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      UK sanctions Putin’s ‘shady’ friends and family including alleged mistress

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      Britain has announced more Russian sanctions, with President Vladimir Putin’s ex-wife, family members and inner circle hit in the latest tranche of measures designed to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: “We are exposing and targeting the shady network propping up Putin’s luxury lifestyle and tightening the vice on his inner circle.“We will keep going with sanctions on all those aiding and abetting Putin’s aggression until Ukraine prevails.”Mr Putin’s official assets are modest, according to the Foreign Office, with his lifestyle “funded by a cabal of family, friends and elites”.Ukraine news — latest updatesThose newly placed on the sanctions list, which has grown to more than 1,000 individuals and 100 entities, include former first lady of the Russian Federation and ex-wife of Mr Putin, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya.Mikhail Shelomov, a Russian business owner and the leader’s first cousin, once removed, has been targeted.Also on the list is Alina Kabaeva, a retired Olympic gymnast who has risen to become Chair of the Board of the National Media Group, reportedly the largest private Russian media company. She is alleged to have a close personal relationship with Putin, and previously sat as a Deputy in the Duma for Putin’s United Russia party. The Foreign Office said: “Official records list modest assets for President Putin including: a small flat in St Petersburg, two Soviet-era cars from the 1950s, a trailer, and a small garage. In reality, Putin relies on his network of family, childhood friends, and selected elite who have benefited from his rule and in turn support his lifestyle. Their reward is influence over the affairs of the Russian state that goes far beyond their formal positions.”The new sanctions list also includes Putin’s first cousin Igor Putin, who is director of Pechenga International Sea Port, and Mikhail Putin, who is on the management boards of SOGAZ Insurance and Gazprom. The list announced by the Foreign Office on Friday includes:Alina Kabaeva, a retired Olympic gymnast. Kabaeva has risen to become Chair of the Board of the National Media Group, reportedly the largest private Russian media company. She is alleged to have a close personal relationship with Putin, and previously sat as a Deputy in the Duma for Putin’s United Russia. Anna Zatseplina, grandmother of Alina Kabaeva and associate of Gennady Timchenko – a longstanding Putin associate, sanctioned by the UK on 22 February 2022, from whom she has reportedly received a luxury flat in Moscow. Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, former First Lady of the Russian Federation and ex-wife of Putin. Since her divorce from Putin in 2014, Ocheretnaya has benefited from preferential business relationships with state-owned entities.Igor Putin, first cousin of President Vladimir Putin, and a Russian businessman. Igor Putin is Director of Pechenga International Sea Port. Mikhail Putin, a Russian businessman and relative of President Vladimir Putin. Mikhail Putin is Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of SOGAZ Insurance and Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Gazprom. Roman Putin, first cousin once removed of President Vladimir Putin. Roman Putin is publicly open about his relation to Putin and emphasises how this family connection enabled his company, Putin Consulting, to help foreign investors in Russia.Mikhail Shelomov, a Russian business owner and Putin’s first cousin, once removed. Shelomov’s company Akcept LLC has allegedly shared employees with Binom JSC, the firm registered as owning ‘Putin’s Palace’. Shelomov, through his firm Akcept LLC, is also a shareholder in Bank Rossiya, a bank with close Kremlin links, and run by key Putin lieutenants, sanctioned by the UK on 22 February 2022. Alexander Plekhov, a close friend of Putin. He has benefited from his relationship with Putin and his company Vital Development Corporation has benefited from significant state patronage.Mikhail Klishin, an Executive in Bank Rossiya, and a member of the Board of Directors at SOGAZ. Vladimir Kolbin, the son of Putin’s childhood friend and alleged business associate, Peter Kolbin. Vladimir has benefited from and supported the Government of Russia acting as General Director of Gelendzhik Seaport LLC. Yuri Shamalov, son of Nikolai Shamalov (sanctioned by the UK in 2014), and brother of Putin’s former son-in-law, Kirill (sanctioned by the UK on 24 February 2022). Yuri is a member of the new elite of children of Putin’s closest associates, and has risen rapidly to become President of Gazfond, and Member of the Board of Directors of Gazprombank. Viktor Khmarin is a Russian lawyer and businessman, who is a friend and relative-by-marriage of Putin. Khmarin has owned a number of businesses including LLC NefteProduktServis, which operated in the Russian energy sector. More

