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Kyiv was behind a drone attack in the bay of Sevastopol, Ukrainian authorities have confirmed.
However, officials rejected Russian claims that the attack had put the operation of the grain corridor at risk.
Andriy Yusov, a Ukrainian defence spokesperson, told the state broadcaster Suspilne: “The recent events in Crimea concerned exclusively military installations and are in no way connected with the grain agreement, which provides for Ukrainian ports and civilian ports.”
“Ukraine adheres to international obligations, including fulfilling all obligations related to the grain corridor,” Yusov added.
Ukrainian forces based on the western side of the Dnipro River are frequently carrying out raids on the eastern bank near the city of Kherson to try to dislodge Russian troops, a regional official said on Tuesday. Yuriy Sobolevskiy, the deputy head of the Kherson regional administration, said the raids were intended to reduce the combat capability of Russian troops who have been shelling Kherson city since being forced to retreat. “Our military visit the left [eastern] bank very often, conducting raids. The Ukrainian armed forces are working, and working very effectively,” Sobolevskiy told Ukrainian television.
One person has been killed and 10 wounded in a strike on a museum in Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said: “The terrorist country is doing everything to destroy us completely. Our history, our culture, our people. Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods.”
Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv oblast, said: “Rescue operations are ongoing at the site of the rocket attack in the center of Kupyansk. Unfortunately, the woman who was under the rubble died. Rescuers have just recovered her body. According to our information, one more person may be under the rubble. Special services are doing everything possible to find her. There are no military facilities near the museum building, which was hit by an enemy S-300 missile. The enemy is deliberately hitting civilian infrastructure and terrorising the civilian population.”
The number of daily casualties Russia is suffering has fallen by about 30% in April, UK intelligence has said. In its daily intelligence briefing, the Ministry of Defence reported that the drop was probably due to the end of Russia’s winter offensive, which, it added, had largely failed. The MoD also said Russia was now likely to be preparing its troops for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Kyiv admitted it was behind a drone attack in the bay of Sevastopol, Ukrainian authorities confirmed. However, officials rejected Russian claims that the attack had put the operation of the grain corridor at risk.
Russia has switched to defensive positions in all its areas of combat apart from Bakhmut, according to the Ukrainian head of intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov. In an interview with RBC Ukraine on Monday, he said: “The only places on the frontline where they are making attempts are in the city of Bakhmut, an attempt to cover the city of Avdiivka from the north, and localised fighting in the city of Marinka. Both in Avdiivka and Marinka the tactics are identical to those in Bakhmut – just an attempt to wipe the settlement off the face of the Earth.”
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has proposed to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, a “way forward aimed at the improvement, extension and expansion” of a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain, which Moscow has threatened to terminate from 18 May. Russia’s defence ministry meanwhile accused Ukraine of attempting to attack its ships in the Black Sea, and said this was threatening prospects of extending the deal.
Russia’s foreign ministry has said it is expelling a Moldovan diplomat in what it cast as retaliation for the expulsion last week of a Russian diplomat in Moldova. The ministry said in a statement it had summoned Moldova’s ambassador in Moscow to announce the expulsion, as well as to protest against what it called “unfriendly steps towards Russia” and “regular anti-Russian statements” from Chișinău.
Sweden is expelling five Russian diplomats, its foreign minister told public broadcaster SVT on Tuesday.
Lithuania’s parliament voted on Tuesday in favour of allowing border guards to turn back migrants who illegally enter the country. Lithuania borders fellow EU states Latvia and Poland, as well as Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. In 2021, Latvia declared a state of emergency and Lithuania began planning a razor-wire fence to stop record numbers of migrants crossing its border from Belarus. Authorities in the two Baltic states and Poland accused the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, of orchestrating the crossings in a form of “hybrid warfare”.
