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Kremlin’s strategic aim in Ukraine is ‘new world order’
Moscow wants any Ukraine peace talks to focus on creating a “new world order”, the French press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) quotes Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
Any negotiation needs to be based on taking into account Russian interests, Russian concerns. It should be about the principles on which the new world order will be based.
According to the agency, he added that Russia rejects a “unipolar world order led by ‘one hegemon’.”
Russia has long said it was leading a struggle against US dominance over the international stage, and argues the Ukraine offensive is part of that fight. The Kremlin said this week it had no choice but to continue its offensive, seeing no diplomatic solution.
Key events
US suspects Russia behind leak of secret documents – report
Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak of several classified US military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three US officials have told the Reuters news agency.
The documents appear to have been altered to lower the number of casualties suffered by Russian forces, the US officials said, adding their assessments were informal and separate from an investigation into the leak itself.
They officials spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of the matter and declined to discuss the documents in any detail. The Kremlin and Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. The Pentagon has declined to comment on the authenticity of the documents, which are dated 1 March and bear markings showing them classified as “Secret” and “Top Secret.”
One document posted on social media said 16,000 to 17,500 Russian forces had been killed since the invasion. The United States believes the actual figure is much higher, at around 200,000 Russians killed and wounded, officials say.
Summary of the day so far …
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Ukraine said on Friday that Russia was concentrating all its efforts on capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut, where it described the situation as “difficult” but said it was holding out despite Russia’s numerical superiority. Eastern Military Command spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi said that Ukraine controlled the situation in Bakhmut, understood Russian intentions and that Moscow had tactical success in some places but was paying a high price for it.
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Earlier, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its daily intelligence briefing that Russian forces have “highly likely advanced into the [Bakhmut] town centre, and has seized the West Bank of the Bakhmutka River. Ukraine’s key supply route to the west of the town is likely severely threatened.”
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The Pentagon is investigating a reported security breach after documents providing details of US and Nato plans to help prepare Ukraine for a spring offensive against Russia were leaked to social media platforms, the New York Times reports. The documents were spread on Twitter and Telegram, and reportedly contain charts and details about weapons deliveries, battalion strengths and other sensitive information, the Times said. Information in the documents is at least five weeks old, with the most recent dated 1 March, the report said.
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The documents also detail expenditure rates for munitions under Ukraine military control, including for the Himars rocket systems, the US-made artillery rocket systems that have proved highly effective against Russian forces. The New York Times report quotes military analysts who warn that some documents appear to have been altered in a disinformation campaign by Russia. In one document Ukrainian troop deaths are inflated and Russian battlefield losses are minimised.
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The Ukrainian headquarters of the armed forces supreme command has discussed measures to prevent leaks of military information at a meeting. The presidential statement made no mention of a leak having occurred. Kyiv also dismissed the leaked documents as a Russian disinformation effort.
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Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Friday during a news conference with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, that obstacles to Russian agricultural exports were increasing, and that they had discussed what Lavrov described as a “failure” to implement the terms of the Black Sea grain initiative. Çavuşoğlu said he agreed with Russia on the need to lift restrictions on Russian grain and fertiliser exports before the deal could be extended further.
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Imports of Ukrainian grain to Poland will be temporarily halted to mitigate the impact on prices, but transit will still be allowed, the new Polish agriculture minister, Robert Telus, said on Friday. The move comes as thousands of farmers protested across Romania over the impact of Ukrainian grain imports on prices, blocking traffic and border checkpoints with tractors and trucks and urging the European Commission to intervene.
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The Russian state-owned news agency Tass reports that Russian security forces claim to have “detained an agent of the security service of Ukraine and his accomplice in the Kherson region, who were collecting data on the deployment and movement of troops”.
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Ukraine has rejected the suggestion from the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that it give up Crimea to end the war with Russia, which annexed the peninsula in 2014.
For his part, Xi has said a political settlement is the only “correct” way out of the Ukraine crisis, Reuter reports, citing the foreign ministry. All parties should meet each other halfway to create conditions for a political settlement, Xi told Macron during a dinner, the statement said.
Here’s a little more detail on the French president Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China, where he has been meeting his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Reuters reports that Macron told students in Guangzhou Russia’s war in Ukraine is “a manifest violation of our international law”.
