Russia-Ukraine latest news: I’m returning land to Russia like Peter the Great, says Vladimir Putin

Thanks for following today’s liveblog.

Here are five key updates:

• Vladimir Putin compared himself to Peter the Great, the 18th century Russian monarch, as he appeared to admit that the invasion of Ukraine was part of an imperial conquest.
• Two British men were sentenced to death in a fast-track trial in a Russia-controlled separatist part of eastern Ukraine.
• Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, stressed the need for increased defence spending.
• Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, admitted there is no “quick fix” for Ukraine. 
• Cases of desertion are growing every week in the Ukrainian army, according to a leaked intelligence report.

It has been a tough couple of years for Britain’s hospitality sector, with lockdowns, staff shortages and now the cost of living crisis causing turmoil, writes Tomé Morrissy-Swan.

In Ukraine, restaurant owners have had to contend with Russia’s brutal invasion on top.

Many staff members have either fled west or joined the army; food supplies are precarious and prices have shot up; buildings are being bombed; customer bases have dwindled as 14 million people fled their homes. 

Read the full story here

Nothing better illustrates Vladimir Putin’ s approach to his long-running confrontation with the West than the old Leninist adage for waging war against your enemies.

Speaking at the time of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution a century ago, the communist leader advised that, if you encounter mush, then continue to advance.

If, on the other hand, you come up against steel, then withdraw.

Read the full piece from Con Coughlin here

Russia may be getting more revenue from its fossil fuels now than shortly before its invasion of Ukraine, as global price increases offset the impact of Western efforts to restrict its sales, U.S. energy security envoy Amos Hochstein told lawmakers during a hearing on Thursday.

“I can’t deny that,” Hochstein told the Senate Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation in response to a question about whether Moscow was making more money now off its crude oil and gas sales than a couple of months before the war started.

The United States and the European Union agreed to ban imports of Russian fossil fuels and imposed escalating sanctions to punish the country for its invasion of Ukraine.

While those moves put a chill on global trade in Russian fossil fuels, they also helped to trigger a surge in global prices of oil and gas. Prices for Brent crude on Thursday were near a three-month high above $123 a barrel.

The war with Russia caused Ukraine’s economy to contract by 15.1 percent in the first three months of this year, the state statistics agency calculated on Thursday.

The invasion by Russia on February 24 laid waste to large swathes of the Ukrainian economy, with a slew of companies forced to shut or dramatically recalibrate production.

The International Monetary Fund is forecasting a contraction in Ukraine’s gross domestic product of 35 percent across the whole of 2022, and Ukrainian finance minister Sergiy Marchenko told AFP in mid-May that he was anticipating a decline of as much as 45-50 percent.

Inflation in the war-stricken country accelerated to 18 percent on a 12-month basis in May from 16.4 percent in April, the statistics agency said, with food prices continuing to soar.

The Conservative chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of carrying out “a form of hostage taking, a form of revenge”.

Tom Tugendhat told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “It’s not a state, it’s not a court and the judges are merely people dressing up and pretending.

“The reality is this is an absolutely brutal thing to do to three completely innocent people.”

Ukraine wants new Himars artillery from the United States on the battlefield now, but the Pentagon is stressing the need for comprehensive training to make sure the long-range precision rocket systems are used effectively against Russian forces.

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley said that while four of the Himars systems were being prepared for Ukraine, training was focused on building one platoon at a time to operate them, a process that could slow their delivery.

Himars is a “very sophisticated long-range system,” Milley told reporters. “We have to certify these guys to make sure that they know how to use the system properly.”

He said the Pentagon is coordinating closely with the Ukrainian military on preparing the teams to operate Himars – an agile, wheels-based unit that can fire 227 mm precision-guided munitions up to 80 kilometers (50 miles).

Vladimir Putin said  that Russian companies will not block off their oil wells despite the West’s efforts to lessen its dependence on energy supplies from Moscow.

The United States introduced its embargo on Russian imports in March just days after Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine, while the European Union agreed last month in principle to gradually cut 90% of its oil imports from Russia by the end of this year.

