Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in his opening address to the Munich Security Conference, said it was “obvious” that Ukraine would not be the last stop of Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
The Russian leader will continue to other former Soviet countries, Zelenskiy warned. He said that while the west was discussing tank supplies to Ukraine, the Kremlin was thinking about ways to “strangle” Moldova.
Zelenskiy said:
It’s obvious that Ukraine is not going to be his last stop. He’s going to continue his movement all the way...including all the other states that at some point in time were part of the Soviet bloc.
He also said he judged the likelihood of Belarus joining the invasion of his country on Russia’s side as low.
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
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World leaders, military officers and diplomats are gathering in Germany for the Munich security conference to discuss Europe’s security situation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, almost a year ago. About 40 heads of state and government, as well as politicians and security experts from almost 100 countries, including the US, Europe and China, are expected to attend the three-day conference.
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The west needs to speed up its support for Ukraine as Vladimir Putin will gain a military advantage unless arms deliveries arrive soon, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in a video address to world leaders at the Munich conference. “We need to hurry up. We need speed – speed of our agreements, speed of our delivery … speed of decisions to limit Russian potential,” the Ukrainian president said.
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Zelenskiy warned a possible consequence of delaying western weapons to Ukraine could be a Russian invasion of Moldova. He also said neighbouring Belarus would make a mistake of historic proportions if it joined in the Russian offensive and claimed polls showed 80% of the country did not wish to join.
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The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, gave Zelenskiy an indirect rebuff, saying caution was better than hasty decisions and unity was better than going it alone. Scholz said Germany was the biggest supplier of weapons in continental Europe, and that the region was in uncharted territory and there was no blueprint for confronting a nuclear-armed aggressor, making it vital to avoid an unintended escalation.
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The French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Friday urged allies to intensify their military support for Ukraine to help the country carry out a needed counter-offensive against Russia. There can be no peace in Ukraine until Russia is defeated, Macron said at the Munich conference, adding that Russia was doomed to “a defeat in the future”.
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Vladimir Putin has been meeting the Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko. The two last met in St Petersburg in December 2022. Russian troops were stationed in Belarus in February 2022 before launching their failed initial attempt to capture Kyiv at the start of Russia’s invasion, and the Belarus and Russian armed forces have been holding joint exercises in Belarus.
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The first batch of Leopard-1A5 battle tanks the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany are buying for Ukraine will be delivered as soon as possible, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said. He added that the Netherlands was prepared to host a new tribunal to judge Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, adding that more support was needed for that to happen.
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Negotiations will start in a week on extending a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia after its invasion, a senior Ukrainian official said on Friday. Yuriy Vaskov said: “I think common sense will prevail and the corridor will be extended.”
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The US considers Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, should be demilitarised at a minimum and Washington supports Ukrainian attacks on military targets on the peninsula, the under-secretary of state Victoria Nuland has said.
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Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has said the US is inciting Ukraine to strike directly at Russian territory, after comments by the US under-secretary of state Victoria Nuland about Crimea. Zakharova said: “The American warmongers have gone even further: they are inciting the Kyiv regime to further escalate, simply to transfer the war to the territory of our country.”
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As many as 60,000 Russian forces may have been killed just under a year of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said. The casualty rate “has significantly increased since September 2022 when “partial mobilisation” was imposed”, the latest British intelligence reads. Convict recruits used by Wagner may have had a casualty rate of one in every two men, it added.
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Russia’s defence ministry website has posted an update confirming a new leadership appointment of its military district, state-run media is reporting. Lt Gen Andrey Mordvichev is now head of the central military district, replacing Col Gen Alexandr Lapin, who was appointed chief of staff of Russia’s ground forces last month. Mordvichev’s appointment follows other sweeping changes to Russia’s military leadership.
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Russia’s foreign ministry said it has summoned the Italian ambassador, after Moscow said a number of performances by Russian artists in Italy had been cancelled. In a statement, the Russian ministry accused Italian authorities of discriminating against Russian artists, without providing further detail.
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Russia’s foreign ministry also said it had summoned the Dutch ambassador over what it called “obsessive attempts” by authorities in the Netherlands to hold it responsible for the downing of flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014. In a statement, it accused the joint investigation team set up to establish who was responsible of being “politicised”.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has appealed for more funds to support Ukraine’s health sector, which has been severely damaged by the war. Ukraine needs more funds to ensure mental health, rehabilitation and community access to health services, the WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said in a briefing from the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr.
