Russia’s president says deal struck to station weapons on ally’s territory, according to Tass news agency
Russia has struck a deal with neighbouring Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory, Tass news agency quoted president Vladimir Putin as saying on Saturday.
Such a move would not violate nuclear nonproliferation agreements, Putin said, adding that the United States had stationed nuclear weapons on the territory of European allies.
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has long raised the issue of stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which borders Poland, Putin said.
“We agreed with Lukashenko that we would place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating the nonproliferation regime,” Tass quoted Putin.
It is slightly past 11pm in Kyiv. Here are today’s key developments:
Russia has struck a deal with neighbouring Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory, Tass news agency quoted president Vladimir Putin as saying on Saturday. Such a move would not violate nuclear nonproliferation agreements, Putin said, adding that the United States had stationed nuclear weapons on the territory of European allies.
Ukraine’s deputy minister of defense Hanna Maliar went on Facebook to urge Ukrainians to not openly discuss details about the country’s upcoming offensive. “On live broadcasts, don’t ask experts questions [in the vein of] ‘how is the counter-offensive going?’, don’t write blogs or posts on this topic, and don’t discuss military plans of our army publicly at all. We have one strategic plan – to liberate all our territories. And as for the details – that’s simply a military secret,” Maliar wrote.
Russian oil company Gazprom reduces gas export to EU through Ukraine by 15%, the Kyiv Independent reports. On March 24, Gazprom recorded a gas transit flow of 42.5 million cubic meters. A day later, the volume decreased to 36.2 million cubic meters.
The head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant next week to assess the serious security situation there, the IAEA said. Rafael Grossi said in a statement that the nuclear safety and security dangers at the Russian-held plant were “all too obvious.”
Russia fired on a humanitarian aid delivery point in the city of Kherson on Saturday, injuring two civilians, according to the Ukrainian military. Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said: “Russian occupiers continue shelling the places where civilians are provided with aid.
The top commander of Ukraine’s military has said that his forces are pushing back against Russian troops in the long and grinding battle for the town of Bakhmut. British military intelligence also said Russia appeared to be moving to a defensive strategy in eastern Ukraine, Associated Press reported. “The Bakhmut direction is the most difficult. Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defence forces, the situation is being stabilised,” said Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi in a post on Telegram, giving a synopsis of a telephone call with Adm Sir Tony Radakin, Britain’s chief of defence staff.
At least 10 civilians were killed and 20 wounded in several parts of Ukraine during long-range Russian bombardments on Friday, officials said. The casualties included two people who died in heavy Russian shelling of the town of Bilopillia in Sumy province in northern Ukraine, President Zelenskiy’s office said.
The US president, Joe Biden, and the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, have displayed a united front against authoritarian regimes as Biden visited the Canadian capital days after the leaders of China and Russia held a Moscow summit. Reuters reported that images of Biden and Trudeau standing side by side in Ottawa on Friday announcing agreements including on semiconductors and migration represented a counterpoint to the scene in Moscow days ago.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, spoke by phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and thanked him for his “positive attitude” in extending the Black Sea grain deal, the Turkish presidency said on Saturday. It said the two leaders discussed steps to improve Turkish-Russian relations, and developments regarding the war in Ukraine, and that Erdoğan expressed the importance of ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine through negotiations as soon as possible, Reuters reported.
More than 5,000 former criminals have been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Saturday. The Wagner group, originally staffed by battle-hardened veterans of the Russian armed forces, took on a much more prominent role in the Ukraine war after the Russian army suffered a series of humiliating defeats last year, Reuters reported.
The United Nations has said it is “deeply concerned” by what it said were summary executions of prisoners of war by both Russian and Ukrainian forces on the battlefield. A new report from the UN’s office of the high commissioner for human rights said its monitors had documented dozens of the executions by both sides, that the actual number was likely higher and that they “may constitute war crimes”.
Police in Russia have placed a former speechwriter for Vladimir Putin on a wanted list of suspects, the latest step in a sweeping crackdown on dissent. The Associated Press reports that Abbas Gallyamov wrote speeches for Putin during the Russian leader’s 2008-12 stint as prime minister. Gallyamov later became an outspoken political consultant and analyst who was frequently quoted by Russian and foreign media. He has lived abroad in recent years.
