Ukraine updates: West not plotting to attack Russia, Biden says

The EU is close to agreement on a 10th sanctions package against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and EU governments hope to reach a deal on Wednesday if they can overcome differences about a ban on Russian rubber and diamond imports, EU diplomats say.

Among those the bloc is seeking to target are people involved in the illegal deportations of about 6,000 Ukrainian children.

The sanctions package, worth 11 billion euros ($11.7bn), is also likely to include, for the first time, a ban on all exports to seven Iranian entities believed to be making items used by Russia in the war.

The EU also plans to ban sales to Russia of all dual-use and electronic components used in armed systems, such as drones, missiles and helicopters – basically anything that can be found in Russian weapons on Ukrainian battlefields.

The EU is also likely to cut off more Russian banks – including the private Alfa-Bank, the online Tinkoff bank and the commercial lender Rosbank – from the SWIFT global messaging system.

Biden affirmed support for Moldova’s sovereignty in a meeting with the country’s president President Maia Sandu, the White House has said, days after Chisinau said it foiled a Russian coup attempt.

“President Biden reaffirmed strong US support for Moldova’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the White House said in a statement.

“He highlighted ongoing US assistance to help Moldova strengthen its political and economic resilience, including its democratic reform agenda and energy security, and to address the effects of Russia’s war against Ukraine.”

Sandu said earlier this month the country had intelligence that suggested Russia was plotting a coup to “overthrow” the Moldovan authorities and sow chaos in the small former Soviet republic.

The Kremlin has denied the coup-plotting claims, saying it is acting “responsibly” with regard to peacekeeping forces it has stationed in the breakaway region and warned Moldova against inflaming the situation further.

The head of the International Monetary Fund has hailed Kyiv’s efforts to tackle corruption and praised its “resilient” economy and people.

“The Ukrainian authorities are very open about the corruption problems and very determined to fight it. So is the whole of society,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said during her trip to Kyiv this week.

Georgieva said she was “optimistic” that Ukraine can make progress in its fight against corruption and that people “are not going to tolerate” it.

“A war is a breeding ground for corruption,” Georgieva said, adding that she had not heard of attempts to “sugarcoat the issue” or seen a “lack of appetite to work with us”.

She said, however, that Ukraine’s anti-corruption structures needed to be “further improved”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has brushed off criticism from Silvio Berlusconi, saying Italy’s ex-prime minister did not have to live under daily bombardment and blackouts caused by Russian air raids.

Zelenskyy was asked at a news conference with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni about Berlusconi’s remarks earlier this month, in which he said he would not want to meet Zelenskyy and blamed him for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“I think Mr Berlusconi has not had to get up at three in the morning because of blackouts to start washing clothes, making food for his children two days in advance because there may not be power for the next two to three days because of the great love of the brotherly Russian people,” he said.

Zelenskyy said he thought Berlusconi would benefit from travelling to Ukraine to see with his own eyes the “bloody trail left by the brotherly Russian Federation”.

“Then we can talk at the same level,” he said.

Belgium has launched an investigation after a suspected Russian spy ship was spotted off its North Sea coast, perhaps surveying key energy and communications links, a minister has said.

The boat was spotted in November after being reported in Dutch waters and had turned off its AIS beacon, a compulsory device allowing shipping authorities to identify and track vessels.

Justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, who is also Belgium’s minister for the North Sea, said, “We don’t know the exact motives of this Russian ship, but let’s not be naive.

“Especially if it behaves suspiciously near our wind farms, undersea gas pipelines and data cables, and other critical infrastructure,” he added.

A statement from the minister’s office said: “The passage of this vessel should doubtless be seen in the broader context of the war in Ukraine“.

The supply of military planes to Ukraine “is not on the table”, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said after talks in Kyiv with Zelenskyy.

Speaking in a news conference alongside Zelenskyy, Meloni said Italy was considering sending more air defence systems beyond the SAMP/T-MAMBA, on which it has worked with France.

