Russia-Ukraine war: fears Putin may annex regions on Friday; Nord Stream pipeline leaking after ‘unprecedented’ damage – live | Ukraine

Summary of the day so far …

Vakhtang Gomelauri, who is head of the ministry of internal affairs in Georgia has, according to Russian RIA Novosti news agency, been moved to say that “we have no reason to close the border with Russia and restrict entry to Russians”.

He denied reports that some 250,000 Russians had recently arrived in Georgia, saying: “That many people haven’t come, I don’t know where these numbers come from.”

He said: “Approximately four to five days ago there were 5,000-6,000 arrivals. Now this figure has grown to 10,000.”

In another sign of cultural isolation, Russia appears to have decided to boycott the Oscars, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.

It says the Russian film academy said in a statement late last night: “The presidium of the Film Academy of Russia has decided not to nominate a national film for the Oscars award of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2022.”

Pavel Chukhray, head of the committee responsible for selecting a nomination, said on Tuesday that he had resigned in the wake of a decision taken “behind his back”.

UN report describes ‘dire human rights situation’ in Ukraine after Russian invasion

Oliver Carroll, who is a foreign correspondent for the Economist, has posted an image of cars queueing at the checkpoint with Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia.

In a subsequent tweet, he says “Ever so kind, the Russians painted their Z signs on cars that they let through. People were scrubbing them off when they stopped in Ukrainian controlled territory.”

The queue does not look as long as the one seen in this satellite image released yesterday by Maxar, which shows the queue of vehicles at the Russian border with Georgia earlier this week.

Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the president of Ukraine, has tweeted to suggest that Russian conscripts being sent to the front under the partial mobilisation announced last week would be best advised to surrender at the first opportunity. He said:

Mobilized Russians who surrender themselves have a chance to save their lives. Everyone else won’t have it.

Refugees arriving from Ukraine have helped drive Germany’s population to its highest level, the Federal Statistical Office said, with more than 84 million people now living in the European Union’s most populous country, Reuters reports.

The Federal Statistics Office said that the population had grown by 1%, or 843,000 people, in the first half of 2022. The population grew just 0.1% over the whole of 2021. Germany recorded net immigration of 750,000 people from Ukraine over the same period.

Germany’s female population grew by 1.2%, significantly more than its male population, which increased by 0.8%, reflecting the fact that mainly women and children fled the war in Ukraine.

Here are some of the latest images that have been sent to us from Ukraine, showing that the “voting” continues in the occupied areas of the country while the aftermath of attacks is being dealt with in Kharkiv and Slovyansk.

‘Unprecedented’ damage to three offshore lines of Nord Stream in one day – operator

Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines leaking into Baltic Sea

Dmitry Medvedev, the hawkish deputy chairman of the security council of Russia, Putin ally, and former prime minister and president of Russia, has issued another warning over the use of nuclear weapons to the west via a long screed on Telegram, in which he specifically criticises US president Joe Biden and new British prime minister Liz Truss.

In the course of the message, Medvedev says:

I have to remind you again – for those deaf who hear only themselves. Russia has the right to use nuclear weapons if necessary, in predetermined cases, in strict accordance with the fundamentals of state policy in the field of nuclear deterrence. If we or our allies are attacked using this type of weapon. Or if aggression with the use of conventional weapons threatens the very existence of our state. The president of Russia spoke about this directly recently.

In addition, we will do everything to prevent the appearance of nuclear weapons in our hostile neighbours. For example, in Nazi Ukraine, which is directly controlled today by Nato countries.

He complains that Biden and Truss “demand that Russia remove its hand from its ‘nuclear button’” while accusing Truss of being “completely ready to immediately begin an exchange of nuclear strikes with our country”.

He then goes on to say that he does not believe the west would come to Ukraine’s aid or retaliate if Russia did use nuclear weapons, saying:

If the threat to Russia exceeds the established danger limit, we will have to respond. Without asking anyone’s permission, without long consultations. And it’s definitely not a bluff.

Imagine that Russia is forced to use the most formidable weapon against the Ukrainian regime, which has committed a large-scale act of aggression, which is dangerous for the very existence of our state. I believe that Nato will not directly intervene in the conflict even in this situation.

