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Donald Trump has claimed that he will be arrested on Tuesday and called for protests to “take our nation back”.
In a furious all-caps post on his Truth Social page, the former president railed against “a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorney’s office” which is likely to bring charges against Mr Trump over a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
“NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” Mr Trump posted on Truth Social.
The twice-impeached former president’s claim that he will be taken into police custody early next week comes less than a day after reports that law enforcement authorities in New York have been quietly preparing for the possibility that Mr Trump will stoke civil unrest if he is subject to any form of legal accountability whatsoever.
The ex-president’s call for “protest” to “take our nation back” on the day he says he’ll be arrested are a clear echo to his call for supporters to descend on Washington DC in the run-up to the final certification of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
At the time, Mr Trump had called for a “wild” protest on January 6 2021, the day Congress was set to carry out that certification in a joint session presided over by then-vice president Mike Pence.
After the then-president delivered an incendiary speech near the White House in which he called on his supporters to “fight like hell,” a riotous mob led by violent extremists began assaulting police officers and stormed the Capitol in hopes of stopping the certification of his 2020 election defeat.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has not yet indicated that Mr Trump has actually been charged in the hush-money case — or any other matter. But the New York-based investigation is just one of several potential areas of criminal jeopardy for the ex-president.
Mr Trump also faces the possibility of charges from prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, and from two separate federal investigations now led by a Department of Justice special counsel, Jack Smith.
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An arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin has been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which accuses him of war crimes by taking hundreds of Ukrainian children from orphanages.
The court accuses Mr Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, of “unlawful deportation” of children “from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
It means the court’s 123 member states must detain Mr Putin and him over for trial if he sets foot on their territory.
He becomes only the third serving president in history to be issued a warrant, after Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
It is one of the most ambitious cases that the ICC has undertaken, and the symbolism of the first warrant issued over Russia’s invasion is marked by going right to the top of the Kremlin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a “historic decision, from which historic responsibility will begin”.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia does not recognise the ICC and considers its decisions “legally void”. Ex-president Dmitry Medvedev described the warrants as “toilet paper”.
ICC chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said that “many of these children, we allege, have since been given up for adoption in the Russian Federation” and that a Russian law change has made it easier for the children to be adopted by families.
“We must ensure that those responsible for alleged crimes are held accountable and that children are returned to their families and communities... we cannot allow children to be treated as if they are the spoils of war,” Mr Khan said.
Ms Lvova-Belova said last month she had “adopted” a child from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, now under Russian control.
Russia’s invasion has decimated cities across Ukraine
“It’s great that the international community has appreciated this work to help the children of our country: that we don’t leave them in war zones, that we take them out, that we create good conditions for them, that we surround them with loving, caring people,” she said, according to RIA Novosti.
Mr Khan said multiple, interconnected investigations are continuing. “Ukraine is a crime scene that encompasses a complex and broad range of alleged international crimes. We will not hesitate to submit further applications for warrants of arrest when the evidence requires us to do so.”
Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, welcomed the steps by the ICC “to hold those at the top of the Russian regime” to account. “Work must continue to investigate the atrocities committed,” he tweeted.
Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukraine’s presidential staff, said the warrant was “only the beginning”. Ukraine has cooperated closely with the ICC and was currently investigating over 16,000 cases of forced children deportation to Russia, he said. It has managed to secure the return of 308 children so far.
Mr Khan opened his investigation into possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine a year ago. He highlighted during four visits that he was looking at alleged crimes against children and the targeting of civilian infrastructure by Moscow’s repeated missile assaults.
A recent US-backed report by researchers at Yale University said Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children at sites in Russian-held Crimea. The report identified at least 43 camps and other facilities where Ukrainian children have been held that were part of a “large-scale systematic network” operated by Moscow.
