Russia warns of an immediate ‘proportional response’ if Britain continues its ‘direct provocation’ of Ukraine – as it happened

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Ukraine retains control over the majority of its airspace as Russian air activity focuses primarily on southern and eastern Ukraine, the UK’s ministry of defence has said.

In its latest intelligence report, the ministry said:

Ukraine retains control over the majority of its airspace. Russia has failed to effectively destroy the Ukrainian Air Force or suppress Ukrainian air defences. Ukraine continues to hold Russian air assets at risk.

Russian air activity is primarily focused on southern and eastern Ukraine, providing support to Russian ground forces. Russia has very limited air access to the north and west of Ukraine, limiting offensive actions to deep strikes with stand-off weapons.

Russia continues to target Ukrainian military assets and logistics infrastructure across the country.

The majority of Russian air strikes in Mariupol are likely being conducted using unguided free-falling bombs. These weapons reduce Russia’s ability to effectively discriminate when conducting strikes, increasing the risk of civilian casualties.”

Russian gas supplies have resumed to Poland, according to operator data.

Gas supplies under the Yamal contract to Poland edged up after dropping to zero earlier, data from the European Union network of gas transmission operators seen by Reuters showed on Wednesday.

Physical gas flows via the Yamal-Europe pipeline from Belarus to Poland were at 3,449,688 kWh/hour at 6:22am CET (4:22am GMT).

The US defence chief has urged Ukraine’s allies to “move at the speed of war” to get more weapons to Kyiv, as reported by Associated Press.

The call comes after Russian forces rained fire on eastern and southern Ukraine, and fears that the conflict could cross the country’s borders.

For the second day, explosions rocked the separatist region of Trans-Dniester in neighbouring Moldova. A Russian missile also hit a strategic bridge linking Ukraine’s Odesa port region to neighbouring Nato member Romania, according to Ukrainian authorities.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin convened a meeting Tuesday of officials from about 40 countries at the US air base at Ramstein, Germany, and said more help is on the way.

We don’t have any time to waste. We’ve got to move at the speed of war.”

He said he wanted officials to leave the meeting “with a common and transparent understanding of Ukraine’s near-term security requirements because we’re going to keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet them.”

Austin added: “Certainly we don’t want to see any spillover” of the conflict.

We would like to make sure, again, that they don’t have the same type of capability to bully their neighbours that we saw at the outset of this conflict.”

Ukrainian refugees face the ever-present threat of sexual violence as they seek to flee their homeland.

This report from Agence France-Presse sheds some light on the pervasive threat of sexual violence.

The United Nations estimates more than five million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February.

Around 90% are women and children, with the authorities in Kyiv not allowing men aged 18 to 60 to leave the country.

As the conflict and displacement expands, Colleen Roberts of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Moldova, responds to the most pressing questions about the sexual violence risks facing Ukrainian refugees.

Conflict and displacement can increase risks of sexual violence and trafficking that already exist for women and bring new ones, Roberts says.

The longer that refugees are displaced, the more risks there are for gender-based violence for those living within the host community, especially as resources start to run out. There are definitely high risks of GBV for people who are displaced.”

A refugee camp setup up for people arriving from Ukraine to Moldova at the Palanca border crossing is seen in the image below.

For the second day in a row, explosions rocked the separatist region of Trans-Dniester in Moldova, knocking out two powerful radio antennas close to the Ukrainian border and further heightening fears of a broader conflict erupting across Europe.

View image in fullscreen

We have a little more detail surrounding reports of a fire at an ammunition depot in the Russian city of Belgorod early this morning.

Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he woke “to a loud sound like an explosion” at about 3:35am in an update posted to Telegram.

“So far, not a single duty service of the city and the region has found the cause of this sound,” he added.

The explosions were said to have come from near the village of Staraya Nelidovka which lies about 40km outside the Ukrainian border.

“According to preliminary information, an ammunition depot is on fire. There is no destruction of residential buildings, houses. There were no casualties among the civilian population,” Gladkov said.

Drone giant DJI Technology Co said it will temporarily suspend business in Russia and Ukraine to ensure its products are not used in combat, making it the first major Chinese firm to halt sales to Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February.

“DJI is internally reassessing compliance requirements in various jurisdictions,” the privately held company said in a statement late on Tuesday, as reported by Reuters.

“Pending the current review, DJI will temporarily suspend all business activities in Russia and Ukraine.”

On Wednesday a DJI spokesperson told Reuters that the suspension of business in Russia and Ukraine was “not to make a statement about any country, but to make a statement about our principles”.

DJI abhors any use of our drones to cause harm, and we are temporarily suspending sales in these countries in order to help ensure no-one uses our drones in combat.”

Ukrainian officials and citizens have accused DJI, the world’s largest maker of consumer and industrial drones, of leaking data on the Ukrainian military to Russia.

Last month DJI dismissed those accusations as “utterly false”. A German retailer had cited such information as a reason for taking DJI products off shelves.

A series of blasts have reportedly been heard in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border while an ammunition depot was also reported to be on fire, local officials said according to a Reuters report.

Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said an ammunition depot in the province caught fire in the early hours of Wednesday, the news agency said.

Gladkov said no civilians had been hurt by the fire which broke out at a facility near Staraya Nelidovka village.

The Belgorod province borders Ukraine’s Luhansk, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, all of which have seen heavy fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago.

Earlier on Tuesday, United Nations secretary general António Guterres failed to reach a conclusion that would aid the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine after speaking across a long white table to Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Putin described the situation in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol as “tragic”, but said the Russian military was no longer active in the city. Putin’s comments come after accusations by Ukraine that Russia has been shelling a humanitarian corridor out of the besieged port city.

