Russia Ukraine war: Putin’s Black Sea fleet forced to retreat – live

Ukraine has downed nine out of 10 Russian Iranian-made Shahed drones over Mykolayiv and Odessa, according to the country’s air force.

“Fighters, anti-aircraft missile units and mobile fire groups were involved in the repulse of the air attack. As a result of combat work, nine enemy attack UAVs were destroyed within Mykolaiv, Odesa, Zhytomyr and Khmelnytskyi regions,” the air force said.

It comes as Russia intensified its strikes on Ukrainian ports overnight, including Odessa. On Thursday, British foreign secretary Lord Cameron visited the port city and inspected damage to the Transfiguration Cathedral.

Ukraine said on Tuesday it had secured a foothold on the eastern bank of the Dnipro “against all odds”, in a potentially major setback for Russian occupation forces in the south where Kyiv is trying to open a new line of attack.

Imports of diamonds and liquid petroleum gas from Moscow were among commodities set to be banned as per a proposal by the European Commission as the bloc looked to tighten implementation of a price cap on Russian oil as part of new sanctions.

The sanctions – 12th such by the European Union on Russia for invading Ukraine – is set to be discussed on Friday and will include import bans on a number of metals and a ban on the transit through Russia of goods and technologies that could bolster Moscow’s industrial strength, diplomats said on Wednesday.

Kim Sengupta returns to Kamianka in eastern Ukraine – the scene of one of the most extraordinary exchanges he has witnessed during the 21-month war – to hear about the struggle to rebuild amid accusations of Russian collusion and vast destruction.

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A Russian court on Thursday convicted an artist and musician for replacing supermarket price tags with antiwar slogans and sentenced her to seven years in prison, Russian media reported.

Sasha Skochilenko, 33, has been held in her home city of St. Petersburg since April 2022 on charges of spreading false information about the military.

She was arrested a month after Russia adopted a law effectively criminalizing any public expression about the war in Ukraine that deviates from the Kremlin’s official line. The legislation has been used in a widespread crackdown on opposition politicians, human rights activists and ordinary Russians critical of the Kremlin, with many receiving lengthy prison terms.

Finland will close four crossing points on its long border with Russia to stop the flow of Middle Eastern and African migrants that it accuses Moscow of ushering to the border in recent months, the government said Thursday.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said the southeastern crossing points — Imatra, Niirala, Nuijamaa and Vaalimaa — will be closed at midnight Friday on the Finland-Russia land border that serves as the European Union’s external border.

A British former civil servant who has been described in Parliament as a “pro-Russian propagandist” is waiting to see if he has won a High Court fight with Foreign Office ministers after being sanctioned.

Graham Phillips, who is living in Ukraine, was made the subject of an “asset freeze” in July 2022 – a decision upheld on “ministerial review” in February, a judge has been told.

Russia under President Vladimir Putin has been closing in on those who challenge the Kremlin. Protesters and activists have been arrested or imprisoned, independent news outlets have been silenced, and various groups have been added to registers of “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations.”

The crackdown has been going on for years.

But it increased within days of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when Russia adopted a law criminalizing the spreading of “false information” about the military, effectively outlawing any public expression about the war that deviated from the official narrative. Scores of people have been prosecuted under the new law, and those implicated in high-profile cases have been given long prison terms.

Russia has failed in its efforts to reduce Ukrainian grain exports to zero and Kyiv’s military successes in the Black Sea have allowed to open up shipping lanes, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.

The Biden administration was working through a request to Congress for more funding for Ukraine and believes there are strong majorities in support of the funding, but Ukraine would “have a severe problem” without the money, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to brief reporters on U.S. policy.