Joe Biden said Ukraine will “never be a victory for Russia” as he delivered a speech in Poland before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

“A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never be able to ease the people’s love of liberty, brutality will never grind down the will of the free. Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never,” Biden told a crowd gathered outside the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

He said Vladimir Putin thought he was “tough” but then met the “iron will of America”.

“He thought autocrats like himself were tough and leaders of democracy were soft and then he met the iron will of America and nations everywhere that refused to accept a world governed by fear,” Biden said.

Russia will continue to observe limits on the number of nuclear warheads it can deploy under the New START treaty despite Moscow’s decision to suspend its participation in the landmark agreement, the Russian foreign ministry has said.

“In order to maintain a sufficient degree of predictability and stability in the sphere of nuclear missiles, Russia intends to adhere to a responsible approach and will continue to strictly observe the quantitative restrictions provided for by the New START treaty within the life cycle of the treaty,” the ministry said in a statement.

Russia’s foreign ministry also said it would continue to notify the US of planned test launches of inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

During his speech, Biden says the US and its partners will announce more sanctions against Russia this week.

He warned of “hard and bitter days” ahead but said the US and its allies will “have Ukraine’s back” for the long haul.

The US president says Russia’s leader believes the West’s staying power may wane as Moscow continues to press ahead with its offensive.

Putin “still doubts our conviction”, Biden said.

But the West’s support for Ukraine “will not waiver”, he added, and Kyiv’s allies “will not tire”.

Biden begins his highly anticipated speech in Poland’s capital, saying NATO is more “united than ever before” almost a year after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

“Democracy was too strong for Putin,” Biden said.

He added that the Russian leader’s offensive has driven the “NATOisation of Finland and Sweden”.

France’s foreign ministry has called on Russia to “show responsibility” and reverse its decision to suspend participation in the New START nuclear arms treaty.

“The New START Treaty is an essential instrument in the international architecture of nuclear arms control and strategic stability”, the ministry said in a statement.

Poland’s president has urged Western leaders to maintain support for Ukraine as Russia’s offensive nears the one-year mark.

“I call on all European states, NATO states, to show solidarity with Ukraine, to provide military support to Ukraine, so that they have something to fight with,” Andrzej Duda said ahead of Biden’s speech in Warsaw. “Do not be afraid to provide this support.”

The United Kingdom has urged Putin to reconsider his decision to suspend Russia’s participation in New START.

“Arms control is vital to the security of our planet and this is another example of Putin jeopardising global security for political gain,” UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said, describing Putin’s move as “rash”.

Biden’s surprise visit to wartime Kyiv on Monday morning began in the dead of night at a military airport hangar outside Washington, DC.

Read more here.

G7 foreign ministers have said their countries will continue to impose economic costs on Russia over its offensive in Ukraine.

“We will impose further economic costs on Russia, and on individuals and entities – inside and outside of Russia – that provide political or economic support to these violations of international law,” the ministers said in a joint statement.

They also urged the international community to reject what they described as Moscow’s “brutal expansionism”.

The G7 comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Putin’s decision to suspend Russia’s participation in the New START nuclear arms control treaty is “deeply irresponsible”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says.

“The announcement by Russia that it’s suspending participation is deeply unfortunate and irresponsible,” Blinken told reporters in Athens.

“We’ll be watching carefully to see what Russia actually does,” he said. “We’ll of course make sure that in any event, we are postured appropriately for the security of our own country and that of our allies.”

US President Joe Biden and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda discussed their “shared efforts to support Ukraine, impose consequences on Russia, and strengthen NATO” during talks in Warsaw, the White House has said.

“In addition, the leaders discussed their countries’ growing cooperation in the energy sector, including civil nuclear energy, our strong bilateral defense relationship, and the importance of the democratic values that underpin the transatlantic alliance,” the White House said in a statement.