The Russian former president Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow was readying for a Ukrainian counteroffensive that “everyone knows” Kyiv is preparing for. Medvedev, who is deputy chair of Putin’s security council, warned that Moscow was ready to use “absolutely any weapon” if Ukraine attempted to retake the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
Russia’s parliament speaker has proposed banning the activities of the international criminal court (ICC) after the court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, accusing him of war crimes. Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Putin’s, said on Saturday that Russian legislation should be amended to prohibit any activity of the ICC in Russia and to punish any who gave “assistance and support” to the court.
Russian forces attacked northern and southern stretches of the front in eastern Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region on Friday. Ukrainian military reports described heavy fighting along a line running from Lyman to Kupiansk, as well as in the south at Avdiivka on the outskirts of the Russian-held city of Donetsk.
New Zealand’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, has expressed concern to China over any provision of lethal aid to support Russia in its war against Ukraine during a meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang. Mahuta’s press office on Saturday detailed her cautionary remarks in Beijing, days after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, concluded his trip to Moscow, where Xi and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, praised each other and spoke of a profound friendship, AP reported.
That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.
A new EU sanctions package will be adopted in the next two weeks, Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday, the Kyiv Independent reports.
⚡️Polish PM: New EU sanction package to be adopted in the next 2 months.
Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki said on March 25 that the EU should adopt its 11th round of sanctions against Russia in the next two months despite some countries facing "fatigue."
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has condemned Russian president Vladimir Putin’s announcement on placing nuclear weapons in Belarus.
“As long as President Putin has nuclear weapons, Europe cannot be safe. He justfies this dangerous escalation by citing decades of NATO nuclear sharing. As long as countries continue their complicity in considering nuclear weapons as anything other than a global problem, this helps give Putin cover to get away with this kind of behaviour,” ICAN’s interim executive director Daniel Hoegsta said in a statement.
Ukraine’s deputy minister of defense Hanna Maliar went on Facebook to urge Ukrainians to not openly discuss details about the country’s upcoming offensive.
“On live broadcasts, don’t ask experts questions [in the vein of] ‘how is the counter-offensive going?’, don’t write blogs or posts on this topic, and don’t discuss military plans of our army publicly at all. We have one strategic plan – to liberate all our territories. And as for the details – that’s simply a military secret,” Maliar wrote.
She added that details “are disclosed by the three aforementioned officials only when there is a military task requiring it. Because information is also a weapon and we fight with it too,” referring to the supreme commander in chief (president), the defense minister, and the chief commander.
Russian oil company Gazprom reduces gas export to EU through Ukraine by 15%, the Kyiv Independent reports.
On March 24, Gazprom recorded a gas transit flow of 42.5 million cubic meters. A day later, the volume decreased to 36.2 million cubic meters.
⚡️Russian media: Gazprom reduces gas export to EU via Ukraine by 15%.
Gazprom recorded a gas transit flow of 42.5 million cubic meters from Russia to the EU through Ukraine's Sumy Oblast on March 24.
On March 25, the volume fell to 36.2 million cubic meters, according to RBC.
Here are some additional comments from president Putin on the agreement with Belarus.
Russia will have completed the construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by July 1, Putin said, adding that Russia would not actually be transferring control of the arms to Minsk.
He added that Russia has already stationed 10 aircraft in Belarus capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, Reuters reports.
Russia has struck a deal with neighbouring Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory, Tass news agency quoted president Vladimir Putin as saying on Saturday.
Such a move would not violate nuclear nonproliferation agreements, Putin said, adding that the United States had stationed nuclear weapons on the territory of European allies.
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has long raised the issue of stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which borders Poland, Putin said.
“We agreed with Lukashenko that we would place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating the nonproliferation regime,” Tass quoted Putin.
The head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant next week to assess the serious security situation there, the IAEA said.
Rafael Grossi said in a statement that the nuclear safety and security dangers at the Russian-held plant were “all too obvious”.
The visit will be Grossi’s second to the plant, Reuters reports.
Russia fired on a humanitarian aid delivery point in the city of Kherson on Saturday, injuring two civilians, according to the Ukrainian military.
Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said: “Russian occupiers continue shelling the places where civilians are provided with aid.
“Last night the Russian army attacked a ‘point of invincibility’ in the Donetsk region’s Kostiantynivka. Today’s target for Russian artillery is a humanitarian aid delivery point in Kherson.
“Two people were injured in enemy shelling, a 41-year-old woman and a 25-year-old man,” Prokudin added.
⚡️Governor: Russia shells humanitarian aid point in Kherson, injuring 2.
