Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia warns Nato drills at Finland border ‘risk possible military incidents’

The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, are holding a press conference in Berlin, in which they will discuss funding for Ukraine.

You can watch the live feed here:

This handout photograph published on Wednesday on the official Telegram account of the Smolensk regional governor Vasily Anokhin, reportedly shows a firefighter working to extinguish a fire at an oil depot in the Smolensk region.

Ukrainian drones attacked oil facilities in western Russia overnight, defence sources in Kyiv confirmed on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Officials in the western Russian regions of Smolensk and Lipetsk first announced the attacks, blaming Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles for starting blazes at energy sites.

“The fire is localised. There is no threat of its spread beyond the facilities,” Smolensk regional governor Vasily Anokhin said in a later post on social media, according to AFP.

He distributed images of first responders in helmets at the scene of the attack dousing flames as plumes of black smoke billowed over the site. No one was wounded or killed, the governor said.

Another drone attack targeted the Lipetsk region farther south, which houses metallurgical and pharmaceutical sites, governor Igor Artamonov said.

A source in the Ukrainian defence sector confirmed to AFP that drones of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had carried out the attacks.

The source made no mention of the attack on Lipetsk but claimed two oil depots were destroyed in the Smolensk region.

“Rosneft lost two storage and pumping bases for fuels and lubricants in the towns of Yartsevo and Rozdorovo,” the source said, referring to the Russian state-controlled energy company.

Russian forces have made significant advances in a narrow corridor in eastern Ukraine as an offensive by Moscow to take territory before western military aid arrives appears to be gathering pace.

Footage posted by Kremlin military bloggers shows a Russian tricolour flying above the shattered village of Ocheretyne. Russian troops reportedly entered the territory on Sunday, north-west of the town of Avdiivka, after advancing about 5km in 10 days.

It comes as Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it was suspending consular services for military-age men living abroad, except for those heading back to Ukraine, in a move designed to increase conscription.

The Ukrainian army retreated from Avdiivka in February and has been trying to establish a new defensive line in settlements along the Durna River but in recent weeks reinforced Russian units have been pushing forward, using air-launched glide bombs to pulverise Ukrainian bunkers.

Moscow’s defence ministry claimed Ukrainian troops fled Ocheretyne in small groups and under heavy fire. Video showed a destroyed administration building, with its windows blown out and streets full of debris. Civilians appeared to have left.

You can read more of the report by Luke Harding and Dan Sabbagh in Kyiv here:

According to a report by the Associated Press (AP), the priest who oversaw a memorial service for late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been suspended for three years by the head of the country’s Orthodox Church.

Dmitry Safronov held a memorial service at Navalny’s gravesite in Moscow on 26 March to mark 40 days since the politician’s death, an important ritual within Russian Orthodox tradition.

The AP reports that an order on the Moscow diocese website demoted Safronov from his position as priest to that of a psalm-reader and stripped him of the right to give blessings or to wear a cassock for the next three years.

According to the news agency, no reason was given for the decision, which was signed by Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a key ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Nato exercises starting on 26 April in Finland and in close proximity to the Russian-Finnish border are provocative in nature, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, told RIA state news agency in remarks published on Wednesday.

“Nato military exercises near the Russian borders are provocative in nature. Their task is to exert military pressure on the Russian Federation through a demonstration of force,” Zakharova said, reports Reuters.

“The drills … increase the risks of possible military incidents,” added Zakharova.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia would further expand its “buffer zone” inside Ukraine if Kyiv takes delivery of longer-range Atcams missiles from the US that allow it to strike deeper inside Russia, reports Reuters.

The US is preparing a $1bn military aid package for Ukraine, the first to be sourced from the yet to be signed $95bn foreign aid bill, two US officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

When asked about the possibility that the package would include longer-range Atcams missiles, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s stance on the subject – that it will be forced to expand what it calls a buffer zone in Ukraine if longer-range missiles are delivered – had not changed.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday dismissed media speculation about the reasons behind the arrest of deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov on bribery charges, and urged reporters to focus on official information, reports Reuters.

Asked about a report that Ivanov was suspected of treason, Peskov said: “There are many different interpretations around all this now.”

“You need to focus on official information,” Peskov said. “It is necessary to focus on the information of the investigative authorities and, ultimately, on the court’s decision.”

Pjotr Sauer is a Russian affairs reporter for the Guardian.

A well-connected Russian deputy defence minister has been charged with bribe-taking, in the highest-profile corruption scandal in the country in years, triggering speculation about a possible purge within Moscow’s elites.

Timur Ivanov, 47, who was responsible for Russia’s military infrastructure projects, was detained by the FSB services late on Tuesday evening at his work.

On Wednesday, Ivanov, wearing his military uniform, appeared behind a glass cage in a Moscow court, where he was formally arrested and charged with high bribery. The court remanded him in custody for two months and placed him in the high-security Lefortovo prison in Moscow. He faces 15 years in jail if convicted.

Ivanov was widely seen as a long-term confidant of the powerful defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, having worked with Shoigu across various agencies for more than a decade.

The sudden arrest of an ally of Shoigu, who in turn Putin tasked with fighting the war in Ukraine, sparked speculations about a battle within the elite and of a public crackdown on the corruption that has plagued Russia’s post-Soviet armed forces.

“It is hard to find an official who has done more for Shoigu than Ivanov,” said a former defence official who worked directly with Ivanov, asking for anonymity so they could speak freely.

“This is an attack on Shoigu’s standing. But Shoigu has weathered other storms before.”

The UK has been accused of “helping Russia pay for its war on Ukraine” by continuing to import record amounts of refined oil from countries processing Kremlin fossil fuels.

Government data analysed by the environmental news site Desmog shows that imports of refined oil from India, China and Turkey amounted to £2.2bn in 2023, the same record value as the previous year, up from £434.2m in 2021.

Russia is the largest crude oil supplier to India and China, while Turkey has become one of the biggest importers of Russian oil since the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

This comes as Russia is increasingly targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, with only a few major power plants not yet damaged or destroyed. UK politicians have been lobbying the US to approve £60bn in military aid for Ukraine, which finally passed on 20 April. The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has been advocating for frozen Russian assets to be deployed to Ukraine’s war effort.

In response to the 2022 invasion, allies of Ukraine pledged to divest from Russian oil and gas. The UK officially banned the import of Russian oil products from 5 December 2022. However, a loophole in the legislation has allowed Russian oil to continue to flow into the UK.

You can read the full piece by Sam Bright here:

The Ukrainian online newspaper, the Kyiv Independent, says its sources have told them that Russia’s state-controlled company Rosneft “lost two storage and pumping bases for fuel and lubricants in Yartsevo and Razdorovo in Smolensk oblast” on Wednesday.

The Kyiv Independent has also shared a screengrab from footage circulating on social media of what was purported to be a burning oil terminal in Yartsevo.

The Guardian could not independently verify the image or footage.