Although the issue of a warrant is deeply embarrassing for Mr Putin, it is unlikely he will see the inside of a courtroom. Russia signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but never ratified it to become a member of the ICC, and finally withdrew its signature in 2016. The court relies on its 123 member states to enforce arrest warrants. The court's president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement: “The ICC is doing its part of work as a court of law. The judges issued arrest warrants. The execution depends on international cooperation.”
The ICC has the power to charge political leaders with “waging aggressive war” but given that Russia is not a signatory, that avenue was closed off, particularly as Moscow would also use its UN Security Council veto to limit further powers. However, it could leave Mr Putin marooned in his own nation.
Stephen Rapp, US ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues under former president Barack Obama, said: “This makes Putin a pariah. If he travels, he risks arrest. This never goes away. Russia cannot gain relief from sanctions without compliance with the warrants.”
Mr Peskov said Russia found the questions raised by the ICC “outrageous and unacceptable”. Asked if Mr Putin now feared travelling to countries that recognised the ICC, Mr Peskov said: “I have nothing to add on this subject. That’s all we want to say.”
The ICC warrant came a day after a UN-backed investigative body accused Russia of committing wide-ranging war crimes in Ukraine, including wilful killings and torture, in some cases making children watch loved ones being raped and detaining others alongside dead bodies.
Refinery strikes have escalated in France as the interior minister spoke of protesters wreaking havoc across the country and some MPs called for police protection, amid anger at the government pushing through a rise in the pension age without a parliamentary vote.
More than 300 people were arrested across France overnight during spontaneous protests against Emmanuel Macron’s decision to bypass parliament and force through his unpopular pensions changes, including raising the eligible age from 62 to 64.
Macron instructed the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, to invoke article 49.3 of the constitution, which allows the government to adopt a bill without a parliamentary vote, because he said there was too much economic risk to the country if MPs voted against the bill.
As opposition politicians accused the government of a brutal and undemocratic approach, demonstrators gathered in Paris and other cities. About 200 protesters briefly blocked traffic on the Paris ring road early on Friday morning.
In the energy sector, strikers voted to halt production at one of the country’s largest refineries by this weekend or Monday at the latest, a representative of the CGT union said. Workers had already been on a rolling strike at the northern site TotalEnergies de Normandie, but halting production would escalate the industrial action and spark fears of fuel shortages. Strikers continued to deliver less fuel than normal from several other sites.
A bin collectors’ strike in Paris also continued, as thousands of tonnes of waste piled up in streets across half of the city. A further day of coordinated strike action by transport workers and teachers will take place next Thursday. Some teachers’ unions suggested supervisors should also strike early next week when high school students begin baccalauréat exams.
The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, warned against what he called the chaos of random, spontaneous street demonstrations. Amid protests in cities from Rennes to Marseille, 310 people were arrested overnight, including 258 in Paris, he told RTL radio.
“The opposition is legitimate, the protests are legitimate, but wreaking havoc is not,” Darmanin said. He complained of “very difficult demonstrations” and denounced the fact that effigies of Macron, Borne and other ministers were burned at a protest in Dijon. He said public buildings had been targeted.
Late on Thursday night in Paris, some people started fires on side streets and caused damage to shop fronts after police used teargas and water cannon to clear hundreds of protesters who had gathered as a fire was lit in the centre of Place de la Concorde. By 11.30pm, 217 people had been arrested on suspicion of seeking to cause damage, Paris police said.
The head of Macron’s centrist Renaissance party in parliament, Aurore Bergé, wrote to Darmanin asking him to ensure the protection of MPs who feared violence against them. She said she would not accept MPs living in “fear of reprisals”. The interior minister replied to say police would be vigilant against any violence directed towards lawmakers.
Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 was passed by the surprise, last-minute use of a special constitutional power after two months of coordinated nationwide strikes and some of the biggest protests in decades. The government took the decision after it feared it could not secure a majority of MPs to vote in favour.
Unions immediately called for another day of mass strikes and protests for next Thursday, calling the government’s move “a complete denial of democracy”.