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      in World Politics

      The Tories Get a Thumping in Local UK Elections

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in UK Politics

      Macron calls for ‘new European political community’ that could include Britain

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      Emmanuel Macron has said the UK could be offered a closer relationship with Brussels as part of a new type of “political European community” that would include countries that haven’t joined the EU or have left.The French president, speaking to the European parliament in Strasbourg, said it would allow countries like the UK or Ukraine to decide on the level of integration they wanted with Europe.However, he poured cold water on the notion that Ukraine would be able to join the EU imminently, but in the meantime said the country, which is currently battling Russian forces, needed to be given an indication it is already a part of Europe. “Ukraine by its fight and its courage is already a heartfelt member of our Europe, of our family, of our union,” Mr Macron said.“Even if we grant it candidate status tomorrow, we all know perfectly well that the process to allow it to join would take several years indeed, probably several decades.”Rather than altering the EU’s strict standards for membership, Mr Macron suggested creating a new parallel European project that could appeal to countries who wanted to join the bloc.Britain and other countries which leave the EU could also be a part of Mr Macron’s new plan. In Berlin later on Monday, Mr Macron said the UK would be offered a “full place” in the community. He said this “European political community” would be open to democratic European nations adhering to its core values in areas such as political cooperation, security, cooperation in energy, transport, investment of infrastructure or circulation of people.“Joining it would not necessarily prejudge future EU membership,” he said. “Nor would it be closed to those who left it.”Relations between the pro-EU French president and Boris Johnson are frosty after repeated clashes over Brexit and fishing rights, and it remains to be seen how the proposals will be received in No 10.Mr Macron stressed that speaking about Europe’s future priorities was in stark contrast with the behaviour of Russia, who on the same day showed off their military might in a parade in Moscow to commemorate the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.“We have given two very different images of May 9,” Mr Macron said. “On the one side, there was a desire for a demonstration of force and intimidation and a resolutely war-like speech, and there was here … an association of citizens and parliamentarians — national and European — for a project on our future.”President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously said he wants Ukraine to join the EU and just last month called on European leaders to prove they stood with the country as they battled Russian aggression.He said: “The European Union is going to be much stronger with us, that’s for sure. Without you, Ukraine is going to be lonesome,” he said.“Do prove that you are with us. Do prove that you will not let us go. Do prove that you are indeed Europeans and then life will win over death and light will win over darkness. Glory be to Ukraine.” Additional reporting by agencies More

