Russia-Ukraine war: Xi to visit Russia as early as next week; Moscow says it could agree to shorter Black Sea grain deal – as it happened
Black Sea #BlackSea
Russia says it could agree to renew Black Sea grain deal for shorter term
Moscow does not object to renewing a deal allowing the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports but only for a period of 60 days, half the term of the previous renewal, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin has said.
Vershinin was speaking after holding talks with U.N. officials in Geneva, Reuters reports.
The Black Sea grain initiative, brokered between Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey last July, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain blockaded by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from three Ukrainian ports.
The deal, which was extended for 120 days in November, is up for renewal on March 18.
Vershinin said:
[Russia] does not object to another extension of the ‘Black Sea Initiative’ after its second term expiration on March 18, but only for 60 days…Our further stance will be determined upon tangible progress on normalization of our agricultural exports, not in words, but in deeds.
Vessels are seen as they await inspection under the Black Sea Grain Initiative in the southern anchorage of the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Photograph: Yoruk Isik/Reuters
Updated at 12.48 EDT
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Closing summary
The time in Kyiv is just coming up to 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s stories:
Britain declared that the UK’s security hinged on the outcome of the Ukraine war in an update to its foreign policy framework published on Monday. The UK will invest an extra £5bn in the armed forces over two years and increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP.
Britain’s Royal Navy said it was escorting a Russian frigate and tanker in waters close to the UK having shadowed the vessels through the Channel on Sunday morning.
The international criminal court intends to open two war crimes cases tied to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and will seek arrest warrants for several people, the New York Times reported citing sources unauthorised to speak publicly. The cases are the first international charges to be brought forward since the start of the conflict, the newspaper reports.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, is planning to visit Russia as soon as next week, people familiar with the matter said, according to Reuters. Xi also plans to speak with Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time since the start of the war, according to the Wall Street Journal. China’s president is to speak virtually with his Ukrainian counterpart, probably after a visit to Moscow next week, the paper reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Negotiations began on Monday between UN officials and Russia’s deputy foreign minister on a possible extension to a deal allowing the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, the Russian diplomatic mission in Geneva said.
Moscow does not object to renewing a deal allowing the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports but only for a period of 60 days, half the term of the previous renewal, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin has said.
The Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Vladimir Putin and a staunch supporter of the war in Ukraine, met Russia’s president to discuss the war, according to reports.
Russian forces fired two rockets at a school in Avdiivka, according to the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, Andriy Yermak. One local resident was killed in the attack.
Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said on Monday that relations between Russia and China were a major factor supporting global stability in the world today, Reuters reports, citing Russian state-owned news agency Tass.
The Italian government has said Russian mercenary group Wagner is behind a surge in migrant boats trying to cross the central Mediterranean as part of Moscow’s strategy to retaliate against countries supporting Ukraine, Reuters reported. Yevgeny Prigozhin responded: “We have no idea what’s happening with the migrant crisis, we don’t concern ourselves with it.”
A senior Russian lawmaker introduced a bill to parliament on Monday to raise the age of conscription to 21-30 years from the current 18-27 years by 2026, Reuters reported.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has awarded the Hero of Ukraine award to Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a soldier who was seemingly executed by machine gun fire on camera after being captured by Russian soldiers. Zelenskiy said: “Today I conferred the title of Hero of Ukraine upon Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a soldier. A man whom all Ukrainians will know. A man who will be remembered for ever. For his bravery, for his confidence in Ukraine and for his ‘Glory to Ukraine!’”
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has reported on Telegram that one civilian was killed and four people were injured in a rocket attack on Znob-Novhorodske, in Sumy region.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is reporting a claim that resistance fighters have blown up a railway that Russian forces were using in occupied Kherson. The claims have not been independently verified. A video posted by the Atesh partisan group appears to show a railway track between the settlements of Abrikosivka and Radensk being blown up.
Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv, has reported that a 40-year-old man was injured by a petal mine near Izyium.
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency is reporting that the Russia-installed authorities in occupied regions of Donetsk are claiming that almost 4,500 people have died as a result of shelling by Ukrainian armed forces since 17 February 2022.
