Ukraine-Russia – live: Putin hails China’s ‘constructive role’ in war ahead of Xi Jinping visit

Russian president Vladimir Putin welcomed China’s “willingness to play a constructive role” in Ukraine, as his “good old friend” Xi Jinping heads to Moscow.

In an article written for a Chinese newspaper, Mr Putin said the Kremlin had high hopes for the Chinese president’s visit, his first to Russia since Mr Putin launched his “special military operation” last year.

“We are grateful for the balanced line of [China] in connection with the events taking place in Ukraine, for understanding their background and true causes. We welcome China’s willingness to play a constructive role in resolving the crisis,” Mr Putin said.

Mr Xi followed with a letter calling for a “rational way” out of the crisis, and claiming China’s proposal reflects global views.

Beijing last month published a 12-point paper calling for dialogue and a settlement in Ukraine, but it contained only general statements and no concrete proposal for how the year-long war might end.

Ukraine, which says any settlement would require Russia to withdraw from all the territory it has seized including the Crimean peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, cautiously welcomed the Chinese proposal.

Key points

• Putin says ‘good, old friend’ Xi Jinping has ‘constructive role’ in Ukraine

• Russian president visits ruined Mariupol for first time in war

Putin says ‘good, old friend’ Xi Jinping has ‘constructive role’ in Ukraine

Sunday 19 March 2023 22:02 , Liam James

Russian president Vladimir Putin said China had shown a “willingness to play a constructive role” in Ukraine, ahead of a visit by Chinese premier Xi Jinping heads to Moscow.

In an essay published Monday in the People's Daily, the newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, Mr Putin said: “We are grateful for the balanced line (of China) in connection with the events taking place in Ukraine, for understanding their background and true causes. We welcome China's willingness to play a constructive role in resolving the crisis.”

He referred to Mr Xi as his “good, old friend”, as the Chinese leader prepared for his first trip to Russia since Mr Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year.

China in February released a position paper calling for an end to fighting in Ukraine and for upholding all countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity. It did not address how to resolve Russia's illegal claim to have annexed four regions of Ukraine.

New Zealand minister to raise Ukraine invasion in Beijing meeting

03:30 , Namita Singh

New Zealand’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, will travel to Beijing on Tuesday to meet her Chinese counterpart Qin Gang on the first such visit by a New Zealand minister since 2019.

Ms Mahuta said she would raise New Zealand’s concerns about key security challenges at the meeting with Qin Gang in Beijing, such as the “illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine”, and advocate for outcomes reflecting its values on issues such as human rights.

“New Zealand’s relationship with China is one of our most important, complex and wide ranging,” she said in a statement. “I intend to discuss areas where we co-operate, such as on trade, people-to-people and climate and environmental issues.”

China speaking for the world in Ukraine, says Xi

03:00 , Liam James

Chinese president Xi Jinping said Beijing’s proposal on how to end the Ukraine war reflects global views and seeks to neutralise consequences, but acknowledged that the solutions are not easy.

In an article published at the start of his visit to Moscow – the first by a world leader since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president Vladimir Putin – Mr Xi also called for “pragmatism” on Ukraine.

A peaceful resolution to the situation in Ukraine, Mr Xi wrote, would also “ensure the stability of global production and supply chains.”

He called for a “rational way” out of the crisis, which would be “found if everyone is guided by the concept of common, comprehensive, joint and sustainable security, and continue dialogue and consultations in an equal, prudent and pragmatic manner.”

Mr Xi said that his trip to Russia is aimed at strengthening the friendship between the two countries, “an all-encompassing partnership and strategic interaction,” in a world threatened by “acts of hegemony, despotism and bullying.”

“There is no universal model of government and there is no world order where the decisive word belongs to a single country,” Xi wrote. “Global solidarity and peace without splits and upheavals is in the common interests of all mankind.”

London to host justice ministers in support of war crimes probe

02:00 , Liam James

Justice ministers from around the world will gather in London to support the International Criminal Court’s investigations into war crimes in Ukraine.

The move comes after the ICC issued a warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s arrest, accusing him of bearing personal responsibility for the abduction of children from Ukraine.

More than 40 nations will be represented at the meeting hosted by Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, and Dutch justice minister Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, at Lancaster House.

UK and Ukraine sign digital trade deal to support country’s economy

01:00 , Natalie Crockett

The UK has signed a digital trade deal with Ukraine to help it rebuild its economy.

Ukrainian businesses will be able to trade more efficiently and cheaply with the UK through online transactions, e-signatures, and e-contracts. Under the deal, companies in the war-torn country will be able to access UK financial services through cross-border data flows.

UK business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch said: “The historic digital trade deal signed today paves the way for a new era of modern trade between our two countries.

“We are also extending tariff-free trade on imports from Ukraine to early 2024, providing much-needed support to Ukrainian businesses.

“These initiatives will help protect jobs, livelihoods and families now and in Ukraine’s postwar future.”

Ukraine’s economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko said the agreement illustrates that Ukrainian IT companies are in demand around the world “despite all the challenges of war”.

The deal signed virtually on Monday was agreed in principle in November.

Egypt's Sisi discusses nuclear plant, grains trade with Russian officials

00:00 , Reuters

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi held talks with high-ranking Russian officials on Sunday to discuss a Russian-built nuclear plant under construction on Egypt’s north coast as well as grains supply and food security, Egypt’s presidency said.

The meeting with officials including Russia’s trade minister and a special envoy of President Vladimir Putin also addressed the establishment of a Russian industrial zone inside the Suez Canal’s Economic Zone, among other investments, it added.

Construction by Russia’s state-owned energy corporation Rosatom of Egypt’s first nuclear plant at El Dabaa began in July of last year, and is expected to take until at least 2030.

In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Egypt has been trying to balance long-standing ties with both Russia and Western powers.

Putin and Xi might have a bromance but it’s clear who holds the power

Sunday 19 March 2023 23:00 , Liam James

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have met around 40 times since China’s leader assumed the presidency in 2012. In many ways, the camaraderie between the pair has come to define the diplomatic relations between Moscow and Beijing across the last decade.

Xi made Moscow his first overseas visit as president in 2013 and this latest visit comes next week in the wake of him being handed an unprecedented third term as president. During that time, the greetings between Xi and Putin have evolved from “dear president” to “dear friend” and later to “my old friend”. Last year, just a few weeks before Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine the leaders met and announced a “no limits” partnership between their two nations.

Historically, relations between China and Russia have been fraught with distrust and confrontation, particularly at the height of their Cold War schism in the late 1960s, but Putin and Xi have changed the dynamic. On his last visit to Moscow, in 2019, Xi spoke of his “deep personal friendship” with his Russian counterpart. “In the past six years, we have met nearly 30 times. Russia is the country that I have visited the most times, and President Putin is my best friend and colleague,” Xi said. Both leaders share an objective of altering the world order, and they will continue to pursue that.

Chris Stevenson reviews an unbalanced relationship:

It is clear who holds the power in the Xi-Putin bromance | Chris Stevenson

‘Criminal’ Vladimir Putin visits destroyed Mariupol after ICC issues arrest warrant

Sunday 19 March 2023 22:00 , Liam James

Kyiv officials described Vladimir Putin as a “criminal” returning to a “crime scene” after the Russian president visited Mariupol in the second of two appearances in Ukraine after a warrant for his arrest was issued by the International Criminal Court (Matt Mathers writes).

State media said Mr Putin drove around the occupied port city in a car on Saturday, stopping in several districts to speak with locals in what appears to be an attempt by the president to project an image of control after he was indicted on war crimes charges. It is the first time he has visited the city.

Mariupol, in Ukraine’s south, was captured by Russia 10 months ago after an indiscriminate bombing campaign by Kremlin troops at the outset of Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine on 24 February last year.

‘Criminal’ Vladimir Putin visits destroyed Mariupol after ICC issues arrest warrant

Frontline medical volunteers brave Russian assault

Sunday 19 March 2023 21:00 , Liam James

Medical volunteers are at work in Donetsk, the area of heaviest fighting in Ukraine, as the Russian assault continues.

