Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that the risk of military incidents along his country’s border with Ukraine was quite high, reports Reuters citing Russia’s state-run RIA news agency.
RIA also cited him as saying that neighbouring Poland should not expect aggressive actions from Belarus.
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said that there could be an “apocalypse” if Russia used nuclear weapons in retaliation for western actions, according to the Tass news agency. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock
Lukashenko was quoted as saying that Belarus had nonetheless moved several combat-ready battalions from Vitebsk region, situated on its border with Russia, to the western limits of the country.
In another report by Reuters, citing the Russian state-run Tass news agency, Lukashenko was quoted as saying conditions were ripe to start Russia-Ukraine peace talks.
Lukashenko said preliminary texts discussed between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkey in the early weeks of the war could serve as a starting point for negotiations.
Tass also quoted Lukashenko, a close ally of president Vladimir Putin, as saying that there could be an “apocalypse” if Russia used nuclear weapons in retaliation for western actions.
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Key events
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Here are some of the images that have been shared today on the newswires from Kyiv, where the UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt met Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian ministers:
The UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt (2-R) during a meeting with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service Handout/EPAUkrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy (L) welcoming UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt prior to their talks in Kyiv. Photograph: UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE/AFP/Getty ImagesThe UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt (R) laying flowers with Ukrainian minister Sergii Marchenko at a memorial to soldiers killed in the Russia-Ukraine war. Photograph: HM Treasury/PAShare
Ukraine said on Thursday it had sentenced a husband and wife to 15 years in prison for providing information to Russia that allowed its forces to launch a rocket strike at a hospital, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) also said on Thursday that it had detained a former soldier whom it accused of helping Russia plot strikes in the north-eastern Kharkiv region.
The husband and wife – sentenced on treason charges – were accused of providing information on Ukrainian army positions, including “places of inpatient treatment for wounded Ukrainian soldiers,” the SBU said in a statement. “It was at their direction that the occupiers shelled a local hospital,” in the southern city of Kherson, it said.
AFP reports that they were allegedly recruited by Russia’s FSB security service after responding to an advert in a Russian Telegram channel offering payments in exchange for intelligence on Ukrainian positions.
Russian forces shelled a number of medical facilities in Kherson after Ukraine retook control of the southern city in November 2022.
The SBU also said on Thursday it had detained a former serviceman accused of helping Russian forces “coordinate” attacks on the north-eastern Kharkiv region.
According to AFP, it said the suspect, who faces up to eight years in prison, had tried to flee to Russian-held territory. “He was encouraged to take these steps by his parents, who live in occupied territory,” a statement read.
Ukrainian forces also said they had repelled a Russian sabotage group in the north-eastern Sumy region. The Russian forces were pushed back with artillery and mortar fire, it added.
Moscow’s troops entered the Sumy region after the Kremlin launched the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but were pushed back by Ukrainian forces.
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Poland could help return Ukrainians of military age back to Ukraine, the defence minister said, as Kyiv ramps up efforts to replenish its depleted and exhausted military, reports Agence France-Presse.
Poland has tens of thousands of Ukrainian men of military age on its territory, according to UN figures.
Ukraine is scrambling to recruit troops after more than two years of war and has recently passed a mobilisation law, lowering the fighting age and toughening penalties against draft dodgers.
Late on Wednesday it said it would stop issuing new passports abroad to some military-aged men, according to legislation published on the government website.
According to AFP, it has also suspended consular services for men aged 18 to 60 living abroad, sparking fury among expatriates in Poland and elsewhere.
AFP reports that Polish defence minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said late Wednesday that Warsaw could help in getting military-aged men back to Ukraine.
“We have suggested for a long time that we can help the Ukrainian side ensure that people subject to compulsive military service go to Ukraine,” he told Polsat television.
“Everything is possible,” he said when asked if Warsaw would agree if Ukraine asked for people subject to the draft to be transported to Ukraine.
ShareUkraine forces kill four in occupied regions, Russian officials say
Ukrainian forces killed four people in frontline regions of the war-battered country that are occupied by Russia, Kremlin proxy officials said on Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A Ukrainian attack drone left two dead in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia and two more were killed by Ukrainian artillery fire in the southern Kherson region, officials said.
