Ukraine-Russia war latest: Europe says Moscow’s claim it is helping Kyiv build nuclear ‘dirty bomb’ is ‘absurd’

Four people have been killed and 10 injured after a Ukrainian drone attack on a fertiliser factory on the Smolensk region of western Russia, according to the local governor.

Vasily Anokhin said that the people were employees of a fertiliser factory in a statement on Telegram on Wednesday.

“After the blocking of Starlink for the Russians, the level of their efficiency compared to ours has sharply decreased because Starlink is practically irreplaceable as a combat communication system,” the brigadier general tells The Independent.

The Independent’s world affairs editor Sam Kiley reports:

Reflecting on the fourth anniversary of the war, the British Ambassador to Ukraine said the UK has much to learn from Kyiv’s resilience.

Neil Crompton said in a statement on Tuesday that the war is “the issue of our lifetime”, describing it as “existential, in that the outcome will shape the future of Europe”.

“I can’t but marvel at the fortitude Ukrainians have shown,” he added. “Back in 2022, analysts predicted Kyiv would be captured within days.

“Who can forget President Zelenskyy’s immortal line’“I don’t need a ride. I need ammunition,’ when offered the chance to be evacuated?

“Four years on, the Ukrainians are still fighting, having revolutionised warfare through innovative use of drones and technology to bridge the numerical advantages Russia enjoys. The UK and NATO have much to learn from them.”

US and Ukrainian officials are expected to hold another round of talks in Geneva on Thursday, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff announced yesterday.

He said that he and Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, would travel to Geneva tomorrow to hold talks with Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, and separately with Iran.

Witkoff said he spoke with Umerov over the phone to seek permission for the meeting from Zelensky.

He said he and Umerov talk on an almost daily basis.

Ukraine’s front line today is “not like a coherent line, where there’s like a clear control, with two trench lines with a little bit of no man’s land in between,” military analyst Emil Kastehelmi told The Independent as the war entered its fifth year.

“Drones have made it so that front lines are blurry and troops may be intermingled in a certain area of presence.”

This “drone-dominated battlefield” has “demechanised” the front lines, making huge advances difficult. The threat from the sky has made tanks unviable, leading Russia to fall back on trying to overwhelm Ukraine with infantry-heavy tactics.

Even with plans to increase the size of the army to 1.5 million people, this has come at a huge cost for Russia.

On the fourth anniversary of the war, The Independent looked at how technology and tactics have changed the frontlines:

Ukraine will never agree to concede territory, as being forcibly asked by Russia, in concessions during peace talks, the Ukrainian deputy foreign minister Mariana Betsa said at a UN security council meeting today.

“We will never recognise the occupation and will never accept territorial concessions. We will never compromise our freedom,” she said.

The Ukrainian official added that Russia and its accomplices will not stop. “Moscow feels a sense of impunity, as it has not yet faced proper consequences for its crimes,” she said.

The official emphasised Moscow’s totalitarian goals towards Ukraine which require a complete takeover of the war-hit nation’s territory and how it continues to use negotiations as a cover for its war.

“The Kremlin’s position remains unchanged. It wants Ukraine to withdraw from our own sovereign territory to ensure that Russia can occupy it. And this is not a matter of negotiating red lines. Sovereignty and territorial integrity is a key founding principle of the UN charter,” Betsa said.

Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev called for prime minister Keir Starmer to resign in a social media post that claimed the UK is supplying Ukraine with nuclear weapons.

“Starmer needs to resign before trying to cover up his shame by provoking a nuclear war,” Dmitriev said in a post on X.

The prime minister’s spokesperson said there was no truth to the comments.

In his address earlier today to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Volodymyr Zelensky called for Donald Trump to visit Ukraine.

“Only by coming to Ukraine, and seeing with one’s own eyes our life and our struggle, feeling our people and the enormity of this pain – only then can one understand what this war is really about. And because of whom. Who the aggressor is here and who must be pressured,” the Ukrainian president said in the address, as he stressed the importance of a visit by Trump.

He said Ukraine is defending life, adding that it is “not a street fight” but an “attack by a sick state on a sovereign one”.

Zelensky added: “Putin is this war. He is the cause of its beginning and the obstacle to its end. And it is Russia that must be put in its place. So that there can be real peace.”

US president Donald Trump’s former special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, who left his role last month has bashed the administration for not backing the UN resolution on peace in Ukraine.

“A UN vote on a lasting peace in Ukraine and we abstained. Go figure. The Russian Federation was against the proclamation. Is not four years of war enough? Is not missing children, shelling of cities and the killing of innocents enough? It is not a business deal-it is war,” he said in a post on X.

Tammy Bruce, the US deputy UN envoy, explained the US abstention, saying that while Washington welcomed the call for an immediate ceasefire, the resolution included language likely to distract from ongoing negotiations, “rather than support discussion of the full range of diplomatic avenues that may pave the way to that durable peace”.

The 15-member UN Security Council has been deadlocked throughout the war and unable to take action on Ukraine because Russia holds a veto.

The council session saw a clash between the US and China over Washington’s charge that Beijing’s imports of Russian oil and Chinese sales of materials with military uses to Russia have helped sustain Moscow’s operations in Ukraine.

“China remains a decisive enabler of Russia’s war machine,” Bruce told the council.

“If China truly wants peace, it should immediately end exports of dual-use goods and stop purchasing Russian oil.”

Fu Cong, China’s UN ambassador, responded by accusing the US of fabricating “all sorts of excuses and lies” about China intended “to create division and conflict.”

Washington, he said, should “stop shifting blame and creating conflicts and wars around the world”.