Watch: Putin on wallkabout in occupied-Mariupol

Sunday 19 March 2023 20:00 , Liam James

Vladimir Putin was today seen on the streets of the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol, in his first trip to occupied territory since the Russian invasion.

Mariupol was subject to a brutal siege by Russian forces in the early weeks of the invasion as Moscow sought to secure a land route from Russia’s border to Crimea.

The Russian president yesterday travelled to Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine.

Russia ‘highly unlikely’ to seize major objectives in near future – MoD

Sunday 19 March 2023 19:00 , Liam James

Russian forces fighting in Ukraine are “highly unlikely” to capture Moscow’s previously planned major objectives in the coming months of grinding war, the British defence ministry said today.

It pointed to a decree published on 3 March where authorities in the Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast declared occupied Melitopol as the regional capital.

“The Russian-installed head of the oblast, Evgeny Balitsky, said that this was a temporary measure until the city of Zaporizhzhia was controlled by Russia,” the ministry noted.

It added: “The quiet declaration of an alternative capital is likely tacit acknowledgement within the Russian system that its forces are highly unlikely to seize previously planned major objectives in the near future.”

Three people dead in Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia

Sunday 19 March 2023 18:00 , Natalie Crockett

Three people have died and two were injured in a Russian shelling attack on a residential building in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia on Sunday.

The region’s military administration said Russian troops fired grad rockets at the village of Kamyanske where some 2,600 people lived before the war broke out.

The authorities urged people to evacuate warning that the threat of shelling was constant near the front lines.

ICYMI: Biden says Putin has ‘clearly committed war crimes’ and ICC charges are justified

Sunday 19 March 2023 17:15 , Matt Mathers

US president Joe Biden said on Friday his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “clearly committed” war crimes during the course of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since the conflict erupted in the former Soviet nation in February last year.

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” the US president said on Friday referring to the Russian leader.

Arpan Rai has more:

Biden says Putin has ‘clearly committed war crimes’ and ICC charges are justified

Watch: Putin visits Crimea to mark anniversary of Russia’s annexation

Sunday 19 March 2023 16:30 , Matt Mathers

Vladimir Putin travelled to Crimea on Saturday, 18 March, on an unannounced visit to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia‘s annexation of the territory from Ukraine.

The Russian president met with the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, and visited to see a new children’s centre and art school.

The surprise visit came a day after the International Criminal Court said it had issued an arrest warrant against Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.

Watch the video here:

Putin visits Crimea to mark anniversary of Russia’s annexation

Who are the Ukrainian children at the heart of Putin arrest warrant?

Sunday 19 March 2023 15:38 , Matt Mathers

Daria Herasymchuk, advisor-commissioner of the President of Ukraine’s Office for Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation, described in an interview with Reuters on 17 March five main ways she said Russia has used to illegally transfer Ukrainian children.

They include:

• offering families living in occupied areas to take children for holidays in Russian children’s camps and not returning them during an agreed timeframe;

• taking Ukrainian children away from care institutions in occupied areas;

• separating children from parents at filtration checkpoints - the places where Ukrainian citizens from regions under Russian occupation are checked and processed before being allowed to enter Russia;

• taking away parental rights through laws enforced on occupied territories;

• taking children away in cases where they were staying with other adults after their parents were killed in the war

• Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said on March 17 the prosecutors were investigating cases of deportation of over 16,000 children from Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions. "But the real figure can be much higher," Kostin said on his Facebook page.

• Ukraine has so far managed to return 308 children, officials said.

• Iryna Vereshchuk, minister for reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, issued a public appeal on Saturday to Russian officials asking for lists of all Ukrainian orphans and all Ukrainian children whose parents were stripped of parental rights who are currently in occupied Ukrainian areas or were illegally transferred to Russia.

• A report published in February by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health as part of the Conflict Observatory said Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children - likely many more - in sites in Russian-held Crimea and Russia whose primary purpose appears to be political re-education. The report said Yale University researchers had identified at least 43 camps and other facilities where Ukrainian children have been held that were part of a "large-scale systematic network" operated by Moscow.

Putin arrest warrant will prolong war - Serbian president

Sunday 19 March 2023 15:00 , Matt Mathers

Issuing an international arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin will have negative consequences and will only prolong the war in Ukraine, Serbia’s president has said.

"I think issuing an arrest warrant for Putin, not to go into legal matters, will have bad political consequences and it says that there is a great reluctance to talk about peace (and) about truce" in Ukraine, Alexsandar Vucic told reporters in Belgrade.

"My question is now that you have accused him of the biggest war crimes, who are you going to talk to now?" Mr Vucic said.

"Do you really think that it is possible to defeat Russia in a month, three months or a year?" he asked, adding: "There is no doubt that the goal of those who did this is to make it difficult for Putin to communicate, so that everyone who talks to him is aware that he is accused of war crimes."

Asked if Mr Putin would be arrested if he comes to Serbia, Mr Vucic said that it is "a pointless question, because it is clear that as long as the conflict (in Ukraine) continues, Putin has nowhere to go."

ICYMI: Putin to meet Xi in Moscow

Sunday 19 March 2023 14:24 , Matt Mathers

President Xi Jinping will visit Russia from Monday to Wednesday in an apparent show of support for Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin on Friday also announced the visit, saying it will take place “at the invitation of Vladimir Putin.” Xi and Putin will discuss “issues of further development of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction between Russia and China,” as well as exchange views “in the context of deepening Russian-Chinese cooperation in the international arena,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

The two leaders will also sign “important bilateral documents,” the statement read.

Russian attacks continue in wake of Putin arrest warrant

Sunday 19 March 2023 14:15 , Matt Mathers

Widespread Russian attacks continued in Ukraine following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

Full report:

Russian attacks continue in wake of Putin arrest warrant

ICYMI: Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate

Sunday 19 March 2023 13:45 , Matt Mathers

Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk‘s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.

David Klepper reports:

Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate

Black Sea drones show US involvement in conflict against Russia - Kremlin

Sunday 19 March 2023 13:10 , Matt Mathers

US drone flights over the Baltic Sea are a sign of direct US involvement in conflict with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Last week, a US  drone crashed into the sea after being intercepted by Russian Su-27 fighter planes in the first known direct military encounter between the two sides since Russia launched its war in Ukraine last year.

"It is quite obvious what these drones are doing, and their mission is not at all a peaceful mission to ensure the safety of shipping in international waters," Interfax news agency quoted Mr Peskov as saying in a TV interview.

"And in fact, we are talking about the direct involvement of the operators of these drones in the conflict, and against us."

US said the Russian planes harassed the drone in Tuesday’s incident and sprayed fuel on it before one of them clipped its propeller and caused it to crash while on a reconnaissance mission in international airspace.

South Africa aware of legal obligations regarding Putin visit

Sunday 19 March 2023 12:40 , Matt Mathers

South Africa is aware of its legal obligation, a spokesperson for President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday, referring to a proposed visit by Vladimir Putin after an international court issued an arrest warrant against the Russian leader.

Russian President Putin was expected to visit South Africa in August to attend a BRICS summit.

"We are, as the government, cognisant of our legal obligation. However, between now and the summit we will remain engaged with various relevant stakeholders," spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said.

While there has been no official confirmation of Putin’s visit, he has been expected to attend the 15th BRICS summit, as he did in 2013.

But such a visit would place Ramaphosa’s government, which has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a precarious position after the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday.

"We note the report on the warrant of arrest that the ICC has issued," Magwenya said.

"It remains South Africa’s commitment and very strong desire that the conflict in Ukraine is resolved peacefully through negotiations."

Why China is trying to mediate in the Ukraine invasion

Sunday 19 March 2023 12:00 , Matt Mathers

The war has handed Beijing opportunities that it might once have considered to be quite a lot further down the line, writes Mary Dejevsky.