“A man and a woman were killed as a result of a strike on a civilian car. Their four young children were orphaned,” the Russian-installed head of Zaporizhzhia, Evgeny Balitsky, wrote on social media. He said the children would be taken into care and provided with psychological assistance.
According to AFP, the Russian head of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said separately that two more people were killed by Ukrainian fire in the village of Dnipryany.
ShareFrench president describes Russia-Ukraine war as ‘principal danger for European security’
French president Emmanuel Macron delivered a widely anticipated speech on Europe on Thursday. According to Reuters, Macron described the Russia-Ukraine war as “the principal danger for European security”.
He is quoted as saying: “The principal danger for European security is the war in Ukraine, the sine qua non for our security is that Russia does not win this war of aggression.”
French president Emmanuel Macron gives a speech on Europe’s future at the Sorbonne University in Paris on Thursday. Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA
“How can we build our sovereignty, our autonomy, if we don’t assume the responsibility of developing our own European defence industry?” asked Macron.
He also said that Europe “must show that it is never a vassal of the United States and that it also knows how to talk to all the other regions of the world”.
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Updated at 12.31 CEST
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the US was trying to create divisions between Russia and China, reports Reuters.
Zakharova was speaking at a briefing with reporters as US secretary of state Antony Blinken began a visit to China.
“As for the United States’ attempts to drive a wedge in relations between Russia and China, the United States is openly talking about this,” she said.
She added that Russia’s relationship with China – with which it signed a “no limits” cooperation agreement less than three weeks before the start of the Ukraine war – was not directed against any other country.
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Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:
People gather in a yard where a Russian drone hit on Tuesday, in Odesa, injuring at least nine people. Photograph: Libkos/Getty ImagesThe UK chancellorJeremy Hunt (left) with Ukrainian minister Sergii Marchenko during his visit to Kyiv on Thursday. Photograph: HM Treasury/PAVeteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war Petro Buriak on Wednesday before his departure to the frontline, as a volunteer, to deliver a powerful generator to a stabilisation medical point in eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Ukrinform/REX/ShutterstockA man inside a house destroyed by Russian rockets overnight on Tuesday looks down on the destruction outside the window in Kharkiv. Photograph: Marco Cordone/ZUMA Press Wire Service/REX/ShutterstockShareKremlin says US long-range missiles sent to Ukraine will not change war’s outcome
The Kremlin said on Thursday that deliveries of US long-range long-range army tactical missile systems (Atacms) to Ukraine would not change the outcome of the war but would create more problems for Ukraine itself, reports Reuters.
The US in recent weeks secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine, which has so far used them twice, a US official said on Wednesday.
The missiles were used for the first time on 17 April against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian frontlines, the official said.
According to Reuters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The US is directly involved in this conflict. They are following the path of increasing the operating range of the weapon systems they supply.”
He added: “This will not fundamentally change the outcome of the special military operation. We will achieve our goal. But this will cause more problems for Ukraine itself.”
Whether to send the Atacams with a range up to 300 km was a subject of debate within the Biden administration for months. Mid-range Atacms were supplied last September, say Reuters.
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Russia has vetoed a UN security council resolution calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space, describing it as “a dirty spectacle”.
The resolution, sponsored by the United States and Japan, would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, which are already banned under a 1967 international treaty.
“Today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you possibly be hiding,” US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said after the vote.
Thomas-Greenfield made the comments after saying that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had already stated that Moscow had no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, dismissed the resolution as “absolutely absurd and politicised,” and said it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space.
The vote in the 15-member security council was 13 in favour, Russia opposed and China abstaining.
You can read more on this story here:
ShareBelarusian leader says risk of military incidents along Ukraine border is quite high, says RIA
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that the risk of military incidents along his country’s border with Ukraine was quite high, reports Reuters citing Russia’s state-run RIA news agency.
RIA also cited him as saying that neighbouring Poland should not expect aggressive actions from Belarus.
