‘Let me finally see my son’: Alexei Navalny’s mother demands Putin hand over opposition leader’s body – Russia-Ukraine war live (2024)

The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, is to visit Budapest this week to meet Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán – days before Hungary’s parliament is expected to finally vote on Sweden’s Nato membership.

Kristersson’s office made the announcement of the visit – due to take place on Friday – amid reports that Hungary’s parliament will vote on the issue on Monday.

It comes after Orbán invited his Swedish counterpart to negotiations on the question soon after Turkey approved the Nordic country’s Nato membership – leaving Hungary the last remaining member of the alliance to give Sweden the green light.

At the time, Tobias Billström, Sweden’s foreign minister, said they would have to “think through what the letter signals” before responding.

The Swedish government said the agenda for Friday’s meeting between the two leaders would include security and defence policy cooperation, preparation for Hungary’s upcoming EU presidency and the EU’s strategic agenda.

Afterwards Kristersson and Orbán will hold a joint press conference.

Lyudmila Navalnaya, Alexei Navalny’s mother, has demanded that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, hand over her son’s body.

“Vladimir Putin … let me finally see my son,” Navalnaya said in a video message, according to Reuters.

Navalnaya and her son’s lawyer travelled over the weekend to the notorious “Polar Wolf” IK-3 penal colony in Russia’s Arctic north, where Navalny had been held since last year, to track down his body, but received contradicting information from various institutions over its location and left without recovering or seeing her son.

Navalny, 47, died in jail on 16 February at 2.17pm local time, said his official spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, citing a message from Navalny’s mother and challenging Russia’s official explanation that Navalny died after a fall at the Arctic penal colony where he was being held.

The Russian opposition leader had been serving a decades-long prison term on various charges, the latest of which was a 19-year sentence on six counts.

He had been behind bars since returning from Germany in January 2021 for charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

Here are some images supplied by the Tass news agency of the US-Russian woman Russia’s FSB security services said was arrested on suspicion of treason (see earlier post at 09.34 for more details):

Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmygal, has described Russia’s full-scale invasion of his country as an “existential war” during a visit to Tokyo.

“I believe the United States will support Ukraine also, like the European Union, like Japan, like all the G7 countries and the IMF and all international financial organisations,” Shmygal told a press conference when asked about “Ukraine fatigue” in the international community.

“So we can’t speak about fatigue, because it’s an existential war – you can’t be fatigued when you’re fighting for your future, for your life … for global security order,” he said.

The capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka on Monday gives Russia full control of the area surrounding Donetsk, a large Ukrainian city that was seized by Russian proxy forces in 2014, and comes as the second anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nears.

The Ukrainian army had struggled on the frontline around Avdiivka in recent months during one of the most intense battles of the war, which left the city almost destroyed and caused nearly all of the more than 30,000 prewar population to leave.

The US president, Joe Biden, had warned that the city might fall to Russia due to weapons shortages exacerbated by months of Republican congressional opposition to a new US funding package for the Ukrainian military.

A Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s northerly Sumy region hit a residential building on Tuesday, killing five people, authorities said.

“ … a family was killed: a mother and two sons, as well as two distant relatives,” the regional military administration wrote on Telegram, citing updated data.

Ukraine’s military had said earlier that Russia had launched 23 drones overnight and its air defences had destroyed all of them.

The Ukrainian military has said it is critically short of ammunition and shells, worsened by the holdup of a $60bn US aid package.

Last week, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the US failure to vote through a fresh military aid package for Ukraine is already having an impact on the battlefield.

“The fact that the US has not been able to make a decision so far has already had consequences. It is impacting the flow of support,” the Nato chief told reporters in Brussels on Thursday.

A Russian court has rejected a complaint by Evan Gershkovich about the extension of his pre-trial detention until 30 March on spying charges, which he denies, the court’s press service said.

“Gershkovich will remain in custody until 30 March 2024,” the Moscow courts service said in a statement.

The appeal was a technical hearing against an earlier ruling to extend Gershkovich’s pre-trial detention period and did not concern the substance of the case.

The US has heavily criticised the Kremlin over his arrest and ongoing detention.

“The charges against Evan are baseless. The Russian government has locked Evan up simply for reporting news,” the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, who attended the hearing, said on Tuesday.

Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) last March in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg on charges of espionage that carry up to 20 years in prison.

In an interview with the former Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said earlier this month that he believes “an agreement can be reached” to free Gershkovich, hinting he would trade him for a Russian killer serving a life sentence in Germany.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, did not watch Yulia Navalnaya’s video statement, but her assertion that her late husband Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a novichok nerve agent is unfounded, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Asked about Navalnaya’s claim that Putin had killed her husband, Peskov said that he would not comment given that Navalnaya had recently been widowed.

