Ukraine War

With the EU approving a €90bn loan for Ukraine, a surprise visit from Prince Harry, and data suggesting Russian troops made almost no territorial gains in March – are there reasons for optimism in Kyiv? Lucy Hough speaks to senior international correspondent Luke Harding – watch on YouTube Continue reading...

EU economy commissioner says Iran war is feeding Russia’s war machine; Trump condemns massive strikes on Ukraine. What we know on day 1,513The EU expects to start releasing a new €90bn loan to Ukraine in the second quarter, the bloc’s economy chief told AFP on Thursday. The EU’s economy commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, was speaking on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s spring meetings, which brought finance ministers, central bankers and other leaders to Washington. “Our support for Ukraine, also continued pressure and sanctions against aggressor Russia was very much part of the agenda,” Dombrovskis said. He warned that Moscow was “emerging as a winner from this war in Iran, because it provides windfall profits to feed Russia’s war machine”.Russia hammered civilian areas across Ukraine with drones and missiles on Thursday, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 100 others in the worst aerial attack in weeks, Ukrainian authorities said. Nearly 700 drones and dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles were used, as Ukrainian officials said vital stocks of advanced interceptors were running low.Donald Trump on Thursday condemned a massive Russian drone and missile attack across Ukraine that ripped through apartment buildings in the capital, Kyiv. Asked by reporters at the White House for his reaction to the barrage, Trump said: “I think it’s terrible.”It is not in the interest of the US that Russia is the winner of the Iran war, the German vice chancellor, Lars Klingbeil, said on Thursday in Washington. “It’s not in our interest and it cannot be in the interest of the United States,” he said in a joint statement with the finance ministers of Ukraine and Norway on the sidelines of the IMF spring meetings. Klingbeil said the Russian economy was growing thanks to the Middle East conflict and the country was profitting from the energy situation. As the conflict in the Middle East dominated the gathering of finance officials at the IMF in Washington, the ministers of Norway, Germany and Ukraine spoke about not forgetting to support Ukraine in its defence against Russia. “All the meetings here are about the question of what’s happening with the war in Iran, and I think it’s really important we show solidarity with our friends in Ukraine,” Klingbeil said.The heads of the EU and Nato on Thursday discussed efforts to bolster Europe’s arms production, as Donald Trump threw doubt on Washington’s commitment to the transatlantic alliance. “We need to invest more, to produce more and to do both faster,” the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, posted online after meeting Nato’s chief, Mark Rutte. European nations are scrambling to bolster their militaries in the face of Russia’s war on Ukraine and pressure from Trump. Continue reading...

Péter Magyar would ‘talk to Russian president, but won’t initiate contact’; Ukraine welcomes defeat of Orbán. What we know on day 1,511Péter Magyar, Hungary’s new leader, said he would ask Vladimir Putin to end the killing in Ukraine if they speak, and plans to review Hungary’s Russian energy contracts and renegotiate them if needed. Magyar said he would talk to the Russian president, but won’t initiate contact. “If Vladimir Putin calls, I’ll pick up the phone,” he said in his first news conference after his landslide win against Viktor Orbán, a Putin ally. “If we did talk, I could tell him that it would be nice to end the killing after four years and end the war. It would probably be a short phone conversation and I don’t think he would end the war on my advice,” he said.Ukraine welcomed with relief on Monday the defeat of Orbán, its harshest critic in the EU, an outcome that paves the way for a €90bn ($105bn) loan that Kyiv urgently needs to fund the war with Russia.Higher oil prices caused by the war in the Middle East could raise inflation rates in Ukraine by 1.5 to 2.8 percentage points, Ukraine’s top central banker said on Monday. The National Bank of Ukraine governor, Andriy Pyshnyi, said the central bank would stick to its target of lowering inflation to 5% in three years, using all available tools to ensure that goal was met. “We’re trying to walk on a razorblade,” Pyshnyi said through an interpreter, noting prices have already started to rise.The Ukrainian military struck a Russian chemicals plant in Cherepovets in the Vologda region, Kyiv’s drone forces commander said on Monday. The plant produces chemicals that serve as raw materials for TNT, hexogen and components for munitions, Robert Brovdi said on Telegram.Russian and Belarusian athletes will be permitted to compete in World Aquatics events with their respective uniforms, flags and anthems, the sport’s governing body said on Monday. Competitors from both countries were banned from international sports events after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which was launched in part from Belarusian territory. Continue reading...

