The US and its allies, over a two-month period, confiscated 5,000 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammunition, with the intention to send them to Ukraine. Collaborative efforts between the Justice Department and defense officials have sought to transfer weapons.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told the US House Foreign Affairs Committee that Russian forces are deliberately using rape, torture and kidnapping to terrorise civilians, as survivors described their ordeals and lawmakers discussed holding Russia accountable.
China’s military is ready to work with the Russian military to strengthen strategic communication and coordination, including through joint patrols and exercises, a Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson said, a week after Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit to Moscow.
A majority of Europeans, 65%, believe Ukraine should join the European Union in the coming years, according to a survey of about 13,000 people by the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s eupinions project, which also found strong support for arms deliveries and cutting Russian energy.
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine, obliging its 123 member states to arrest him if he enters their territory. The Kremlin called it null and void.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the creation of an International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, to be based in The Hague within Eurojust, as a first step towards holding Russia’s leadership to account.
A Russian military victory in Ukraine would embolden Beijing and lead to war between the US and China over Taiwan, exiled Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky told The Washington Post ahead of remarks at the Munich Security Conference, urging the West to give Ukraine jets.
The US has confronted China with evidence suggesting some Chinese state-owned companies may be providing non-lethal military and economic assistance to Russia’s war in Ukraine, as it tries to determine whether Beijing is aware of their activities, Bloomberg reports.
The eighth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group opened at the Ramstein air base in Germany with defence leaders from about 50 countries, as US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called it a decisive moment for Ukraine and for the whole world amid a debate on tanks.
Supplies of Iranian missiles to Russia would be a red line, and crossing it would lead Ukraine to use its entire toolkit of pressure on Tehran, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, warning Iran that the costs of such cooperation would far outweigh any possible benefits.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has called on Muslims around the world to unite against NATO, warning that otherwise the alliance will come to trample their homelands, in a Telegram message published in Chinese that also cast Russia’s war in Ukraine as a fight against evil.
The US will concentrate on stopping Iranian weapons supplies to Russia and on supporting protesters in Iran rather than on stalled talks to revive the nuclear deal, US special envoy Robert Malley said, warning that supplying missiles to Moscow would cross new lines.
