Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin dismisses allegations over mystery Baltic pipeline damage

A British-led defence alliance of several European countries has invited Ukraine to observe its exercises, Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson told a press conference today.

Along with Britain, the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), is comprised of mainly Baltic and Nordic countries including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, and is intended for operations in the Baltic Sea area, the North Atlantic and the Arctic, reports Reuters.

“Ukraine has been offered observer status for all JEF’s exercises during 2024 and 2025, in order to strengthen their capacity and include their experiences,” Kristersson said at a JEF summit on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy took part in the meeting via video link.
Kristersson said JEF member states’ defence ministers will meet to discuss how to protect critical infrastructure, particularly under water. The group said in June it would increase cooperation to detect possible threats to critical undersea and offshore infrastructure.

Finland and Estonia are investigating damage to the Baltic connector gas pipeline and a data cable in the Baltic Sea last week, which Finnish authorities said was probably caused by “outside activity,” raising concerns about the security of energy supply in the wider Nordic region.

Explosions last year to the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic sea between Russia and Germany remain officially unexplained.

The UK government has requested the Bank of England look how Russian sovereign assets could be used to fund Ukraine’s war effort, chancellor Jeremy Hunt told the BBC.

This is an illegal war. We need to do everything we can to make sure that Russia cannot continue to fund it.

Speaking at the IMF’s annual conference in Marrakech, Hunt told the BBC that finance ministers from the G7 had discussed “whether Russian sovereign assets could be used to fund Ukraine’s defence. Anything to make sure that Putin knows in the end he won’t be able to afford this kind of aggression.”

The G7 yesterday said it would explore profits on seized Russian assets could be taxed to support Ukraine “in compliance with applicable laws”. However, there could be possible legal complications in effectively gifting seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

But Hunt said Russia’s war in Ukraine was illegal.

Britain will always act within international law, but the G7 have asked central banks to look at what might be possible because we are absolutely clear this is an illegal war, this war is against international law.

We do have to be honest with people that [the war in Ukraine] is going to take some time, and that’s why in the meantime we need to be very prudent and cautious with the way we manage the British economy.

Russian state news outlet Tass has cited an official who claims Ukrainian forces are sending reserve forces to bolster its troops in Avdiivka

An advisor to the head of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, Yan Gagin, said:

According to our data, the enemy transferred reserve forces from the Artemovsk direction to the Avdeevsk direction. The act is reckless and almost useless. Dragging reserves from direction to direction will not lead to victories, but will only give rise to new losses of personnel.

On Tuesday, Gagin claimed that some positions on the first line of defences had been abandoned by Ukrainian forces in the face of a large-scale, multi-pronged Russian attack.

Ukrainian officials have said dozens of attacks in Avdiivka and nearby areas have been repelled. “They launched their offensive on a wide front,” Serhiy Tsekhovsky, an officer, told the BBC.

“Since the beginning of the invasion, we haven’t dealt with such an intensive attack [in the area near Avdiivka]. They are using multiple rocket launchers, artillery, tanks and infantry - all at the same time.”

The New York Times has the latest on the fourth day of fighting on the eastern frontline, in Avdiivka, as Russia seeks to regain the initiative in its biggest offensive in months.

Ukraine’s top military command said that it had repelled more than 20 attacks over the past day around the town, a linchpin of regional defenses whose capture by Russia would ease the way to the nearby, larger cities of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka.

Local officials described round-the-clock fighting and residential buildings that had been reduced to rubble by shelling, with heavy bombardments and the deployment of large numbers of troops and tanks by Russian forces.

“It was a hot night in Avdiivka,” Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the town’s military administration, told Ukrainian television, adding that Russian forces were closing in on the area with infantry and striking with artillery. “The assaults do not stop, day or night.”

The attack on Avdiivka, already devastated by Russian shelling during the war, may indicate that Moscow is trying to regain the initiative on the battlefield, after months on the defensive after Kyiv launched its counteroffensive this summer in the south.

