Russian Putin Ukraine war

Red Cross says Mariupol evacuation blocked as Moscow shifts focus to southeast region.

Kyiv and its allies say Russia is pulling troops out in those areas, not as a goodwill gesture but to regroup because they have taken heavy losses. Germany, the biggest buyer, called it “blackmail”, and had warned this week of a potential emergency if supplies were curtailed. But there was no sign on Friday of an immediate interruption. Russia’s defence ministry said the facility was exclusively for civilian use. Negotiations aimed at ending the war were set to resume by video link. But late in the day Belgorod mayor Anton Ivanov said fire services were extinguishing the last remnants. Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the resulting blaze injured two workers. Belgorod is one of Russia’s main logistics hubs for the war. The Red Cross had hoped to begin evacuations from the city on Friday but Ukraine said Russia had prevent buses from reaching the city on Thursday. Mr Gladkov also said a second blast damaged a power line near the village of Nikolskoye but that no one was hurt. Security camera footage, from a verified location, showed a flash of light from what appeared to be a missile fired from low altitude in the sky, followed by an explosion on the ground. Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out an air strike against a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod on Friday, an incident the Kremlin said could affect peace talks, but a top Kyiv security official denied responsibility.

US says the invasion has been a 'strategic disaster' for Moscow and that Putin is isolated.

As part of the agreement, armoured vehicles and long-range artillery will be sent. Unfortunately we were unable to process your last payment. EU and Chinese leaders will meet for a first summit in two years on Friday, with Brussels keen for assurances from Beijing that it will neither supply Russia with arms nor help Moscow circumvent western sanctions. Russian forces have reportedly left the Chernobyl power plant, the Ukrainian Atomic Energy Ministry said, citing personnel at the site. UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said Mr Putin was “not the force he used to be” and a “man in a cage he built himself”. Mr Wallace told Sky News: “He is isolated. Mr Putin signed a decree on Thursday saying foreign buyers must pay in roubles for Russian gas from Friday. He said contracts would be halted if these payments were not made.

Russia's Kremlin has rebuffed claims that President Vladimir Putin felt like he was "misled" by his military commanders.

"This is not just regrettable. "They just do not understand what is happening in the Kremlin, they do not understand Russian President Vladimir Putin, they do not understand the mechanism of decision-making and they do not understand the style of our work," Peskov added, according to state news agency Tass. "To our regret and even concern neither the Department of State nor the Pentagon have authentic information about what is happening in the Kremlin," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters at a briefing Thursday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is sending staff to the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol and is hopeful that evacuations of thousands ...

The EU has joined the United States in imposing sanctions, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola is expected in Kyiv today in a show of support. "The ICRC team, which consists of three vehicles and nine personnel, did not reach Mariupol or facilitate the safe passage of civilians today," the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement, adding: "They will try again on Saturday to facilitate the safe passage of civilians from Mariupol." The Red Cross said the team it sent to facilitate the evacuation of thousands of civilians from Mariupol today had been forced to turn around after conditions made it "impossible to proceed". Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko later urged residents not to head back to Kyiv yet because "huge" battles were being fought to the north and east of the capital. Mr Arestovych said Russia was carrying out a partial troop rotation and sending some of its forces to fight in eastern Ukraine. "Our troops are chasing them both to the northwest and northeast (of Kyiv), pushing the enemy away from Kyiv," said Oleksiy Arestovych, a political adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia-Ukraine war: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian troops are now building up for new powerful attacks in the southeast after withdrawing ...

We know what they are planning and what they are doing,” Zelenskyy said. “We know that they are moving away from those areas where we hit them in order to focus on other, very important ones where it may be difficult for us". Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nighttime video address to the nation, said that Russian troops are now building up for new powerful attacks in the southeast after withdrawing from the north and center of the country as he also urged Ukrainians not to let up.

Ukrainian emergency services say two dozen people died when Russian forces targeted the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration. Follow live.

She added that “we are particularly aware of the crime challenges that may arise as a result of the migration flow.” She did not elaborate. The move is to help “prevent and detect crime as a result of the migration flow and the tense security policy situation,” National Police Commissioner Benedicte Bjørnland said in a statement Friday. The Hague-based agency said Friday its teams are supporting local authorities by running secondary security checks and seeking to “identify criminals and terrorists trying to enter the EU in the refugee flow and exploit the situation.”