Russia Ukraine war: Russian missile systems hit in Crimea as Kyiv faces drone assault – latest

Two Indian men recruited by the Russian army have been killed in Ukraine, India’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Russian forces fired missiles and drones at the Kyiv region and five other areas of Ukraine in a nighttime attack, officials said Wednesday, ahead of several days of intense diplomatic activity around the war that is now in its third year.

Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 29 out of 30 air targets, including four cruise missiles, one Kinzhal ballistic missile, and 24 Shahed drones. Several people were injured, authorities said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the air force’s response, calling it a “daily achievement.” He has repeatedly appealed to Ukraine’s Western partners to provide more air defense systems, and the United States has agreed to send another Patriot missile system, two U.S. officials said late Tuesday.

The most senior Ukrainian official in charge of reconstruction has resigned, bitterly complaining that his position was deliberately undermined by the Zelensky government, writes Kim Sengupta – such instability could prove deeply damaging:

President Joe Biden headed to Italy on Wednesday for a summit of the world’s leading democracies with an urgency to get big things done, including turning frozen Russian assets into billions of dollars to help Ukraine as it fights off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

This year’s Group of Seven summit comes three years after Biden declared at his first such gathering that America was back as a global leader following the disruptions to Western alliances that occurred when Donald Trump was president. Now, there’s a chance this gathering could be the final G7 for Biden and other G7 leaders, depending on the results of elections this year.

Biden and his counterparts from Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan will use the summit to discuss challenges related to the spread of artificial intelligence, migration, the Russian military’s resurgence and China’s economic might, among other topics. Pope Francis, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are joining the gathering at the Borgo Egnazia resort in the Puglia region of southern Italy.

The summit, which opens Thursday, will play out after far-right parties across the continent racked up gains of surprising scale in just-concluded European Union elections. Those victories, coupled with upcoming elections in the United Kingdom, France and the United States, have rattled the global political establishment and added weightiness to this year’s summit.

Germany’s defence minister presented a proposal for a new voluntary military service to boost its depleted armed forces in the face of tensions with Russia and following opposition from within the government to a return to conscription.

The proposal is part of Germany’s shift towards a more robust foreign and defence policy, announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz as a “Zeitenwende” or “turn of era” in the days after Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorus said on Wednesday all men would be obliged to fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability for, and interest in, military service upon turning 18, while this would be optional for women.

It would then select a group for mustering before choosing the most suitable and motivated to undertake the six-month basic service – with an option to lengthen this by up to 17 months.

This new model aims to increase the number of young people undertaking voluntary military service per year by 5,000 to 15,000, the ministry said, boosting reserves so as to be able to quickly expand troop numbers in the event of war.

“The aim is to grow this number year by year to increase capacity,” Pistorius told reporters, adding the aim was to eventually achieve 200,000 more reservists.

The model is similar to the Swedish one, introduced in 2018, which aimed to enhance the status of military service through a degree of exclusivity.

The US treasury said it was targeting shell companies in Hong Kong for diverting semiconductors to Russia, taking steps that would affect nearly $100 million of high-priority items for Moscow including such chips.

“Today’ actions strike at their remaining avenues for international materials and equipment, including their reliance on critical supplies from third countries,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

“We are increasing the risk for financial institutions dealing with Russia’s war economy and eliminating paths for evasion, and diminishing Russia‘s ability to benefit from access to foreign technology, equipment, software, and IT services,” she said. “Every day, Russia continues to mortgage its future to sustain its unjust war of choice against Ukraine.”

The United States on Wednesday dramatically broadened sanctions on Russia, including by targeting China-based companies selling semiconductors to Moscow, as part of its effort to undercut the Russian military machine waging war on Ukraine.

Among the steps, the U.S. Treasury said it was raising “the risk of secondary sanctions for foreign financial institutions that deal with Russia‘s war economy,” effectively threatening them with losing access to the U.S. financial system.

It also said it was moving to restrict the Russian military industrial base’s ability to exploit certain U.S. software and information technology (IT) services and, with the State Department, targeting more than 300 individuals and entities in Russia and beyond, including in Asia, Europe and Africa.

A Russian missile attack on Ukraine‘s city of Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday killed six people and injured 11 others, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Every day and every hour, Russian terror proves that Ukraine, together with its partners, should strengthen air defences,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday announced new sanctions on over 300 entities and individuals aimed at cutting off Russia‘s access to products and services needed to sustain military production for its war in Ukraine, including dozens of Chinese suppliers.

U.S. officials have expressed increasing concern over Russia‘s ability to procure advanced semiconductors, optical equipment and other goods needed to produce advanced weapons systems despite prior sanctions.

The sanctions target third party firms and entities, including dozens of suppliers of electronics in China. The action stops short of imposing secondary sanctions on banks in China and other countries where Treasury has warned that dealings with Russian entities could cut institutions off from dollar access.

But the Treasury did say it was modifying the sanctions on previously targeted Russian banks, including VTB and Sberbank, to include branches and subsidiaries in China, India, Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan and other locations.

Russian navy ships churned into Havana harbor on Wednesday, a stopover the U.S. and Cuba said posed no threat but which was widely seen as a Russian show of force as tensions rise over the Ukraine war.

Small groups of fishermen and curious onlookers lined the Malecon seafront boulevard in light rain to welcome the ships as they passed the 400-year old Morro castle at the harbor’s entrance.

The first to arrive was a fuel ship, the “Akademik Pashin” and a tug, the “Nikolay Chiker,” while a Russian navy frigate and nuclear powered submarine waited offshore and were expected to enter the harbor by mid-morning.

The frigate and submarine, part of the group of four Russian vessels that arrived off Cuba on Wednesday, had conducted missile drills in the Atlantic Ocean en route to the island, Russia‘s defence ministry said the previous day.

Cuba said last week that the visit was standard practice by naval vessels from countries friendly to Havana. The communist-run government’s foreign ministry said the ships carried no nuclear weapons, something echoed by U.S. officials.

“We have been monitoring the ships’ paths closely,” a U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity late on Tuesday. “At no point have the ships or submarine posed a direct threat to the United States.”