Opposition parties will call a vote of no-confidence in the government on Monday. For this to pass, it would require large numbers of MPs from the rightwing party Les Républicains to back it. The party has said it will not do so, and the government has so far survived all attempted no-confidence votes in recent months.
Macron was severely undermined in the national assembly after his centrist grouping failed to win an absolute majority in parliamentary elections last June amid major gains for the far right and radical left.
Without a majority, Macron needed to rely on lawmakers from Les Républicains to back his pensions changes. But despite weeks of negotiations with Borne, the numbers did not add up, and the president decided not to risk a vote.
Blantyre, Malawi – Four days after Grace Mastala was forced to flee her home at the foot of the Soche Quarry community at the base of a hill in Malawi’s commercial capital of Blantyre, she is still looking for her 13-year-old son, dead or alive.
Mother and child were separated by Cyclone Freddy, a record-breaking storm that made its way into the southern African country and its eastern neighbour Mozambique last weekend.
As of Thursday, there have been more than 300 documented deaths in both countries and nearly 90,000 people have been displaced as their homes were swept away.
Mastala who works as a housekeeper, was on her way home on Monday at about 11am when mudslides came roaring down Soche Hill, interrupting her journey.
“It was right in front of me, it was scary,” the mother of two recounted to Al Jazeera on Thursday. “Fortunately, some people from the area who were running away managed to grab my daughter but my son was never with them.”
The World Meteorological Organization has said the cyclone which formed in February off the northern coast of Australia before making its way to southeastern Africa, may be the longest lasting storm in the southern hemisphere.
In neighbouring Mozambique, officials report at least 20 people have died since the cyclone made landfall in the port town of Quelimane on Saturday night.
(Al Jazeera)
‘We need help’
Freddy, which has now dissipated, caused widespread devastation in Malawi, including critical infrastructure. Roads have been cut off and electricity poles have fallen down, according to the Electricity Generation Company Limited (EGENCO).
Malawi has declared a state of emergency.
“Even though the cyclone is gone, the country is expected to keep receiving heavy rains along lakeshore areas which are likely to trigger flash floods, ” a statement from the Department of Disaster Management Affairs, DODMA on Thursday read.
Schools have also been shut down in Blantyre and across the entire southern region of Malawi. Consequently, 165 camps have been built in schoolyards and classrooms across the city to provide shelter for affected households.
Malinga Namuku, the manager at Manja Primary School camp in the heart of the city said well-wishers and nonprofit organisations have provided a lot of support in the form of food and clothes.
“We hope that more support will keep coming because the people here are just too many,” he said. “We have asked the government to find us a place somewhere with tents erected because we don’t know how long people are going to be here, as schools also need to continue, especially for the examination classes.”
During a visit to the affected areas on Wednesday, President Lazarus Chakwera declared a 14-day national mourning period.
In his speech, Chakwera said he authorised the release of 1.6 billion kwacha ($1.5m) to assist Malawians affected by the cyclone.
“I can already tell you that this money will not be nearly enough,” he said. “The level of devastation we are dealing with here is greater than the resources we have at our disposal.”
The president appealed to the international community to “please look at us with such favour because we need help“.
Some private citizens, multinational companies as well as the United Nations and United States Agency for International Development have started proving some relief.
The United Nations released a statement on Wednesday indicating that it has provided support to establish an operations emergency centre in Blantyre for humanitarian coordination among government and NGOs.
The UN said it is also “providing critical logistical support, including transportation for search and rescue operations as well as to ferry humanitarian workers, equipment and supplies to communities that have been cut off by flooding and landslides, as well as medical supplies and equipment to improve water and sanitation infrastructure to address immediate health needs”.
Some of the Cyclone Freddy survivors at a camp in Blantyre, Malawi [Rabson Kondowe/Al Jazeera]
‘Feels like a nightmare’
Many of the 5,000 people to have sought refuge at Manja are distressed. Some have lost their homes and barely escaped alive.