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A British embassy security guard has been jailed for more than 13 years after a judge told him his “treachery” spying for Russia had put his former colleagues at “maximum risk”. David Ballantyne Smith, 58, originally from Paisley, Scotland, copied secret documents he found in unlocked filing cabinets and on desks at the embassy, including a letter to the then prime minister, Boris Johnson.n the war.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine live blog today. Thank you for following along, I’ll be back on Monday.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine.
Britain’s Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, said he wanted to show unity with the UK government with its stance on providing fighter jets to Ukraine.
Starmer said the topic of warplanes came up during his conversation with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv yesterday. Speaking from Poland after his visit to Ukraine, he told BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine programme:
The government has said it should be part of the conversation, so it is not ruling it out. I think they are right about that and it needs to be in lock-step with Nato.
He said he told Zelenskiy and the UK government that “we will be united”.
I don’t want to try to politically outbid the government here because if I’ve said we will be united, I mean it.
Clearly he does want further support. It is not straightforward with the fighter aircraft because there is a lot of training involved, the logistics mean it would take a little while and I think we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that other weaponry must be provided, as we are now.
Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, will urge western allies to give Ukraine the “advanced, Nato-standard capabilities” needed to banish Russian troops from its land when he addresses the Munich security conference tomorrow.
Sunak is expected to say more needs to be done to “boost Ukraine’s long-term security” and that leaders must “double down” on military support for Kyiv, PA news agency reports.
He is also expected to press for a new plan to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty in the future against Russian aggression, and argue that Kyiv’s struggle is “about the security and sovereignty of every nation”.
Sunak’s speech to the German global security forum comes after Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the UK, Paris and Brussels last week, as he appealed to the west to send fighter planes.
To coincide with Zelenskiy’s trip, the UK government announced that Britain would extend its training mission – which has already seen 10,000 Ukrainian troops come to the UK – to cover fighter jet pilots, ensuring Ukraine can defend its skies using “Nato tactics” in the future.
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers have sent a letter to President Joe Biden, requesting his administration send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
Modern fighter jets as requested by Kyiv should be sent “as soon as possible” as they “could prove decisive for control of Ukrainian airspace this year”, five House members said in a letter obtained by Politico and CNN.
The letter reads:
It is in that spirit of leadership and support that we write to respectfully request that your administration provide Ukraine with increased air superiority capability, including the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft requested by Kiev, or similar fourth-generation aircraft, as soon as possible.
The provision of such aircraft is necessary to help Ukraine protect its airspace, particularly in light of renewed Russian offensives and considering the expected increase in large-scale combat operations.
The letter was signed by Reps Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine; Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas; Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado; Chrissy Houlahan, a Democrat from Pennsylvania; and Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin.
Facebook allowed an exiled Moldovan oligarch with ties to the Kremlin to run ads calling for protests and uprisings against the country, according to a report.
The ads featuring politician and convicted fraudster Ilan Shor were seen millions of times in Moldova, even though he and his political party were on the US sanctions list, AP reports.
Those ads, paid for by Shor’s political party, were ultimately removed by Facebook. They have helped fuel angry demonstrations against Moldova’s pro-western government, exploiting anger over inflation and rising fuel prices.
Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, accused Russia on Monday of planning to use foreign saboteurs to bring down her tiny country’s leadership, stop it joining the EU and use it in the war against Ukraine.
Sandu’s comments came after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said his country had uncovered a Russian intelligence plan “for the destruction of Moldova”, and days later the country’s government resigned.
“Destabilisation attempts are a reality and for our institutions, they represent a real challenge,” Sandu said on Thursday as she swore in a government led by a pro-western prime minister, Dorin Recean.
The ads reveal how Russia has exploited lapses in social media platforms to spread propaganda and disinformation that weaponises economic and social instability, in an attempt to undermine governments in eastern Europe.
Belarus is ready to build Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack aircraft, which “have proved to be efficient in Ukraine”, President Alexander Lukashenko told Vladimir Putin during a meeting today, state-run Belta news agency is reporting.