Ukraine’s education ministry has told the country’s schools to hold classes remotely starting Wednesday for the remainder of this week because of the risk of Russian missile attacks.

The ministry issued a statement saying it had made the recommendation to schools “to protect the lives and health of all participants in the educational process, as a preventive measure before the anniversary”.

Hundreds of schools have been destroyed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Those that are still standing were only allowed to hold in-person classes this academic year if they had a functioning bomb shelter.

The head of Russia’s influential Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, has told China’s top diplomat that Moscow and Beijing must stick together against the West, according to reports carried by Russian state news agencies.

Patrushev and Wang Yi held talks in the Russian capital on Tuesday.

A close ally of President Vladimir Putin, Patrushev told Wang that Moscow backed China’s position over Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang, according to a statement cited by the RIA Novosti news agency.

A spokesman for the US Department of State has said it is “unclear” if Putin’s move to suspend Russia’s participation in the New START nuclear treaty will have a “practical impact”.

“We haven’t seen any reason to change our nuclear posture, our strategic posture just yet,” Ned Price told CNN.

The United States announced publicly this year that Russia was not in compliance with the New START treaty, he said, adding Washington will watch to see what steps Moscow actually takes.

Here are two maps that we update daily to chart the latest war developments:

Biden has again lauded NATO during his visit to Poland, as he thanked Warsaw for its support of Ukraine.

“As I told my Russian counterpart … you’re gonna get to NATO-isation of Finland. Turns out, I didn’t know Sweden was coming along, as well,” he said.

“But all kidding aside, I think if we keep our heads and we are focused, I think we’re in a better position than we’ve ever been. And I want to thank you President [Duda] for how Poland is supporting Ukraine.

“It is just incredible the way you’ve welcomed 1.6, 1.7 million Ukrainians.

“We’ve reaffirmed our ironclad commitment to NATO’s pledge of security, including guaranteeing that the command headquarters for our forces in Europe are going to be in Poland, period. We’re also launching a new strategic partnership with plans to build nuclear power plants and bolster Poland’s energy security for generations.”

US President Joe Biden’s visit to Poland is an important sign of the United States’s commitment to maintaining security in Europe, Polish President Andrzej Duda said.

“Your visit is an important sign of security, a signal of US responsibility for the security of the world and Europe. America can keep the world order,” Duda told Biden during their bilateral meeting.

President Joe Biden is rallying NATO allies in Poland to demonstrate that the United States is squarely behind Ukraine and committed to bolstering the alliance’s eastern flank.

In Warsaw, he said on NATO, “We have to have security in Europe … It’s the single most consequential alliance, I would argue, maybe the most consequential alliance in history – not just modern history, but in history.

“A year later [after the Russian invasion began], I would argue NATO is stronger than it’s ever been. As I told President Zelenskyy as we spoke in Kyiv yesterday, I can proudly say that our support for Ukraine remains unwavering.”

After Putin’s combative speech in Moscow, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters, “Nobody is attacking Russia. There’s a kind of absurdity in the notion that Russia was under some form of military threat from Ukraine or anyone else.”

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg also responded to Putin’s address with identical words.

“Nobody is attacking Russia,” Stoltenberg said, “Russia is the aggressor.”

Italy’s prime minister has denounced Putin’s marathon state-of-the-nation speech as “propaganda”.

“A part of my heart hoped for some different words, for a step ahead. It was propaganda,” Giorgia Meloni said during a visit to the Ukrainian city of Irpin.

Her trip to Ukraine came a day after US President Joe Biden visited the Ukrainian capital.

Meloni, who took office in October, had repeatedly said she wanted to go to Kyiv before the February 24 anniversary of Russia’s invasion. She was due to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later on Tuesday.

Six civilians have been killed and 12 others wounded by Russian shelling of a market and public transport stop in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, Ukraine’s military says.

The southern military command said in a statement that Kherson came under fire as Russian President Vladimir Putin was delivering his state-of-the-nation address.

Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the military’s report.

NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said he regrets Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New START nuclear arms control treaty with the United States.

Speaking during a joint news conference with Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Stoltenberg urged Moscow to reconsider the move.

His remarks came shortly after President Vladimir Putin delivered a warning to the West over Ukraine in a combative state-of-the-union address.

Stoltenberg also rejected Putin’s claims that Kyiv and its Western allies were to blame for the war, saying instead that Russia was the aggressor.

“It is President Putin who started this imperial war of conquest … As Putin made clear today, he’s preparing for more war … Putin must not win … It would be dangerous for our own security and the whole world,” he said.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) says it gave no security guarantees to US President Joe Biden after Washington informed Moscow in advance that he would be visiting Kyiv on Monday.

“The United States did notify Russia about Biden’s visit to Kyiv through a diplomatic channel. We did not give guarantees of his safety,” FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov was quoted by the state-owned TASS news agency as saying.

Russia’s president used his state-of-the-nation speech on Tuesday to reiterate Moscow’s justifications for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and deride the West.

Read more on Putin’s address here.

Al Jazeera has put together a series of in-depth maps documenting the war in Ukraine so far as the conflict’s first anniversary approaches.

Take a look here.

Russia’s foreign ministry has summoned US ambassador Lynne Tracy over what it says is Washington’s increasingly “aggressive course”, accusing it of widening its involvement in the war in Ukraine.

“In this regard, the ambassador was told that the current aggressive course of the United States to deepen confrontation with Russia in all areas is counterproductive,” the ministry said.

There was no immediate public response from Washington to Moscow’s move.

Yuriy Vaskov, Ukraine’s depute infrastructure minister, has accused Russia of undermining the Black Sea grain deal designed to ensure Ukrainian food exports reach needy global markets.

“Since the end of October, the initiative has only been working at a maximum of 30 percent of its full capacity,” Vaskov told Al Jazeera from Kyiv.

“According to the deal, each vessel … should be inspected by the four parties to the initiative – Ukraine, the UN, Turkey and The Russian Federation – but since the end of October, the Russian Federation has decreased its number of inspection teams,” he added.

“Due to this reason, unfortunately since November we have an average of three vessels being inspected daily making inbound movements and the same number of inspections [being carried out] for vessels making outbound movements.”

Vaskov said negotiations on a renewal of the deal, which was signed in July last year and is set to expire in the middle of March, had already begun.

“Our expectation is not only for a prolonged initiative but for an increased number of inspections and … for the [extended] deal to be for a minimum of one year,” he added.

Australia’s government says it is aligned with 34 other nations on the call for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from its competitions, despite not being marked as a signatory to the statement.

The British government issued the joint statement on Monday on behalf of “more than 30 like-minded nations”, which held a summit addressed by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this month.

Australia was a signatory to two statements on the matter which were agreed upon by “35 like-minded nations” last year but was the only one of those countries not represented in Monday’s new pledge.

A spokesman for the Australian sports ministry told the Reuters news agency that Australia’s absence was an administrative error and that the government was in accord with the sentiments expressed in the statement.

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Brussels, says the New START treaty was the last of the big arms agreements that the United States had signed with Russia.

“In the days after the Cold War, there was a real effort from both … to reduce the number of their nuclear warheads,” Bays said from Brussels, where Ukraine’s foreign minister is meeting with European Union leaders.

“Obviously, arms negotiation has been much, much more difficult in recent years and NATO allies say that Russia wasn’t really complying with New START anyway,” he added.

“But it is interesting that Putin has decided to suspend participation in this treaty … and I think, probably, that’s for international consumption at this stage.

“I think there was an element of this speech that was aimed at the international community because although Europe seems to be very much on the same page with the US in terms of support for Ukraine, beyond Europe … when it comes to the issue of when should the war stop and when should there be negotiations many believe a ceasefire should come soon, if not now.

“That is the difference that Putin was potentially trying to exploit in his speech.”