Read Mary’s full piece here:

Why China is trying to mediate in the Ukraine invasion | Mary Dejevsky

ICYMI: Russia, Ukraine extend grain deal to aid world's poor

Sunday 19 March 2023 11:30 , Matt Mathers

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian officials say an unprecedented wartime deal that allows grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat and high food prices are pushing more people into poverty has been extended.

Karl Ritter reports:

Russia, Ukraine extend grain deal to aid world's poor

Mid-morning re-cap cont.

Sunday 19 March 2023 11:00 , Matt Mathers

DIPLOMACY

* Xi Jinping walks a diplomatic tightrope as he heads to Moscow on Monday, seeking to present China as a global peacemaker while strengthening ties with Putin, his closest ally, who is increasingly isolated by the West.

* Russia, China and Iran have completed three-way naval exercises in the Arabian Sea that included artillery fire at targets on the sea and in the air, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday.

* Three senior U.S. security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss military aid to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said.

FIGHTING

* Ukrainian forces outside the battered eastern city of Bakhmut are managing to keep Russian units at bay so ammunition, food, equipment and medicines can be delivered to defenders, the army said on Saturday.

* Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to recruit approximately 30,000 new fighters by the middle of May, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday.

* Reuters could not verify battleground reports.

Mid-morning re-cap

Sunday 19 March 2023 10:23 , Matt Mathers

GRAIN DEAL RENEWED

* A deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain was renewed for at least 60 days - half the intended period - after Russia warned any further extension beyond mid-May would depend on the removal of some Western sanctions.

PUTIN AND ARREST WARRANT

* Putin may not see the inside of a cell anytime soon, but his war crimes arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court could hurt his ability to travel freely and meet other world leaders, who may feel less inclined to speak to a wanted man.

* The ICC issued the warrant on Friday, accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Moscow denies committing atrocities in the conflict and dismissed the warrant as outrageous, but meaningless for Russia.

Countries supplying Russia with weapons are ‘marginals in free world’ - Zelenksy

Sunday 19 March 2023 09:41 , Matt Mathers

Countries that are supplying Russia with weapons can only be “marginals in the free world”, Volodymyr Zelenksy has said.

The Ukraine president made the comments in a video shared overnight on Twitter as fighting continued on the front line.

“All those who produce weapons for terror against Ukraine, who help Russia incite aggression, in particular by supplying Shahed drones, who support Russia’s destruction of international law, can only be marginals for the world”, he said.

Watch:

ICYMI: ‘My life was in danger’- rail enthusiast flees Russia after photographing Putin’s armoured train

Sunday 19 March 2023 09:20 , Matt Mathers

Trainspotter Mikhail Korotkov’s blog was his passion – but shutting up shop and leaving home felt like the only option after pictures he posted of his favourite target attracted some unwanted attention, finds Robyn Dixon.

Full report here:

Rail enthusiast flees Russia after photographing Putin’s armoured train

Germany will arrest Putin if he enters country, says minister

Sunday 19 March 2023 08:57 , Arpan Rai

Germany will have to arrest Russian president Vladimir Putin if he enters its territory and the International Criminal Court requires the contracting nation for enforcement, the country’s justice minister Marco Buschmann said today.

An arrest warrant for Mr Putin has been issued by the ICC in The Hague, which accuses him of war crimes by taking hundreds of Ukrainian children from orphanages.

The court accuses Mr Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, of “unlawful deportation” of children “from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.

Russia may find itself receiving an offer from China it cannot refuse

Sunday 19 March 2023 08:32 , Arpan Rai

President Xi Jinping is an unlikely sort of peacemaker. His government has been responsible for unspeakable cruelties against the Muslim Uyghur people in Xinjiang region, the suppression of protest, the rule of law and democracy in Hong Kong, and the routine abuse of human rights across the entire people’s republic.

His armed forces have been buzzing and intimidating Taiwan for many years, as well as menacing neighbours in the South China Sea. Yet now the tyrannical supreme leader of China is going around the world brokering peace deals. It is a conundrum.

Mr Xi is in fact on something of a roll. Fresh from getting Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic relations, and thus begin to end their pitiless proxy war in Yemen, he is off to Moscow next week to preach the ways of peace to Vladimir Putin, a tough customer.

Read The Independent’s Editorial here:

Editorial: Russia may find itself receiving an offer from China it cannot refuse

Putin seen driving Toyota car at night in Mariupol to visit locals

Sunday 19 March 2023 08:03 , Arpan Rai

Vladimir Putin visited a family in their home In the Nevsky district of Mariupol during his visit to the Ukrainian city now under Russia’s control, Russian media reported.

The new residential neighbourhood has been built by Russian military with first people moving in last September.

Residents have been “actively” returning, Russia’s deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin, who accompanied the leader, was cited as saying by Russian agencies.

Mariupol had a population of half a million people before the war and was home to the Azovstal steel plant, one of Europe’s largest.

“The downtown has been badly damaged,” the deputy PM said. “We want to finish (reconstruction) of the centre by the end of the year, at least the facade part. The centre is very beautiful.”

Russian media broadcast videos showing the Russian leader driving a car at night through a built-up area as well as walking into what media said was the philharmonic, restored in just three months.

There was also no immediate reaction to the visit from Kyiv.

Russia ‘highly unlikely’ to seize major objectives in near future – MoD

Sunday 19 March 2023 07:35 , Arpan Rai

Russian forces fighting in Ukraine are “highly unlikely” to capture its previously planned major objectives in the coming months of grinding war, the British defence ministry said today.

It pointed to a decree published on 3 March where authorities in the Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast declared occupied Melitopol as the oblast capital.

“The Russian-installed head of the oblast, Evgeniy Balitskiy, said that this was a temporary measure until the city of Zaporizhzhia was controlled by Russia,” the ministry noted.

It added: “The quiet declaration of an alternative capital is likely tacit acknowledgement within the Russian system that its forces are highly unlikely to seize previously planned major objectives in the near future.”

Zaporizhzhia is one of the four oblasts Mr Putin claimed to have annexed as part of the Russian Federation on 30 September last year.

But the invading nation has never occupied Zaporizhzhia city, a major industrial centre of 700,000 people, which is approximately 35km from the current front line, the MoD pointed out.

Vladimir Putin visits Crimea to mark nine years since annexation as Ukraine grain deal extended

Sunday 19 March 2023 07:00 , Liam James

Russian president Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Crimea on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine.

His trip came a day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on charges of war crimes, alleging he bears personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine during Russia’s invasion that began nearly 13 months ago.

In Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city, Mr Putin met Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev, with whom he visited an art school and a children’s centre that are part of a project to develop a historical park on the site of an ancient Greek colony, Russian state news agencies said.

Catch up on the major events of Saturday:

Vladimir Putin visits Crimea on anniversary of annexation as grain deal extended

Rail enthusiast flees Russia after photographing Putin’s armoured train

Sunday 19 March 2023 06:00 , Liam James

For Mikhail Korotkov, a lifelong trainspotter, one unusual train on Russia’s railways became an obsession – like stalking a rare, shy beast.

Korotkov, 31, spent years tracking and photographing president Vladimir Putin’s hush-hush deluxe armored train. He was the first enthusiast to post an image of the train – sleek sliver with red-and-grey detailing, often pulled by multiple boxy locomotives – online in 2018. “Mere mortals do not travel on such a train,” Korotkov wrote.

Finding and photographing the train was both terrifying and exhilarating. To Korotkov, it was like a creepy “ghost train”, with a secret timetable, no identifying locomotive numbers and its windows always screened. At least, one of the rail cars has an unusual dome on top – believed to house special communications equipment.

“I was so deep in my hobby. I tried to get really rare pictures,” Korotkov recalls. “And for me, the challenge was so huge that I was not thinking about consequences.”

The Russian president is known to be fanatically cautious – detractors would say paranoid – when it comes to security.

