Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, has said Europe has to move into “war economy mode”, warning that the bloc needed to produce “more, faster and together as Europeans” as part of a new defence industrial strategy.
Breton, the EU’s industrial chief, said in Brussels that European defence must “change the paradigm … This also means the European defence industry must take more risks, with our support by giving them greater visibility”.
Unveiling the strategy, Breton said Europe had to “take greater responsibility for its own security”, building a defence capability that “allows us to act together with our allies, but also autonomously. We must establish the European pillar of Nato”.
He said the bloc had already increased its industrial base for artillery ammunition production to 1m units a year and would double that figure in 2025. The same now needed to happen for all other necessary defence and security equipment, he said.
“For a credible European defence, we must also have adequate budgetary ambition,” Breton added, potentially including, within the next 12 months, “ad hoc and additional investment in defence, in the order of €100bn”.
Breton said last month he was targeting an overall budget of €3bn as part of the new scheme to ramp up production, inspired by last year’s procurement programme to help deliver artillery shells to Ukraine and amid geopolitical uncertainties.
Closing summary
It has just gone 6pm in Kyiv and 7pm in Moscow. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Russia and Ukraine coverage here.
Here is a recap of today’s latest developments:
Yulia Navalnaya, wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, on Wednesday urged European politicians and officials to investigate financial flows in the west linked to Russian president Vladimir Putin and his allies. “Putin is the leader of an organised criminal gang. This includes poisoners and assassins but they’re just puppets. The most important thing is the people close to Putin – his friends, associates and keepers of mafia money,” she told the European parliament in Strasbourg.
The EU should consider using profits from frozen Russian assets to buy military supplies for Ukraine, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. Von der Leyen also told the European parliament in a speech that the threat of war for the EU “may not be imminent, but it is not impossible”.
The funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died earlier this month in a remote Arctic penal colony, will take place on Friday in Moscow after several locations declined to host the service, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said. “Come in advance,” Yarmish wrote on X. However, it remains unclear whether the authorities will allow mourners to gather freely at the funeral on Friday.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for Balkan allies to assist the country through joint arms production at a two-day summit in Albania. “We are interested in co-production with you and all our partners,” Zelenskiy told top delegations from Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and Moldova in his opening remarks at the summit. Zelenskiy arrived in the Albanian capital of Tirana on Wednesday for the summit.
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday the government was mulling a “temporary” closure of the border with Ukraine for goods, amid tensions over low-priced Ukrainian grain. “We are talking with the Ukrainian side about a temporary closure of the border, the cessation in general of trade,” Tusk told reporters. “I will also discuss this with Polish farmers tomorrow. This solution would only be temporary … and mutually painful,” he added.
Russian attacks against Ukraine killed one person and injured another on Tuesday, regional authorities reported. Multiple localities in Zaporizhzhia were attacked, said its governor Ivan Fedorov.
The UK said on Wednesday that how Kyiv uses donated cruise missiles is “the business of the armed forces of Ukraine,” after comments by Germany’s Olaf Scholz about possible UK and French involvement in targeting. The UK prime minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson on Tuesday told reporters that the UK has “a small number of personnel in country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine, including for medical training”. But the MoD declined to provide further details.
Emmanuel Macron has faced criticism from France’s Nato and EU partners and a warning of conflict from Russia after he suggested it might be necessary to send ground troops to Ukraine. After a high-level meeting in Paris of mainly European partners to discuss what urgent steps could be taken to shore up Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s recent frontline advances, the French president had told a press conference he did not rule out sending troops.
The committee that decides the winner of the Nobel peace prize, said on Wednesday that the sentencing of human rights campaigner Oleg Orlov in Russia to a prison term was an attempt to “silence” critics. The 70-year-old Orlov – a key figure of the Nobel prize-winning Memorial group – was sentenced to two and a half years in jail for denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will attend a diplomacy forum in Turkey from Friday, the countries’ governments said. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Lavrov will meet Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan at the gathering.
Ensuring Ukraine’s success against Russia is “the biggest test of our generation”, the UK’s Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said on Wednesday. He added: “At the G20 foreign ministers meeting it was clear there are few illusions about what Russia is doing and that the UN and Britain underlined how dangerous Putin’s actions are for the entire world.”
