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Ukraine war – latest: ‘It’ll end badly’ now for Wagner Group chief after Kremlin pushback; fleeing Russians signal ‘return to chaos’ for Putin’s forces – expert; big Moscow offensive ‘definitely’ started
Ukrainian officials say a major Russian attack is under way after Russian forces struck Kharkiv and launched multiple strikes on energy infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia. Listen to the latest episode of the Ukraine War Diaries podcast while you scroll.
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Key points
Big Russian offensive ‘definitely’ under way View post | Explosions heard in Kyiv View post
Russian drones hit power grid as Moscow targets key infrastructure View post
‘It’ll end badly’ now for Wagner Group chief after Kremlin pushback, official says View post
Russians fleeing from city signals ‘return to chaos’ for Putin’s forces, expert says View post
Missile strikes on Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia overnight View post
Live reporting from Bhvishya Patel, with updates from Deborah Haynes in Ukraine and Diana Magnay in Moscow
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5h ago
16:45
Biden to visit Poland to mark anniversary of Ukraine war
US President Joe Biden will travel to Poland this month to rally allies one year after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The announcement was made by the White House today.
The visit is scheduled for February 20-22.
Mr Biden will deliver a speech on how the US “will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes”, said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.
The US leader will meet Polish President Andrzej Duda and the leaders of the Bucharest Nine, which are NATO allies in Eastern Europe, to discuss his “unwavering support”, she added.
Biden during the trip to Poland last year
Biden during the trip to Poland last year
Pic: AP
Mr Biden had visited Poland just weeks after the war began on 24 February last years.
At the time, he delivered a forceful case for supporting Ukraine’s defences.
He also said Putin “cannot remain in power” – comments that seemed to suggest the US was calling for regime change in Russia.
The White House swiftly backed off the comments and dismissed any suggestions of regime change.
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7h ago
14:53
Putin has ‘lost the energy war’ and worst of power crisis is over, leading trader says
Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago, a multitude of commentators have suggested the decision was a major strategic error from Vladimir Putin.
And just as Moscow’s forces have become mired in a series of setbacks over the last 12 months, a man said to be one of the world top-performing traders in the energy sector says the long term damage to Russia is far from confined to its military.
“I think Putin lost the energy war,” Pierre Andurand said in an interview with the Financial Times.
“Very high natural gas and power prices in Europe were extremely bad for the world economy but now they have come back to a more reasonable level.
“If gas prices stay here there will be much less worry about inflation and interest rates rises. There’s no more fear of an energy crisis.
“Now that Europe is getting used to living without Russian gas why would they ever go back?”
He said the Russian president had made a “massive miscalculation over who had the leverage… in the same way he miscalculated how Ukraine would fight back and the West would be united.”
“Russia has lost its biggest customer forever, and it will take at least a decade to bring enough pipelines [to redirect those gas sales] to Asia,” he said.
“Once Russia can only sell gas to China, Beijing will be in a position to decide the price.”
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7h ago
14:38
What satellite images and drone footage tell us about Russia’s new offensive
Sky’s data and forensics correspondent Tom Cheshire has been offering his analysis of Russia’s renewed offensive in Ukraine.
He explains how satellite images indicate fresh attacks from Vladimir Putin’s forces followed a “familiar pattern”.
While taking Bakhmut would offer a symbolic victory for Russia, it would be of limited strategic use, Cheshire said.
And, he added, any subsequent effort to push on and take the more important – but better defended – cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk would be a “long and bloody slog” for Moscow’s forces.
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7h ago
14:16
Ukraine could win war within year if West provides fighter jets, former top US general says
Despite reports that Russian forces have made small advances due to a renewed offensive, a former commanding US general in Europe has insisted that Ukraine could secure a relatively quick victory if the West provides it with fighter jets.
Ben Hodges predicted the planes could lead to a conclusive triumph for Kyiv within a year – but would take up to five based on the existing level of military support.
“The sooner we deliver them the capability to achieve a decisive outcome, the sooner that [the war] could be over,” he told DW.
He said fears over training and runway compatibility issues did not make it “unfeasible” to provide Kyiv with the “capability” to use the aircraft – and praised the UK for being “in the lead” in providing several forms of military support to Ukraine.
Gen Hodges said he believed the the only “red line” for US involvement in Ukraine is “boots on the ground.”
And, in a view that taps into a key source of debate among commentators, he insisted that Kyiv must retake Crimea to preserve the “international rules-based order” and the “UN Charter.”