Robyn Dixon takes a deep dive into the dramatic journey of one bold trainspotter:

Rail enthusiast flees Russia after photographing Putin’s armoured train

Putin reaches Ukraine in a first since war: What do we know

Sunday 19 March 2023 05:56 , Arpan Rai

Vladimir Putin visited the Russia-occupied city of Mariupol in Ukraine on Sunday, reported news agency TASS.

Mariupol in Donetsk region was captured by Russian forces after a bloody battle in May last year and has remained under the control of Moscow’s fighters since.

The Russian president was seen driving a car around the city as he visited several districts.

He also made stops along the way and spoke to the residents, reported TASS news agency.

Read the full story here:

Putin visits Russia-occupied Mariupol city in Ukraine

Putin and Xi might have a bromance but it’s clear who holds the power

Sunday 19 March 2023 05:40 , Arpan Rai

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have met around 40 times since China’s leader assumed the presidency in 2012. In many ways, the camaraderie between the pair has come to define the diplomatic relations between Moscow and Beijing across the last decade (Chris Stevenson writes).

Xi made Moscow his first overseas visit as president in 2013 and this latest visit comes next week in the wake of him being handed an unprecedented third term as president. During that time, the greetings between Xi and Putin have evolved from “dear president” to “dear friend” and later to “my old friend”. Last year, just a few weeks before Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine the leaders met and announced a “no limits” partnership between their two nations.

Historically, relations between China and Russia have been fraught with distrust and confrontation, particularly at the height of their Cold War schism in the late 1960s, but Putin and Xi have changed the dynamic. On his last visit to Moscow, in 2019, Xi spoke of his “deep personal friendship” with his Russian counterpart. “In the past six years, we have met nearly 30 times. Russia is the country that I have visited the most times, and President Putin is my best friend and colleague,” Xi said. Both leaders share an objective of altering the world order, and they will continue to pursue that.

It is clear who holds the power in the Xi-Putin bromance | Chris Stevenson

Putin meets top command of Russia's military operation in Ukraine

Sunday 19 March 2023 04:17 , Arpan Rai

Russian president Vladimir Putin has met with the top brass leading his military operation in Ukraine, state media said today.

The leader, facing an arrest warrant for war crimes, also met with chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov who is in charge of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The meeting took place at the Rostov-on-Don command post in southern Russia, reported TASS news agency.

The Body in the Woods: Watch now on Independent TV

Sunday 19 March 2023 04:00 , Liam James

Bel Trew, The Independent’s foreign correspondent, has spent the past year covering the war in Ukraine on the ground.

One month into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, after Russian forces had withdrawn from around Kyiv, Ms Trew and her team stumbled on a body by an abandoned Russian camp.

His hands were tied. He had been burned and shot in the back. Soldiers said he was a teenager.

As she tried to find out who he was and what had happened, she uncovered a nightmare world: a nation struggling to find thousands of its missing and to identify its dead.

The Body in the Woods by Bel Trew is streaming now on Independent TV and on your smart TV.

The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary

Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate

Sunday 19 March 2023 02:45 , Natalie Crockett

Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk‘s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.

The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill.

They spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America’s support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.

Regularly spewing anti-US propaganda, the accounts show how easily authoritarian states and Americans willing to spread their propaganda can exploit social media platforms like Twitter in an effort to steer domestic discourse.

Read the full story here:

Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate

Vladimir Putin visits Crimea to mark nine years since annexation as Ukraine grain deal extended

Sunday 19 March 2023 01:45 , Natalie Crockett

Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Crimea on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine.

In Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city, Mr Putin met Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev, with whom he visited an art school and a children’s centre that are part of a project to develop a historical park on the site of an ancient Greek colony, Russian state news agencies said.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in a move most of the world denounced as illegal and which soured relations between Moscow and the West. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said any peace settlement would involve Russia withdrawing from the peninsula as well as the regions it has occupied since last year.

Mr Putin has shown no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin’s gains. Instead, he stressed on Friday the importance of holding Crimea.

Liam James has more:

Vladimir Putin visits Crimea on anniversary of annexation as grain deal extended

Ukraine still resupplying troops in battered Bakhmut despite Russian assault

Sunday 19 March 2023 00:45 , Natalie Crockett

Ukrainian forces outside the eastern city of Bakhmut are managing to keep Russian troops at bay so ammunition, food, equipment and medicines can be delivered to defenders, the army said on Saturday.

Kyiv said its troops had killed 193 Russians and injured 199 others during the course of fighting on Friday.

Russia has made the capture of Bakhmut a priority in its bid to take control of the country’s eastern Donbas region. The city has been largely destroyed in months of fighting, with Russia launching repeated assaults.

“We are managing to deliver the necessary munitions, food, gear and medicines to Bakhmut. We are also managing to take our wounded out of the city,” military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty told the ICTV television channel.

It comes as widespread Russian attacks continued in Ukraine following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

Russian attacks continue in wake of Putin arrest warrant

Have other courts put world leaders on trial?

Saturday 18 March 2023 23:45 , Natalie Crockett

Apart from the ICC, several former leaders have been tried by other international courts.

Among the notable cases is that of Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia who became the first former head of state to appear before an international tribunal since World War Two when he was tried at a UN court for alleged crimes during the 1990s Balkan wars. He died in custody in 2006 before a verdict was reached.

Liberian former leader Charles Taylor was jailed for 50 years in 2012 after he was found guilty of war crimes by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. He was the first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes by an international court since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders after World War Two.

Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, one of Milosevic’s adversaries in the 1990s Balkan wars, left office after being indicted for war crimes by the Kosovo war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He denies all the charges and is due to go on trial next month.

Has the ICC issued arrests warrants for other heads of states?

Saturday 18 March 2023 22:45 , Natalie Crockett

Sudan’s former president Omar al-Bashir and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi are the only other leaders to have been indicted by the ICC while serving as head of state. Charges against Gaddafi were terminated after he was overthrown and killed in 2011.

Bashir, who was indicted in 2009 for genocide in Darfur, remained in office for another decade until he was toppled in a coup. He has since been prosecuted in Sudan for other crimes but has not been handed to the ICC.

While in office, he travelled to a number of Arab and African countries, including ICC member states Chad, Djibouti, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and Uganda, which declined to detain him. The court rebuked those countries or referred them to the UN Security Council for non-compliance.

The ICC has tried one former head of state after he left office: former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, who was acquitted of all charges in 2019 after a three-year trial.

Can Putin be detained abroad over ICC arrest warrant?

Saturday 18 March 2023 21:45 , Natalie Crockett

The ICC’s 123 member states are obliged to detain and transfer Putin if he sets foot on their territory. Russia is not a member and neither are China, the United States or India, which is hosting a summit later this year of leaders of the G20 group of big economies, which includes Russia.

The world’s permanent war crimes court was created by the Rome Statute, a treaty ratified by all the EU states, as well as Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland, 33 African countries and 19 nations in the South Pacific.

Russia signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but withdrew its backing in 2016 after the ICC classified Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula as an armed conflict.

“Putin is not stupid. He’s not going to travel abroad to a country where he might be arrested,” said assistant professor of history at the Utrecht University Iva Vukusic.

“He is not going to be able to travel pretty much anywhere else beyond the countries that are either clearly allies or at least somewhat aligned (with) Russia,” Vukusic said.

Will Putin face trial after ICC issued an arrest warrant for him?

Saturday 18 March 2023 20:47 , Natalie Crockett

The ICC’s arrest warrant was the first issued against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.

The move has been dismissed by Moscow and welcomed by Ukraine as a major breakthrough. But, the chances of Putin facing trial at the ICC are highly unlikely because Moscow does not recognise its jurisdiction or extradite its nationals.

Putin and Xi might have a bromance but it’s clear who holds the power

Saturday 18 March 2023 19:45 , Liam James

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have met around 40 times since China’s leader assumed the presidency in 2012. In many ways, the camaraderie between the pair has come to define the diplomatic relations between Moscow and Beijing across the last decade (Chris Stevenson writes).