“Britain will support Ukraine until it prevails,” the UK shadow foreign secretary David Lammy has said. Lammy also urged the government to turn “rhetoric on seizure into action” in relation to frozen Russian assets and welcomed the government highlighting the case of Russian-British journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
The Russian defence ministry claimed on Wednesday that its forces had captured Petrovske, formerly renamed by Ukraine as Stepove, in eastern Ukraine, according to the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.
Russian drones and S-300 missiles attacked Ukraine over Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Ukraine’s air force said. All 10 drones were shot down, claimed the air force. It did not say whether the missiles reached their targets.
A court in southern Russia jailed a Ukrainian man for 11 years and six months after convicting him of espionage for trying to procure secret missile components for Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday.
The Russian-backed breakaway region of Transdniestria asked Russia at a congress of senior officials on Tuesday to help protect it from what it what described as concerted pressure on its economy by the Moldovan government.
The US embassy in Russia said on Wednesday that US consular officials have visited Paul Whelan, a US Marine Corps veteran who is imprisoned in Russia for espionage, in prison in the Mordovia region.
China’s Eurasia envoy Li Hui will visit Russia, Ukraine and the headquarters of the EU this week for talks. The trip will represent “the second round of shuttle diplomacy on seeking a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis”, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding Li would also go to France, Germany and Poland.
Ukraine is expected to remain short of ammunition and on the back foot in its war with Russia for several months until the west agrees further steps to support Kyiv, the head of Britain’s armed forces has acknowledged. Adm Sir Tony Radakin, speaking at a conference in London, did not directly comment on a French suggestion of deploying western ground troops in Ukraine, but instead emphasised an urgent need to increase industrial assistance.
Updated
Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has said she was not sure Navalny’s funeral would be peaceful during a speech at the European parliament in Strasbourg.
Navalny’s family and allies have accused the Kremlin of delaying the handover of his body and “blackmailing” his mother into agreeing to a private funeral without the general public in attendance. Navalnaya called the Russian president “a bloody monster”. You can watch and listen to her speech to the EU parliament here:
Poland is considering a 'temporary' border closure with Ukraine for goods, says Donald Tusk
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday the government was mulling a “temporary” closure of the border with Ukraine for goods, amid tensions over low-priced Ukrainian grain, reports AFP.
“We are talking with the Ukrainian side about a temporary closure of the border, the cessation in general of trade,” Tusk told reporters. “I will also discuss this with Polish farmers tomorrow. This solution would only be temporary … and mutually painful,” he added.
Polish farmers have been blocking border crossings with Ukraine and other highways to protest at what they say is unfair competition from goods entering the Polish market from their war-torn neighbour.
“I am prepared to take even a firm decision when it comes to the border with Ukraine, always in consultation with Kyiv, so that there won’t be any unnecessary tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv,” Tusk said. “But we have to find a long-term solution.”
Russia has blocked crucial Black Sea trade routes used by Ukraine to export its farm produce.
In a bid to help Kyiv economically after the Russian invasion, the EU decided in 2022 to drop tariffs on Ukrainian goods transiting the 27-nation bloc by road. But logistical problems mean much of Ukraine’s cereal exports has accumulated in EU-member Poland, undercutting local producers.
Poland’s ties with Ukraine have become increasingly strained over the border blockades and the grain dispute, with at least four incidents of Polish farmers spilling Ukrainian grain from lorries and freight trains.
On Sunday, eight train carriages carrying Ukrainian corn were prised open and tonnes of grain spilled on to rail tracks, reports AFP. Kyiv urged Warsaw to put an end to “impunity” over the “acts of vandalism”.
Ensuring Ukraine’s success against Russia is 'the biggest test of our generation', says UK Foreign Office minister
Ensuring Ukraine’s success against Russia is “the biggest test of our generation”, the UK’s Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said, reports PA.
Speaking on Wednesday, he told the House of Commons:
It speaks volumes about this neo-imperialist bully that [Russian president Vladimir Putin] still stubbornly continues despite the cost to Ukraine and his own people.
In recent months Putin sent around 50,000 young Russians to their deaths, to take Avdiivka, a town whose prewar population was just 35,000. We must, and will, ensure he fails for this is the biggest test of our generation.”
He added: “At the G20 foreign ministers meeting it was clear there are few illusions about what Russia is doing and that the UN and Britain underlined how dangerous Putin’s actions are for the entire world.”