Others have argued that any realistic hope of achieving a peace deal between the two sides would inevitably involve compromise over the region from Ukraine.
Gen Hodges — who was in charge of US forces in Europe from 2014 to 2018 — said Russia did not have the capability to launch a “major” surge despite its current efforts to stage a significant offensive in the conflict.
“They don’t have the armoured forces, the ability to break through,” he said, adding that the existing campaign was not going to change the “overall operational environment” in Ukraine.
Kyiv “has enough to limit the Russian success,” he added, saying this would still be “costly” in terms of casualties and ammunition.
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8h ago
13:51
Why does Ukraine need jets – and does UK really have capacity to send them?
Sky News security and defence editor Deborah Haynes explores the British government’s decision over whether to send fighter jets to Ukraine.
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9h ago
13:08
‘No indication’ of Russian military threat to Moldova and NATO member Romania, US says
Washington has said it has “no indication” of a direct military threat by Russia to Moldova or Romania at this time, after Ukraine said several Russian missiles flew over the two countries.
State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel spoke after speculation around a possible NATO response if it was established missiles entered the air space of Romania, one of its member states.
“We maintain close contact and communication with our Moldovan partners and Romanian allies,” Mr Patel added.
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9h ago
12:48
More work needed to get weapons we need, Zelenskyy says
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine has secured important understandings and “good signals” during his tour of European capitals – but that more work is needed to get the weapons his country needed.
“London, Paris, Brussels – everywhere I spoke these past few days about how to strengthen our soldiers. There are very important understandings and we received good signals,” Ukraine’s president said in his nightly video address.
“This concerns long-range missiles and tanks and the next level of our cooperation – fighter aircraft. But we have to continue to work on this.”
It was the joint task of Ukrainians, he said, to “take everything that was said and agreed and transform it into concrete supplies, concrete documents, concrete new lines of cooperation”
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9h ago
12:16
Slovakia inches closer to sending MIG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine
Slovakia can start the process of talks on delivering MIG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine now once Kyiv has officially asked for the planes, Prime Minister Eduard Heger has announced.
Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad said the country no longer needed the jets and could either sell them or give them to Ukraine where the planes could help – but that no decision had been taken yet.
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10h ago
11:40
Macron considering stripping Putin of France’s top honour
Emmanuel Macron has said he is considering stripping Vladimir Putin of France’s top honour.
The country’s former president, Jacques Chirac, presented the Russian leader with the Legion d’Honneur in 2006.
Established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, it is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil.
But Mr Macron said he was waiting for the “right moment” to strip the Russian president of the title.
Speaking after awarding Volodymyr Zelensky the honour on Wednesday, he said that Mr Putin’s still having the medal was “symbolic but important”.
But, he added: “It is not a decision that I made today.”
Such decisions “are always meaningful and I think you have to appreciate the right moment to make them”, he said.
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10h ago
11:15
West has failed to isolate Russia, Lavrov says on return from Africa trip
Russia’s foreign minister has claimed the West’s efforts to “isolate” his country had completely failed and Moscow was building stronger relations with countries in Africa, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere.
“Today we can affirm that the West’s plans to isolate Russia by surrounding us with a sanitary cordon have been a fiasco,” Sergei Lavrov told Russian diplomats at an event at his ministry after returning from a nearly week-long tour of Africa.
“Despite the anti-Russian orgy orchestrated by Washington, London and Brussels, we are strengthening good neighbourly relations in the widest sense of this concept with the international majority,” he said.
The veteran foreign minister’s latest trip took him to Mali, Mauritania, Sudan and Iraq. He also recently visited South Africa, Eswatini, Angola and Eritrea.
For context: Russia has made concerted efforts to secure closer ties with China, India, Arab and African nations and others that have refrained from joining the sweeping economic sanctions while calling for peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova today said Russia would closely follow any move by the United States to deploy hypersonic weapons in Japan, saying this would “mean for us a qualitative change in the regional security situation”.
She appeared to be responding to a report in Japan’s Sankei newspaper suggesting that Washington might deploy long-range hypersonic weapons and Tomahawks to Japan, amid increased tensions with China.
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11h ago
10:55
Putin secretly pardoned Russian prisoner who then joined war in Ukraine – report
Vladimir Putin secretly pardoned a Russian prisoner so he could join the war effort in Ukraine, The New York Times reports.
A document seen by the American newspaper shows the inmate was released in late August by “a pardon decree issued by the president of the Russian Federation”.
And the prisoner’s release certificate was issued by Russia’s Justice Ministry.