A former commander in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group seeking asylum in Norway has pleaded guilty to being involved in a fight outside an Oslo bar and carrying an air gun in public and said he felt “very ashamed”. Andrei Medvedev, 26, crossed the Russian-Norwegian border in January and has spoken out about his time fighting with Russian invasion forces in Ukraine.
Ukraine has rescued 138 civilians, including its own nationals and citizens of Georgia and Peru, who were trapped by fighting in Sudan, Ukraine’s military intelligence said.
Britain and France’s sports ministers insisted on Tuesday that Russian and Belarusian athletes must never compete as neutrals as recommended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) because they could still be funded by their governments.
A court in Russia has convicted a former police officer of publicly spreading false information about the country’s military after he criticised the war in Ukraine to his friends over the phone. The ex-officer, Semiel Vedel, was sentenced on Monday to seven years in prison and barred from working in law enforcement for four years after his release.
Risks of a direct military confrontation between the two nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, are steadily growing, the Tass news agency quoted a senior Russian diplomat as saying on Tuesday. Vladimir Yermakov, the foreign ministry’s head of nuclear non-proliferation, told the Russian state news agency that Washington was escalating the risks through its conduct with Moscow.
The world may have “reached the dangerous, possibly even more dangerous, threshold” than it did during the cold war, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told the UN security council at a meeting he chaired as part of Russia’s rotating presidency of the body on Monday. Guterres said the invasion of Ukraine was “causing massive suffering and devastation”.
A woman charged with killing a pro-war Russian military blogger using explosives was denied bail by a Russian court on Monday. Darya Trepova, 26, is accused of killing Vladen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, on 2 April. He was presented with a statuette containing a bomb while giving a talk at a cafe in St Petersburg.
Ukrainian authorities said on Monday that Russian forces were “forcibly evacuating” civilians in the parts of the Kherson region that they still occupy, a day after it was claimed Ukrainian forces had established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Dnipro River. The claim cannot be verified, but it comes amid an apparent increase in Ukrainian military activity in the south of the country which some analysts have interpreted as a potential precursor to Kyiv’s long-anticipated counteroffensive.
Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, voiced hope that EU membership talks with Kyiv could begin this year, during a visit on Monday to the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr. “It will be a hard process and the requirements need to be fulfilled 100%,” she said, speaking alongside Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Estonia has been one of Ukraine’s largest donors per capita and this was Kallas’s first visit after her party won a landslide victory for her pro-Ukraine platform last month.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said his ruling ANC party has resolved to quit the international criminal court, which last month issued an arrest warrant against Putin. The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, meaning Pretoria, which is due to host the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit this year, would be required to detain him on arrival.
Two German companies that between them build the Leopard 2 – one of the world’s most advanced battle tanks – have become embroiled in a legal spat over its intellectual property rights. Rheinmetall AG, which was thrust into the spotlight last year as Germany ramped up its defence spending, is being taken to court by its peer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), with a hearing due at a Munich court on 2 May.
Calls for a boycott of Beefeater Gin have been made after its French wine and spirits owner resumed selling the British brand to Russia. “Many companies, in our industry and in others, have made the same choice to maintain a limited presence in the market,” a spokesperson for the company, Pernod Ricard, told the Guardian.
It is time for the Nato alliance to “stop making excuses” and accept Ukraine as a member as the country has demonstrated its readiness and has much to offer, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba said. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Kuleba said the political will of the alliance had been “sorely lacking” on the issue of admitting Ukraine.
Russian human rights groups have filed complaints to seek the repeal of a law that bans people from speaking out against the country’s invasion of Ukraine, Sky News reported.
Speaking during a news conference at the United Nations, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the situation related to the Black Sea grain deal had reached a deadlock, adding there were still obstacles blocking Russian exports.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said the situation relating to the Black Sea grain deal has reached a deadlock, adding that there were still obstacles blocking Russian exports.
The deal was renewed last month for 60 days, but Russia has signalled it may not agree to extend it further unless the west removes obstacles to the exports of Russian grain and fertiliser.
