Russia-Ukraine war live: Kremlin using Gershkovich as a ‘pawn to achieve political ends’, says US

Russia is trying to expand its forces in the north-west of the country, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its latest intelligence update.

The MoD said most of Russia’s troops remain dedicated to fighting in Ukraine, with recruitment adverts still being posted for soldiers.

Moscow will “almost certainly” have to decide whether new units such as the 44th Army Corps remain in their garrison locations once established or if they are sent to Ukraine to “maintain combat power there”, it wrote on X.

Both Russia and Ukraine have increased the tempo of their attacks in recent weeks as Kyiv, which has struggled to find weapons and soldiers after more than two years of war, has promised to retaliate by taking the fighting to Russian soil.

Russia’s prosecutor general has said that strategic enterprises should be supplied with anti-drone defences, state news agency Tass reported.

Ukraine has in recent months stepped up drone stikes against Russian economic targets, including oil refineries.

The Ukrainian navy has said it had damaged four Russian naval ships in a weekend missile attack on Crimea, as it has received updated information.

The armed forces had said previously that an overnight attack from Saturday to Sunday damaged only two amphibious landing ships: the Yamal and the Azov.

But according to updated information: “Ukraine’s defence forces (also) successfully damaged the spy ship Ivan Khurs and the Konstantin Olshansky large landing ship”, the navy said on Facebook.

Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed around a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the start of the war, usually in attacks at night using sea-based drones packed with explosives.

Russia and Ukraine have increased their air attacks in recent weeks.

On Saturday, Russia said that it had repulsed a barrage of Ukrainian missiles fired at the city of Sevastopol in Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

A Russian court on Tuesday remanded an eighth suspect in custody over the attack on the Moscow concert hall that killed at least 139 people, officials said.

Moscow earlier announced it had detained 11 people in connection with the attack on the Crocus City Hall.

The court’s press service said the latest suspect to be remanded was a man originally from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, AFP reported.

Officials said he was ordered to be held in detention until at least 22 May, without detailing the exact accusations against him.

Four men charged on Sunday with carrying out the attack are citizens of Tajikistan.

Three more suspects – reportedly from the same family and including at least one Russian citizen – were charged on terror-related offences on Monday.

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a close Putin ally, has said that Ukraine was “of course” behind Friday’s deadly attack on the Moscow concert hall.

News outlet SHOT published a video of an exchange in which a reporter asked Patrushev “Isis or Ukraine?” as he walked past. “Of course Ukraine,” Patrushev replied.

Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack, which Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.

Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that he hoped prosecutors would do everything to ensure that those who attacked the Moscow concert hall on Friday would be justly punished.

The Kremlin has refused to be drawn on whether it believed there was a link between the Ukrainian leadership and Friday’s Moscow concert hall attack, in which at least 139 people were killed.

Asked during a call with reporters whether there was a direct link between Ukraine and the attack, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “I have nothing to add to what has already been said on this topic.”

Peskov said that Russian officials’ comments on the attack were based on “preliminary data” and that the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee had already reported to Vladimir Putin on Monday about the probe.

Putin has said the attack was carried out by radical Islamists, but also said that the attackers had attempted to escape to Ukraine after the assault on the Crocus City Hall venue. Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack.

US officials have said they have intelligence indicating it was the Afghan branch, Islamic State Khorasan (Isis-K), that was responsible, but Russian authorities have not publicly accepted the group’s role.

Eight suspects, natives of the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, have so far been remanded in pre-trial detention on suspicion of involvement in the attacks.

Ukrainian security officers have arrested two people suspected of acting on behalf of Russia as they tried to blow up a railway line used to supply weapons to the east for Kyiv’s war effort, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on Tuesday.

The detainees, identified as residents of the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, planted an explosive device by the line in central Poltava region and planned to detonate it remotely, but they were caught red-handed by SBU officers, the statement said.

“The occupiers hoped to ruin logistic routes for weapons, ammunition and fuel for the Ukrainian armed forces,” the SBU said.

It confiscated the phones of the detainees, it said, and identified their handler as an officer of Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB).

The bomb was meant to be detonated during Russian airstrikes that hit critical infrastructure last week, it added. These claims are yet to be independently verified by the Guardian.

The US ambassador in Moscow has demanded that Russia free the Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, accused by Russia of spying, arguing that the Kremlin was using him and other American citizens as pawns.

The latest decision to extend Gershkovich’s pre-trial detention “feels particularly painful, as this week marks one year since Evan was arrested and wrongfully detained,” ambassador Lynne Tracy was quoted by Reuters as saying.

“Evan’s case is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends, as the Kremlin is also doing in the case of Paul Whelan.”

Whelan was arrested in Moscow in 2018. He was convicted of spying, a charge the US government says is without merit, and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020.

Friday will mark the first anniversary of Gershkovich’s arrest in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg. He has failed in repeated appeals against his detention, which has already been extended several times. No date has been set for his trial.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said Gershkovich could be released at some point in exchange for a Russian prisoner held abroad, but no such deal has so far materialised.

Gershkovich, his paper and the US government all strongly deny the charges, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in jail.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday said that a probe into the Moscow concert hall attack that killed 139 people on Friday was continuing, and that those “gloating” about the bloodshed were “scumbags”.

“We know that the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists,” Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said during a meeting with government officials late on Monday.

“We are interested in who ordered it,” he said, adding that the shooting fit in to a wider campaign of intimidation by Ukraine.

