Belarusian leader says risk of military incidents along Ukraine border is quite high, says RIA
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that the risk of military incidents along his country’s border with Ukraine was quite high, reports Reuters citing Russia’s state-run RIA news agency.
RIA also cited him as saying that neighbouring Poland should not expect aggressive actions from Belarus.
Lukashenko was quoted as saying that Belarus had nonetheless moved several combat-ready battalions from Vitebsk region, situated on its border with Russia, to the western limits of the country.
In another report by Reuters, citing the Russian state-run Tass news agency, Lukashenko was quoted as saying conditions were ripe to start Russia-Ukraine peace talks.
Lukashenko said preliminary texts discussed between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkey in the early weeks of the war could serve as a starting point for negotiations.
Tass also quoted Lukashenko, a close ally of president Vladimir Putin, as saying that there could be an “apocalypse” if Russia used nuclear weapons in retaliation for western actions.
Key events
Russia has summoned the Latvian charge d’affaires on Thursday, reports Reuters citing state news agency Tass.
At the end of March, the Latvian Foreign Ministry declared a Russian diplomat persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country by 10 April, the RIA news agency said.
French president Emmanuel Macron warns ‘mortal’ Europe needs stronger defence
French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned that Europe faced an existential threat from Russian aggression, calling on the continent to adopt a “credible” defence strategy less dependent on the US, reports Agence France-Presse.
He described Russia’s behaviour after its invasion of Ukraine as “uninhibited” and said it was no longer clear where Moscow’s “limits” lay.
In his almost two-hour speech, Macron also sounded the alarm on what he described as disrespect of global trade rules by both the US and China, calling on the European Union to revise its trade policy.
“Our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die,” he said. “It can die and this depends only on our choices,” Macron said, warning that Europe was “not armed against the risks we face” in a world where the “rules of the game have changed”.
“The risk is that Europe will experience a decline and we are already starting to see this despite all our efforts,” he warned, saying the continent was in a situation of “encirclement” from other regional powers.
“We are still too slow and not ambitious enough,” he added, urging a “powerful Europe”, which “is respected”, “ensures its security” and regains “its strategic autonomy”.
According to AFP, Macron urged Europe to be more a master of its own destiny, saying in the past it was over-dependent on Moscow for energy and Washington for security.
He said the indispensable “sine qua non” for European security was “that Russia does not win the war of aggression in Ukraine”.
“We need to build this strategic concept of a credible European defence for ourselves,” Macron said, adding Europe could not be “a vassal” of the US.
Russia is considering downgrading the level of its diplomatic relations with the US if western governments go ahead with proposals to confiscate its frozen assets, state news agency RIA quoted deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday.
According to Reuters, Ryabkov said Moscow would retaliate economically and politically if the assets were seized.
Here are some of the images that have been shared today on the newswires from Kyiv, where the UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt met Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian ministers:
Ukraine said on Thursday it had sentenced a husband and wife to 15 years in prison for providing information to Russia that allowed its forces to launch a rocket strike at a hospital, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) also said on Thursday that it had detained a former soldier whom it accused of helping Russia plot strikes in the north-eastern Kharkiv region.
The husband and wife – sentenced on treason charges – were accused of providing information on Ukrainian army positions, including “places of inpatient treatment for wounded Ukrainian soldiers,” the SBU said in a statement. “It was at their direction that the occupiers shelled a local hospital,” in the southern city of Kherson, it said.
AFP reports that they were allegedly recruited by Russia’s FSB security service after responding to an advert in a Russian Telegram channel offering payments in exchange for intelligence on Ukrainian positions.
Russian forces shelled a number of medical facilities in Kherson after Ukraine retook control of the southern city in November 2022.
The SBU also said on Thursday it had detained a former serviceman accused of helping Russian forces “coordinate” attacks on the north-eastern Kharkiv region.
According to AFP, it said the suspect, who faces up to eight years in prison, had tried to flee to Russian-held territory. “He was encouraged to take these steps by his parents, who live in occupied territory,” a statement read.
