Russia hopes to avoid using nuclear weapons but ‘its patience should not be tested’
Russia is not planning to take the path of nuclear escalation in its standoff with the west over Ukraine but others should not test its patience, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
Her comments follow a flurry of warnings by senior Russian officials, including president Vladimir Putin, that western military support for Ukraine is increasing the risks of a catastrophic nuclear conflict.
“We will do everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario, but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests,” Zakharova told a regular news conference according to Reuters.
“I do not recommend that anybody doubt our determination and put it to the test in practice,” she added.
Russia has strongly criticised the supply of western arms to Ukraine and the expansion of the Nato military alliance closer to its borders. Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, this month became the 31st member of Nato, while Ukraine itself also wishes to join, though it faces opposition from some countries.
“They [the US] continue to deliberately infringe on our fundamental interests, deliberately generate risks and raise the stakes in the confrontation with Russia …,” said Zakharova.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, said earlier this week that the world was “quite probably on the verge of a new world war”.
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The governor of Mykolaiv province, Vitalii Kim, said 22 multi-storey buildings, 12 private houses and other residential buildings were damaged in the attack, Associated Press reports.
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Defence officials said the Kalibr missiles were fired from somewhere in the Black Sea.
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Russia’s foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May.
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It said the measure was taken in response to Washington’s failure to process visas for “representatives from the journalistic pool” of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday.
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Lavrov led a session of the UN security council on multilateralism, in which he said the world was at its most dangerous since the cold war. He had requested to bring journalists with him from Russia, but they were barred from entering the US.
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“It was particularly emphasised [to the US diplomat] that such sabotage, intended to prevent normal journalistic work, would not go unanswered,” the foreign ministry said in its statement.
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Gerschkovich has previously been visited by Lynne Tracy, the US ambassador to Russia.
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The visit would have taken place on 11 May. The Kremlin has said it is considering other retaliatory measures against the US over the rejection of visas.
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He was arrested last month in the city of Ekaterinburg by Russia. The 31-year-old has been charged with espionage, which he has denied, and appeared in court on Tuesday. The US has designated him as wrongfully detained by Russia.
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Russia is not planning to take the path of nuclear escalation in its standoff with the west over Ukraine but others should not test its patience, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
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Her comments follow a flurry of warnings by senior Russian officials, including president Vladimir Putin, that western military support for Ukraine is increasing the risks of a catastrophic nuclear conflict.
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“We will do everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario, but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests,” Zakharova told a regular news conference according to Reuters.
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“I do not recommend that anybody doubt our determination and put it to the test in practice,” she added.
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Russia has strongly criticised the supply of western arms to Ukraine and the expansion of the Nato military alliance closer to its borders. Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, this month became the 31st member of Nato, while Ukraine itself also wishes to join, though it faces opposition from some countries.
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“They [the US] continue to deliberately infringe on our fundamental interests, deliberately generate risks and raise the stakes in the confrontation with Russia …,” said Zakharova.
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Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, said earlier this week that the world was “quite probably on the verge of a new world war”.
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Russia’s defence ministry has claimed that its forces had taken four blocks in north-western, western and south-western Bakhmut, Russia state-owned news agency RIA reported.
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Reuters could not independently confirm the claim. Russian forces have been struggling for months to capture the city in eastern Ukraine.
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The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said on Thursday it was suspending artillery fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to safely show the city to visiting US journalists.
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Wagner has been leading Russia’s assault on Bakhmut in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, but Ukrainian forces have so far thwarted its attempts to take full control of the city.
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Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s founder, said in an audio message published by his press service: “A decision has been taken to suspend artillery fire so that American journalists can safely film Bakhmut and go home.”
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Prigozhin in the same message warned the Ukrainian side not to try to bring in any extra forces under cover of the journalists’ visit.
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Reuters could not immediately independently verify whether Wagner had suspended its artillery fire or not.
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A day earlier, Prigozhin lambasted the defence ministry for not sending much-needed shipments of ammunition to his fighters.
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As the time approaches 2pm in Kyiv, here is a roundup of developments in the ongoing conflict.
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Relations with European countries are at their “lowest possible level”, the Kremlin has said, adding that each wave of expulsions of Russian diplomats was reducing the space for diplomacy. Germany is one of the latest country to send diplomats home, expelling 20 on Saturday. Russia responded by expelling 40.
