As it happened: US government ‘keenly, strongly, closely’ tracking Evan Gershkovich’s detention; IAEA chief Rafael Grossi expected to visit on Wednesday
The US government is “pushing hard” for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia on espionage charges, the White House has said.
National security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters:
We have been pushing hard since the moment we found out the reporter was detained.
The US is “keenly, strongly, closely” tracking his detention, he added.
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Finland will become the 31st member of the world’s biggest military alliance on Tuesday, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said. Stoltenberg said Turkey, the last country to ratify Finland’s membership, would hand its official texts to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Tuesday. Stoltenberg said he would then invite Finland to do the same.
Stoltenberg’s announcement prompted a warning from Russia that it would bolster its defences near their joint border if Nato deployed any troops inside the country. “We will strengthen our military potential in the west and in the north-west,” Grushko said in remarks carried by the RIA Novosti state news agency.
Ukraine’s western allies have sent the country €65bn (£57bn) in military aid to help in its fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion, Stoltenberg said. He was speaking as Nato foreign ministers prepare to meet in Brussels on Tuesday to “discuss how we can step up our support, including by continuing to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has paid tribute to the courage of nearly 400 villagers in north Ukraine who were held in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago. The Ukrainian leader travelled to Yahidne on Monday, where he gave an emotive speech recalling how villagers were kept captive in a space of less than 200 sq metres during the first month of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, will visit the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on Wednesday, an IAEA spokesperson said.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy is scheduled to visit Poland on Wednesday for talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Zelenskiy will be accompanied by his wife, Olena Zelenska, during his first official visit to Warsaw since Russia’s invasion 13 months ago. Zelenskiy is also expected to hold talks with Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
Poland has already delivered the first batch of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to the Polish presidential office’s head of international policy, Marcin Przydacz. He did not specify how many jets had been transferred. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, last month said Warsaw would hand over the first four MiG-29 to Ukraine.
Ukraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag. “Bakhmut is Ukrainian, and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesperson for the eastern military command said.
President Zelenskiy has said overnight the fighting in Bakhmut is “especially hot”. His comments came as the Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building. However, there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made premature claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city.
Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday. Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he hosted a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of the city. Police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect and that she was arrested in a flat in St Petersburg after a search on Monday morning.
Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist arrested on espionage charges in Russia last week, has appealed against his detention through his lawyers, according to a report. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Gershkovich’s arrest was “of concern” and called for his “immediate release”. The US government is “pushing hard” for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the White House said on Monday.
Many people could have wanted to kill Vladlen Tatarsky, the pro-war Russian blogger who died in a bomb blast in a St Petersburg cafe on Sunday.
Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was notorious for his vehement support for the invasion of Ukraine, where he regularly called for Russia to commit to a total war and advocated for extreme violence that included war crimes. “We’ll defeat everyone, we’ll kill everyone, we’ll loot whoever we need to, and everything will be just as we like it,” he said last year on camera after a Kremlin ceremony confirming the “annexation” of four Ukrainian regions.
A former coalminer from east Ukraine, Fomin was convicted of bank robbery and was serving a prison sentence in east Ukraine when Russian proxy forces launched their war against the government. Fomin claimed he then fled custody and joined the Russian-backed forces. Later, he became a blogger and moved to Moscow several years before Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in 2022. After the war began, he claimed to have joined a volunteer battalion and fought in Mariupol.
At the beginning of the war he became a member of a small but influential group of military bloggers who have been vocally supportive of the conflict, regularly posting updates citing troops on the frontlines or dangling scoops about potential offensives or big political decisions such as mobilisations.
At the same time, they have also been some of the most virulent critics of Russia’s military effort, condemning the army’s top brass as ineffective and lazy, and uncaring for the lives of Russian troops sent into battle.
The German arms maker Rheinmetall is building a military maintenance and logistics hub in Satu Mare, Romania, that is expected to begin operation this month to service weapons used for the war in Ukraine, the company has said.
The hub, located near the Ukrainian border, will service self-propelled howitzers, Leopard 2 and Challenger tanks, Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Fuchs armoured transport vehicles and military trucks, it said.
A Rheinmetall spokesperson said on Sunday:
The service hub should play a central role in maintaining the operational readiness of western combat systems in use in Ukraine and ensuring the availability of logistical support.
The chief executive of the company, Armin Papperger, said it was a “key concern” to provide Nato forces and Ukraine “with the best possible support”.
