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Chinese president to arrive in Moscow today
The Chinese president Xi Jinping is due to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow today, which comes as a a political boost for the Russian president after the International Criminal Court charged him with war crimes on Friday.
The Russian government says Xi is due to arrive at midday Monday and later meet with Putin in an informal one-on-one meeting followed by dinner. Negotiations will then take place on Tuesday.
Xi will be attempting to present himself as a peacemaker without compromising his stance as a “good old friend” to Putin – as the Russian leader put it in a newspaper article published in China.
Xi has published his own article in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a daily published by the Russian government, in which he called for “pragmatism” on Ukraine.
He said China’s proposal, a 12-point paper released last month and largely dismissed by the west, reflects global views and seeks to neutralise consequences.
However, he acknowledged that the solutions are not easy. According to Reuters’ translation from Russian, Xi writes:
The document serves as a constructive factor in neutralizing the consequences of the crisis and promoting a political settlement.
Complex problems do not have simple solutions.
You can read this preview on the visit from my colleagues Pjotr Sauer and Amy Hawkins:
Key events
Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us over the news wires from Ukraine.
Associated Press reports that European Union ministers will meet today to try to finalise a plan to supply Ukraine with artillery shells, replenish their own national stocks and ramp up Europe’s defence industry.
The 27-nation bloc’s foreign and defense ministers will discuss the plan at a joint session in Brussels. Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba is due to provide an update of the latest developments in the war and set out his country’s military needs.
The EU’s aim is to provide Ukraine with 1m 155-mm artillery shells this year. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who is chairing the meeting, is seeking approval for a proposal to provide €1bn euros (£870m GBP / $1.1bn USD)
China’s foreign ministry said on Monday the international criminal court (ICC) should take a just position, in response to a question on ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
China will continue to take an objective and just role in the Ukraine crisis, and play a constructive role in peace talks, Reuters reports spokesperson Wang Wenbin told the media at a regular news briefing.
President Xi Jinping is due in Moscow later today, the first world leader to meet directly with Putin since the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president.
The British Ministry of Defence has issued its daily intelligence briefing on the situation in Ukraine. It says:
Over the past three weeks, Russian forces have made creeping gains around the Ukrainian-held Donbas town of Avdiivka, immediately north of Donetsk city. Avdiivka has been on the frontline of the Donbas conflict since 2014; the city is now largely destroyed. Tactically, the situation is similar to that in the larger town of Bakhmut, further north. Ukrainian forces continue organised defence, but their supply lines to the west are increasingly threatened by the Russian envelopment operation.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that in the past 24 hours “Russian military shelled civilian infrastructure in the area of 17 settlements of the Zaporizhzhia region”. The claim has not been independently verified.
The weekly report from US-based policy research organisation, the Institute for the Study of War, says the prospective Ukrainian counteroffensive near Bakhmut or in southern Ukraine is of growing concern for Russia.
The report goes on to say
The tempo of Russian offensive operations across the theater has slowed in recent weeks, suggesting that the Russian spring offensive in Donbas may be nearing culmination.
Ukrainian officials have indicated that significant Russian losses near Vuhledar are severely inhibiting Russian forces’ capacity to conduct further offensive operations in Donetsk Oblast.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used his first visit to recently-occupied Ukraine to portray himself as an involved wartime leader amid exaggerated responses in the Russian nationalist information space over fears of a possible future Ukrainian counteroffensive in southern Ukraine.
The Institute also analyses the comments of former Russian officer Igor Girkin who has indicated there are likely deepening fractures within the top levels of Russian military leadership.
2/ #Girkin’s comments may indicate that there are considerable tensions between the Russian military command and the FSB, as well as within the FSB itself. Girkin’s acerbic commentary continues to provide insight into growing inner circle frictions. https://t.co/e84fWxvjV3
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) March 20, 2023
Ukraine ‘repels 69 Russian assaults in 24 hours’, says military
The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces says the military has repelled 69 Russian assaults in five areas over the past 24 hours.
Russian forces are concentrating their efforts on conducting offensives toward Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Mariinka, and Shakhtarsk in the Donetsk according to the military’s morning update, posted on facebook.
The general staff claims Russia launched six missiles, 13 airstrikes and 56 rocket systems attacks against Ukraine, targeting civilian infrastructure in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Bakhmut remains the epicenter of the fighting, according to the military.
If you missed this feature which came out over the weekend, it tells the story of the Shulik family’s experience defending their hometown of Bakhmut:
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The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin will have serious consequences for international law.
