Blasts heard in Russian city of Belgorod
A series of blasts sounded across in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border early Wednesday morning as authorities extinguished a fire at an ammunition depot.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he woke “to a loud sound like an explosion” at about 3:35am in an update posted to Telegram.
“So far, not a single duty service of the city and the region has found the cause of this sound,” he added.
The explosions were said to have come from near the village of Staraya Nelidovka which lies about 40km outside the Ukrainian border.
“According to preliminary information, an ammunition depot is on fire. There is no destruction of residential buildings, houses. There were no casualties among the civilian population,” Gladkov said.
The Belgorod province borders Ukraine’s Luhansk, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, all of which have seen heavy fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago.
A Weapons Depot is on fire as a result of Explosions in the Western Russian city of Belgorod, Russian Air Defenses were reported to have been Active over the City earlier. @spook_info pic.twitter.com/OIBcBmRqEZ
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 27, 2022
Poland’s government has issued a statement to say that it has arrested “a citizen of the Russian Federation and a citizen of Belarus who were engaged in espionage activities in Poland” and that a court has “ordered their detention on remand for three months”.
The statement says:
The men detained on 21 and 22 April are suspected of espionage activities for the Russian secret services. The material collected by the military counterintelligence service (SKW) indicates that a Russian and a Belarusian, acting on behalf of the Russian intelligence against Poland, carried out activities aimed at identifying the functioning of the Polish Armed Forces, including the presence of the army in the Polish-Belarusian border zone.
Gazprom halts gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria – reports
Reuters has a snap that gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria have been halted by Gazprom.
Moscow had told Poland and Bulgaria it would halt gas supplies at 8am CET following their refusal to pay the Russian energy giant Gazprom in roubles. Supplies to Poland had already been briefly disrupted.
Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Russia was “beginning the gas blackmail of Europe”.
There is an analysis of the situation in Mariupol in our latest First Edition – our new daily morning email from Archie Bland and Nimo Omer. They write that the siege of Mariupol was meant to be over. Why isn’t it?:
An estimated 1,000 Ukrainian forces – as well as hundreds of civilians – are thought to be located at the Azovstal steelworks, a sprawling complex covering about four square miles with a network of passages in its basement. Metinvest, which owns the steel mill, says that the bunkers below ground were used as shelters in 2014 during a previous attempt on the city by Russian-backed separatists and were stocked with enough food and water to last 4,000 people three weeks.
In those circumstances, says Peter Beaumont, an experienced foreign correspondent for the Guardian and Observer, there may have been some misunderstanding of the reasons for Russia’s reluctance to go in on the ground even as it continues to shell the site. “Perhaps some people have slightly got the narrative wrong when the Kremlin said we’re going to seal it off, as if this was a Russian defeat.”
Peter points out that the presence at the site of the Azov battalion, a unit linked to the far right with a significant neo-Nazi contingent, means that “in propaganda terms, pictures of these guys stumbling out with their hands up would be a much bigger win than potentially losing hundreds of soldiers by trying to raise a Russian flag over the steelworks.”
You can read the analysis in full here: Wednesday briefing – The siege of Mariupol was meant to be over. Why isn’t it?
In case you missed Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s latest national address, the Ukrainian president said he believes Russia is trying to destabilise the situation in the Transnistrian region, while Ukrainian armed forces are ready for a possible escalation by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied territory of the Republic of Moldova.
Answering journalists’ questions after a meeting with the International Atomic Agency’s director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he fully shares the assessment of the situation by Moldovan president Maia Sandu.
Zelenskiy also said that he discussed that issue with the Romanian prime minister, Nicolae Ciucă, who was in Kyiv on Tuesday.
We clearly understand that this is one of the steps of the Russian Federation. The special services are working there. It’s not just about fake news. The goal is obvious – to destabilise the situation in the region, to threaten Moldova. They show that if Moldova supports Ukraine, there will be certain steps.”
According to Zelenskiy, Ukraine knows that the Russian troops, which have been present in the territory of the temporarily occupied part of Moldova – Transnistria – for many years, are in “constant readiness”.
“But we understand their capabilities, the armed forces of Ukraine are ready for this and are not afraid of them,” he added.
The west must ‘double down’ on support for Ukraine, UK foreign minister says
Britain’s foreign minister Elizabeth Truss is expected to call on allies of Ukraine to “ramp up” military production including of planes and tanks, the AFP is reporting after reviewing a preview of a speech to be delivered on Wednesday. In her speech, called the new approach, Truss says the UK’s new approach “will be based on three areas: military strength, economic security and deeper global alliances”.
“We cannot be complacent – the fate of Ukraine remains in the balance,” her speech reads.
A Russian victory would have “terrible consequences across the globe”, Truss is expected to say. “We must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine.
“Heavy weapons, tanks, aeroplanes – digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this.”
“There must be nowhere for Putin to go to fund this appalling war,” her speech continues.
“The architecture that was designed to guarantee peace and prosperity has failed Ukraine.”
“We must also follow through on the unity shown in this crisis to reboot, recast and remodel our approach to deterring aggressors.”
Truss will also call for “free nations” to be “more assertive and self-confident”, according to AFP.
Russia to stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria today
Russia said it will stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria today after the countries refused to pay its supplier, Gazprom, in roubles.
Bulgaria, which is almost completely reliant on Russian gas imports, said it had fulfilled all its contractual obligations with Gazprom and that the proposed new payment scheme was in breach of the arrangement.
However, Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria continued to flow this morning according to Vladimir Malinov, executive director of Bulgarian gas network operator Bulgartransgaz, who told Reuters on Wednesday that gas supplies were continuing for the time being.