“This atrocity may be just one part in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 by the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime.”

Putin didn’t mention the affiliate of the Islamic State group that claimed responsibility for the attack, despite growing evidence that the Afghan branch of IS, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), masterminded the attack.

Kyiv has denied any role in the attack and has accused Russia of falsely suggesting it was to blame to escalate the fighting in Ukraine.

Eight suspects, natives of the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, have so far been remanded in pre-trial detention on suspicion of involvement in the attacks.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has demanded the west supply Kyiv with Patriot air defence missiles to help his country’s troops repel Russian forces.

“Give us the damn Patriots,” Kuleba told Politico. “If we had enough air defence systems, namely Patriots, we would be able to protect not only the lives of our people, but also our economy from destruction.”

Ukrainian officials believe Patriot surface-to-air missiles are the best defence system to combat the ballistic missiles being launched by Russia.

The foreign minster’s comments come after Russia launched a major wave of missile strikes against Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Monday, as part of its escalating aerial bombardment of the city.

Kuleba and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, renewed appeals to western partners to provide more weaponry to protect against the unrelenting aerial attacks.

On the frontlines, Zelenskiy, who has stressed his country’s dire need of air defence missiles, has warned that Ukrainian troops are rationing artillery shells amid ammunition shortages.

A Moscow court has extended the pre-trial detention of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 30 June.

His detention had already been extended several times but no date has been set for his trial.

Gershkovich was detained in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg while on a reporting trip at the end of last March. Russia’s FSB Security Service claimed he was collecting state secrets about the country’s military-industrial complex.

Gershkovich, his paper and the US government all strongly deny the charges, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years.

Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, has inspected a tank battalion near the Lithuanian border and gave orders that any “provocation” there must be met with force, a Telegram channel close to his administration said.

“I will say publicly: any provocation must be stopped by military means,” Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, was quoted as saying.

“Any violation of the state border is a shoot-to-kill.”

Lithuania, an EU and Nato member that has offered support to Belarus’ opposition, has seen its relations with Minsk deteriorate sharply in recent years.

Belarus has provided logistical support to Moscow throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Lukashenko, the president of Belarus since 1994, backed Russia’s invasion by allowing Moscow to use its territory to launch the war, but is faced with a crippled economy that is heavily reliant on trade with Russia.

Moscow said on Tuesday a Russian working for Ukrainian security services died when an explosive device in his possession detonated during arrest in the Samara region, alleging he was planning an attack.

“When the perpetrator was apprehended, the IED he had seized detonated, leaving him with fatal injuries. Neither security personnel nor civilians were injured,” the FSB security services said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies. This claim has not been independently verified.

Russia has been discussing the location of a future Russian military base in the Central African Republic (CAR), Russian state-run news agency Tass has cited the Russian ambassador to the CAR as saying.

“Talks are currently ongoing between defence ministries of the two states. As far as is known, the place to locate the base is being selected,” Alexander Bikantov said.

The Central African Republic, a former French colony, has become one of Russia’s closest African allies in recent years, playing host to one of the Wagner group mercenary army’s largest foreign operations.

Good morning, it has just passed 10.30am in Kyiv and 11.30am in Moscow. Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian navy has claimed a tactical victory after it said it had struck the Konstantin Olshansky landing ship, which Russia captured from Ukraine in 2014, with a missile.

“Currently, this ship is not combat-capable,” Ukrainian navy spokesperson, Dmytro Pletenchuk, said on Tuesday morning.

Russia took the Konstantin Olshansky from Ukraine, along with most of Kyiv’s navy, when its troops occupied the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

“It had gone through a renovation and was being prepared for use against Ukraine, so unfortunately the decision was taken to strike this (ship),” Pletenchuk said.

Built in 1985, the ship was transferred to the Ukrainian navy in 1996 when the naval fleet of the Soviet Union was divided up, according to the Kyiv Independent.

In other developments:

• Investigations are continuing into Friday evening’s devastating terror attack at the Crocus city hall in Moscow in which at least 139 people were killed. Four suspects have already appeared in court showing signs of torture. Overnight the news wires services reported that Russian investigators were questioning the men’s families in Tajikistan. The central Asian country has suffered from a long-running extremist Islamist insurgency. Despite Islamic State claiming responsibility for the attack, Vladimir Putin continues to suggest that there is a Ukrainian link. On Monday night he said: “This atrocity may be just one part in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 by the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime.” No evidence has been provided for Ukraine’s involvement.

• Finland and Sweden think there is need for a new round of EU sanctions against Russia, Finland’s foreign minister, Elina Valtonen, has said.

• Ukraine shot down all 12 attack drones launched overnight by Russia over the southern Mykolaiv and eastern Kharkiv regions of the country, Kyiv’s air force said.

• Any global peace summit on Ukraine that excludes Russia is simply “absurd” and will fail, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published on Tuesday. “Can the Ukrainian problem be resolved without Russia’s participation? The reply is clear – it cannot,” he told the news outlet Argumenty I Fakty. “Because Ukraine has been turned into an instrument in the hands of the collective west with whose help it intends, so it seems to them, to put more pressure on Russia, restrain Russia and abandon it to the fringes of development. And, should they succeed, to finish it off,” he added. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for an international peace summit, and earlier this year Switzerland said it would host the meeting.

• Iceland has announced it is joining the Czech initiative, which is aiming to deliver at least 800,000 shells sourced from around the world, in addition to the EU commitments.