Xi made Moscow his first overseas visit as president in 2013 and this latest visit comes next week in the wake of him being handed an unprecedented third term as president. During that time, the greetings between Xi and Putin have evolved from “dear president” to “dear friend” and later to “my old friend”. Last year, just a few weeks before Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine the leaders met and announced a “no limits” partnership between their two nations.

Historically, relations between China and Russia have been fraught with distrust and confrontation, particularly at the height of their Cold War schism in the late 1960s, but Putin and Xi have changed the dynamic. On his last visit to Moscow, in 2019, Xi spoke of his “deep personal friendship” with his Russian counterpart. “In the past six years, we have met nearly 30 times. Russia is the country that I have visited the most times, and President Putin is my best friend and colleague,” Xi said. Both leaders share an objective of altering the world order, and they will continue to pursue that.

It is clear who holds the power in the Xi-Putin bromance | Chris Stevenson

Biden says Putin has ‘clearly committed war crimes’ and ICC charges are justified

Saturday 18 March 2023 19:00 , Liam James

US president Joe Biden said on Friday his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “clearly committed” war crimes during the course of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since the conflict erupted in the former Soviet nation in February last year.

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” the US president said on Friday referring to the Russian leader.

Speaking on the arrest warrant for Mr Putin issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday, Mr Biden said: “Well, I think it’s justified. But the question is – it is not recognised internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point.”

The US is not a member country of the global court.

Biden says Putin has ‘clearly committed war crimes’ and ICC charges are justified

Pope promotes 'humanitarian corridors' for migrants

Saturday 18 March 2023 18:25 , Liam James

Pope Francis met today with thousands of refugees and the charity groups helping them as he sought to promote legal migration routes to Europe as an alternative to smuggling operations that he said have turned the Mediterranean Sea into a “cemetery.”

Francis said “humanitarian corridors,” which have operated in Italy since 2016, saved lives and helped newly arrived migrants get acclimated while church groups provided housing, education and work opportunities.

“Humanitarian corridors not only aim to bring refugees to Italy and other European countries, rescuing them from situations of uncertainty, danger and endless waiting; they also work toward integration,” he said.

The Sant’Egidio Catholic charity, the Federation of Evangelical Churches and the Waldensian Church spearheaded the ecumenical humanitarian transfer initiative in Italy, which has brought more than 6,000 people to Europe, Francis was told.

Families from Syria, Afghanistan, Rwanda and Ukraine were in the Vatican auditorium to meet with the pope.

Who are the Wagner mercenaries and why are they so involved in Ukraine?

Saturday 18 March 2023 17:45 , Liam James

As the Russia-affiliated Wagner group embarks on a mass recruitment drive, get up to speed on the band of mercenaries led by Vladimir Putin’s former caterer:

All we know about shadowy Wagner group mercenaries helping Putin wage war on Ukraine

Russia confirms grain deal extension

Saturday 18 March 2023 17:15 , Liam James

Russia has notified all parties to the Black Sea grain deal that the agreement has been extended for 60 days and reiterated it would not consider another extension until its concerns have been addressed, Moscow said on Saturday.

Earlier, Turkey and the United Nations said the deal had been extended but did not say for how long. A Ukrainian government minister said it would last 120 days.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova posted a copy of a letter from Russia’s permanent representation to the United Nations saying Moscow would not object to the deal being extended by 60 days to 18 May.

“Consideration by the Russian side of a further extension of the (deal) after the indicated date will only be possible subject to tangible progress” being made on the question of exporting Russian food and fertilizer, it said.

Russia says that although these exports have not been explicitly targeted by the West, sanctions on its payments, logistics and insurance industries are creating barriers

Explained: How a warrant for Putin puts new spin on Xi visit to Russia

Saturday 18 March 2023 16:45 , Matt Mathers

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week highlighted China’s aspirations for a greater role on the world stage.

But they also revealed the perils of global diplomacy: Hours after Friday’s announcement of the trip, an international arrest warrant was issued for Putin on war crimes charges, taking at least some wind out of the sails of China’s big reveal.

Matthew Lee reports:

How a warrant for Putin puts new spin on Xi visit to Russia

ICYMI: Biden says Putin has ‘clearly committed war crimes’ and ICC charges are justified

Saturday 18 March 2023 16:15 , Matt Mathers

US president Joe Biden said on Friday his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “clearly committed” war crimes during the course of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since the conflict erupted in the former Soviet nation in February last year.

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” the US president said on Friday referring to the Russian leader.

Arpan Rai has more below:

Biden says Putin has ‘clearly committed war crimes’ and ICC charges are justified

Russian attacks continue as arrested warrant issue for Putin

Saturday 18 March 2023 15:32 , Matt Mathers

Widespread Russian attacks continued in Ukraine, following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

Ukraine was attacked by 16 Russian drones on Friday night, the Ukrainian Air Force said in the early hours of Saturday.

Writing on Telegram, the air force command said that 11 out of 16 drones were shot down "in the central, western and eastern regions".

Among areas targeted were the capital, Kyiv, and western Lviv province.

The head of the Kyiv city administration, Serhii Popko, said Ukrainian air defences shot down all drones heading for the Ukrainian capital, while Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Saturday that three of six drones were shot down, with the other three hitting a district bordering Poland.

Putin visits art school in Crimea

Saturday 18 March 2023 15:09 , Matt Mathers

Russian President Vladimir Putin has travelled to Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine.

Mr Putin visited an art school and a children’s centre on Saturday, the day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader, accusing him of war crimes.

The court specifically accused him on Friday of bearing personal responsibility for the abduction of children from Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country, which started almost 13 months ago.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world considered illegal.

Black Sea grains export deal renewed

Saturday 18 March 2023 14:34 , Matt Mathers

A deal allowing the export of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports that was due to expire on Saturday has been renewed, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said, while a Ukrainian government minister said the extension had been agreed for 120 days.

"The deal for the grain corridor was due to expire today. As a result of our talks with the two sides, we have secured an extension to this deal,"  Mr Erdogan said in a speech in the western city of Canakkale, without specifying the length of the agreed extension.

Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the deal had been extended for 120 days.

The pact was brokered with Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey in July - and renewed for a further 120 days in November - to combat a global food crisis that was fueled in part by Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine and Black Sea blockade.

‘My life was in danger’: Rail enthusiast flees Russia after photographing Putin’s armoured train

Saturday 18 March 2023 14:10 , Matt Mathers

Trainspotter Mikhail Korotkov’s blog was his passion – but shutting up shop and leaving home felt like the only option after pictures he posted of his favourite target attracted some unwanted attention, finds Robyn Dixon

Full report:

Rail enthusiast flees Russia after photographing Putin’s armoured train

Saturday 18 March 2023 13:40 , Matt Mathers

8German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday held the first round of government consultations in Tokyo and agreed to strengthen economic and defense ties to better cope with China’s growing influence and global security concerns.

Kishida told a joint news conference after the talks that the sides agreed to strengthen supply chains in minerals, semiconductors, batteries and other strategic areas, in order to "counter economic coercion, state-led attempts to illegally acquire technology and non-market practices," apparently referring to China.

"Japan and Germany, both industrial nations that share fundamental values, need to take global leadership to strengthen resilience of our societies," Kishida said.

Putin visits Crimea on anniversary of its annexation from Ukraine - media

Saturday 18 March 2023 13:18 , Matt Mathers

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Crimea on Saturday on a visit to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine, Russian state media reported.

We’ll have more on this story as it comes in.

Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate

Saturday 18 March 2023 12:47 , Matt Mathers

Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk‘s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.

The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill. The accounts spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America’s support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.

David Klepper reports:

Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate

Before Xi visit, Russia says it held naval drills with China and Iran in Arabian Sea

Saturday 18 March 2023 12:25 , Matt Mathers

Russia, China and Iran have completed three-way naval exercises in the Arabian Sea that included artillery fire at targets on the sea and in the air, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday.

The exercises, off the Iranian port of Chabahar, took place as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow for a three-day state visit starting on Monday.

