Media reports on the Nord Stream pipelines attacks are a coordinated effort to divert attention and the Kremlin is perplexed how US officials can assume anything about the attacks without investigation, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
“Obviously, the authors of the attack want to divert attention. Obviously, this is a coordinated stuffing in the media,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the state RIA news agency.
“How can American officials assume anything without an investigation?”
Peskov also said that Nord Stream shareholder countries should insist on an urgent, transparent investigation.
“We are still not allowed in the investigation. Only a few days ago we received notes about this from the Danes and Swedes,” Peskov said.
“This is not just strange. It smells like a monstrous crime.”
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is quoting Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk. In a message he has stated:
On 7 March, the Russian occupying forces shelled Kostyantynivka five times. On the morning of 8 March, they shelled Avdiivka twice. For the first time since 24 February 2022, there were no wounded or dead civilians. But residential buildings were destroyed and damaged by shelling.
Philip Oltermann, the Guardian’s Berlin bureau chief, reports:
“Of course we are following the reports very intensely”, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said about the investigations into the Nord Stream blasts during a state visit to Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
She said the strength of a constitutional democracy was that it sometimes had to step back and let official bodies carry on with their investigations, “rather than come to premature conclusions based on media reports.”
Baerbock added that Denmark and Sweden had informed her their investigations were still ongoing.
Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.
We are expecting UN general secretary António Guterres in Kyiv today, where he will meet with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Yesterday Ukrainian sources said that online negotiations with partners had started on an extension of the grain deal, but talks were not directly with Russia. Ukraine has previously expressed a hope that the deal will be extended for a year, to give a guarantee of stability to importers and exporters, and for it to be expanded to include the port of Mykolaiv.
President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has tweeted in praise of Ukrainian women for International Women’s Day, saying that those who have joined the armed forces have “smashed a glass ceiling over the head of the Russian invaders”.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleagues in London will be taking you through the rest of the day’s news.
Last night Kharkiv’s street lights were switched on for the first time since the start of the war, the city’s Mayor said.
“For more than a year, the only source of light in Kharkiv during the dark hours of the day has mainly been car headlights. During this time, there were many road accidents in which people were injured,” Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.
The lights were switched on from 18:00 to 19:30 on Tuesday night. Here are some pictures:
South Korea’s government approved export licenses for Poland last year to provide Ukraine with Krab howitzers, which are built with South Korean components, a defence acquisition official in Seoul told Reuters on Wednesday.
The comments are the first confirmation that South Korea officially acquiesced to at least indirectly providing weapons components to Ukraine for its war against Russia.
Seoul officials have previously declined to comment on the Krabs, fuelling speculation over whether South Korea had formally agreed or was simply looking the other way.
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration’s (DAPA) technology control bureau reviewed and approved the transfer, said Kim Hyoung-cheol, director of the Europe-Asia division of the International cooperation Bureau.
“We reviewed all the documentation and possible issues inside DAPA... then we made decision to give out export licence to Poland,” he told Reuters in an interview at DAPA headquarters on the outskirts of Seoul.
Russian forces made more than 30 unsuccessful attacks over the past day near Orikhovo-Vasylivka alone, 20 km (12 miles) northwest of Bakhmut, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in their daily update today.
They shelled the areas of 10 settlements along the Bakhmut section of the frontline, it added.
“The enemy, despite significant losses … continues to storm the town of Bakhmut,” the General Staff added.
Ukrainian farmers are likely to sow a smaller area this spring than they did following Russia’s invasion, in what could be a further blow to global food supplies after disruptions last year, Reuters reports.
Ukraine is a major supplier of wheat and corn to world markets and production and exports slumped last year due to the war, sending prices for key commodities sharply higher before stabilising.
With farmers hurting from soaring costs including fertiliser, Ukraine’s export capacity severely limited because of Russia’s occupation of some areas and unexploded ordnance near former frontlines, supply could be squeezed further.
Denys Marchuk, deputy chair of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, the biggest farmer organization, expects plantings of corn, a fertiliser-intensive crop, to plummet 20% from last year, which itself saw a 27% decrease in harvested area.
Overall, the government expects spring plantings to fall only 5% from last year, underlining a more sanguine official assessment of potential losses.
The smaller spring crop would come as Ukraine’s harvest of wheat grown over winter is expected to fall sharply, although not enough to spur export curbs.
Russia’s Wagner group of mercenaries has taken full control of the eastern part of Bakhmut, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Wednesday. “Units of the private military company Wagner have taken control of the eastern part of Bakhmut,” Prigozhin said in a voice recording on the Telegram messaging platform of his press service.
“Everything east of the Bakhmutka River is completely under the control of Wagner,” he said.
On Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned in an interview with CNN that it would be an “open road” for Russian troops to capture cities in Ukraine should they seize control of Bakhmut.
“This is tactical for us, we understand that after Bakhmut they could go further,” said Ukraine’s president.
Prigozhin has issued premature success claims before, Reuters reports. The Guardian has not verified the claims independently.
The battle for Bakhmut has been the deadliest of the war and has caused tens of thousands of people to flee. The city in the Donbas region had an estimated prewar population of about 70,000.
The Ukrainian deputy prime minister told regional media on Tuesday that fewer than 4,000 civilians, including 38 children, remained in Bakhmut.
The Institute for the Study of War said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s defence of Bakhmut is forcing Russia to engage in a costly battle for a city that “isn’t intrinsically important operationally or strategically”.
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, addressing Canada’s parliament on Tuesday during a visit to bolster support for Ukraine, said Europe would never accept Russian threats to its security.
“We will never accept that a military power with fantasies of empire rolls its tanks across an international border,” she said in a speech more than one year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The 27-nation bloc, she added, “will never accept this threat to European security and to the very foundation of our international community,” she added.