“The enemy sees Avdiivka as an opportunity to gain a significant victory and turn the tide of hostilities,” Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesman for Ukraine’s southern forces, said on Thursday.

Ukraine’s military has claimed that many Russian troops and armored vehicles have already been eliminated in the assault, in which Russian forces have captured less than two square miles, according to geolocated footage analyzed by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

Mr. Barabash said Russian forces were trying to encircle Avdiivka, which sit in a strategic pocket surrounded to the north, east and south by Russian positions. He reported intense fighting to the north and south of the town, adding that one civilian had been killed and several others wounded over the past day.

Former Olympic champions Yelena Isinbayeva and Shamil Tarpischev – Russia‘s two International Olympic Committee members – have no contractual links to the country’s military and have not supported the invasion of Ukraine, IOC president Thomas Bach said today.

It comes after the IOC’s executive board yesterday suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) for recognising regional organisations from four territories annexed from Ukraine. Asked why the IOC members from Russia had not been banned as well, Bach said an internal ethics investigation showed no reason to do so.

What we have to have in mind is the position of IOC members. They are not representatives of Russia in the IOC. They are the representatives of the IOC in Russia.

In order to ensure the equal treatment between officials and athletes we have nevertheless submitted these IOC members in Russia to an assessment by the IOC ethics commission. The understanding of the ethics commission is that neither Ms Isinbayeva nor Mr Tarpischev had contractual links with the Russian military or security agencies or supported the war in Ukraine.

Isinbayeva, a two-time Olympic pole vault champion, has received several honours by the Russian armed forces during her career and has also been repeatedly pictured in uniform.

Bach said while the decision blocked Russian Olympic officials from attending Olympic meetings or taking part in the Olympics, athletes with Russian passports could continue competing as neutrals.

The IOC has yet to decide if Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to compete at next year’s Paris Olympics. “We will keep monitoring the developments. There is no time pressure,” said Bach when asked about a decision for next year’s games in France.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has dubiously claimed that sanctions on Russia and reduced EU imports of oil and gas from the country could explain the eurozone’s sluggish economic growth.

No final communique is expected to be released at the end of the International Monetary Fund’s meetings in Marrakech because of a disagreement on how to refer to Russia‘s war in Ukraine, a European official said today.

The official, who was present at the talks in Marrakech, said Nordic, European and Baltic nations were blocking agreement because they considered the wording - a reproduction of language approved by a G20 summit last month - was “too watered down”.

Instead, the IMF communique will be replaced tomorrow by a simple “chairman’s statement” summing up what took place at the meetings, leaving any disagreements open.

The official said there had been a proposal for the communique to adopt the wording agreed by G20 leaders last month at a summit in New Delhi.

That called in general terms for all countries to adhere to the UN charter on territorial integrity. It highlighted the human suffering of the Ukraine war while noting there were “different views and assessments of the situation”.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told the Joint Expeditionary Conference that he “stressed the need for geopolitical stability in Europe and the entire Euro-Atlantic, new forms of cooperation, and strengthening of existing ones”.

If an enemy of freedom has significant resources and boundless cynicism - like Russia, Hamas, or other terrorists – then free nations need a really full-scale defence. Fast, flexible, not limited by outdated procedures, and one that can be maintained as long as it is needed.

Ukraine, being on the road to Nato, is developing a system of security guarantees. And I thank those of you who joined us in this process. Geopolitical stability is the basic element for all other forms of stability.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would continue to export large quantities of grain next year despite Western sanctions.

Last year, as you know, there was a historically record harvest of 158 million tons [of cereals]. This year it will also be very big with over 130 millions. Russia is likely to retain the first place in the world in wheat exports. Our grain exports will also be the same as last year with not less than 50-60 million tons.

Putin was taking part in a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an organisation gathering some post-Soviet states. “Our friends and colleagues in the CIS have needs [for Russian grain], all of which will be fulfilled,” said Putin.

Early last month, the Russian leader said his country was nearing a deal that would secure free grain to six African countries, AFP reports.

