China has denied claims by US officials that Russia had sought military assistance in Ukraine and accused Washington of spreading “malicious disinformation” that risked escalating the conflict.
After a tense day-long meeting between Chinese and US officials in Rome on Monday, Washington said it feared China had already starting supplying arms and equipment to Russia.
Xi Jinping meets Vladimir Putin in Beijing in February. Photograph: Li Tao/AP
But the Chinese embassy in London told Reuters in a statement: “The US has repeatedly spread malicious disinformation against China on the Ukraine issue. China has been playing a constructive role in promoting peace talks.
“The top priority now is to ease the situation, instead of adding fuel to the fire, and work for diplomatic settlement rather than further escalate the situation.”
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An adviser in the Ukraine government says the the war should be over by May because Russia will run out of resources to keep the invasion going.
Citing a video published by several Ukrainian media outlets, Reuters reports that Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, said:
I think that no later than in May, early May, we should have a peace agreement, maybe much earlier, we will see, I am talking about the latest possible dates.
We are at a fork in the road now: there will either be a peace deal struck very quickly, within a week or two, with troop withdrawal and everything, or there will be an attempt to scrape together some, say, Syrians for a round two and, when we grind them too, an agreement by mid-April or late April.
The aftermath of Russian shelling in Kyiv on Monday. Photograph: Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
The exact timing would depend on how many resources the Kremlin was willing to commit to the campaign, and whether it could risk using raw conscripts to supplement soldiers lost during the faltering Russian advance since launching the invasion on 24 February.
Nearly all of the Russian military offensives in Ukraine remainstalled after making little progress over the weekend, according to a Penatgon briefing. Russian troops are still about 15km (9 miles) from the center of Kyiv, a US defence official said, Reuters reports.
UPeople in Kyiv clean up the debris on a burned out section of a building. Photograph: Marcus Yam/LOS ANGELES TIMES/REX/Shutterstock
The official noted that the US believed Russia was trying to “flow in forces behind the advance elements” moving to the north of the Ukrainian capital.
The assaults on the cities of Chernihiv and Kharkiv also remain stalled, the official said, but Russia has split off a force of 50 to 60 vehicles to move towards the town of Izium.
A satellite image of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol released by US company Maxar on Tuesday. Photograph: Maxar Technologies Handout/EPA
Ukraine continues to defend Mariupol, though the city remains isolated, they said. Russian forces have also not moved closer to the town of Mykolaiv.
An official told reporters:
We still maintain the airspace is contested, that the Russians have not achieved air superiority over all of Ukraine.
Our Today in Focus podcast is about the notorious Russian mercenary company Wagner Group.
It has has supported pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since its inception in 2014 and is now believed to be playing a major role in the invasion of the whole of Ukraine.
Officially, the company does not exist. It has no company registration, no tax returns, no recruitment office. Officially, private military companies remain illegal in Russia.
Pjortr Sauer has reported on the Wagner Group for the Guardian and he recently interviewed Marat Gabidullin, a former mercenary who joined the group in 2015.
He tells Nosheen Iqbal that Wagner is an unofficial foreign policy tool of the Kremlin.
Asian markets are struggling again, with Hong Kong tech firms leading another sharp equity selloff in the city following the Covid-19 shutdown of tech hub Shenzhen and worries over Russia’s military outreach to China, Reuters reports.
Concerns about China’s economic outlook saw oil prices suffer fresh selling pressure, with WTI falling back below $100 a week after it hit a 14-year high on the back of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hopes for progress in talks to bring an end to the war in eastern Europe were also putting pressure on the black gold.
Global markets have been in a spiral since Russian troops marched into the neighbouring country, leading international powers to impose crippling sanctions on the country and numerous companies to pull out.
Power supply has been renewed to Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Ukraine 24 television station has said, adding that authorities had notified the International Atomic Energy Agency.
On Monday, state-owned grid operator Ukrenergo said the Chernobyl plant was relying on electricity from diesel generators after its external power supply had again been damaged.
Here is how the UK papers are reporting the war today:
Ukraine presidentVolodymyr Zelenskiy’s latest address implores Russian troops to surrender. he says they “have a chance to live” if they choose to lay down their arms.
“On behalf of the Ukrainian people, we give you a chance to live. If you surrender to our forces, we will treat you as humans have to be treated: with dignity. The way you have not been treated in your army. And the way your army doesn’t treat our people. Choose.”
‘I offer you a chance to survive’: Zelenskiy urges Russian troops to surrender – video
He also said that the war in Russia had become a “nightmare” for the Russian military because it was losing a lot of troops and equipment.
However, he said that talks with Russia would continue on Tuesday.
Hello, I’m Martin Farrer and thanks very much for joining us. Here are the main developments in the Ukraine war, including another passionate late-night address by president Volodymyr Zelenskiy:
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used his latest address to urge Russian troops to choose surrender over the “shame” of continuing with the war.Speaking partly in Russian, he said the war had become a “nightmare” for Russia and that it had now lost more soldiers in Ukraine than during both Chechen wars combined. Talks with Russia would continue on Tuesday, he said.
One of Zelenskiy’s advisers has claimed the war will be over “by May” because Russia was running out of troops and resources to keep the invasion going. Oleksiy Arestovich said the Kremlin could prolong it by bringing in Syrian fighters, amid reports that Russia has recruited 40,000 militiamen from its Middle East ally.
An employee interrupted a Russian state TV broadcastby shouting “No to war” and holding a sign that read “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” The poster held up by Marina Ovsyannikova on Monday evening also said, in English, “Russians against the war”. Zelenskiy thanked her in his address.
China has already decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support during its war on Ukraine and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones, US officials fear. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, laid out the US case against Russia’s invasion in an “intense” seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, pointing out that Moscow had feigned interest in diplomacy while preparing for invasion, and also that the Russian military was clearly showing signs of frailty. Earlier, it was reported that the US had told allies that China “responded positively” to a Russian request for military equipment, a claim Beijing has denied.
Beijing, in its version of the meeting in Rome, urged “maximum restraint” in the conflict. It did not mention the US claims but earlier described them as false.
“Almost all” of the Russian advances in Ukraine “remain stalled”, a senior US defence official said during a background briefing, CNN reports. Russian forces moving on Kyiv have not appreciably progressed over the weekend. A close ally of Putin, national guard chief Viktor Zolotov, blamed the slower than expected progress on what he claimed were far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians.
US president Joe Biden is considering travelling to Europe for in-person meetings with Nato allies, Reuters reports. Biden could meet other leaders in Brussels on 23 March and then travel to Poland, the report said.
A convoy of more than 160 cars departed from Mariupol, local officials said, in what appeared to be the first successful attempt to evacuate civilians from the encircled Ukrainian city. After several days of failed attempts to deliver supplies to Mariupol and provide safe passage out for trapped civilians, the city council said a local ceasefire was holding and the convoy had left for the city of Zaporizhzhia.
The mayor of Ukraine’s frontline city of Kharkiv said the city had been under constant attack by Russian forces, Reuters reports. Speaking on national television, Ihor Terekhov said Russian troops had fired at central districts causing an unspecified number of casualties.
There are reports that Russian forces blew up explosives at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s parliament earlier said Russian troops planned to begin “disposal” of ammunition in front of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station.
Ninety children have been killed and more than 100 wounded in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office said. “The highest number of victims are in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kherson, Mykolayiv and Zhytomyr regions,” it said in a statement.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said Russian forces were “behaving like terrorists” andPutin had started a “full-scale war” in the centre of Europe that could “become a third world war”. Addressing the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, he said Europe “chose the road of pacifying the aggressor” for years instead of “defending the values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights”.
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