Mitchell further stated:
All these efforts are having an impact. The EU has agreed a €50bn multi-year funding package, Germany has doubled its military aid and in the coming weeks we expect several more of our partners to sign bilateral security agreements with Ukraine. And we will keep up, and step up the pressure.
And there is more we can do. That means ensuring we use sanctions to stop businesses funding Putin’s war machine and engaging other countries to do the same. Pursuing all lawful routes to use sanctioned Russian assets across the G7 to support Ukraine and working with partners to achieve this.”
Updated
“Britain will support Ukraine until it prevails,” the UK shadow foreign secretary David Lammy has said.
According to the Press Association (PA), he told the House of Commons:
Last week marks two years since the start of Putin’s full scale illegal invasion of Ukraine. The bombed cities, the raped civilians and the children kidnapped to Russia show the barbarity of Putin’s rogue regime. Ukraine’s resilience in the face of hell is testament to their enormous courage.”
He added: “This war has to be a wake-up call to all of Europe, there is more we, along with our allies, must do together.”
The MP for Tottenham further stated:
More sanctions are welcome but enforcement remains the weak link. Last December an OFSI report showed that there had been zero enforcement measures for post-February 2022 sanction breaches in relation to Russia.”
Lammy also urged the government to turn “rhetoric on seizure into action” in relation to frozen Russian assets and welcomed the government highlighting the case of Russian-British journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
He said: “Over the weekend there were reports of members of parliament in this House concerned this government was not taking the lead on efforts to secure [Kara-Murza’s] release from Russian prison. Can the minister reassure us by outlining the strategy and steps ministers are now taking before it’s too late?”
With a government shutdown looming and Ukraine desperate for Washington’s aid, the House returns to session on Wednesday to face a towering to-do list and strong objections from the Republican right flank.
Congressional leaders worked frantically to reach a deal ahead of the 1 March deadline to avert a partial government shutdown that could shutter vital services in several key departments, temporarily endangering access to federal food assistance programs and federal housing vouchers.
On Tuesday, Joe Biden summoned to the White House the the top four congressional leaders – the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson; the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer; the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell; and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries – to discuss a funding deal and the president’s push for a wartime aid package that would allocate $60bn to Ukraine’s fight against Russia. It would also provide $14.1bn in security assistance for Israel and $9.2bn in humanitarian assistance for civilians in war zones.
According to Reuters, the US embassy in Russia said on Wednesday that US consular officials have visited Paul Whelan, a US Marine Corps veteran who is imprisoned in Russia for espionage, in prison in the Mordovia region.
UK's Ministry of Defence says it is Ukraine’s 'business' how donated cruise missiles are used
The UK said on Wednesday that how Kyiv uses donated cruise missiles is “the business of the armed forces of Ukraine,” after comments by Germany’s Olaf Scholz about possible UK and French involvement in targeting, reports AFP.
The UK was the first country to provide the longer-range weapons to the Ukrainian military following Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, announcing last May that it would send the country air-launched Storm Shadow missiles. France and other allies have followed suit and are now sending Kyiv cruise missiles.
But, according to AFP, London has not confirmed what, if any, roles UK military personnel may play assisting Ukraine with their operational use and in targeting choices. “Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow and its targeting processes are the business of the armed forces of Ukraine,” a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson said in a statement to the news agency.
“The UK, along with other allies, is providing a range of equipment to Ukraine to help it counter Russia’s illegal and unprovoked aggression.”
It follows German leader Scholz saying on Monday that Berlin could not emulate the UK and France in sending long-range weapons to Ukraine and supporting the weapon system’s deployment.
He has repeatedly refused to provide German Taurus missiles, fearing they could be used to hit targets deep within Russia. “This is a very long-range weapon, and what the British and French are doing in terms of targeting and supporting targeting cannot be done in Germany,” Scholz said.
“In my view, it would be unjustifiable if we were to participate in targeting in the same way,” he added, without specifying what he meant by that.
In its statement, the MoD said Ukraine’s use of the long-range weapons sent has been “fundamental in its defence of its territory”. It has “changed the strategic picture by successfully putting pressure on Russian forces and their logistics and supply routes,” it added.
The UK prime minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson on Tuesday told reporters that the UK has “a small number of personnel in country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine, including for medical training”. But the MoD declined to provide further details, while noting the UK continued to train Ukrainian forces as part of a scheme which has schooled more than 35,000 such personnel in the UK since June 2022.
“There are no plans for UK troops to fight alongside the Ukrainian armed forces, but we remain actively engaged with allies and partners on how best to support Ukraine,” the ministry added.
Updated
Russia foreign minister to attend Turkey diplomacy forum
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will attend a diplomacy forum in Turkey from Friday, the countries’ governments said, following criticism of Ankara over its support for Moscow during the Ukraine war, reports AFP.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Lavrov will meet Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan at the gathering and Turkish ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli confirmed as much to AFP.
The Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF) in southern Turkey began in 2021 as a place for policymakers, businessmen, researchers and academics to exchange ideas and views on diplomacy, policy and business.
Lavrov, an Antalya participant in 2022, just weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, last visited Turkey in April last year, when he met Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara.
The Russian-backed breakaway region of Transdniestria asked Russia at a congress of senior officials on Tuesday to help protect it from what it what described as concerted pressure on its economy by the Moldovan government.
“There is social and economic pressure on Transdniestria, which directly contradicts European principles and approaches to the protection of human rights and free trade,” read the text of a resolution from the meeting, reports Reuters.
This handy explainer gives a bit of background on the Transdniestria.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for Balkan allies to assist the country through joint arms production at a two-day summit in Albania.
“We are interested in co-production with you and all our partners,” Zelenskiy told top delegations from Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and Moldova in his opening remarks at the summit.
“There are about 500 defence companies operating in Ukraine, each of them adds strength but it is not enough to win [against] Putin. We see the problems with the supply of ammunition, which affects the situation on the battlefield.”
Zelenskiy proposed organising a Ukrainian-Balkans defence forum in Kyiv or a Balkan capital to nurture arms cooperation, repeating similar initiatives conducted last year with British and US weapons companies.
Here is a video of the speech Ursula von der Leyen gave earlier. Addressing MEPs in the European parliament, the president of the European Commission, said that the EU should consider using frozen Russian assets to buy military supplies for Ukraine.
You can watch it here and listen to her speech:
Yulia Navalnaya urges European lawmakers to investigate financial flows in the west linked to Putin
Yulia Navalnaya, wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, on Wednesday urged European politicians and officials to investigate financial flows in the west linked to Russian president Vladimir Putin and his allies, reports Reuters.
Navalnaya was speaking to the European parliament in Strasbourg, 12 days after her husband died suddenly in a Russian penal colony. Reuters report that she was greeted with a standing ovation.
“Putin is the leader of an organised criminal gang. This includes poisoners and assassins but they’re just puppets. The most important thing is the people close to Putin – his friends, associates and keepers of mafia money,” she said.
She added:
You and all of us must fight the criminal gang. And the political innovation here is to apply the methods of fighting organised crime, not political competition. Not statements of concern but the search for mafia associates in your countries, for discreet lawyers and financiers who are helping Putin and his friends to hide money.”
Navalnaya has accused Putin of having her husband killed, an allegation the Kremlin has rejected. She has promised to continue his work, urging Russians to share her rage against Putin, and has met western politicians, including US president Joe Biden last week.
In reference to her husband’s funeral, Navalnaya said she was not sure whether the service would be peaceful or whether the police would make arrests.
Updated
My colleague, Pjotr Sauer has more details on the plans for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s funeral on Friday. You can read the full piece at the link below:
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s funeral and memorial service will be held on Friday in Moscow, his spokesperson, Kira Yarmish, has announced.
The funeral will be held at the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow after a farewell ceremony at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in the Maryino district of the Russian capital.
Ivan Zhdanov, another close Navalny ally, said his team was unable to find a venue where his supporters could publicly bid him farewell later this week. The event was supposed to be separate from the funeral service. Zhdanov said his team initially found a hall but were then pressured into holding a closed remembrance service without the public.
“Come in advance,” Yarmish wrote on X. However, it remains unclear whether the authorities will allow mourners to gather freely at the funeral on Friday.
Funeral of Alexei Navalny to be held on Friday, his spokesperson says
The funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died earlier this month in a remote Arctic penal colony, will take place on Friday in Moscow after several locations declined to host the service, his spokesperson says.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Kira Yarmysh said the funeral would be held at a church in Moscow’s southeast Maryino district on Friday afternoon. The burial is to be at a nearby cemetery.