Simultaneously Moscow has been complaining that the West is imposing indirect restrictions on its grain and fertiliser exports by limiting its access to global payment systems and insurance. It said this pushed it to withdraw from a deal designed to ensure safe grain exports via the Black Sea.

Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:

• Russian forces have continued to pummel the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka from the ground and air on Friday, the fourth day of intense fighting in the biggest offensive by Russian forces in months. Ukraine said its forces were holding their ground but Vitaliy Barabash, the head of Avdiivka’s military administration, said the town was under constant attack from air, artillery and large numbers of troops.

• Video posted on social media by Maskym Zhorin, a Ukrainian military commander, showed smoke pouring from the shells of shattered, abandoned apartment buildings in the eastern town of Avdiivka. Empty streets were littered with rubble and smashed installations

• Geoffrey Pyatt, US assistant secretary for energy resources said Russia would never again be viewed as a reliable energy supplier, a day after Washington imposed fresh sanctions on Moscow because of its war in Ukraine. Speaking at an online briefing ahead of next week’s US-Japan Energy Security Dialogue, Pyatt also said the United States and its partners in the Group of 7 were committed to denying Russia any energy revenues

• Norway, Europe’s largest gas supplier, is closely monitoring the progress of a probe into unexplained damage on a Baltic Sea gas pipeline, having already stepped up security at its energy installations after the Nord Stream blasts last year.

• Finland said it could not exclude the possibility that a “state actor” was behind damage to a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, amid what its national security intelligence service called “significantly deteriorated” relations with Russia. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Thursday the US would support Finland and Estonia as they probed the damage to the Balticconnector pipeline and parallel Estlink telecommunications cable between the two countries.

• The International Olympic Committee on Thursday suspended the Russian Olympic Committee for recognising regional organisations from four territories annexed from Ukraine. Russia’s National Olympic Committee denounced the decision, calling it counterproductive and politically motivated.

• Ukraine claims it has thwarted an attempt overnight by a Russian saboteur group to cross its north-eastern border in the Sumy region, Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the armed forces of Ukraine, said on Thursday. “The saboteurs tried to cross the state border of Ukraine and intended to move further towards one of the civilian critical infrastructure facilities,” he wrote on Telegram. The eight-member group was repelled by Ukrainian fire, he said.

• Russia expects its military and defence cooperation with Kyrgyzstan to expand, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin said during a visit to a Russian airbase near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in his first trip outside Russia since the international criminal court issued a warrant for his arrest over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

• French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the possible poisoning of an exiled Russian journalist who staged a high-profile protest against the war in Ukraine. Marina Ovsyannikova, who held up a placard reading “Stop the war” on Russian television last year, became unwell after opening the door to her apartment in Paris and finding a powdered substance, AFP reported.

• The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe on Thursday recognised the 1930s starvation of millions in Ukraine under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin a “genocide”. The text on the 1932-33 “Holodomor” was voted through almost unanimously with 73 votes in favour and one against at the meeting in Strasbourg, which followed a similar resolution approved by the European Parliament in December.

• Romanian authorities said Thursday they had found a crater from a suspected drone that may have exploded on impact on its territory near the border with Ukraine, reviving concerns about possible spillover of Russia’s war in Ukraine on to a Nato member country.

• US military officials displayed what they said were pieces of Iranian drones recovered in Ukraine to UN member states on Thursday – evidence, according to the Pentagon, of growing ties between Iran and Russia. Tehran has denied western accusations that it is supplying Russia with large quantities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), some armed, to use in its invasion of Ukraine.

• The UN human rights council on Thursday extended the mandate of its rapporteur on rights violations in Russia by a year, in a second diplomatic defeat for Moscow in three days. The UN’s top rights body adopted a resolution brought by several European countries to prolong Bulgarian human rights expert Mariana Katzarova for another year by 18 votes to seven.

• Khaybar Akifi, a journalist, was severely wounded in a drone attack that killed his four-year-old daughter and his wife’s parents in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, several media officials said. The head of state television channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, said Akifi was in a coma.