Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Australia’s parliament on Thursday that Russia must be held accountable for past wrongs, warning that a failure to punish Moscow may encourage other countries to wage war against their neighbours. Zelenskiy called for new and tougher sanctions to retaliate against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and suggested that years of failure … Read more
David Irvine will be deeply missed. As a director-general, diplomat and the chair of the foreign investment review board, David made an enormous contribution to the security and safety of Australia over many decades. David served as director-general of Asio from March 2009 until September 2014. He was an exceptional, wise and humble leader. Prior … Read more
Istanbul will host the next round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, which could begin as soon as Tuesday, according to the Ukrainian MP and negotiator David Arakhamia. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, discussed the talks during a phone call yesterday, but did not state publicly … Read more
I wish at least a percentage of their courage to those who have been thinking for 31 days how to transfer a dozen or two of planes or tanks … Ukraine cannot shoot down Russian missiles using shotguns, machine guns, which are too much in supplies. And it is impossible to unblock Mariupol without a … Read more
9.00am GMT 09:00 Andrey Kurkov, a Ukrainian novelist, writes for us today that Putin’s bombs and missiles rain down, but he will never destroy Ukraine’s culture: In the first week of the war, Kyiv’s museums received instructions from the Ministry of Culture to evacuate their collections to western Ukraine. Some museums simply hid their collections … Read more
12.59pm GMT 12:59 Thousands of residents from the besieged city of Mariupol have been “forcibly deported” to Russia, according to Ukraine’s foreign ministry. Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesperson for the ministry, accused Russian of moving “to the next level of terror”. Oleg Nikolenko (@OlegNikolenko_) By forcibly deporting Mariupol citizens to its territory, Russia moves to the … Read more
6.49am GMT 06:49 Russia’s combat power declined to below 90% of pre-invasion levels: US official In case you missed this briefing from senior US defense officials, here is a quick recap. Russia’s combat power in Ukraine has declined below 90% of its pre-invasion levels for the first time since its attack began, a senior US … Read more
10.42am GMT 10:42 Komsomolskaya Pravda report on Russian military losses was result of ‘hack’ Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper was hacked on Monday, and a false story on Russian military deaths in Ukraine was posted on its site, the newspaper’s Kremlin correspondent said this morning. Alexander Gamov, the journalist, said the story – which had said … Read more
8.16am GMT 08:16 Britain’s Homes for Ukraine scheme will be “completely unworkable” unless the government cuts excessive bureaucracy and takes urgent steps to coordinate the matching process, the shadow communities secretary has warned. In an interview with the Observer Lisa Nandy also said charities and local government should have been properly consulted before announcing the … Read more
9.52am GMT 09:52 Railways ground to a halt in many places across Poland on Thursday, hit by a widespread traffic control system outage, operator PKP PLK said, disrupting an important means of transport for refugees fleeing Ukraine. Infrastructure Minister Andrzej Adamczyk said that railway workers were dealing with the situation and normal service would be … Read more