Ukraine and Russian need to negotiate an end to the conflict, says Putin ally Lukashenko; Ukrainian peace talks open in Malta without Moscow present
Russia says it has shot down 36 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula. There were claims in local media outlets that a fire at an oil refinery in the early hours of Sunday had been caused by a drone strike or debris from a downed drone. Ukraine has said it shot down five Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones launched from Russia overnight.
State media in Russia has reported that more than 100 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Yuzhno-Donetsk over the past 24 hours. The 58th motorised infantry, 79th air assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the 128th territorial defence brigade were reportedly involved in the attack by Russian troops.
Russian forces are believed to have suffered some of the country’s biggest casualty rates so far this year as a result of continued “heavy but inconclusive” fighting around the Donetsk oblast town of Avdiivka, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.
Russia would confiscate assets belonging to EU states it deems unfriendly if the bloc “steals” frozen Russian funds in a drive to fund Ukraine, a top ally of Vladimir Putin said. The comments were made after Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said that the EU executive was working on a proposal to pool some of the profits derived from frozen Russian state assets to help Ukraine and its postwar reconstruction.
Ukraine and Russia are locked in a stalemate on the frontlines of their war and the two sides need to sit down and negotiate an end to the conflict, Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus president, said. Lukashenko, a key Putin ally, described the current state of the conflict as “head-to-head, to the death, entrenched … seriously stalemate.”
Four Ukrainian police officers were wounded when a shell fired by Russian troops exploded by their police car in the city of Siversk, located in the partly occupied Donetsk oblast.
A third round of Ukrainian-backed peace talks opened in Malta, but without Moscow. In a statement, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said 66 countries had taken part, proof that his plan “has gradually become global”. Ukraine’s deputy minister Mykola Tochytskyi has said his country aims to hold a global “peace summit” of world leaders this year.
A mob in Russia’s mostly Muslim region of Dagestan has stormed the airport in Makhachkala in search of Jewish passengers arriving from Israel, after reports emerged that a flight from Tel Aviv was arriving in the city. There were reports of some injuries at the airport, while some passengers were forced to take refuge in planes or hide in the airport for fear of being attacked.
About 2,000 Ukrainians ran a 1km race on Sunday in Kyiv, wearing bibs displaying the name of a person instead of a number. Each runner chose one person to whom they dedicated their run. Spouses, children, friends, siblings, neighbours, and colleagues ran for someone they knew who either was killed, taken captive or injured during the war.