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said that there could be an “apocalypse” if Russia used nuclear weapons in retaliation for western actions, according to the Tass news agency. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock
Lukashenko was quoted as saying that Belarus had nonetheless moved several combat-ready battalions from Vitebsk region, situated on its border with Russia, to the western limits of the country.
In another report by Reuters, citing the Russian state-run Tass news agency, Lukashenko was quoted as saying conditions were ripe to start Russia-Ukraine peace talks.
Lukashenko said preliminary texts discussed between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkey in the early weeks of the war could serve as a starting point for negotiations.
Tass also quoted Lukashenko, a close ally of president Vladimir Putin, as saying that there could be an “apocalypse” if Russia used nuclear weapons in retaliation for western actions.
ShareThird man is detained in a major bribery case that involves Russia’s deputy defence minister
A third man has been detained in a bribery case involving a Russian deputy defence minister, Moscow’s court service said on Thursday, according to the Associated Press (AP).
It said businessman Alexander Fomin is suspected of paying bribes to deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov, who was detained on Wednesday, as well as Ivanov’s associate, Sergei Borodin. All of the men are to remain in custody until at least 23 June, reports the AP.
Ivanov, an ally of Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, was jailed pending an investigation and trial on charges of bribery, court officials said in a statement. He was in charge of military construction projects and was previously accused of living a lavish lifestyle in anti-corruption investigations conducted by the team of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Moscow’s court service said Fomin and Borodin contributed to Ivanov receiving a “particularly large bribe” – an offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Ivanov, 48, was sanctioned by both the US and EU in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to a court statement, investigators told the judge that Ivanov conspired with third parties to receive a bribe in the form of unspecified property services “during contracting and subcontracting work for the needs of the Ministry of Defence.”
Ivanov’s lawyer, Murad Musayev, told the state news agency Tass on Wednesday that his client is accused of “taking a bribe in the form of free construction and repair work on supposedly his personal properties,” and in turn providing “assistance to companies that were contractors for the defence ministry.”
Another lawyer, Denis Baluyev, was quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti as saying on Wednesday that Ivanov maintains his innocence.
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Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that any talks on ending the conflict in Ukraine were pointless without Russian participation, referring to a conference that Switzerland plans to host in June, reports Reuters.
Zakharova also told reporters that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s peace formula – which calls for a full withdrawal of Russian forces from all the territory they have captured – does not bring peace closer but prolongs the conflict.
Switzerland announced earlier this month it would host a two-day high-level conference on 15-16 June on achieving peace in Ukraine.
Russia has said it will not take part, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov previously told reporters: “We have repeatedly said that this is a strange format, to say the least, because certain peace plans are being implemented without the participation of Russia, which in itself is frivolous and even laughable.”
ShareA Russian attack on Nato would end in defeat for Moscow, Polish foreign minister says
A Russian attack on Nato would end in defeat for Moscow, but Nato must increase its defences, Poland’s foreign minister Radek Sikorski told parliament on Thursday, reports the Associated Press (AP).
According to the AP, Sikorski was describing the new direction of the government of prime minister Donald Tusk, explaining to a world audience and those at home how the new priorities have changed.
He said Poland wants to return to the group of countries which sets the agenda of the EU.
Poland, a member of Nato and the EU, shares borders with Russia and Belarus in addition to Ukraine. It is a key hub for western weapons going to Ukraine, writes the AP.
Per the AP, ahead of Sikorski’s speech, his ministry said he would be seeking to underline how Poland’s priorities changed after Tusk’s government replaced a national conservative party, Law and Justice, in respect to rule of law and international relations.
The ministry said the speech would underline the importance of this moment in history and stress how different the foreign policy of Poland is after its change in government.
ShareBiden signs $95bn foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
Lauren Gambino
Lauren Gambino is political correspondent for Guardian US, based in Washington DC.