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, travelled to Romania today for talks with its president, Klaus Iohannis, that focused on security, economy and energy. They also discussed defence cooperation on Nato’s eastern flank and security in the Black Sea region.
Scholz highlighted the strong relations between Germany and Romania and again promised to “give Ukraine military support for as long as it is necessary, and we are working on that constantly and together”. He did not directly answer questions on the Rheinmetall facility being set up in Romania.
Iohannis and Scholz were later joined by Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, for talks on ways to support her embattled country. Moldova is Ukraine’s “most vulnerable neighbour”, Mandu told reporters, adding that “when our values are under attack, democratic countries must help each other”.
Ukraine has received the first $2.7bn (£2.2bn) tranche under the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) extended fund facility programme, finance minister Sergii Marchenko has said.
Today Ukraine received the first $2,7bn tranche under the new @IMFNews EFF program. Grateful to our partners for supporting Ukraine on the way to victory. @IMFinEurope
— Sergii Marchenko (@SergiiMarchenk3) April 3, 2023
The IMF said on Friday that its executive board had approved a four-year $15.6bn (£12.6bn) loan programme for Ukraine, part of a global $115bn (£92.8bn) package to support the country’s economy as it battles Russia’s invasion.
The extended fund facility (EFF) loan is the first major conventional financing programme approved by the IMF for a country involved in a large-scale war.
The decision cleared the way for the immediate disbursement of $2.7bn to Kyiv, and requires Ukraine to carry out ambitious reforms, especially in the energy sector, the Fund said in a statement.
While we’re on the subject of western aid for Ukraine, the White House has said the US will send a new package of assistance to Ukraine this week.
Ukraine is still fighting hard for the eastern city of Bakhmut and the battle is not over, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
Ukraine’s western allies have sent the country €65bn (£57bn) in military aid to help the country in its fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said.
“We cannot allow Russia to continue to chip away at European security,” Stoltenberg told a news conference as Nato foreign ministers prepare to meet in Brussels tomorrow to “discuss how we can step up our support, including by continuing to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces”.
Earlier we reported that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled to Yahidne in northern Ukraine, where nearly 400 residents were kept captive in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago. Eleven people died during the ordeal, Zelenskiy said.
The Ukrainian leader was joined on the visit to the village in Chernihiv region by the German vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, and the Council of Europe secretary general, Marija Pejčinović Burić. Zelenskiy thanked Habeck and Burić for attending and said the basement was important for Ukraine’s allies to see. He said:
It’s important to see this and to be in these basements to understand whether to help Ukraine or to keep thinking how to find a way to talk with Russia.
Russian troops and the country’s leadership, including Vladimir Putin, were responsible for the tragedy, he said. He added:
Having seen all this, I can wish the president of Russia to spend the rest of his days in a basement with a bucket for a toilet.
The US government is “pushing hard” for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia on espionage charges, the White House has said.
National security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters:
We have been pushing hard since the moment we found out the reporter was detained.
The US is “keenly, strongly, closely” tracking his detention, he added.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog has said its head, Rafael Grossi, will travel to Russia’s Kaliningrad territory on Wednesday for talks on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
Russian news agencies had earlier reported that Grossi would visit Moscow, citing a senior diplomat. But a spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said he would visit the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
Grossi will visit Kaliningrad “as part of his ongoing consultations aimed at ensuring the protection of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during the military conflict”, the IAEA spokesperson said.
Grossi visited the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is in territory occupied by Russia since early in its invasion, last week. He said the situation had grown worse and military activity around the site had intensified in recent months.
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Finland will become the 31st member of the world’s biggest military alliance on Tuesday, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said. Stoltenberg said Turkey, the last country to ratify Finland’s membership, would hand its official texts to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Tuesday. Stoltenberg said he would then invite Finland to do the same.