Russia, he told them, was “a country that has decided to colonise its neighbour and not to respect the rules”. Beijing is seen as having much stronger diplomatic ties to – and influence in – Moscow than any western power. Macron said:
The international order is now weakened and we have a responsibility, China and France, to preserve it and at the same time to reinvent it in the light of the realities of the 21st century.
The French president also urged them to embrace a “critical spirit” that would allow them to become “free, rational individuals” – another stark contrast with the rigid, state-controlled education to which Chinese students are subjected.
In a joint statement, both Paris and Beijing pledged to “support all efforts to restore peace in Ukraine”. The statement, which did not name Russia or condemn its offensive, called on all parties to respect international law. In talks with Xi on Thursday, Macron had said:
I can count on you to bring Russia to its senses and everyone to the negotiating table.
Reuters reports that the European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who is accompanying Macron on his visit, welcomed Xi’s openness to speaking with Zelenskiy. In contrast with the amiable Macron, Von der Leyen has struck a firmer tone in her talks with Chinese officials this week.
On Thursday, she said she had shared her “deep concerns about the deterioration of the human rights situation in China” with officials, and warned Beijing that arms shipments to Russia would “significantly harm” relations.
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, freed from a US jail last year, on Friday urged the US ex-president Donald Trump to seek refuge in Russia as his life was “in peril”.
AFP reports Bout, also known as the “Merchant of Death”, was swapped for the US basketball star Brittney Griner in a high-profile prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington in December.
“I believe your life is in peril,” Bout wrote in a telegram sent to Trump and shown to the press in Moscow.
“The Biden administration will not stop just by dragging you through the court/prison industrial complex. They would sooner end your life than let you stand in their way.”
On Tuesday Trump became the first former president of the US to be indicted of a crime when he appeared in a New York courthouse and pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges.
Bout told Trump he would find a “safe haven and from here you can lead the fight for the American people”.
Bout was serving a 25-year sentence in a US prison when he was swapped for Griner. He has since joined a Russian nationalist party.
Romanian farmers block borders in protest over Ukrainian grain imports, Poland to halt imports
Imports of Ukrainian grain to Poland will be temporarily halted to mitigate impact on prices, but transit will still be allowed, the new Polish agriculture minister Robert Telus said on Friday. The move comes as thousands of farmers protested across Romania over the impact of Ukrainian grain imports on prices, blocking traffic and border checkpoints with tractors and trucks and urging the European Commission to intervene.
“We agreed to limit and for now halt exports to Poland,” Telus told the media after meeting his Ukrainian counterpart, Reuters reports. “Transit will be allowed but will be closely monitored in both countries, so that Ukraine grain doesn’t stay in Poland.”
Large quantities of Ukrainian grains, which are cheaper than those produced in the EU, have ended up staying in central European states amid logistical bottlenecks, hitting prices and sales for local farmers.
Telus took office on Thursday after his predecessor resigned amid farmers’ protests over falling prices of produce.
In the Romanian capital Bucharest about 200 farmers protested outside the European Commission’s local headquarters, carrying banners which read: “We respected EU rules but EU ignored us”, “You can no longer pass through here” and “Stability for Romanian farmers”.
Across the country, thousands of farmers used tractors, trucks and other machinery to block roads and borders.
“We are talking about unfair competition in the European community,” said Nicu Vasile, the head of theLeague of Romanian Associations of Farm Producers (Lapar). “I know our Ukrainian colleagues also need to sell, but it is unfair competition.”
China and France in a joint statement reaffirmed their commitment to promote non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament and the peaceful use of nuclear energy, Reuters reports, citing the official Chinese Xinhua news agency.
The statement also said that China and France were willing to cooperate to solve the financial hardships of developing economies and emerging market economies, and both countries emphasised support for a rules-based multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization as its core.
The Ukrainian headquarters of the armed forces supreme command has discussed measures to prevent leaks of military information at a meeting on Friday, Reuters reports, citing the president’s office.
It comes after the New York Times reported that classified war documents detailing secret American and Nato plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive against Russia were posted this week on social media channels. The presidential statement made no mention of a leak having occurred. Kyiv has also dismissed the documents referred to by the US newspaper, as a Russian disinformation effort.
