Ukraine-Russia war LIVE – WW3 threats SPIKE as Germany sends tanks to Kyiv & Kremlin says it’s at war with NATO

My college Joe Gamp is now taking over the blog. He’ll be bringing you the latest news and updates until 10pm tonight.

Before I log off, I’ll leave you with a summary of the news from this morning:

• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has warned there is a “real” danger of a third world war breaking out
• Russian forces still blocking Ukrainians at Mariupol steel plant, according to Ukraine’s Armed Forces
• Head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, is in Moscow and will meet with both the Russian foreign minister and Vladimir Putin today
• UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has announced today that Britain will send more ambulances and fire engines to Ukraine
  • Liz Truss has also said said the UK wants new international agreement to make the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war a “red line”.
• Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, has imposed a nighttime curfew where civilians are being told not to walk the streets between 10pm and 5am this week 
• Russian forces have set up a “concentration camp” in the city of Vovchansk, where civilians are being ‘tortured’ claims the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office

Russian forces still blocking Ukrainians at Mariupol steel plant

According to the latest update from Ukraine’s Armed Forces, its troops are still holed up alongside civilians at the Azovstal plant in the southern city of Mariupol.

It said Russian soldiers are continuing to blockade the complex.

This is where the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol remains, as the rest of the port city is now under Russian control.

For context, over the weekend Ukrainian authorities said the plant was being “continuously attacked”.

Liz Truss sexual violence should be seen as the same as ‘use of chemical weapons’

The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has condemned the “appalling reports” on the use of rape by Russian forces.

She told MPs that the UK was working to collect evidence to “make sure the perpetrators are brought to justice”.

Liz Truss said the UK wants new international agreement to make the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war a “red line”, telling the Commons: “It needs to be regarded in the same way as the use of chemical weapons.”

‘Russian expulsion of Swedish diplomats unjustified’

Russia has decided to expel four Swedish diplomats, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in a post on Twitter today.

“The Russian action is unmotivated and disproportionate,” Linde said. “Sweden will respond in a suitable manner to Russia’s unjustified action.”

UN general secretary in Moscow

The head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, is in Moscow today to meet both the Russian foreign minister and Vladimir Putin.

Earlier he spoke to Sergei Lavrov about the need for a ceasefire.

Guterres said: “We are extremely interested in finding ways in order to create the conditions for effective dialogue, create the conditions for a ceasefire as soon as possible, create the conditions for a peaceful solution”, he told the foreign minister.

The head of the UN is due to meet Vladimir Putin later today.

UK to send more ambulances to Ukraine

The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has just announced that Britain will send more ambulances and fire engines to Ukraine.

Taking to Twitter, she wrote that she – alongside the Prime Minister – has decided that the UK is ‘funding frontline medical expertise’ to Ukraine.

U.N. expecting 8.3m refugees from Ukraine this year

The U.N. refugee agency is expecting some 8.3 million people to flee Ukraine this year, revising up its previous projection, a spokesperson told a news briefing today, reports Reuters.

Shabia Mantoo said that more than 12.7 million people had fled their homes since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago, including 7.7 million people displaced internally and more than 5 million who have fled over borders.

Ukrainian MP calls for more weapons to be sent

Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko has called for countries to send more weapons to her country, tweeting: “We say again and again: weapon, weapons, weapons! We need weapons to keep standing and defending the values of humankind.”

The message comes after a meeting has been planned at the Ramstein air base today, which will see defence ministers and defence chiefs of a large number of nations meet to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

‘My bathroom is the last bit of my flat Putin hasn’t blitzed’

A GRAN trapped near Ukraine’s front line has been forced to sleep on a chair in her bathroom as it is the only room in her bomb-blitzed flat protected from shelling.

Vera Hurovaya and hubby Vladimir Krupenya live in the last block of flats left on the edge of Kharkiv.

Neighbours have fled the Saltivka district, a wasteland due to non-stop Russian bombardments.

But Vera, 73, and Vlad, 83, have nowhere to go. The exhausted pair told The Sun they had slept on wooden stools in the cramped, candlelit bathroom since Vladimir Putin’s troops invaded on February 24.

Their besieged home overlooking no-man’s land is just 2½ miles from Russia’s positions.

They cannot even lie in their bath as they keep it full of water for drinking, cooking and washing as the taps rarely work.

And they are too frail to make the life-or-death dash to an underground shelter as rockets, missiles and tank bombardments crash in day and night.

Their heartwrenching tale came as Russian forces blasted five railway stations in central and western Ukraine hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken travelled by rail to capital Kyiv.

Read the article in full here.

Mum of captured Brit slams Facebook for refusing to take disturbing video down

THE mum of captured British soldier Aiden Aslin slammed Facebook for refusing to take down disturbing video of him being taunted with the death penalty.

Aiden, 28, was taken prisoner during the siege of Mariupol after volunteering to fight alongside the Ukrainian Army.

