Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow tells US to evacuate diplomats from Kyiv as Putin threatens revenge strikes

Russia has handed Kazakhstan ​four Amur tigers, two of them cubs, to help the country restore its numbers of the animals, president Vladimir Putin said in an article ⁠issued ahead of his visit to the Central Asian nation this week.

Rich in energy resources and critical minerals, Kazakhstan shares a border with Russia and is a close ally of Moscow in a region where China and the United States are also expanding their influence.

The four animals captured ⁠in Russia’s far eastern region of Khabarovsk were flown ​to ⁠Kazakhstan, Putin said on ‌the Kremlin’s website on Tuesday, and are soon to be released into the wild.

Putin is no stranger to using animals to advance diplomatic efforts.

In 2022, Russia sent 30 grey thoroughbred horses to North Korea, and the two nations have steadily boosted ties since the invasion of Ukraine that year.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a keen horseman.

Kazakhstan, which is trying to restore the tiger population in Central Asia, sees the Amur tiger as a close relative of the extinct Caspian tiger.

The Russian gesture boosts the country’s tally of the animals previously sent by the Netherlands.

On his visit, Putin will oversee ‌the signing of a ⁠deal for a nuclear power project in Kazakhstan, ⁠which currently has no nuclear power generation, and will discuss efforts ‌to boost the ​transit of Russian oil to ‌China through the country, ​the Kremlin has said.

There were no announcements of diplomatic departures from Kyiv as of Tuesday afternoon.

The European Union, French and Polish delegations publicly said that they would not leave.

The level of security threats posed by Russia to Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities “remains the same as in previous years and months,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement late last night.

Russia had urged foreign citizens, including members of diplomatic missions, to leave the Ukrainian capital as quickly as possible and told residents to steer clear of military and government facilities.

It said that “systemic strikes” on Kyiv were being prepared.

Russia has continuously launched missile and drone attacks on the capital for more than four years, it pointed out, adding that Ukraine was prepared to assist diplomatic missions seeking additional security measures.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky met with the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya today and the two leaders discussed Russia’s attempts to draw Belarus deeper into the war against Ukraine.

“Ukraine has ‌never been a threat to ‌Belarus. And ‌we are grateful to those Belarusians ⁠who stand with Ukraine – now, when the fate of both our independence and ‌the independence of ​every nation ‌that borders ⁠Russia is ⁠being decided,” Zelensky ‌said ​on X after ‌the meeting.

Zelensky said Ukraine supports the “aspiration of the Belarusian people to free themselves from Russian interference”.

“We value every expression of support from Belarusians for a free Ukraine, and we know that the day will come when there will once again be good-neighborly relations between our states – based on the real independence of both Ukraine and Belarus from Moscow,” he said, sharing a video of their meeting.

Russian companies are ready to finance the purchase of heavier weapons and electronic systems to defend their plants from drone attacks, Alexander Shokhin, head ⁠of Russia’s most powerful business ​lobby, ⁠has told President Vladimir Putin in a meeting.

According to remarks posted on the Kremlin’s official website, Shokhin said the companies needed “not only ⁠light weapons of 7.62 caliber, but also larger ones, including various electronic warfare systems, laser installations and other calibers”.

“Businesses are ready to finance all this work, but a mechanism is needed where financing schemes are clear. This could be a fund of some sort or another form of targeted financing,” Shokhin – head ‌of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs – was ​quoted saying.

Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, and the EU summoned Russian representatives after Moscow threatened strikes on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and urged foreigners to leave.

Moscow stated on Monday it would strike Ukrainian military targets and ‘decision-making centres’ in Kyiv, a day after one of the city’s heaviest bombardments of the war.

The European Union’s diplomatic service summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires.

Spokesperson Anitta Hipper called Russia’s ‘threat to foreign citizens & diplomats to leave Kyiv is an unacceptable escalation’, urging Moscow to ‘stop hitting civilians’. The EU delegation remains.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide summoned Russia’s ambassador, Nikolai Korchunov, to address “the explicit threats against foreign personnel in Ukraine”.

Sweden summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday evening to “condemn Russia’s false claims of airspace violations in the Nordic-Baltic region and Russia’s threats against Latvia and other countries in the region”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will oversee ⁠the signing of a deal outlining ⁠parameters for ​Russian ⁠construction of a ⁠nuclear power ​plant ⁠and a ‌Russian state loan when he ‌visits Kazakhstan this ‌week, the Kremlin ⁠said on Tuesday.

He will also discuss an increase in transshipment of Russian oil ‌to China ​via ‌Kazakhstan, Kremlin ⁠aide Yury ⁠Ushakov told reporters.

NATO is poised to reinforce the defence of its eastern flank with a new command structure, designed to enable the rapid deployment of forces in Latvia and Estonia in the event of a conflict with Russia, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

At present, NATO forces across the three Baltic nations and northern Poland operate under the command of a single multinational headquarters situated in Szczecin, Poland.

The planned change highlights the critical strategic importance of the Baltics, a region that has been under intense scrutiny since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Assigning a second corps to the region will allow NATO to bring in “mass at speed”, as one military official described it, directly addressing the area’s limited strategic depth and inherent vulnerability.

When fully operational, an army corps typically commands three divisions, comprising between 40,000 and 60,000 troops. In peacetime, it usually exists as a skeleton command structure, complete with specialist functions such as artillery, air defence, and medics, to facilitate swift troop deployment when required.

In a coordinated effort, Germany and the Netherlands have reached an agreement with NATO to assign the German-Netherlands Corps, based in Muenster, Germany, to the defence of Latvia and Estonia, military sources informed Reuters on Tuesday.

Russia now possesses the capacity to falsify GPS signals up to 450km (280 miles) into Europe from its Kaliningrad exclave, a Lithuanian official revealed on Tuesday.

This expanded capability raises significant concerns about electronic interference across the continent.

Darius Kuliesius, deputy head of Lithuania’s communications regulator, told Reuters that Russia has increased its GPS “spoofing” antennae – which broadcast false signals to confuse other location systems – from three in early 2025 to 36.

These units are located in heavily militarised Kaliningrad, between NATO members Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic coast.

European nations have frequently accused Moscow of electronic interference since the 2022 Ukraine invasion, though President Vladimir Putin’s government denies this, citing “Western smear tactics.”

Mr Kuliesius stated: “The occasional interference began with the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius. Now they have built up the infrastructure and the interference has become systemic, permanent, unending Russian provocation against European security.”