Watch the video of the conversation between the pair below.

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• Russia’s defence ministry warned of an immediate “proportional response” if Britain continues its “direct provocation” of the Kyiv regime, after the UK armed forces minister, James Heappey, described Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil that hit supplies and disrupt logistics as “completely legitimate”.

• Russia has refused to rule out Moldova’s breakaway region Transnistria being drawn into the Ukraine war, in a potential escalation of the conflict to another European country. Deputy foreign minister, Andrey Rudenko, said on Tuesday said Moscow “was concerned” over the string of recent explosions in Transnistria, saying Russia “would like to avoid a scenario” in which Transnistria would be dragged into the war.

• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believes Russia is trying to destabilise the situation in the Transnistrian region, adding that Ukrainian armed forces are ready for a possible escalation by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied territory of Moldova. “The goal is obvious - to destabilise the situation in the region, to threaten Moldova. They show that if Moldova supports Ukraine, there will be certain steps,” Zelenskiy said in his latest national address.

• Zelenskiy said the “free world has the right to self-defence” after predicting that Russia intends to not only seize the territory of Ukraine but to “dismember the entire centre and east of Europe” and “deal a global blow to democracy”.

• The United States vowed to move “heaven and earth” to help Ukraine win its battle against Russia’s invasion as it hosted defence talks in Germany with allies from 40 nations on Tuesday. The gathering is being led by the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, following his meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Sunday. Austin said the west is gearing up to help Ukraine for “the long haul” and will take steps to boost rearmament to help Ukraine.

• Britain’s foreign minister Elizabeth Truss is expected to call on allies of Ukraine to “ramp up” and “double down” on military production including of planes and tanks in a speech set to be delivered on Wednesday. Truss said the UK’s new approach “will be based on three areas: military strength, economic security and deeper global alliances”. Russia’s victory will have “terrible consequences across the globe”, Truss is expected to say. “We must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine.

• Germany will authorise the delivery of 50 anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine, the German defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, said. Lambrecht said the government has agreed to sign off the delivery of around 50 Gepard anti-aircraft weapons systems. Switzerland said it had blocked Germany from sending Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine.

• Australia will send six M777 howitzers and ammunition to Ukraine as part of a $26.7m package in its response to “Russia’s brutal, unrelenting and illegal invasion” a statement from prime minister Scott Morrison and defence minster Peter Dutton said on Wednesday.

• Canada will also ramp up its military aid to Ukraine with aims to send eight armoured vehicles “as quickly as possible”, minister of defence Anita Anand announced.

• The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, travelled to Moscow in an attempt to put the UN at the heart of Ukrainian mediation efforts. In a joint press conference with Russia’s foreign minister, Guterres said the UN is “ready to fully mobilise its human and logistical resources to help save lives in Mariupol”. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereschuk, said there was “no point” in the UN if there is no real humanitarian corridor from Mariupol.

• During a joint press conference with Guterres, Russia’s foreign secretary, Sergei Lavrov, said Russia has dismissed Ukraine’s proposal to stage peace talks in the port city of Mariupol. Lavrov said it was too early to talk about who would mediate in any negotiations, but he said Moscow was committed to a diplomatic solution via talks on Ukraine.

• The UN’s António Guterres also met with Russian president Vladimir Putin who described the situation in Mariupol as “tragic” and “complicated”. Moscow and Kyiv were continuing talks in an online format, Putin said, adding that he hopes the talks would yield a positive result.

• Russia will stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria from Wednesday. Warsaw has refused to pay its supplier, Gazprom, in roubles and earlier announced that it was imposing sanctions on 50 entities and individuals including Russia’s biggest gas company. Bulgaria, which is almost completely reliant on Russian gas imports, said it had fulfilled all its contractual obligations with Gazprom and that the proposed new payment scheme was in breach of the arrangement.
  

• The head of the UN’s atomic watchdog has condemned the Russian occupation of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, describing the situation as “absolutely abnormal and very, very dangerous”. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general, Rafael Grossi, is heading an expert mission to Chornobyl to “deliver equipment, conduct radiological assessments and restore safeguards monitoring systems”, the IAEA said.

• Zelenskiy said “no one in the world can feel safe” after Russia threatened Ukraine’s nuclear facilities and called for “global control” over Russia’s nuclear facilities and nuclear technology after meeting with director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi. “No other country in the world since 1986 has posed such a major threat to nuclear security, to Europe and the world” he said.

• Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said that the danger of nuclear war is “serious” and the core of any agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine would depend largely on the military situation on the ground.
  

• US state department spokesman Ned Price responded, saying Russia’s “loose talk of nuclear weapons ... is the height of irresponsibility” and “a clear attempt to distract from its failure in Ukraine” while speaking to reporters on Tuesday.
  

• British prime minister Boris Johnson said he does not expect Russian president Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. When asked during an interview with Britain’s Talk TV if he fears that Putin may use nuclear weapons in Ukraine if Moscow faced defeat in its ongoing invasion, Johnson said Putin “has a lot of room for manoeuvre” and could back down.

• The US Department of Defence has established a control centre in Germany to assist in the distribution of US military aid to Ukraine, a senior US defence official told reporters on Tuesday.

• A statue known as the ‘Friendship of Peoples’, installed in 1982 and symbolising historic ties between ex-Soviet Ukraine and Russia, was dismantled in Kyiv on Tuesday. “We now see what this “friendship” is - destruction of Ukrainian cities ... killing tens of thousands of peaceful people. I am convinced such a monument has an entirely different meaning now,” Kyiv mayor Vitaly Klitschko said.