Russia’s president has now concluded his marathon state-of-the-nation address.

The speech, which lasted for nearly two hours, concluded with Putin promising that Russia would “respond to any challenges”.

“We are confident in our power. The truth is with us,” he said.

Putin’s audience in Moscow rose to their feet as the Russian national anthem played out at the conclusion of his address.

Putin says Russia is suspending its participation in the New START treaty with the United States.

The agreement is the last major pillar of post-Cold War nuclear arms control between the two countries and limits their strategic nuclear arsenals.

“I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty,” Putin said in his state-of-the-nation address.

He added Russia needed to be ready to test nuclear weapons if the US moves to do so itself.

The United Nations Office for Human Rights (OHCHR) says at least 8,006 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia began its offensive 12 months ago.

Another 13,287 civilians have been wounded amid the conflict, OHCHR said.

Volker Turk, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, said the figures “lay bare the loss and suffering inflicted on people since Russia’s armed attack began”.

“Our data are only the tip of the iceberg. The toll on civilians is unbearable. Amid electricity and water shortages during the cold winter months, nearly 18 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Some 14 million people have been displaced from their homes,” he added.

OHCHR personnel on the ground stressed the true casualty figures are likely to be substantially higher as the numbers provided only accounted for verified individual cases.

A leading official in the United States has described Putin’s claims that the West and Kyiv are to blame for the war in Ukraine as an “absurdity”.

“Nobody is attacking Russia,” White House NSA Jake Sullivan told reporters.

“There’s a kind of absurdity in the notion that Russia was under some form of military threat from Ukraine or anyone else.”

Reaction to Putin’s state-of-the-nation address from Ukrainian officials has begun to filter through.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s president, said the Russian leader’s speech “demonstrated his irrelevance and confusion”.

“He stressed that RF [The Russian Federation] is in ‘taiga deadlock’, has no promising solutions and won’t have any. Because everywhere there are ‘Nazis, Martians and conspiracy theories’,” Podolyak said in a post on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Olexander Scherba, Ukraine’s ambassador to Austria, accused Putin of being a “liar” after the Russian leader claimed the West and Kyiv were to blame for the war.

Putin at it again, with his usual set of grievances. The biggest one: West & Ukraine were ready for a war with RU. As if there was no 🇷🇺 ultimatum. As if Macron, Scholz & Co didn’t spend 2021 traveling to Moscow, begging 🇷🇺 not to do it.

What a liar.#StandWithUkraine #putinrede

— olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) February 21, 2023

Putin has now been speaking for more than an hour, covering topics ranging from the war in Ukraine to what he says is a decadent West intent on subjugating Russia.

He is currently talking about domestic issues, including agriculture, scientific initiatives and infrastructure plans.

Putin says Russia has all the financial resources it needs to guarantee its national security and development despite sweeping economic sanctions imposed by the West over the war in Ukraine.

The Russian president said domestic companies had rebuilt their supply chains in response to the sanctions.

He added that Moscow was working with other countries to build new payment systems and financial architecture.

Putin has reiterated criticism of the West as decadent, saying it is heading for “spiritual catastrophe”.

“They distort historical facts and constantly attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church, and other traditional religions of our country,” Putin said.

“Look at what they do with their own peoples: the destruction of the family, cultural and national identity, perversion, and the abuse of children are declared the norm. And priests are forced to bless same-sex marriages,” he added.

“As it became known, the Anglican Church plans to consider the idea of a gender-neutral God … Millions of people in the West understand they are being led to a real spiritual catastrophe.”

Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Kyiv, says Ukraine and its allies in the West will see Putin’s speech as a continuation of the Kremlin’s narrative over the war.

“What leaders are likely going to see from this speech is that nothing has really changed,” Basravi said.

“There has been no change in the narrative, he has not really said anything he has not said already in the past to try to validate why this invasion had to happen from the Russian side,” he added.

“The Ukrainian leadership is likely going to see this as just another day – another day of Putin reiterating old points.