The Russian president said the West will not be able to completely stop using Russian energy resources over next few years.

“As far as refusal from our energy resources is concerned, this is unlikely for the next few years, while it’s not clear, what will happen during those few years. That’s why, no one will pour cement into the wells,” Putin told a televised meeting with young entrepreneurs.

War in Ukraine, a humanitarian crisis, and reaction in Kyiv, Westminster and beyond. The Telegraph’s leading journalists take you beyond the headlines every weekday in our new podcast.

Today, The Telegraph’s Defence & Security Editor, Dom Nicholls, and Assistant Comment Editor, Francis Dearnley, discuss the latest updates from across Ukraine, focusing on the battle in the Donbas. 

The Russian ambassador should be summoned to the Foreign Office, a former Cabinet minister has said, as one of his former constituents was sentenced to death in a Russia-controlled separatist part of eastern Ukraine.

Aiden Aslin, a former constituent of the Tory MP Robert Jenrick, said: “This disgusting Soviet-era style show trial is the latest reminder of the depravity of Putin’s regime.

“Russia should be clear, they cannot treat British citizens like this and get away with it.

“Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Aiden Aslin is not a mercenary. He has been living in Ukraine and serving in its armed forces before Russia’s illegal invasion and as a prisoner of war is entitled to protection under the Geneva Convention.

“The Russian ambassador should be summoned to the Foreign Office to account for this most egregious breach of the Geneva Convention.

“Aiden must be released as soon as practicable.”

I utterly condemn the sentencing of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner held by Russian proxies in eastern Ukraine.

They are prisoners of war. This is a sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy.

My thoughts are with the families. We continue to do everything we can to support them.

— Liz Truss (@trussliz) June 9, 2022

Gas prices have surged by more than a third after a fire at a large export terminal in the US threatened to wipe out deliveries and compound supply fears sparked by Russia’s war.

UK gas prices jumped as much as 39pc in early trading, while the European benchmark was up 16pc.

A fire has forced the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Texas, which makes up about a fifth of all US exports of the fuel, to shutter for at least three weeks. The US sent nearly 75pc of all its LNG to Europe in the first four months of this year.

A No 10 spokesman said: “We are obviously deeply concerned by this. We have said continually that prisoners of war shouldn’t be exploited for political purposes.

“You will know that under the Geneva Convention prisoners of war are entitled to combatant immunity and they should not be prosecuted for participation in hostilities.

“So we will continue to work with the Ukrainian authorities to try and secure the release of any British nationals who were serving in the Ukrainian armed forces and who are being held as prisoners of war.”

The Kremlin said that no agreement had been reached to sell grain from Ukraine to Turkey – which Ukraine says Russia has stolen from it – but that work on a deal was continuing.

Moscow denies stealing the grain but the United States says there are credible reports that Russia is “pilfering” it.

Yevgeny Balitsky, a Russian-installed official in charge of Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, said this week that grain had been transported from there to Crimea, en route to the Middle East.

Asked if any deal had been reached to sell this grain to Turkey or a Middle Eastern country, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “So far no agreements have been reached, work is continuing.”

Two British men have been sentenced to death in a fast-track trial in a Russia-controlled separatist part of eastern Ukraine.

The verdict raises the stakes in a stand-off between the West and Russia, which has been collecting Ukrainian fighters for a possible prisoner exchange.

Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, were captured by the separatists in the besieged city of Mariupol in April. They were accused of fighting as mercenaries despite the fact that both live in Ukraine and have served in its armed forces for several years.

Read more from Nataliya Vasilyeva here

Cases of desertion are growing every week in the Ukrainian army, according to a leaked intelligence report, as up to 200 of its outgunned soldiers are being killed every day in the eastern Donbas region.

Kyiv’s troops are outnumbered 20 to one in artillery and 40 to one in ammunition by the Kremlin’s forces in the area, the leaked Ukrainian intelligence report reveals.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to the Ukrainian president, on Thursday said the battle over the war-town country’s industrial heartlands was so intense that Kyiv is suffering up to 200 military casualties per day. The previous upper limit was given as 100 soldiers.