The Russian president is hosting his Belarusian counterpart for talks on expanding military and economic cooperation amid the fighting in Ukraine.
Lukashenko told Putin, according to Belta:
As I was informed by the government, they are ready for the production of the Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft that have proved to be efficient in Ukraine. We are even ready to produce them in Belarus if the Russian Federation provides a little bit of technological support.
He noted that Belarusian plants have made components for Russian passenger planes, adding:
The Belarusians are already producing up to a thousand component parts for the MC-21 and Sukhoi Superjet 100.
A Belarusian factory has repaired a few Soviet-built Su-25 ground attack jets in the past, but it was not clear how it could resume production of the plane that was halted long time ago.
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
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World leaders, military officers and diplomats are gathering in Germany for the Munich security xconference to discuss Europe’s security situation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, almost a year ago. About 40 heads of state and government, as well as politicians and security experts from almost 100 countries, including the US, Europe and China, are expected to attend the three-day conference.
-
The west needs to speed up its support for Ukraine as Vladimir Putin will gain a military advantage unless arms deliveries arrive soon, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in a video address to world leaders at the Munich conference. “We need to hurry up. We need speed – speed of our agreements, speed of our delivery … speed of decisions to limit Russian potential,” the Ukrainian president said.
-
Zelenskiy warned a possible consequence of delaying western weapons to Ukraine could be a Russian invasion of Moldova. He also said neighbouring Belarus would make a mistake of historic proportions if it joined in the Russian offensive and claimed polls showed 80% of the country did not wish to join the war.
-
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, gave Zelenskiy an indirect rebuff, saying caution was better than hasty decisions and unity was better than going it alone. Scholz said Germany was the biggest supplier of weapons in continental Europe, and that the region was in uncharted territory and there was no blueprint for confronting a nuclear-armed aggressor, making it vital to avoid an unintended escalation.
-
the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Friday urged allies to intensify their military support for Ukraine to help the country carry out a needed counter-offensive against Russia. There can be no peace in Ukraine until Russia is defeated, Macron said at the Munich conference, adding that Russia was doomed to “a defeat in the future”.
-
Vladimir Putin has been meeting the Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko. The two last met in St Petersburg in December 2022. Russian troops were stationed in Belarus in February 2022 before launching their failed initial attempt to capture Kyiv at the start of Russia’s invasion, and the Belarus and Russian armed forces have been holding joint exercises in Belarus.
-
The first batch of Leopard-1A5 battle tanks the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany are buying for Ukraine will be delivered as soon as possible, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said. He added that the Netherlands was prepared to host a new tribunal to judge Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, adding that more support was needed for that to happen.
-
Negotiations will start in a week on extending a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia after its invasion, a senior Ukrainian official said on Friday. Yuriy Vaskov said: “I think common sense will prevail and the corridor will be extended.”
-
The US considers Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, should be demilitarised at a minimum and Washington supports Ukrainian attacks on military targets on the peninsula, the under-secretary of state Victoria Nuland has said.
-
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has said the US is inciting Ukraine to strike directly at Russian territory, after comments by the US under-secretary of state Victoria Nuland about Crimea. Zakharova said: “The American warmongers have gone even further: they are inciting the Kyiv regime to further escalate, simply to transfer the war to the territory of our country.”
-
As many as 60,000 Russian forces may have been killed just under a year of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said. The casualty rate “has significantly increased since September 2022 when “partial mobilisation” was imposed”, the latest British intelligence reads. Convict recruits used by Wagner may have had a casualty rate of one in every two men, it added.
-
Russia’s defence ministry website has posted an update confirming a new leadership appointment of its military district, state-run media is reporting. Lt Gen Andrey Mordvichev is now head of the central military district, replacing Col Gen Alexandr Lapin, who was appointed chief of staff of Russia’s ground forces last month. Mordvichev’s appointment follows other sweeping changes to Russia’s military leadership.
-
Russia’s foreign ministry said it has summoned the Italian ambassador, after Moscow said a number of performances by Russian artists in Italy had been cancelled. In a statement, the Russian ministry accused Italian authorities of discriminating against Russian artists, without providing further detail.