Yohane Pangani, also from Soche, managed to escape just before the home he shared with nine relatives was engulfed by mudslides.
“We have lost everything, our house is gone, but we are grateful that every one of us still has life, and we all made it to this camp,” the 25-year-old said.
Before leaving the area, Pangani worked alongside his friends to rescue seven people, including a pregnant woman, buried in the mudslides. He was set to begin a programme at a teacher’s training college in Blantyre in April but now has to wait longer because the cyclone has disrupted life in the city.
Belita Freyal, a 45-year-old mother of six, was at the market selling vegetables on Saturday when she saw the floodwaters approaching. She panicked and fled, leaving behind all her goods and sustaining injuries in the process.
The floods washed away her vegetable farms, the main source of income for her family, and she is now worried about how to repay debts she took on for her business.
“I am happy that my family is safe but I am also worried because the business was the bread and butter for my family, considering that my husband is out of work,” she told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, on Monday afternoon, Mastala arrived at Manja with only one child by her side and has been searching for the missing one since.
“I don’t know where my son is,” she said, sombrely. “I’m just coming from Queen Elizabeth [Central Hospital] to see if he was maybe being treated in the wards. I even went to the mortuary to see if I could find his body there.”
Earlier in the day, bodies were brought to the camp for the survivors to identify. Her son was not among them.
For Mastala, sifting through the ruins left behind by the cyclone is hard, but is compounded by the knowledge that her son is yet to be found and her family is homeless.
“I just cannot afford to move on from this,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Where will I even go when it is time to leave the camp? It all just feels like a nightmare.”
By Aoife Walsh in London and James Landale in Kyiv
BBC News
China's President Xi Jinping will travel to Moscow next week to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, officials say.
The Kremlin said they would discuss a "comprehensive partnership and strategic co-operation".
The visit comes as Beijing, an ally of Russia, has offered proposals to end the war in Ukraine, to which the West has given a lukewarm reception.
Western countries have warned Beijing against supplying Moscow with weapons.
Beijing's foreign ministry said Mr Xi will be in Russia from 20 to 22 March at the invitation of Mr Putin.
China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China would uphold "an objective and fair position" on the war in Ukraine and "play a constructive role in promoting talks for peace".
China's peace proposals called for peace negotiations and respect for national sovereignty. But the 12-point document did not specifically say that Russia must withdraw its troops from Ukraine.
In February Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he wanted to meet Mr Xi - "I really want to believe that China will not supply weapons to Russia," he said.
Some US media have reported that Mr Xi and Mr Zelensky will speak by phone after the Chinese leader's visit to Moscow, but this is yet to be confirmed.
Kyiv has been pushing hard for some kind of engagement. Ukraine believes President Xi is making the visit to send a signal to the world that Russia has at least some allies.
In an interview with the BBC before President Xi's visit was announced, Mr Kuleba said: "I don't think China has reached the moment now when it wants to, when it's ready to arm Russia. Nor do I think that this visit will result in peace… The visit to Moscow in itself is a message but I don't think it will have any immediate consequences."
The message, Mr Kuleba said, was "that China and Russia are very close, close enough for the Chinese leader to visit his Russian counterpart, who is not doing very well.
"And I think this is the message to the entire world, to the West but also most importantly, to the non-West, that Russia is not alone, that China is talking to them."
The US is keen for Mr Xi and Mr Zelensky to be in contact. US National Security Council spokesman said it would be "a very good thing if the two of them talk".
Meanwhile, China's foreign minister on Thursday urged Kyiv and Moscow to restart peace talks as soon as possible during a phone call with Mr Kuleba, who in turn said the two had discussed the "significance of the principle of territorial integrity".
The Hwasong-17 is the largest road-mobile, liquid-fuelled ICBM in the world.
North Korea has confirmed it fired an intercontinental ballistic missile and that it was the Hwasong-17, known as the country’s “monster missile”.
