Russia-Ukraine war live: UK warns conflict could last another year; Russian general ‘under intense pressure in Donetsk’ | Russia

Hello and welcome to those now following today’s live coverage on the war in Ukraine. It’s 1pm in Kyiv.

On the eve of the anniversary of the start of the war, Vladimir Putin has threatened to strengthen Russia’s nuclear forces. His comments were released before an address to mark Thursday’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday.

And Nato’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, says the military alliance has seen “some signs” that China may be planning to support Russia in its war in Ukraine, and strongly urged Beijing to desist from what would be a violation of international law.

The UN general assembly is expected to endorse a broad resolution demanding Russia unconditionally and immediately withdraw from Ukraine’s territory by a massive majority. But China, South Africa, India and many countries in the global south are likely to continue to abstain, underlining their alienation from what they regarded as the west’s war.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:

• Russia is intensifying hostilities in Ukraine a year after its invasion in a deliberate attempt to deplete Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian military said on Thursday.The fiercest fighting remained around the eastern city of Bakhmut, Brigadier general Oleksiy Gromov said, according to Reuters.

• Finland will send three Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, the country’s defence ministry said according to Reuters. The announcement comes after Sweden’s defence minister said it was open to sending some of its Leopard battle tanks, and the Czech government announced a further military aid shipment to Ukraine.

• The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has said much-needed ammunition for his troops has been dispatched, after a public row in which he accused the military leadership of treason. In an audio clip on Thursday, Prigozhin said he felt the pressure he and others had put on the ministry had paid off, and he had been told that ammunition was now on its way.

• A Russian fighter plane crashed on Thursday and the pilot was killed in Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. The cause of the incident is not yet known, the Russian defence ministry said. The cause of the crash was a “technical malfunction”, according to preliminary information and crashed in an uninhabited area and there were no reports of other damage.

• Sweden is open to sending some of its Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine as it prepares to present another package of aid to help Kyiv fight off the Russian invasion, the Nordic country’s defence minister said.

• Moldova dismissed an accusation by Russia’s defence ministry on Thursday that Ukraine planned to invade the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria after staging a false-flag operation, and called for calm.

• The US Treasury secretary stepped up calls for increased financing support to Ukraine, as the US readies an additional $10bn in economic assistance in the coming weeks. Janet Yellen said it was critical for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to “move swiftly” towards a fully financed loan programme for Ukraine.

• ‘I think he is not going to stop’: UK defence secretary on Putin’s war. Ben Wallace has said the conflict in Ukraine could last another year. PA news also reported that Wallace stressed that the war was “not a Nato conflict”.

• Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has arrived in Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches. Arriving in the Ukrainian capital, Sánchez said: “I’m back in Ukraine a year after the start of the war. We will stay by Ukraine’s side until peace returns to Europe.”

• The town of Vuhledar, in southern Donetsk oblast, has experienced heavy shelling again, according to the UK MoD’s latest defence intelligence update. “There is a realistic possibility that Russia is preparing for another offensive effort in this area despite costly failed attacks in early February and late 2022,” the update on Thursday morning said.

• The Chinese government did not consult with Kyiv when preparing its peace plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official said on condition of anonymity. “China did not consult with us,” the official told reporters.

• Vladimir Putin will use an address to mark Thursday’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday to threaten to strengthen the country’s nuclear forces. Putin said that for the first time, Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles – a weapon able to carry multiple nuclear warheads – would be deployed this year.

• Joe Biden has said Putin made a “big mistake” by suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US. The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US will not increase the risk of a nuclear war. Russia’s parliament on Wednesday approved Putin’s move to suspend the treaty.

• The Biden administration is considering releasing intelligence it believes shows that China is weighing whether to supply weapons to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “an affront to our collective conscience”, at a two-day meeting of the general assembly. Friday’s anniversary is “a grim milestone for the people of Ukraine and for the international community”, he said in New York.

• Two civilians were killed in Russian shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, according to regional officials. Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional military administration, said an 81-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man were killed during shelling of the village of Novotyahinka, about 40km (25 miles) from Kherson city. A Russian missile strike on the north-eastern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning left two civilians wounded, Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv region, has said.

• Biden vowed that the US would defend “literally every inch of Nato” territory, ahead of talks with Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a collection of nations on the most eastern parts of the Nato alliance and closest to Russia.

• All members of the B9 have jointly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Polish presidential adviser said. Biden and the B9 leaders “reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and underscored their shared commitment to stand with the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes” according to a White House account of Wednesday afternoon’s meeting in Warsaw.

• China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as China and Russia reaffirm their close bilateral relationship. Wang told Putin that Beijing would play a “constructive” role in reaching a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, the Russian state-owned Tass news agency reported.

• Earlier on Wednesday, Wang met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, where he said he expected to reach a “new consensus” on advancing the relationship between the two allies. Xi Jinping, China’s president, is expected to visit Putin in Russia in the coming months.

• Vladimir Putin has praised soldiers who are “fighting heroically, courageously, bravely” to “defend the fatherland”, in a speech at a rally in Moscow to mark a year of war in Ukraine. Thousands gathered at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow for a concert marking Defenders of the Fatherland Day.

