Ukraine war live: Putin hails ‘important victory’ in Avdiivka as Biden vows to ‘fight’ for ammunition | Ukraine

Andrew Roth

Also, the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth has written about how the Kremlin are playing for time after Alexei Navalny’s death. You can read the piece here:

In Russia, it is not enough to kill an opposition leader. His ageing mother must travel to the Arctic Circle to search a prison colony and a morgue for his body. Russians with the temerity to lay carnations in his memory must be detained.

Even a preliminary cause of death, “sudden death syndrome”, was misleading, as though his death behind bars was not years in the making.

All this happened the day after Alexei Navalny died, as the bureaucratic machinery of the vast Russian state swung into gear, brushing over the Kremlin critic’s death with a veneer of official disdain and petty cruelty.

“It’s obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body,” said Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press secretary, as 69-year-old Lyudmila, his mother, and a lawyer battled to retrieve his body in the city of Salekhard.

Jon Ungoed-Thomas

My colleague, the Observer’s Jon Ungoed-Thomas has written about a new scheme which means Ukrainians can extend their UK visas by 18 months. You can read the piece here:

Ukrainians who sought sanctuary in the UK after the Russian invasion will be permitted to extend their visas for an extra 18 months, the Home Office has announced.

More than 200,000 Ukrainians visa holders have arrived in the UK since March 2022, with the first visas to expire in March next year. The Home Office said that the new scheme would provide “certainty and assurance” for Ukrainians in the UK.

This weekend, the government appealed for more British families to come forward to sponsor Ukrainians. But the Local Government Association (LGA) sounded a note of caution, urging the government to review the financial support for Ukrainians facing the risk of homelessness.

It has gone 10am in Kyiv and 11am in Moscow. This is our latest Guardian blog on the war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the capture of Avdiivka “an important victory” after Ukraine’s military chief said on Saturday that his troops withdrew from the devastated town in the east of the country after months of intense combat.

Although the Russian defence ministry said that Ukrainian units were still entrenched at the town’s coke plant, the advance on Avdiivka was Moscow’s biggest advance since it took the city of Bakhmut last May.

It is also the clearest sign yet of how the tide of the war has turned in Moscow’s favour after a Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to break through Russian lines last year.

“The head of state congratulated Russian soldiers on this success, an important victory,” the Kremlin said in a statement on its website.

US President Joe Biden meanwhile said he had told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy he was “confident” the US Congress would renew war aid, but added that without American help Kyiv could lose further territory to Russian advances.

Failure by US lawmakers to approve new funding for military aid to Kyiv would be “absurd” and “unethical,” Biden told reporters after attending church in Delaware, adding: “I’m going to fight to get them the ammunition they need.”

In other key developments:

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a desperate plea for fresh arms on Saturday. He told the Munich Security Conference that the slowing of weapons supplies was having a direct impact on the frontline and was forcing Ukraine to cede territory.

• Zelenskiy also told world leaders not to ask when the Ukraine war will end but instead “why is Putin still able to continue it” as he underlined the threat Russia poses beyond his own country and called for more support.

• A number of Ukrainian troops were captured by Russia during their withdrawal from the town of Avdiivka, Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, the Ukrainian commander responsible for forces in Ukraine’s south-east, has said.

• The Russian defence ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had left Avdiivka and were entrenched at the nearby Avdiivka coke and chemical plant in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. “Measures are being taken to completely clear the city of militants and to block Ukrainian units that have left the city and are entrenched at the Avdiivka Coke and Chemical Plant,” spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said in a video published on the ministry’s Telegram channel.

• Russian forces shelled and fired missiles at a series of cities in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least three people and leaving others under the rubble of shattered buildings, Ukrainian officials said. Two cities close to the frontline in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region – Kramatorsk and Slovyansk – came under fire. And farther north in the town of Kupiansk one person was killed when a two-storey house was struck by Russian shells, the governor of Kharkiv region said.

• Ukrainian forces shot down three Russian warplanes over eastern Ukraine on Saturday, the country’s air force chief has said. This claim has not been independently verified.

• Kamala Harris on Saturday criticised Donald Trump’s cajoling of Russia to attack Nato allies of the US who don’t pay their dues, saying the American people would never accept a president who bowed to a dictator. “The idea that the former president of the US would say that he – quote – encourages a brutal dictator to invade our allies, and that the United States of America would simply stand by and watch,” Harris said. “No previous US president, regardless of their party, has bowed down to a Russian dictator before.”

• Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday he had discussed the prospects for peace with his Chinese counterpart, part of a long-running bid to bolster relations with Beijing. Kuleba said he had discussed with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi about Ukraine’s plans to hold a global peace summit, which Switzerland has agreed to help stage.

• Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s mother and his lawyer were told on Saturday that he had been struck down by “sudden death syndrome”, his team has said. Another lawyer of Navalny’s, however, was told by the penal colony’s investigative committee that the cause of death had not yet been established, Navalny’s spokesperson said.

• G7 foreign ministers have demanded that Russia fully clarify the circumstances surrounding Navalny’s death. The foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US met in Munich on Saturday.