Joe Biden among 963 Americans receiving 'lifetime bans' from Russia
Russia on Saturday released a list of 963 Americans it said were banned from entering the country, a punctuation of previously announced moves against president Joe Biden and other senior US officials.
The country, which has received global condemnation for its 24 February invasion of Ukraine, said it would continue to retaliate against what it called hostile US actions, Reuters reported.
The lifetime bans imposed on the Americans, including secretary of state Antony Blinken, US senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, defence secretary Lloyd Austin and CIA head William Burns, are largely symbolic.
Joe Biden. Photograph: Getty Images
They came on the same day Biden signed a support package providing nearly $40bn (£32bn) in aid for Ukraine.
But the latest action by Russia forms part of a downward spiral in the country’s relations with the west since its invasion of Ukraine, which prompted Washington and allies to impose drastic sanctions on Moscow and step up arms supplies to Ukraine’s military.
Several on the Russian government’s list of undesirables wouldn’t have been able to make the trip anyway: they are already dead.
John McCain, the former Republican US presidential candidate and long-serving senator; Democrat Harry Reid, who served as senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015; and Orrin Hatch, whose 42 years in the chamber made him the longest-serving Republican senator in history; are all included.
McCain died in August 2018 at the age of 81; Reid died last December, aged 82; and Hatch died on 23 April at 88.
Last month, Russia’s foreign ministry banned Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Ben Wallace and 10 other British government members from entering the country.
The ministry said the decision was made “in view of the unprecedented hostile action by the UK government”.
That’s it from me, Richard Luscombe in the US, for tonight. Thanks for joining me for the last few hours.
I’ll leave you with this latest look at the position in Ukraine from the Observer’s graphics desk, showing the areas of the country where Russia has been advancing, and others where the defenders have been fighting back.
After the reported fall of Mariupol on Friday, Russia appears to be concentrating on Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv, which is under attack from renewed shelling and pushes from Russian troops.
The lights dimmed, a hush came over the auditorium and the orchestra struck up the first notes of the overture. This ritual has taken place thousands of times at Kyiv’s grand opera house over the past century, but the performance on Saturday afternoon was something out of the ordinary.
In a city that over the past three months became used to wailing air-raid sirens and the thuds of artillery from the suburbs, the audience was instead treated to the frothy melodies of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.
It marked the first performance since the missiles and shells of Vladimir Putin’s invasion rudely interrupted the opera season – and everything else in Ukraine – in the early hours of 24 February.
Now, less than three months later and with fierce battles still raging in the eastern part of the country, the opera is back, although with some changes. Performances will only take place on weekend afternoons, a maximum of 300 tickets are sold, and the audience has to be ready to move quickly to the basement cloakrooms if air-raid sirens sound during a performance.
The Kyiv Opera performs The Barber of Seville Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Observer
Saturday’s audience was a mix of couples enjoying their first opportunity for weeks to wear their most elegant outfits, and soldiers in military fatigues taking a break from their army service for some high culture.
Only the stalls were full, with the four tiers of gilded balconies off-limits to ensure an evacuation could take place more quickly if needed.
“I can’t say opera is my usual entertainment, but it is an incredible feeling to hear this music and to be in a different world for a little while, before coming back to our reality,” said Volodymyr, a soldier who only wanted to give his first name.
Joe Biden among 963 Americans receiving 'lifetime bans' from Russia
Russia on Saturday released a list of 963 Americans it said were banned from entering the country, a punctuation of previously announced moves against president Joe Biden and other senior US officials.
The country, which has received global condemnation for its 24 February invasion of Ukraine, said it would continue to retaliate against what it called hostile US actions, Reuters reported.
The lifetime bans imposed on the Americans, including secretary of state Antony Blinken, US senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, defence secretary Lloyd Austin and CIA head William Burns, are largely symbolic.
Joe Biden. Photograph: Getty Images
They came on the same day Biden signed a support package providing nearly $40bn (£32bn) in aid for Ukraine.
But the latest action by Russia forms part of a downward spiral in the country’s relations with the west since its invasion of Ukraine, which prompted Washington and allies to impose drastic sanctions on Moscow and step up arms supplies to Ukraine’s military.
Several on the Russian government’s list of undesirables wouldn’t have been able to make the trip anyway: they are already dead.
John McCain, the former Republican US presidential candidate and long-serving senator; Democrat Harry Reid, who served as senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015; and Orrin Hatch, whose 42 years in the chamber made him the longest-serving Republican senator in history; are all included.
McCain died in August 2018 at the age of 81; Reid died last December, aged 82; and Hatch died on 23 April at 88.
Last month, Russia’s foreign ministry banned Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Ben Wallace and 10 other British government members from entering the country.
The ministry said the decision was made “in view of the unprecedented hostile action by the UK government”.
Discord over the war in Ukraine spilled over into the Cannes film festival on Saturday night, with the presence of Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov - a dissident who has spoken out against his country’s invasion - under attack from Ukrainian filmmaker Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk.
Reuters says that the Ukrainian used the debut showing of his movie Pamfir to criticise festival organisers for inviting the Russian.
Kirill Serebrennikov. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
“When he’s here, he is part of the Russian propaganda, and they can use him,” Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk told the news agency during Cannes’ directors’ fortnight event.
Serebrennikov, who has spoken out against the invasion of Ukraine, and said earlier this week that Russian culture should not be boycotted, premiered his in-competition film Tchaikovsky’s Wife at the festival on Wednesday.
Set in the forests of western Ukraine’s Chernivtsi region, Pamfir begins with the return of a father, Leonid, to his family after months of working in Poland, a story with parallels in Ukrainian men being separated from loved ones while they fight the Russian invasion.
“[The film] is a reflection of the strength and power of the Ukrainian people, who are very strong and who will win. It’s just a question of time … because we can’t be defeated,” actor Oleksandr Yatsentyuk, who plays Leonid, told Reuters.
The Associated Press has published an incredibly powerful montage of images from inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel mill, where hundreds of Ukrainian fighters and civilians were holed up for weeks before their final surrender on Friday.
The pictures were taken by Dmytro Kozatsky,a member of Ukraine’s military who photographed his colleagues during lulls in fighting. He is now a prisoner of war in the hands of Russian forces.
The images, the AP says, are his legacy. See them here.
Dmytro Kozatsky was among the Ukrainian forces inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel mill. In lulls between fighting, he photographed his comrades.
It’s midnight in Kyiv, and time to take stock of today’s main developments in the Ukraine conflict:
Russia is considering giving up Ukraine fighters captured in Mariupol for Viktor Medvedchuk, a detained ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Russia banned 963 Americans, including President Biden, from entering the country. The list includes president Joe Biden, secretary of state Antony Blinken, and the CIA chief, William Burns.
President Biden signed the Ukraine funding bill. The US will provide nearly $40bn, or £32bn, in aid for Ukraine.
Turkey continues to have reservations about Sweden’s relationship with Kurdish militants, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Swedish prime minister Magdalena Andersson in a phone call.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Portugal’s prime minister António Costa and described the meeting as “important and meaningful”. Portugal later announced an agreement to provide €250m in financial aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskiy also had a phone conversation with Italy’s prime minister Mario Draghi, and says he stressed the importance of more sanctions on Russia and unblocking Ukrainian ports.
Canada has imposed sanctions on the Russian-born billionaire and newspaper proprietor Alexander Lebedev. The former KGB agent is also the former owner of UK newspapers the Evening Standard and the Independent.
Ukraine on Saturday again ruled out agreeing to a ceasefire with Russia and said Kyiv would not accept any deal with Moscow that involved ceding territory, Reuters reports.
Acknowledging that Kyiv’s stance on the war was becoming more uncompromising, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told the agency that concessions would backfire on Ukraine because Russia would hit back harder after any break in fighting:
The war will not stop [after any concessions]. It will just be put on pause for some time.
Podolyak was speaking with Reuters in an interview in the heavily guarded presidential office, where some of the windows and corridors are protected by sandbags, the agency said.
Russia 'considering prisoner swap' for oligarch Medvedchuk
Moscow is exploring a possible exchange of Ukraine fighters captured at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol for an oligarch and politician close to president Vladimir Putin, a leading Russian negotiator says.
According to AFP, Leonid Slutsky, a senior member of Russia’s negotiating team, the prisoners might be handed over if Ukraine gives up Viktor Medvedchuk, a wealthy businessman known as the “dark prince” of Ukraine politics who was detained last month for a second time.
Viktor Medvedchuk. Photograph: Serhii Nuzhnenko/Reuters
“We are going to study the possibility,” Slutsky said, speaking from the separatist city of Donetsk in southeastern Ukraine, according to AFP citing the RIA Novosti news agency.
Medvedchuk, 67, is one of Ukraine’s richest people and is known for his close ties to Putin, as well as being a member of Ukraine’s parliament.
The Guardian reported last month that the Kremlin said it would not consider a trade for Medvedchuk, who escaped from house arrest after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, but was re-arrested in mid-April.
Among the Ukrainian fighters who gave themselves up to Russian troops in Mariupol were members of the Azov regiment, a former paramilitary unit which has integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke with Italian prime minister Mario Draghi Saturday afternoon, and says he stressed the importance of more sanctions on Russia and unblocking Ukrainian ports.
Zelenskiy tweeted that he had also thanked Draghi for his “unconditional support” of Ukraine’s bid to become a member of the European Union. Draghi initiated the call, he said.
Had a phone conversation with #MarioDraghi at his initiative. Talked about defensive cooperation, the need to accelerate the 6th package of sanctions and unblock Ukrainian ports. Thanked for the unconditional support for Ukraine on the path to the #EU.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 21, 2022
Several among the 963 Americans banned for life from entering Russia wouldn’t have been able to make the trip anyway: because they are already dead.
John McCain, the former Republican US presidential candidate and long-serving senator; Democrat Harry Reid, who served as senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015; and Orrin Hatch, whose 42 years in the chamber made him the longest-serving Republican senator in history; are all on the Russian government’s new list of undesirables.
McCain died in August 2018 at the age of 81; Reid died last December, aged 82; and Hatch died on 23 April at 88.
Morgan Freeman. Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Still very much alive, but now banned from Russia for perceived slights against Russian president Vladimir Putin or his regime, are the actor Morgan Freeman, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, British journalist and CNN correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, and Jeff Katzenberg, chief executive of the DreamWorks animation studio.
As if to reinforce the fact that whomever compiled the lists didn’t fully complete their homework, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senate majority leader is incorrectly identified as a “former Democratic senator” and “deputy senate minority leader”; while Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general of the US from 2017 to 2019, is given the first name “Ron”.
Ukraine 'open to talks if Mariupol defenders not harmed'
Lorenzo Tondo
The Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo has this latest dispatch from Kyiv, where concern is growing over the fate of Ukraine fighters in Russian hands after their surrender in Mariupol:
Ukraine has suggested that it is willing to resume talks with Russia as Moscow claimed to have taken full control of the besieged city of Mariupol – its biggest prize since it invaded Ukraine in February.
Speaking to a television channel on Saturday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that “discussions between Ukraineand Russia will undoubtedly take place”.
“Under what format I don’t know – with intermediaries, without them, in a broader group, at the presidential level,” he added. “But the war will be bloody, there will be fighting and [it] will only definitively end through diplomacy.
“There are things that can only be reached at the negotiating table. We want everything to return [to as it was before] but Russia does not want that.”
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy (right) welcomes Portuguese prime minister Antonio Costa to Kyiv on Saturday. Photograph: Presidential Press Service Handout/EPA
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, responded by blaming Ukraine for stopping the talks. The last discussions between the two sides took place on 22 April, according to Russian news agencies.
During the interview, held with a Ukrainian broadcaster, Zelenskiy spoke of creating a document enshrining security guarantees for his country. Although bilateral discussions would be held with Russia, the document would be signed by “friends and partners of Ukraine, without Moscow”, he added.
However, he warned that the precondition for resuming negotiations was that Moscow did not kill Ukrainian troops who had been defending the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. “The most important thing for me is to save the maximum number of people and soldiers,” he said.
Last week, Russia announced it had taken full control of Mariupol, the first major city to fall. The last group of Ukrainian soldiers holed up in the Azovstal steelworks surrendered on Friday, bringing to an end a months-long siege of the defenders’ last stronghold.