British journalist Graham Phillips released a video showing PoW Aiden bruised and bloodied.

It has been removed by YouTube but is still available on Facebook and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Aiden’s mum Angie Wood has pleaded with the social media giant to remove it.

She told TalkTV: “Facebook hasn’t responded to hundreds of people who’ve reported it. It shouldn’t be allowed. It’s a propaganda video.”

She described Phillips — who used to work for the Russia Today TV channel — as “sick” and said he should be prosecuted for war crimes when he returns to the UK.

She added: “He’s getting paid while promoting it on to Facebook — and making money out of people who are suffering.”

Kyiv imposes nighttime curfew

In Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv, civilians are being told not to walk the streets between 10pm and 5am this week. 

The curfew has gone into effect until Friday because of Russia’s “provocative actions”, the head of Kyiv’s Regional Military Administration has said. 

“During martial law, it is important to adhere to the requirements and decisions that are implemented on the ground. Such measures help protect the population from the provocative actions of the enemy,” Oleksandr Pavliuk said.

Russia pummels Ukraine – killing at least 560 fighters

Russia pummelled Ukraine with missiles, aircraft and artillery overnight, killing at least 560 Ukrainian fighters and destroying dozens of armoured vehicles, rocket systems and other military equipment, Ukraine’s defence ministry said.

Russian aircraft struck 87 different military installations while rockets and artillery rained down on Ukrainian positions, destroying S-300 missile systems, a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile system, BUK-M1 and Osa-AKM missile systems.

“About 500 enemy personnel, 59 armored vehicles, artillery guns and cars were destroyed, as well as more than 60 militants of the nationalist ‘Donbas’ group in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the defence ministry said.

‘UK supports Western weapons being used to strike Russian military targets’

The UK’s armed forces minister James Heappey said earlier he believes it is legitimate for Western weapons to be used by Ukraine to strike military targets inside Russia to “disrupt their logistics and supply lines”.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “The question is: is it acceptable for our weapons systems to be used against legitimate Russian military targets by the Ukrainians? Firstly it’s the Ukrainians who take the targeting decision, not the people who manufacture or export the kit in the first place.

“And secondly, it is entirely legitimate to go after military targets in the depth of your opponent to disrupt their logistics and supply lines. Just as to be frank, providing the Russians don’t target civilians, which unfortunately they’ve not taken too much regard for thus far, it is perfectly legitimate for them to be striking targets in western Ukraine to disrupt Ukrainian supply lines. That is very much a part of war.”

Trump claims he ‘threatened Putin like he’s never been threatened before’

DONALD Trump has claimed that during his administration, he threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin “like he’s never been threatened before”.

Speaking to Piers Morgan on TalkTV last night, the former US President agreed when asked if Mr Putin was a genocidal monster.

He also claimed that the conflict would’ve been avoided had he been in office.

And when Mr Morgan asked what he had previously said to Mr Putin, he said: “I threatened him like he’s never been threatened before.

“We have a war that would have never happened if I was president.”

Mr Trump said he thought the war was “terrible”, adding: “We’re going to be ashamed at what we’ve done, or what we haven’t done to stop this catastrophe.

“This is a catastrophe. This is in a way already a world war.”

Asked to elaborate on how he would’ve dealt with Mr Putin, he added: “I would say we have far more nuclear weapons than you do, far more powerful than you and you can’t use that word ever again.

“You cannot use the nuclear word ever again. And if you do, we’re going to have problems.”

Two radio antenna that relayed Russian radio destroyed

Reports are emerging as the ministry of internal affairs in Transnistria says that two radio antenna that relayed Russian radio have been destroye in Transnistria.

Reuters quotes the ministry saying: “In the early morning of 26 April, two explosions occurred in the village of Maiac, Grigoriopol district: the first at 6.40 and the second at 7.05”

No residents were injured, the ministry said.

Ukraine claims civilians are being ‘tortured’

The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office has claimed that Russian forces have set up a “concentration camp” in the city of Vovchansk – and has urged for an investigation to take place.

The prosecutor’s office said “peaceful residents” are being “tortured” with “physical and mental violence” at the alleged camp, which was set up on the premises of a factory.

Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the Kharkiv regional administration, also said the invaders had plundered the contents of the factory and taken it to Russia.

He said the Russians had set up “a real concentration camp, where people are subjected to torture, forced to collaborate, join the Russian Federation armed forces”.

The wider international community, not NATO, is providing military support to Ukraine, British armed forces minister James Heappey said on Tuesday after Russia’s foreign minister said the Western alliance was engaged in a proxy war with Russia.

“The donor community is not NATO,” Heappey told Sky News when asked about Sergei Lavrov’s comments.

“The donor effort is something that has been brought together by countries that are yes, many of them are from NATO, but others are from beyond … it is not NATO that is doing the military aid.”