But Peskov said that in general accusations that Putin was responsible for Alexei Navalny’s death were absolutely unfounded and obnoxious.

Navalnaya, 47, published a video address on Monday in which she vowed to continue her late husband’s political work and called on Russians to rally around her.

She accused the Russian authorities of murdering her husband, hiding his body and waiting for traces of the nerve agent novichok to disappear from it.

Navalny, 47, died in jail on 16 February at 2.17pm local time, said his official spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, citing a message from Navalny’s mother and challenging Russia’s official explanation that Navalny died after a fall at the Arctic penal colony where he was being held.

The Russian opposition leader had been serving a decades-long prison term on various charges, the latest of which was a 19-year sentence on six counts. He had been behind bars since returning from Germany in January 2021 for charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

Russia’s foreign intelligence chief said that a Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine and was found shot dead in Spain last week was a “moral corpse” when he planned his defection, Russian news agencies reported.

Reports in Russian and Spanish media said Maksim Kuzminov was found dead after allegedly moving to the town of Villajoyosa in Alicante on the Mediterranean coast, in an area popular with holidaymakers.

His body was discovered last Tuesday, it was said, on the car park ramp underneath an apartment block. The reports claimed he had been murdered by unknown gunmen who fired 12 shots.

Kuzminov crossed the frontline last August while on a flight between two Russian airbases. He was supposed to transport parts for SU-27 and Su-30 fighter jets. Instead, he landed his twin-engine Mi-8 AMTSh helicopter on Ukrainian territory.

“In Russia it is customary to speak either good of the dead or nothing at all,” Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), was quoted as saying on Tuesday when asked about Kuzminov.

“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the very moment when he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” Naryshkin was quoted as saying by Tass news agency.

Kuzminov’s defection to Ukraine was presented last year as a major coup for Kyiv.
He had been living in Spain with a Ukrainian passport under a different name, Spain’s state news agency EFE said.

Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence confirmed that Kuzminov had been found dead in Spain.

Russia’s FSB security services said on Tuesday it had arrested a US-Russian woman suspected of treason for raising funds for the Ukrainian army, AFP reports.

The FSB in the central Urals city of Ekaterinburg said it had “suppressed the illegal activities” of a 33-year-old woman, a resident of Los Angeles with dual citizenship, and taken her into custody.

It said the unnamed woman had been “proactively collecting funds … which were subsequently used to purchase tactical medical items, equipment, means of destruction and ammunition for the Ukrainian armed forces”.

The FSB said she had been acting “against the security of our country” and had been supporting the Ukrainian army while in the US.

Treason is punishable by up to life in prison under legislation toughened since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Several US nationals are imprisoned in Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested on espionage charges last year.

The FSB has claimed he was collecting state secrets about the country’s military-industrial complex. Gershkovich and the Wall Street Journal have denied the charges.

Here is some more detail on the announcement from Sweden that it will donate military aid to Ukraine worth about 7.1 billion Swedish crowns (£541m) – see earlier post at 08.32 for more details.

The package includes about 2 billion crowns (£153m) worth of artillery ammunition as well as anti-aircraft artillery and recoilless rifles, Sweden said.

As part of the package, Sweden will also earmark cash for the purchase of material through international Ukraine funds, and 1 billion crowns (£76m) for the purchase of about 10 new armoured combat vehicles that will be ready for delivery to Ukraine in 2026.

Russian troops have carried out 435 strikes against 19 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region, killing two people in Primorskyi and Lisnyi, governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram on Tuesday morning.

Officials received 13 reports concerning the destruction of residential buildings and “infrastructure facilities”, according to Fedorov, who is head of the southern Zaporizhzia regional administration.

Polish farmers will step up protests on the border with Ukraine on Tuesday, blocking almost all traffic in what they say is an attempt to save their livelihoods but which Kyiv says is damaging its war effort.

Farmers across Europe have been demonstrating against constraints placed on them by EU measures to tackle climate change, as well as rising costs and what they say is unfair competition from abroad, particularly Ukraine.

“(There will be a) total blockade of all traffic at border crossings,” Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesperson for the Solidarity farmers’ union, said.

Wawrzyniak said that while military aid would be allowed through, all passenger traffic would be blocked, not only lorries. He said there would be blockades at ports and of motorways, according to Reuters.

The protests mark an escalation of the unrest as previous demonstrations by the truckers and farmers did not completely block all border crossings.

Kyiv says its agricultural exports through eastern Europe have not damaged EU markets.

