Russia-Ukraine war: Putin launches heavy attacks as Kyiv says leadership reset coming

The departure of the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to lead the largest Nato exercise since the Cold War has been cancelled at the last minute after an “issue” with a propeller shaft was spotted during final checks.

The setback comes 18 months after sister ship HMS Prince of Wales broke down off the Isle of Wight after it sailed for the US having suffered a malfunction with a coupling on its starboard propeller.

It will now be readied to take the place of the £3bn fleet flagship on the major exercises which will involve more than 40 vessels.

The Kremlin on Monday warned the West that any attempt to use frozen Russian assets as collateral to raise funds for Ukraine, would be illegal and undermine the entire global economic system.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was speaking after a Bloomberg report that G7 countries are considering using frozen Russian assets as collateral to raise funds for Ukraine.

Tucker Carlson has apparently been spotted at Moscow‘s Bolshoi Theatre, sparking speculation about whether he could be in the city to interview Vladimir Putin.

However, there was no official confirmation of the visit from Carlson’s office, or from the US and Russian authorities.

On Sunday, a Telegram channel named Mash – believed to be close to Russian law enforcement authorities – published purported photos of Carlson in Moscow. It also said that he flew in from Istanbul and “he has been in Moscow for three days”.

Up to 1,000 Wagner mercanaries remain in Belarus, where troops have been stationed since June 2023, according to the UK’s ministry of defence.

“It is highly likely that fewer than 1,000 Russian Wagner mercenaries remain in Belarus. They have been present in the country since June 2023, at which point there were 8,000 Wagner mercenaries,” the MoD said.

“Wagner almost certainly continues to provide training to Belarusian military and security forces,” it added.

Ukrainian shelling has killed at least 28 people at a bakery in the Russian-occupied city of Lysychansk, Moscow officials claimed.

Local leader Leonid Pasechnik added that at least one child was among the dead and a further ten people were rescued from under the rubble by emergency services.

Ukrainian officials in Kyiv did not comment on the incident.

The Emergencies Ministry had released a video late on Saturday of first responders finding dead bodies and taking away bloodied people on stretchers out of the ruins of the one-storey building that appeared to be destroyed.

Lysychansk had a population of about 110,000 before Moscow’s offensive. The city fell to Russian forces after a deadly battle in 2022.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have increasingly relied on longer-range attacks this winter amid largely unchanged positions on the 1,500-kilometer front line in the nearly 2-year-old war.

President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Ukrainian troops on the southeastern front and handed out medals, his office said on Sunday, and his spokesperson said he came very close to exchanges of fire on the front line.

Zelensky undertook the journey to Zaporizhzhia region amid speculation that his popular army chief could soon be sacked.

The president, who has frequently toured areas close to the front, met soldiers in the village of Robotyne, his office said, almost on the battle line.

“This is Robotyne and there is intense fighting going on,”

Serhiy Nikiforov, the president’s spokesman, told reporters. “So it was quite close to explosions, but I wouldn’t dramatise the situation.”

Ukrainian soldiers quoted on social media said the area Zelenskiy visited carried risks because of intense drone and artillery activity.

Zelenskiy said in a statement that he had come to the area to support and bestow honours on Ukrainian soldiers.

“They face a difficult and critical mission to repel the enemy and defend Ukraine,” he said.

The southeastern settlement of Robotyne was liberated in late August last year in the counteroffensive launched against Russian forces. In overall terms, the counteroffensive has had only limited success in recapturing territory against heavily dug enemy troops.

The visit to the battle lines was taking place at a time of uncertainty over the fate of army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.

Two sources said on Friday that the Ukrainian government had informed the White House that it plans to fire the country’s top military commander overseeing the war against Russian occupation forces.

The alleged move to oust Zaluzhnyi, who has clashed with Zelenskiy over a range of issues, follows the uncertain results of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Known as “the Iron General”, Zaluzhnyi is extremely popular. His removal could hurt morale among Ukrainian troops battling to hold positions along more than 600 miles (1,000 km) of frontlines against a vast Russian force armed with large munitions stockpiles.

Russian police have detained 20 journalists reporting on a rally in central Moscow, in which the wives of soldiers sent to the frontline in Ukraine urged Vladimir Putin to bring their loved ones home.

The relatives of military reservists have been gathering weekly to publicly voice their demands, in a rare but mounting display of dissent which threatens Mr Putin’s claim to have the full backing of the Russian people in his war against Ukraine, as he seeks a near-certain victory in next month’s presidential elections.

In the highly-charged case, Kyiv claims that Russia breached the landmark 1948 convention by using trumped-up claims of genocide in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk as a pretext for attacking Ukraine nearly two years ago. Ukraine also accuses Moscow of “planning acts of genocide.”

Moscow rejects the allegations and argued last year that the court should throw out the case before even considering the merits of Kyiv’s claims.

At hearings in September, the leader of Moscow’s legal team, Gennady Kuzmin, called Ukraine’s case “hopelessly flawed and at odds with the longstanding jurisprudence of this court.”

In order for the court to have jurisdiction, Ukraine has to establish that it has a dispute with Russia over the genocide convention.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko has broken the world record for the most cumulative time spent in space, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos reported Sunday.

The 59-year-old has now spent more than 878 days and 12 hours in space, surpassing fellow Russian Gennady Padalka, who set the previous record of 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes, and 48 seconds in 2015.

Speaking with Russian state news agency TASS, the engineer said that each trip to the ISS required careful preparation due to the station’s constant upgrades — but that life as a cosmonaut was a childhood dream come true.

“I fly into space to do what I love, not to set records. I’ve dreamt of and aspired to become a cosmonaut since I was a child. That interest — the opportunity to fly into space, to live and work in orbit — motivates me to continue flying,” he told TASS.

“We have decided to part ways with Miloš Biković and the role will be recast,” a HBO spokesperson told The Independent on Friday (2 February). Details of his role in the series were not disclosed.

In a statement of his own, Biković said he was the victim of a “targeted campaign”. You can read his statement in full below.

On 24 January, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared a montage of clips appearing to show Biković receiving an award from Putin. In 2018, the actor received the Pushkin Medal for his contributions to Russian culture and in 2021 received Russian citizenship by presidential decree.

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