Ukraine-Russia war latest: Hungary signals 'major shift' in Ukraine funding stance; Russia claims it has taken control of Kharkiv village

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.

• The intensity, regularity and indiscriminate nature of Russia’s attacks may violate international humanitarian law, is extremely concerning and must stop.
• In extremis, a wartime government could inter anyone deemed a threat to public order or the war effort.
• “As the main supply route remains intact, and Ukrainian forces make local counter-attacks, Avdiivka is likely to remain in Ukrainian control over the coming weeks,” the report said.
• Another potential threat could come from anti-war politicians, whom Kremlin propagandists might seek to incite.
• The man it named as a possible pro-Russian candidate for president, former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev, seems to have dismissed the allegation, but this morning said the country needed new leaders.

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  https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-is-the-uk-interested-in-ukraine.html  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.

Search

If Russia did decide to invade Ukraine, the senior Western intelligence official said large numbers of people would be displaced. A senior Western intelligence official has warned that if Russia decides to invade Ukraine, a conflict could spill over further into Europe. Dozens of British troops have been in Ukraine since 2015 to help train their armed forces, and the UK has also made a commitment to help rebuild Ukraine's navy following Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014. He has been the subject of international sanctions and an Interpol "red notice" issued at the request of the Ukrainian government, for charges including embezzlement and misappropriation. He points out that our digital networks are mainly cellular in structure, making it almost impossible to wipe them all at once.

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".

BBC News Services

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.

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”.

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.

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.

• Ukrainian counter-attacks were holding Russians back from taking full control of Avdiivka, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence report.
• And he added that any intervention from outside powers to resist the Russian attack would be met with an "instant" and devastating response.
• The extensive military support Kyiv consequently received from its Western allies – including Britain – proved vital in helping Ukraine to defend itself from Russian aggression, while sending a clear message to Moscow not to threaten Nato’s borders.
• They also promised to provide assistance to Ukraine if it "should become a victim of an act of aggression".
• This could see states like Poland and the Baltics decide to aid Ukraine on their own, which "might leave NATO's eastern front vulnerable and cause a crisis within the EU and European NATO".

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.

• But both of these demands would break key Nato principles, namely that the alliance should be open to any European country that wants to join and that all Nato members should be sovereign nations.
• “This represents a continuation of Russia’s minor incremental gains whilst Ukraine focuses on active defence,” the report reads.
• But it is a formal, public and written commitment by the UK to support Ukraine.
• The former minister, currently a serving Conservative MP, pointed out that the prime minister grew up without that existential threat.
• British forces are often trained to behave in ways that make them less vulnerable.

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."