-
Russia’s foreign ministry also said it had summoned the Dutch ambassador over what it called “obsessive attempts” by authorities in the Netherlands to hold it responsible for the downing of flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014. In a statement, it accused the joint investigation team set up to establish who was responsible of being “politicised”.
-
The World Health Organization (WHO) has appealed for more funds to support Ukraine’s health sector, which has been severely damaged by the war. Ukraine needs more funds to ensure mental health, rehabilitation and community access to health services, the WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said in a briefing from the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr.
-
A British embassy security guard has been jailed for more than 13 years after a judge told him his “treachery” spying for Russia had put his former colleagues at “maximum risk”. David Ballantyne Smith, 58, originally from Paisley, Scotland, copied secret documents he found in unlocked filing cabinets and on desks at the embassy, including a letter to the then prime minister, Boris Johnson.
Good afternoon from London. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong still here with all the latest from the war in Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Russia has introduced a free package of satellite channels for residents living in occupied Ukraine that critics say is an attempt to create a “digital ghetto”.
The package is called Russkiy Mir, or Russian World, which has become a byword for the propaganda Russia seeks to spread outside its borders, focusing on its imperial greatness and the outside enemies determined to destroy it, namely the west.
Ukrainian analysts say the move is part of Moscow’s attempts to cut off the occupied population from Ukraine and create an information “ghetto”. It is just under a year since millions of Ukrainians started living under Russian occupation.
“The most important thing that Russia is doing in the occupied territories is trying to cut off this population from the Ukrainian agenda, they are creating their own ‘digital ghetto’. They do this by blocking Ukrainian media,” Ihor Solovey, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, told Radio Svoboda.
The package, backed by the All-Russian People’s Front, includes 20 existing Russian channels as well as 10 local TV channels produced specifically for those in the occupied areas. Soon a further nine entertainment channels will be added, according to the site where residents can apply to have the package installed.
Everything from the box to installation and the subscription is free. “Watching the package of TV channels available to Russkiy Mir subscribers free of charge,” reads the site.
Read the full story here:
Russia’s foreign ministry revealed it had summoned the Italian ambassador after Moscow said a number of performances by Russian artists in Italy had been cancelled.
In a statement, the Russian ministry accused Italian authorities of discriminating against Russian artists, without providing further detail. It said:
Decisions by the Italian authorities unfortunately indicate a tendency to discriminate against Russian artists and restrict cultural and humanitarian exchanges.
Giorgio Starace, the Italian ambassador to Russia, was told that Moscow remained ‘open to dialogue on the topic of culture” and did “not intend to impose restrictions on cultural figures from Italy”, provided Italy observeed “the principles of equality and reciprocity”, it said.
The move comes after the Arcimboldi theatre in Milan called off a show by the prominent Russian dancer Sergei Polunin, who has several tattoos of Vladimir Putin on his chest and shoulders.
The La Scala opera house in Milan also sidelined the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev after he failed to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, but stood by its decision to stage the performance of the Russian composer Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov.
Volodymr Zelenskiy opened the three-day Munich security conference today, as the west faces urgent calls to speed up ammunition production and supplies to Kyiv in the face of mounting fears that Russia is planning a new offensive.
Zelenskiy said it was “obvious” that Ukraine would not be the last stop of Vladimir Putin’s invasion. The Russian leader would continue on to other former Soviet countries, he warned, and said that while the west was discussing tank supplies to Ukraine, the Kremlin was thinking about ways to ‘strangle’ Moldova.
Russia’s foreign ministry, which earlier said it had summoned the Dutch ambassador, has also said it summoned the Italian ambassador on Friday.
Moscow said a number of performances by Russian artists in Italy had been cancelled. In a statement, Moscow’s foreign ministry accused the Italian authorities of discriminating against Russian artists, without providing further detail.
While world leaders have been meeting at the Munich security conference without any representatives from Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been meeting the Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Tass reports that ahead of the meeting, Lukashenko said he plans to touch upon issues of security and defence, and said the Kremlin press service said the agenda included “the further development of strategic partnership and alliance between the two countries”.
The two last met in St Petersburg in December 2022. Russian troops were stationed in Belarus in February 2022 before launching their failed initial attempt to capture Kyiv at the start of the Russian invasion, and the Belarus and Russian armed forces have been holding joint exercises in Belarus.
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