Iran bombed US bases and allies’ facilities soon after Russian satellites mapped them, according to Ukrainian assessment. What we know on day 1,505Russian satellites made detailed imagery of military facilities and critical sites across the Middle East including US bases and other targets that were attacked by Iran soon afterwards, according to a Ukrainian intelligence assessment. Reuters reported that the assessment cited at least 24 surveys of areas in 11 Middle Eastern countries from 21-31 March, covering 46 “objects” including US and other military bases and airports and oilfields. Within days of being surveyed, military bases and headquarters were targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, the assessment said.Russian satellites were actively surveying the strait of Hormuz, according to the Ukrainians. Reuters said a western military source and a separate regional security cited their own intelligence in backing up the claims. Reuters said the Iranian foreign ministry had no immediate comment and the defence ministry in Russia did not respond to a request for comment.Reuters said its regional security source confirmed a specific incident where a Russian satellite imaged Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia days before Iran struck the facility on 27 March, hitting a sophisticated US E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft. The next day a Russian satellite passed over again to assess the damage, the assessment said. The Ukrainian report also alleges Russian and Iranian hackers were collaborating in the cyber domain.The Ukrainian military said it had struck Russia’s Ust-Luga oil terminal in the Leningrad region on Tuesday. The general staff said on Telegram it had preliminary confirmation of damage to three storage tanks belonging to the Transneft-Baltika company.Crude oil exports from Russia’s Sheskharis terminal in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk were suspended after a big drone attack and a fire, two sources told Reuters on Tuesday. The terminal, which typically loads 700,000 barrels a day of crude oil, is Russia’s key oil outlet in the Black Sea. Its suspension will add to the strain on Russian infrastructure, which has been repeatedly attacked.Moscow’s troops targeted two buses in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, its governor, Oleksandr Ganzha, said on Telegram. A drone smashed into a bus approaching a stop in Nikopol’s city centre, he said, and later another bus was hit in a neighbouring community. Four people were killed in Nikopol and at least 16 injured, officials said. In the southern city of Kherson, a Russian attack on a residential area that lasted half an hour killed four elderly people and injured seven more, said the regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin. Other deadly Russian strikes took place in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy oblasts, said Ukrainian officials.Ukrainian drone strikes killed five civilians including a 12-year-old boy and his parents in Russia and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, Russian officials said on Tuesday. Reuters could not independently verify the officials’ statements, and Ukraine denies deliberately targeting civilians. Continue reading...

Ukrainian president says Russia unlikely to accept – ‘for them, nothing is sacred’; Australian police arrest army reservist for joining war. What we know on day 1,504Ukraine’s president has renewed his offer to Russia of a mutual ceasefire on strikes against energy infrastructure. “If Russia is ready to stop strikes on our energy infrastructure, we will respond in kind,” he said. “This proposal has been conveyed to the Russian side through the Americans.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered last week to observe a ceasefire for Easter, which Orthodox adherents mark on Sunday (13 April) in Russia and Ukraine.In his remarks on Monday, after an overnight attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa killed three people and injured at least 16, Zelenskyy said Russia appeared unwilling to agree to the ceasefire. “We have repeatedly proposed to Russia a ceasefire at least for Easter,” he said. “But for them, all times are the same. Nothing is sacred.”Ukrainian drones attacked the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s oil shipping terminal in southern Russia early on Monday, damaging a mooring point and setting four oil tanks on fire, the Russian defence ministry claimed. The Ukrainian army said it had attacked a different terminal in the port of Novorossiysk – without mentioning the CPC, which did not immediately comment. The CPC pipeline handles about 1% of the world’s oil supplies, as well as about 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports.A reservist in the Australian army has been charged after allegedly working as a drone operator for Ukraine. The 25-year-old man from Felixstow, in the South Australian city of Adelaide, was charged by the Australian Federal Police with working for a foreign military without authorisation, the AAP news agency reported. It is the first time someone has been charged with the offence, with the man facing up to two decades in jail if found guilty. Australian laws limit the work defence personnel can perform with a foreign military, government or company without authorisation. The man allegedly travelled to Ukraine in May 2025 and returned to Australia in January 2026.A Russian ship carrying wheat believed to have sunk in the Sea of Azov after a drone attack has been found and towed to shore, Russia’s state news agency Tass said on Monday. The death toll has risen to three, it added. Crew abandoned the ship last Friday and made it to shore on Monday, according to Russian reports.Russia jailed on Monday a former governor of the Kursk border region, where Ukraine’s army broke through in 2024, for 14 years over alleged kickbacks for government contracts related to the construction of fortifications. Since August 2024, the Kremlin has gone after top regional and military officials for failing to stop the incursion – a massive embarrassment for Vladimir Putin. Alexei Smirnov, the former Kursk governor, was “sentenced to 14 years in prison and a fine of 400 million rubles [£3.8m/US$5m]”, a court statement said. Another former Kursk governor, Roman Starovoyt, who led the region until just before the Ukrainian breakthrough, died last year by alleged suicide – a fate that regularly befalls officials who run foul of the Russian president. Continue reading...

Use of unmanned ground vehicles has grown exponentially since 2024 turning the war into a technological contestVictor Pavlov showed off Ukraine’s newest and most versatile weapon: a battery-powered land robot.The unmanned ground vehicles come in various shapes and sizes. One runs on caterpillar tracks and resembles a roofless milk float. Another has wheels and antennas. A third carries anti-tank mines. Since spring 2024 their use has grown exponentially. Continue reading...