Read more from Joe Barnes here

Rishi Sunak is reaping an extra £4.4m a day from motorists filling up their cars as fuel prices surge following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, writes Louis Ashworth.

Drivers have made the Chancellor more than a third of a billion in extra VAT on petrol and diesel as costs increase, according to Telegraph calculations.

The price of petrol has increased by about 30p a litre since the start of the conflict, while diesel has risen about 35p.

Read the full story from Louis here

Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, has stressed the need for increased defence spending.

He said: “We need more armour, more artillery and we need more manpower. To have an army that is going down to the smallest size in the last 200 years is completely unacceptable.”

Labour peer Lord Liddle, a former Europe adviser to Tony Blair, said: “Ukraine has demonstrated that the key to our security is Europe. Not the mushy rhetoric of global Britain.

“The requirement is a stronger and more united Europe with Britain playing its full part. Brexit is done. Let us for now put it behind us. The priority today is a more constructive approach to the EU and its key member states.”

Boris Johnson said “everyone can see and feel” the worsening cost-of-living crisis as prices rise and household budgets no longer stretch as far as they used to. 

The Prime Minister said things had been improving but have now taken a hit because of the war in Ukraine. 

He said the price of oil and gas “looks likely to remain high” for a while to come and the same applies to food and fertiliser.

Speaking in Blackpool, the Prime Minister said the world must reject a “bad peace” in Ukraine.

He said Vladimir Putin must not be allowed to keep any ground in Ukraine because “the crocodile would simply come back for more”. 

He said “that would be a disaster for Ukraine and all the other parts of the Soviet Union that he might attack”. 

However, Mr Johnson admitted there is no “quick fix” for Ukraine. 

The war in Ukraine and drought fuelled by climate change has sent global prices for grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertiliser soaring.

Rising prices for basic food staples is fuelling protests from Indonesia to Iran.

European wheat prices have jumped 52% and benchmark palm oil futures went up 25% since January.

The trend is growing and is alarming policymakers, with United Nations agencies warning that the price hikes will worsen an existing food crisis in Africa and could cause “catastrophic” child malnutrition.

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny scolded Google and Meta Platforms Inc for shutting down advertising, a step he said had undermined the opposition and thus was a gift to President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny, by far Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, casts Putin’s Russia as a dystopian state run by thieves and criminals where wrong is cast as right and judges are in fact representatives of a doomed lawless country.

In a written address to the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, Navalny, who is currently in a Russian jail, said technology was being used by the state to arrest dissidents but that it also gave an opportunity to get to the truth.

“The Internet gives us the ability to circumvent censorship,” Navalny said in the address, a copy of which was posted on his official blog.

Bucha residents have “been through hell”, the British Ambassador to Ukraine has said.

Melinda Simmons wrote on Twitter: “I visited Bucha today. Residents have been through hell. I visited a mass grave. Talked with parents and children. Kids talked of sirens and shootings. Discussed renewal with the mayor. And justice with the prosecutors”.

She added that she was “proud” British humanitarian assistance is helping.

There have been an estimated 11,400 applications for places for children from Ukraine up to May 27, according to figures published for the first time by the Department for Education (DfE).

Of these, 9,900 places have been offered.

The estimations are based on responses from 77% of local authorities and have been adjusted to take into account non-responses.

Of the places estimated to have been offered, around 6,300 were primary school places and 3,500 were secondary school places.

Workers are removing bodies from the ruins of high-rise buildings in the devastated port city of Mariupol and transporting them in an “endless caravan of death”.

Petro Andryushchenko, a mayoral aide, said that during searches of about two-fifths of the buildings they had found between 50 and 100 bodies in each. Ukrainian authorities estimate that at least 21,000 civilians were killed.

Meanwhile, Volodymr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, said the fate of the Donbas is hanging in the balance as fighting in Severodonetsk intensifies.

Click here to read about the latest updates from Ukraine.