One of Vladimir Putin’s top allies, the Russian security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev, said on Monday that he doubted that the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up by a pro-Ukrainian group, and said Moscow still did not know who exactly was behind it.
Russia’s industry ministry said on Monday it was expanding its list of brands that can be imported without the trademark owner’s permission to include goods from companies such as Ikea and the US toy manufacturers Hasbro and Mattel.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has offered congratulations to Pope Francis on the 10th anniversary of the latter’s election. Relations between the pope and the patriarch have been strained since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The patriarch has been a vocal supporter of Russia’s military action, whereas Pope Francis has frequently called for peace during his regular Vatican addresses.
That’s it from me, Geneva Abdul, and the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Updated at 14.48 EDT
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine:
Aftermath of recent shelling in Volnovakha. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/ReutersTraces of Russia-Ukraine war in Donetsk Oblast. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesCars move in Khreshchatyk street in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Andrew Kravchenko/AP
Rishi Sunak has said the UK will invest an extra £5bn in the armed forces over two years and increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP.
“It’s clear that the world has become more volatile. The threats to our security have increased,” Sunak told reporters in an interview beside the USS Midway museum ship as he arrived in San Diego to meet Joe Biden and Anthony Albanese to agree on the next steps in a landmark defence agreement, Aukus, with the US and Australia
Rishi Sunak announces £5bn for defence as UK faces ‘volatile’ world – video
Malawi is at the centre of a diplomatic tussle for influence, but as a food crisis looms, farmers are happy to accept desperately needed shipments
The Russian national anthem rings out at a farm to the south of Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. Farmers attending the handover ceremony of 20,000 tonnes of Russian fertiliser rise to their feet, out of respect for their guests. Later, some will collect bags of the desperately needed nitrogen, phosphate and potassium (NPK).
Amid global fertiliser shortages and rising prices since 2020, aggravated by the Russia-Ukraine war, the Russian chemicals company Uralchem-Uralkali last year agreed to donate 260,000 tonnes of fertiliser to African countries most at risk of food insecurity.
The first shipment, to Malawi, facilitated by the UN World Food Programme (WFP), was signed off in November to urgently avert a looming hunger crisis in the land-locked country. But despite food and fertiliser being exempt from international sanctions placed on Russia, one of the world’s largest fertiliser producers, diplomatic tensions have restricted flow, leaving thousands of tonnes sitting on ships in European docks.
The Malawi shipment, having eventually received clearance to leave a port in the Netherlands, faced further delays when it arrived in Mozambique in early January before making its way to Lilongwe on trucks. It finally arrived in Malawi in February.
Read more here:
President Joe Biden’s record peacetime national defence budget request of $886 billion boasts a 5.2% pay raise for troops and the largest research and development budget in history, as Russian aggression in Ukraine spurs demand for more military spending on munitions.
Biden’s request earmarks $842 billion for the Pentagon with an additional $44 billion earmarked for defence-related programs at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Energy and other agencies, bringing the national security budget to $886 billion, up from $858 billion enacted last year, according to Reuters.
Updated at 13.57 EDT
Britain’s Royal Navy said on Monday that it was escorting a Russian frigate and tanker in waters close to the UK having shadowed the vessels through the Channel on Sunday morning.
The Royal Navy said in a statement:
The Royal Navy routinely responds to escort warships in our territorial waters and the adjacent sea areas to ensure compliance with maritime law and to deter malign activity. Escorting the Russian task group alongside allied partners demonstrates the commitment of the Royal Navy and the NATO alliance to maintaining maritime security which is crucial to our national interests.”
Here are the latest images from photographer Alessio Mamo in Krasnopillia, Ukraine:
A church destroyed by the Russian forces in Dolina, a town close to the village of Krasnopillia. Photograph: The GuardianThe Ukrainian volunteer body collectors, a group called the Black Tulip, at work in Krasnopillia a deserted village in northern Donetsk. They have unearthed 311 Russian soldiers in the de-occupied areas of Ukraine since February. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The GuardianThe Ukrainian volunteer group called the Black Tulip, carries the body of a Russian soldier exhumated in Krasnopillia, a deserted village in northern Donetsk. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The GuardianA volunteer of the group called the Black Tulip, at work extracting two rotted Russian corpses from a cellar next to a destroyed house. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The GuardianRussia says it could agree to renew Black Sea grain deal for shorter term
Moscow does not object to renewing a deal allowing the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports but only for a period of 60 days, half the term of the previous renewal, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin has said.
