid the world of Russian crimes, [Indian prime minister] Modi’s UN reform campaign deserves success. Ukraine also wholeheartedly supports the theme of India’s current chairmanship of the G20, proposed by Modi.
Modi has frequently called for reform of the UN’s decision-making bodies, including a request that India be added as a permanent member of the UN security council.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, is reporting that the official number of people known to have died in a shelling of Slovyansk on 27 March has increased. It cites head of the city’s administration, Vadym Lyakh, saying:
At that time, we had 36 wounded and two dead residents of the community. On that day, two residents of the Slovyansk community were seriously wounded. Unfortunately, two of them died in the hospital. As of today, in relation to that shelling, we have: four dead and 34 wounded.
Associated Press today has a feature on people in Ukraine who are in need of mental health treatment after months of war.
There are hundreds of thousands of people in this situation, experts say, and the number of people needing psychological help is only expected to rise as the war continues.
AP journalist Elena Becatoros spoke to 20-year-old Nastya in Kramatorsk. The war changed everything for her overnight. There is a before – a life of simple pleasures, of going for coffee and laughing with friends. And an after.
“You wake up with the feeling that you are just surrounded by horrors, anxieties, surrounded by constant air raid sirens, flying planes, helicopters,” she said. “You’re simply in a closed circle which is not filled with the happy times of before, but with great fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of dying here and now.”
“After today’s shelling, I could no longer cope with anxiety, the feeling of constant danger,” speech therapy student Nastya said, giving only her first name to talk about the difficult decision to seek mental health care. The stigma of Soviet-era psychiatry, when dissidents were incarcerated in psychiatric institutions as a form of punishment, still lingers.
“I just realised that my psychological health is much more important,” she said.
In December, the World Health Organization said one in five people in countries that have experienced conflict in the past decade will experience a mental health condition, and estimated that about 9.6 million people in Ukraine could be affected.
Russia’s invasion in February 2022 resulted in millions of people being displaced, bereaved, forced into basements for months due to incessant shelling or enduring harrowing journeys from Russian-occupied regions.
The psychiatric hospital in the city also bears the scars of war after being repeatedly bombed, including by a missile that destroyed part of the building last September. But the staff swept up the shattered glass, shoveled away the debris and carried on working, determined to stay in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, to help those in need.
Message us your views
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A little more here from Reuters on Emine Dzhaparova’s visit to India. Ukraine’s first deputy minister of foreign affairs was on a four day trip. [See 6.24 BST]
Dzhaparova, in comments to media during her visit, said Ukraine wanted India to be more involved in helping resolve the conflict and Ukraine looked forward to welcoming prime minister Narendra Modi to Kyiv “one day”.
India holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 and Dzhaparova said Ukraine expected India to invite Ukrainian officials to G20 events and that Zelenskiy would be keen to address a G20 Summit in New Delhi in September, as he did by video during the grouping’s last summit in Indonesia.
The Indian ministry did not refer to these requests in its statement.
India has not been as critical of its old ally Russia as some other countries for its invasion and it has increased its purchases of Russian oil. It has sought a diplomatic solution to the conflict while Modi, in comments seen as mildly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told him in September that now was “not an era of war”.
Luke Harding reports from Ukraine for the Guardian:
On Tuesday no vessels were cleared to travel using the Black Sea grain initiative, after Russia scrubbed out the names of three ships, submitted by the Ukrainian side, as they returned home.
Ukraine’s deputy infrastructure minister for seaports and maritime, Yurii Vaskov described the situation as “critical”. “Russia is violating the conditions of the deal. They decided to change the plans of Ukrainian ports. This is unacceptable,” he said. The Kremlin was ratcheting up “pressure” because it wanted the west to drop sanctions that impact its agricultural sector, he said.
Vaskov warned that if the deal collapsed global food prices would rise by 15 per cent. More than half of Ukraine’s grain exports – 6-7 million tonnes a month – went by sea, he said. On Tuesday the UN said it was talking intensively to the “parties”. “It is in everyone’s interests to keep the initiative going,” it stressed, saying it benefited “millions of vulnerable and low-income households around the world”.
Fifty Ukrainian vessels are currently in an inbound queue.
The World Bank is ready to play its role in rebuilding Ukraine after the devastation of Russia’s invasion, but the numbers are too large for international financial institutions alone and western European countries will have to chip in, World Bank President David Malpass said on Tuesday.
Updated
Leaked documents show Serbia agreed to supply arms to Kyiv
Serbia, one of the only countries in Europe that has refused to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or has sent them already, according to a classified Pentagon document.
The document, a summary of European governments’ responses to Ukraine’s requests for military training and “lethal aid” or weapons, was among dozens of classified documents posted online in recent weeks in what could be the most serious leak of US secrets in years.
The document “Response to ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict” in chart form lists the “assessed positions” of 38 European governments in response to Ukraine’s requests for military assistance.
The chart showed that Serbia declined to provide training to Ukrainian forces, but had committed to sending lethal aid or had supplied it already. It also said Serbia had the political will and military ability to provide weapons to Ukraine in the future.
The document has not been verified.
This block was amended at 14.45 BST to say that Serbia was one of the only European countries not to have imposed sanctions on Russia, not the only European country not to do so.
