Ukraine-Russia war latest: French instructors in Ukraine would be 'legitimate target', Lavrov says on visit to West Africa (2024)

A man withdual American and Russian nationality has been sentenced by a St Petersburg court to three-and-a-half years in prison on charges of"rehabilitating Nazism".

Yuri Malev was arrested in December over social mediaposts in which he was alleged to have denigrated the SaintGeorge's ribbon, a Russian military symbol of valour.

One post reportedly contained "obscene language" and another other showed a picture of acorpse wearing the ribbon, captioned: "How to wear theSaint George's ribbon correctly".

The court in St Petersburg said thisshowed disrespect for society and insulted the memory of theGreat Patriotic War (the Russian name for the Second World War).

Malev admitted guilt, according to the court.

He was agraduate of the law faculty of St Petersburg University and hadlived in the United States since 1991, according to independent Russian language media.

Baza, a Telegram channel with links to Russian authorities, said Malev was a resident of Brooklyn, New York.

He reportedly entered Russia by bus from Estonia two weeks before he was arrested.

Moscow routinely refers to the government in Kyiv as a "Nazi regime", despite President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being Jewish.

Ukraine has been allowed to shoot down Moscow's planes over Russian territory with American weapons since the war broke out, the White House has clarified.

Ukraine "can shoot down Russian aeroplanes that pose an impending threat", national security spokesman John Kirby said.

"And they have. They have since the beginning of the war."

The clarification was given due to confusion over Washington’s recent decision to relax rules on US-supplied weapons striking military targets on Russian soil.

Joe Biden gave authorisation for the strikes on a limited basis to help Kyiv defend itself against Kremlin forces advances towards Kharkiv.

Mr Kirby said he could not confirm reports that Ukraine had used US-supplied weapons on Russian territory for the first time.

He told reporters: "We're just not in a position on a day-to-day basis of knowing exactly what the Ukrainians are firing at what.

"It's certainly at a tactical level. So, I can't confirm that. I can tell you that they understand the guidance that they've been given."

By Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent

Sergei Lavrov's trip to Africa is part of an ongoing diplomatic offensive by the Kremlin, running in parallel to its conflict in Ukraine.

Isolated from the West, Russia is trying to forge new ties and has found fertile ground in Africa.

There have been several coups in recent years that have ushered in anti-Western military juntas.

US troops were kicked out of Niger, for example, while the French had to leave Burkina Faso.

In both cases, Moscow was quick to move in as the new security guarantors, and their efforts clearly don't stop there.

This is the veteran foreign minister Lavrov's ninth visit to the continent since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Kenya, Burundi and South Africa were among his stops last year; this week it's Guinea, Congo and Burkina Faso.

In return for military support, Russia gains an ally - they may not support the war, but they won't criticise it either.

The Kremlin portrays this as the formation of a new world order, free from Western imperialism and hegemony.

But others say Russia are the neo-colonialists, painting this as a blatant attempt to expand their sphere of influence.

Ukraine's first deputy foreign minister has held talks with his Chinese counterpart in an effort to increase cooperation between the two countries, the Ukrainian ministry said.

Ukraine's Andriy Sybiha also told Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong that he hoped China would participate in a Ukraine-led peace summit later in June.

Mr Sybiha added that it could be "a good opportunity to make a practical contribution to achieving a just and lasting peace", the Ukrainian foreign ministry said.

A report earlier today (see 7.40am post) said that June's peace summit opened doors to "limited talks with Russia" - despite Russian officials not being invited.

Earlier we brought you news that Ukraine said it had shot down 22 of the 27 Shahed-type drones launched by Russia overnight (see 8.04am post).

Now photographs have emerged of the aftermath of one of the strikes.

Firefighters work to put out the massive blaze in the Poltava region.

As Russia opens a new front on Ukraine's northeastern border, the war has entered an important phase.

Readers have been sending in their questions to our senior correspondents and military experts for their take on the changing battlefield environment.

Today, Trevor Prew asks:

Are there any signs of an underground Russian resistance operating inside Russia, or can Russians openly criticize Putin, as long as they don't protest on the streets or mention the war.

Russia correspondent Ivor Bennett says:

In a word, no.

There wasn't much opposition to speak of in Russia even before the war, but now there's nothing left whatsoever.

All of Putin's political opponents are either exiled, jailed or dead, as are those with any connections to Alexei Navalny.

Those who dare to speak out are silenced.