• EU countries have failed to agree on a new set of sanctions against Russia meant to be in place for the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, four diplomatic sources in Brussels have told Reuters. More talks among Brussels representatives of EU member countries were due on Thursday afternoon, said the sources.

Moldova has dismissed an accusation by Russia’s defence ministry on Thursday that Ukraine planned to invade the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria after staging a false-flag operation, and called for calm, Reuters reports.

Earlier we reported on Russia’s defence ministry accusing Ukraine of planning to invade Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region after a false-flag operation, citing reports from the RIA news agency.

The ministry said Ukraine planned to stage an attack purportedly by Russian forces from Transnistria as a pretext for the invasion, according to RIA.

Separately, the Tass news agency quoted the Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Galuzin as saying the west had instructed the Chisinau government to stop all interaction with the Moscow-backed Transnistrian administration.

Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, accused Moscow earlier this month of planning a coup to overthrow the government and drag Transnistria into its war.

The mainly Russian-speaking region broke away from the then Soviet Moldova in 1990. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, pro-Russia separatists fought a bloody war with the Moldovan government forces.

Hello and welcome to those now following today’s live coverage on the war in Ukraine. It’s 10am in Kyiv.

On the eve of the anniversary of the start of the war, Vladimir Putin has threatened to strengthen Russia’s nuclear forces. His comments were released before an address to mark Thursday’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday.

And Nato’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, says the military alliance has seen “some signs” that China may be planning to support Russia in its war in Ukraine, and strongly urged Beijing to desist from what would be a violation of international law.

The UN general assembly is expected to endorse a broad resolution demanding Russia unconditionally and immediately withdraw from Ukraine’s territory by a massive majority. But China, South Africa, India and many countries in the global south are likely to continue to abstain, underlining their alienation from what they regarded as the west’s war.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:

• ‘I think he is not going to stop’: UK defence secretary on Putin’s war. Ben Wallace has said the conflict in Ukraine could last another year. PA news also reported that Wallace stressed that the war was “not a Nato conflict”.

• Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has arrived in Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches. Arriving in the Ukrainian capital, Sánchez said: “I’m back in Ukraine a year after the start of the war. We will stay by Ukraine’s side until peace returns to Europe.”

• The town of Vuhledar, in southern Donetsk oblast, has experienced heavy shelling again, according to the UK MoD’s latest defence intelligence update. “There is a realistic possibility that Russia is preparing for another offensive effort in this area despite costly failed attacks in early February and late 2022,” the update on Thursday morning said.

• The Chinese government did not consult with Kyiv when preparing its peace plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official said on condition of anonymity. “China did not consult with us,” the official told reporters.

• Vladimir Putin will use an address to mark Thursday’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday to threaten to strengthen the country’s nuclear forces. Putin said that for the first time, Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles – a weapon able to carry multiple nuclear warheads – would be deployed this year.

• Joe Biden has said Putin made a “big mistake” by suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US. The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US will not increase the risk of a nuclear war. Russia’s parliament on Wednesday approved Putin’s move to suspend the treaty.

• The Biden administration is considering releasing intelligence it believes shows that China is weighing whether to supply weapons to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “an affront to our collective conscience”, at a two-day meeting of the general assembly. Friday’s anniversary is “a grim milestone for the people of Ukraine and for the international community”, he said in New York.

• Two civilians were killed in Russian shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, according to regional officials. Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional military administration, said an 81-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man were killed during shelling of the village of Novotyahinka, about 40km (25 miles) from Kherson city. A Russian missile strike on the north-eastern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning left two civilians wounded, Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv region, has said.

• Biden vowed that the US would defend “literally every inch of Nato” territory, ahead of talks with Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a collection of nations on the most eastern parts of the Nato alliance and closest to Russia.

• All members of the B9 have jointly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Polish presidential adviser said. Biden and the B9 leaders “reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and underscored their shared commitment to stand with the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes” according to a White House account of Wednesday afternoon’s meeting in Warsaw.

• China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as China and Russia reaffirm their close bilateral relationship. Wang told Putin that Beijing would play a “constructive” role in reaching a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, the Russian state-owned Tass news agency reported.

• Earlier on Wednesday, Wang met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, where he said he expected to reach a “new consensus” on advancing the relationship between the two allies. Xi Jinping, China’s president, is expected to visit Putin in Russia in the coming months.

• Vladimir Putin has praised soldiers who are “fighting heroically, courageously, bravely” to “defend the fatherland”, in a speech at a rally in Moscow to mark a year of war in Ukraine. Thousands gathered at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow for a concert marking Defenders of the Fatherland Day.

• EU countries have failed to agree on a new set of sanctions against Russia meant to be in place for the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, four diplomatic sources in Brussels have told Reuters. More talks among Brussels representatives of EU member countries were due on Thursday afternoon, said the sources.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has arrived in Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches.

Arriving in the Ukrainian capital, Sánchez said:

I’m back in Ukraine a year after the start of the war. We will stay by Ukraine’s side until peace returns to Europe.

Sánchez, who last visited Ukraine in April, is understood to have travelled to Ukraine at Zelenskiy’s invitation.