US weapons ‘needed to return Russia behind Iron Curtain’ – live

Ukrainian presidential adviser and peace negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak repeated a call for U.S.-made long-range multiple-rocket launchers. U.S. officials have told Reuters such systems are actively being considered, with a decision possible in coming days.

“It is hard to fight when you are attacked from 70 km away and have nothing to fight back with. Ukraine can return Russia behind the Iron Curtain, but we need effective weapons for that,” Podolyak posted on Twitter.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy voiced hopes in a late-night video address that Ukraine‘s allies would provide needed weapons, adding that he expected “good news” this week.

French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz asked Mr Putin for an “immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops” as the assault on Ukraine’s Donbas region intensifies.

In an 80 minute three-way phone call, the leaders also urged Mr Putin to release 2,500 Ukrainian fighters taken as prisoners of war at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, according to a read-out from Mr Scholz’s office.

The Russian president warned Mr Macron and Mr Scholz that western weapons deliveries to Ukraine were “dangerous”, according to the Kremlin.

It comes after Russia claimed to have seized control of Lyman after days of fighting over the Ukrainian town. The claimed success is believed to be key to the next phase of Moscow’s assault in the Donbas region.

The West is working to break the Russian blockade on Ukrainian ports in order to “avert a global food crisis” by releasing millions of tons of grain, Boris Johnson has said.

The Prime Minister spoke on Saturday morning with President Volodymyr Zelensky about international efforts to put a stop to the “despicable blockade” of Odesa, Ukraine’s major southern port on the Black Sea.

The conversation between the leaders comes after Mr Johnson revealed this week that the West was supporting the Ukrainians to demine the Black Sea and reopen international shipping lanes.

Vladimir Putin has been urged to hold “direct serious negotiations” with Volodymyr Zelensky to try and find an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Macron and Scholz urged the Russian president to “find a diplomatic solution to the conflict”, while also calling for the immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of troops from Ukraine.

Ukraine, however, is doubtful that negotiations would be fruitful saying any deal with Russia could not be trusted.

“Any agreement with Russia isn’t worth a broken penny. Is it possible to negotiate with a country that always lies cynically and propagandistically?” peace talks negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Telegram.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Schloz have urged Vladimir Putin to release the Ukrainians that had been detained from Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks.

Some 2,500 fighters were taken prisoner by Russian forces after they surrendered following months of relentless shelling in the besieged city.

Hundreds were thought to have been taken to a former penal colony while others were said to have received treatment in hospital.

The son of a Conservative MP has been filmed helping to blow up a Russian armoured vehicle in an operation in Ukraine, according to footage obtained by the i.

Ben Grant can reportedly be heard shouting “shoot it now” and “mind the back blast” before an anti-tank missile is launched on a Russian BTR in a woodland in northeast Ukraine.

Mr Grant, 30, son of of former minister Helen Grant, Conservative MP for Maidstone and The Weald, is among group of Western volunteer fighters supporting Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion.

My colleague Emily Atkinson has more details here:

Russia asserted Saturday that its troops and separatist fighters had captured a key railway junction in eastern Ukraine, the second small city to fall to Moscow’s forces this week as they fought to seize all of the country’s contested Donbas region.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the city of Lyman had been “completely liberated” by a joint force of Russian soldiers and the Kremlin-backed separatists, who have waged war in the eastern region bordering Russia for eight years.#

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the leaders of France and Germany in a phone call that Russia was willing to discuss ways to make it possible for Ukraine to resume shipments of grain from Black Sea ports, the Kremlin said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that international partners were working intensively to find ways to resume the export of grain from Ukraine to avert a global food crisis.

A ship has entered the Ukrainian port of Mariupol for the first time since Russia completed its capture of the city to load metal and ship it east to Russia, TASS news agency reported, in a move that Kyiv decried as looting.

The EU is seeking a deal this weekend to ban Russian oil deliveries by sea but not pipeline to win over Hungary. Zelenskiy has accused the EU of dithering.

Europe’s frantic search for alternatives to Russian energy has dramatically increased the demand — and price — for Norway’s oil and gas.

As the money pours in, Europe‘s second-biggest natural gas supplier is fending off accusations that it’s profiting from the war in Ukraine.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is looking to the Scandinavian country to replace some of the gas Poland used to get from Russia, said Norway’s “gigantic” oil and gas profits are “indirectly preying on the war.” He urged Norway to use that windfall to support the hardest-hit countries, mainly Ukraine.