The launch of the banned missile was detected by neighbours South Korea and Japan on Thursday, hours before South Korean President Yook Suk-yeol was due to fly to Tokyo for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
It was the latest in a series of weapons tests that have coincided with Freedom Shield – the large-scale joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea that began on Monday and that Pyongyang regards as a rehearsal for invasion.
Confirming the ICBM test on Friday, North Korea’s state media said it was intended to demonstrate a “tough response posture” and was a response to the “provocative and aggressive” military drills.
Pyongyang said the missile travelled at a maximum altitude of some 6,000 km (3,700 miles) and flew some 1,000 km (620 miles) “before accurately landing on the preset area in the open waters off the East Sea of Korea,” also known as the Sea of Japan.
Kim Jong Un was joined at the launch by his daughter who has been pictured by his side at a number of official events this year [KCNA/KNS via AFP]
Photos accompanying the reports in state media showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watching the launch with his daughter and included pictures from space apparently shot by a camera mounted on the missile.
“The launching drill of the strategic weapon serves as an occasion to give a stronger warning to the enemies intentionally escalating the tension in the Korean peninsula while persistently resorting to irresponsible and reckless military threats,” state news agency KCNA said.
Seoul and Washington have ramped up defence cooperation in the face of growing military and nuclear threats from North Korea, which conducted a record number of weapons tests in 2022 as it stepped up its military modernisation campaign.
This week it has tested short-range ballistic missiles and strategic cruise missiles from a submarine.
On Friday, the US and South Korea announced they would begin the Ssangyong large scale amphibious landing exercises from March 20, with 40 British Marines also taking part. Like Freedom Shield, the amphibious exercises have been suspended since 2018 as part of the attempt to make progress on North Korean denuclearisation.
“The upcoming training will demonstrate the South Korea-US alliance’s will to realise ‘peace through strength’ and we will further strengthen the combined defence posture to defend South Korea,” Marine Corps Commander Kim Gye-hwan was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.
The continued exercises are likely to mean more weapons tests from North Korea, which views such drills as a sign of the US and South Korea’s hostility.
Ballistic missile tests are banned under United Nations Security Council resolutions over North Korea’s nuclear programme.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, will be in Russia from 20-22 March for a state visit, the Kremlin has said on Friday.
“During the talks, they will discuss topical issues of further development of comprehensive partnership relations and strategic cooperation between Russia and China,” the Kremlin said.
“A number of important bilateral documents will be signed,” Reuters reports it added.
The state-owned Russian news agency RIA is reporting that Russia’s defence secretary, Sergei Shoigu, has presented state awards to the pilots of the Su-27 planes involved in the drone incident over the Black Sea for “preventing the violation of the borders of the special operation area by the American MQ-9 Reaper drone”.
More details soon …
Russian-installed authorities in the occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine have announced that 38 prisoners of war, who were part of an exchange on 7 March, are being returned to the region.
State-owned news agency Tass quotes Victoria Serdyukova saying “After the initial examination of doctors and the provision of emergency medical care to them, accompanied by my representatives, 38 servicemen return home, most of whom were returned as a result of an exchange with the Ukrainian side that took place on 7 March 2023. Very soon they will meet with their relatives.”
Leonid Pasechnik, the Russian-installed acting head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, which Russia claims to have annexed, posted a video clip of some of the returnees on his Telegram channel, and said “Missing their native lands, tired, but happy. They say that at home, after long months of captivity, the highest reward awaits – the hugs of loved ones. Congratulations to the boys and their families on their return.”
China has also commented on President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to Russia. Reuters reports that spokesperson Wang Wenbin, at a regular news briefing, said the objective of the visit is to further deepen bilateral trust.
China’s foreign ministry said Xi will exchange opinions on major international and regional issues with Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit.
Xi will visit Russia 20-22 March, the Chinese foreign ministry and the Kremlin announced earlier.
Germany’s fencing federation has cancelled a women’s foil World Cup event after the sport’s global governing body (FIE) reversed a ban on athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus, it said on Thursday.