Ukrainian forces also said they had repelled a Russian sabotage group in the north-eastern Sumy region. The Russian forces were pushed back with artillery and mortar fire, it added.
Moscow’s troops entered the Sumy region after the Kremlin launched the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but were pushed back by Ukrainian forces.
Poland could help return Ukrainians of military age back to Ukraine, the defence minister said, as Kyiv ramps up efforts to replenish its depleted and exhausted military, reports Agence France-Presse.
Poland has tens of thousands of Ukrainian men of military age on its territory, according to UN figures.
Ukraine is scrambling to recruit troops after more than two years of war and has recently passed a mobilisation law, lowering the fighting age and toughening penalties against draft dodgers.
Late on Wednesday it said it would stop issuing new passports abroad to some military-aged men, according to legislation published on the government website.
According to AFP, it has also suspended consular services for men aged 18 to 60 living abroad, sparking fury among expatriates in Poland and elsewhere.
AFP reports that Polish defence minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said late Wednesday that Warsaw could help in getting military-aged men back to Ukraine.
“We have suggested for a long time that we can help the Ukrainian side ensure that people subject to compulsive military service go to Ukraine,” he told Polsat television.
“Everything is possible,” he said when asked if Warsaw would agree if Ukraine asked for people subject to the draft to be transported to Ukraine.
Ukraine forces kill four in occupied regions, Russian officials say
Ukrainian forces killed four people in frontline regions of the war-battered country that are occupied by Russia, Kremlin proxy officials said on Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A Ukrainian attack drone left two dead in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia and two more were killed by Ukrainian artillery fire in the southern Kherson region, officials said.
“A man and a woman were killed as a result of a strike on a civilian car. Their four young children were orphaned,” the Russian-installed head of Zaporizhzhia, Evgeny Balitsky, wrote on social media. He said the children would be taken into care and provided with psychological assistance.
According to AFP, the Russian head of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said separately that two more people were killed by Ukrainian fire in the village of Dnipryany.
French president describes Russia-Ukraine war as ‘principal danger for European security’
French president Emmanuel Macron delivered a widely anticipated speech on Europe on Thursday. According to Reuters, Macron described the Russia-Ukraine war as “the principal danger for European security”.
He is quoted as saying: “The principal danger for European security is the war in Ukraine, the sine qua non for our security is that Russia does not win this war of aggression.”
“How can we build our sovereignty, our autonomy, if we don’t assume the responsibility of developing our own European defence industry?” asked Macron.
He also said that Europe “must show that it is never a vassal of the United States and that it also knows how to talk to all the other regions of the world”.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the US was trying to create divisions between Russia and China, reports Reuters.
Zakharova was speaking at a briefing with reporters as US secretary of state Antony Blinken began a visit to China.
“As for the United States’ attempts to drive a wedge in relations between Russia and China, the United States is openly talking about this,” she said.
She added that Russia’s relationship with China – with which it signed a “no limits” cooperation agreement less than three weeks before the start of the Ukraine war – was not directed against any other country.
Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:
Kremlin says US long-range missiles sent to Ukraine will not change war’s outcome
The Kremlin said on Thursday that deliveries of US long-range long-range army tactical missile systems (Atacms) to Ukraine would not change the outcome of the war but would create more problems for Ukraine itself, reports Reuters.
The US in recent weeks secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine, which has so far used them twice, a US official said on Wednesday.
The missiles were used for the first time on 17 April against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian frontlines, the official said.
According to Reuters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The US is directly involved in this conflict. They are following the path of increasing the operating range of the weapon systems they supply.”
He added: “This will not fundamentally change the outcome of the special military operation. We will achieve our goal. But this will cause more problems for Ukraine itself.”
Whether to send the Atacams with a range up to 300 km was a subject of debate within the Biden administration for months. Mid-range Atacms were supplied last September, say Reuters.