“Socially, politically and economically Ukraine has pivoted hard towards the West which perhaps is the opposite of what the Russian leadership had hoped to accomplish.”

Putin has said he understands the difficulties faced by relatives of Russian soldiers who have died fighting in Ukraine and pledged to provide them with “targeted support” via a new special fund.

“We all understand, I understand how unbearably hard it is now for the wives, sons, daughters of fallen soldiers, their parents, who raised worthy defenders of the fatherland,” the Russian president said.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Moscow, says Putin’s “combative speech” was aimed at “detailing the inevitability” of the war in Ukraine from the Kremlin’s perspective.

“He’d like to tell his people that it is not Russia who initiated this war,” Bin Javaid said.

“He accused the West of being behind the ‘Nazis’ [in Ukraine], as he likes to call them, and that it was important for Russia to ‘denazify’ its border,” he added.

Bin Javaid said screens had been put up in big cities across Russia to show Putin’s speech so that people could hear him “defend” Moscow’s offensive and “tell his people why he had to go to war and why he is not backing down”.

Putin has accused Ukraine’s leaders of taking the country’s population “hostage”, adding Kyiv is “serving the interests of foreign powers”.

“The people of Ukraine themselves have become hostages of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, who have actually occupied this country in a political, military, and economic sense,” the Russian leader said.

“The regime is not serving their national interest,” he added.

Marwan Kabalan, an academic and writer, says Putin’s speech is aimed at appeasing the Russian elite and population since Moscow has not achieved its war goals in Ukraine.

“He underestimated power of Ukraine military” and Western support, as well as the “will of Europeans” to free themselves of Russian energy supplies, Kabalan told Al Jazeera.

“He cannot tell the people of Russia any good news about this, this special operation as he calls it has been going on now for almost a year and the objectives have not been achieved.

“He could not remove government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he is not preventing expansion of NATO.

“He needed to say something to the Russian people who are wondering if the decision to go to war was the right decision.

“He is trying to say, ‘I had no option, I was forced to go into Ukraine’.”

Russia’s president has pledged to “systematically” press on with Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.

Flanked by four Russian tricolour flags on either side of him, Putin told Russia’s political and military elite that Russia would “carefully and consistently resolve the tasks facing us”.

Putin has warned the West against supplying additional military aid to Ukraine, saying such support will draw a military response from Moscow.

“One circumstance must be understood by everyone … The more long-range weapons arrive in Ukraine from the West, the more we will have to push the threat from our borders, that’s natural,” he said.

Russia’s president has again railed against the West, accusing it of seeking “unlimited power” in world affairs.

“The West uses Ukraine as a ram against Russia,” Putin said.

“The Western elite does not conceal their goal, which is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. It means to finish us forever and grow a local conflict into global opposition. That’s the way we understand it and accordingly, we will respond to that,” he added.

Putin also said Moscow was defying attempts by Ukraine’s allies to hamper its economy through an unprecedented package of sanctions.

He claimed trillions of dollars were at stake for the West, but that Russia’s income flows had not dried up.

Putin says Russia tried to settle the conflict in the Donbas region which had been simmering since early 2014 by peaceful means but was eventually forced to take action.

“We were doing everything possible to solve this problem peacefully, negotiating a peaceful way out of this difficult conflict, but behind our backs, a very different scenario was being prepared,” the Russian leader said.

Putin claimed that in February 2022, before Russia launched its invasion, “everything was prepared” by Ukraine’s government for punitive action in the Donbas, which lies in eastern Ukraine.

“I would like to repeat, they started the war, and we used force in order to stop it,” he said.

“Ukraine and Donbas have become a symbol of total lies,” Putin added. He also accused the West of withdrawing from “fundamental agreements” and expanding NATO eastwards to cover Russia “with an umbrella”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun his state of the nation speech in Moscow.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian leader would focus on what Moscow refers to as its “special military operation” in Ukraine and Russia’s economy and social issues.