Some 70,500 people have arrived in the UK under Ukraine visa schemes, according to provisional Government figures published on Thursday.

This includes 24,000 people under the family scheme, and 46,500 people under the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme as of Monday.

The figures also show that, as of Tuesday, around 154,500 applications have been made for visas, and 124,400 visas have been issued.

This includes 47,300 applications under the family scheme, of which 41,000 visas have been granted, and 107,200 applications under the sponsorship scheme, of which 83,400 visas have been granted.

One hundred days after Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, the war has reshaped the world in ways few could have predicted.

It has redrawn the geopolitical map. The US has forged a global coalition in support of Ukraine, while Russia is more isolated than at any time in recent history.

China appears weakened and diminished. Nato is resurgent. Old Western alliances are restored. 

Find out more here.

The ex-wife of a billionaire pal of Vladimir Putin who was hit with sanctions over Ukraine has had her £8.73m London apartment repossessed after failing to pay the mortgage.

Billionaire gas pipe baron Arkady Rotenberg, 69, a former judo partner of Putin, had been hit with personal sanctions by the UK government even before the February 2022 invasion, following the previous Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The tycoon has been battling his fashionista ex-wife Natalia Rotenberg, 40, in the British divorce courts for the last six years over money and ownership of a £27m mansion in Surrey.

But in December 2020, he was hit with a package of personal financial sanctions by the UK, due to him having “financially benefited from Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea or the destabilisation of eastern Ukraine.”

During the current invasion, other members of his family were also hit with sanctions, including his brother Boris and son Igor.

A judge has now ordered his ex’s luxury flat – with views over Buckingham Palace and the Royal parks – to be repossessed after hearing that “no payments at all” have been made towards the £1.6m loan used to buy the property, as the sanctions created a “turbulent time in the lives” of the super-rich former couple.

A typical field in #Ukraine these days. Scarred by #Russia. Nevertheless 75% of fields have been sown. 🇺🇦 does all to prevent global famine. The world does need to step up, however, to unblock Black Sea from russian navy pic.twitter.com/1FT62oIOrC

— Lesia Vasylenko (@lesiavasylenko) June 8, 2022

Ukrainian civilians living under Russian occupation have blown up a café close to the puppet government’s headquarters in the city of Kherson in what appears to be the first terror attack in occupied territories.

At least four people were injured in the explosion targeting the shop frequented by Russian soldiers, amid growing signs of a resistance movement inside the swathes of Ukraine controlled by Moscow.

Russia described the explosion as a “terror attack” on Russian-held territory in Ukraine, with a Ukrainian military official saying the café has been used by Russian leaders who have “had lunch there since the first days” of the occupation.

Read the full story here.

Ukrainian fighter jet pilots are flying so low over combat zones in the east of the country their aircraft are virtually grazing the trees below them.

In cockpit footage shared on social media, a Ukrainian Su-25 attack jet could be seen performing sharp manoeuvres over the green expanses of the Donbas region.

Ukrainian air force pilots have taken to using death-defying low passes over battlefields across the country as means of avoiding detection by their Russian enemies.

Read the full story here.

One of the daring Ukrainian pilots who flew “impossible” resupply missions to the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol said he did so knowing it could be a “one-way flight,” The War Zone reported.

Over a period of weeks 16 Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters flew seven such missions, bringing weapons, food, water and medical supplies to the defenders holed up in the plant.

A pilot, who went by his call sign “Flint,” told The War Zone: “We understood that it was a one-way flight. And we were ready to the fact that we will not return back.”

Unique footage of Ukrainian pilots and operators of the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence conducting evacuation flights on Mil Mi-8/17 helicopters to Azovstal plant in Mariupol during the siege. Note the ultra low altitude. pic.twitter.com/etqvxzQhxU

— Status-6 (@Archer83Able) June 1, 2022

If Boris Johnson finds himself out of a job, he will at least know he was briefly a hero in Kyiv cafe society, where he has just been immortalised – in baked goods.

“Boris Johnson is not just a prime minister but is also now a croissant,” announced trendy eaterie Cafe Zavertailo on Instagram this week.

