Vladimir Putin addresses the crowd during a rally and a concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at Red Square in Moscow. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images
Vladimir Putin addresses the crowd during a rally and a concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at Red Square in Moscow. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images
EU council agrees to increase support to Ukraine's armed forces by £4.3bn
The European Council has agreed to increase its support to Ukrainian armed forces by €5bn ($5.44bn; £4.3bn), through a dedicated assistance fund, it said in a statement.
“With the fund, we will continue to support Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s war of aggression with whatever it takes and for as long as we need to,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said.
But European countries are struggling to find enough weapons and ammunition to send to Ukraine, and US help worth $60bn (£47bn) is stalled over political differences in Washington.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces withdrew from the strategic eastern city of Avdiivka last month, where they had battled a fierce Russian assault for four months despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned.
Here are some of the latest images coming out from the newswires:
The EU foreign policy chief,Josep Borrell, gestures at the start of a European foreign ministers council meeting in Brussels, Belgium. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA
People protest against the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East outside the foreign ministry in Seoul, as US secretary of state Antony Blinken visits South Korea. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
People walk past railings near the Russian embassy in London decorated with flowers and banners in memory of Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi,has congratulated Vladimir Putin on his election win, saying that he was looking forward to strengthening ties to develop their “special and privileged” strategic partnership in the years to come.
Warm congratulations to H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin on his re-election as the President of the Russian Federation. Look forward to working together to further strengthen the time-tested Special & Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia in the years to come.…
Former oligarch and prominent Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky has called on western governments not to recognise Vladimir Putin’s election win.
“It is now about … finally publicly recognising Putin as illegitimate,” Khodorkovsky told journalists in Berlin.
“We have high expectations for western society, who we ask to turn to their governments to ask them not to recognise Putin as legitimate,” he said in an event at the Center for Liberal Modernity thinktank.
“When western heads of state and government shake Putin’s hand, that is a very strong legitimation for Putin at home.”
Sunday’s Russian presidential election results had “nothing to do with reality”, Irina Scherbakova, co-founder of the Russian rights organisation, Memorial, told AFP in Berlin.
Vladimir Putin’s 87% share of the vote showed “the rise of this dictatorship”, Scherbakova said.
The apparent landslide was a “very threatening symbol”, she added, warning of “hard times” ahead for the domestic opposition in Russia.
“We have to expect that violence and repression will be used and that Putin will want revenge.”
The election had. however, shown that there were “many people who are not afraid to actually express their opinion”, she said.
Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov managed little more than 4% of the vote and his fellow candidates even less, in an election which has been broadly criticised by western countries as unfair and undemocratic.
Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party who serves as a deputy prime minister, said the outcome of Russia’s election must be accepted because “when people vote they are always right,” Reuters reported.
“They (Russians) voted and we acknowledge that, hoping that 2024 will be the year of peace,” he told reporters.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, has said that the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children now includes 33 countries.
“The return of illegally deported and forcibly displaced Ukrainian children requires joint international efforts,” he stressed, adding that he is grateful to Canada’s foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, for the initiative to create the coalition.
The International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, led by 🇺🇦 and 🇨🇦, has already united 33 countries.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters today that Vladimir Putin’s statement that he wanted to create a buffer zone in Ukrainian territory is a clear declaration that the war will escalate.
“This is ... a direct manifest statement that the war will only escalate,” he said.
The centre-right European People’s party is calling for EU foreign ministers to declare that Vladimir Putin is not Russia’s legitimate president.
“The EU is preparing a new package of sanctions targeting those involved in the death of Alexei Navalny. This is the right thing to do,” said Rasa Juknevičienė, a Lithuanian member of the European parliament and the EPP' group’s vice-chair in charge of foreign affairs.
“But in addition to sanctions, the EU member states should first officially declare that there have been no elections in Russia and that Vladimir Putin cannot be considered the leader of the country. Vladimir Putin is not a president, and the voting was not an election,” she stressed.
