Key events
A new military doctrine that for the first time provides for the use of nuclear weapons will be put forth by Belarus, its defence minister said on Tuesday according to the Associated Press.
“We clearly communicate Belarus’ views on the use of tactical nuclear weapons stationed on our territory,” defence minister, Viktor Khrenin said at a meeting of Belarus’ security council. “A new chapter has appeared, where we clearly define our allied obligations to our allies.”
The doctrine is to be presented for approval to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a representative body that operates in Belarus in parallel with the parliament. Belarus, closely allied with Russia, had both tactical and long-range nuclear weapons when it was part of the Soviet Union, but transferred them to Russia after the USSR’s collapse.
Russia sent tactical nuclear weapons to be stationed in Belarus last year, although there are no details about how many. Russia has said it will maintain control over those weapons, which are intended for battlefield use and have short ranges and comparatively low yields. It’s not immediately clear how the new doctrine might be applied to the Russian weapons.
Russia used Belarus territory as a springboard to send its troops into Ukraine in February 2022, and has maintained its military bases and weapons there, although Belarusian troops have not taken part in the war.
Security council secretary, Alexander Volfovich said that the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus is intended to deter aggression from Poland, a Nato member. “Unfortunately, statements by our neighbors, in particular Poland … forced us to strengthen” the military doctrine, he said.
A rights activist in Bashkortostan, a republic in central Russia, was sentenced to four years in a prison colony on Wednesday after a court found him guilty of inciting ethnic hatred, reports Reuters citing information from independent Russian-language news outlets.
According to the news agency, a video circulating on social media showed helmeted riot police with shields and truncheons confronting a large crowd of people who had gathered in support of the activist, Fail Alsynov.
Alsynov was accused of insulting migrant workers in a speech he made in April 2023 at a protest over plans to mine for gold in an area of Bashkortostan.
Large protests in Russia are extremely rare because of the risk of arrest over any gatherings the authorities deem to have been unauthorised. Thousands of people have been detained in the past two years for opposing the war in Ukraine.
Russia will open polling stations for its March presidential election at three diplomatic missions in the US, its envoy in Washington said on Wednesday, as relations dipped to an all-time low since the cold war over Ukraine.
The announcement, reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP), came as Moscow said it had not yet decided if voting would take place in what it calls “unfriendly” European countries.
Russia’s ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, said in an interview published by his embassy: “In the US, we plan to open three polling stations: in our embassy in New York, as well as our consulates in New York and in Houston.”
Thousands of Russians have fled their country after Moscow sent troops to Ukraine, with many residing in EU countries, but Russia has not yet decided if it will open voting stations in Europe. “We are asking countries to ensure security,” foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said last week. She said a decision would be made by the end of January.
The vote on 17 March is expected to extend Russian president Vladimir Putin’s long rule until at least 2030. He has been in power since 2000 and is running for a fifth presidential term. Putin faces no real competition in the election, which will take place more than two years since Russia launched its Ukraine offensive.
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war against Ukraine. Here are the main points:
At least 17 people were injured in a Russian strike, probably using two S-300 missiles, on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Tuesday evening, said the regional governor, Oleg Synegubov. Residential buildings were destroyed and there were no military targets in the area, said the Kharkiv mayor, Ihor Terekhov.
Earlier, authorities in the Kharkiv region in Ukraine’s north-east region urged residents of more than two dozen villages near the frontline to evacuate because of worsening Russian attacks.
Emmanuel Macron said he would go to Ukraine in February to finalise a bilateral security guarantee under which France would deliver more sophisticated weapons, including long-range cruise missiles. The French president said about 40 Scalp long-range missiles and hundreds of bombs would be delivered in the coming weeks. “We cannot let Russia win and we must not do that.”
North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, has held talks in the Kremlin with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. The US and allies have condemned North Korean missile deliveries to Russia for use against Ukraine, in breach of international law.
Ukraine’s border authorities said Polish truck drivers who had been blocking three crossings on the Polish-Ukrainian border had lifted all blockades, allowing traffic to pass freely. Poland’s infrastructure minister said that truckers would suspend their protest until 1 March after signing an agreement with the government.
The French company TotalEnergies said that it had invoked force majeure over investment in Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 liquefied natural gas project, which is under anti-war sanctions. Putin’s war against Ukraine has forced global energy companies to write off billions of dollars and leave Russia. Force majeure allows companies to abandon contractual obligations when there are factors beyond their control.
Ukraine’s parliament has passed a law creating an electronic registry for the purposes of mobilisation, according to Yaroslav Zhelezniak, an MP.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Europe needed to continue backing Kyiv. “We must continue to empower their resistance. Ukrainians need predictable financing throughout 2024 and beyond.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the west should show unity and called for more support for Ukraine to ensure that Russia does not prevail. In a speech in Davos, Zelenskiy said that the west’s fears about escalation had lost Kyiv time in its struggle against Russia.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said it was “impossible” to take away from Russia the military gains it had made in Ukraine.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said that “if we want to help Ukraine, which I think we need to do, we have to do it in a way that doesn’t harm the EU’s budget”. At least 120 MEPs have signed a petition for Hungary’s voting rights to be suspended because of Orbán’s obstruction of EU processes including the approval of aid to Ukraine. Orbán is close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.