Ukraine war latest: Kremlin responds to Biden slip-up - and says West has carried out 'dangerous escalation' (2024)

Russia's foreign ministry has accused South Korea of blackmail and "threatening tactics" over its potential weapons supplies to Ukraine.

South Korea has provided non-lethal aid to Ukraine, including mine clearance equipment, but has so far resistsed Kyiv's requests for weapons.

The country said in June that it is revising this stance however in light of deepening cooperation between Russia and North Korea.

That has angered the Kremlin, with Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accusing South Korea of using "NATO narratives" to defend its potential arming of Ukraine.

She said: "We very much regret that Seoul's foreign policy uses NATO narratives, blackmail and threatening tactics, which is unacceptable to sovereign states."

Finland has passed a law granting border guards the power to blockasylum seekers crossing from Russia - at odds with its international human rights commitments.

Helsinki has accused Moscow of weaponising migration by encouraging 1,3000 migrants from countries such as Syria and Somalia to cross the border.

The Kremlin denies the allegations, but Finland believes it is promoting the crossings inretaliation for joining NATO.

Similar steps have been taken in recent years inother European countries, including Poland and Lithuania, tomake it more difficult for migrants to cross the border fromRussia and ally Belarus.

The Kremlin says the whole world paidattention to Joe Biden's verbal slips at the NATO summit, but it was more concerned with his "unacceptable" comments about Vladimir Putin.

Mr Biden spoke in detail for some time about geopolitics, but all was overshadowed when he mistakenly introduced Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin", before quickly correcting himself.

Separately, the US president referred to Mr Putin as "a murderous madman".

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "We noticed that the whole world paid attention to whathappened, and there can be no comment here, but it isclear that these were slips of the tongue.

"It is understandable that they probably received such awide resonance given the context of the internal politicaldiscussions that we are now witnessing in the US, butit's not our topic, it's an internal US topic."

He added that the Kremlin had taken note of what itcalled disrespectful comments Mr Biden made about Mr Putin.

"We continue to consider it absolutely unacceptable and impermissible behaviour for a head of state to make suchdisrespectful remarks about other heads of state."

The Kremlin says Western countries carried out a "very dangerous escalation" by permitting Ukraine to use arms to strike Russian territory at the NATO summit.

"We see statements by representatives of some capitals, London and so on, who do not see any restrictions in this regard, and we see countries that are trying to keep the balance and say that they are against such easing of the terms for the use of long-range missiles," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"But in the end, the main thing is that these missiles are already hitting our territory.

"As for increasing this distance, this is pure provocation, a new, very dangerous escalation of tension."

Sir Keir Starmer told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that British missiles can be used for defensive strikes against targets inside Russia.

ButDowning Street followed the comments by saying government policy "had not changed" regarding the deployment of the long-range missiles.

Ukraine's top presidential aide Andriy Yermak has called for an end to restrictions imposed on the use ofally-supplied weapons,saying it would be a "game-changer" in fighting Moscow.

Russian authorities have begun throttling YouTube, degrading its usability in a pattern similar to its censorship of Twitter, according to independent Russian media.

State-owned telecoms operator Rostelecom issued a statement this morning sayingequipment used for caching and loading videos were being overloaded, affecting YouTube download speeds across Russia.

But a source from the telecommunications industry told Meduza this is an excuse while the government's censorship agency acts to deliberately slow down the site.

Separately, Stanislav Shakirov, the technical director of an digital anti-censorship organisationRoskomsvoboda, told the BBC's Russia service the government was forcing users to leave the platform by making it impossible to use.

"The Russian authorities definitely have enough technical means," said Mr Shakirov.

"Why can't YouTube be blocked right away? Because in this case, some other infrastructure may fail and, for example, all Android smartphones in Russia will stop working."

He said authorities stopped pictures from loading on social media site X in February 2021 using the same methods.

The Kremlin has denied reports Russiaplanned to assassinate the chief executive of German armsmanufacturer Rheinmetall, which has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine.

CNN and the New York Times reported yesterday that US intelligence had discovered the plot.

But Moscow says the articles were based on "fake"information from anonymous sources and could not be taken seriously.

This hasn't stopped one of Rheinmetall's competitors, German defence groupHensoldt, from reassessing its safety measures.

"For us, this is an opportunity to review our already highsafety standards once again," said a spokesperson for Hensoldt,which produces radar technology for the IRIS-T air defensesystem used in Ukraine.

