Ukraine: Nato warns Russia nuclear threats won’t intimidate it

Increasingly forthright criticism of Russia’s war is coming from the Russian right – people who supported Putin’s decision to go to war, but who are now losing faith in how it is being fought.

And there are reports of dissent in the Russian ranks and claims that Russia is running out of crucial equipment and munitions.

But even if the prospects for Russia’s defeat and Ukraine’s victory have been exaggerated, this still does not mean that Putin is safe in his Kremlin, writes Mary Dejevsky:

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has claimed she has “no regrets” about the energy policy her government took despite its reliance on Russia.

“You always act in the time in which you find yourself,” she said. Emily Atkinson reports:

Authorities in two Russian regions near the Ukrainian border say they have been shelled by Ukraine, damaging buildings and disrupting electricity supplies.

The governor of Belgorod region said a school had been damaged in a village close to the border and that an apartment had been struck in Belgorod city.

Video seen by Reuters showed rubble next to what appeared to be an apartment building with a large rupture near its roof.

An electricity substation in the Kursk region was damaged by a shell, knocking out power to two settlements, the region’s governor said.

Ukraine’s top prosecutor says his office has opened criminal proceedings relating to Russian missile strikes that struck Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine this week.

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin described the strikes since Monday as “a classic act of terror” by Russia.

Speaking alongside International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan in The Hague, he said the more than 112 Russian missile strikes, Moscow’s biggest aerial offensive, had killed 17 people and injured 93.

“The goal of Russia’s deliberate attacks is to cause civilian deaths and to destroy civilian infrastructure, (and) by shortage of electricity and heating, provoke a humanitarian catastrophe,” Mr Kostin said. “Coupled with the intimidation tactics against civilians, it’s a classical act of terror prohibited under international law.”

Every death and injury or damaged building will be documented and criminal proceedings opened, he said.

Russia denies violating international law and has dismissed allegations that Russian soldiers have carried out war crimes.

In the recently liberated Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine prosecutors have found at least 11 burial sites, including one mass grave near the town of Izium, and have exhumed 457 bodies across the sites, Mr Kostin said.

An additional two mass graves were found in the Lyman region with some 154 people, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, buried there, he added.

The prosecutor’s office has 28 investigative teams on the ground in the recently liberated regions, where Mr Kostin said retreating Russian troops had left evidence of illegal detention and torture of civilians and illegal deportations.

Angela Merkel has “no regrets” about the course her government took with its energy policy and relations with Russia while she was Germany’s chancellor.

Ms Merkel’s comments come as Germany and other European countries are trying to end their reliance on Russian oil and gas after Putin sent troops into Ukraine as part of what he calls a special military operation.

Last year, 55 per centof German gas imports came from Russia, partly the result of Merkel’s pursual of trade ties with Russia and backing the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, even after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.

“You always act in the time in which you find yourself,” she told reporters in Lisbon when asked about her government’s approach to Russia.

Western allies will not been intimidated by president Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats, the Nato secretary-general has declared.

Speaking at the meeting of Nato ministers of defence in Brussels, Jens Stoltenberg described the Russian leader’s “nuclear rhetoric” as “dangerous and irresponsible”, and warned of “severe consequences” should Russia attempt to unleash such an attack.

“Putin knows a nuclear war cannot be fought,” he told reporters.

Mr Stoltenberg also touched on the new military support the alliance would be sending to Ukraine, including four Spanish Hawk launchers and counter-drone equipment. He also urged Nato allies to continue to “stand up” for Kyiv.

The Kremlin has been quoted as saying that the goals of its “special military operation” in Ukraine are unchanged, but that they may be achieved through negotiations.

In comments to Izvestia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was open to negotiation.

“The direction has not changed, the special military operation continues, it continues in order for us to achieve our goals,” he reportedly said.

“However we have repeatedly reiterated that we remain open to negotiations to achieve our objectives.”

Any sale of Iranian drones to Russia would be a violation of the UN resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, France’s foreign ministry has warned.

The ministry added that it was coordinating with its EU partners on how to respond.

Three drones operated by Russian forces attacked the small town of Makariv, west of Ukraine’s capital, early on Thursday, with officials saying that critical infrastructure facilities were struck by what they said were Iranian-made suicide drones.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is slashing European countries’ gas use but will ultimately speed the transition to renewables, a new report claims.

Projections of European gas use by the middle of the century have tumbled from 310 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year predicted one year ago, to 170 bcm now.

This represents a fall in demand by 2050 of 45.2 per cent, according to the report by Norwegian consultancy group DNV.

Our environment correspondent Harry Cockburn reports:

President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan did not discuss ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine during a bilateral meeting on Thursday, according to the Kremlin.

“The topic of a Russian-Ukrainian settlement was not discussed,” news agency RIA cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.