Ukraine updates: Moscow debuts new T-14 battle tanks

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has slammed the West for grossly speculating on Ukraine to distract the world from problems in the Middle East.

“It’s time for the West to report to the UN General Assembly for the sabotaged resolutions,” Lavrov said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council focusing on addressing tensions in the Middle East.

According to Russia’s state TASS news agency, the country’s top diplomat highlighted resolutions that have been sabotaged by the West. They include decisions on Palestine, the Golan Heights and the Iranian nuclear programme, among others.

Lavrov is chairing the UNSC since Russia holds the council’s monthly rotating presidency for April.

Medvedev has called Joe Biden a “desperate grandfather” after the United States President officially launched his campaign for re-election in 2024.

“In the place of the US military, I would immediately create a fake suitcase with fake nuclear codes in case he wins, in order to avoid irreparable consequences,” Medvedev said, according to Russia’s RIA state news agency.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Biden’s government has played a key role in supporting Kyiv and denouncing Russia’s actions.

At a speech in Poland earlier this year, Biden said that “the war in Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia”.

South Africa should quit the International Criminal Court (ICC) because of the court’s unfair treatment of certain countries President Cyril Ramaphosa has said.

His call comes a month after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on accusations that Russia unlawfully deported Ukrainian children.

That warrant would give South Africa the right to detain Putin when the city hosts the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) bloc summit later this year.

Speaking at a news conference co-hosted with the visiting Finnish president, Sauli Niinisto, on Putin’s arrest, Ramaphosa said “that matter is under consideration”.

Sweden is expelling five Russian diplomats who have allegedly breached the rules on diplomatic ties.

According to Swedish national broadcaster SVT, Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said the employees of the Russian embassy in Sweden have been asked to leave “as a result of activities that are incompatible with the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations”.

The UN’s Vienna Convention is an international agreement introduced in 1961 with regulations to help independent countries maintain relations.

The EU has launched a scheme for European companies to place joint orders to buy gas to ensure Europe has enough fuel in advance of a winter surge.

Companies will have until May 2 to register how much gas they want to buy through the scheme, excluding Russian gas.

The platform will then collect offers from global suppliers to match the companies’ demands.

The joint buying scheme was created due to the reduction in Russian gas shipments that have seen energy prices rise to eye-watering levels.

EU gas storage is already more than half full as mild weather curbed demand.

Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church and a close ally of President Putin, says Russians who fail to serve their country are “internal enemies”.

As part of a sermon at the Cathedral of the Archangel, he called for protection “from all those who do not associate their lives with Russia, who are ready to make money in Russia, but have never been ready to serve the fatherland”, according to the RIA news agency.

Kirill’s recent remarks appear to be aimed at Russians who have dodged the military draft or moved abroad after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A man who defected from the Wagner mercenary group while fighting in Ukraine has gone on trial in Norway due to a street fight.

Andrey Medvedev pleaded guilty to participating in a brawl outside a bar in February, resisting arrest and carrying an air gun three weeks later.

Medvedev, who is seeking asylum in Oslo and has previously spoken about his time fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine, denied assaulting officers at the police station in the early hours of February 22.

He said he was “very ashamed” of what had happened and explained his actions were instinctive to the pain he felt when taken out of a police van.

The Kremlin has reiterated that the Black Sea grain deal is not working for Moscow.

“Despite the fact that so much time has passed, [the deal] has not yet been implemented, it has not come together as a package, the conditions that concerned us have still not been realised,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Peskov downplayed the extent to which grain shortfalls from both countries had contributed to the global food crisis.

A senior Ukrainian official has said improving and extending a deal on the export of its grain can only succeed if the international community pressures Russia.

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, proposed a “way forward aimed at the improvement, extension and expansion” of the agreement in a letter to Putin.

“Guterres’ absolutely justified initiative can succeed only if the international community collectively pressures Russia,” Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukraine’s presidential adviser, said in written comments to the Reuters news agency.

“Ukraine, on the other hand, will continue to follow the agreements with Turkey and the UN and will continue to deliver grain cargoes to their destination, solving the problem of global food supply,” he added.

Ukraine’s presidential adviser has accused Russia of “hypocrisy” after the Russian foreign minister chaired a UN Security Council meeting on upholding the principles of the UN Charter on Monday.

Mikhail Podolyak wrote on Twitter: “An impeccable hypocrisy fair. Lavrov chairs the UNSC justifying war, mass killings, total destruction … with ‘international law’. RF [Russian Federation] plainly humiliates democracy, freedom, conventions. And? Interesting? Do you like being humiliated? Russia must be designated a sponsor of terrorism and expelled everywhere.”

An impeccable hypocrisy fair. Lavrov chairs the UNSC justifying war, mass killings, total destruction… with "international law". RF plainly humiliates democracy, freedom, conventions. And? Interesting? Do you like being humiliated? Russia must be designated a sponsor of…

— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) April 25, 2023

Russia may retreat from the moratorium on deploying intermediate and shorter-range missiles, TASS has reported.

Vladimir Yermakov, the foreign ministry’s head of nuclear non-proliferation, told the news agency Moscow would evaluate the range of US-made missiles that, he said, can reach the Asian-Pacific region.

“But even now, we can say with confidence that the destabilising US military programmes and their allies make our moratorium more and more fragile – both in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe,” Yermakov said.

Ukrainian forces on the western side of the Dnipro River are frequently carrying out raids on Russian troops on the eastern bank near the city of Kherson, a regional official says.

“The results will come as they did on the right bank of the Kherson region when, thanks to a complex and long operation, they were able to liberate our territories with minimal losses for our military,” the deputy head of the Kherson regional administration said, referring to a Ukrainian counteroffensive that took back parts of the southern region in November.

“The same thing happens now on the left bank.”

Ukraine is thought to be close to launching another counteroffensive through a land corridor between Russia and the Crimea Peninsula.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces hit a museum in Kupiansk, killing at least one person and wounding 10.

“So far, we know of a dead museum worker and 10 injured,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “There are more people under the rubble. The recovery from the shelling continues. All necessary agencies are involved.”

The president’s chief of staff and the regional governor said a Russian S-300 missile caused the damage.

The president posted a video of a badly damaged building spilling rubble and debris onto the street.

A new round of EU sanctions against Russia is under discussion, but they will not be adopted earlier than “deep into May”, Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau has said.

The Polish state-run news agency PAP cited Rau as saying: “You can’t expect anything sooner.”

Poland has presented a new set of sanctions against Russia, including a ban on pipeline oil and diamond imports.

The EU has adopted 10 sanctions packages against Russian individuals and companies, all aimed at Moscow’s economy and its ability to conduct the war, since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion 14 months ago.

Russia’s foreign ministry has expelled a Moldovan diplomat in retaliation for the removal of a Russian diplomat from Moldova last week.

The ministry said it had summoned Moldova’s ambassador in Moscow to announce the expulsion, as well as to protest against “unfriendly steps towards Russia” and “regular anti-Russian statements” from Chisinau.

A Moldovan government spokesman linked the expulsion of the Russian diplomat to the actions of embassy staff towards Moldovan border guards who had denied entry to a regional Russian politician at Chisinau airport.

Moldova has repeatedly accused Russia of trying to destabilise the country, something Moscow denies.

Dmitry Medvedev says the world is “probably” on the verge of a world war.

“The world is sick and quite probably is on the verge of a new world war,” said the Putin ally.

Medvedev said another world war was not inevitable but the risks of a nuclear confrontation were growing and becoming more severe than concerns about climate change.