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Boris Johnson attacks UK refusal to send Kyiv fighter jets
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Russian forces have surrounded the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, a Moscow-backed leader in the Donetsk region has claimed.
“Bakhmut is now operationally surrounded, our forces are closing the ring around the city,” said Yan Gagin, an aide to Denis Pushilin, the Russia-backed leader of the illegally annexed region.
Bakhmut and villages on its southern approaches in Donetsk came under renewed Russian fire, Ukrainian army chiefs said late on Tuesday.
The city, the site of the longest battle of Russia’s war, was home to about 70,000 people before the war but officials say only a few thousand residents now remain, many of them living in underground bunkers to shelter from Russian attacks.
Mr Gagin’s claims could not be independently verified.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has attacked Britain’s decision not to send fighter jets to Ukraine, urging western leaders to “give them what they need”.
The British former prime minister suggested it would “save time” if the UK and allies gave Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces the aircraft they had asked for now.
Britain and the US said they would not supply any warplanes, at odds with France and the Netherlands, which have signalled their openness to such a move.
Russian legislators will discuss a request by one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies to ban officials from taking foreign holidays during wartime, state media has cited a senior parliamentarian as saying.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the powerful Wagner Group private army, said it was unacceptable that officials and parliamentarians were vacationing in countries hostile to Russia.
Vasily Piskaryov, head of the committee on security and anti-corruption in the State Duma or lower chamber of parliament, said legislators would take a look at whether changes should be made.
“This initiative … certainly deserves attention,” Tass cited him as telling reporters. Prigozhin made the request in a letter to Piskaryov that the Wagner Group made public.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Without Brexit, the UK would not have delivered the next generation light anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, according to former prime minister Boris Johnson.
Mr Johnson, taking questions after a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington, US, said: “I seriously think that it was in part because of Brexit that we were able to take a decision and to have an approach that was very distinct from the old EU approach, which was by the way all governed by the fabled Normandy Format which was agreed in Normandy in 2014.
“For reasons that are now obscure to me, the British government decided they did not want to be involved in this. France and Germany led it, that was the EU framework.
“If we’d stuck with that, I don’t believe we would have delivered the NLaws and I think we would have taken a very different approach, to be perfectly frank.
“I think because of Brexit we’ve been able to do things differently and I hope in a way that has been useful to Ukraine.”
Mr Johnson used his speech to call for Kyiv to be admitted to both Nato and the European Union.
Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will make as many personnel changes as necessary to fight corruption and stressed the need for the defence ministry to be honest.
“Unfortunately, in some areas, the only way to guarantee the rule of law is to change the leadership … there will be as many changes as is necessary,” he said in a video address.
Police earlier raided an influential billionaire’s home in what a Zelensky ally touted as a sweeping clamp down on corruption.
Zelensky at a news briefing in Odesa on Monday
Providing Ukraine with the weapons to take back the so-called “land bridge” invaded by Russian forces would be “game over” for Russian president Vladimir Putin, Boris Johnson has said.
The former prime minister, asked after a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington, US, what land bridge he had been referring to, said: “This is the area, as it was, between Mariupol, between Donbas and the Crimea that Putin has taken, that long strip of land that basically prevents the Ukrainians from reaching the Azov Sea. That’s the area.
“If they take that back — which they can and they have a plan — if they can take back Melitopol and Berdyansk and Mariupol, get back those areas, it is game over for Putin. That’s what needs to happen.”
Germany needs to order new Leopard tanks quickly to replace those going to Ukraine, defence minister Boris Pistorius has said, adding he did not care where the money came from.
“For me, the crucial fact is that we have to order new tanks, not in a year, but swiftly, so that production can begin,” he told reporters on a visit to a tank battalion in the western town of Augustdorf, which has been chosen to supply 14 of its Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv.
“Where will the money come from? Let me casually put it like this: Frankly, I don’t care. It is essential that we can provide them (the tanks) quickly,” Mr Pistorius said.
He aims to accelerate arms procurement and ramp up ammunitions supplies in the long term after almost a year of arms donations to Ukraine has depleted German military stocks.
Boris Pistorius, right, sits on a Leopard 2 tank
ICYMI: Experts say the effect of sanctions seems less strong than the West had hoped. William Mata reports:
Sanctions on Russia ‘might not be having the impact the West had hoped’
Raids have also been carried out at Ukraine’s tax office, targeting top tax and customs officials, and on the home of an influential former interior minister.
It comes two days before Kyiv hosts a summit with the European Union at which it wants to show western allies it is cracking down after years of chronic corruption.
The government sees Friday’s summit as key to its hopes of one day joining the bloc.
In a political shake-up, more than a dozen officials quit or were sacked last week.
Former interior minister Arsen Avakov told Ukrainian media that investigators also searched his house following a helicopter crash last month in which his successor, Denys Monastyrsky, died.
Mr Avakov quit in 2021 after a scandal-ridden tenure.
Ukraine’s police and security services say they have uncovered a scheme to embezzle more than $1bn at oil producer Ukrnafta and oil refinery Ukrtatnafta, companies that billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky used to partly own.
In a fresh wave of high-profile anti-corruption raids, officials raided the powerful oligarch’s home, as well as those of other incumbent and former top officials.
Kolomoisky, who could not be reached for comment, has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Ihor Kolomoisky – who has denied wrongdoing – is a former political ally of President Zelensky
A Royal Air Force chief has suggested the UK’s refusal to provide Ukraine with fighter jets could change.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston told the Commons Defence Committee: “I think the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State yesterday were very clear on where we stand on fast jets at this stage.
“But these are things that, the course of the invasion – of the brutal invasion and Ukraine’s heroic defence and how we have supported them – that has been an evolutionary process and I look to the future and we should be ready for any outcomes.”
He declined to say what air power the RAF could make available to Ukraine.
US president Joe Biden said on Monday he would not send warplanes to Kyiv.
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