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      in US Politics

      Jill Biden makes unannounced visit to Ukraine and meets first lady

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      Jill Biden makes unannounced visit to Ukraine and meets first ladySurprise trip on Mother’s Day as Biden meets with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenskiy US first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with the nation’s first lady, Olena Zelenskiy, as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions.US president Joe Biden has not visited the country, though he expressed a desire to when he was in Poland this spring, following Russia’s invasion in February, but at that time Russian tanks were advancing on the capital, Kyiv, and he hinted that his security advisers held him back.Jill Biden traveled under the cloak of secrecy, becoming the latest high-profile American to enter Ukraine during its 10-week-old conflict with Russia.Russian forces drew back from Kyiv in the weeks after Biden’s trip to Poland, and the return of a greater level of security in the capital prompted visits by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, days after US secretary of state Antony Blinken and defense secretary Lloyd Austin, and other world leaders, including British prime minister Boris Johnson, had met there with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.“I wanted to come on Mother’s Day,” Jill Biden told Olena Zelenskiy on Sunday.“I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine.”The first lady traveled by vehicle to the town of Uzhhorod, about a 10-minute drive from a Slovakian village that borders Ukraine.The two came together in a small classroom, sitting across a table from one another and talking in front of reporters before they met in private. Zelenskiy and her children have been at an undisclosed location for their safety.Zelenskiy thanked Biden for her “courageous act” and said: “We understand what it takes for the US first lady to come here during a war when military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day – even today.”The school where they met has been turned into transitional housing for Ukrainian migrants from elsewhere in the country.The visit allowed Biden to conduct the kind of personal diplomacy that her husband would like to be doing himself.The White House said as recently as last week that the US president “would love to visit” but there were no plans for him to do so at this time.On Sunday, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau also made a surprise visit to Ukraine and was expected to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Earlier, the meeting between the two first ladies came about after they exchanged correspondence in recent weeks, according to US officials. Jill Biden drove through Uzhhorod and the meeting between the women lasted about an hour.Her visit was limited to western Ukraine. Russia is concentrating its military power in eastern Ukraine, and she was not deemed to be in harm’s way.Earlier, in the Slovakian border village of Vysne Nemecke, she toured its border processing facility, surveying operations set up by the United Nations and other relief organizations to assist Ukrainians seeking refuge. Biden attended a religious service in a tent set up as a chapel, where a priest intoned: “We pray for the people of Ukraine.”Before that, in Kosice, Biden met and offered support to Ukrainian mothers in Slovakia who have been displaced by Russia’s war and assuring them that the “hearts of the American people” are behind them.At a bus station in the city that is now a 24-hour refugee processing center, Biden found herself in an extended conversation with a Ukrainian woman who said she struggles to explain the war to her three children because she cannot understand it herself.“I cannot explain because I don’t know myself and I’m a teacher,” Victorie Kutocha, who had her arms around her 7-year-old daughter, Yulie, told Biden.At one point, Kutocha asked, “Why?” seeming to seek an explanation for Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine on February 24.“It’s so hard to understand,” the first lady replied.Meanwhile, the top American diplomat in Ukraine, acting ambassador Kristina Kvien, temporarily returned to the US embassy in Kyiv, according to an unnamed US official, weeks after it was vacated.TopicsJill BidenUS politicsJoe BidenVolodymyr ZelenskiyUkraineRussiaEuropenewsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      The Russia-Ukraine War Shows History Did Not End, Ethics Did

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in US Politics

      Why the Ukrainian war is also a domestic political issue for Biden

