Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has made a second visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine amid an escalation in the fighting around it. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA director general, was shown around the plant by Russian occupying forces and officials, telling reporters: “It is obvious that military activity is increasing in this whole region, so every possible measure and precautions should be taken so that the plant is not attacked.
Russia has stopped informing the US about its nuclear activities, including missile test launches, after Moscow suspended its participation in the New Start arms control treaty last month, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said. The White House on Tuesday said the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging some data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.
Russia began exercises with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system and several thousand of troops, its defence ministry said on Wednesday. Vladimir Putin has aimed to make the Yars missile system, which replaced the Topol system, part of Russia’s “invincible weapons” and the mainstay of the ground-based component of its nuclear arsenal.
The German government has agreed to send an additional €12bn worth of military support to Ukraine. The Bundestag’s budget committee gave the green light on Wednesday for about €8bn to be spent directly on purchasing weapons and equipment for Ukraine. The other €4bn will go to the German military to replenish stocks. Spain will send six Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine after the Easter holiday, the Spanish defence minister Margarita Robles said on Wednesday.
An explosion has been reported near a Russian military airbase in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, according to footage shared on social media. The Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, posted to Telegram that “a UAV [drone] was shot down in the Simferopol region” and that there were “no casualties or damage”.
Ukrainian forces have reportedly shelled the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol, south of the Zaporizhzhia region, and Russian media reported on Wednesday that as a result, the city’s power supply had been cut. Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March last year, said on the Telegram messaging app that several explosions had gone off in the city.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner group, has said the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut has “practically destroyed” the Ukrainian army but that his forces have also been “badly damaged”.
Vladimir Putin has conceded that sanctions imposed on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine could bring about “negative” consequences for the country. Putin, in a televised meeting with the government, insisted Moscow was adapting to the penalties and that unemployment “remains at an all-time low”.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Putin is an “informationally isolated person” who had “lost everything” over the last year of war. “He doesn’t have allies,” Zelenskiy said, adding that it was clear to him that even China was no longer willing to back Russia, despite Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow. Zelenskiy also extended an invitation to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to visit Ukraine. “We are ready to see him here. I want to speak with him.”
Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed 20 Patriot batteries to protect against Russian missiles, and even that may not be enough “as no country in the world was attacked with so many ballistic rockets”. He added that a European nation sent another air defence system to Ukraine, but it didn’t work and they “had to change it again and again”. He did not name the country.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, has urged Russians not to adopt children who she said were “stolen” from her country during the war and deported to Russia. Vereshchuk, posting to Telegram, said orphans had been “stolen in Ukraine” and allegedly given up for adoption in Russia.
Poland has urged the EU to limit the amount of Ukrainian grain entering the bloc’s market, its prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said, amid anger among farmers over the effect of imports on Polish grain prices.
Ukraine’s sports ministry has condemned what it said was a partial change of position by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in international competitions as neutrals. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described the IOC’s decision as “shameful”.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog today. We’ll be back tomorrow. Thank you for following.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has made a second visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine amid an escalation in the fighting around it.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA director general, was shown around the plant by Russian occupying forces and officials, telling reporters:
It is obvious that military activity is increasing in this whole region, so every possible measure and precautions should be taken so that the plant is not attacked.
“I think it’s no secret that there is a significant increase in the number of troops in the region, and there is open talk about offensive and counter offensives,” he added.
The plant is on the south bank of the Dnieper river, which forms the frontline at a time when Russian forces have attempted to conduct a series of offensives and Ukraine is widely expected to launch a counter-offensive in the coming months.
Grossi was accompanying three IAEA inspectors who will replace an outgoing monitoring team and are due to stay at the site for the next two months, the seventh team to take up the rotating role since the agency’s presence was accepted by Kyiv and Moscow.
The director general is also in Zaporizhzhia to continue efforts to negotiate protections for the plant, which would require the agreement of Ukrainian and Russian forces not to fire in or out of the area.
“There have been different concepts that we have been working on. Initially we were focusing on the possibility of the establishment of a well-determined zone around the plant. Now the concept is evolving and refocusing more on the protection itself and the things that should be avoided,” he said on Wednesday. “It is a work in progress.”
