Ukraine’s top commander says enemy sending reinforcements to area but lacks numbers for a major push

The Kremlin said on Thursday that the US, Nato and some European countries were encouraging Ukraine to continue what it called Kyiv’s “senseless war” with Russia and accused them of escalating tensions in recent weeks.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 in what it called a special military operation, and Kyiv says it is defending itself – with western help – in an effort to expel all Russian forces from its territory.

The member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance – the United States in particular, other European capitals – have in recent days and weeks embarked on a new round of escalation.

They are doing this deliberately. We hear a lot of bellicose statements. … They are encouraging Ukraine in every possible way to continue this senseless war.

Security services say spate of fires and infrastructure attacks could be part of attempt by Russia to destabilise continent

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Security services around Europe are on alert to a potential new weapon of Russia’s war – arson and sabotage – after a spate of mystery fires and attacks on infrastructure in the Baltics, Germany and the UK.

When a fire broke out in Ikea in Vilnius in Lithuania this month, few passed any remarks until the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, suggested it could have been the work of a foreign saboteur.

Third parties could be required to do more to block tankers from operating in Baltic and the Channel

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Britain and Finland are discussing plans to require third parties to do more to block the Russian shadow oil tanker fleet operating in the Baltic and the Channel, the Finnish foreign minister has said.

The waters around Finland act as a key choke point for the estimated 100 Russian-bought oil tankers that navigate the Baltic monthly using opaque ownership structures to carry 90m tonnes of oil.

The military alliance is turning 75. But there’s little to celebrate in Kyiv, as Putin’s forces continue their bloody advance

Nato’s grand 75th birthday celebration in Washington in July will ring hollow in Kyiv. The alliance has miserably failed its biggest post-cold war test – the battle for Ukraine. Sadly, there’s no denying it: Vladimir Putin is on a roll.

Advancing Russian forces in Kharkiv profit from the west’s culpably slow drip-feed of weaponry to Kyiv and its leaders’ chronic fear of escalation. Ukraine receives just enough support to survive, never to prevail. Now even bare survival is in doubt.

Weakening liberal democracies and weakening the NATO alliance are conjoined in the hybrid war that Russia is conducting against Ukraine.

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War of the words: Fancy Bear actions are “intolerable and unacceptable,” complains German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock.

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