Lavrov made his comments during a news conference at the United Nations.
A Russian tennis player was refused boarding to a flight operated by the Polish airline Lot, the company confirmed on Tuesday, in an incident that drew an angry response from the athlete on social media.
Vitalia Diatchenko said on Monday she was refused boarding to a Lot flight in Cairo, with the German airline Lufthansa then also refusing to sell her a ticket, Reuters reports.
The 32-year-old said she had been attempting to travel to a tournament in Corsica via Warsaw and Nice. She wrote:
I slept at the airport, I was treated like a third-class citizen (because of my nationality), spent a few thousand euro.
In an emailed statement, Lot confirmed it had not allowed the player to board, citing restrictions introduced by Poland’s interior ministry as a result of the Covid pandemic and updated in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Lot said:
The provisions of the regulation introduce restrictions at certain border crossings, including airport crossings, in relation to citizens of the Russian Federation travelling from outside the Schengen area.
The European Union has banned all flights from Russia and has agreed to limit issuing free-travel Schengen zone visas. In September, Finland joined the Baltic states and Poland in closing its borders to Russian tourists.
Diatchenko, who is ranked 250th in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association, said that when she tried to buy a ticket with Lufthansa she was told she could only enter the Schengen zone via Spain because it had issued her visa.
Lufthansa made no immediate comment.
Unlike many other sports, tennis did not introduce a blanket ban on players from Russia and its ally Belarus after the invasion of Ukraine.
Wimbledon banned players from the two countries last year after the invasion, but said in March it would now accept them as neutral athletes.
Russian and Belarusian players have been competing on the tours and at the other grand slams as neutral athletes.
The All England Lawn Tennis Club has made a number of significant financial gestures towards Ukraine’s crisis response funds and Ukrainian tennis players competing in its tournaments, asserting its support for the country in light of the decision to permit Russian and Belarusian players to return as competitors at Wimbledon this year.
The AELTC and the Lawn Tennis Association have announced they will cover the accommodation costs of two rooms for all main draw and qualifying players who compete at any British grass court event for the entirety of the grass court season.
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Russian human rights groups have filed complaints seeking to repeal a law that bans people from speaking out against the country’s invasion of Ukraine, Sky News reports.
OVD-Info, one of the groups involved, said the aim was to abolish article 20.3.3 of the code of administrative offences banning “public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation to defend the interests of the Russian Federation”.
Violetta Fitsner, a lawyer for OVD-Info, told Sky News:
This article should not exist at all since it prohibits criticising the state, which is unacceptable in a democratic society.
Here are the latest images coming across the wires from Ukraine:
It is time for the Nato alliance to “stop making excuses” and accept Ukraine as a member as the country has demonstrated its readiness and has much to offer, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Kuleba said the political will of the alliance had been “sorely lacking” on the issue of admitting Ukraine.
He wrote:
As I write these lines, an air raid siren is sounding in Kyiv, and Russia is in the midst of a months-long assault on the city of Bakhmut. Moscow is also preparing to repel a series of Ukraine’s counteroffensives. So I have a simple response to anyone who argues that admitting Ukraine to Nato would provoke Russia: are you serious?
Kyiv was behind a drone attack in the bay of Sevastopol, Ukrainian authorities have confirmed.
However, officials rejected Russian claims that the attack had put the operation of the grain corridor at risk.
Andriy Yusov, a Ukrainian defence spokesperson, told the state broadcaster Suspilne: “The recent events in Crimea concerned exclusively military installations and are in no way connected with the grain agreement, which provides for Ukrainian ports and civilian ports.”
“Ukraine adheres to international obligations, including fulfilling all obligations related to the grain corridor,” Yusov added.
Calls for a boycott of Beefeater Gin have been made after its French wine and spirits owner resumed selling the iconic British brand to Russia.