Sweden’s defence minister, Pal Jonson, has welcomed news that Hungary’s parliament plans to vote on the Nordic country’s Nato membership next week.

“We of course welcome this,” he told a press conference.

Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party has proposed that parliament should vote on the ratification of Sweden’s bid to join Nato on 26 February, which the party will support, the leader of Fidesz’ parliamentary group said on Tuesday.

Hungary is the only Nato country not yet to have ratified Sweden’s application, a process that requires the backing of all of the alliance’s members.

Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party has cited what it called unfounded Swedish allegations that it has eroded democracy in Hungary as the reason why Sweden’s bid had been held up.

Sweden applied to join Nato in May 2022, at the same time as Finland, in a historic shift in its security policy prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that February.

Sweden will donate military aid to Ukraine worth about 7.1 billion Swedish crowns (£541m), the country’s largest contribution to date, the country’s defence ministry said on Tuesday.

It will be Sweden’s 15th round of aid for Ukraine, taking the overall aid since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 to about 30 billion crowns (£2.3bn).

“We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Sweden’s defence minister, Pal Jonson, told a press conference.

The latest package includes artillery and artillery ammunition, maritime assault vessels and other equipment, Sweden said. The military aid also includes the transfer of equipment and fresh cash for arms procurement.

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said last week that the parliament can ratify Sweden’s Nato membership when it convenes for its new spring session later this month, the only remaining parliament in the 31 member alliance to do so.

Sweden applied to join Nato nearly two years ago in a historic shift in policy prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Russian war against Ukraine. Here are the latest developments:

• Russia is exploiting delays in aid to Ukraine, and the situation in areas where Russian troops are concentrated is “extremely difficult”, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said. Ukraine’s president spoke visiting the frontline in the Kupiansk sector in the north-east. “This is a very sensitive matter. Artillery shortages, the need for frontline air defence and for longer-range weapons,” said Zelenskiy.

• A Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine with his aircraft in 2023 has been found dead in Spain, according to the main military intelligence agency in Kyiv, the GUR. Spanish media said Maksim Kuzminov was found shot 12 times on a car park ramp underneath an apartment block in the town of Villajoyosa in Alicante on the Mediterranean coast.

• It comes after the suspected killing by Russia of the leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison camp. On Monday, Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya published a video address in which she vowed to continue her late husband’s political work and called on Russians to rally around her.

• Ukraine shot down two more Russian warplanes used to drop guided aerial bombs, army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said. The destroyed planes were an Su-34 fighter-bomber and an Su-35 fighter, Syrskyi wrote on Telegram. Over the weekend, Ukraine said it had shot down three Russian Su-34s and one Su-35.

• Ukrainian troops were facing “heavy fire” from Russian forces in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a Ukrainian army spokesperson was quoted by AFP as saying. It comes after Russia said it had taken full control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, its biggest gain since capturing Bakhmut last May, after a retreat by Ukrainian troops.

• Ukraine’s government has said it is trying to work with SpaceX to prevent Russian invaders using Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service. “We found an algorithm and made a proposal to SpaceX,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, a Ukrainian government minister. “SpaceX has done something similar with the Israeli government.” Fedorov said Ukraine needed its own terminals to work in all areas “because specific technologies are being used linked to drones. There are other ways so that our Starlinks work and others [the Russians’] do not. We are working on this with SpaceX.”

• Sweden will on Tuesday announce military assistance to Ukraine of SEK7.1bn, according to Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish news outlet. It works out to about US$680m/€630m/£540m.

• Joe Biden, the US president, said he was willing to meet with the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, to discuss Ukraine funding, adding that Republicans are making a mistake by opposing it. The Senate this month passed a $95bn aid package that includes funds for Ukraine, but Johnson has refused to bring it up for a vote on the floor of the House, which Republicans control by a 219-212 margin.

• NBC News reported the White House was prepared to send long-range tactical missiles to Ukraine if Congress approves a new funding package.

• Canada will donate more than 800 SkyRanger R70 multi-mission drones to Ukraine, Canada’s defence minister, Bill Blair, has said. The drones, from Teledyne in Waterloo, Ontario, were valued at over C$95m, the ministry said, and funded through C$500m in previously announced military assistance.

• The Red Cross said it was trying to find out what happened to 23,000 people who have disappeared over the course of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was seeking to determine whether they had been captured, killed or had lost contact after fleeing their homes.

• Belgium’s foreign minister, Hadja Lahbib, has called on the EU to develop an army amid increasing nervousness about Russian aggression.

• Speaking on his way into the summit of foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, Estonia’s foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, called Vladimir Putin a “murderer” and said Ukraine urgently needs more ammunition.