US imposes new sanctions on Russia; Putin warns Nato against letting Ukraine send long-range missiles – live

Phillip Inman

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will send staff to Moscow next week to review the Russian economy for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine, in a move that has prompted anger and dismay across European capitals.

Officials of the Washington-based organisation will travel to the Russian capital and meet “stakeholders” before publishing an assessment of the economy and providing recommendations about how the Kremlin might improve its economic handling and tackle issues such as the climate crisis.

After Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the IMF stopped its annual consultations with Russia. The organization said it was a “mutual obligation” to carry out an article IV review of a member country and that the process was only suspended because of the volatility of economic data. The situation in Russia was now “more settled”.

On Friday, nine European countries protested against the IMF’s plans, saying it would damage the reputation of the Washington-based fund to resume dialogue with a country that had invaded another.

“We would like to express our strong dissatisfaction with such IMF plans,” the finance ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Poland said in a letter to the IMF managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, seen by Reuters.

Antony Blinken said the US is imposing new sanctions on Russia over its role to ‘undermine democracies’.

The US secretary of state said:

Today, we’re imposing sanctions on three entities and two individuals for Russia’s covert global influence operations, including interference in Moldova’s democracy and its upcoming elections.

The actions we’re exposing today and the actions we exposed last week do not incorporate the full scope of Russia’s efforts to undermine democracies. Far from it.

Russia’s weaponization of disinformation to subvert and polarize free and open societies extends to every part of the world. In response, today, the United States, United Kingdom and Canada are launching a joint diplomatic campaign to rally allies and partners around the world to join us in addressing the threat posed by RT and other machinery of Russian disinformation and covert influence.”

Boris Johnson met with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Friday and renewed calls for Britain to allow the country to use Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Russia.

“It is vital that Ukraine should be able to defend itself properly by stopping the appalling Russian attacks with glide bombs and now Iranian missiles,” the former UK prime minister said following the meeting.

“It is obvious that they should be able to use Storm Shadow, Scalp and ATACMS as fast as possible against targets in Russia itself. Every day that goes by means more pointless and tragic loss of Ukrainian lives.”

US officials criticize Putin’s remarks on potential ‘war with Russia’

Andrew Roth

US officials and lawmakers have shot back at Vladimir Putin after the Russian leader said that Nato’s potential lifting of restrictions on Ukraine to launch long-range strikes into Russia would mean Nato countries were “at war” with Russia.

“This will mean that Nato countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia,” Putin told Russian reporters on Thursday. “And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

The remarks provoked an angry response in Washington, where officials accused Putin of sabre-rattling in order to scare Nato countries away from supporting Ukraine.

Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate foreign relations committee, told the Guardian that Ukraine should have authorisation to strike targets deep inside Russia, including active Russian bombers launching missiles against Ukrainian cities.

“Putin’s latest threats about direct confrontation with Nato are simply an effort to coerce the west out of supporting Ukraine,” Risch said. “He knows that long-range strikes from Ukraine would cause significant damage to his war effort. Several Russian missiles have landed in Nato territory and Nato has not escalated.”

“Ukraine must be allowed to defend itself, period,” he continued. “If that means striking a Russian bomber launching missiles at Ukrainian civilians from Russian airspace, then Ukraine should be able to take that shot.”

Speaking with reporters on Friday, John Kirby said that there would likely be no announcements about the lifting of restrictions on Ukraine’s use of British- and French-supplied missiles in Ukraine.

But at the same time, the US national security council spokesperson said, the US and its Nato allies have “our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine”.

“I never said that we don’t take Mr Putin’s threats seriously,” Kirby said. “He starts brandishing the nuclear sword, for instance, yeah, we take that seriously. We constantly monitor that. He obviously has proven capable of aggression. He’s obviously proven capable of escalation … But it is not something that we haven’t heard before. So we take note of it. We got it.”

In contrast with Germany, Canada said on Friday that it fully supports Ukraine’s use of long-range weaponry in its war against Russia.

