Russia-Ukraine tensions: UK warns of plot to install pro-Moscow ally

The BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg added that Putin’s speech contained “no hint of regret over his decision” to invade Ukraine despite the huge hit to the country’s international standing. However, the Kremlin has also ruled out sending students or conscripts under the age of 27 into military mobilisation. According to University of Oxford international relations tutor Samuel Ramani, this is key because “support for the Ukraine war is significantly lower amongst Russian millennials”.

About 10 civilians are believed to have been killed, including six in an air strike in Brovary near the capital Kyiv. A man was also killed in shelling outside the major eastern city of Kharkiv. Russian military convoys have crossed from Belarus into Ukraine's northern Chernihiv region, and from Russia into the Sumy region, which is also in the north, Ukraine's border guard service (DPSU) said. Considering they have been accused of using nuclear and chemical agents in the UK, it might have been assumed the Russians wouldn't follow international rules on the battlefield, but the Ukraine conflict appears to have confirmed it.

UK will not look away from Russia invasion in Ukraine - PM

Europe itself could restrict future gas flows by abandoning the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which would run under the Baltic Sea from  Russia to Germany. Western powers are acutely aware this crisis is being closely watched by the rest of the world. Many analysts fear war  in Ukraine  could potentially spill over into other European countries. "We will not reopen that divide by agreeing to overturn the European security order because Russia has placed a gun to Ukraine's head."

• But he said Russian forces massed on the border were still missing some crucial elements - such as full logistical support, ammunition stocks, field hospitals and blood banks.
• Those remaining have again been urged to leave Ukraine immediately - if they judge it is safe to do so.
• The UK government is providing a range of economic, humanitarian and defensive military assistance to Ukraine, and is imposing additional sanctions on Russia and Belarus.
• A Russian team shot and killed a brother and sister from the Khotin community of the Sumy oblast this morning, the regional military administration said.
• They said Moscow did not ask for any specific stretch of airspace to be kept safe for a certain length of time, as it has for past prisoner exchanges.

They say NATO's principles of freedom and democracy are under threat and NATO has acted in non-member countries before, like Libya and Kosovo. Prime Minister Boris Johnson repeated that over the weekend, saying Ukraine is not a part of NATO and therefore not entitled to NATO's one for all, all for one protection. The danger, however, with sanctions is they push Moscow further away from the West and towards the East, meaning Mr Putin may develop  yet closer relations with Beijing.

What Do Vladimir Putin's Threats Really Mean For Russia, The West And The Ukraine War?

Responding to the claim that he was a potential Kremlin candidate to lead Ukraine, he told the Observer newspaper that the Foreign Office "seems confused". Russia has seized Ukrainian territory before, when it annexed Crimea in 2014, after the country overthrew their pro-Moscow president. “Covid showed our ugly side, with people getting upset when all they were being asked to do was sit on the sofa at home,” said the former TA soldier. The logistics of training a “Citizen Army” are also formidable, according to one former Territorial Army (TA) soldier. “If you are talking about mass mobilisation to defend the homeland, that is hundreds of thousands of people,” he said. The decision of India’s Tata Steel this month to shut its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot, for example, means that Britain may soon be unable to make steel from scratch.

• A number of European countries also rehearse for civil emergencies - with exercises that involve ordinary citizens as well as the military.
• Yet the only threat to any civilian in Ukraine continues to come from Russia.
• Consequently, Air Vice Marshal Bell says planners need to take political and ethical landscape in which the Kremlin operates into consideration if it ever gets into a fight.
• While the president did not mention anything about Russia’s place on the international stage, the speech came just days after he visited his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Azerbaijan.

The European Commission has proposed to provide Ukraine with €50bn ($55bn), with 26 of the 27 nation bloc’s leaders endorsing this plan at a summit before that last payout. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is considered to be Putin’s closest ally in the EU. Last week, another senior Nato military chief said countries needed to be on alert "and expect the unexpected". Adm Rob Bauer, who heads the alliance's military committee, said the public needed to change their mindset for an era "when anything can happen at any time".

‘Your country needs you’

Unfortunately for the Russians, it was clear they hadn't planned sufficiently well to undertake an effective invasion, and the forces operating their equipment were not well enough trained to adapt when things went wrong. Around 350 Royal Marines from 45 Commando were sent to Poland this week – taking the total numbers of military personnel there up to 500 – as the two countries continue to work together to try and de-escalate the tensions around Ukraine. The Russian president said his goal was the “demilitarisation” of Ukraine, warning that if the West were to interfere they would endure “consequences they had never seen”. He said he was launching a “special military operation” in the east of the country. He added that “whatever reaction will come from the Kremlin, will be a collective reaction to a collective of states that have conducted the sanctions”, meaning Russia’s response is likely to collectively target the UK, US and European Nato allies. Opposition leaders including Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer criticised the initial package of sanctions for being too soft.

As fighting intensifies, cross-Channel shipping is attacked by Russian submarines, and long-range conventional missiles strike Dover and Southampton. After an uneasy peace with Ukraine, Moscow has sent forces into the Baltics, clashing with British troops based there to protect Nato’s eastern flank. “Preparations for the repatriation had been underway for a long time,” Ukraine’s coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war said in a statement. Moscow and Kyiv traded fresh accusations over the plane that Russia says Ukraine’s forces shot down near the rivals’ border, killing 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war. Ukraine said on Friday that Russia had returned the bodies of 77 soldiers, the AFP news agency reports, days after the crash of a Russian military transport plane threw doubt on the future of such exchanges. Russian forces launched eight rocket strikes on civilian infrastructure in the Donetsk and the Kherson oblasts, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said in its morning briefing.

• Warheads three times as strong as the Hiroshima bomb would be located at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk under the proposals, the Daily Telegraph reported.
• Sources have revealed that in intercepted military communications, Russian soldiers have been frantic as soon as they realise one is nearby or above them, because it means they are likely to come under accurate fire.
• Retired members of essential professions – doctors, nurses, morticians, police – would be urged back into service.
• "A frank and constructive dialogue is expected to improve relations between states," the Ukrainian president's office said on its official channel on the Telegram messaging app alongside a photo of Mr Szijjarto, Mr Kuleba and Mr Yermak.

In a pre-dawn TV statement on Thursday, President Putin said Russia did not plan to occupy Ukraine, but demanded its soldiers lay down their weapons, before warning that Moscow's response would be "instant" if anyone tried to take on Russia. The UK's Ministry of Defence said Russian forces based in Belarus were advancing towards Ukraine's capital Kyiv. The PM said President Vladimir Putin had launched a "vast invasion by land, by sea and by air" without provocation. Those standing against Mr Putin in the upcoming election, including anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin, have until Wednesday to gather the required number of supporters' signatures to back their campaigns. Only aircraft deployed to protect energy facilities, or those carrying top Russian or foreign officials, will be allowed to fly with special permission in the designated zones, according to the Vedomosti daily newspaper.

• If Ukraine was part of Nato, the military alliance which is made up of 30 member states, including the US and UK, every Nato nation would have to launch an armed attack against Russia.
• The prime minister did confirm that 1,000 more troops would be put on alert in the UK if Russia were to invade although Downing Street is likely to follow the lead set by Nato.
• These are conflicts involving a strong military force going into a situation in which it has superiority, so it can win easily - for example the Gulf and Iraq wars and conflicts in Sierra Leone and Kosovo.
• It's promising to deploy British forces to eastern European members of the Nato military alliance if Russian troops cross Ukraine's borders.
• However, the Kremlin has also ruled out sending students or conscripts under the age of 27 into military mobilisation.