Joe Biden has signed into law a bill that rushes $95bn in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, a bipartisan legislative victory he hailed as a “good day for world peace” after months of congressional gridlock threatened Washington’s support for Kyiv in its fight to repel Russia’s invasion.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the measure in a 79 -18 vote late on Tuesday night, after the package won similarly lopsided approval in the Republican controlled House, despite months of resistance from an isolationist bloc of hardline conservatives opposed to helping Ukraine.
US president Joe Biden delivers remarks after signing a $95bn foreign aid bill in Washington on Wednesday. Photograph: Gripas Yuri/ABACA/REX/Shutterstock
“It’s going to make America safer. It’s going to make the world safer,” Biden said, in remarks delivered from the White House, shortly after signing the bill.
“It was a difficult path,” he continued. “It should have been easier and it should have gotten there sooner. But in the end, we did what America always does. We rose to the moment, came together, and we got it done.”
The White House first sent its request for the foreign aid package to Congress in October, and US officials have said the months-long delay hurt Ukraine on the battlefield. Promising to “move fast”, Biden said the US would begin shipping weapons and equipment to Ukraine within a matter of hours.
You can read the full piece here:
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A Russian missile damaged critical infrastructure and injured six people in Ukraine’s central Cherkasy region on Thursday, the regional governor said, reports Reuters.
The attack hit civilian and railway infrastructure in the city of Smila, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Illya Yevlash said in a television broadcast.
An Iskander-K missile was used in the attack, based on preliminary information, Yevlash added.
Reuters reports that the blast wave and debris also damaged 47 private residences and shattered windows in a residential high-rise building, according to the Cherkasy governor Ihor Taburets, via the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s air defences had shot down the aerial target, he said, adding that emergency services were working at the site.
Russian forces have previously damaged railway infrastructure in an 19 April on the Dnipro region, as reported by Ukraine’s national railways Ukrzaliznytsia on Telegram.
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Thursday’s edition of the Today in Focus podcast focuses on what Ukraine needs to change the course of the war.
You can listen to the Guardian’s defence editor, Dan Sabbagh, in conversation with Michael Safi, where they discuss how the US Congress finally approved a bill this week that will grant $61bn of military aid to Ukraine.
Safi also speaks to the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, Shaun Walker, about Ukraine’s new mobilisation legislation aimed at getting fresh recruits to the frontline.
ShareZelenskiy meets UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt in Kyiv
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday he met the UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt in Kyiv and called for sanctions against Russia to be tightened to stop Moscow bypassing them.
According to the Reuters news agency, Zelenskiy said in a statement on the Telegram app that he was grateful to the UK for this week announcing a new £500m ($625m) uplift in a defence support package for Ukraine.
“Particular attention was paid to sanctions policy. It is important to expand restrictive measures against Russia and exclude the possibility of circumventing sanctions,” Zelenskiy said.
He said Hunt would meet prime minister Denys Shmyhal and other ministers later on Thursday.
I welcomed the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, @Jeremy_Hunt and thanked him for the UK’s largest defense aid package, worth half a billion pounds.
We paid special attention to the sanction policy. It is important to extend restrictive measures against Russia and make the… pic.twitter.com/rDnfAi0ODI
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) April 25, 2024
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Updated at 09.57 CEST
Opening summary
It has gone 10.30am in Kyiv and in Moscow. This is our latest Guardian blog covering all the latest developments over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski is to give a speech to parliament on Thursday in which he will lay out the government’s vision at a historically crucial moment with war across the border in Ukraine, the Associated Press reports.
Sikorski will lay out the priorities of the government of prime minister Donald Tusk as it seeks to show leadership in Europe with growing fears that Russian aggression will not stop in Ukraine.
Sikorski’s speech is aimed at the world and the domestic audience in the nation of 38 million people located along a geopolitical fault line. Poland, a member of Nato and the European Union, is on the eastern flank of both and shares borders with Russia and Belarus in addition to Ukraine. It is a key hub for western weapons going to Ukraine.
The ministry said the speech will underline the importance of this moment in history and stress how different the foreign policy of Poland is after its change in government, with the previous administration having a conflicted stance with the EU.
It will stress the importance that Warsaw puts on helping Ukraine and call for Russia to join the western family of nations.
