Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

The future world order is being chosen today, Russia’s foreign minister stated Monday, including that Moscow has actually irritated the West’s strategies “to isolate, and even dismember” the nation.

Speaking at a conference of local agents of his ministry on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that “at the moment, the configuration of the future world order is being decided.”

“[This determines] Russia’s location in the democratic, reasonable, polycentric system that is being formed now and for which there is no and can not be an option,” he stated according to remarks reported by news firm Tass.

“I want to emphasize that we managed not only to disrupt the plans of the collective West to isolate, and even dismember Russia, but also to ensure ongoing cooperation with the overwhelming majority of members of the international community. We now call it the world majority,” he stated in remarks equated by Google.

Lavrov pointed out closer ties with nations like China and India and “many other international partners” consisting of post-Soviet states like Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and the BRICS countries (that include Brazil and South Africa).

Lavrov’s remarks parrot comparable remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday in which he stated the West wishes to beat and divide Russia.

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy applauded Saudi Arabia on Sunday following a top-level diplomatic see that saw the Middle Eastern kingdom, an ally of Russia offered their oil production ties, promise a $400 million help bundle to Ukraine.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Andriy Yermak, head of the workplace of the president of Ukraine, existed at an event in which an arrangement and memorandum of comprehending worth $400 countless help to Ukraine, which Saudi Arabia at first vowed last October, were signed.

The arrangement consists of a joint cooperation program for supplying humanitarian help from the Kingdom to Ukraine worth $100 million, Saudi’s state press firm stated.

“The signing of the agreement and the MoU reflects the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to supporting Ukraine and its people in facing the social and economic challenges that the country is going through and contributing to alleviating the effects resulting from it,” the firm included.

Zelenskyy stated in his nighttime address Sunday that he had a great conference with the kingdom’s foreign minister, the very first top-level main see by an agent of Saudi Arabia.

“Of course, we are working on a higher level of visits and relations. But now we have finally reached an interaction,” Zelenskyy stated.

“This … brings concrete and sensitive results for Ukrainians, in particular with regard to the release of prisoners of war. I thank our Saudi partners for their cooperation and assistance,” he included.

— Holly Ellyatt

A series of current, unusual surges in Mariupol, a southern port city in Ukraine that Russia took last May after an extended siege, is most likely to be disconcerting Russia, according to Britain’s Ministry of Defense.

“Since 21 February 2023, pro-Russian officials have reported at least 14 explosions around the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol,” the ministry stated in an intelligence upgrade on Twitter Monday.

“Sites of the incidents have included an ammo cache at the airport, two fuel depots, and a steel works that Russia uses as a military base,” the ministry included, keeping in mind that the surges have actually happened regardless of Mariupol being at least 50 miles far from the cutting edge.

“Although widely devastated earlier in the war, Mariupol is important to Russia because it is the largest city Russia captured in 2022 that it still controls, and sits on a key logistics route.”

The ministry kept in mind that Russia “will likely be concerned that unexplained explosions are occurring in a zone it had probably previously assessed as beyond the range of routine Ukrainian strike capabilities.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukraine’s flying force stated the nation was targeted by a series of drone attacks over night.

“On the night of February 27, the enemy attacked Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed-type attack drones from the north,” the Air Force stated in a Telegram upgrade Monday.

It stated approximately 14 unmanned aerial automobiles were introduced which air defense groups ruined 11 of them.

Russia has actually let loose several drone strikes on Ukraine, with much of the nation’s energy facilities harmed by drone attacks. Iran at first rejected providing drones to Russia however in November it acknowledged for the very first time that it provided Moscow with the UAVs, however stated they had actually been sent out to Russia prior to the war in Ukraine.

— Holly Ellyatt

A Russian A-50 security military airplane was harmed in a drone attack at an airfield near the Belarus capital of Minsk on Sunday, Belarus partisans and members of the banished opposition stated.

“Those were drones. The participants of the operation are Belarusian,” Aliaksandr Azarov, leader of Belarusian anti-government company BYPOL, was estimated as stating on the organisation’s Telegram messaging app and on the Poland- based Belsat news channel.

“They are now safe, outside the country.”

Belsat is a Polish broadcaster concentrated on Belarusian news that Minsk has actually branded extremist. BYPOL, that includes previous police officers who support opposition political leaders, has actually been branded a terrorist company.

Franak Viacorka, an advisor to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya stated in a post on Twitter it was the most effective act of sabotage considering that the start of 2022.

Reuters was unable to separately confirm the reports. There was no instant reaction from the defence ministries of Russia and Belarus to an ask for remark.

Front and main parts of the airplane in addition to the radar antenna were harmed as an outcome of 2 surges in the attack at the Machulishchy air base near Minsk, BYPOL reported.

The Beriev A-50 airplane, which has the NATO reporting name of Mainstay, is a Russian air-borne early caution airplane, with air-borne command and control abilities, and the capability to track approximately 60 targets at a time.

Since the start of Russia’s intrusion of Ukraine a year back, there have actually been a number of acts of sabotage in Belarus and in Russian areas surrounding Ukraine, specifically on the train system.

— Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated Moscow needs to take into consideration NATO’s nuclear abilities and declared once again that the West wishes to get rid of Russia.

“Where the leading NATO countries have proclaimed their main goal to be the strategic defeat of Russia, in order for our people ‘to suffer’ as they put it, how, in these conditions, could we not take into account their nuclear potential?,” Putin asked throughout an interview with Pavel Zarubin on the Rossiya -1 television channel on Sunday, according to an NBC translation.

Putin stated the West is complicit in “crimes” being devoted by Ukraine by providing the nation with weapons which completion objective is to ruin and divide Russia.

“They have one goal – to destroy what was the Soviet Union and it’s central part – the Russian Federation. After that they may indeed accept us into the so-called ” household of civilized countries”, but only separately, each part separately. Why? To order around these parts and to put them under their control,” Putin stated, declaring that strategies to ruin the Russian individuals are “on paper,” without providing proof.

Putin has actually consistently blamed the West for beginning the dispute inUkraine In a speech recently ahead of the very first anniversary of the start of the war, Putin attempted to validate Russia’s intrusion by declaring it has actually been trying to permit people in the objected to Donbas area in eastern Ukraine to speak their “own language.”

— Holly Ellyatt