Key events
Biden heading to Nato summit
The US president, Joe Biden, is on the way to Europe to attend a Nato summit in Lithuania, where the expansion of the alliance and the US approval of cluster munitions are likely to be key talking points.
For the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, the summit “will send a clear message: Nato stands united and Russia’s aggression will not pay”. But Nato has also struggled to bridge divides over important issues. Finland was welcomed into the alliance this year, but Sweden’s membership has been held up by Turkey and Hungary.
There are also disagreements over how quickly to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join Nato. Countries on the alliance’s eastern flank want to move quickly, viewing it as a way to deter Russian aggression. The US and others advocate a more cautious approach.
Biden said in a CNN interview that aired on Friday: “I don’t think there is unanimity in Nato about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the Nato family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war.”
Read more on this story here:
Five freed Mariupol commanders return to Ukraine
Five former commanders of the garrison in Mariupol have returned to Ukraine from Turkey, being welcomed home at a ceremony in the western city of Lviv.
Denys Prokopenko, Svyatoslav Palamar, Serhyi Volynsky, Denys Shleha and Oleh Khomenko returned from Istanbul by plane with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The commanders, hailed as heroes in Ukraine, led last year’s defence of the port during Russia’s three-month siege, holding out in tunnels and bunkers under the Azovstal steel plant, until surrendering in May last year.
Moscow freed some of them in September in a prisoner swap brokered by Ankara, under terms that required the commanders to remain in Turkey until the end of the war.
“They will finally be with their relatives,” said Zelenskiy.
The action was slammed by the Kremlin, saying both Kyiv and Ankara had violated terms of the agreement.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Mark Gerts bringing you the latest news of the conflict and its ramifications.
Ukraine has welcomed back five former commanders who led the defence of Mariupol last year. Under terms of the agreement with Russia after the city’s surrender, they were to stay in Turkey until the end of the war, but have come back from Istanbul with the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Joe Biden is on the way to Europe to attend a Nato summit set to be dominated by the war in Ukraine, with membership of the expanding Nato military alliance and the US approval of cluster munitions likely to be key talking points.
More on these stories shortly. In other key developments:
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Eight people were killed and 13 injured on Saturday in Lyman in eastern Ukraine after the town came under Russian rocket fire, Ukraine’s interior ministry said. “So far we know about eight dead … The number of injured has increased to 13 people,” the ministry said on social media. The strikes hit around 10am local time at two intersections that were busy with pedestrians. A residential building, an annex to a printing house and three cars were set on fire in the attack, the ministry said.
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The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has reiterated that the UK is signatory to a convention that prohibits cluster munitions, after the US agreed to supply Ukraine with the controversial weapons. “We will continue to do our part to support Ukraine against Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion, but we’ve done that by providing heavy battle tanks and, most recently, long-range weapons,” Sunak said. The US president, Joe Biden, has been condemned by human rights groups for agreeing to send the weapons, with one fellow Democrat labelling the decision “unnecessary and a terrible mistake”.
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Mercenary fighters of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group are preparing to move to Belarus under the terms of a deal that defused their mutiny against Russia’s military leadership, a senior commander of the group was quoted as saying. Since the June mutiny, when Wagner fighters briefly seized a southern Russian city and marched towards Moscow, the exact whereabouts of Prigozhin and his mercenaries have been unclear.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited Snake Island, which became a symbol of his country’s defiance early in the war after Ukrainian soldiers there refused to surrender to Russian forces, to mark 500 days since the invasion. In an undated clip released on Saturday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy was shown arriving by boat and laying flowers to honour those who defended the island.
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The UN’s nuclear watchdog chief said it was “making progress” on inspecting several areas of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, after Ukraine claimed that “external objects similar to explosive devices” had been placed on rooftops at the site. UN officials said they had “not seen any indications of explosives or mines” while touring the cooling ponds and other areas, but have yet to visit the facility’s rooftops.