Vershinin was speaking after holding talks with U.N. officials in Geneva, Reuters reports.
The Black Sea grain initiative, brokered between Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey last July, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain blockaded by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from three Ukrainian ports.
The deal, which was extended for 120 days in November, is up for renewal on March 18.
Vershinin said:
[Russia] does not object to another extension of the ‘Black Sea Initiative’ after its second term expiration on March 18, but only for 60 days…Our further stance will be determined upon tangible progress on normalization of our agricultural exports, not in words, but in deeds.
Vessels are seen as they await inspection under the Black Sea Grain Initiative in the southern anchorage of the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Photograph: Yoruk Isik/Reuters
Updated at 12.48 EDT
Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers on Monday wrapped up a four-week training in Spain on how to operate the Leopard 2A4 battle tank, of which Madrid is set to deliver six mothballed units to Kyiv this spring.
A total of 40 tank crew members and 15 mechanical specialists underwent training on their use at a military base in the northeastern city of Zaragoza, Spain’s armed forces said in a statement.
Ukrainian soldiers come to Spain for Leopard 2A4 tank training. Photograph: Javier Cebollada/EPA
“It has been intense,” Spanish trainer Captain Contreras – who identified himself only by his rank and surname – told reporters, who were allowed access to the drills for the first time.
Contreras said the Ukrainians would be returning home “with a very acceptable knowledge” of the Leopards.
“Although the tanks were different, there were many systems that coincide and that has made things much easier. With that, together with the motivation that the personnel brought and their desire to learn, we see them very well prepared to resume combat.”
A soldier uses a tank driving simulator at the Spanish army’s training centre of San Gregorio in Zaragoza. Photograph: Óscar del Pozo/AFP/Getty Images
One of the Ukrainian soldiers being trained had a patch on a sleeve sporting the slogan “Freedom or Death” underneath the Ukrainian flag.
The Italian government has said Russian mercenary group Wagner is behind a surge in migrant boats trying to cross the central Mediterranean as part of Moscow’s strategy to retaliate against countries supporting Ukraine, Reuters reports.
In a statement, defence minister Guido Crosetto said:
I think it is now safe to say that the exponential increase in the migratory phenomenon departing from African shores is also, to a not insignificant extent, part of a clear strategy of hybrid warfare that the Wagner division is implementing, using its considerable weight in some African countries.
Some 20,000 people have reached Italy so far this year, compared to 6,100 in the same period of 2022, interior ministry figures show, and the migration issue is piling pressure on the rightist government.
In an expletive-laden voice message posted on his Telegram channel, Wagners boss Yevgeny Prigozhin responded:
We have no idea what’s happening with the migrant crisis, we don’t concern ourselves with it.
He then used a series of obscenities to describe Crosetto and urged him to pay attention to his own country.
Updated at 12.47 EDT
Russia and China threaten to create global ‘danger and disorder’ says Sunak
Britain cast China as representing an “epoch-defining challenge” to the world order, in an update to its foreign policy framework published on Monday which declared that the UK’s security hinged on the outcome of the Ukraine war.
In the refresh of Britain’s blueprint for security and international policy, the government warned of China’s deepening partnership with Russia, and Moscow’s growing cooperation with Iran following the invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Only first released two years ago, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Britain’s Integrated Review (IR) had been updated to take account of events, with the hardening of language and positioning towards Beijing and Moscow.
But the decision to still not describe China as a threat was likely to disappoint many in Sunak’s governing Conservative Party, who also believe his vow to spend an extra 5 billion pounds ($6 billion) on defence is insufficient to support Ukraine without leaving Britain vulnerable.