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      Why the Ukrainian war is also a domestic political issue for BidenThe Democratic party is encouraging president to be more forward-leaning as he broadened US objectives in the conflict The visit of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Kyiv at the head of a congressional delegation this week was a reminder that in Washington the Ukraine war is not just an issue of national security but is an increasingly important domestic political issue too.In his approach to the conflict, Joe Biden, has the wind at his back in terms of US public opinion and Democratic party sentiment which is encouraging him to be ever more forward-leaning.In a new poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News, 37% of Americans questioned said his administration was not doing enough to support the Ukrainians, fractionally more than the 36% who said he was doing the right amount. Only 14% suggested he was doing too much.Late last month, the administration broadened US objectives in the conflict, to not just support Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity but also to weaken Russia, with the aim of preventing a repeat of Moscow’s aggression against other countries.Pentagon chief’s Russia remarks show shift in US’s declared aims in UkraineRead moreA European diplomat suggested that one of the factors behind that shift was impatience in the higher levels of the party with the administration’s posture.“It’s fundamentally about trying to get on the front foot in this crisis. There’s a lot of domestic criticism of the administration for being so passive,” the official said.“The Hill [Congress] are cross and a lot of the big Democratic donors think it’s not being as forthright as America should be … Biden thinks he’s treading a careful path between intervention in its broader sense and keeping the focus on domestic concerns – and some Democrats are starting to think that balance isn’t right.”Senator Chris Coons, a senior figure in Democratic foreign policy circles, has criticised Biden for taking direct military intervention off the table as an option. On the other side of the party, there has been little pushback from the progressive wing, which is normally sceptical about sending large quantities of military hardware into foreign conflicts.And for once in Washington, the Republicans are pushing in the same direction.“This is one of the few areas where Democrats and Republicans are reasonably well united and that makes it pretty easy for a president to move in that direction. He’s not making enemies,” said Larry Sabato, politics professor at the University of Virginia.“The umbrella over all of this is the moral issue and the powerful video of Ukrainians being slaughtered and dislocated,” John Zogby, a pollster and political consultant, said. “Americans are moved by that and overwhelmingly support the Ukrainian people.”It is nonetheless a political wedge issue. Support is more uniform among Democrats than Republicans. Donald Trump transferred his personal admiration for Vladimir Putin to at least some of his followers and the Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, who has consistently raised pro-Moscow talking points on his show.Democratic support is deepened by the important role of Ukrainian-Americans, thought to represent about 1 million people (Zogby thinks that is an underestimate) and who are influential on the party’s ethnic coordinating council. They have all the more sway because they are concentrated in swing states.“You’ve got a decent number of Ukrainians in Ohio, and you have a Senate race in Ohio. There are Ukrainians in Pennsylvania and you have a Senate race in Pennsylvania,” said Wendy Schiller, political science professor at Brown University.In Wisconsin, Democrats have been running ads against the incumbent Senator Ron Johnson, focusing on his 2018 visit to Moscow.“It’s not an accident that Nancy Pelosi went to Ukraine,” Schiller said. “To have the speaker go, it says this is going to be an issue that the national party is going to take into the midterm elections.”With state-level and national politics, moral outrage among the public and Biden’s own foreign policy instincts, all pointing in the same direction, the administration has sharply raised its stake in the Ukraine conflict, asking Congress for an extraordinary $33bn in military, economic and humanitarian support for Kyiv.Public support, however, dies away dramatically when it comes to the question of sending US troops. Only 21% asked in this week’s poll backed such direct intervention, and concern about Ukraine escalating into a nuclear conflict is significantly higher among Democrats than Republicans.Biden, who has made extricating the US from “forever wars” his signature foreign policy, has repeatedly said he will not send US troops into Ukraine, and has cancelled routine missile tests to reduce any risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation between the two nuclear superpowers.“Boots on the ground may very well be a very different story,” Zogby said. “I don’t think world war three polls very well.”TopicsUS foreign policyJoe BidenUS politicsUkraineRussiaEuropeanalysisReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Approval for Biden Ukraine aid request likely after Pelosi Kyiv visit, McCaul says