Speaking to reporters, Justin Trudeau said that his country supports Ukraine’s use of the weapons to “prevent and interdict Russia’s continued ability to degrade Ukrainian civilian infrastructure”, Reuters reports.

The Canadian prime minister added that Vladimir Putin is trying to destabilize international order, saying: “That’s why Canada and others are unequivocal that Ukraine must win this war against Russia.”

Germany’s chancellor has said he will not send long-range missiles to Ukraine, despite Ukraine’s insistence on the weapons.

At a press conference on Friday, as reported by Agence France-Presse, Olaf Scholz said:

Germany has made a clear decision about what we will do and what we will not do. This decision will not change.

Scholz’s remarks come amid an meeting between Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, and Joe Biden, the US president, over the possibility of allowing Ukraine to expand its strike capacity into Russia.

Germany has repeatedly refused to send Ukraine its own long-range Taurus missiles.

Earlier today, Scholz’s spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said that “the weapons the US and Britain are now discussing” have a longer range than anything Germany had supplied. Meanwhile, Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, said that what the US and Britain agree “remains their business”.

• Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the UN security council on Friday that if western countries allow Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes in Russia then Nato countries would be “conducting direct war with Russia”. “The facts are that Nato will be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power, I think you shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences,” Nebenzia told the 15-member council

• The comments echo words from Russian president Vladimir Putin who on Thursday said any western decision to let Kyiv use such longer-range weapons against targets inside Russia would mean Nato would be “at war” with Moscow. On Friday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin had delivered a clear message to the west about the consequences of allowing Ukraine to hit Russian territory, and that there was no doubt that Putin’s message had reached those it was intended for

• The UK’s prime minister Keir Starmer is in Washington to meet with US president Joe Biden later today, in which it is expected they will agree that Ukraine can use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside the Russian Federation

• Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been meeting foreign ministers from Poland and Lithuania in Kyiv today, and said they discussed “the need to use long-range weapons against military targets on the territory of the aggressor state”

• The UK government has said that claims made by Russia’s security services about six members of British diplomatic staff it has expelled from Russia are “baseless”. The FSB security agency said on Friday it had taken the measure after uncovering documents showing that part of the Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine. Russian media has named and published photographs of the six British members of diplomatic staff who were expelled

• Russia’s investigative committee has opened a criminal case against the head of Ukraine’s armed forces Maj Gen Dmitry Krasilnikov over the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Zelenskiy said today that the Kursk offensive had “slowed” Russia’s advance in east Ukraine

• 49 captured Ukrainian service personnel and civilians have been returned from captivity by Russia. Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights, said “the state of health of the prisoners is very serious”

• Nato said on Friday it strongly condemned a Russian missile strike on a civilian grain ship in the Black Sea on Thursday

• The governor of Russia’s Bryansk region has claimed that air defences there have shot down seven Ukrainian drones in a day

• Several people have been killed and injured by Russian strikes in Odesa, Sumy and Kherson

• Rights campaigners say that as many 3,000 Ukrainian refugees living in Hungary have been affected by a new Hungarian decree that cancels state-funded shelters for refugees from western Ukraine

Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the UN security council on Friday that if western countries allow Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes in Russia then Nato countries would be “conducting direct war with Russia.”

“The facts are that Nato will be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power, I think you shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences,” Nebenzia told the 15-member council.

The comments echo words from Russian president Vladimir Putin who on Thursday said any western decision to let Kyiv use such longer-range weapons against targets inside Russia would mean Nato would be “at war” with Moscow – a dramatic escalation of his rhetoric about the war which began with the Russian invasion in February 2022.

“This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,” the Russian president told a state television reporter. “It would mean that Nato countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia. He added that Russia would take “appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face” as a result.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Putin had delivered a clear message to the west about the consequences of allowing Ukraine to hit Russian territory, and that there was no doubt that Putin’s message had reached those it was intended for.

The UK’s prime minister Keir Starmer is in Washington to meet with US president Joe Biden later today, in which it is expected they will agree that Ukraine can use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside the Russian Federation.