Russia-Ukraine updates: ‘Difficult’ to eject Russian troops – US

Two businessmen were charged in indictments unsealed in a US court for allegedly facilitating a sanctions evasion and money laundering scheme in relation to a $90m yacht belonging to sanctioned Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.

The two businessmen – Vladislav Osipov, 51, a Russian national, and Richard Masters, 52, a UK national, – were charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and to commit offences against the US, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group has denied it was recruiting Serbians to fight in Ukraine, a day after activists filed criminal complaints against the organisation in Belgrade.

Among those named in the complaints were Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, and Aleksandar Vulin, the head of Serbia’s state Security and Information Agency.

“I do not recruit Serbs,” Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a statement, adding he had never heard of either Botsan-Kharchenko or Vulin.

Earlier this week, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Russia should halt its efforts to recruit Serbians to fight alongside Wagner forces. He said Russian websites and social media groups were publishing advertisements in the Serbian language in which the Wagner Group called for volunteers.

The US has designated Russia’s Wagner Group as a “transnational criminal organisation”, raising pressure on the private Russian army fighting in Ukraine.

Wagner “is a criminal organisation that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said.

The White House also released images of Russia taking delivery of an arms shipment from North Korea that it said was intended to help bolster Wagner forces as they fight side-by-side with Russian troops in Ukraine.

“These actions recognise the transcontinental threat that Wagner poses, including through its ongoing pattern of serious criminal activity with these actions and there’ll be more to come,” Kirby said.

Ukraine will still have to fight to ensure a supply of modern heavy armour, Zelenskyy said after allied nations failed to agree on whether to hand over German-made Leopard battle tanks.

“Every day, we make it more obvious that there is no alternative to taking a decision about tanks,” he said in an evening video address.

The head of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, said any decision to supply tanks to Ukraine must be taken by each nation supporting the country’s efforts to fend off Russia’s invasion.

“It is a sovereign decision by a sovereign state, which Germany is,” he told a news conference in Lisbon. “It is important that Ukraine wins this war … we need to seriously look at what Ukraine requires and if possible give them what they ask for,” he said, adding that had to be done in a timely fashion.

No decision on supplying German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine was reached at the meeting of allies at Germany’s Ramstein Air Base, Poland’s defence minister said, though he remained optimistic that efforts to provide them would end in success.

US General Mark Milley has expressed strong doubt that Ukraine would succeed in driving Russian troops out of its territory this year.

In Germany, Milley told reporters: “From a military standpoint, I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all, every inch of … Russian-occupied Ukraine.”

The head of the Ukrainian presidential staff says Kyiv will eventually receive the Western military aid it needs to defeat Russia’s invasion.

“We are getting stronger,” Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram. “And everything that we haven’t received yet, we will receive.”

Yermak’s comment was made after Germany’s defence minister said Kyiv’s allies had not decided yet on supplying German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Senior US officials are urging Ukraine to hold off on launching a major offensive against Russian forces until the latest supply of weaponry is in place and training has been provided, a top Biden administration official says.

Speaking to the Reuters news agency on the condition of anonymity, the official said the US was sticking to its decision not to provide Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

Poland’s defence minister says no decision was reached on supplying Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine at a meeting of Kyiv’s allies at Ramstein Air Base.

But Mariusz Blaszczak said he remains optimistic that efforts to provide them would succeed.

“Hope comes from the fact that … defence ministers of 15 countries met on the sidelines of today’s conference and we talked about this topic,” Blaszczak told reporters at the US base in Germany.

“I am convinced that coalition building will end in success.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeated his offer to mediate between Russia and Ukraine in a phone call with Zelenskyy, the Turkish presidency says.

Erdogan also offered Zelenskyy his condolences after a deadly helicopter crash near Kyiv on Wednesday. Zelenskyy’s interior minister, Denys Monastyrskyy, and other government officials were among the 14 people killed.

For months, the city of Bakhmut has witnessed some of the most intense battles in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Last week, Russia’s military and the Wagner mercenary group said they had captured Soledar, a key town near Bakhmut. Ukraine denied the claims but said heavy fighting continued in the area.

If Russia were to take Bakhmut, it would be Moscow’s most significant victory after months of humiliating setbacks.

Read more on the fight for Bakhmut.

French President Emmanuel Macron says 400 billion euros ($433bn) will be allocated to the military from 2024 to 2030, up from the 295 billion euros ($320bn) budgeted from 2019 to 2025.

Macron said the 2019-2025 defence bill was meant to start building capacities back up after chronic underinvestment in the previous decades.

He said the 2024-2030 budget reflects a “transformation” programme to adapt the military to the possibility of high-intensity conflicts, made more urgent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

For the first time since Russia’s war in Ukraine began, a United Nations humanitarian convoy has arrived in the eastern region of Donetsk with aid for civilians.

The UN said its convoy arrived near the front-line town of Soledar.

Food, drinking water, medicines and other supplies were unloaded in a Ukrainian-controlled area, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported from Geneva.

“Much has been destroyed by the recent fighting in and around Soledar,” a spokesperson for the agency said. “People on the ground are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.”

Germany’s defence minister says Berlin is not alone among Ukraine’s allies in its concerns about the delivery of battle tanks to Kyiv.

The impression that “there is a united coalition and that Germany is standing in the way is wrong”, Boris Pistorius said.

“There are many allies who say we share the view that I have put forward here,” he said.

Germany’s defence minister says no decision has been reached at the Ramstein meeting on whether to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine.

“Today, we still cannot say when a decision will be taken and what the decision will be when it comes to the Leopard tank,” Boris Pistorius said during the conference hosted by the US at its airbase in Germany.

“There are good reasons for the deliveries, and there are good reasons against, and in view of the entire situation of a war that has been ongoing for almost one year, all pros and cons must be weighed very carefully,” he said without elaborating on the reasons.

Zelenskyy urges Western allies to speed up the delivery of tanks to Ukraine.

Addressing the US-hosted meeting at the Ramstein Air Base, Zelenskyy said partners needed “not to bargain about different numbers of tanks but to open that principal supply that will stop evil”.

Make the meeting a “Ramstein of tanks”, Zelenskyy said.

“It is in your power to guarantee such artillery,” he added.

Putin has discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine with his Security Council, state media reports, citing the Kremlin.

According to the RIA news agency, the meeting was attended by former president Dmitry Medvedev, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu as well as other high-profile officials.

“During the meeting, there was an exchange of views on the progress of the special military operation,” RIA cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying, using Russia’s official term for the invasion.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said countries backing Ukraine need to focus not only on sending new weapons to Kyiv but also on providing ammunition for older systems.

“We need also to remember that we need to not only focus on new platforms but also to ensure that all the platforms which are already there can function as they should,” Stoltenberg told the Reuters news agency on the sidelines of a meeting of defence ministers on arming Ukraine.

Here are four maps that we update daily, charting the latest war developments.

The EU’s top diplomat says some European countries are prepared to send heavy tanks to Ukraine.

“This is the discussion that will take place in Ramstein today, where the EU will be represented,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Madrid. “We have to give Ukraine the arms necessary not only to repel, which is what they’re doing, but also to regain terrain.”

“I think Ukraine needs the combat arms and heavy tanks that it has asked for and some European countries are prepared to give, and I hope that is the decision that is taken,” he said.