In a foreword to the IR, Sunak wrote:
What could not be fully foreseen in 2021 was the pace of the geopolitical change and the extent of its impact on the UK and our people…Since then, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, weaponisation of energy and food supplies and irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, combined with China’s more aggressive stance in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, are threatening to create a world defined by danger, disorder and division.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine:
A woman travelling in a subway in Kyiv. Photograph: Andrew Kravchenko/APAn injured woman looks at her destroyed house after heavy shelling in Donetsk Oblast. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesA woman walks next to a mural on a wall of an apartment block by Russian artist Ilya Demchinko, with a portrait of Russian soldier Alexey Osokin. Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPATwo girls stand by the boxes with clothes in Tsyrkuny village which was occupied by Russian invaders for almost six months. Photograph: Ukrinform/REX/ShutterstockICC expected to seek first arrest warrants
The prosecutor at the international criminal court will formally open two war crimes cases and issue arrest warrants for several Russians deemed responsible for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children and the targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, according to reports on Monday.
The New York Times and Reuters news agency reported that the prosecutor, Karim Khan, will ask pre-trial judges to approve arrest warrants on the basis of evidence collected so far. If successful, it would mark the first time ICC warrants had been issued in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It is not clear if the warrants would be sealed, which would leave suspects guessing over whether they had been implicated. It is unlikely that the warrants would lead to trials as the ICC would not try the defendants in absentia, and Russia, which is not a member of the ICC, is highly unlikely to hand them over to the court, based in The Hague.
Reports of imminent arrest warrants come just over a year after Khan opened an investigation into possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine. Over the past 12 months, he has made three trips to Ukraine and visited sites of alleged war crimes.
Read more here:
Updated at 12.11 EDT
Fierce fighting is raging for control of the centre of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, forces from both sides of the conflict have said, as casualties continue to mount in the longest and bloodiest battle of Russia’s war.
Russia ratcheted up its efforts to take Bakhmut in early February after months of intense fighting around the town, and has since inched into the small city’s suburbs. Ukraine’s forces are now fighting off attacks from the north, east, and south. Their only road out, to the west, is under Russian artillery fire.
Ukraine insists there is a strategy behind continuing the fight for Bakhmut. The head of Ukraine’s ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Sunday that it was using the defence of Bakhmut to buy time until Ukraine is able to carry out an anticipated spring offensive. Syrskyi also said that Ukraine was using the opportunity to kill as many Russian troops as possible and wear down its reserves.
“It is necessary to buy time to build reserves and launch a counteroffensive, which is not far off,” Syrskiy said in a statement. “[Ukrainian soldiers are] inflicting the heaviest possible losses, sparing neither themselves nor the enemy.”
Read more here:
Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said on Monday that relations between Russia and China were a major factor supporting global stability in the world today, Reuters reports, citing Russian state-owned news agency Tass.
“Bilateral relations between our countries have reached a new, unprecedented level and have become a major factor supporting global stability in the face of increasing geopolitical tensions in the world,” Tass reported Shoigu as saying in a telegram message to Zhang Youxia, vice-chair of China’s central military commission and a close ally of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Updated at 10.43 EDT
Moldova does not currently face “imminent military danger” but is subject to “hybrid warfare generated by Russia” in a bid to “overthrow state power”, its defence minister told Agence France-Presse in an interview Monday.
Anatolie Nosatîi sat down for an interview with AFP at his office in Chișinău, after the latest in a string of anti-government protests erupted over the weekend in the small ex-Soviet nation.
“Imminent military danger against Moldova currently doesn’t exist, but there are other types of dangers that affect the country’s security – hybrid warfare,” Nosatîi told AFP.
By generating “disinformation, tensions inside our society”, Russia was attempting to “change the political order, destabilise and overthrow state power,” the 50-year-old minister said.
On Sunday, Moldovan police arrested members of a network seeking to undermine the country they suspected of being orchestrated by Moscow.
Joe Biden’s White House in the US accused Russia on Friday of seeking to destabilise Moldova in order to install a pro-Russian government. Pro-European Moldova has repeatedly accused Moscow of plotting to violently topple its government through saboteurs disguised as anti-government protesters, claims which Russia denied.
