Summary
Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
In a video address on Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the US and Joe Biden for the provision of landmines to Ukrainian troops, calling it “essential … to stop Russian assaults”. In addition to the landmines – which aid groups have widely criticized due to their impact on civilians – the latest $275m US aid package includes drones, Himars ammunitions and artillery.
Various aid groups have expressed criticisms to Agence France-Presse over the US’s decision to send landmines to Ukraine, the outlet reports. Alma Taslidžan of Handicap International said that they “cannot distinguish between combatants and civilians” while Tamar Gabelnick, head of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, called the US’s decision “unconscionable”.
Four Latin American countries have issued a joint statement in which they called to “avoid actions that would escalate the arms race” in the Ukraine-Russia war, Agence France-Presse reports. The four countries – Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico – said that such actions would “aggravate the conflict”.
Ukraine has fired UK-made Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, the Guardian understands according to multiple sources. The decision to approve the strikes was made in response to the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine in what UK and US officials have warned was a major escalation of the nearly three-year-old conflict.
US and Ukrainian officials have confirmed Kyiv employed US-made Atacms missiles to strike targets within Russia. The Kremlin stated that six missiles were launched at the town of Karachev, with fragments from one reportedly causing a significant explosion.
Sergey Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, was quoted in Russian media on Wednesday as saying that attempts by Nato countries to strike inside Russia would not go “unpunished”. Elsewhere, the chief of staff in Belarus, Pavel Muraveiko, described US moves to allow Ukraine to deploy longer-range missiles and anti-personnel mines as “irresponsible”.
Staff at the Irish embassy in Ukraine have been told to work from home as tensions continue to escalate in the region. It follows from the US shutting its own embassy in Kyiv because of a “potential significant air attack” by Russian president Vladimir Putin’s forces. Italy, Spain and Greece also closed their embassies in Kyiv today, according to Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster.
In the early afternoon, the Ukrainian air force told people to seek shelter because of a missile threat. Senior officials told people not to ignore the alert. That came shortly before Kyiv’s top military spy agency GUR issued a warning about a Russian psychological operation it said involved fake messages claiming to have been sent by the agency.
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed that Ukraine lost 400 service personnel on the Kursk front in the last 24 hours. The ministry gave a detailed list of western-supplied Ukrainian equipment it had destroyed. The claims have not been independently verified.
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Amnesty International has condemned the US decision to send anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine as part of the latest aid package, calling it “reckless” and a “setback” in the fight against the use of landmines.
In a statement, Amnesty spokesperson Ben Linden said: “It is devastating, and frankly shocking, that President Biden made such a consequential and dangerous decision just before his public service legacy is sealed for the history books.”
Linden urged Biden to reconsider the decision, adding: “Anti-personnel landmines are inherently indiscriminate weapons that maim and kill civilians long after conflicts end and shouldn’t have a place in the arsenal of any country. Even the ‘non-persistent’ mines are a threat to civilians.”
The US is not a signatory to the 1997 Mine Ban treaty but has not exported anti-personnel mines since 1992.
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