Ukraine negotiations to resume, Europe faces Russia gas deadline

The peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations are scheduled to resume by video conference late on Friday, with both sides seeking to bolster their positions more than a month after Moscow announced a “special military operation” in the former Soviet state.

The negotiations take place at a time that Russian President Vladimir Putin, playing one of his biggest cards, demanded European energy buyers start paying in roubles from April 1 or have existing contracts halted.

European governments rejected Putin’s energy ultimatum, with the continent’s biggest recipient of Russian gas, Germany, calling it “blackmail.”

The Russian leader announced the start of the military operation on February 24 to demilitarize Donetsk and Lugansk, largely populated by ethnic Russians, in eastern Ukraine. In 2014, the two regions – collectively known as the Donbas – declared themselves new republics.

The United States and its European allies have labeled the military campaign as “Putin’s land grab”, imposing unprecedented waves of sweeping sanctions.

Russia says will respond to EU sanctions

The Moscow-based RIA news agency cited the country’s senior foreign ministry official as saying on Friday that Russia will respond to European Union sanctions and that the 27-nation bloc might realize that a confrontation with Moscow is not in its interests.

“The actions of the EU will not remain unanswered… the irresponsible sanctions by Brussels are already negatively affecting the daily lives of ordinary Europeans,” Nikolai Kobrinets told the news agency.

The RIA news agency also quoted the Russian foreign ministry official as saying that Moscow will not ask the European Union to end sanctions as it has a sufficient “margin of safety.”

“The European Union is not the center of the universe,” Kobrinets added.

Putin ally warns agriculture supplies could be limited to ‘friends’

One of Putin’s allies warned on Friday that Russia, a major global wheat exporter, could limit supplies of agriculture products to “friendly” countries amid Western sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said he would like to outline “some simple but important points about food security in Russia,” given the sanctions imposed.

Most of them have been part of the country’s agricultural policy for years.

“We will only be supplying food and agriculture products to our friends,” Medvedev said on social media. “Fortunately we have plenty of them, and they are not in Europe or North America at all.”

The priority in the food supply is Russia’s domestic market and price control within it, Medvedev said, adding that agriculture supplies to “friends” will be both in roubles and their national currency in an agreed proportion.

Russia already supplies wheat mainly to Africa and the Middle East. The European Union and Ukraine are their main competitors in the wheat trade.

Russia bans EU leadership

Also on Thursday, Russia said it plans to expand the list of EU figures banned from entering the country following Western sanctions over Moscow’s military actions in Ukraine.

“The restrictions apply to the top leadership of the European Union including a number of European commissioners and heads of EU military structures as well as the vast majority of members of the European Parliament promoting anti-Russian policies,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Others include “high-ranking officials… as well as public figures and media workers who are personally responsible for promoting illegal anti-Russian sanctions, inciting Russophobic sentiment and infringing the rights and freedoms of the Russian-speaking population,” the statement added.

The ministry said the EU delegation in Moscow had been informed, adding that “any hostile sanctions” from the EU and its members would elicit a “harsh response.”

US slaps sanctions on Russian tech firms

The US administration hit a series of Russian tech firms with sanctions on Thursday, including the country’s largest chip maker, with the US Treasury saying the bans targeted networks and technology companies that were “instrumental” to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

Mikron, the largest Russian manufacturer, and exporter of microelectronics was among 21 entities and 13 individuals listed for penalties, including the blocking of any property in the United States.

“Russia not only continues to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine with its unprovoked aggression but also has escalated its attacks striking civilians and population centers,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed.

“We will continue to target Putin’s war machine with sanctions from every angle until this senseless war of choice is over,” she added.

Also named were AO NII-Vektor, a software and communication technology firm, hardware sector company T-Platforms as well as Molecular Electronics Research Institute (MERI), which does work for the Russian government, Treasury said.

As a result of the sanctions, all US property of the targeted people and firms is blocked and must be reported to the US government.

The penalties also take aim at Moscow-based OOO Serniya Engineering, which the Treasury said is at the center of a network that seeks to evade sanctions by working to hide final users of “critical Western technology,” such as Russian intelligence and military agencies.

A series of people alleged to be working on behalf of Serniya were named in the US Treasury sanctions list.

EU to push China at the summit to not help Russia in Ukraine war

EU and Chinese leaders met for their first summit in two years on Friday, with Brussels pressing Beijing for assurances that it will neither supply Russia with arms nor help Moscow circumvent Western sanctions.

