US’s top diplomat visits Moldova as Macron says Ukraine should be able to use allies’ weapons to ‘neutralise’ bases inside Russia
Good morning and welcome to our blog covering the Russia-Ukraine conflict. We start with news that the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is set to arrive in the Moldovan capital Chisinau on Wednesday.
It the first stop of a brief Europe tour during which he will aim to solidify the western support for Ukraine across Nato allies and neighbouring countries.
Polish security services have arrested a man suspected of trying to get photos of military vehicles crossing the border into Ukraine, a spokesperson said on Wednesday, the latest in a string of spy cases. The 26-year-old Ukrainian man was suspected of encouraging a Polish citizen to share the photos and “take part in the activities of foreign intelligence against the Republic of Poland,” the spokesperson said.
Sweden’s energy and defence minister has announced 13.3bn krona (£1bn) in military support for Ukraine.
Newly-appointed Russian defence minister, Andrei Belousov, has sent telegrams to Moscow’s forces in Ukraine thanking them for their battlefield progress, official army news outlet Zvezda reported on Wednesday. Putin in May removed ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister and replaced him with Belousov, an economist and former deputy prime minister, in a surprise move.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, told the Economist that alliance members should let Ukraine strike deep into Russia with western weapons. But the White House on Tuesday ruled out such a possibility for US-supplied weapons. “There’s no change to our policy at this point. We don’t encourage or enable the use of US-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia,” said John Kirby, national security council spokesperson.
Vladimir Putin warned of “serious consequences” if Russia is struck with western weapons – repeating a pattern of routine but vague and unfulfilled threats towards Ukraine’s allies. The Kremlin also gloated over persisting differences in the west – “we see that there is no consensus on this issue”, regime spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the Russian daily Izvestia.