Navalny died in mid-February in one of Russia’s harshest penal facilities. Russian authorities said the cause of his death at age 47 is still unknown. Many western leaders have said they hold Russian president Vladimir Putin responsible for his death.
Yarmysh spoke of the difficulties encountered in trying to find a site for a “farewell event” for Navalny. Writing on X, she said most venues said they were fully booked, with some “refusing when we mention the surname ‘Navalny’,” and one disclosing that “funeral agencies were forbidden to work with us.”
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said the funeral was initially planned for Thursday – the day of Putin’s annual address to Russia’s federal assembly – but no venue would agree to hold it then.
“The real reason is clear. The Kremlin understands that nobody will need Putin and his message on the day we say farewell to Alexei,” Zhdanov wrote on Telegram.
Updated
Orlov sentence in Russia is an attempt to 'silence’ Putin critics, says Nobel Committee
The committee that decides the winner of the Nobel peace prize, said on Wednesday that the sentencing of human rights campaigner Oleg Orlov in Russia to a prison term was an attempt to “silence” critics, reports AFP.
The 70-year-old Orlov – a key figure of the Nobel prize-winning Memorial group – was sentenced to two and a half years in jail for denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday.
Orlov was accused of discrediting the Russian army in a column written for the French online publication Mediapart, and fined in October after a first trial. The fine was a relatively lenient punishment and prosecutors called for a new trial.
Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, said in a statement that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “regime has for many years tried to silence the leadership of Memorial and other important civil society organisations in Russia”.
“They are now using the war on Ukraine as a pretext to finish the job,” Frydnes said in a statement. “It is important that they won’t succeed,” he added.
In 2022, Memorial was awarded the Nobel peace prize together with Ales Bialiatski from Belarus and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties.
The Nobel committee said that Memorial was honoured for “its outstanding efforts in documenting war crimes, human rights abuses, and the abuse of power in the former Soviet Union as well as in post-Soviet Russia.”
Updated
According to a breaking news line on Reuters, citing the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, the Russian defence ministry are claiming its forces have capture Petrovske in eastern Ukraine. Petrovske was formerly renamed by Ukraine as Stepove.
More details to follow …
Updated
My colleague, the Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh has written on how Ukraine will be on back foot in war for months, according to comments by a UK armed forces chief. You can read more here:
Ukraine is expected to remain short of ammunition and on the back foot in its war with Russia for several months until the west agrees further steps to support Kyiv, the head of Britain’s armed forces has acknowledged.
Adm Sir Tony Radakin, speaking at a conference in London, did not directly comment on a French suggestion of deploying western ground troops in Ukraine, but instead emphasised an urgent need to increase industrial assistance.
The military chief said Ukraine faced a difficult situation on land where its army “was struggling in terms of its ammunition and its stockpiles” with US military aid halted by Republicans in Congress, and Europe not yet able to plug the gap.
The US president, Joe Biden, met congressional leaders in the White House on Tuesday for talks on the Ukraine aid bill, in a meeting described by the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, as intense.
Russian attacks against Ukraine killed one person and injured another on Tuesday, regional authorities reported on Tuesday morning, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Multiple localities in Zaporizhzhia were attacked, said its governor Ivan Fedorov. He said a 76-year-old resident was killed by shelling in the occupied village of Nove in the Polohy district, while an artillery attack on the frontline town of Orikhiv injured a 53-year-old man.
According to Fedorov, Russian forces launched 234 separate attacks at 11 localities over the course of the day. Fedorov said there were 27 reports of damage to residential buildings and infrustructure during the day.
Macron faces EU backlash after suggesting sending troops to Ukraine
My colleagues, Patrick Wintour, Angelique Chrisafis and Miranda Bryant have written on how the French president, Emmanuel Macron faced an EU backlash after suggesting sending troops to Ukraine. You can read more at the link below:
Emmanuel Macron has faced criticism from France’s Nato and EU partners and a warning of conflict from Russia after he suggested it might be necessary to send ground troops to Ukraine.
After a high-level meeting in Paris of mainly European partners to discuss what urgent steps could be taken to shore up Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s recent frontline advances, the French president told a press conference he did not rule out sending troops.
He said he accepted no consensus existed for the plan, but in a taboo-breaking move he said nothing should be ruled out to achieve the defeat of Russia and the maintenance of security in Europe. “Today there is no consensus about sending ground troops in an official way, standing up for it and taking responsibility for it,” he said.