At one end, are the long-time critics and opposition activists, like Vladimir Kara-Murza, the dual Russian-British national opposition who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for treason.

But at the other end are ordinary Russians, like the former schoolteacher Nikita Tushkanov sentenced to 5.5 years for comments he made online about Putin.

The crackdown on dissent seemingly knows no bounds and it's created a climate in which those who oppose the war are terrified to speak out.

They do exist - as evidenced by the huge turnout for Navalny's funeral. But that was a unique moment and is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.

A unit of a Spanish firm that is refurbishing Leopard tanks for delivery to Ukraine suffered a cyber attack that took its website down, a pro-Russian hackers group said.

A spokesperson for the aerospace and defence company General Dynamics, of which the Spain-based Santa Barbara Systems is a part, said it was still analysing the cause of the website outage.

The company added that all of its operations in Europe were running normally.

The NoName hacking group claimed responsibility for the distributed denial-of-service(DDoS) attack on Telegram.

DDoS attacks direct high volumes of internet traffic towardstargeted servers to knock them offline.

"We sent our DDoS missiles against websites in RussophobicSpain," the group, which often directs such actions againstcountries which support Ukraine, wrote on Telegram.

NATO said last month that Russia was behind an intensifying campaign of hybrid attacks on companies and infrastructure inmember states, an accusation Russia dismissed as "misinformation".

Santa Barbara assembles heavy vehicles such as Leopard tanks and artillery equipment for the Spanish army and has beeninvolved in refurbishing Spain's mothballed Leopard tanks fordelivery to the Ukrainian army, according to the defenceministry.

Last week, Spain pledged €1bn (£850.5m) inmilitary support for Ukraine this year.

An update on our previous posts on Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov's trip to Africa.

Mr Lavrov announced that Moscow will sendadditional military supplies and instructors to Burkina Faso tohelp the west African country boost its defence capabilities,Russian state media reported.

Burkina Faso, under military leadership since a 2022coup, has played host to contingents of the Wagner mercenaryforce, whose founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a planecrash last August.

"From the very first contacts between our countriesafter President [Ibrahim] Traore came to power, we have beenvery closely engaged in all areas of cooperation, including thedevelopment of military and military-technical ties," TASS newsagency cited Lavrov as saying.

"I have no doubt that thanks to this cooperation, theremaining pockets of terrorism on the territory of Burkina Fasowill be destroyed," Mr Lavrov said.

Russia's foreign minister has made a series of visits to Africa since thestart of the war in Ukraine as Russia, hit by Western sanctions,seeks new trade partners and tries to rally developing countriesbehind its vision of a "multipolar world" no longer dominated bythe US and former European powers.

Growing Russian security ties with Africa, includingcountries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger where militaryleaders have seized power in coups, are a source of concern tothe US and other Western governments.

Separately, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesdaythat Russian aluminium giant Rusal is in negotiations with thegovernment of Sierra Leone on a bauxite mining concession.

Some pictures have come in of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov's visit to Africa (see 9.20am post), where he met his counterparts from Burkina Faso, Republic of Congo and Guinea.

He also met the president of the Republic of the Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso.

A senior US Treasury official has saidUS and allies' budget assistance is designed to help Ukraine combat corruption and increase transparency - amid its bid to become a NATO member.

Brent Neiman, deputy undersecretary for international finance, said in a speechto the Atlantic Council thinktank that Ukraine's wartime economy has proven resilient during the conflict.

But he said that Ukraine needs to undertake reforms to "reduce the likelihood for conflicts of interest and corruption".

Mr Neiman laid out anti-corruption steps Ukraine has taken, including having public office holders report their asset holdings, insulating Ukraine's special anti-corruption prosecutor's office from political pressure and improving corporate governance at state-owned companies.

The US has provided roughly $175bn to Ukraine, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can join the blocs.

“To be clear, I believe the US and the international community should help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's barbaric attacks even if there were no scope for Ukraine to make these sorts of reforms," Mr Neiman said.

"Nonetheless, this is an important opportunity to help Ukraine do both.”

“To this end, budget assistance from the United States, Europe, and the International Financial Institutions is designed to help support Ukraine in undertaking a number of priority reforms.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected on an anti-corruption platform in 2019. Both Mr Zelenskyy and his aides have portrayed the recent firings of top officials, notably that of Ivan Bakanov, former head of the State Security Service, in July 2022, as proof of their efforts to crack down on graft.

The past two years has seen Ukraine's defence minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.