The German interior ministry said it cannot comment on details of individual threats coming fromRussia.

"We take the significantly increased threat of Russianaggression very seriously," a spokesperson said.

To Australia now, where the government has announced its largest single military assistance package to Ukraine, worth nearly $250m, Kyiv says.

It includes air defence missiles, air-to-ground and anti-tank weapons and ammunition for artillery, mortars, cannons, and small arms.

Meanwhile, an Australian army private and her husband accused of spying for Russia have been denied bail.

Kira Korolev, 40, and Igor Korolev, 62, are the first suspected operatives to be charged under modernised espionage laws passed in 2018.

Australian federal police commissioner Reece Kershaw said the couple allegedly "worked together to access Australian Defence Force material that related to Australia's national security interests".

"We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities. Whether that information was handed over remains a key focus of our investigation."

The couple did not appear in person and were represented by lawyers at Brisbane Magistrates Court on a charge each of preparing for an espionage offence.

The charge carries a potential maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted.

They did not enter pleas and will appear next in a federal court on 20 September.

Australia quietly expelled a large Russian spy ring comprising embassy and consular staff as well as other operatives using deep-cover identities, a spy agency official and media reported last year.

Ukraine's top prosecutorhas called for the International Criminal Court to prosecuteRussia over a missile strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv.

In one of the worst wave of Russian strikes across the country, 44 people were killed, includingtwo doctors at Okhmatdyt hospital.

The ICC's office of the prosecutor said one of its teams had visited the hospital, butdoes not publicly comment on which indictments it is investigating.

"It's important to show that Russia itself, at the moment, is a criminal state," said Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin.

Moscow denies attacking the hospital despite all available evidence indicating they did, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

A UN rights mission has said there was a "high likelihood"the hospital took a direct hit from a Russian missile, andUkraine's security service said it had unequivocal evidence themedical facility was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile.

The ICC has issued six arrest warrants for alleged Russian crimesin Ukraine, including one against Vladimir Putin.

A former Russian president has admitted Moscow will continue its military operation to "crush" Ukraine - even if Kyiv accepted the terms of the Kremlin's so-called peace deal.

Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said Russia will "drive a long steelnail into the coffin" of Ukraine in the event it surrenders much of its eastern territory.

Mr Putin has been shopping around the proposal that Ukraine give up four regions and drop its aspirations to join NATO in return for a ceasefire - a plan deemed absurd by Ukraine and its allies.

"What if they take [the deal] and accept it?" asked Mr Medvedev on Telegram.

"This will not be the end of Russia's military operation. Even after signing the papers and accepting defeat, the remaining part of the radicals, after a regrouping of forces, will sooner or later return to power, inspired by Russia's Western enemies.

"And then the time will come to finally crush the reptile. Drive a long steel nail into the coffin of Bandera's quasi-state," he said, making reference to the Second World War-era, far-right Ukrainian nationalistStepan Bandera.

"Destroy the remnants of his bloody legacy and return the remaining lands to the bosom of the Russian land."

Russian propaganda frequently seeks to portray the modern day Ukrainian state as sympathetic to the Nazis in order to justify its full-scale invasion.

The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution demanding Russia urgently withdraws from Europe's largest nuclear power plant.

It expressed "grave concern over the precarious nuclear safety and security situation" at the plant, which it said must be returned to Ukrainian control.

The resolution was approved by 99 votes to nine, with 60 countries abstaining and 25 countries not voting.

Russia was joined by Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, Syria, Burundi and North Korea in opposing it.

There have been fears of a nuclear catastrophe since Russian troops occupied the plant shortly after invading Ukraine in February 2022.

Zaporizhzhia, which has six nuclear reactors, sits in Russian-controlled territory in south-eastern Ukraine near the front lines and has been continually caught in crossfire.

TheInternational Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly expressed alarm about cuts to Zaporizhzhia's electricity, which is crucial for the plant's operation.

Ukraine's UN ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said the repercussions of a possible incident "would be even more catastrophic" thanthe Chernobyl plant explosion in 1986.

Mr Kyslytsya warned that "if we simply stand with our arms crossed, that good luck will not last forever, and an incident will be inevitable".

Russia's deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky accused the communique's supporters of trying "to promote the false Western narrative about the source of threats to nuclear facilities in Ukraine".