Reuters have published some more detail on the comments made today by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in which she said the EU should consider using frozen Russian asset profits for Ukraine’s military.
According to Reuters, von der Leyen said the threat of war for the EU “may not be imminent, but it is not impossible”. “The risks of war should not be overblown, but they should be prepared for and that starts with the urgent need to rebuild, replenish, modernise member states’ armed forces,” she said.
In her speech, von der Leyen previewed a new European industrial defence strategy that her commission will present in the coming weeks, saying one of its main aims would be to prioritise joint procurement.
“Europe should strive to develop and manufacture the next generation of battle-winning operational capabilities,” she said. “That means turbo-charging our defence industrial capacity in the next five years.”
She said greater European efforts in defence would not diminish the need for the Nato alliance. “In fact, a more sovereign Europe, in particular on defence, is vital to strengthening Nato,” she said.
A court in southern Russia has jailed a Ukrainian man for 11 years and six months after convicting him of espionage for trying to procure secret missile components for Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Russian news agencies cited Russia’s FSB security service as saying that the man, who it named as 57-year-old Sergei Krivitsky, was an agent for Ukrainian military intelligence. They did not say whether he pleaded guilty or not.
The FSB was cited as saying that he had tried to buy secret components for Russia’s S-300 surface to air missile system in order to smuggle them into Ukraine.
The FSB said Krivitsky was a resident of Melitopol, a Ukrainian city taken by Russian forces in early 2022 as part of what Moscow calls its special military operation. Moscow says Melitopol is now part of Russia, something Kyiv and the west reject.
In 2023, Russia opened 31 espionage cases and 98 treason cases, the highest number since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
Updated
Zelenskiy arrives in Albania for southeastern Europe summit
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has arrived in the Albanian capital of Tirana, where he will attend a summit with countries of the western Balkans and hold bilateral meetings with their leaders, his office said.
Kyiv is seeking international support for a Zelenskiy peace plan as Russia’s invasion drags into its third year and Ukrainian troops struggle to hold ground against Russian attacks.
“I will propose supporting Ukraine’s efforts to achieve [a] just and lasting peace, as well as organising the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland,” the Ukrainian leader said in a statement, reports Reuters.
Today I am working in Tirana. I will meet Ukraine's unwavering friend, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, and attend the Ukraine-South-East Europe summit.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 28, 2024
In our bilateral talks with the Prime Minister and his team, we will discuss defense and political cooperation, support for…
Zelenskiy, who was in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, is scheduled to meet Albanian prime minister Edi Rama as well as the leaders of Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Montenegro.
Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro are Nato members and have joined western sanctions against Russia and sent weapons and equipment to Ukraine.
“A pivotal moment for fostering bilateral ties, and standing in solidarity with Ukraine in its heroic fight against Russia’s aggression,” Albanian foreign minister Igli Hasani wrote on X shortly after Zelenskiy’s arrival.
EU should consider using frozen Russian asset profits for Ukraine's military, says European Commission president
The EU should consider using profits from frozen Russian assets to buy military supplies for Ukraine, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday, reports news agency Reuters.
“It is time to start a conversation about using the windfall profits of frozen Russian assets to jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine,” she told the European parliament in a speech urging the EU to do more on defence policy.
She added: “There could be no stronger symbol and no greater use for that money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live.”
China says envoy to visit Ukraine, Russia and EU states this week
China’s Eurasia envoy Li Hui will visit Russia, Ukraine and the headquarters of the EU this week for talks on the two-year-old war between Moscow and Kyiv, according to news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The trip will represent “the second round of shuttle diplomacy on seeking a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis”, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding Li would also go to France, Germany and Poland.
Li visited the region last year as part of efforts to mediate the conflict, holding talks in Moscow, Kyiv and a host of European capitals. China says it is a neutral party in the Russia-Ukraine war but has been criticised for refusing to condemn Moscow for its invasion in February 2022.
Beijing released a paper last year calling for a “political settlement” to the conflict, which western countries said could enable Russia to retain much of the territory it has seized in Ukraine.
China said on Wednesday the “most urgent thing at the moment is to restore peace”. “In the past two years, we have never given up in our efforts to promote peace and have never stopped promoting talks,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a briefing.
“Everything we have done leads to one target, which is to build consensus to end the war and pave the way for peace talks,” she said.