Summary
It’s 4pm in Kyiv. Here are the latest developments in the Ukraine-Russia conflict:
The international criminal court intends to open two war crimes cases tied to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and will seek arrest warrants for several people, the New York Times reported citing sources unauthorised to speak publicly. The cases are the first international charges to be brought forward since the start of the conflict, the newspaper reports.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, is planning to visit Russia as soon as next week, people familiar with the matter said, according to Reuters. Xi also plans to speak with Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time since the start of the war, according to the Wall Street Journal. China’s president is to speak virtually with his Ukrainian counterpart, probably after a visit to Moscow next week, the paper reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Negotiations began on Monday between UN officials and Russia’s deputy foreign minister on a possible extension to a deal allowing the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, the Russian diplomatic mission in Geneva said.
The Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Vladimir Putin and a staunch supporter of the war in Ukraine, met Russia’s president to discuss the war, according to reports.
Russian forces fired two rockets at a school in Avdiivka, according to the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, Andriy Yermak. One local resident was killed in the attack.
A senior Russian lawmaker introduced a bill to parliament on Monday to raise the age of conscription to 21-30 years from the current 18-27 years by 2026, Reuters reported.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has awarded the Hero of Ukraine award to Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a soldier who was seemingly executed by machine gun fire on camera after being captured by Russian soldiers. Zelenskiy said: “Today I conferred the title of Hero of Ukraine upon Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a soldier. A man whom all Ukrainians will know. A man who will be remembered for ever. For his bravery, for his confidence in Ukraine and for his ‘Glory to Ukraine!’”
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has reported on Telegram that one civilian was killed and four people were injured in a rocket attack on Znob-Novhorodske, in Sumy region.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is reporting a claim that resistance fighters have blown up a railway that Russian forces were using in occupied Kherson. The claims have not been independently verified. A video posted by the Atesh partisan group appears to show a railway track between the settlements of Abrikosivka and Radensk being blown up.
Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv, has reported that a 40-year-old man was injured by a petal mine near Izyium.
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency is reporting that the Russia-installed authorities in occupied regions of Donetsk are claiming that almost 4,500 people have died as a result of shelling by Ukrainian armed forces since 17 February 2022.
One of Vladimir Putin’s top allies, the Russian security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev, said on Monday that he doubted that the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up by a pro-Ukrainian group, and said Moscow still did not know who exactly was behind it.
Russia’s industry ministry said on Monday it was expanding its list of brands that can be imported without the trademark owner’s permission to include goods from companies such as Ikea and the US toy manufacturers Hasbro and Mattel.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has offered congratulations to Pope Francis on the 10th anniversary of the latter’s election. Relations between the pope and the patriarch have been strained since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The patriarch has been a vocal supporter of Russia’s military action, whereas Pope Francis has frequently called for peace during his regular Vatican addresses.
Updated at 10.05 EDT
Russian forces have fired two rockets at a school in Avdiivka, according to the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, Andriy Yermak.
In a post on Twitter, Yermak said one local resident was killed in the attack.
Yesterday, Ukrainian national police reported that Russia had launched 48 attacks against civilians in Donetsk oblast over the past day. The police said 15 cities and towns, including Bakhmut, Kostyantynivka, and Avdiivka, had come under attack.
Updated at 09.59 EDT
‘I hope I haven’t killed anybody’: the pacifist author fighting on Ukraine’s frontline
Vlad Beliavsky hoped to bring some peace to the world with his first book, The Pyramid Mind. If we all trained our minds properly, he thought, we could live together in harmony. At best, he imagined his book might even stop wars.
Today, he is in Kyiv, wearing military uniform and silhouetted against a neutral background. It is safer not to give details of where; he simply says he is in a military building. As his book is published, 13 years after it was conceived, Lt Beliavsky is marking a year spent fighting for the future of Ukraine.
Vlad Beliavsky: ‘The most important thing for me is the quality, not the length of life.’ Photograph: Serhii Korovayny/The Guardian
He is a handsome, youthful 33-year-old. In other circumstances you could imagine him in a boyband or becoming the Brian Cox of psychology. But look closely and there are heavy bags beneath his eyes. His skin is pallid. He talks slowly, measuring his words with scrupulous care. At times, he seems on the verge of tears.
Read more here:
Updated at 09.56 EDT