EU officials said any help given to Russia would damage China’s international reputation and jeopardize relations with its biggest trade partners — Europe and the United States.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated China’s call for peace talks this week, adding that the legitimate concerns of all sides should be accommodated.

China has concerns that European countries are taking harder-line foreign policy cues from the United States and has called for the EU to “exclude external interference” from its relations with China.

Lavrov lobbies India amid case for sanctions

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a meeting with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi on Friday after seeing his Chinese counterpart earlier in the week, as Moscow tries to keep the Asian powers on its side amid Western sanctions.

“We appreciate that India is taking this situation in the entirety of facts and not just in a one-sided way,” Lavrov said in his opening remarks during a meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

Lavrov’s mission to shore up support from a country Moscow has long regarded as a friend comes a day after senior US and British officials held talks in New Delhi to persuade the Indian government to avoid undermining sanctions imposed on Russia.

India and China are the only major countries to have not condemned Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.

US warns India against unreliable Russia

The US has warned India against warming up to Russia, ahead of a visit by Moscow’s top diplomat to press New Delhi to resist Western pressure.

Daleep Singh, Washington’s chief sanctions strategist, was quoted by local media in a visit to Delhi as saying that India could not rely on Russia if there was another clash.

“Russia is going to be the junior partner in this relationship with China. And the more leverage that China gains over Russia, the less favorable that is for India,” Singh was quoted as saying on Thursday.

“I don’t think anyone would believe that if China once again breached the Line of (Actual) Control, that Russia would come running to India’s defense,” he said, referring to the India-China border.

Britain, allies to send more lethal aid to Ukraine

Britain and its allies have agreed to send more lethal military aid to Ukraine to help defend it against Russia’s invasion, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said on Thursday.

“There’ll be more lethal aid going into Ukraine as a result of today. A number of countries have come forward either with new ideas or indeed more pledges of money,” Wallace told reporters after hosting over 35 international partners at the second International Defense Donor Conference for Ukraine (IDDCU).

The aid will include the provision of air and coastal defense systems, longer-range artillery and counter-battery capabilities, armored vehicles as well as wider training and logistical support.

“Today’s donor conference demonstrates the international community’s determination to support Ukraine in the face of President Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion by Russian forces,” Wallace said in a later statement.

“We are increasing our coordination to step up that military support and ensure the Armed Forces of Ukraine grow stronger as they continue to repel Russian forces.”

Ukraine will soon be able to better protect its skies

Ukraine’s ambassador to Japan, Sergiy Korsunsky, said on Friday that his country will soon be able to better protect its skies and cities from Russian attacks because it expects “super modern” military equipment from the United States and Britain.

“They still have superiority in the air force, in airplanes and missiles, and we expect to begin to receive super-modern equipment from the United States and Britain to protect our skies and our cities,” Korsunsky told a news conference.

“When they fire cruise missiles from long distance, we cannot get to the launch place. We have to intercept them. That’s why we need this modern equipment,” he said.

Korsunsky added that from next week Japan would begin to receive Ukrainian refugees who are now in Poland.

Berlin has supplied more than 80 mn euros of arms to Kiev

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said on a visit to New York on Thursday that Berlin has delivered more than 80 million euros ($88.62 million) worth of weapons to Ukraine so far.

“We have supplied arms for more than 80 million (euros), and more are to follow,” she told reporters, responding to criticism Berlin was not delivering enough military aid to Kiev.

Longer conflict could be in store as Russia eyes Donbas: US

A senior US defense official said Thursday that Russia’s refocusing of its military efforts on the Donbas could herald a “longer, more prolonged conflict” as Ukrainian forces put up fierce resistance in the eastern region.

“It’s been fought over now for eight years,” the official said of the heavily contested Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

“The Ukrainians know the territory very, very well,” the official said. “They have a lot of forces still there and they’re absolutely fighting very hard for that area.”

“So just because (the Russians) are going to prioritize it and put more forces there or more energy there doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy for them,” the official said.

“It could be a harbinger of a longer, more prolonged conflict here as the Russians try to gain some leverage, gain some progress, and perhaps gain some chips at the bargaining table.”

Biden says Putin may have put some advisors ‘under house arrest’

US President Joe Biden claimed on Thursday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin may have placed some of his advisors under “house arrest” after becoming “isolated” while trying to run the operation in Ukraine.

