Putin faces rare protest as Kyiv fires first US weapon inside Russia – latest updates

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused China of helping Russia to disrupt an upcoming peace conference on the war in Ukraine.

Speaking at Asia’s premier security conference in Singapore, Mr Zelensky alleged Russia had been using Chinese diplomats in the wider Asian region to influence and dissuade countries from attending the peace summit, due to be held in Burgenstock Resort, central Switzerland, on 15 and 16 June.

“Russia, using Chinese influence in the region, using Chinese diplomats also, does everything to disrupt the peace summit,” said Mr Zelensky at a news conference at the Shangri-La defence forum.

“Regrettably this is unfortunate that such a big independent powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin.”

The Paris Olympics are being targeted by a Russian-linked disinformation campaign, according to Microsoft.

Since last summer, efforts have been under way by a hacker group named Storm-1679, according to research.

The hackers “are trying to cultivate an anticipation of violence”, said Clint Watts, the head of Microsoft’s Digital Threat Analysis Centre. “They want people to be fearful of going to the Olympics.”

The Kremlin said it was understandable that some countries were declining to take part in a Swiss-hosted peace summit on Ukraine this month because the gathering lacked clear goals and it was absurd to hold it without Russia.

Ukraine says more than 100 countries and organisations have agreed to attend the summit on June 15-16, to which Moscow has not been invited.

“This is a completely absurd activity, this is an idle pastime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He said it was obvious the meeting was not geared towards results, and “that’s why many countries don’t want to waste time.”

Over the past two years operating along the Ukrainian front line, Khrystyna Drahomaretska has gained a veteran’s understanding of the battle tactics employed by the invading Russian troops.

During the day, the 27-year-old explains, they will freely dispatch cheap kamikaze drones to kill anyone on sight. At night, however, the high-value drones equipped with hi-tech sensors are used more sparingly to target vehicles instead.

That was the calculation she made two weeks ago while conducting a daring night-time rescue operation a few hundred metres from the Russian positions near the city of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region where Putin’s forces are currently pushing towards.

Mindful of the night vision drones, she ditched her van and crept towards her target on foot. But the enemy started firing anyway, with more than a dozen missiles launched towards her position.

Hiding behind a copse of trees, one exploded nearby sending a knuckle-sized piece of shrapnel searing straight through her leg.

Many soldiers will insist that killing their enemies is not personal. But when Stepan Barna’s suicide drone unit takes Russian soldiers’ lives, he does not disguise his feeling that every killing is a very personal payback for the death of his brother last year.

Stepan and his older brother, Oleh, were both well-known Ukrainian politicians long before Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Stepan had been the governor of the Ternopil region in the country’s west.

Oleh had been a member of the Ukrainian parliament. He gained notoriety in 2015 when he grabbed the then prime minister, Arseniy Yatseniuk, whose politics he disagreed with, while Yatseniuk was addressing the parliament, and dragged him off the podium.

Nato only has two to three years to prepare before Russia regains its ability to launch a conventional attack on the alliance, Norway’s top general said.

“At one point someone said it’ll take 10 years, but I think we’re back to less than 10 years because of the industrial base that is now running in Russia,” General Kristoffersen said.

“It will take some time, which gives us a window now for the next two to three years to rebuild our forces, to rebuild our stocks at the same time as we are supporting Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied weapons to strike targets in Russia will not “contribute to escalation,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.

Germany has long opposed lifting the ban on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons to target Russia, but changed course last month.

“We are certain that it will not contribute to an escalation because, as Joe Biden has also described, it is only a matter of being able to defend a large city like Kharkiv,” Mr Scholz said.