The newspaper obtained the certificate from Yana Gelmel, a Russian prisoner’s rights lawyer, who said the issue of such certificates was a major blow.
She said: “They can kill a man, they can rob, and then they can go to war and walk free, This is complete impunity.”
The document offers further evidence to reports that have been emerging in recent months about Russian convicts being pardoned so that they can fight in Ukraine amid military setbacks in the Russian army.
Last month, the Washington Post also reported that dozens of prisoners had been promised by the Kremlin that their sentences would be set aside if they completed military service.
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11h ago
10:30
What do these maps tell us about Russia’s occupation of Ukraine?
After invading Ukraine through neighbouring Belarus, Russian forces set their sights on the capital.
However, when this failed Russia forces refocused their plans on the east where fighting has been raging since 2014.
A map of Russia’s control on 19 August shows that the Kremlin’s troops had captured vast swathes of land along the eastern flank of Ukraine.
They had taken control of the Kherson region in the south and were making advances towards Mykolaiv.
But, a map of the country today shows Ukraine has reclaimed land in the northeast near Kupiansk, and in Kherson city.
It also appears that Russian advances have been pushed back in the east.
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11h ago
10:12
Switzerland rejects Spanish request to allow re-export of anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine
Switzerland has rejected a request from Spain to allow it to re-export Swiss-made anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, the Bern government said today.
Madrid had made the request in January to allow two 35mm anti-aircraft guns, which were made in Switzerland, be sent to Ukraine.
Switzerland has previously vetoed requests from Denmark and Germany who wanted to send Swiss-made armoured vehicles and ammunition to help Ukraine in its war against Russia.
For context: Earlier this week, reports emerged that Switzerland was close to breaking with centuries of tradition as a neutral state, as a pro-Ukraine shift in the public and political mood puts pressure on the government to end a ban on exports of Swiss weapons to war zones.
Buyers of Swiss arms are legally prevented from re-exporting them, a restriction that some representing the country’s large weapons industry say is now hurting trade.
Calls from Switzerland’s European neighbours to allow such transfers to Kyiv have meanwhile grown louder as Russia’s assault intensifies.
Under Swiss neutrality, which dates back to 1815 and is enshrined by treaty in 1907, Switzerland does not send weapons directly or indirectly to combatants in a war.
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12h ago
09:57
Russians fleeing from city signals ‘return to chaos’ for Putin’s forces, expert says
As we reported here earlier (see 9.12 post), British intelligence officials say Russia lost dozens of tanks in its assault on Vuhledar, in Donetsk.
While the latest UK Ministry of Defence update said Russian forces had made small gains around the city, its onslaught is being presented as a failure by a number of commentators – with reports it has triggered a fresh backlash against Vladimir Putin’s military leaders.
Footage released by Ukraine’s armed forces – which cannot be verified by Sky News – purports to show Russian tanks being blown up in the area.
Grey Zone, the semi-official Telegram channel of the Wagner mercenary group, said in a post that a “disaster is unfolding around Vuhledar, and it is unfolding again and again”, blaming what it called a “crisis” in troop command.
“These people destroyed a considerable amount of personnel and equipment, without being held accountable for it, and then, with the same mediocrity, began storming Vuhledar,” another blogger said.
Samuel Ramani, a politics tutor at the University of Oxford and associate fellow at RUSI, said the developments signalled a “return to chaos” for Russian forces following recent changes in military leadership (as discussed in our 13.16 post).
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12h ago
09:46
Air raid alerts across all regions of Ukraine
Air raid sirens are again blaring across all regions of Ukraine, according to reports.
These are the third air raid alerts of the day and come after Moscow launched a wave of long-range air strikes at targets from the front.
Russian forces struck the electric grid in several parts of Ukraine in overnight attacks and at least 17 missiles hit the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia in an hour.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired 71 cruise missiles, of which 61 were shot down.
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12h ago
09:28
Poland may close more border crossings with Belarus
Poland may close further border crossings with Belarus, the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said.
After Warsaw decided to close another checkpoint between the countries, Mr Morawiecki said: “We are not excluding closing other border crossings with Belarus.
“The reason for this is that there are growing tensions with Belarus and they are being instrumentalised by the Russians and the Kremlin.”
However, the move has since been condemned by Belarus who called the decision “catastrophic”.
For context: Yesterday, Poland, citing security concerns, said it would close a key border crossing into Belarus at Bobrowniki, driving already hostile relations between the two countries to a new low.