Updated
Ukraine has asked India for additional medicines and medical equipment, the South Asian country’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
The request came during the three-day visit to India by Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova, when she met the junior foreign minister, Meenakshi Lekhi, a statement from the Indian foreign ministry said.
“The Ukrainian Deputy FM also proposed that rebuilding infrastructure in Ukraine could be an opportunity for Indian companies,” the statement said.
US will 'turn over every rock' until source of document leak found
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday said the United States will investigate the recent purported leak of classified documents until the source is found.
“We will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it,” Austin said during a press conference at the state department.
Investigators are working to determine what person or group might have had the ability and motivation to release the intelligence reports. The leaks could be the most damaging release of US government information since the 2013 publication of thousands of documents on WikiLeaks.
Milancy Harris, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, is leading the Pentagon’s review to assess the potential impact of the leaked documents, a U.S. official told Reuters.
Some of the most sensitive information is purportedly related to Ukraine’s military capabilities and shortcomings, and one document mentions the small number of western special forces troops in the country.
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the disclosure of the documents.
Russia ‘risks becoming economic colony of China’ as isolation deepens, says CIA director
Russia risks becoming an “economic colony” of China as its isolation from the West deepens after the invasion of Ukraine, CIA Director William Burns said on Tuesday.
“Russia is becoming more and more dependent on China and, in some respects, runs the risk of becoming an economic colony of China over time, dependent for export of energy resources and raw materials,” Burns said at an event at Rice University in Houston.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.
Our top story this morning: Russia risks becoming an “economic colony” of China as its isolation from the West deepens following the invasion of Ukraine, CIA Director William Burns said on Tuesday.
More on this shortly. Here are the other key recent developments:
US intelligence reportedly warned Ukraine in February that it might fail to amass sufficient troops and weaponry for its planned spring counter-offensive, and might fall “well short” of Kyiv’s goals for recapturing territory seized by Russia, according to a trove of leaked defence documents.
The same leaked US military documents indicate that the UK has deployed as many as 50 special forces to Ukraine. The documents suggest that more than half of the western special forces personnel present in Ukraine between February and March this year may have been British. It is unclear what activities the special forces may have been engaged in or whether the numbers of personnel have been maintained at this level.
The US intelligence documents appear to indicate that Egypt was planning to covertly supply Russia with rockets and munitions. A document dated 17 February is claimed to summarise conversations between President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and senior Egyptian military officials in which Sisi instructs officials to keep the production and shipment of rockets secret “to avoid problems with the west”.
Ukraine needs more long-range weapons and “less contemplation on leaks”, said the senior presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, referring to the recent leak of Pentagon documents.
No ships were inspected on Tuesday under the Ukraine Black Sea grain deal “as the parties needed more time to reach an agreement on operational priorities,” the United Nations said, adding that routine inspections were due to resume on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for the Ukrainian armed forces has denied a claim by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group, who said Russian forces now controlled more than 80% of Bakhmut city. “I can confidently state that the Ukrainian defence forces control a much larger percentage of the territory of Bakhmut,” Serhii Cherevatyi said.
The World Bank is ready to play its role in rebuilding Ukraine after the devastation of Russia’s invasion, but the numbers are too large for international financial institutions alone and western European countries will have to chip in, World Bank President David Malpass said on Tuesday.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Tuesday Russia’s detention of Evan Gershkovich would “do even more damage to Russia’s standing around the world.” The Kremlin, appearing to pre-judge any judicial hearing, said on Tuesday that the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich had “violated Russian law” and been caught “red-handed”, after the US state department officially designated him as having been “wrongfully detained” by Russia.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva left for China, where he aims to convince President Xi Jinping to form a group of nations to mediate an end to the war.
Russia’s lower house of parliament has voted unanimously to introduce electronic callup papers via an online portal for the first time. The State Duma gave its preliminary approval to changes in the law that are intended to facilitate mobilisation, as Russia seeks to make it harder to avoid the draft. Changes to the legislation would mean that once an electronic summons is received, citizens who fail to show up at the military enlistment office are automatically banned from travelling abroad.
Russia may see a sharply wider budget deficit and a smaller current account surplus this year, while global isolation and lower energy revenues dampen economic growth for years to come, the IMF said.
Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, has announced new agreements to ensure the country’s continued access to Russian energy, a sign of the country’s continuing diplomatic and trade ties with Moscow amid the war in Ukraine.
The Russian-appointed leader of Crimea has said Moscow’s forces are ready for a possible Ukrainian assault, days after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reaffirmed Kyiv’s intention to take back the Black Sea peninsula that Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Almost 8,500 civilians are confirmed to have been killed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a UN body has said, with many thousands more unverified deaths feared. The Office of the UN high commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has described its figures as “the tip of the iceberg” because of its limited access to battle zones.
A Danish decision on whether to supply western fighter jets to Ukraine is likely to take place “before the summer”, Denmark’s acting defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, has said. Discussions are taking time because countries have to act together, Poulsen said during a visit to Ukraine.
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has pledged fresh military support for Ukraine after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Denys Shmyhal. Canada will send 21,000 assault rifles, 38 machine guns and 2.4m rounds of ammunition to Ukraine and impose sanctions on 14 Russian individuals and 34 entities.
