Key events
Italy will never send any troops to Ukraine and any weapons it has supplied to Kyiv should not be used on Russian territory, the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said on Thursday.
“All the weapons leaving from Italy [to Ukraine] should be used within Ukraine,” Tajani said in a TV interview with public broadcaster RAI.
Under prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Italy has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, but Rome has never disclosed any details about its military aid, Reuters reports.
Tajani also dismissed the possibility that former Italian prime minister and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi could become the next EU Commission President.
“Draghi is not an [official] candidate and does not belong to any [European] political family … I see it as a complicated matter,” he said.
Opening summary
Nato foreign ministers will meet in Prague on Thursday in the face of growing calls for leading allies to lift restrictions stopping Kyiv from using western weapons to strike inside Russia.
The two-day gathering in the Czech capital is meant to focus on efforts to hammer out a package of support for Ukraine at Nato’s summit in Washington in July.
But the swirling debate over whether to let Kyiv use arms sent by western backers to strike inside Russia risks overshadowing the meeting.
Ukraine has been pressing its supporters – chiefly the United States – to allow it to use the longer-range weaponry they supply to hit targets inside Russia.
The US and Germany have so far refused to permit Kyiv to strike over the border out of fear that it could drag them closer to direct conflict with Moscow.
Ahead of the Nato meeting – which starts with a dinner on Thursday – alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said repeatedly it was time for members to reconsider those limits as they hamper Kyiv’s ability to defend itself.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, appeared to shift the dial on Tuesday when he said Ukraine should be allowed to “neutralise” bases in Russia used to launch strikes.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has previously warned there would be “serious consequences” if western countries give approval to Ukraine.
Overnight, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, criticised the US for aiding Ukraine, saying Washington has become “an accomplice in the crimes of the Kyiv regime”. He said, in particular, that Russia regarded the planned supplies of nuclear-capable F-16 fighters to Ukraine as a “signal action” by Nato.
In other news:
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Lavrov also reportedly told Russia’s RIA news agency that China could arrange a peace conference in which Russia and Ukraine would participate. Russia has repeatedly called for talks with a precondition that Kyiv and the West recognise its territorial gains in Ukraine. Kyiv has rejected those proposals.
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Security services around Europe are on alert to a potential new weapon of Russia’s war – arson and sabotage – after a spate of mystery fires and attacks on infrastructure in the Baltics, Germany and the UK. Security services believe several incidents could be part of a systemic attempt by Moscow to destabilise the west, which has backed Ukraine.
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Russia’s defence ministry on Thursday said it neutralised 13 Ukrainian aerial drones in the southern Krasnodar region and close to the annexed Crimean peninsula. On Thursday morning, “five Ukrainian aerial drones were shot down by anti-aircraft defence systems in the Krasnodar region,” the ministry said. Another eight drones were intercepted during the night “over the Black Sea, close to the Crimean coast”, the statement added.
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Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed seven Russia-launched missiles and 32 drones overnight, its air force commander said on Thursday. On the Telegram messaging app the air force official said Russia had launched a total of 51 missiles and drones. The commander said Russian forces attacked “military facilities and critical infrastructure in Ukraine” but did not provide additional details.