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Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated that the Kremlin welcomed the call between China and Ukraine on Wednesday, adding: “We are ready to welcome anything that could hasten the end of the conflict in Ukraine and Russia achieving all the goals it has set itself.”
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Nato allies have delivered almost all their promised combat vehicles to Ukraine, the transatlantic defence alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said. “More than 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine have been delivered,” Stoltenberg said at a news briefing, adding that Kyiv “now has the military capabilities it needs to recapture territory”.
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EU diplomats are still seeking to convince central and eastern European countries to extend Ukraine’s tariff-free access to the EU market for another year.
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The EU dropped tariff barriers on Ukrainian grain after the Russian invasion last year and is now seeking to extend the policy, which expires on 5 June. But logistical bottlenecks have meant much of the grain has stayed in the EU, depressing prices and farm incomes in neighbouring countries.
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A Russian missile strike hit apartment buildings in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv overnight and has killed one person and injured 23 more.
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The remains of an “unidentified aerial military object” have been found in northern Poland near the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland’s defence ministry and justice minister have said. The broadcaster RFM FM said the object, found near the city of Bydgoszcz, was an air-to-surface missile measuring several metres, with its head missing.
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Russian forces pounded the city of Bakhmut, the months-old focal point of their attempts to capture the eastern Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas, and the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said Ukrainian troops were pouring in ahead of an “inevitable” counter-offensive.
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Relations with European countries are at their “lowest possible level”, the Kremlin has said, adding that each wave of expulsions of Russian diplomats was reducing the space for diplomacy.
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Countries including Moldova, Sweden and Norway have all expelled Russian diplomats in recent days. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said all such measures would be responded to in kind.
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The Kremlin said it welcomed anything that could bring the end of the Ukraine conflict closer when asked about Wednesday’s phone call between the Chinese and Ukrainian leaders, Reuters reports.
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The call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy had long been sought by Kyiv. Moscow added that still needed to achieve the aims of what it continues to call its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
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The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was familiar with the details of what the two leaders had discussed and said their stances on the conflict were well known, according to Reuters.
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“We are ready to welcome anything that could hasten the end of the conflict in Ukraine and Russia achieving all the goals it has set itself,” Peskov said.
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“As for the fact that they communicated – that is a sovereign matter for each of these countries and a question of their bilateral dialogue.”
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Nato allies have delivered almost all their promised combat vehicles to Ukraine, the transatlantic defence alliance’s general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, has said.
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“More than 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine have been delivered,” Stoltenberg said at a news briefing, adding that Kyiv “now has the military capabilities it needs to recapture territory”.
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He also welcomed Wednesday’s phone call between the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, their first since Russia invaded Ukraine, but said it “doesn’t change the fact that China has still not condemned” the Russian invasion.
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Zelenskiy has posted a video showing the damage caused by a Russian strike on Mykolaiv overnight – the number of wounded has now risen to 23, including a child, he says.
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⚡️ Volodymyr Zelenskyi posted a video on the consequences of the russian shelling of Mykolaiv:
“At the moment, it is known about 1 killed and 23 wounded, including a child. Eternal memory to the deceased and speedy recovery to the wounded.” pic.twitter.com/gEkxMjQGha
— FLASH (@Flash_news_ua) April 27, 2023
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Zelenskiy wrote:
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The country-invader never ceases to prove that the main goal of this war is terror and the destruction of Ukrainians and everything Ukrainian.
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At night, Russia shelled Mykolaiv with four Kalibr missiles launched from the Black Sea. High-precision weapons were aimed at private houses, a historic building and a high-rise building.
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At the moment, it is known about 1 killed and 23 wounded, including a child. Eternal memory to the deceased and speedy recovery to the wounded.
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Federal prosecutors are urging a judge to keep behind bars a Massachusetts Air National guardsman accused of leaking highly classified military documents, arguing he may still have access to secret national defence information that he could expose, the Associated Press reports.
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In court papers filed late Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers said releasing 21-year-old Jack Teixeira from jail while he awaits trial would be a grave threat to US national security. Investigators are still trying to determine whether he kept any physical or digital copies of classified information, including files that haven’t already surfaced publicly, they wrote.
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“There simply is no condition or combination of conditions that can ensure the Defendant will not further disclose additional information still in his knowledge or possession,” prosecutors wrote. “The damage the Defendant has already caused to the US national security is immense. The damage the Defendant is still capable of causing is extraordinary.”
