Key events
Ukraine willing to discuss future of Crimea if its forces reach border – FT
Ukraine has made what the Financial Times calls its “most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations” since cutting off peace talks last year in April, saying that it is willing to discuss the future of Crimea.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskiy’s office, said “If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue”, adding, “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army”.
The FT report continues:
Sybiha’s remarks may relieve western officials who are sceptical about Ukraine’s ability to reclaim the peninsula and worry that any attempt to do so militarily could lead President Vladimir Putin to escalate his war, possibly with nuclear weapons. To date Zelenskiy has ruled out peace talks until Russian forces leave all of Ukraine, including Crimea. Sybiha is a veteran diplomat who focuses on foreign policy in the president’s office and has been at Zelenskyy’s side at key moments in the war. He said the president and his aides were now talking specifically about Crimea, as Ukraine’s army gets closer to launching its counteroffensive to regain territory.
Zelenskiy says Poland may help form a coalition of western powers to supply warplanes to Kyiv.
During a visit to Warsaw on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said Poland had been instrumental in getting western allies to send battle tanks to Ukraine and he believed it could play the same role in a “planes coalition”.
The Polish government said it would send 10 more MiG fighter jets on top of four provided earlier, but so far there has been no agreement from the United States or Ukraine’s other major military backers to send the F-16 fighters Kyiv has requested.
Von der Leyen and Macron to press Xi on ending war
French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen make Europe’s case for bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine in a Beijing meeting with Xi Jinping.
The French and European leaders will be greeted late afternoon by the Chinese president at the Great Hall of the People, the heart of power in the capital.
Western pressure is mounting on China to take a more active role in the peace process in Ukraine – though Beijing is officially neutral, Xi has never condemned the Russian invasion.
While he recently went to Moscow to reaffirm his alliance with Putin – framed as an anti-western front – Xi has not even spoken on the phone with Zelenskiy.
On Wednesday, Macron said Beijing had a “major role” to play in finding a path to peace in Ukraine, welcoming China’s claimed “willingness to commit to a resolution” of the conflict.
Von der Leyen took a sterner tack last week in Brussels, saying: “How China continues to interact with Putin’s war will be a determining factor for EU-China relations going forward.”
In a Thursday morning meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People, Macron stressed the importance of dialogue between China and France “in these troubled times”.
“The ability to share a common analysis and build a common path is essential,” he said.
Macron is set to meet the head of China’s top legislative body, Zhao Leji, before a one-on-one meeting with Xi in the afternoon.
The pair will give statements to the press, followed by a three-way meeting with Von der Leyen and, finally, a state dinner.
‘Powerful’ blasts heard overnight in occupied Melitopol
The exiled mayor of Melitopol, a Russian-occupied city in the Zaporizhzhia region, says that several explosions had been heard overnight.
“Several powerful explosions have just been recorded in the city,” Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram. That’s as much as we know so far, but we’ll bring you more news as it breaks.
Opening summary
Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.
Coming up today: French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen make Europe’s case for bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine in a Beijing meeting with Xi Jinping.
The French and European leaders will be greeted late afternoon by the Chinese president at the Great Hall of the People, the heart of power in the capital.
And early this morning, explosions were heard in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia region, the Mayor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
Here are the other key recent developments:
-
Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, were welcomed to Poland with military honours, tributes and praise on Monday. They were greeted in Warsaw by President Andrzej Duda, who awarded Zelenskiy Poland’s oldest and highest civilian distinction, The Order of the White Eagle.
-
Poland will send 14 MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, Duda said at a joint news conference with Zelenskiy. Zelenskiy thanked the Polish leader, government and people for standing “shoulder to shoulder” with Ukraine and giving fleeing Ukrainians shelter. Poland has led the way in mobilising western military and political support for Kyiv since the start of Russia’s full-fledged invasion 13 months ago.
-
France’s president Emmanuel Macron warned that anyone helping “aggressor” Russia in the Ukraine conflict would become an “accomplice”. The French leader arrived in Beijing for a three-day state visit during which he hopes to dissuade Xi Jinping from supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while also developing European trade ties with Beijing.
-
A Ukrainian drone crashed near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Russia’s RIA news agency said, citing a Russian officer. It comes as the chief of the UN’s nuclear watchdog was expected in Russia for talks on the plant’s security.
-
The United States, Britain, Albania and Malta walked out on Russia’s envoy for children’s rights – whom the international criminal court wants to arrest on war crimes charges – as she spoke by video to UN security council members.
-
Zelenskiy has said Ukrainian troops face a difficult situation in the eastern city of Bakhmut, but that Kyiv will take the “corresponding” decisions to protect them if they risk being encircled by Russian forces. The Ukrainian president, at a news conference in Poland on Wednesday, said Kyiv’s troops in Bakhmut sometimes advanced a little only to be pushed back by Russian forces, but that they remained inside the city.
-
The president of Belarus and close ally of Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko, arrived in Moscow for a meeting with the Russian leader, Belarus’s state-run Belta news agency reported. Lukashenko and Putin will hold a meeting on Wednesday evening, where the pair will “discuss a broad range of matters concerning Belarusian-Russian relations”, it said.
-
The United States is working through a formal process to determine whether a Wall Street Journal reporter’s detention by Russia is “wrongful”, secretary of state Antony Blinken said.
-
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus demonstrated that a Russia-China joint statement amounted to just “empty promises”. The Nato chief noted that Russia was becoming more and more dependent on China, partly as a result of international sanctions imposed on Moscow over its war in Ukraine.
-
Any Chinese supply of lethal aid to Russia for the war in Ukraine would be a “historic mistake with profound implications”, Stoltenberg also said.
-
The six Leopard 2A4 tanks Spain has promised to send to Ukraine will leave the country in the second half of April, defence minister Margarita Robles told state broadcaster TVE on Wednesday, pushing back the estimated shipment date. The German-made battle tanks have not been used since the 1990s and had been mothballed in reserve, requiring refitting and battle readiness tests after initial doubts as to whether they could go into combat again.