Many observers also expect the speech to address Russia’s frosty relations with the West.

Belarus says there is a “significant grouping” of Ukrainian forces at its border.

“At present, a significant grouping of the Ukrainian army is concentrated in the immediate vicinity of the Belarusian-Ukrainian section of the state border,” the defence ministry said in a post on Telegram.

“The probability of armed provocations, which can escalate into border incidents, has been high for a long time,” it said.

Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the ministry’s claims.

Russia’s defence minister and chief of general staff are trying to destroy the Wagner private military company by depriving its fighters of munitions, the head of the mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said.

“There is simply direct opposition going on,” Prigozhin said in a voice message posted on his Telegram channel. He said it was “an attempt to destroy the Wagner”.

This is not the first time Prigozhin has criticised Russian officials as part of an ongoing rivalry with parts of Russia’s military elite.

In a seven-minute audio message posted on Monday by his press service, an apparently angry and emotional Prigozhin said he was required to “apologise and obey” to secure ammunition for his fighters.

One year ago, on February 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.

Check here Al Jazeera’s infographic mapping the major developments since then.

Moscow, Russia – As the first anniversary of the war approaches on Friday, Al Jazeera spoke to Pavel Felgenhauer, a Russian defence analyst who served as a senior research officer in the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Felgenhauer, who has published widely on Russian foreign and defence policies, military doctrine, arms trade and the military-industrial complex, believes the war is likely to escalate but could end this year.

According to him, after 12 months of bloody battles, “the intensity of the fighting is too high for it to be maintained for long”.

Read the full interview here.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is travelling to Kyiv on her first visit to the war-torn country, Italian news agency ANSA reports.

Her visit comes after Ukrainian leader Zelenskyy thanked Italy for the delivery of a new aid package and acknowledged that Rome’s support for Ukraine’s war effort has not changed.

The Italian government has been questioned over its stance towards the conflict due to a number of controversial comments made by one of Meloni’s coalition partners, ex-premier and Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi who blamed Zelenskyy for starting the war.

The European Commission is exploring leveraging the bloc’s budget to provide down payments to arms manufacturers to incentivise increased production, the Financial Times reported, citing people briefed on the plans.

Beijing is “deeply concerned” about the year-old conflict in Ukraine, which appeared to be “intensifying and even getting out of control”, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang said.

Beijing initiated a “no limits” partnership with Moscow shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February and has avoided using the word “invasion” or condemning Russian actions.

The US has warned of consequences if China provides military support to Russia, which Beijing said on Monday it was not doing.

“We urge certain countries to immediately stop fuelling the fire,” Qin said during a speech at the Lanting Forum on global security in Beijing, stressing that China would “work with the international community to promote dialogue and consultation, address the concerns of all parties and seek common security”.

Qin was speaking as top diplomat Wang Yi was expected in Moscow for possible talks with Putin.

President Joe Biden is set to consult with allies from NATO’s eastern flank in Poland, a day after he made an unannounced visit to Ukraine and met President Zelenskyy.

White House NSA Jake Sullivan said Biden would underscore in his Warsaw address that Russian President Putin wrongly surmised “that Ukraine would cower and that the West would be divided” when he launched his invasion.

“He got the opposite of that across the board,” Sullivan said.

The Polish president’s foreign affairs adviser has said Biden and Andrzej Duda will discuss reinforcing Poland’s security and increasing the NATO presence in the country.

President Vladimir Putin will update Russia’s elite on the war in Ukraine, nearly one year to the day since ordering what he calls a “special military operation” against Ukraine.

He will address members of both houses of parliament, military commanders and soldiers in central Moscow on Tuesday.

Putin insists Russia is locked in an existential battle with an arrogant West which he says wants to carve up Russia and steal its vast natural resources.

The West and Ukraine reject that narrative and say NATO expansion eastwards is no justification for what they say is an imperial-style land grab doomed to failure.