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The documents Teixeira is accused of leaking provided a wide variety of highly classified information on allies and adversaries, with details including Ukraine’s air defences:
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The governor of the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv said Russian missiles had also hit an apartment building and a private house in the city of the same name.
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One person was killed and 15 were injured, Vitaliy Kim wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
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The Guardian was not able to verify battlefield reports.
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Russian forces pounded the city of Bakhmut, the months-old focal point of their attempts to capture the eastern Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas, and the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said Ukrainian troops were pouring in ahead of an “inevitable” counter-offensive.
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The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, in a report on Facebook, said fighting gripped Bakhmut and nearby areas. It said Russian forces had failed to advance on two villages to the north-west. At least a dozen localities came under Russian fire.
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Separately, Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told national television on Wednesday that in the past 24 hours, Russian forces had attacked 324 times using artillery and multiple rocket launchers.
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“The Russians are destroying buildings in Bakhmut to prevent our soldiers from using them as fortifications,” Cherevatiy said.
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Cherevatiy on Tuesday said there had been a record number of attacks on a section of the front farther north – near the city of Kupiansk, in northeastern Ukraine.
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Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest news as it happens.
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Our top story this morning: Russian forces are pounding the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s east.
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Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told national television on Wednesday that in the past 24 hours, Russian forces had attacked Ukraine’s east and northeast 324 times using artillery and multiple rocket launchers.
“The Russians are destroying buildings in Bakhmut to prevent our soldiers from using them as fortifications,” Cherevatiy said.
Cherevatiy on Tuesday said there had been a record number of attacks on a section of the front farther north, near the city of Kupiansk, in northeastern Ukraine.
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And both the US and European Union have welcomed news of a call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy, with the EU calling the call, the first between the two leaders since the war began, “an important, long overdue first step by China in exercising its responsibilities as a member of the UN security council”.
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Here are the other key recent developments:
China’s president, Xi Jinping, spoke to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Wednesday for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv had publicly sought such talks for months. Zelenskiy described the hour’s phone call as “long and meaningful”. Xi told Zelenskiy that China would send special representatives to Ukraine and hold talks with all parties seeking peace, Chinese state media reported. The White House welcomed the phone call, but said it was too soon to tell whether it would lead to a peace deal.
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Russia’s envoy to the UN in Geneva said no real progress had been achieved in resolving issues raised by Moscow over the Black Sea grain deal, which is due to expire next month.
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British fighter jets helped in a joint Nato response to intercept three Russian planes, including two SU-27 fighter jets, over the Baltic Sea on Wednesday.
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The head of Russia’s private Wagner militia said Ukraine was preparing for an “inevitable” counter-offensive and was sending well-prepared units to the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, for many months the focal point of fighting.
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The Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny says he is being investigated on terrorism charges that could see him sentenced to 30 years in prison, Reuters has reported. The Kremlin critic is serving sentences totalling 11 and a half years on charges including fraud and contempt of court, which human rights groups say were made up to silence him.
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Italy has said it wants to play a major role in the reconstruction of Ukraine and urged EU bodies to back the rebuilding. Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, met the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, on Wednesday.
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A Ukrainian reporter working as a fixer for Italy’s daily newspaper Repubblica was shot dead by snipers in Kherson, while his Italian colleague was wounded, the newspaper said. “Our correspondent Corrado Zunino and his fixer Bogdan Bitik were victims of an ambush by Russian snipers today on the outskirts of Kherson, in southern Ukraine.”
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Russia is resettling poor citizens from its remote regions in the occupied east of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister. Hanna Mailar said the inward migration to Ukraine was mainly being seen in Luhansk.
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In a press conference, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said there was “no use now in saying who is right” in the conflict. In a joint conference with the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, Lula said that “no one can doubt that Brazilians condemn Russia’s [invasion]. The mistake happened and the war started.”
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Key events
The Ukrainian clamour for US-made F-16 jets has continued, with both the country’s foreign minister and home office adviser tweeting earlier on Thursday.
Dmytro Kuleba and Anton Gerashchenko said that F-16s would deter Russia rather than provoke it, and it would help ensure “protection of Europe”.
Russia has destroyed a bridge in Chernihiv, according to the north-eastern oblast’s governor.
