Latest news about Russia and the war in Ukraine

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $400 million security aid package for Ukraine.

The support, the 33rd installment, includes more ammunition for US-supplied HIMARS and howitzers, as well as ammunition for Bradley fighting vehicles and demolition weapons and equipment.

“Only Russia could end its war today. Until Russia does, however long it takes, we will stand united with Ukraine and strengthen its military on the battlefield so that Ukraine will be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.” wrote Blinken in a statement.

— Amanda Macias

US agents arrested two Americans on Thursday for allegedly running a scheme to illegally export aerospace technology to Russia.

Prosecutors said Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky, 59, and Douglas Robertson, 55, both of Kansas, owned and operated KanRus Trading Co. They circumvented US export laws by providing electronics and other aviation equipment used in Russian aircraft, prosecutors said.

“Since 2020, the defendants have conspired to circumvent U.S. export laws by concealing and misrepresenting the true end users, value, and final destinations of their exports and by transshipping items through third-party countries,” the Justice Department wrote in a statement.

“As further alleged, on February 28, 2022, the defendants attempted to export avionics to Russia,” the statement added.

— Amanda Macias

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Washington, DC, to meet with US President Joe Biden and was welcomed by German Ambassador to the US Emily Haber.

During the two-day visit, Biden and Scholz will discuss Western support for Kiev and measures against Russia. There will be no state dinner or bilateral press conference.

— Amanda Macias

Russia will take steps to prevent further offensives in the Bryansk border region, a day after accusing Ukraine-backed saboteurs of a “terrorist attack” in the region.

The breach will be investigated and “measures will be taken to prevent this in the future,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to a Google translation of comments by Russian state news agency Tass. on Telegram.

Ukraine has distanced itself from the alleged incident, with Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, calling it a “classic deliberate provocation”, while Andriy Yusov, spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate, said that Russian opponents of the Moscow administration had scripted the attack.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Russian forces have virtually surrounded the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, according to Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.

“The divisions of the Wagner PMC practically surrounded Bakhmut, there was only one way left,” Prigozhin said in a Telegram videoaccording to a Google translation of a report from Russian state news agency Tass. Reuters geolocated Prigozhin’s images to the village of Paraskoviika, 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) north of central Bakhmut.

Wagner forces have been leading Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine for months. Russia, which regards Bakhmut as a key strategic point for cutting off Ukrainian supply lines in Donetsk, has previously claimed that it had almost surrounded the city.

Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Rakhmanin said that on Wednesday that: “I think sooner or later we will probably have to leave Bakhmut. There is no point in holding it at all costs.”

— Ruxandra Iordache

There was a “big gap” in views on the war in Ukraine at the G-20 foreign affairs summit, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday.

He also stressed that the West must be “vigilant” about China’s support for Russia.

“There is a big gap, and Russia will continue the war,” he told CNBC’s Tanvir Gill in India.

“China has always told us that they do not provide weapons to Russia, and they do not plan to do so, especially explicitly,” he added. “But surely we must be vigilant.”

— Katrina Bishop and Silvia Amaro

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats are not acceptable, foreign ministers of the “Quad” group — USA, Japan, Australia and India — said in a joint statement on Friday during the Group of 20 meeting of ministers in India.

“We continued to discuss our responses to the conflict in Ukraine and the enormous human suffering it is causing, and agreed that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is impermissible,” the statement said.

The statement was a rare point of consensus between the US and India on the war in Ukraine. India’s government has so far refused to directly condemn Russia for the war. Moscow is a long-standing ally and important trading partner of India.

— Natasha Turak

Russia must be punished for its war in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after a meeting in New Delhi with foreign ministers of the “Quad” group, whose members are the US, India, Japan and Australia.

“If we allow Russia with impunity to do what they’re doing in Ukraine, then that’s a message to would-be attackers everywhere that they might be able to get away with it, too,” Blinken said in a speech to a forum.

The meeting with Quad members came during the Group of 20 meeting in India of the world’s top 20 economies, where the war in Ukraine dominated the discussions. Western officials urged other countries present to keep pressuring Russia, but a joint message from the meeting condemning Russia’s war could not be agreed upon due to opposition from Moscow and Beijing. The Kremlin still calls the war its “special military operation.”

— Natasha Turak

A senior Russian diplomat warned that increased Western aid to Ukraine could trigger an open conflict between nuclear powers.

At the UN Conference on Disarmament, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov condemned the US and its allies for openly declaring the goal of defeating Russia in a “hybrid” war, arguing that it violates their obligations under international agreements and is fraught with war. in Ukraine is running out of control.

Ryabkov warned that “the policy of the United States and NATO to fuel the conflict in Ukraine” and their “increasing involvement in the military confrontation is fraught with a direct military clash between nuclear powers with catastrophic consequences.”

He emphasized that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s move to suspend the 2010 New START agreement, the last remaining nuclear weapons pact with the United States, came in response to US and NATO actions against Ukraine.

– Impartial Press

The White House said it has yet to see China supplying Russia with weapons for the war in Ukraine.

“We have not seen the Chinese make a decision to go in that direction,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said when asked about possible arms transfers.

“At the end of the day, it’s their choice to make,” Kirby added, declining to elaborate on potential U.S. retaliation.

— Amanda Macias