Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy fears war could be hampered by Washington divisions; Moscow starts drills with new ICBM | Ukraine

Russia’s cyberwar on Ukraine largely failed and Moscow is increasingly targeting Kyiv’s European allies, according to US and French analysts.

French defence firm Thales said in a report on Wednesday that Russia was hitting Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries with an arsenal of cyber weapons aiming to sow divisions and promote anti-war messages.

Microsoft said in a threat assessment earlier this month that Russian actors had launched attacks in at least 17 European countries in the first six weeks of this year.

Thales and Microsoft said Russia’s invasion was accompanied by widespread cyberattacks in Ukraine, but they were repelled. Both firms said Russia shifted focus to other European countries late last year.

“In the third quarter of 2022, Europe was dragged into a high-intensity hybrid cyberwar at a turning point in the conflict,” said Pierre-Yves Jolivet, Thales vice president for cyber solutions.

Jolivet said countries outside Ukraine were suffering a “massive wave” of DDoS attacks, when a server is flooded with requests that crash the network. These attacks were increasingly carried out by “hacktivist” groups aligned with the Kremlin rather than official groups, and they aimed to sow chaos rather than destroy infrastructure, Thales said.

Poland, Latvia and Sweden were among the most affected countries, the Thales report said. Microsoft said in its assessment that attacks this year in Europe were largely aimed at government entities for espionage purposes.

Ukrainian forces have reportedly shelled the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol, south of the Zaporizhzhia region, and Russian media reported on Wednesday that as a result, the city’s power supply had been cut.

Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March last year, said on the Telegram messaging app that several explosions had gone off in the city.

Russia’s state TASS news agency, citing Moscow-installed officials in the area, said Ukrainian shelling had damaged the city’s power supply system and knocked out electricity in the city and some nearby villages.

TASS also reported that a locomotive depot was destroyed but according to initial information, there were no casualties.

The Guardian has not verified these reports independently.

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, is heading to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine today. Ahead of his visit he described the situation there as very dangerous.

He said in an interview with Reuters that his work on forging an agreement to protect Europe’s largest nuclear power station was still alive. Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling the site.

The nuclear facility has lost its external power supply six times since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, forcing emergency diesel generators to kick in to cool its reactors.

Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the water level in a nearby reservoir controlled by Russian forces was another potential danger. Water supplied by the reservoir is used to cool the reactors.

He told Reuters yesterday:

If the reservoir level goes down beyond a certain level, then you don’t have water to cool down the reactors, and we have seen especially in January that the levels of the water were going down significantly. They recovered somehow in the past few weeks.

He added that there had been increasing military activity in the region without giving details.

Grossi said his attempt to broker a deal to protect the plant was still alive, and that he was adjusting the proposals to seek a breakthrough.

Russia began exercises with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system and several thousand of troops, its defence ministry said on Wednesday, in what is likely to be seen as another attempt by Moscow to show off its nuclear strength, Reuters reports.

President Vladimir Putin has aimed to make the Yars missile system, which replaced the Topol system, part of Russia’s “invincible weapons” and the mainstay of the ground-based component of its nuclear arsenal.

“In total, more than 3,000 military personnel and about 300 pieces of equipment are involved in the exercises,” the defence ministry said in a statement on Telegram.

The drills involve the Strategic Missile Forces comprehensive control checking of the Omsk missile formation together with a command and staff exercise with the Novosibirsk missile formation equipped with the Yars systems.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said in an interview that he he worries the war could be impacted by shifting political forces in Washington. In an interview with AP, published a short while ago, Zelenskiy said:

“The United States really understands that if they stop helping us, we will not win”.

Following its long interview with Ukraine’s leader, AP reports:

Zelenskiy is well aware that his country’s success has been in great part due to waves of international military support, particularly from the United States and Western Europe. But some in the United States — including Republican Donald Trump, the former American president and current 2024 candidate — have questioned whether Washington should continue to supply Ukraine with billions of dollars in military aid.

Trump’s likely Republican rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, also suggested that defending Ukraine in a ‘territorial dispute’ with Russia was not a significant US national security priority. He later walked that statement back after facing criticism from other corners of the GOP.

Zelenskiy didn’t mention the names of Trump or any other Republican politicians — figures he might have to deal with if they prevailed in 2024 elections.

Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan bringing you the latest.

Our top story this morning: Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, says that he he worries the war could be impacted by shifting political forces in Washington. In an interview with AP, published a short while ago, Zelenskiy said:

“The United States really understands that if they stop helping us, we will not win”.

And Russia began exercises with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system and several thousand troops, its defence ministry said on Wednesday, in what is likely to be seen as another attempt by Moscow to show off its nuclear strength.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments.

• The United States has not seen any indications that Vladimir Putin is getting closer to using tactical nuclear weapons in his war on Ukraine, after the Russian leader said he was moving such weapons into Belarus. Belarus confirmed it would host Russian tactical nuclear weapons, saying the decision was a response to years of western pressure. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said Belarus would face further EU sanctions.

• Russia said it shot down a US-supplied GLSDB guided smart bomb fired by Ukrainian forces, the first time Moscow has claimed to have intercepted one of the weapons that could double Ukraine’s battlefield firing range.

• Ukraine’s frontline city of Avdiivka “is being wiped off the face of the Earth” amid intensifying Russian shelling, according to its top local official. Russian forces have been making recent gradual gains on the flanks of Avdiivka, and the Ukrainian military said last week that the city could become a “second Bakhmut”. Russia’s 10th tank regiment has borne the brunt of the assault of Avdiivka and has likely lost a “large portion of its tanks” while attempting to surround the town from the south, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update.

• Ukraine is aiming to exhaust and inflict heavy losses on Russian forces trying to capture the small eastern city of Bakhmut, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces has said. In a video showing him addressing soldiers in what appeared to be a large industrial warehouse, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia was continuing to focus on the Bakhmut area after months of battle.

• Germany’s much-awaited shipment of 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks has arrived in Ukraine, the German defence ministry has confirmed. Berlin first promised 14 but increased that to 18 as part of a deal under which several EU states would contribute to a shipment of two Leopard 2 battalions and 31 American-made M1A2 Abrams tanks from the US.

• The first British Challenger 2 main battle tanks have also arrived in Ukraine and will soon begin combat missions, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has said. The UK said in January it would send 14 of the tanks to Ukraine. Reznikov wrote on Twitter that the tanks had “recently arrived in our country” and posted a video that showed him sitting in one of a long line of tanks in an open field, all of them flying Ukraine’s yellow and blue flag.

• The US supports the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression against Ukraine, officials have said. The US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, Beth Van Schaak said the court might also be located elsewhere in Europe, at least at first, in order “to reinforce Ukraine’s desired European orientation”.

• A Russian man who was investigated by police after his 12-year-old daughter drew a picture depicting Russian bombing a family in Ukraine has been sentenced to two years in a penal colony, according to a rights group. Alexei Moskalyov has been separated from his daughter Maria since he was placed under house arrest, and she was taken into a state-run shelter last month. Court officials said on Tuesday that the 54-year-old had fled house arrest and his whereabouts were unknown.

• The International Olympic Committee has recommended that Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to compete in international sporting events under a neutral flag. A decision regarding next year’s Olympics in Paris and the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026 would be taken “at the appropriate time”, it said. Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said the committee’s decision was “a slap in the face for all Ukrainian athletes”.