Viacheslav Chaus told a telethon that Russian shelling had destroyed the crossing over the Sudost River. It connected the villages of Muravyi and Gremyach near Novgorod-Siversky.
Serhii Serhienko, the head of the Novgorod-Siversky district military administration said: “For several weeks, the bridges over the rivers of the Novgorod-Siversk community have been shelled. This makes it impossible to provide services to the population in a normal format: to provide food and other things. And it limits movement to the central self-government bodies.”
A former commander of Russia’s Wagner group who is seeking asylum in Norway has been convicted of carrying an air gun and being involved in a bar fight.
Andrei Medvedev was given a two-week sentence which has been suspended for two years. He was acquitted of violence against the police, Reuters reports.
“I want to thank the court for a fair ruling,” Medvedev told Reuters, adding he was looking to the future. “I am studying Norwegian and I hope I will get asylum.”
He crossed the Russian-Norwegian border in January and has spoken out about his time fighting in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to fighting outside an Oslo bar in February and preventing a police officer from doing his or her duty. He also pleaded guilty to carrying an air gun in public on a separate occasion on 14 March.
But Medvedev had pleaded not guilty to a fourth charge of committing violence against a police officer. He was acquitted on Thursday.
Separately, Medvedev will continue to speak with Norwegian police about his time with Wagner. Russia denies accusations of war crimes in the conflict.
“Now he can avoid jail and focus on what he came [to Norway] for: explain [about his time] in the war in Ukraine,” his lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, told Reuters.
At least seven civilians killed and 33 injured in Mykolaiv missile strike
At least seven civilians were killed and 33 injured between Wednesday and Thursday, Ukraine’s presidential office has said, including one person killed and 23 wounded – including a child – when four Kalibr cruise missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv (see 05.49).
The governor of Mykolaiv province, Vitalii Kim, said 22 multi-storey buildings, 12 private houses and other residential buildings were damaged in the attack, Associated Press reports.
Defence officials said the Kalibr missiles were fired from somewhere in the Black Sea.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner, has said he was joking when he said the mercenary group would suspend fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to show the city to visiting US journalists.
Prigozhin said in an audio message on Thursday: “A decision has been taken to suspend artillery fire so that American journalists can safely film Bakhmut and go home.”
In a later audio message, however, he said: “Guys, this is military humour. Humour, and nothing more … It was a joke,” Reuters reported.
Wagner has been leading Russia’s assault on Bakhmut since the summer in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, but Ukrainian forces have so far thwarted its attempts to take full control of the city.
Kate Connolly
Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s former ambassador to Berlin – who was deeply critical of what he saw as Germany’s hesitancy over providing material support to Ukraine from the start of Russia’s invasion – has said Germany was still failing to provide the support it should.
“The Germans are helping much more than they were, and for that we Ukrainians are very grateful, but the government is only delivering as much as it feels it should,” he told Die Zeit in an interview in Kiev.
Melnyk, who returned to Ukraine in October as deputy foreign minister, was perceived as something of a thorn in the side of the government of Olaf Scholz for his frequent interventions in debates on Ukraine, which he himself describes as “often undiplomatic”.
He said he regretted he was no longer able to use his influence on Berlin. “A year ago we were powerful participants in the debate, and even steering it. But my successor does it differently,” he said.
“Now we’re simply swimming with the current, letting ourselves go with the flow…. Our offensive is going to happen, and the Germans think: ‘We’ve delivered 18 Leopards (tanks), ticked that off the list, finito’. As if the war had been won with these tanks. The coalition government has … convinced the German public that regarding military help, everything is sorted. Which is not true.”
Instead of “continuing to bang the drum”, his successor, Oleksiy Makeev, was “repeating mantra-like, ‘Thankyou Germany’,” Melnyk said, adding that he was “hardly” in touch with Makeev, due to their “very different points of view”.
He denied his return to Ukraine – where his particular responsibility is relations with Latin America – was an attempt to rein him in. “My post there was long enough and it was a miracle that I was able to stay there when the war started,” he said. But he admitted he had not wanted to leave.
“It is no secret that I left Berlin against my will. I would have liked to have continued, because I had the feeling that I could have achieved a lot more for Ukraine … despite the strong headwinds I faced.