In his first public remarks on Western assessments about internal Kremlin tensions over the war in Ukraine, Biden also said he was “skeptical” about Moscow’s claim to be scaling back its onslaught in parts of the country.

“He seems to be self-isolated and there’s some indication that he has fired or put under house arrest some of his advisers,” Biden told reporters when asked about British and US intelligence statements that Putin is not getting proper information from staff about difficulties in Ukraine.

Biden tempered his remarks, saying “there’s a lot of speculation” and he did not want to “put too much stock in that.”

Russia regrouping for ‘powerful strikes’, Zelensky warns

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Russia is consolidating and preparing “powerful strikes” in the country’s east and south, including besieged Mariupol, where a new attempt will be made Friday to evacuate civilians from the devastated city.

In peace talks this week, Russia said it would scale back attacks on the capital Kiev and the city of Chernigiv, but Ukrainian and Western officials have dismissed the pledge, saying Moscow’s troops were merely regrouping.

“This is part of their tactics,” said Zelensky in a late-night address.

“We know that they are moving away from the areas where we are beating them to focus on others that are very important… where it can be difficult for us,” he said.

In particular, he warned, the situation in the country’s south and east was “very difficult.”

“In Donbas and Mariupol, in the Kharkiv direction, the Russian army is accumulating the potential for attacks, powerful attacks,” he said.

Ukraine airstrike on a fuel depot in Russia

Ukrainian helicopters have bombed a fuel storage depot in western Russia sparking a huge fire, the regional governor said Friday, in the first reported airstrike by KIev on Russian soil.

The strike in the Russian town of Belgorod marked the first time Russia has reported a Ukrainian airstrike on its territory since the conflict began.

“There was a fire at the petrol depot because of an airstrike carried out by two Ukrainian army helicopters, which entered Russian territory at a low altitude,” Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on messaging app Telegram.

Two employees at the storage facility were injured in the fire, he said in another post.

Russian forces withdrawing from northern Ukrainian region

Russian forces are withdrawing from the Chernihiv region of northern Ukraine but have not yet left entirely, the local governor said in a video address on Friday.

“Air and missile strikes are (still) possible in the region, nobody is ruling this out,” Governor Viacheslav Chaus said, adding that Ukrainian forces were entering and securing settlements previously held by Russian troops.

Chaus said it was still too early for Ukrainian forces in the Chernihiv region to let their guard down as Russian troops “are still on our land.”

Russia said on Tuesday it would scale down operations in the Chernihiv and Kiev regions.

Ukraine says some Russian troops still in Chernobyl exclusion zone

Some Russian troops were still in the “exclusion zone” around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power station on Friday morning, the head of the Ukrainian agency in charge of the zone said.

Yevhen Kramarenko confirmed on national television that the Russian forces that occupied the power station on February 24 had left the plant itself but said some troops had been seen in the exclusion zone outside the territory of the decommissioned power station.

The exclusion zone was established around the plant soon after a reactor there exploded in the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.

Ukraine could lose half its harvest due to war: Minister

Half of Ukraine’s harvest this year, crucial to global food supplies, could be lost because of Russia’s war, the country’s agriculture minister warned in an interview with AFP on Wednesday.

Last year Ukraine, known as the breadbasket of Europe, harvested a record 106 million tonnes of grain, but this year, the figure could drop 25 or even 50 percent, Mykola Solsky said in written remarks to AFP.

“And it’s still an optimistic forecast,” Solsky said.

Famous for its fertile black soil, Ukraine was the world’s fourth-largest exporter of corn and is on track to become the third-largest exporter of wheat.

Russia’s war has been catastrophic for its agriculture and economy.

Several regions, especially the fertile Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Odessa in the south, are either seeing intense fighting or are inaccessible for farming.

While Solsky vowed that “Ukrainian farmers will sow everywhere where it’s possible,” he estimated that they can only access 50-75 percent of Ukraine’s cropland this season, which could lead to food shortages around the world.

“Because of this war, there can be hunger in a number of countries,” Solsky said.

Russian forces killed 148 children, fired 1,370 missiles

Ukraine’s defense ministry claimed on Thursday that Russian forces have killed 148 children during shelling and airstrikes, fired 1,370 missiles, and destroyed 15 Ukrainian airports since the start of the offensive.

More than 10 million Ukrainians have fled their homes, it said in a statement.