Russian authorities have arrested a US journalist working in the country and accused him of espionage, a charge that could carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Evan Gershkovich, a well-respected reporter from the Wall Street Journal, was detained on Wednesday during a reporting trip to the Urals city of Ekaterinburg.
The US is “deeply concerned” over Gershkovich’s detention. The state department “has been in direct touch” with the Russian government over the the journalist’s detention, “including actively working to secure consular access” for him, the White House confirmed.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will chair a UN security council meeting in April when Russia assumes the international body’s presidency, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said. Russia’s coming UN security council presidency was “the worst joke ever for April Fool’s Day”, said Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and a “stark reminder that something is wrong with the way international security architecture is functioning”.
Turkey’s parliament approved a bill on Thursday to allow Finland to join Nato, clearing the way for the country to become part of the western defence alliance as war rages in Ukraine. The Turkish parliament was the last among the 30 members of the alliance to ratify Finland’s membership after Hungary’s legislature approved a similar bill earlier this week.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Moscow will continue to give the US advance notice about its missile tests despite suspending participation in the New Start nuclear arms treaty, reversing a statement he made just yesterday. The White House said on Tuesday that the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging certain data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.
Russian forces have had some success in the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday evening, adding that their fighters were still holding on in a battle that has lasted several months. The regular update from US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War appeared to support this, saying: “Geolocated footage published on 28 and 29 March indicates that Russian forces advanced in southern and south-western Bakhmut.”
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to call up 147,000 Russian citizens for statutory military service as part of the country’s spring conscription campaign, Russian state media reported. The Russian leader last signed a routine conscription campaign in September, calling up 120,000 citizens for statutory service, the state-run Tass news agency said.
Russian authorities are preparing to launch a significant recruitment campaign aimed at signing up 400,000 new troops to fight in Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update, citing Russian media. Moscow was presenting the campaign “as a drive for volunteer, professional personnel, rather than a new, mandatory mobilisation”, it said, adding that in practice regional authorities might try to coerce men to join up. “It is highly unlikely that the campaign will attract 400,000 genuine volunteers,” it said.
Some Ukrainian parents have been hiding their children in basements to prevent them from being taken, Ukrainian volunteers who have been evacuating civilians from the frontlines of the war with Russia have said. While parents have given different reasons, most volunteers have attributed the phenomenon to a combination of poverty and the psychological condition of the families, who have been living under bombing for months.
A Russian man who fled house arrest after being sentenced to jail for discrediting Russia in social media posts, following an investigation prompted by his daughter’s anti-war drawings, was arrested in Belarus, his lawyer said. Alexei Moskalyov, 54, was sentenced to two years for his criticism of Kremlin policies in social media posts. Police investigated him after his 13-year-old daughter, Maria, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and made drawings showing rockets being fired at a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another that said “Glory to Ukraine!”.
The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, has hit back at criticism by some European governments – including Ukraine’s – of a plan for a full return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international sport. “It is deplorable to see that some governments do not want to respect the majority within the Olympic movement and all stakeholders, nor the autonomy of sport,” Bach said on Thursday.
King Charles III has lauded the unity between the UK and Germany in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “the scourge of war is back in Europe”. Both the UK and Germany had shown “vital leadership”, the king said in a bilingual speech in the Bundestag, praising Berlin’s decision to provide large military support to Ukraine as “remarkably courageous, important and appreciated”.