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      Approval for Biden Ukraine aid request likely after Pelosi Kyiv visit, McCaul saysRepublican says House likely to approve $33bn but also says Democrats have not acted quickly enough

      Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
      Joe Biden’s $33bn request to Congress for more aid for Ukraine is likely to receive swift approval from lawmakers, a senior Republican said on Sunday, as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, made a surprise visit to the war-riven country.Scholz defends Ukraine policy as criticism mounts in Germany Read moreThe president on Thursday had asked for the money for military and humanitarian support for Ukraine as it fights to repulse the Russian invasion now in its third month.Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and ranking member of the House foreign affairs committee, went on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulous and said he expected the chamber would look favorably on the request in the coming weeks.McCaul’s comments came while Pelosi led a congressional delegation to Kyiv to meet the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the House speaker promised on behalf of the US: “We are here until victory is won.”McCaul was asked if he believed Congress would quickly pass Biden’s requested package, which includes $20bn in military aid, $8.5bn in economic aid to Kyiv and $3bn in humanitarian relief.“Yes, I do,” McCaul said. “Time is of the essence. The next two to three weeks are going to be very pivotal and very decisive in this war. And I don’t think we have a lot of time to waste. I wish we had [Biden’s request] a little bit sooner, but we have it now.”McCaul added that he believed Republicans, who have supported the Democratic president’s previous financial requests for Ukraine, might have acted more expediently if they held the House majority.The chamber is not sitting during the coming week while members tend to in-district affairs, delaying debate and a vote on the aid package.“If I were speaker for a day, I’d call Congress back into session, back into work,” he said.“Every day we don’t send them more weapons is a day where more people will be killed and a day where they could lose this war. I think they can win it. But we have to give them the tools to do it.”Meanwhile, Bob Menendez, the Democratic New Jersey senator who chairs the upper chamber’s foreign relations committee, echoed Pelosi’s pledge that the US would continue to support Ukraine financially.“We will do what it takes to see Ukraine win because it’s not just about Ukraine, it’s about the international order,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.“If Ukraine does not win, if [Russia’s president Vladimir] Putin can ultimately not only succeed in the Donbas but then be emboldened to go further, if he strikes a country under our treaty obligations with Nato, then we would be directly engaged.“So stopping Russia from getting to that point is of critical interest to us, as well as the world, so we don’t have to send our sons and daughters into battle. That ability not to have to send our sons and daughters into battle is priceless.”Menendez said that the US and its allies needed to “keep our eye on the ball” over a possible Russian move into Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, where explosions were heard in recent days.“I think that the Ukrainians care about what’s going to happen in Transnistria, because it’s another attack point against Ukraine,” he said.“We need to keep our eye on the ball. And that is about helping Ukraine and Ukrainians ultimately being able to defeat the butcher of Moscow. If we do that, the world will be safer. The international order will be preserved, and others who are looking at what is happening in Ukraine will have to think twice.”Samantha Power, administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), laid out the urgent need for Congress to approve the package during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation.“There are vast swaths of Ukraine that have been newly liberated by Ukrainian forces, where there is desperate need, everything from demining to trauma kits to food assistance, since markets are not back up and running,” she said, noting that from previously approved drawdowns “assistance is flowing”.But she said that 40 million people could be pushed into poverty, and demands for help would only grow.“We’re already spending some of that money, but the burn rate is very, very high as prices spiral inside Ukraine and outside Ukraine,” Power said. “So that’s why this supplemental is so important. It entails $3bn of humanitarian assistance to meet those global needs, which are famine-level, acute malnutrition needs.“And it includes very significant direct budget support for the government of Ukraine, because we want to ensure the government can continue providing services for its people.”“Putin would like nothing more than the government of Ukraine to go bankrupt and not be able to cater to the needs of the people. We can’t let that happen.”TopicsUS CongressRepublicansJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsUkraineNancy PelosinewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Safe-passage operation’ evacuates 100 people from besieged Mariupol steelworks