Since September, Pernod Ricard has exported spirits to Russia – including Beefeater Gin and Jameson whiskey – amounting to tens of millions of dollars, according to Ukraine Solidarity Project, a non-government network of international and Ukrainian citizens.
According to the group, Pernod Ricard ceased exporting Absolut vodka to Russia in April 2023. However, they allege the firm did not stop the sale of its other brands to Russia.
Nick Martlew, the UK director of Ukraine Solidarity Project, said:
Until Pernod Ricard does the right thing and stops serving Putin, we’re calling for a boycott of Beefeater and their other brands, in solidarity with the brave Ukrainians who are risking their lives to fight off Russian invaders. The company is trying to sneak this iconic British brand back on to the shelves in Putin’s Russia, and in doing so is supporting his brutal war against Ukraine. It’s so grubby.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Pernod Ricard told the Guardian they “immediately and continue to” condemn the unjustifiable war and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
In Russia, the spokesperson said the firm has stopped marketing investments, and reduced the number of imported brands and quantities sold, in addition to limited importation of some brands.
“Many companies, in our industry and in others, have made the same choice to maintain a limited presence in the market,” the spokesperson said.
Two German companies that between them build the Leopard 2 – one of the world’s most advanced battle tanks – have become embroiled in a legal spat over its intellectual property rights, even as they ride a defence boom due to the war in Ukraine.
Rheinmetall AG, which was thrust into the spotlight last year as Germany ramped up its defence spending, is being taken to court by its peer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), with a hearing due at a Munich court on 2 May.
Bowing to pressure from allies, Germany’s government this year agreed to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine, one of the big ticket items sought by Kyiv as it gears up to mount a counteroffensive against Russian forces.
Duesseldorf-based Rheinmetall makes the cannon of the Leopard 2, while the Munich-based KMW makes its chassis.
But KMW has objected to statements made by Rheinmetall’s chief executive, Armin Papperger, in a newspaper interview with the Neue Zuercher Zeitung in March, in which he was quoted as saying that Rheinmetall owned the rights to the Leopard 2A4 model.
A district court in Munich said in a statement on Tuesday that KMW was seeking legal protection to prevent Rheinmetall from making statements it considered to be “untrue, misleading factual assertions that violate its rights”.
KMW and Rheinmetall declined comment.
It was not immediately clear what impact, if any, the dispute may have on cooperation between the two companies, who last week jointly announced an order from the German army to upgrade 143 Puma fighting vehicles. The order is valued at about 770 million euros ($845m).
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said his ruling ANC party has resolved to quit the international criminal court, which last month issued an arrest warrant against Putin.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, meaning Pretoria, which is due to host the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa bloc summit this year, would be required to detain him on arrival.
“Yes, the governing party … has taken that decision that it is prudent that South Africa should pull out of the ICC,” Ramaphosa said during a press conference co-hosted with the visiting president of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, AFP reports.
Ramaphosa said the decision, which follows a weekend meeting of the African National Congress (ANC), was reached “largely” because of the court’s “unfair” treatment of certain countries.
He said:
We would like this matter of unfair treatment to be properly discussed, but in the meantime the governing party has decided once again that there should be a pull out.
The arrest warrant against Putin followed accusations that the Kremlin unlawfully deported Ukrainian children. On whether South Africa would arrest Putin, Ramaphosa said “that matter is under consideration”.
But his party’s secretary general, Fikile Mbalula, earlier declared that “Putin can come any time in this country”.
Mbalula told a separate news conference:
This ICC does not serve the interest of all but the interest of a few.
Here are the latest images coming across the wires from Ukraine:
Ukraine’s military claims it is achieving “impressive results” against forces on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson, says a former spokesperson for President Zelenskiy.
A tweet by Iuliia Mendel quotes the spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command Natalia Humeniuk as saying:
We have managed to hit and destroy artillery pieces, tanks, vehicles, armoured vehicles, and enemy air defense systems … In other words, our work on clearing the frontline of the east bank is quite powerful, but we are still working in a counter-battery mode.
