Russia-Ukraine war live: Nato chief and MPs around world condemn Russian election on Ukrainian soil | World news

The Ukrainian foreign ministry called voting for Russia’s presidential election that is also being held in Ukraine’s occupied territories illegal and void and called on its international partners not to recognise the results.

According to Reuters, the ministry said in its statement that the electoral campaign on Russia-occupied territories showed Moscow demonstrated “continued flagrant disregard for international law norms and principles”.

Ukrainian drones have attacked several oil refineries hundreds of miles from the frontline in Russian regions including Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Leningrad. The continuing attacks are part of a strategy to cause economic damage.

Rosneft’s biggest oil refinery, in Ryazan, was set ablaze, a regional governor said on Wednesday, causing two damaged primary oil refining units to be shut down. Rosneft did not comment. The plant handles about 5.8% of Russia’s total refined crude oil, according to industry sources.

Asked by a Reuters reporter, why Ukraine was running out of ammunition, Stoltenberg replied by saying there is an urgent need for Nato allies to step up delivery of ammunition and weapons to the country.

“It is a question of political will to make the decisions”, he said during a press conference.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that comments on nuclear weapons that Russian president Vladimir Putin made in an interview with state media did not constitute a threat to use them, and accused the US of deliberately taking the remarks out of context, reports Reuters.

Putin said in the interview published on Wednesday that Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the US sent troops to Ukraine, it would be considered a significant escalation of the conflict.

Commenting on Putin’s words, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Washington understood that the Russian leader was restating Moscow’s nuclear doctrine, but accused Russia of deploying “reckless and irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric throughout the Ukraine conflict.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Putin had merely been answering a journalist’s questions on the subject and restating the already well known circumstances in which Russia would theoretically be forced to use nuclear weapons.

Peskov also drew attention to the fact that Putin had said in the same interview that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine had never crossed his mind.

Asked about the White House comments, Peskov said:

This was deliberately taking something out of context. Putin made no threats about the use of nuclear weapons in this interview. The president was just talking about the reasons that could make the use of nuclear weapons inevitable.

These are the reasons that are stated in our relevant documents, which are well known throughout the world. Moreover, everyone in the west deliberately failed to notice his words that it had never occurred to him to use tactical nuclear weapons [in Ukraine], despite the various situations that have developed in the course of the fighting.

This is a deliberate distortion of the context and an unwillingness to hear president Putin.”

Russia has banned 227 US citizens from entering the country, including US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller, the Russian foreign ministry said on Thursday.

According to Reuters, the ban, announced on its website, also included the deputy ministers of commerce, defence and energy, as well as former US ambassador to Russia John Sullivan.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Moscow has imposed mainly symbolic entry bans on thousands of western politicians, journalists and others it accuses of “Russophobic” actions and statements.

The chairs of foreign affairs committee in 23 parliaments –from the Baltics to the US to Israel – have signed a statement rejecting the legitimacy of elections conducted by Russia in occupied Ukrainian territories.

“Ten years of the Crimean spring,” say billboards around the Crimean peninsula. “It all started with us.”

The Russian presidential election, to be held over three days at the end of this week, coincides with the 10-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The swift seizure of the peninsula in March that year, Vladimir Putin’s response to the Maidan Revolution in Kyiv, was indeed the beginning of 10 years of military action against Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Crimea is second only to Moscow, among Russian regions, when it comes to the number of court cases opened against citizens for “discrediting the Russian army”, a broadly interpreted charge that can include posting pro-Ukrainian content.

An active player in the battle to subdue dissent in the peninsula is Crimean Smersh, a Telegram account named after a second world war counterintelligence body whose name was derived from the Russian phrase “Death to Spies”.

Crimean Smersh offers people the chance to denounce their friends and neighbours for “anti-Russian” behaviour. Users can message a secure Telegram bot to send information about such incidents. The channel then posts videos of police raids on people’s houses, and frequently adds mumbled on-camera “confessions” and “apologies” from those accused of being pro-Ukraine.

Yaroslav Bozhko, the Kyiv-based spokesperson for the Yellow Ribbon, a nonviolent underground movement in occupied areas of Ukraine, said that operating in Crimea now was extremely dangerous, but that even small actions like painting pro-Ukraine graffiti or tying yellow ribbons in public spaces helped the mood of other pro-Ukraine minded citizens.

“Even if someone from Crimea is silent and cannot speak, they will go through the city and see these symbols, and will understand that the fight for Ukrainian Crimea is continuing,” he said.

Read the full story here, by Shaun Walker in Kyiv and Pjotr Sauer

Deal agreed on €5bn EU facility for Ukraine

Lisa O’Carroll

EU leaders are expected to rubber stamp a deal agreed in Brussels last night to create a €5bn facility for Ukraine under the umbrella “European Peace Facility” mechanism.

However it won’t all be new money – countries like Germany, which has given €17bn in aid to Ukraine, will be able to count its bilateral contributions as part of its share of the fund.

The fund allows member states to buy defence equipment and be partially reimbursed by the central fund.

The money is a fraction of what many have said Ukraine needs – internal market commissioner Thierry Breton has said Europe’s defence fund needs to be closer to the €100bn mark.

It also comes ahead of a key meeting of the so-called “Weimar triangle” on Friday with leaders of Germany, France and Poland gathering to discuss strategy to help Ukraine win the war.

France had insisted on a strong “buy European” policy (including Norway) for arms eligible for refunds

Diplomats said a compromise was found that would allow countries buy outside Europe if EU suppliers could not deliver equipment and ammunition in timelines required.

A spokesperson for Ukraine’s military said this morning that overnight Russian forces attacked Ukraine with 34 Shahed drones, and that 22 of them were shot down.

He also said that about 150 settlements in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv regions came under Russian artillery fire.

Authorities in Kharkiv and Sumy regions said infrastructure had been targeted, Reuters reported.

Oleh Synehubov, governor of the eastern Kharkiv region, said that repairs were underway after “television infrastructure objects” had been struck.