Russia has continued to stage military exercises with partners, especially China, despite the strain on its armed forces from the year-long war in Ukraine, where it has failed to achieve any major advance since last summer.

Russian mercenary chief aims to recruit 30,000 new fighters by mid-May

Saturday 18 March 2023 11:43 , Matt Mathers

Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to recruit approximately 30,000 new fighters by the middle of May, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday.

He said in an audio message on Telegram that Wagner recruitment centres, which he said last week had opened in 42 Russian cities, were hiring on average 500-800 people a day.

Prigozhin has been directing Russia’s operations in the key town of Bakhmut in one of the war’s longest and fiercest battles.

Germany's Scholz says ICC warrant for Putin shows 'nobody is above the law'

Saturday 18 March 2023 11:13 , Matt Mathers

German chancellor Olaf Scholz has welcomed the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying it showed that "nobody is above the law".

The ICC on Friday called for Mr Putin’s arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from Ukraine to Russia since Moscow launched its invasion of its neighbour last year.

"The International Criminal Court is the right institution to investigate war crimes ... The fact is that nobody is above the law and that’s what’s becoming clear right now," Mr Scholz said at a joint news conference in Tokyo with Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday.

Ukraine grain deal crucial for food supplies

Saturday 18 March 2023 10:50 , Matt Mathers

The extension of a deal enabling Ukraine to export grain is crucial to ensuring global food supplies and keeping prices from spiralling, the United Nations’ humanitarian chief has said, on the eve of the agreement’s expiration.

Russia’s UN ambassador reiterated that Moscow is ready to extend the deal - but only for 60 days, just half the 120 days in the agreement.

The original 120-day agreement was renewed last November and expires on Saturday.

It would be automatically extended for another 120 days unless one of the parties objects - and Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia said Russia has formally objected.

UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs Martin Griffiths said it was vital for the UN-Russia memorandum to be fully implemented.

Mr Nebenzia said "the memorandum is simply not working" and the UN has to recognise it has "no leverage to exempt Russian agricultural export operations from Western sanctions" and its efforts have not produced results.

Britain welcomes issuing of arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

Saturday 18 March 2023 10:35 , Matt Mathers

Britain has welcomed the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes in Ukraine.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly said it was essential that those at the top of the regime in Moscow were held to account for the atrocities which have taken place since the invasion a year ago.

Gavin Cordon reports:

Britain welcomes issuing of arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

Russian attacks continue in wake of Putin arrest warrant

Saturday 18 March 2023 10:07 , Matt Mathers

Widespread Russian attacks continued in Ukraine following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

Ukraine was attacked by 16 Russian drones on Friday night, the Ukrainian Air Force said in the early hours of Saturday. Writing on Telegram, the air force command said that 11 out of 16 drones were shot down "in the central, western and eastern regions." Among areas targeted were the capital, Kyiv, and the western Lviv province.

The head of the Kyiv city administration, Serhii Popko, said Ukrainian air defenses shot down all drones heading for the Ukrainian capital, while Lviv regional Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi said Saturday that three of six drones were shot down, with the other three hitting a district bordering Poland. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the attacks were carried out from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov and Russia’s Bryansk province, which borders Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military additionally said in its regular update Saturday morning that Russian forces over the previous 24 hours launched 34 airstrikes, one missile strike and 57 rounds of anti-aircraft fire. The Facebook update said that falling debris hit the southern Kherson province, damaging seven houses and a kindergarten.

According to the Ukrainian statement, Russia is continuing to concentrate its efforts on offensive operations in Ukraine’s industrial east, focusing attacks on Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Marinka and Shakhtarsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province. Pavlo Kyrylenko, regional Gov. of the Donetsk province, said one person was killed and three wounded when 11 towns and villages in the province were shelled on Friday.

Top Ukraine, US defence officials discussed military aid in call- Kyiv

Saturday 18 March 2023 09:24 , Matt Mathers

Three senior US security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts on Saturday to discuss military aid to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said.

“We discussed the further provision of necessary assistance to our country, in particular vehicles, weapons and ammunition,” Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.

He added that Zelenskiy had joined the meeting at the end to give his views on the liberation of Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.

Ukrainian soldiers sent to defend Bakhmut ‘fear they are being sent to their deaths’

Saturday 18 March 2023 08:35 , Arpan Rai

Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Bakhmut fear “they are being sent to their deaths” amid a relentless push by Russian forces to capture a city.

Putin’s forces are said to outnumber Ukrainians by two or three times on the Bakhmut front, where an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 troops are currently fighting.

The relentless Russian bombardment has ravaged the city with soldiers fighting house-to-house battles in the ruins.

Read the full story here:

Ukrainian soldiers sent to defend Bakhmut ‘fear they are being sent to their deaths’

Putin’s arrest warrant for war crimes welcomed in UK and US

Saturday 18 March 2023 08:07 , Arpan Rai

Joe Biden has joined Britain in welcoming the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin for war crimes in Ukraine.

Mr Biden said Mr Putin had “clearly committed war crimes” and the warrant, although not recognised in the US, was “justified” and made “a very strong point”.

His remarks came after UK foreign secretary James Cleverly said it was essential that those at the top of the regime in Moscow were held to account for the atrocities which have taken place since the invasion a year ago.

Read the full story here:

Arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes in Ukraine welcomed in UK and US

Russia looking to recruit 18-year-olds for war in Ukraine under new law – MoD

Saturday 18 March 2023 07:08 , Arpan Rai

Russian authorities are likely preparing to facilitate wider military conscription to resource its military requirements and reduce the age bracket down to 18 years of age from existing 21 years, effectively recruiting high-school graduates for the continuing war in Ukraine.

“On 13 March 2023, Russian Duma deputies introduced a bill to change the age bracket for conscription to men aged 21-30 years, from the current 18-27. The law is likely to be passed, and would come into force in January 2024,” the British defence ministry said today.

It added that Russia has continued to run conscription call-up cycles twice a year since Soviet times. These call-up cycles are distinct from the exceptional ‘partial mobilisation’ of veterans carried out since September 2022, the ministry noted in its latest intelligence update on the grinding war in Ukraine.

“Russia continues to officially bar conscripts from operations in Ukraine, though at least hundreds have probably served through administrative mix ups or after being coerced to sign contracts,” the MoD said.

It added: “Many 18-21 year old men currently claim exemption from the draft due to being in higher education. The authorities are highly likely changing the age bracket to bolster troop numbers by ensuring that students are eventually forced to serve.”

“Even if Russia continues to refrain from deploying conscripts in the war, extra conscripts will free up a greater proportion of professional soldiers to fight,” the ministry said.

UN working on renewing grain export deal

Saturday 18 March 2023 07:00 , Jane Dalton

The United Nations is “doing everything possible” to make sure a deal allowing the export of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports continues, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council, hours before the pact is due to expire.

He also said “meaningful progress” had been made on a separate pledge by the United Nations to help facilitate Russian food and fertiliser exports, “but impediments remain, notably with regard to payment systems.”

“It is vital for global food security that both of these agreements continue and should be fully implemented,” Griffiths said.

The Kremlin said Russia was extending the agreement for 60 days.

Ukraine’s main focus remains on Bakhmut and Donbas cities, says Zelensky

Saturday 18 March 2023 06:37 , Arpan Rai

Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the main focus of Ukrainian forces remains on heavily contested territories in Donbas.

“I held a meeting of the staff of the supreme commander-in-chief today. The main focus is on the battles in Donbas: Avdiyivka, Bakhmut, Vuhledar, Maryinka, Bilohorivka,” he said.

Mr Zelensky added: “The main focus is on our soldiers, how to support our brigades, how to give them more strength, opportunities, more weapons and protection.”

“As always, the commander-in-chief, intelligence, task force commanders reported. The commander of Khortytsia group General Syrsky, the commander of Tavria group General Tarnavsky. It is these groups that operate in Donbas,” he said.