“Here in Kiev the opposition was stronger still, because many didn’t understand why I was often acting in this very unconventional, often undiplomatic way in order to pull the government out of its lethargy.”
Helen Davidson
Here’s some analysis of President Xi and President Zelenskiy’s call on Wednesday by our correspondent Helen Davidson in Taipei, and why it may have been hastened by problematic comments about sovereignty by a Chinese ambassador.
A long-awaited phone call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been cautiously welcomed, but China analysts say the timing suggests it could be partly an act of damage control after controversial comments by China’s ambassador to France.
Ambassador Lu Shaye, one of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats with a history of fiery remarks, caused outrage across Europe this week when he denied the sovereignty of former Soviet states, saying they “did not have effective status”. The comments were roundly condemned, with several European nations summoning Chinese envoys for rebuke, and politicians suggesting it demonstrated China’s untrustworthiness as a neutral party in the Ukraine war.
Beijing, which counts Russia as its closest major ally, has sought to present itself as neutral and a potential peacemaker and there have been signs that Xi was unhappy with Russia’s actions, but in practice China has largely supported Russia’s stance.
“At a time when there is already significant concern about Russian ambitions and PRC [People’s Republic of China] support for them, Lu’s comments seemed to suggest that Beijing is open to continued, perhaps even expanded, Russian aggression,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.
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Russia rejects US request to visit Gershkovich
Russia’s foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May.
It said the measure was taken in response to Washington’s failure to process visas for “representatives from the journalistic pool” of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday.
Lavrov led a session of the UN security council on multilateralism, in which he said the world was at its most dangerous since the cold war. He had requested to bring journalists with him from Russia, but they were barred from entering the US.
“It was particularly emphasised [to the US diplomat] that such sabotage, intended to prevent normal journalistic work, would not go unanswered,” the foreign ministry said in its statement.
Gerschkovich has previously been visited by Lynne Tracy, the US ambassador to Russia.
The visit would have taken place on 11 May. The Kremlin has said it is considering other retaliatory measures against the US over the rejection of visas.
He was arrested last month in the city of Ekaterinburg by Russia. The 31-year-old has been charged with espionage, which he has denied, and appeared in court on Tuesday. The US has designated him as wrongfully detained by Russia.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has invited Pope Francis to visit Ukraine during a visit to the Vatican.
He asked the pontiff for help to return children from the east of Ukraine who have been forcibly taken to Russia by Kremlin forces.
“I invited His Holiness to visit Ukraine in person,” Shmyhal told reporters at the Foreign Press Association in Rome a few hours after the papal audience.
He said he had discussed with the 86-year-old pope the peace plan proposed by Volodymyr Zelenskiy to end the war sparked by Russia’s invasion last year.
This included “discussing in a little more detail the different steps the Vatican could take” to help Kyiv achieve its goals, the prime minister said, speaking through an Italian translator.
“For example, I asked for the participation, the assistance from the Vatican, from His Holiness, for the return to Ukraine of children, some of whom were orphaned, who were taken away by force, mainly to Russia.”
More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the February 2022 invasion, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes.
Russia denies the allegations, saying instead it has saved Ukrainian children from the horrors of the war.
In March, the international criminal court announced an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
The pope has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine, although the Vatican’s attempts to mediate in the conflict have yet to yield any results.
Shmyhal was in Rome on Wednesday for a conference on how Italian businesses could help with the reconstruction of Ukraine, when he also met with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
Russia hopes to avoid using nuclear weapons but ‘its patience should not be tested’
Russia is not planning to take the path of nuclear escalation in its standoff with the west over Ukraine but others should not test its patience, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
Her comments follow a flurry of warnings by senior Russian officials, including president Vladimir Putin, that western military support for Ukraine is increasing the risks of a catastrophic nuclear conflict.
“We will do everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario, but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests,” Zakharova told a regular news conference according to Reuters.
“I do not recommend that anybody doubt our determination and put it to the test in practice,” she added.
Russia has strongly criticised the supply of western arms to Ukraine and the expansion of the Nato military alliance closer to its borders. Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, this month became the 31st member of Nato, while Ukraine itself also wishes to join, though it faces opposition from some countries.
“They [the US] continue to deliberately infringe on our fundamental interests, deliberately generate risks and raise the stakes in the confrontation with Russia …,” said Zakharova.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, said earlier this week that the world was “quite probably on the verge of a new world war”.