Kherson Oblast Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said a 41-year-old woman and a 25-year-old man were hospitalized with mine-blast injuries and shrapnel wounds after the March 25 attack on the regional capital.
The time in Kyiv is 6pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s news so far:
The top commander of Ukraine’s military has said that his forces are pushing back against Russian troops in the long and grinding battle for the town of Bakhmut. British military intelligence also said Russia appeared to be moving to a defensive strategy in eastern Ukraine, Associated Press reported. “The Bakhmut direction is the most difficult. Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defence forces, the situation is being stabilised,” said Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi in a post on Telegram, giving a synopsis of a telephone call with Adm Sir Tony Radakin, Britain’s chief of defence staff.
At least 10 civilians were killed and 20 wounded in several parts of Ukraine during long-range Russian bombardments on Friday, officials said. The casualties included two people who died in heavy Russian shelling of the town of Bilopillia in Sumy province in northern Ukraine, President Zelenskiy’s office said.
The US president, Joe Biden, and the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, have displayed a united front against authoritarian regimes as Biden visited the Canadian capital days after the leaders of China and Russia held a Moscow summit. Reuters reported that images of Biden and Trudeau standing side by side in Ottawa on Friday announcing agreements including on semiconductors and migration represented a counterpoint to the scene in Moscow days ago.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, spoke by phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and thanked him for his “positive attitude” in extending the Black Sea grain deal, the Turkish presidency said on Saturday. It said the two leaders discussed steps to improve Turkish-Russian relations, and developments regarding the war in Ukraine, and that Erdoğan expressed the importance of ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine through negotiations as soon as possible, Reuters reported.
More than 5,000 former criminals have been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Saturday. The Wagner group, originally staffed by battle-hardened veterans of the Russian armed forces, took on a much more prominent role in the Ukraine war after the Russian army suffered a series of humiliating defeats last year, Reuters reported.
The United Nations has said it is “deeply concerned” by what it said were summary executions of prisoners of war by both Russian and Ukrainian forces on the battlefield. A new report from the UN’s office of the high commissioner for human rights said its monitors had documented dozens of the executions by both sides, that the actual number was likely higher and that they “may constitute war crimes”.
Police in Russia have placed a former speechwriter for Vladimir Putin on a wanted list of suspects, the latest step in a sweeping crackdown on dissent. The Associated Press reports that Abbas Gallyamov wrote speeches for Putin during the Russian leader’s 2008-12 stint as prime minister. Gallyamov later became an outspoken political consultant and analyst who was frequently quoted by Russian and foreign media. He has lived abroad in recent years.
The Russian former president Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow was readying for a Ukrainian counteroffensive that “everyone knows” Kyiv is preparing for. Medvedev, who is deputy chair of Putin’s security council, warned that Moscow was ready to use “absolutely any weapon” if Ukraine attempted to retake the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
Russia’s parliament speaker has proposed banning the activities of the international criminal court (ICC) after the court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, accusing him of war crimes. Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Putin’s, said on Saturday that Russian legislation should be amended to prohibit any activity of the ICC in Russia and to punish any who gave “assistance and support” to the court.
Russian forces attacked northern and southern stretches of the front in eastern Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region on Friday. Ukrainian military reports described heavy fighting along a line running from Lyman to Kupiansk, as well as in the south at Avdiivka on the outskirts of the Russian-held city of Donetsk.
New Zealand’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, has expressed concern to China over any provision of lethal aid to support Russia in its war against Ukraine during a meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang. Mahuta’s press office on Saturday detailed her cautionary remarks in Beijing, days after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, concluded his trip to Moscow, where Xi and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, praised each other and spoke of a profound friendship, AP reported.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Nadeem Badshah will be along shortly to continue bringing you all the latest from Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The top commander of Ukraine’s military has said that his forces are pushing back against Russian troops in the long and grinding battle for the town of Bakhmut.
British military intelligence also said Russia appeared to be moving to a defensive strategy in eastern Ukraine, Associated Press reported.
“The Bakhmut direction is the most difficult. Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defence forces, the situation is being stabilised,” said Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi in a post on Telegram, giving a synopsis of a telephone call with Adm Sir Tony Radakin, Britain’s chief of defence staff.
The seven-month battle for Bakhmut, where Russian forces have closed in on three sides, is the longest clash of the war, with Russia deploying regular soldiers and fighters of the mercenary Wagner group.
Here are some of the latest images coming through from Ukraine: