Ukraine-Russia news – live: Putin ‘shifting war to focus on Nato and West’

A senior EU official has said that Russia has taken its war to a “different stage” in making indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military targets.

Stefano Sannino, secretary general of the European Union’s European External Action Service, supported German and US provisions of military equipment to Ukraine. He also criticised Russia for waging “a war against NATO and the West.”

“I think that this latest development in terms of armed supply is just an evolution of the situation and of the way Russia started moving the war into a different stage,” Mr Sannino said, speaking at a news conference in Tokyo.

In providing military equipment, the EU is “just giving the possibility of saving lives and allowing the Ukrainians to defend (themselves) from these barbaric attacks”, he added.

Russian shelling killed at least 10 Ukrainian civilians and wounded 20 others in a day, the office of Ukraine’s president reported Friday as the country worked to recover from an earlier wave of Russian missile strikes and drone attacks.

The new casualties included the deaths of at least two civilians in the southern city of Kherson, which Ukrainian troops recaptured in November, and two more in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province. The missiles and self-propelled drones Russian forces fired Thursday hit deeper into Ukrainian territory, killing at least 11 people.

The bombardment followed announcements by the United States and Germany of plans to ship powerful tanks to help Ukraine defend itself. Other Western countries said they also would share modern tanks from their stockpiles.

Moscow has bristled at the move, and accused Western nations of entering a new level of confrontation with Russia.

Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko of the eastern Donetsk region said the Russian military used phosphorus munitions in shelling the village of Zvanivka. The village is located about 20 kilometers north of Bakhmut, a city that has become the focus of a grueling battle in recent months. The shelling also damaged apartment buildings and two schools in the nearby town of Vuhledar, Kyrylenko said.

Germany has announced it is sending its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine – and will allow other nations to do so too. Berlin will send 14 to begin with, with Poland also saying it will send 14 and Canada saying it will send four.

Norway has also said it will send Leopards, while Spain has said it is open to providing them.

Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the tanks are crucial to replenish his nation’s military hardaware ahead of what he believes will be increased Russian offences in the spring – with intense fighting having already been taking place in eastern Ukraine for weeks. Kyiv also wants them to try and recapture territory taken by Moscow’s forces.

Chris Stevenson has more:

Poland has confirmed it will send an additional 60 tanks to Ukraine in addition to the 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks it has already pledged.

Poland has positioned itself as one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies, heavily pushing Germany to approve the provision of its Leopard 2 tanks ahead of Wednesday’s decision.

“Poland sent 250 tanks as the first country half a year ago or even more than that,” Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki told CTV News.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Mr Morawiecki via Twitter.

“Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernised tanks, 30 of them PT-91. And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from in our possession,” he added.

The PT-91 is a Polish-made battle tank that has been used since the 1990s. It was developed from the Soviet-era T-72 range.

Russia has blocked the websites of both the CIA and FBI for “spreading false information.”

The country’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor confirmed that it has “restricted access to a number of resources belonging to state structures of hostile countries”.

According to Russian news agencies, it has justified this as a way to stop “disseminating material aimed at destabilising the social and political situation in Russia.”

Roskomnadzor claimed that the two US government websites had published inaccurate material that discredited the Russian armed forces.

In Russia, it is now a criminal offence to discredit the armed forces. Doing so can trigger a five-year jail sentence, whilst knowingly distributing “false information” about the military can carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.

Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall said he feels “more confident than I ever have” in his first live television appearance since being seriously injured in Ukraine.

The British journalist urged others in similar situations to “never give up” and said adversity could be overcome “no matter how painful something is”.

Hall was caught up in a shelling attack while reporting for Fox News on the ongoing Ukrainian war in March 2022.

His team was on the outskirts of Kyiv when his vehicle was hit by Russian shelling on March 14.

According to the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, the occupied areas of four Ukrainian regions which Russia declared it had annexed in September will be ordered to use Moscow time.

The Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions will become part of Russia’s second time zone, a post on the ministry’s Telegram page declared.

“A draft law… has already been submitted to the government,” the post read.

The annexation process is currently illegal under international law. However, Russia has said that it will recognise these four regions as Russian territory.

Germany apologised on Thursday for using a leopard emoji in a jibe at Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Twitter that ended up offending some Africans.

The German foreign ministry poked fun at Russia’s top diplomat during his tour of Africa when it tweeted that he wasn’t there looking for leopards, but using the trip to try and justify Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The tweet, and the leopard emoji the foreign ministry used on its official account, played off Germany’s decision to send some of its advanced Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine to help its military fight off Russian forces.

But an African Union official took offence at what she said was the continent being portrayed as only about wild animals. Ebba Kalondo, the spokeswoman for AU Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat, tweeted back to the German government account questioning if Africa, its people and its wildlife was “just a joke to you?”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has paid his respects to the victims of the Holocaust, laying a wreath on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Mr Zelensky took part in the commemoration ceremony for the Holocaust victims in Babyn Yar (Babiy Yar), one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine.

He has also released a message urging people to “show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy”.

The message he issued read:

Today, as always, Ukraine honours the memory of millions of Holocaust victims.

We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred. Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil together only.

That is why it is so important that everyone who values life should show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy.

Today we remember the Righteous Among the Nations. Different people in different countries who were equally determined to save lives. Today we remember the determination of the global coalition that stopped Nazism.

And today we repeat it even more strongly than before: never again to hatred; never again to indifference.

The more nations of the world overcome indifference, the less space there will be in the world for hatred.

The EU has extended its economic sanctions against Russia until July 31, the council of the EU has confirmed.

At present, the EU implements restrictions on Russia’s trade, finance, technology and dual-use goods, industry, transport and luxury goods.

Brussels specified that the measures “also cover: a ban on the import or transfer of seaborne crude oil and certain petroleum products from Russia to the EU, a de-SWIFTing of several Russian banks, and the suspension of the broadcasting activities and licenses of several Kremlin-backed disinformation outlets.”