In a post on the Telegram messaging app, Medvedev wrote:
They decided to try a president of … a nuclear power that does not participate in the ICC on the same grounds as the United States and other countries.
The consequences for international law will be monstrous.
ICC asks for money to pursue Russian war crimes in Ukraine
Justice ministers from over 40 countries the are meeting in London today to discuss raising funds for the International Criminal Court to pursue Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
The conference is being co-hosted by the UK and the Dutch government and comes after the ICC on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Putin for overseeing the abduction of children from Ukraine to Russia.
Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the international criminal court, will be pleading for more cash as the ICC’s budget has not been increased even though it has 40 investigators working inside Ukraine.
British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday:
We are gathering in London today united by one cause: to hold war criminals to account for the atrocities committed in Ukraine during this unjust, unprovoked and unlawful invasion.
You can read more from our diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, here:
Chinese president to arrive in Moscow today
The Chinese president Xi Jinping is due to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow today, which comes as a a political boost for the Russian president after the International Criminal Court charged him with war crimes on Friday.
The Russian government says Xi is due to arrive at midday Monday and later meet with Putin in an informal one-on-one meeting followed by dinner. Negotiations will then take place on Tuesday.
Xi will be attempting to present himself as a peacemaker without compromising his stance as a “good old friend” to Putin – as the Russian leader put it in a newspaper article published in China.
Xi has published his own article in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a daily published by the Russian government, in which he called for “pragmatism” on Ukraine.
He said China’s proposal, a 12-point paper released last month and largely dismissed by the west, reflects global views and seeks to neutralise consequences.
However, he acknowledged that the solutions are not easy. According to Reuters’ translation from Russian, Xi writes:
The document serves as a constructive factor in neutralizing the consequences of the crisis and promoting a political settlement.
Complex problems do not have simple solutions.
You can read this preview on the visit from my colleagues Pjotr Sauer and Amy Hawkins:
Opening summary
Hello and welcome back to our continuing live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine. This is Natasha May with the latest developments.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will be touching down in Moscow today as he begins a three day visit, which will make him the first global leader to meet with Vladimir Putin since the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant against the Russian president.
Putin praised Xi as a “good old friend” in a newspaper article published in China while Xi wrote in a Russian daily that his trip to Russia aimed to strengthen the friendship between the two countries and called for “pragmatism” on Ukraine.
Beijing has touted the trip as a “visit for peace” meaning Xi will be walking a tightrope wanting to play the role of peacemaker while using the meeting to strengthen ties with his ally. Xi and Putin will have an informal one-on-one meeting and dinner on Monday before negotiations take place on Tuesday.
The visit from Xi comes as justice ministers from more than 40 countries are meeting in London to discuss scaling up support for the International Criminal Court after it issued that arrest warrant for Putin.
We’ll have more details on those meetings in Moscow and London shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called the international criminal court’s arrest warrant against Putin a “turning point” in the conflict. In Zelensky’s nightly address, he said the warrant marked a “truly significant international legal result for Ukraine, for justice … The moment after which it becomes undeniable that the end of this aggression for Russia will be the full range of its responsibility.”
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Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence accused Putin of visiting Mariupol on Saturday “under the cover of night” in order to avoid showing destruction of city. In a Twitter post the ministry said “darkness allows him to highlight what he wants to show, and keeps … its few surviving inhabitants away from prying eyes.”
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Britain and Ukraine have signed a digital trade deal, which will give Ukraine access to electronic financial services to aid reconstruction efforts. The UK department of business and trade said trading digitally was particularly important in the conflict, because damage to Ukrainian infrastructure and warfare had made it much harder to trade physically.
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Ukraine’s armed forces have released their latest estimate for war casualties, although the Guardian cannot verify them. The country’s army now claims to have killed 164,910 Russian troops since the start of the war. Of these, they say 710 were killed in the 24 hours to Sunday morning. They also report having destroyed eight Russian artillery systems since Saturday.
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A shortage of explosives is hampering the efforts of European countries to provide Ukraine with arms, according to a report. Industry insiders told the Financial Times that gunpowder, plastic explosives and TNT are in short supply and could delay a planned ramping up of shell production by as much as three years. It means Europe’s defence industry may be unable to meet expected EU orders for Ukraine.
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Serbia’s president attacked the decision to issue an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, saying it will only prolong the war in Ukraine. Aleksandar Vučić, who has previously boasted of his personal relationship with the Russian leader, told reporters in Belgrade: “I think issuing an arrest warrant for Putin, not to go into legal matters, will have bad political consequences and it says that there is a great reluctance to talk about peace (and) about truce.”
