Russia is ready to legally confirm it has no intention of attacking the EU or Nato, deputy foreign minister says
The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said that Russia is ready to confirm in a legal agreement that it has no intention of attacking either the EU or Nato, according to a report in the state RIA news agency. We have not been able to independently verify these comments yet.
As mentioned in a previous post, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has offered to drop Ukraine’s ambition to join Nato in an attempt to show his willingness to reach an agreement to bring about an end to the war.
In return, Zelenskyy and his European allies have been pushing for “article-5-like” security guarantees from Europe and the US, referring to Nato’s founding principle that an attack on one member country should be considered as an attack on all.
Last week, American officials reportedly said the US was ready to offer Ukraine Nato-like security guarantees to safeguard an eventual ceasefire in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Key events
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that without a significant cash injection by spring, Ukraine will have to cut its drone production, with Kyiv under pressure to cede territory as the US pushes for a swift deal to bring the war to an end.
As a reminder, EU leaders agreed on Friday to provide €90bn ($106bn) to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed from capital markets.
Most of Russia’s €210bn worth of assets in the EU are held by Euroclear, the Brussels-based securities depository.
Belgium is deeply anxious about being left exposed to legal and financial risks, and other states including Italy have also voiced concerns. Russia has filed a lawsuit against Euroclear in a Moscow court to try to get its money back.
Ukraine needs about €137bn over the next two years to cover its military/public services.
EU Council extends economic sanctions against Russia for another six months
The EU Council said in a press release on Monday that it has extended economic sanctions against Russia for six more months, in response to Moscow’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine.
The measures will remain in force until 31 July 2026, the council said. The press release reads:
These economic measures, first introduced in 2014, were significantly expanded since February 2022 in response to Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified and illegal military aggression against Ukraine.
They currently consist of a broad spectrum of sectoral measures, including restrictions on trade, finance, energy, technology and dual-use goods, industry, transport and luxury goods.
They also cover: a ban on the import or transfer of seaborne crude oil and certain petroleum products from Russia to the EU, a de-SWIFTing of several Russian banks and the suspension of the broadcasting activities and licenses in the European Union of several Kremlin-backed disinformation outlets. Additionally, specific measures enable the EU to counter sanctions circumvention.
As long as the illegal actions by the Russian Federation continue to violate fundamental rules of international law, including, in particular, the prohibition on the use of force, it is appropriate to maintain in force all the measures imposed by the EU and to take additional measures, if necessary.
The Ukrainian army is battling an attempted Russian breakthrough in the Sumy region, it has said, after reports Moscow forcibly moved 50 people from a border village there.
That marks a renewed Russian advance in the part of the region largely spared from intense ground fighting since Ukraine regained land there in a 2022 counteroffensive.
“Fighting is currently ongoing in the village of Grabovske,” Ukraine’s joint taskforce said yesterday, adding the troops were “making efforts to drive the occupiers back into Russian territory”.
It also refuted media reports saying Moscow’s troops were in the neighbouring Ryasne village. Earlier on Sunday, the Ukrainian rights ombudsman said Russian troops forcibly moved about 50 people from Grabovske to Russia. There was no official comment from Russia.
Pjotr Sauer
The Guardian’s Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer, has some more detail on this developing story. Here is an extract from his report:
Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, who oversees combat training and readiness for Russia’s armed forces in the war in Ukraine, has extensive experience in the Kremlin’s post-Soviet wars. He took part in both Chechen wars and later played a role in organising Russia’s 2015–16 military intervention in Syria.
The Kremlin is expected to comment later on the attack, but some Russian officials have already called for retribution.
“We need to identify and eliminate the entire chain of those who carried out the operation. I don’t think they should be taken prisoner at all – they should simply be destroyed on the spot, as is done with terrorists,” Andrey Kolesnik, a member of the Duma’s defence committee, was quoted as saying by the news site Lenta.ru.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been immediately informed about Sarvarov’s killing.
‘It’s the cost of war,’ resident says after reported car bombing in Moscow
We have some accounts from residents in Moscow, where a Russian general was reportedly killed in a car bombing in a parking lot near an apartment block in the south of the Russian capital (see opening post for more details).
“We absolutely didn’t expect it. We thought we were safe, and then this happens right next to us,” local resident, Tatiana, 74, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
“The windows rattled, you could tell it was an explosion,” Grigory, 70, said.
“We need to treat it more calmly. It’s the cost of war,” he added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said that Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev will report to Vladimir Putin on US proposals aimed at ending the war in Ukraine as soon as he arrives in Moscow from Miami.
Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, who has assumed a key role in peace talks, arrived in Miami on Saturday and held two days of talks with Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and the US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had captured Vilcha in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported this morning. We have not been able to independently verify this information yet.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signalled that he is prepared to drop Ukraine’s desire for Nato membership if he can get robust security guarantees from the west.
This represents a huge shift for Ukraine, which has fought to join Nato as a safeguard against Russian attacks. Kyiv has so far held firm against ceding territory to Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine officially renounce its Nato ambitions and withdraw troops from approximately 10% of Donbas that Kyiv still controls. Moscow has also said that Ukraine must be a neutral country, and that no Nato troops can be stationed there.
No apparent breakthrough after Ukraine talks held in Miami
US and Ukrainian envoys have said that “productive and constructive” talks have taken place in Miami, despite there being no apparent breakthrough in finding a way to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Over the last three days in Florida, the Ukrainian delegation held a series of productive and constructive meetings with American and European partners,” Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov said in separate statements on X on Sunday. Witkoff posted:
“Our shared priority is to stop the killing, ensure guaranteed security and create conditions for Ukraine’s recovery, stability and long-term prosperity. Peace must be not only a cessation of hostilities, but also a dignified foundation for a stable future.”
Separate talks have been taking place in Miami between the US and the Russian envoy and businessman, Kirill Dmitriev.
There has been weeks of intense diplomatic activity sparked by the leaking of a 28-point US proposal to end the war which alarmed Kyiv and Europe as it was widely seen as favourable to Moscow (it called on Ukraine to withdraw from cities it controls in the eastern Donbas region, limit the size of its army, and not join Nato).
Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the US have been hashing out proposals over the last couple of weeks, but Kyiv and Moscow have been unable to agree on major issues, such as the Kremlin’s demand to keep land it has seized.
Tomahawks should go to Ukraine if Putin rejects proposal to end war, Lindsey Graham says
Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, US senator Lindsey Graham said the American team negotiating with Russia and Ukraine to bring an end to the war are “overestimating” Vladimir Putin’s “willingness” to end the conflict.
Graham, a South Carolina Republican and close Trump ally, suggested that Washington should intensify pressure on Moscow – including supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles – if Vladimir Putin refuses to accept a negotiated proposal.
Ukraine has been seeking Tomahawk missiles to carry out long-range strikes against Russia, but without them has still been able to wage a successful campaign using its own drones and missiles against Russian military and strategic targets such as oil depots and refineries. Donald Trump told reporters last month that he was “not really” considering supplying Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, but said he could change his mind in the future.
In his interview with NBC, Graham said “great progress” had been made by Kyiv, Washington and European leaders to come up with a proposal to end the war, adding that he wants European troops “on the ground” and US security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent a “third invasion”.
“We are not going to evict every Russian out of Ukraine, understand that,” the Senator said. “I think Putin is going to continue to take the Donbas by force until we increase pressure.”
Graham added:
We are going to be Lucy with the football if we don’t watch it. We keep engaging Russia, we keep trying to lure Putin to the peace table and he rebuffs all of our efforts.
If (Putin) says no this time, here’s what I hope president Trump will do: Sign my bill that has 85 co-sponsors and put tariffs on countries like China who buy cheap Russian oil.
Make Russia a state sponsor of terrorism for kidnapping 20,000 Ukrainian kids. And most importantly, seize ships that are carrying sanctioned Russian oil like you’re doing in Venezuela.
A Ukrainian drone attack damaged two vessels and two piers and caused a fire in a village on the Black Sea coast in Russia’s Krasnodar region, regional authorities said on Monday.
All crew on the ships at the Volna terminal on the Black Sea had been safely evacuated, the Krasnodar region’s operational headquarters said in a post on Telegram. The damage led to a fire spreading up to 1,500 sq metres, authorities said.
Russian general killed by car bomb in southern Moscow, investigators say
A Russian general was killed this morning after an explosive device detonated underneath his car in southern Moscow, investigators said.
Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, the head of the operational training directorate of the Russian armed forces’ general Staff, died from his injuries, Svetlana Petrenko, official spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said.
“Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” Petrenko said.
Russian news outlets reported that a car exploded in a parking lot on Moscow’s Yaseneva Street with the driver inside at approximately 7am.
Ukraine’s security service claimed responsibility for a similar attack against a high-ranking Russian soldier in December 2024.
Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building a day after Kyiv levelled criminal charges against him. His assistant, Ilya Polikarpov, was also killed. I will bring you all the key updates on this story – and plenty of others – throughout the day.