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European Commission president says ‘there could be no greater use for that money than to make Ukraine and Europe safe’Reuters have published some more detail on the comments made today by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in which she said the EU should consider using frozen Russian asset profits for Ukraine’s military.According to Reuters, von der Leyen said the threat of war...

Hanah Lahe is just 24 but she is already a leading voice for change in the former Soviet Baltic stateHanah Lahe can’t remember the fall of the iron curtain. Estonia’s youngest MP grew up surfing the web and consuming American television. Just nine years before her birth, it was all so different. When borders reopened after the end of Soviet rule in 1991, Estonians...

‘We must do whatever we can to obtain our objective,’ says French presidentRussian attacks against Ukraine injured nine people over the past day, regional authorities reported early on Tuesday morning, according to the Kyiv Independent.Civilian casualties were reported in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. Continue reading...

On 25 February 2022, Viktoria, 35, gave birth to her son in a bunker beneath the Ukrainian capital just as the Russian bombing started. Two years on, she speaks about her family’s experience of being displaced and seeking safety abroadThe day after I gave birth to Fedir, the shelling started very hard around Kyiv. We lived near Irpin and Bucha. After I saw a...

French president admits no consensus exists on such a move as he urges fellow European leaders to take action rather than wait for US aidSee all our Ukraine war coverageFrance’s President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he refused to rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine, but said no consensus existed on the step, at a meeting of 20 mainly European leaders in Paris...

Ukraine’s president also concedes western weaponry is in short supply at a crucial time in the war with RussiaVolodymyr Zelenskiy has given a figure for the number of Ukrainian battlefield deaths in the war with Russia for the first time, acknowledging that 31,000 soldiers have been killed and saying 2024 will be decisive for the outcome of the conflict.Speaking in Kyiv a day after...

Political pressure at home, splintering international support and prospect of Trump’s re-election make for existential threatsVolodymyr Zelenskiy has an unenviable task over the coming months. As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, the Ukrainian president has a very difficult balancing act to manage.Ukrainian society is exhausted by the war and international support is splintering, leading to a critical shortage of ammunition...

G7 leaders urge ‘additional support to close Ukraine’s remaining budget gap for 2024’Here are some of the latest images coming out of Ukraine:In a new bookshop opened in Kyiv on the street where Putin planned a conquerors’ parade two years ago, the mood is sombre. Continue reading...

G7 leaders urge additional support after defiant Zelenskiy hosts western leaders; Navalny’s body handed over to his motherSee all our Ukraine war coverage Continue reading...

Spokesperson for the Russian opposition politician, who died in prison last week, said funeral arrangements are still to be determinedKing Charles III praises the “determination and strength” of the Ukrainian people in a message marking the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion. The monarch said he was “greatly encouraged” by the UK’s efforts to support Ukraine and commended their “true valour”. He has said:The determination...

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington he ‘didn’t know there was such a thing as a Russian luxury car’A US spokesperson has mocked president Vladimir Putin’s gift of a Russian car to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as he accused Moscow of violating UN resolutions.North Korean state media said on Tuesday that Kim was “presented with a car made in Russia...

State media reports that chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, was in Ukraine to discuss Moscow’s next steps in the warRussia launched 19 attack drones at Ukraine overnight and six missiles, with the Ukrainian air defence systems destroying 13 of the drones and one missile, Ukraine’s air force said on Wednesday, reports Reuters.Some of the drones that were not destroyed did not reach...

Exclusive: Shift in sentiment requires EU politicians to focus on defining an acceptable peace, say authorsSupport for Ukraine among Europeans remains broad, but nearly two years after the full-scale invasion barely 10% now believe it can defeat Russia, according to an EU-wide survey – with some form of “compromise settlement” seen as the most likely end point.The shift in sentiment – this time last...

South Carolina lawmaker is one of more than 12,000 individuals on list kept by Russia’s state financial monitoring agencyThe Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a key ally of Donald Trump, has been added to a list of “terrorists and extremists” kept by Russia’s state financial monitoring agency.Tass, the state-run news agency, first reported the move by Rosfinmonitoring, which allows authorities to freeze Russian bank accounts,...

Joe Biden declines to give details but says sanctions will coincide with second anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine The US will announce a major package of sanctions against Russia on Friday prompted by the death of political opposition leader Alexei Navalny but also devised as retaliation for the two-year war Vladimir Putin initiated against Ukraine, Joe Biden said on Tuesday.The US president...

Ksenia Khavana faces up to 20 years in prison for treason amid Kremlin crackdownThe White House has said it is seeking information after Russia announced it had arrested a dual US-Russian citizen on treason charges, accusing her of collecting funds for Ukrainian organisations and openly opposing the Russian war in Ukraine.A Russian legal NGO said the woman, named by Russian media as Ksenia Khavana,...

Ilya Yashin says Vladimir Putin ordered murder of Alexei Navalny, as Russian state opens new criminal case against latter’s brotherA jailed member of Russia’s opposition has said he fears for his life after the death of Alexei Navalny, as the Putin critic’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, demanded the Kremlin release his body so he can be “buried with dignity”.Yet as the appeals came, the Russian...

Maksim Kuzminov, who changed sides in secret operation, killed after allegedly moving to Alicante, reports suggestA Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine last year in a secret operation has been found dead in Spain, according to the main military intelligence agency in Kyiv.Reports in Russian and Spanish media on Monday said Maksim Kuzminov was found dead after allegedly moving to the town of...

White House prepared to send weapons that could strike inside Crimea if Congress approves $60bn aid packageJoe Biden’s White House is prepared to send long-range tactical missiles to Ukraine if Congress approves a new funding package, according to a US media report on Monday.Citing two unnamed officials, NBC News said that the administration was willing to send a variant of the missiles – known...

Widow of Alexei Navalny says she wants to ‘build a free Russia’ and says she will reveal why ‘Putin killed him’Yulia Navalnaya has published a video address in which she vowed to continue her late husband’s political work and called on Russians to rally around her as Alexei Navalny’s family were told they would not get access to his body for another two weeks.“I...

With ongoing US support far from guaranteed, Ukraine urges Europe to back fight against Russia, for its own sakeOn the top floor of Literaturhaus in Munich, the Ukrainian veteran Yuliia Paievska was asked to speak to the elite of the transatlantic security and political establishment, including Hillary Clinton and the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, as they lunched on a three-course meal, served with...

Outrage over jailed opposition leader’s death grows with detention of over 350 people in Russia who attended vigilsAlexei Navalny – obituaryAlexei Navalny’s allies have accused the Kremlin of “covering their tracks” as, two days after the imprisoned opposition leader’s death in custody, uncertainty continued to surround the whereabouts of his body and what it may reveal about how he died.Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, and...

With Ukraine retreating and western sanctions having little impact, the Russian president is growing bolder and may embark on more reckless moves Vladimir Putin smiled and looked unusually festive on Friday as he praised factory workers and joked with state reporters at an industrial plant in the Ural city of Chelyabinsk.Putin’s confidence was unmistakable – a sign of his full belief that he would...

Palestinian Authority ‘ready to engage’, says prime minister ahead of talks on formation of new Gaza governmentWestern powers have rejected suggestions that Hamas as an entity can be allowed a role in governing Gaza at the end of the war, saying only that they recognise that Palestinian militancy will still exist.Speculation that a weakened Hamas might be willing to form a partnership with the...