Britain and France’s sports ministers insisted on Tuesday that Russian and Belarusian athletes must never compete as neutrals as recommended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) because they could still be funded by their governments.
Britain’s minister for culture, media and sport, Lucy Frazer told a Council of Europe parliamentary hearing that the IOC recommendations’ absence of reference to state funding was worrying.
“The provisions set out on military and national security agency links are currently minimal. We know that the links between state, military and sport in Russia and Belarus are root and branch,” Reuters reports her as saying at the meeting in Strasbourg. “Many Russian athletes have been active in their support for Putin’s invasion.”
French sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra said the IOC had “very tangible and basic issues” to clear up before the Olympics start in July next year.
“What is the position the IOC intends to take when it comes to athletes who are funded and financed by the Russian or Belarusian state?” Oudéa-Castéra asked. “Or those who are sponsored or benefiting from financial support from entities having links with Russia or Belarus?”
Paris is hosting the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics. The IOC is to finalise decisions on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes at a later date.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, citing Oleksandr Syrskyi, reports that Russia has “improved” its tactics in the battle for Bakhmut. It posted to its official Telegram channel to state:
For the Bakhmut assaults, the Russians improved their tactics, formed units to compensate for losses, actively use drones and gadgets to coordinate their actions.
Despite the difficult situation, there are several important reasons to retain Bakhmut. This was said by Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the ground forces of the armed forces of Ukraine.
A Ukrainian community in southern Brazil has decided to turn its local football team into FC Mariupol, a top-flight club disbanded after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a show of solidarity with the war-torn country.
AA Batel, a team from the Prudentópolis region in Paraná, said on Monday they will take on Mariupol’s kit, crest and logo a year after the club’s facilities and stadium were destroyed in the invasion which Moscow calls a special military operation.
“The club represents the identity of our community and our community is more than 70% Ukrainian and Ukrainian descendants,” said the AA Batel president, Alex Lopes. “Ukraine has always been incredibly supportive of great Brazilian football talent and became an important gateway for players to enter the European market. This is the least we could do to help keep their club alive and give hope to Ukrainians all across the world.”
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A former commander in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group seeking asylum in Norway has pleaded guilty to being involved in a fight outside an Oslo bar and carrying an air gun in public and said he felt “very ashamed”.
Andrei Medvedev, 26, crossed the Russian-Norwegian border in January and has spoken out about his time fighting with Russian invasion forces in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Medvedev pleaded guilty to fighting outside the Oslo bar on 22 February and preventing a police officer from doing their duty. He also pleaded guilty to carrying an air gun in public on 14 March.
He pleaded not guilty to committing violence against a police officer, the most serious offence he is charged with, for which the maximum penalty is three years in prison.
“He understands that he was out of hand that evening and consumed too much alcohol and there was a fight with people outside the bar,” his lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, said of the 22 February brawl.
“He does not accept the count of using violence towards a policeman. That was a misunderstanding. He never touched the policeman.”
Medvedev said he was “very ashamed” of what had happened and explained his actions by an instinctive body reaction to a pain he felt when taken out of a police van.
“I had no intention to cause harm to police officers,” he told the court.
He also said he had bought an air gun from a shop in Oslo for self-defence, because he feared somebody may attack him. He said he had been verbally abused in public.
It’s illegal to carry air guns in public in Norway.
Prosecutor Vegard Gjertsen asked for a jail sentence of 18 days for Medvedev, including the five days he had already spent under arrest, for the violence against police, and a suspended sentence for the remaining offences to which he had pleaded guilty.
The court is expected to announce its verdict and sentencing by 2 May.
If convicted, Medvedev would not necessarily be expelled from Norway. Were an asylum seeker to be convicted of a violent crime, immigration authorities told Reuters, a temporary residency permit could still be given.