It is a vision largely aligned with the views of French president Emmanuel Macron. Criticised earlier in the war by Poland and the Baltic states for what was seen as seeking to appease Russia, Macron in recent months has hardened his stance toward Moscow.
In other news:
US president Joe Biden has signed into law a bill that rushes almost $61bn in foreign aid to Ukraine, a bipartisan legislative victory he hailed as a “good day for world peace” after months of congressional gridlock threatened Washington’s support for Kyiv in its fight to repel Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday he met British finance minister Jeremy Hunt in Kyiv and called for sanctions against Russia to be tightened to stop Moscow bypassing them.
A Russian aerial attack damaged critical infrastructure and injured six people in Ukraine’s central Cherkasy region on Thursday, the regional governor said. Ukraine’s air defences shot down some aerial targets, Cherkasy governor Ihor Taburets said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that emergency services were working at the site.
A third man has been detained in a bribery investigation centring on deputy Russian defence minister Timur Ivanov, the Moscow court service said on Thursday. It said Alexander Fomin, the co-founder of a construction company called Olimpsitistroy, was suspected of paying bribes to Ivanov, who was detained on Tuesday, and Sergei Borodin, a close associate of Ivanov who is also in custody.
Atacms long-ranges missiles capable of hitting targets 300km away had already arrived in Ukraine this month at the president’s direction, before the US security package was passed by Congress on Wednesday, the state department has said. Vedant Patel, a state department spokesperson, explained that the weapons were part of a March aid package for Ukraine – not the one just approved by Congress and signed by Joe Biden. “We did not announce this at the onset in order to maintain operational security for Ukraine at their request.”
Ukraine has begun using the long-range Atacms, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area in recent days, two US officials have told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. One of them said the Biden administration previously warned Russia that if it used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to the Ukrainians. Russia has since done so.
Separately, Adm Christopher Grady, vice-chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, told the Associated Press that long-range weapons would help Ukraine take out Russian logistics and troop concentrations behind the frontlines. He explained how the decision to supply them was considered carefully and at length. “I think the time is right, and the boss [Biden] made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister has praised US politicians for approving the long-delayed $61bn military aid package for Ukraine, but said western allies needed to recognise that “the era of peace in Europe is over” and that Kyiv would inevitably need more help to fight off Russia, Dan Sabbagh and Luke Harding write from Kyiv.
Ukraine has stopped issuing new passports at offices abroad to some military-aged male citizens, according to legislation published on Wednesday, as part of measures to push them to return home amid manpower shortages in the army. The announcement came a day after the suspension of consular services for men aged 18 to 60 living abroad until the new law on mobilisation is implemented. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said the passport suspension applied only to new applications and that any requests previously submitted would be honoured.
In Warsaw, Poland, hundreds of Ukrainians crowded outside a closed passport office in a confused scene. There was anger among those who felt they were being unfairly targeted. “This is a fight against people who are fleeing the army,” said Maksym, a 38-year-old truck driver. “We are not asked on what grounds we went abroad … Why am I a draft dodger if I went abroad legally?” Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, told AFP that “all applications submitted to the consular offices of Ukraine before 23 April … will be processed in full and passport documents will be issued to such people”.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said a group of Ukrainian children were “in Qatar for medical, mental, and social recovery”, after Russia claimed an exchange of displaced children was taking place. “All of them had previously been forcibly deported to Russia, but thanks to our friendly Qatar’s mediation efforts, they have been released,” said Zelenskiy, without addressing Russia’s claim that 48 children were involved in an exchange. Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, who is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court, claimed Russia was handing over 29 children to Ukraine and 19 were going to Russia.
Ukrainian drones attacked oil facilities in western Russia, defence sources in Kyiv confirmed on Wednesday. Officials in the western Russian regions of Smolensk and Lipetsk first announced the attacks, blaming Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles for starting fires at energy sites.
Another drone attack targeted the Lipetsk region farther south, which houses metallurgical and pharmaceutical sites, governor Igor Artamonov said. Russian forces hit a Ukrainian drone production facility and a Ukrainian army fuel depot, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
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