“We will continue to play our unique role, conduct shuttle diplomacy, build consensus among all parties, and contribute Chinese wisdom to promote a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis,” Mao said.
China and Russia have in recent years ramped up economic cooperation and diplomatic contacts, and their strategic partnership has grown closer since the invasion of Ukraine.
Chinese president Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin declared during a summit in Moscow last year that ties were “entering a new era”. And in Russia this week, China’s vice foreign minister Sun Weidong declared relations “are at their best period in history”.
According to AFP, analysts say China holds the upper hand in the relationship with Russia and that its sway is growing as Moscow’s international isolation deepens.
Updated
Opening summary
It has gone 10am in Kyiv and 11am in Moscow. This is our latest Guardian blog covering all the military and diplomatic developments over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Here are the latest developments:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, has arrived in Albania for the Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit on security. Albania’s foreign minister, Igli Hasani, said Albania was “standing in solidarity with Ukraine in its heroic fight against Russia’s aggression”. Albania, a Nato member since 2009, has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine but has been quieter in public about supplying it with arms.
Russian drones and S-300 missiles attacked Ukraine over Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Ukraine’s air force said. All 10 drones were shot down, claimed the air force. It did not say whether the missiles reached their targets.
A day earlier, Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian Su-34 fighter jet on the eastern front, air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said.
Ukraine’s troops withdrew from the villages of Severne and Stepove near the eastern town of Avdiika, recently captured by Russian forces, military spokesperson Dmytro Lykhoviy said. The general staff said Ukrainian forces undertook airstrikes on Russian positions in the settlement of Krasnohorivka near Avdiivka.
Around Avdiikva, recently captured by Russian invasion troops, heavy fighting was reported on the eastern side of Orlivka and just north of Tonen’ke; while east of Semenivka, Ukrainian troops were using mines and artillery against advancing Russian armour. In the Zaporizhzhia oblast, Ukrainian forces reportedly fought off assaults around Malynivka and Robotyne.
Ukraine is expected to remain short of ammunition and on the back foot in its war with Russia for several months until the west sorts out further support, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, the head of Britain’s armed forces, has said.
The US president, Joe Biden, met congressional leaders in the White House on Tuesday for talks on the Ukraine aid bill, in a meeting described by the Democrats’ Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, as intense. Biden said of Ukraine aid: “The need is urgent … the consequences of inaction every day in Ukraine are dire.”
Mike Johnson – the Republican speaker of the House, who has been blocking further consideration of Ukraine aid, did not mention the topic in brief remarks outside the West Wing afterwards. He talked about security of the Mexico border and continued funding of the government, as well as a one-on-one with Biden. Republican hardliners have presented themselves as being focused on securing the border from illegal immigrants ahead of further help for Ukraine, despite having negotiated and then rejected legislation that deals with both.
Several European countries and the US said they were not considering sending ground troops to Ukraine after France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, refused to rule it out. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, went so far as to say there was agreement at the Paris Ukraine conference on Monday “that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil” sent by European states or Nato states.
The French foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, in an address to the French parliament, said: “We must consider new actions to support Ukraine. These must respond to very specific needs, I am thinking in particular of mine clearance, cyber, the production of weapons on site, on Ukrainian territory. Some of these actions could require a presence on Ukrainian territory, without crossing the threshold of belligerence. Nothing should be excluded. This was and still is the position today of the president of the republic.”
France’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, also said nothing was off the table in western efforts to prevent a Russian victory in Ukraine. “No dynamic can be ruled out. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war,” he said. The Kremlin suggested that conflict between Russia and Nato would become inevitable if European members of Nato fought in Ukraine.
Janet Yellen, the US secretary of the treasury, has called for G7 countries to urgently seize profits from Russian assets frozen in the west and redirect them to Ukraine. “There is a strong international law, economic, and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russia’s unprecedented threat to global stability.”
Two police officers were killed and four were injured by Russian shelling in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy, Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said. Klymenko wrote on Telegram that an investigative team was deliberately fired upon while documenting damage caused by an earlier Russian strike.
North Korea has shipped about 6,700 containers carrying millions of munitions to Russia since July to support Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, South Korean media reported on Tuesday. South Korea’s defence minister, Shin Won-sik, said the containers might carry more than 3 million 152mm artillery shells, or 500,000 122mm rounds.
Updated