More than 60% of nations voted to allow Russians and Belarusians to resume competing in FIE events at last week’s extraordinary congress.
Reuters reports German federation (DFB) president Claudia Bokel, a team epee silver medallist at the 2004 Olympics, said the decision had triggered “heated discussions”.
“Our solidarity goes to the people of Ukraine who are suffering from the war of aggression,” Bokel said. “The German fencing federation accepts last Friday’s decision.
“We now want to give a clear signal that we would have liked a different result and that we still see a large number of open implementation questions from the world federation, which make it impossible to carry out the tournament.”
The competition was scheduled for 5-7 May in Tauberbischofsheim. Fencing’s qualifying process for next year’s Paris Olympics is due to begin in April.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that in the last 24 hours Russian forces have shelled 13 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region. The claim has not been independently verified.
Zaporizhzhia is one of the partially occupied regions of Ukraine that the Russian Federation claims to have annexed.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, will be in Russia from 20-22 March for a state visit, the Kremlin has said on Friday.
“During the talks, they will discuss topical issues of further development of comprehensive partnership relations and strategic cooperation between Russia and China,” the Kremlin said.
“A number of important bilateral documents will be signed,” Reuters reports it added.
The White House said Thursday that talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Chinese leader Xi Jinping would be a “good thing,” but warned Beijing against taking a “one-sided” view of the conflict.
“We think it would be a very good thing if the two of them talk,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters when asked about a Wall Street Journal report that the Ukrainian leader is set to talk with Xi for the first time since Chinese-ally Russia invaded.
“We support and have supported” contact, Kirby said. But he cautioned against a Chinese push for a ceasefire in Ukraine, saying it would simply help Russian aggression.
There has been no confirmation of a call to Zelensky by Xi. However, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba talked by phone Thursday.
Xi is also reported to be preparing a trip to Moscow to speak with his ally President Vladimir Putin.
Kirby said the United States has not confirmed that a Putin-Xi summit will take place but urged Beijing to avoid seeking a resolution to the war that would “reflect only the Russian perspective.”
He said China’s highlighting of the need for a ceasefire “sounds perfectly reasonable,” but would effectively “ratify Russia’s conquest.”
“It would, in effect, recognize Russia’s gains” and “constitute another, continued violation of the UN Charter,” he said.
Russian forces occupying swaths of Ukraine are currently under intense pressure from Western-armed Ukrainian troops.
A ceasefire would allow Moscow to “further entrench its positions in Ukraine, to rebuild their forces... and retrain them so that they can restart attacks at a time of their choosing,” Kirby said.
A durable peace “can’t be one-sided and it has to absolutely include and be informed by Ukrainian perspectives and Ukrainian decisions,” he said.
Western countries are debating whether to send fighter jets to Ukraine, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, told Danish TV2 on Thursday.
“This is something we’re discussing in the group of allied countries. It’s a big wish from Ukraine,” she said.
Denmark was “open” to the idea of sending fighter jets to Ukraine to help its war effort against the Russian invasion, the Danish defence minister said on Friday, according to the state broadcaster DR.
“I won’t rule out that at some point it may be necessary to look at the contribution of fighter jets,” the acting defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, said.
The Danish air force has purchased 77 F-16 jets since the 1970s, according to the armed forces. Approximately 30 of them are in operation, according to local media reports.
Poland’s president said Thursday that his country plans to give Ukraine around a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, which would make it the first Nato member to fulfill the Ukrainian government’s increasingly urgent requests for warplanes.
President Andrzej Duda said Poland would hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes “within the next few days” and that the rest needed servicing and would be supplied later. The Polish word he used to describe the total number can mean between 11 and 19.
Poland was also the first Nato nation to provide Ukraine with German-made Leopard 2 tanks. On Wednesday, Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller said some other countries also had pledged MiGs to Kyiv, but did not name them. Both Poland and Slovakia had indicated they were ready to hand over their planes, but only as part of a wider international coalition doing the same.