After all, the security of Washington, London, and Brussels is much more important for the North Atlantic Alliance than the fate of Ukraine, which no one needs, even if it is abundantly supplied with various weapons.

The Russian ministry of defence this morning has published a seven-minute video on its official Telegram channel which it claims are interviews with Ukrainian citizens in Russia voting in Novy Oskol in the Belgorod region.

The message accompanying the video quotes a Vladimir Buinak saying “With the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything became very bad, and over time, our region, one might say, was destroyed. We are only for the Russian Federation, we are only for Russia. We were Russian-speaking, we studied in Russian schools.”

Another quote is given from Elena Korobova, who pre-empts the result of the vote, saying: “The reunion, of course, is long-awaited, how much we have been waiting for, more than eight years, and, finally, it has happened or it will happen soon.”

The Russian ministry of defence goes on to say “All the votes cast by the residents of Donbas on the territory of Russia will be taken into account, and their choice will become part of the historic decision of people who freely vote for what they truly believe in.”

Belgorod is to the north-east of Ukraine, bordering the Kharkiv region. The “referendum” process being carried out by proxy Russian authorities in occupied areas of Ukraine has been widely derided as a sham vote.

A video has been circulating on social media that purports to show “election officials” at a polling station in Donetsk standing to attention while the Russian national anthem plays.

Commenting on the clip, BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford says: “An ‘electoral commission’ in Donetsk stands for the Russian anthem before another day’s ‘voting’ on whether or not to join Russia … Don’t expect many ‘no’ votes here.”

Richard Dannatt, former chief of the general staff of the British army, has been interviewed by Sky News in the UK this morning about his view on the latest situation in Russia. He described Vladimir Putin’s order for a partial mobilisation as “deeply unpopular” and said that it was now “hitting home” with ordinary Russians. He told viewers:

[Putin] has got an increasing problem at home of his own making. Did he have any alternative? Actually probably not, because of the casualties they have taken, killed or wounded. He was running out of manpower, just as he was probably running out of everything else to do with the military. He’s not going to give up. He’s going to double down.

Russia has given an official casualty figure during what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine of around 6,000 personnel. Ukrainian armed forces, by contrast, claim to have killed over 55,000 enemy combatants. Neither figure has been independently verified.

The Russian news agency Tass is reporting that two of the polling stations being used in the widely derided “referendums” in the occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine have been moved to reserve locations following “threats”.

It quotes Elena Kravchenko, giving her job title as “head of the central election commission of the Luhansk People’s Republic”, saying:

Here were threats against members of the commission in the Starobilsk district … that the sites would be burned, they were personally threatened. In this regard, we had to transfer the work of these sites to reserve sites, change the addresses of these polling stations. All voters have been notified, work continues.

Ukrainian authorities have described the so-called referendums as a “propaganda show”.

Oleh Synyehubov, Ukraine’s governor of Kharkiv, has issued a status update on Telegram, listing damage and casualties in the last 24 hours that he says has been caused by Russian shelling.

He claims that in Kupyansk a church school, an outbuilding, and a shop burned down as a result of shelling and five people were hospitalised. He reports that a 15-year-old was killed in Pervomaiskyi, and seven dead people were found under the rubble in the aftermath of the attack. In Dvorichna, he says that a first responder was killed.

The claims have not been independently verified.

The Philippines is in talks with Russia to buy fuel and other commodities, according to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who said the country’s national interests had to take precedence over politics.

Marcos Jr told Bloomberg TV that the Philippines was in “conversations with as many possible suppliers” and was close to reaching agreements.

President Putin has previously claimed that US and European efforts to isolate Russia with economic sanctions will fail because he will instead look to Asia for new trading partners. Over recent months, Russia has courted several countries in the region, offering cheap fuel deals at a time when many are struggling with painful price rises. Indonesia is also reportedly considering buying Russian fuel.

Asked about the sanctions imposed on Russia, Marcos said the political side of striking a deal “has been of course a little tricky”, but added “nonetheless, the national interest comes first”.