Stoltenberg’s announcement prompted a warning from Russia that it would bolster its defences near their joint border if Nato deployed any troops inside the country. “We will strengthen our military potential in the west and in the north-west,” Grushko said in remarks carried by the RIA Novosti state news agency.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has paid tribute to the courage of nearly 400 residents of a village in north Ukraine who were held in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago. The Ukrainian leader travelled to Yahidne on Monday, where he gave an emotive speech recalling how villagers were kept captive in a space of less than 200 sq metres during the first month of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, will visit Moscow on Wednesday, Russia’s permanent representative to international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, has said. Ulyanov said Grossi would meet a Russian delegation and that they would discuss the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, located in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine, near the frontline of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy is scheduled to visit Poland on Wednesday for talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Zelenskiy will be accompanied by his wife, Olena Zelenska, during his first official visit to Warsaw since Russia’s invasion 13 months ago. Zelenskiy is also expected to hold talks with Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
Poland has already delivered the first batch of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to the Polish presidential office’s head of international policy, Marcin Przydacz. He did not specify how many jets had been transferred. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, last month said Warsaw would hand over the first four MiG-29 to Ukraine.
Ukraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag. “Bakhmut is Ukrainian, and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesperson for the eastern military command said.
President Zelenskiy has said overnight the fighting in Bakhmut is “especially hot”. His comments came as the Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building. However there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city that were premature.
Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday. Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he was hosting a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of St Petersburg. Police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect and that she was arrested in a flat in St Petersburg after a search on Monday morning.
Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist arrested on espionage charges in Russia last week, has appealed against his detention through his lawyers, according to a report. Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Gershkovich’s arrest was “of concern” and called for his “immediate release”.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, has said Moscow will strengthen its military in its western and north-western regions in response to Finland joining Nato tomorrow.
He told Russian state-owned Ria news agency:
In the event that the forces and resources of other Nato members are deployed in Finland, we will take additional steps to reliably ensure Russia’s military security.
Finland has a 1,300km (810 mile) border with Russia, and joining Nato will roughly double the alliance’s frontier facing Moscow.
Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist arrested on espionage charges in Russia last week, has appealed against his detention through his lawyers, Interfax news agency reported, citing the court.
Gershkovich, 31, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was detained on Wednesday in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg and accused by Russia’s FSB internal security agency of collecting “classified information” on a company in its military industrial complex.
The WSJ says it “vehemently denies the allegations” and the White House has described the charges as “ridiculous”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday paid tribute to the courage of nearly 400 residents of a village in north Ukraine who were held in a school basement under Russian occupation for 27 days before they were set free a year ago.
The Ukrainian leader travelled to Yahidne, where he gave an emotive speech recalling how villagers were kept captive in a space of less than 200 sq metres during the first month of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
He said that 11 people died during the ordeal.
“These people somehow lived and waited for Ukraine in the dark,” said Zelenskiy, who appeared visibly moved on the anniversary. “They lived standing and sitting.”
Reuters reports that Zelenskiy was joined on the visit to Yahidne, a village in Chernihiv region, by the German vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, and the Council of Europe secretary general, Marija Pejčinović Burić.
On his official Telegram channel, Zelenskiy wrote:
I want to thank the residents of Yahidne. They endured torture, a terrible path, the path of absolute heroes. I thank Ukraine for having such fighters for life.
Catherine Russell, the executive director of Unicef, the UN children’s fund, has commented on the announcement by the OHCHR Ukraine civilian casualty update team that the number of children killed in the conflict since February 2022 has risen to at least 501. She said:
This is another tragic milestone for Ukraine’s children and families.
Since the escalation of the war in February 2022, at least 501 children have been killed. This is just the UN-verified number. The real figure is likely far higher, and the toll on families affected is unimaginable.
Almost 1,000 children have been injured, leaving them with wounds and scars – both visible and invisible – that could last for life.
Children and families in Ukraine are paying the highest price for this brutal war. Behind every number is a family torn apart and changed for ever. It is heart-wrenching.
War is always the worst enemy of children, whether in Ukraine, or countless other conflicts around the world. Every child, no matter where they live, deserves to grow up in a peaceful environment.
Tatiana Moskalkova, commissioner for human rights in the Russian Federation, has told the Russian state-owned news agency Tass that Ukraine and Russia have swapped five injured prisoners of war in recent days.
It quotes her saying: “Today, five wounded servicemen of the armed forces of Ukraine have been repatriated to Ukraine. We continue to work in this direction.”
Tass reports that according to her, at the end of March, Ukraine handed over five wounded Russian soldiers who are currently being treated.
“I wish them a speedy recovery and I believe that they will soon return to their families and friends, who will greet them as real heroes,” she is reported as saying.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that in the last day, in the Ukrainian-held areas of Kherson region, pyrotechnicians defused 56 explosive object in de-occupied settlements.