Russia-Ukraine war: Russia announces fresh sanctions against UK figures over ‘hostile’ actions – as it happened

Poland has arrested 18 people on allegations of pursuing pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian hostile actions, including a person alleged to have been involved in a plan to assassinate Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the interior minister said in a statement reported by Reuters.

Ten of those arrested since December were directly involved in planning various forms of sabotage across Poland, interior minister Tomasz Siemoniak told a news conference.

Polish authorities have linked some recent incidents of arson or attempted arson to Russian-sponsored agents. Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian nationals are among those arrested in recent months, according to the internal security agency.

A Polish man was arrested in April and is alleged to have been prepared to spy for Russian military intelligence in an alleged plot to assassinate Zelenskiy, Polish prosecutors said.

Siemoniak said that the alleged acts of sabotage were part of a broader plan including cyberattacks, directing migrants in Belarus to cross the border into Poland, and threatening Poland’s security.

“We have no doubt that on the bidding of a foreign country, Russia, there are some people active who are ready to threaten the life, health and property of the Polish citizens,” Siemoniak said.

French police are investigating whether the placing of five full-sized coffins covered with the French tricolour at the Eiffel Tower at the weekend was another act of Russian interference.

Three men were formally put under investigation on Monday – the equivalent of being charged – in connection with the coffins, each of which was inscribed with “French soldiers in the Ukraine”.

French detectives are investigating links between one of the suspects and the vandalism of the Holocaust memorial in Paris a week ago; 35 red hands were painted on the monument, which honours individuals who saved Jews from persecution during the 1940-44 Nazi occupation of France.

On Saturday, security cameras showed a white van with Bulgarian number plates stopping near the Eiffel Tower and two men removing the coffins from the vehicle.

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Russia’s foreign ministry has added a number of British “establishment figures”, journalists and experts to its list of people banned from entering Russia, it has announced, saying it was doing so over their “hostile” actions.

The ministry said in a statement that it urged London to abandon its support of Ukraine. The UK has pledged £12.5bn in aid to Ukraine since February 2022. Of this total, £7.6bn is for military assistance, including £3bn for military assistance in 2024/25.

In a statement posted to its website, the ministry said that Moscow was imposing the sanctions amid the “provocative anti-Russian rhetoric of British officials” and the UK government’s role in aiding Ukraine’s military. It was not immediately clear how many individuals had been sanctioned in this round, but the statement said that local politicians and “experts covering important socio-political events in [Russia] in a negative and untrue way” were included in its “stop list”.

Moscow in April 2022 imposed sanctions on 287 MPs, banning them from the country, in response to sanctions levied by the UK following Russia’s full-scale invasion that February, and further retaliatory sanctions were announced in August 2023 against British politicians and journalists.

Three people including a 12-year-old boy were killed in Russian attacks on eastern Ukraine, local authorities said on Monday.

Agence-France Presse reported that the head of the Donetsk region said two people were killed and another wounded by Russian attacks on the village of Mykhaylivka.

“A 12-year-old boy is among the dead,” the official, Vadim Filashkin, announced on social media, describing two aerial attacks 30 minutes apart that left several homes damaged.

Separately, one person was killed and two wounded in a Russian rocket attack in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv, where Moscow’s forces have recently captured several villages, the governor said.

Kharkiv borders Russia and has been under persistent shelling since the Kremlin ordered its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian forces launched a renewed ground offensive there last month.

Russia targeted Slobozhanske, southeast of the region’s main city, also called Kharkiv, around midnight local time, Governor Oleg Synegubov said.

“Houses were damaged. One man died. Another man and a woman were wounded,” Synegubov said on social media.

Washington last week gave Ukraine limited permission to use western-supplied weapons to strike some military targets on Russian territory as part of Kyiv’s efforts to fend off attacks on Kharkiv.

As the time approaches 3pm in Kyiv, here’s a quick summary of events to get you up to speed.

• China has hit back at Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s accusation that Russia and China are trying to weaken his planned global peace summit. A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry has said Beijing has never “fanned fire or fuelled the flames” of the Russia-Ukraine war.

• After US president Joe Biden on Thursday gave Kyiv the green light to use its weapons to counter-strike Russian targets near the border with Kharkiv, Russia’s foreign ministry has warned the United States against making “mistakes that may have fatal consequences”.

• Following a report by the Financial Times that a deal between Russia and China for a major gas pipeline, the Power of Siberia-2, has stalled, both Moscow and Beijing have issued statements in support of the project. Beijing offered a statement on cooperation while the Kremlin said “there is no doubt the agreements will be reached”. Here’s a quick look at why the deal appears to be deadlocked, according to the FT’s sources close to the issue.

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with the Philippine president to call on regional leaders to attend a global peace summit on the Russia-Ukraine war that he accuses Russia and China of attempting to thwart. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr pledged that his country would take part in the peace summit.

• The Ukrainian army is bettering its position in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian news agency quotes a commander as saying. Yurii Fedorenko, the commander of the 92nd mechanised brigade’s drone company, said that Ukraine’s position had begun to get better in the region, while the agency reports that ammunition from the United States is being used to attack enemy positions in the Russian Belgorod region.

Ukrainian frontline units are beginning to improve their position in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian news agency quotes a commander as saying.

Soldiers are using the ammunition received from the United States to attack enemy positions in the Russian Belgorod region, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

Speaking during a national telethon, Yurii Fedorenko, the commander of the 92nd mechanised brigade’s drone company, said that Ukraine’s position had begun to get better in the Kharkiv region.

“We are improving our position. Work is underway to knock the enemy out of occupied positions. In addition, to destroy its reserves, equipment, and other means with which it is trying to operate. In particular, on the territory of the Russian Federation,” Fedorenko said.

President Joe Biden on Thursday moved to allow Kyiv to use US weapons in counter-fire efforts within Russia near the border with the Kharkiv region.