Germany appeared caught off guard by Duda’s announcement.
“So far, everyone has agreed that it’s not the time to send fighter jets,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters. “I don’t have any confirmation from Poland yet that this has happened.”
The White House called Poland’s providing Ukraine fighter jets a sovereign decision and lauded the Poles for continuing to “punch above their weight” in assisting Kyiv.
But the US administration stressed that Poland’s move would have no bearing on President Joe Biden, who has resisted calls to provide US F-16s to Ukraine.
“There’s no change in our view with respect to fighter aircraft at this time,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “That is our sovereign decision. That is where we are, other nations can speak to their own” decisions.
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next while.
Our top story this morning: Poland’s announcement that it will be sending four warplanes to Ukraine in the coming days, making it the first country to do so, puts pressure on the allies to supply Ukraine with fighter jets. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Danish TV2 on Thursday that western nations are debating whether to send fighter jets to Ukraine. But German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, “So far, everyone has agreed that it’s not the time to send fighter jets,”.
Poland’s decision to give Ukraine the MiG-29 fighter jets was a “sovereign decision”, the White House said, and would not prompt Joe Biden to supply Kyiv with American F-16 aircraft.
Poland was the first NATO nation to provide Ukraine with German-made Leopard 2 tanks.
We’ll have more on this shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:
Russia has committed a wide-range of war crimes in Ukraine including wilful killings, systematic torture and the deportation of children, according to a report from a UN-backed inquiry published on Thursday. The report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine was released a year to the day after the Russian bombing of a theatre in Ukraine’s south-eastern city of Mariupol which killed hundreds of people. Its head said the team was following the evidence and that there were “some aspects which may raise questions” about possible genocide. Russia dismissed the report.
The Pentagon released a video showing the moments before a Russian fighter crashed into a US Reaper drone after spraying it with jet fuel on Tuesday morning over the Black Sea. The declassified footage shows an Su-27 Flanker jet making two exceptionally close passes of the un-crewed drone, spraying fuel in front of it, a harassment tactic that US experts say has not been seen before.
The Kremlin said a decision on whether to retrieve the downed US Reaper drone from the Black Sea would come from the Russian military. “If they deem it necessary to do that in the Black Sea for our interests and for our security, they will deal with that,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed leader in occupied Donetsk, told state-owned news agency Tass that he did not see any signs Ukraine was withdrawing from Bakhmut. He is quoted as saying on Thursday: “In Bakhmut, the situation remains complicated, difficult – that is, we do not see that there are any prerequisites there that the enemy is going to simply withdraw units.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said he and senior Chinese diplomat Qin Gang had discussed the “significance of the principle of territorial integrity” during a phone call today. “I underscored the importance of [Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s] peace formula for ending the aggression and restoring just peace in Ukraine,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Qin told Kuleba that China “hopes that all parties will remain calm, rational and restrained, and resume peace talks as soon as possible”, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, is expected to visit the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow as soon as next week, and to subsequently hold a virtual meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Polish authorities say they have detained nine members of a Russian spy ring who they say were gathering intelligence on weapons supplies to Ukraine and making plans to sabotage the deliveries. Six people have been charged with preparing acts of sabotage and espionage, and charges are being prepared against the other three.
The UN called for a 120-day renewal of a deal allowing the safe export of grain shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports ahead of a deadline later this week. In response to remarks by UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the deal “is being extended for 60 days”.
Vladimir Putin has told his country’s leading billionaires that Russia is facing a “sanctions war”. In an address to Russia’s business elite, the president urged them to invest in new technology, production facilities and enterprises to help Russia overcome what he said were western attempts to destroy its economy.
![Some of the Cyclone Freddy survivors at a camp in Blantyre, Malawi [Rabson Kondowe/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Some-of-the-survivors-at-a-camp-in-Blantyre.-photo-by-Rabson.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C578)