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      ‘Safe-passage operation’ evacuates 100 people from besieged Mariupol steelworksPeople sheltering in Azovstal plant, one of the last strongholds in the city, endured weeks of brutal conditions

      Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
      Scores of people who had been sheltering under a steel plant that is the last redoubt for Ukrainian forces in Mariupol have managed to at last leave, after enduring weeks under brutal siege in the destroyed port city.The UN confirmed on Sunday that a “safe-passage operation” to evacuate civilians had begun, in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ukraine and Russia, but declined to give further details in order to protect people.As many as 100,000 people are believed to be in the blockaded city, which has endured some of the most terrible suffering of the Russian invasion. These include 1,000 civilians and 2,000 Ukrainian fighters thought to be sheltering in bunkers and tunnels underneath the Soviet-era Azovstal steelworks, the only part of the ruined city not taken by Russian forces.After enduring a vicious weeks-long siege that forced people into confinement in basements, without food, water, heat or electricity, Russian forces closed in, leaving the steelworks as the last remaining stronghold. Vladimir Putin decided not to storm the plant, but called on Russian troops to blockade the area “so that a fly can’t get through”.On Sunday, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said about 100 civilians were being evacuated from the ruined steelworks to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia. Zelenskiy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak suggested the evacuations could go further than just the civilians holed up in the steelworks. “This is just the first step, and we will continue to take our civilians and troops out of Mariupol,” he wrote on Telegram.Earlier, Reuters reported that more than 50 civilians in separate groups had arrived from the plant on Sunday in Bezimenne, a village about 20 miles (33km) east of Mariupol in territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists. The group arrived in buses with Ukrainian number plates as part of a convoy with Russian forces and vehicles with UN symbols.News of the evacuation came as the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, met Zelenskiy in Kyiv, where she pledged enduring support for his country’s “fight for freedom”. Pelosi, whose visit was not announced beforehand, is the highest-level US official to meet the Ukrainian president since the war began.Earlier this weekend, a senior soldier with the Azov regiment at the steelworks said 20 women and children had managed to get out. “We are getting civilians out of the rubble with ropes – it’s the elderly, women and children,” Sviatoslav Palamar told Reuters. On his Telegram channel, Palamar called for the evacuation of the wounded: “We don’t know why they are not taken away and their evacuation to the territory controlled by Ukraine is not being discussed.”Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that 80 people, including women and children, had left the Azovstal works, according to the state news agency Ria Novosti.The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Thursday when meeting Zelenskiy in Kyiv that intense discussions were under way to evacuate the Azovstal plant.Russian forces have obliterated the once thriving port city of Mariupol, a major target for Moscow because of its strategic location near Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.In his Sunday blessing, Pope Francis repeated his implicit criticism of Russia, as he said Mariupol had been “barbarously bombarded and destroyed”. Addressing the faithful at St Peter’s Square in Rome, the pope said he suffered and cried “thinking of the suffering of the Ukrainian population, in particular the weakest, the elderly, the children”.01:09Meanwhile, Zelenskiy released footage on Sunday of an earlier meeting between him, Pelosi and the US House representatives Jason Crow, Jim McGovern, Gregory Meeks and Adam Schiff. The US speaker pledged America’s support “until the fight is done”.“We are visiting you to say thank you for your fight for freedom,” she said in video footage released on Zelenskiy’s Twitter account. “And that your fight is a fight for everyone, and so our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done.”Speaking at a press conference in Poland on Sunday, Pelosi said the US would hold its resolve, after being asked whether Washington was concerned about its support provoking a Russian reaction. “Let me speak for myself: do not be bullied by bullies,” she said. “If they are making threats, you cannot back down.”Crow, a Democrat, armed forces veteran and member of the House intelligence and armed services committee, said he came to Ukraine with three areas of focus: “weapons, weapons and weapons.”“The United States of America is in this to win and we will stand with Ukraine until victory is won,” he said.Last week Joe Biden called for a $33bn (£26bn) package of military, humanitarian and economic support for Ukraine, more than doubling the level of US assistance to date. The US president asked Congress to immediately approve the aid, which dwarfs Ukraine’s entire defence budget.GraphicWhile the US is increasing support for Ukraine, Germany’s chancellor rejected criticism that Berlin was not doing enough. In an interview with Bild am Sonntag, Olaf Scholz said he took decisions “fast and in concert with our partners”.Meanwhile it emerged that the EU is looking at banning Russian oil imports from the end of 2022, in the latest effort to cut funds to Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Germany announced on Sunday it had made sharp reductions in its dependency on Russian fossil fuels, slashing oil imports from Russia to 12%, compared to 35% before the Russian invasion. Russian gas imports to Europe’s biggest economy have dropped to 35% from a pre-invasion figure of 55%. Ukraine is now looking to China, as well as other permanent members of the UN security council, to provide security guarantees. In an interview with the Chinese state news agency Xinhua released on Sunday, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the proposal for China to provide a security guarantee was “a sign of our respect and trust in the People’s Republic of China”.On the 67th day of the war, Russia continued its refigured campaign to seize parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, after failing to take Kyiv. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday it had attacked an airfield near Odesa and claimed to have destroyed a hangar that contained weapons provided by foreign countries. “High-precision Onyx rockets at a military aerodrome in the Odesa region destroyed a hangar with weapons and ammunition from the United States and European countries, and also destroyed the runway,” said a spokesperson for the Russian defence ministry, quoted by Ria Novosti. The report has not been independently verified.Meanwhile, the governor of Kharkiv warned residents on Sunday not to leave shelters because of “intense shelling”. Oleh Synyehubov asked residents in the north and eastern districts of the city, especially Saltivka, not to leave their shelters unless it was urgent.In his nightly video address on Saturday, Zelenskiy urged Russian troops not to fight in Ukraine, saying even their generals expected that thousands more of them would die.He accused Moscow of recruiting new soldiers “with little motivation and little combat experience” so that units gutted early in the war can be thrown back into battle. “Every Russian soldier can still save his own life,” Zelenskiy said. “It’s better for you to survive in Russia than to perish on our land.”As the first civilians were reported to have left the Azovstal plant, pictures showed a dire situation for the several thousand who remained.Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BSTVideo and images shared with the Associated Press by two Ukrainian women who said their husbands were among the fighters refusing to surrender at the plant showed unidentified men with stained bandages, while others had open wounds or amputated limbs.A skeleton medical staff was treating at least 600 wounded people, said the women, who identified their husbands as members of the Azov regiment of Ukraine’s national guard. Some of the wounds were rotting with gangrene, they said.In the video the men said that they were eating just once daily and sharing as little as 1.5 litres of water a day among four people, and that supplies inside the besieged facility were depleted.AP could not independently verify the date and location of the video, which the women said was taken in the last week in the maze of corridors and bunkers beneath the plant.The women urged that Ukrainian fighters also be evacuated alongside civilians, warning they could be tortured and executed if captured. “The lives of soldiers matter, too,” Yuliia Fedusiuk told the news agency.Associated Press contributed to this report.TopicsUkraineEuropeRussiaNancy PelosiHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS foreign policynewsReuse this content More