Bulgaria’s energy ministry said Russia’s Gazprom informed Bulgarian state gas company Bulgargaz it will halt gas supplies as of Wednesday.
The ministry will give a news briefing on the situation later on Wednesday morning.
Gas supplies under the Yamal contract to Poland also edged up after dropping to zero earlier, data from the European Union network of gas transmission operators seen by Reuters showed on Wednesday.
Physical gas flows via the Yamal-Europe pipeline from Belarus to Poland were at 3,449,688 kWh/hour at 6:22am CET (4:22am GMT).
Blasts heard in Russian city of Belgorod
A series of blasts sounded across in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border early Wednesday morning as authorities extinguished a fire at an ammunition depot.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he woke “to a loud sound like an explosion” at about 3:35am in an update posted to Telegram.
“So far, not a single duty service of the city and the region has found the cause of this sound,” he added.
The explosions were said to have come from near the village of Staraya Nelidovka which lies about 40km outside the Ukrainian border.
“According to preliminary information, an ammunition depot is on fire. There is no destruction of residential buildings, houses. There were no casualties among the civilian population,” Gladkov said.
The Belgorod province borders Ukraine’s Luhansk, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, all of which have seen heavy fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago.
A Weapons Depot is on fire as a result of Explosions in the Western Russian city of Belgorod, Russian Air Defenses were reported to have been Active over the City earlier. @spook_info pic.twitter.com/OIBcBmRqEZ
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 27, 2022
Russian forces have established control over the settlement of Zarichne after storming the settlement of Yampil, the Ukrainian military has said in its latest operational report as of 6am this morning.
In the Russian settlements of the Belgorod region, Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces claimed that Russian forces launched two missile divisions of the OTRK “Iskander-M”.
Ukrainian defenders continue to be blocked in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol while Russian forceS carry out “filtration measures” on civilians, officials added.
Russia is also attempting to replenish losses by transporting new equipment into Ukraine via railway, the report reads.
Summary and welcome
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments until my colleague, Martin Belam, takes the reins a little later in the day.
It is just past 7am in Ukraine. Here’s what we know so far:
- A series of blasts were heard in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border amid reports an ammunition depot caught fire, local officials have said. Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he woke “to a loud sound like an explosion” at about 3:35am in an update posted to Telegram. The explosions were said to have come from near the village of Staraya Nelidovka which lies about 40km outside the Ukrainian border.
- Russia will stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria from Wednesday. Warsaw has refused to pay its supplier, Gazprom, in roubles and earlier announced that it was imposing sanctions on 50 entities and individuals including Russia’s biggest gas company. Bulgaria, which is almost completely reliant on Russian gas imports, said it had fulfilled all its contractual obligations with Gazprom and that the proposed new payment scheme was in breach of the arrangement. Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia was “beginning the gas blackmail of Europe”. However, data from the European Union network of gas transmission operators seen by Reuters showed gas supplies under the Yamal contract to Poland edged up on Wednesday.
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believes Russia is trying to destabilise the situation in Moldova’s Transnistrian region after a series of explosions there, adding that Ukrainian armed forces were ready for a possible escalation by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied territory. “The goal is obvious – to destabilise the situation in the region, to threaten Moldova. They show that if Moldova supports Ukraine, there will be certain steps,” Zelenskiy said in his latest national address. Russia has refused to rule out Moldova’s breakaway region Transnistria being drawn into the Ukraine war.
- Zelenskiy said the “free world has the right to self-defence” after predicting that Russia intends to not only seize the territory of Ukraine but to “dismember the entire centre and east of Europe” and “deal a global blow to democracy”.
- Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is expected to call on allies of Ukraine to “ramp up” and “double down” on military production including of planes and tanks in a speech set to be delivered on Wednesday. Truss said the UK’s new approach “will be based on three areas: military strength, economic security and deeper global alliances”. Russia’s victory will have “terrible consequences across the globe”, Truss is expected to say. “We must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine.
- Australia will send six M777 howitzers and ammunition to Ukraine as part of a A$26.7m package in its response to “Russia’s brutal, unrelenting and illegal invasion” a statement from prime minister Scott Morrison and defence minster Peter Dutton said on Wednesday. Canada aims to send eight armoured vehicles “as quickly as possible”, minister of defence Anita Anand announced.
- The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, travelled to Moscow and, in a joint press conference with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, Guterres said the UN was “ready to fully mobilise its human and logistical resources to help save lives in Mariupol”. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereschuk, said there was “no point” in the UN if there was no real humanitarian corridor from Mariupol. Guterres also met Russian president Vladimir Putin who described the situation in the besieged city of Mariupol as “tragic” and “complicated”. Moscow and Kyiv were continuing talks online, Putin said.
- The head of the UN’s atomic watchdog has condemned the Russian occupation of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, describing it as “very, very dangerous”. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general, Rafael Grossi, is heading an expert mission thre to “deliver equipment, conduct radiological assessments and restore safeguards monitoring systems”.
- Zelenskiy said “no one in the world can feel safe” after Russia threatened Ukraine’s nuclear facilities and called for “global control” over Russia’s nuclear facilities and nuclear technology after meeting with director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi. “No other country in the world since 1986 has posed such a major threat to nuclear security, to Europe and the world” he said.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson said he does not expect Putin to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Johnson said Putin “has a lot of room for manoeuvre” and could back down.
- Ukraine retains control over the majority of its airspace as Russian air activity focuses primarily on southern and eastern Ukraine, the UK’s ministry of defence has said.
As usual, please feel free to reach out to me by email or Twitter for any tips or feedback.