After the closure comes into force, only two of six major land crossing points along the two countries’ 250-mile border will be open, the border force said.
Poland has been a key refuge for opponents of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and Warsaw has become one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters since Russia invaded Ukraine.
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13h ago
09:07
What did Russia get wrong?
Months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, it became clear their plans to capture the capital had failed.
Instead, what developed was a war of attrition and now Russian forces are digging in for a long-term fight.
But what did Russia get wrong?
In a piece for the US magazine Foreign Affairs, Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation think tank, said the answer “has many components”.
She said at the very start of the war there was “excessive internal secrecy” and this in turn gave troops and commanders “little time to prepare”.
“Russia created an invasion plan that was riddled with faulty assumptions, arbitrary political guidance, and planning errors that departed from key Russian military principles,” she wrote.
Ms Massicot also said that most military leaders were not brought into the planning effort until the last minute and therefore “could not correct major mistakes”.
“The excessive secrecy also meant that Moscow missed several key opportunities to prepare the defence industry to produce and store essential ammunition,” she added.
The analyst also said the Kremlin “erroneously believed that its war plans were sound” and were left shocked when its troops were met by a Ukraine military backed by the West.
Looking at the structure of Russia’s military, Ms Massicot also noted that after the Second World War, Russia could not manage or justify a large military and set out to “create a military that would be smaller but more professional and nimble”.
It also began a comprehensive reform programme to restructure the force and began modernisation efforts.
“But the 2022 wholesale invasion of Ukraine exposed these reforms as insufficient,” she said.
She also noted “there is little evidence that Russia modified its training programs” ahead of its invasion to prepare troops and “failed to root out corruption”.
When it comes to Ukraine’s retaliation, Ms Masicott said the Kremlin “appears to have assumed that the Ukrainians would not resist”.
She added: “Based on the West’s response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its relatively small arms provisions during the run-up to the war in 2022, Moscow might reasonably have assumed that the United States and Europe would not provide major support for Ukraine, or at least not in time.”
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13h ago
08:51
Zelenskyy took part in 2024 Olympics meeting, Lithuanian says
Volodymyr Zelenskyy took part in an online meeting attended by 35 ministers to discuss demands that Russian and Belarusian athletes be banned from the 2024 Olympics, a Lithuanian sports ministry has said.
With war raging in Ukraine, the Baltic States, Nordic countries and Poland had called on international sports bodies to stop Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing in the Olympics.
Ukraine has threatened to boycott the games if Russian and Belarusian athletes compete – and Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk has said Russians will win “medals of blood, deaths and tears” if they are allowed to take part.
The Lithuanian sports ministry spokesperson said the Ukrainian President’s message to participants was that principles of neutrality cannot apply to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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13h ago
08:16
‘It’ll end badly for him’: Wagner Group chief now faces bleak future after Kremlin pushback, experts say
As reported here yesterday, Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group says it has ended its notorious practice of recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine.
This news is being widely interpreted as a sign that the paramilitary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s influence is now waning.
Analysts had suggested he was an increasingly significant figure in a purported Kremlin power struggle, with his repeated and increasingly outspoken criticisms of the Russian military seen as a reflection of this.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is a former restaurateur known as ‘Putin’s chef’
Yevgeny Prigozhin is a former restaurateur known as ‘Putin’s chef’
However, the latest announcement around the use of convicts from Russia’s penal colonies follows reported pushback from the figures within the country’s security services.
It comes just weeks after Vladimir Putin replaced Sergei Surovikin – a man with whom Prigozhin shared a mutual and public admiration – as commander in charge of Russian forces in Ukraine with the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov.
And national security expert Dmitri Alperovitch said recent developments showed the former restaurateur known as “Putin’s chef” was having his “wings clipped”.
He made the comments alongside a link to an article in the FT, which quoted a former senior Russian official as supporting the view that Prigozhin’s ascendancy had been halted – while issuing a seemingly gloomy forecast for his future.
“The army has to do something about Prigozhin eventually,” a former senior official said.
“It’ll end badly for him. The points he scored are all about to expire, and nobody likes him.”
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14h ago
08:01
In pictures: Students seek safety inside Kyiv train station
These images show school students taking shelter inside a train station in Kyiv during Russian missile attacks across the country.
As the anniversary of Russia’s invasion approaches, Ukraine says Moscow has sacrificed wave upon wave of soldiers and mercenaries in pointless assaults to notch up territorial gains.
Moscow says it has positive momentum and that what it calls its “special military operation” is going to plan.