Von der Leyen urged “steadfast military and economic support” for Ukraine while also renewing calls for Russia to “pay for its crime of aggression” after proposing in November to set up a specialised court to prosecute such crimes.
The Kremlin was responding to a report in the New York Times saying that intelligence reviewed by US officials indicates that a pro-Ukrainian group sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines that carried natural gas from Russia to Europe, but they have found no evidence of Kyiv government involvement in the September 2022 attack.
The US and Nato have called the attacks, which occurred seven months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and destroyed three of the four pipelines running under the Baltic Sea, “an act of sabotage”.
Moscow has blamed Ukraine’s western supporters and has called on the UN security council to independently investigate. Neither side has provided evidence.
Citing US officials, the New York Times said there was no evidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy or his top aides were involved in the operation or that the perpetrators were acting at the behest of any Ukrainian government officials.
White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that Washington was waiting for ongoing investigations in Germany, Sweden and Denmark – all in the Baltic region – to conclude, “and only then should we be looking at what follow-on actions might or may not be appropriate”.
Responding to the report, senior Zelenskiy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters that the Kyiv government was “absolutely not involved” in the sabotage strike, and had no information about what had happened.
Media reports on the Nord Stream pipelines attacks are a coordinated effort to divert attention and the Kremlin is perplexed how US officials can assume anything about the attacks without investigation, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
“Obviously, the authors of the attack want to divert attention. Obviously, this is a coordinated stuffing in the media,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the state RIA news agency.
“How can American officials assume anything without an investigation?”
Peskov also said that Nord Stream shareholder countries should insist on an urgent, transparent investigation.
“We are still not allowed in the investigation. Only a few days ago we received notes about this from the Danes and Swedes,” Peskov said.
“This is not just strange. It smells like a monstrous crime.”
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest.
Our top story this morning: media reports on the Nord Stream pipelines attacks are a coordinated effort to divert attention and the Kremlin is perplexed how US officials can assume anything about the attacks without investigation, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
“Obviously, the authors of the attack want to divert attention. Obviously, this is a coordinated stuffing in the media,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the state RIA news agency.
And European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says Europe will never accept Russian threats to its security. Addressing Canada’s parliament on Tuesday during a visit to bolster support for Ukraine, she said, “We will never accept that a military power with fantasies of empire rolls its tanks across an international border”.
Europe “will never accept this threat to European security and to the very foundation of our international community,” she said.
We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantine, here are the other key recent developments:
It will be an “open road” for Russian troops to capture cities in Ukraine should they seize control of Bakhmut, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned in an interview with CNN. “This is tactical for us, we understand that after Bakhmut they could go further,” said Ukraine’s president. The Ukrainian deputy prime minister told regional media on Tuesday that fewer than 4,000 civilians, including 38 children, remained in Bakhmut. The city, the focus of fierce fighting in the Donbas region, had an estimated prewar population of about 70,000.
Russia has sustained “20,000 to 30,000 casualties’’ – killed and wounded – in trying to capture the city, western officials estimated at a briefing on Tuesday. While no firm figure was offered for Ukrainian losses, the official said it was “significantly less”. Ukraine’s defence of Bakhmut is forcing Russia to engage in a costly battle for a city that “isn’t intrinsically important operationally or strategically”, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.
Intelligence reviewed by US officials suggested a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, the New York Times has reported. There was no evidence Zelenskiy or his top lieutenants were involved, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials, said the report, citing US officials.
Russia said media reports about Nord Stream underscored the need to answer Moscow’s questions about what happened. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said those responsible for leaks to the media wanted to divert the public’s attention and avoid a proper investigation.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the Ukrainian Presidency, said 130 prisoners of war had been returned home in an exchange. Russia’s ministry of defence said 90 prisoners of war had been returned by Ukraine.
A court in Moscow has jailed a student activist for eight and a half years for social media posts criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine. Dmitry Ivanov was convicted on Tuesday of spreading false information about the Russian army, AP reported.
Ukraine has named the unarmed prisoner of war who appeared to have been shot dead by Russian soldiers, as the president delivered an overnight message resolving to “find the murderers”. In the graphic 12-second clip that first circulated on Telegram on Monday, a detained combatant, named by the Ukrainian military as Tymofiy Mykolayovych Shadura, is seen standing in a shallow trench smoking a cigarette before apparently being shot with automatic weapons.
Ukraine has started talks with partners on extending the Black Sea grain initiative aimed at ensuring Kyiv can keep shipping grain to global markets, a senior Ukrainian government source has said. The source said Ukraine had not held discussions with Russia, which blockaded Ukrainian Black Sea ports after its invasion last year, but that it was Kyiv’s understanding that its partners were talking to Moscow.
Belarus detained on Tuesday what it said was a Ukrainian “terrorist group” working with Kyiv’s intelligence services to carry out sabotage at a Belarusian airfield. Belarusian anti-government activists said last month they had blown up a sophisticated Russian military surveillance aircraft in a drone attack at an airfield near the Belarusian capital, Minsk, a claim disputed by Moscow and Minsk. Ukraine’s foreign ministry has denied Kyiv was involved.
China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, has said China must strengthen its relationship with Russia in the face of continued hostility from the US. In a fiery press conference, his first appearance as foreign minister, Qin outlined China’s foreign policy agenda for the coming years, presenting its relationship with Russia as a beacon of strength and stability, and the US and its allies as a source of tension and conflict.
A 14-year-old Ukrainian girl who died after she was found unconscious on a beach in south Devon on Saturday has been named as Albina Yevko. The teenager was found on Dawlish town beach, near where she was living, on Saturday evening after a search involving a police helicopter and the coastguard.
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2023-03-08 05:40:00Z
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