China’s plan would ratify ‘Russian conquest’, White House says

Saturday 18 March 2023 06:10 , Jane Dalton

Any China-brokered ceasefire would legitimise the illegal takeover of Ukrainian territory and would not gain support from the US, the White House has said:

China’s Ukraine ceasefire plan would ratify ‘Russian conquest’, White House says

Xi-Putin meet next week: What to expect

Saturday 18 March 2023 05:31 , Arpan Rai

Chinese president Xi Jinping will visit Russia from Monday to Wednesday in an apparent show of support for Vladimir Putin, officials in Beijing have confirmed.

The two leaders are likely to discuss sanctions evasion schemes and Chinese interest in mediating a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, according to the US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War.

It pointed out that the Kremlin has stated both presidents “plan to sign unspecified bilateral documents and discuss topical issues in Russia’s and China’s comprehensive partnership”.

“Chinese companies have reportedly sold rifles, drone parts, and equipment to Russian entities that could be used for military purposes, and Western intelligence agencies have stated that Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment to Russia,” the ISW said in its latest assessment of the continuing war.

It added that the Chinese president likely plans to discuss sanctions evasion schemes with MRPutin and Russian officials to support the sale and provision of Chinese equipment to Russia.

“Xi also likely aims to promote Chinese efforts aiming to position China as an impartial third-party mediator for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. China released a broad 12-point peace plan for the war in Ukraine on 24 February, although it remains unclear what more definitive Chinese proposals for a negotiated settlement to the war would encompass,” it said.

The Chinese leader, Russia’s closest-ally amid the war on Ukraine, “may seek to parlay his success in mediating the restoration of diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia into a larger effort to mediate in this war,” the think-tank noted.

Read more here:

China leader Xi to visit Moscow in show of support for Putin

Air strike in Donetsk

Saturday 18 March 2023 04:55 , Jane Dalton

A multi-storey building burns after being attacked by a Russian air strike in Avdiivka, Donetsk:

Moscow says ICC’s decisions ‘legally void’ after arrest warrant for Putin

Saturday 18 March 2023 04:02 , Arpan Rai

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said Russia doesn’t recognise the International Criminal Court and regards its decisions “legally void”.

The international court’s move to issue an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin over war crimes is “outrageous and unacceptable.”Mr Peskov refused to comment when asked if Mr Putin would avoid making trips to countries where he could be arrested on the ICC’s warrant.

Arrest warrant issued for ‘pariah’ Putin over war crimes in Ukraine

Saturday 18 March 2023 03:48 , Arpan Rai

An arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin has been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which accuses him of war crimes by taking hundreds of Ukrainian children from orphanages.

The court accuses Mr Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, of “unlawful deportation” of children “from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.

It means the court’s 123 member states must detain Mr Putin and him over for trial if he sets foot on their territory.

Read the full story here:

Arrest warrant issued for ‘pariah’ Putin over war crimes in Ukraine

Putin has clearly committed war crimes, says Biden

Saturday 18 March 2023 03:23 , Arpan Rai

Russian president Vladimir Putin has committed war crimes and the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue an arrest warrant for him was justified, his US counterpart Joe Biden said yesterday.

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” Mr Biden said.

Speaking about the warrant from the International Criminal Court, he added: “Well, I think it’s justified. But the question is - it’s not recognized internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point.”

The ICC has called for Putin’s arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from Ukraine to Russia since Moscow’s invasion began of its neighbour last year. The United States is not a member of the ICC.

Washington says there is no doubt Russia committing war crimes

Saturday 18 March 2023 03:15 , Jane Dalton

There is no doubt Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, a US State Department spokesperson said after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin.

“There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities (in) Ukraine, and we have been clear that those responsible must be held accountable,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“This was a decision the ICC prosecutor reached independently based on the facts before him.”

The US, which is not a member of the ICC, has separately concluded that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine and supports accountability for perpetrators of war crimes, the spokesperson added.

‘No limits’: A timeline of Putin and Xi’s relationship

Saturday 18 March 2023 01:55 , Jane Dalton

‘No limits’: A timeline of Putin and Xi’s relationship

Russian fighter pilots to be honoured after clash with US drone

Saturday 18 March 2023 00:30 , Jane Dalton

Russian fighter pilots involved in an incident with a US drone that resulted in its crash will be given state awards, Moscow’s Defence Ministry has announced.

The move appears to signal the Kremlin’s intention to adopt a more aggressive stance toward future US surveillance flights.

The US military said it ditched the Air Force MQ-9 Reaper in the Black Sea on Tuesday after a pair of Russian fighter jets dumped fuel on the surveillance drone and then one of them struck its propeller while it was flying in international airspace.

Moscow has denied that its warplanes hit the drone, alleging that it crashed while making a sharp manoeuvre. It said its aircraft reacted to a violation of a no-flight zone Russia has established in the area near Crimea amid the fighting in Ukraine.

Soldiers ‘fear they are being sent to their deaths’ in Bakhmut

Friday 17 March 2023 23:30 , Jane Dalton

Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Bakhmut say they fear they are being sent to their deaths amid a relentless push by Russian forces to capture the city:

Ukrainian soldiers sent to defend Bakhmut ‘fear they are being sent to their deaths’

One of court’s most ambitious cases

Friday 17 March 2023 22:00 , Jane Dalton

The arrest warrant is one of the most ambitious cases that the ICC has undertaken and Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukraine’s presidential staff, said the warrant was “only the beginning”:

Arrest warrant issued for ‘pariah’ Putin over war crimes in Ukraine

Ukrainians hold off Russian attacks in Bakhmut

Friday 17 March 2023 21:30 , Jane Dalton

Ukrainian forces have been continuing to withstand Russian assaults on the ruined city of Bakhmut, the focal point for eight months of Russian attempts to advance through the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

Ihor, a 36-year-old soldier at the mortar position, said Ukrainian forces had been targeted by air strikes, mortar fire and tank shelling.

“You don’t always check on what’s flying over your head,” he added, crouching in a deep trench.

Wheels of justice are turning, says Kyiv foreign minister

Friday 17 March 2023 20:45 , Jane Dalton

International criminals will be held accountable for stealing children and other international crimes, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba said.

“The wheels of justice are turning,” he wrote.

Putin will face justice one day, says Starmer

Friday 17 March 2023 20:18 , Jane Dalton

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, also welcomed the issuing of an arrest warrant for Mr Putin, predicting he would one day face justice.

“Today’s announcement sends an important message: there will no hiding place for Putin and his cronies and the world is determined to make them pay for what they have done,” he said.

“These cases are just the tip of the iceberg.

“One day Putin will face justice: until then, the focus of all who believe in Ukraine‘s liberty and freedom must continue to be on ensuring her victory.”

Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, told the BBC: “It is, I suspect, going to be a long journey but people said that about Yugoslavia and Rwanda and many of those people responsible for the carnage ended up in the dock of a court.

“In the short term it will be very hard for President Putin to move around the world because there are so many countries who are parties to the ICC who will be duty bound to arrest him.”

Zelensky hails 'historic’ decision

Friday 17 March 2023 19:55 , Jane Dalton

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin was historic and blamed Putin for the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children.

“This is an historic decision which will lead to historic accountability,” he said in his nightly video address.

The real number of deported children could be far more than 16,000, he said, and said their deportations constituted a policy of “state evil which starts precisely with the top official of this state.”

He added: “It would have been impossible to enact such a criminal operation without the say-so of the man at the helm of the terrorist state.”

UK minister welcomes arrest warrant

Friday 17 March 2023 19:41 , Jane Dalton

The UK foreign secretary has welcomed the issuing by the International Criminal Court of an arrest warrant for Mr Putin for war crimes.

James Cleverly said it was essential that those at the top of the regime in Moscow were held to account for the atrocities which have taken place since the invasion a year ago.

He said in a statement on social media that those responsible for horrific war crimes in Ukraine must be brought to justice.