Reuters has said it has not immediately been able to review the leaked documents, which the New York Times report said appeared to have been modified in parts.
Ukraine has rejected the suggestion from the Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that it give up Crimea to end the war with Russia, which annexed the peninsula in 2014.
The French press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) quotes Oleg Nikolenko, a Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman, as saying:
There is no legal, political or moral reason that would justify us having to yield even a centimetre of Ukrainian land. Any mediation efforts to restore peace in Ukraine should be based on respect for the sovereignty and the full restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
On Thursday, Lula said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, “could not get everything” and suggested Ukraine could give up Crimea to begin peace discussions.
Lula has issued a vague proposal to end the Ukraine conflict, expected to be discussed during a trip next week to China, which also put forward a plan. He has proposed creating a group of countries to mediate in the war in Ukraine.
The Brazilian leader said he was “confident” that this group “would be created” after his trip.
A leak of classified documents detailing secret US and Nato plans to help Kyiv looks like a Russian disinformation operation to sow doubts about Ukraine’s planned counter-offensive, a Ukrainian presidential official has said.
Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters that the leaked data reported by the New York Times on Thursday contained a “very large amount of fictitious information” and that Russia was trying to seize back the initiative in its invasion.
These are just standard elements of operational games by Russian intelligence. And nothing more.
Russia is looking for any ways to seize back the initiative. To try to influence the scenarios for Ukraine’s counteroffensive plans. To introduce doubts, to compromise the … ideas, and finally to intimidate [us] with how ‘informed’ they are.
Reuters has said it has not immediately been able to review the leaked documents.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that the Pentagon was investigating how documents detailing plans to build up the Ukrainian military for a planned offensive had been posted on social media channels this week.
The newspaper report said the documents appeared to have been modified in certain parts. One part offered an estimate for Ukrainian military losses that was far higher than western estimates made available so far. Ukraine does not disclose the scale of its losses and is very sensitive about the subject.
The Kremlin followed the “important talks” between the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, but said it doubted China would change its position on the Ukraine conflict under external pressure.
China has proposed its own “peace plan” for Ukraine in Beijing’s first major diplomatic intervention into the conflict, but Ukraine and some western leaders remain sceptical of Xi’s close relationship with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
According to Reuters, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has told reporters Moscow “monitored” the talks, but underlined that Russia had its own “rich relations” with Beijing. Asked if he was concerned the European powers could convince Xi, he said:
China is a very serious, very big power with its own sovereign position … This is not the kind of country that changes its positions rapidly under external influence.
After the talks, Xi expressed willingness to speak to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, directly, according to Von der Leyen, while Macron said he had urged Beijing to “bring Russia back to its senses”.
Russian forces are likely to have seized the centre of the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and are threatening a key supply route for Ukrainian forces to the west, according to a British intelligence assessment.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said his troops would pull back from the small city, which has been the main focus of Russia’s assault on Ukraine for months, if they came under risk of encirclement.
Asked to comment on the British report, a Ukrainian military command spokesperson told the Reuters news agency the situation was difficult in Bakhmut and that Russian forces were concentrating all efforts to take the city but were not having “strategic success”.
The battle for Bakhmut, one of the last urban centres in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province yet to fall to Russian forces, has proven one of the bloodiest of the war. Donetsk is one of four provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia declared annexed last year and is seeking to fully occupy in what appears to be a shift in its war aims after failing to overrun the country early in the war.
Friday’s daily update from British military intelligence contrasted with the usual emphasis on Ukrainian successes.
Russia has made further gains and has now highly likely advanced into the town centre, and has seized the west bank of the Bakhmutka River. Ukraine’s key 0506 supply route to the west of the town is likely severely threatened.
The Eastern Military Command spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi said Ukraine controlled the situation in Bakhmut and understood Russian intentions. He told Reuters:
The situation is difficult, the enemy is concentrating maximum efforts to capture Bakhmut. However, it is suffering serious losses and not reaching strategic success.
Western analysts say both sides are losing large numbers of troops in the battle for Bakhmut, where Moscow has said it has taken control of the city, including part of the centre. Ukraine has said it is fighting on there to wear down Russian forces before a counter-offensive bolstered by advanced western-supplied weapons.
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