The accompanying photograph is a row of pastries with meringue toppings, crowned with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, apparently to represent our PM’s wayward locks. The post has generated more than 3,500 likes.

“We never thought news of our Boris Johnson croissant would reach the UK,” says café owner, Anna Zavertailo, down the line from Kyiv.

“That’s really inspiring.” And so, according to Zavertailo, is our leader. “When we got to know Boris Johnson, and saw that he arrived in Kyiv to give his support to the president and people of Ukraine, we immediately got an idea to create a traditional pastry,” she says.

“We sincerely wanted to honour Boris for his involvement. That’s why we made a twist on apple pie, the most popular dessert in England, and gave it the name Boris Johnsonyuk – that’s his name in Ukrainian dialect. The pastry came out delicious.” 

Read the full story here

Military weapons and artillery supplied from the West have already begun to make a difference on the ground in Ukraine, governor of the Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, said on Wednesday.

“It is already working in our region,” he said.

Mr Kim said Ukrainian forces had “some success” in a counterattack in the neighbouring Kherson region in recent weeks.

He said it was “just a question of time” before Ukrainian forces won back significant ground in the south.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for the world to impose tougher sanctions on Russia to weaken it economically.

Speaking to US corporate leaders on Wednesday via video link, the president said Russia was unwilling to negotiate an end to the war because it “can still feel its power”.

“We need to switch Russia off the global financial system completely,” he said.

“We need to weaken Russia and the world is supposed to do it.”

Hundreds of bodies are being pulled from destroyed buildings in an “endless caravan of death” inside the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol. 

The grim death toll of Russia’s war on Ukraine continues to mount as authorities on Wednesday revealed workers were finding scores of bodies, as many as 50 to 100 each.

An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andryushchenko, said on Telegram the bodies were being taken in an “endless caravan of death” to a morgue and landfills.

Ukrainian authorities have estimated at least 21,000 Mariupol civilians were killed during the Russian siege.

Ukraine’s Luhansk province has turned into a bomb-out wasteland, with artillery shelling destroying the city of Severodonetsk, the region’s governor Serhiy Gaidai said.

“Our fighters are hanging on in the Severodonetsk industrial zone. But fighting is going on not just in the industrial zone, but right in the city of Severodonetsk,” Mr Gaidai told Ukrainian television late on Wednesday.

More than 98 per cent of the region is now under Russian control.

European military heads of cyber defence forces claimed Russia’s digital combat capabilities have been far less effective than expected in the war against Ukraine. 

Experts had braced for a “cyber Pearl Harbor” attack due to previous experiences.

“Among cybersecurity experts, we were pretty sure that there would be a cyber Pearl Harbor based on past experience of Russian behaviour and capabilities,” General Karol Molenda, head of Poland’s National Cyber Security Centre, said.

Mr Molenda told a meeting of the International Cybersecurity Forum, held in the northern France city of Lille, that Ukraine had “withstood attacks from Russia”. 

• Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine is now “largely” under Russian control, following multiple days of fierce fighting, while its twin city of Lysychansk is suffering massive destruction, according to the Luhansk region’s governor
• Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to retaliate for attacks on Severodonetsk. The Ukrainian President said his country must “achieve a full deoccupation of our entire territory” to win the war
• Olaf Scholz said he was providing more support to Ukraine than “almost anyone else,” apparently including Britain
• Ukraine insisted it will not demine waters around Odesa to allow for grain to be exported, as it said the threat of Russian attacks on the Black Sea port city is still too high
• Officials confirmed that Ukraine and Russia both exchanged the bodies of 50 of their deceased soldiers, including the bodies of 37 Ukrainian soldiers who were killed at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol
• Boris Johnson was officially inducted into Ukraine’s Cossack community and given a new name that pays homage to his hairstyle in another token of gratitude for his support during the war
• Ukraine filed eight more war crimes cases to court, in addition to the three sentences that have already been handed down to Russian soldiers. Zelensky said the country plans to publish a special “Book of Executioners” next week with information about the war crimes