“We welcome the step taken by the independent ICC to hold those at the top of the Russian regime, including Vladimir Putin, to account,” he wrote.

“Work must continue to investigate the atrocities committed.”

EU countries to sign deal to buy shells for Ukrainian troops

Friday 17 March 2023 19:11 , Jane Dalton

Several European Union countries will sign an agreement on Monday to team up to buy artillery rounds for Ukraine as part of an effort to speed up and increase the supply of shells that Kyiv says it urgently needs to fight Russia’s invasion.

A senior EU official said many of the bloc’s 27 countries were expected to sign the so-called project arrangement, which sets out the terms of reference for the plan, but the precise number was unclear as some were still examining the proposal.

“This arrangement has been set up very, very quickly,” the senior EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told a news briefing on Friday. “All (EU) member states and Norway can participate.”

Russia steps up Bakhmut pressure

Friday 17 March 2023 18:26 , Jane Dalton

The commander of Ukrainian ground forces said Russian forces were trying to break through Ukrainian defences in several directions in an attempt to fully encircle the small eastern city of Bakhmut.

“Bakhmut remains the epicentre of hostilities. Battles for the city continue,” General Oleksandr Syrskyi said. “The enemy is using all its forces and is trying to break through the defence in several directions and completely surround the city.”

Russia has made the capture of Bakhmut a priority in its strategy to take control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas industrial region.

Opinion: It is clear who wields power in the Xi-Putin bromance

Friday 17 March 2023 18:05 , Jane Dalton

China’s president is heading to Moscow, but it is Russia’s leader that is under pressure, writes Chris Stevenson:

It is clear who holds the power in the Xi-Putin bromance | Chris Stevenson

Court decision null and void, says Kremlin

Friday 17 March 2023 17:50 , Jane Dalton

The Kremlin said an arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against Vladimir Putin was outrageous, but meaningless with respect to Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia found the very questions raised by the ICC “outrageous and unacceptable”, but noted that Russia, like many other countries, did not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC.

“And accordingly, any decisions of this kind are null and void for the Russian Federation from the point of view of law.”

Asked if Putin now feared travelling to countries that recognised the ICC and might therefore try to arrest him, Peskov told reporters: “I have nothing to add on this subject. That’s all we want to say.”

Warrant ‘just the start’, says EU foreign policy chief

Friday 17 March 2023 17:15 , Jane Dalton

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called the ICC’s issuing of an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin an important decision for international justice.

Borrell said the move was just the start of “holding Russia accountable for its crimes and atrocities in Ukraine“.

“This is an important decision of international justice and for the people of Ukraine,” he said.

Moscow says ICC’s Putin arrest warrant has ‘no significance whatsoever'

Friday 17 March 2023 15:58 , Andy Gregory

The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin has “no significance whatsoever”, a spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry has said.

ICC issues arrest warrant for Russian children’s rights commissioner

Friday 17 March 2023 15:39 , Andy Gregory

Alongside Vladimir Putin, the International Criminal Court has also issued a warrant for the arrest for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Russian president’s office.

Similarly to the Russian president, Ms Lvova-Belova “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”, the court said.

China ceasefire plan would ratify ‘Russian Conquest’, warns White House

Friday 17 March 2023 15:34 , Andy Gregory

Our White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg reports:

Any China-brokered ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia would legitimise the illegal takeover of Ukrainian territory and so would not gain support from the US, the White House has said.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Friday told reporters a ceasefire at this point in the year-old war would have the effect of “ratifying Russian conquest”.

“We certainly don't support calls for a ceasefire that would be called for by the PRC at a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia,” he said.

“Russia would be free to use a ceasefire to only further entrench their positions in Ukraine, to rebuild, refit and refresh their forces so they can restart attacks on Ukraine at a time of their choosing.”

China’s Ukraine ceasefire plan would ratify ‘Russian conquest’, White House says

Turkey to move forward with ratifying Finland’s Nato application, says Erdogan

Friday 17 March 2023 15:28 , Andy Gregory

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that his government will move forward with ratifying Finland’s Nato application, after months of blocking such a move.

The breakthrough came as Finnish president Sauli Niinisto was in Ankara to meet with Mr Erdogan, who had signed an agreement last June to resolve differences over the bids by Sweden and Finland – who Turkey had accused of being too soft on groups it deems to be terror organisations.

“When it comes to fulfilling its pledges in the trilateral memorandum of understanding, we have seen that Finland has taken authentic and concrete steps,” Mr Erdogan told reporters, following his meeting with Mr Niinisto.

“This sensitivity for our country’s security and, based on the progress that has been made in the protocol for Finland’s accession to Nato, we have decided to initiate the ratification process in our parliament,” the president added.

With Mr Erdogan’s agreement, Finland’s application can now go to the Turkish parliament, where the president’s party and its allies hold a majority. Ratification is expected before Turkey holds its presidential and parliamentary elections – scheduled for 14 May.

Breaking: ICC issues Putin arrest warrant over war crimes in Ukraine

Friday 17 March 2023 15:23 , Andy Gregory

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant against Russian president Vladimir Putin, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations it has committed atrocities since its invasion last February.

The announcement comes hours after a UN-backed inquiry found that Russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine – including systematic torture and killing in occupied regions – amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

My colleague Tara Cobham has our breaking report, which you can refresh for updates:

Arrest warrant issued for Vladimir Putin over ‘war crimes’ in Ukraine

Hungarian parliament expected to vote on Nato bids in a fortnight

Friday 17 March 2023 15:03 , Andy Gregory

Hungary’s parliament is expected to vote on the ratification of Finland and Sweden’s bids to join Nato on March 31, Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz party has told Reuters.

While most member states have given the applications the green light, Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify them, and Finland’s president Sauli Niinisto is meeting with his Turkish counterpart today – raising hopes that Ankara could reverse its opposition.

White House says it has deep concerns over China’s peacemaker role in Ukraine

Friday 17 March 2023 14:31 , Andy Gregory

The United States has deep concerns that China might try to position itself as a peacemaker in the war in Ukraine by promoting a ceasefire, the White House has said.

Any ceasefire at this time would not lead to a just and lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia, the White House’s national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

Russian politician shares video of Crimea schoolchildren learning to load rifles in classroom

Friday 17 March 2023 14:03 , Andy Gregory

Footage shared by Vladimir Konstantinov, a Russian politician, shows schoolchildren learning how to use rifles and engage in hand-to-hand combat in a classroom in Russian-occupied Crimea, reports my colleague Holly Patrick.

Kindergarten pupils were among “more than 60 people engaged in martial arts [and] drill training,” the Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Crimea said. “An electronic shooting range was equipped in the institution for conducting shooting classes,” he added.

Russia is rolling out basic military training courses in secondary schools later this year, according to reports.

Finland’s president visits Ankara – raising hopes for Nato membership agreement

Friday 17 March 2023 13:36 , Andy Gregory

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is meeting his Finnish counterpart in Ankara today – raising hopes that Turkey could finally approve Finland’s bid to join Nato.

Mr Erdogan suggested on Wednesday that his country may soon agree to Finland’s application to join Nato, following previous remarks by Turkish officials that Finland joining ahead of Sweden was a more likely outcome.

Asked by reporters if the Turkish parliament might ratify Finland’s membership after the visit by Finland’s president Sauli Niinisto: “God willing, if it is for the best ... Whatever the process is, the process will function. We will do our part. We will keep our promise.”

Mr Niinisto arrived in Turkey on Thursday and toured areas affected by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that killed more than 52,000 people in Turkey and Syria last month.

“I have known Erdogan for a long time. I am sure he has important messages,” Mr Niinisto said Thursday while visiting Kahramanmaras, one of the provinces worst-hit by the Feb. 6 earthquake.

Before leaving Helsinki, Mr Niinisto said Turkish officials had requested his presence in Ankara to announce Turkey’s decision on the Finnish bid. He also stressed his support for Sweden’s swift admission and said he had enjoyed a “good conversation” with Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson prior to his Turkey trip.

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