Ukraine-Russia war latest: Germany says Europe and Russia ‘no longer at peace’

Britain and Russia may already be at war, said a former head of MI5. But it is a “different sort of war”, said Baroness Manningham-Buller while appearing on the Lord Speaker’s Corner podcast.

“Fiona Hill may be right in saying we’re already at war with Russia,” said the former chief of Security Services, who served as the head between 2002 and 2007.

“It’s a different sort of war, but the hostility, the cyberattacks, the physical attacks, intelligence work is extensive.”

Speaking of her meeting with Putin in 2005, she said: “We all hoped that at the end of the Soviet Union we would have a potential partner. That was one of the reasons why Putin was with us for the G8 summit in 2005.

“I met him when he came back to London. But actually we were wrong because Russia is extremely hostile to the West. I didn’t anticipate that within a year he’d be ordering the murder on London streets of Alexander Litvinenko.”

Hungary said on Monday it was blocking access to 12 Ukrainian news sites after a similar move by Kyiv, worsening relations between the two neighbours which have been fraught during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this month, Ukraine blocked various websites deemed to contain pro-Russian views at the request of the security services. They included eight Hungarian-language portals, among them a popular pro-government news site, origo.hu.

“A sovereign country must give a proportional response to an entirely unjustified attack,” Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said in a Facebook post on Monday, announcing the measure.

Most of the websites targeted by Hungary are widely read in Ukraine.

One, European Pravda, closely tracks Ukraine’s EU accession aspiration and Hungary’s efforts to block that.

Gulyas said Ukraine banned the Hungarian portals because they wrote critically about sanctions against Russia and military support for Ukraine and criticised the European Union and Nato alliance as being fragmented and ineffective.

“If the fragmentation of the European Union provides grounds for state censorship in Ukraine, then it is time for Ukraine to renounce its intention to join,” he wrote.

Russian president has called for the largest conscription operation in the military service since 2016, as the country announces vacancies for 135,000 men in the army.

The mobilisation comes amid mounting Russian losses in the war and pressure to maintain the 1,000km long frontline.

According to Western estimates over a million troops from Vladimir Putin’s army have died in the war. Putin has increased annual conscription by an average of five per cent since the start of war in 2022.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russian forces are prevailing in what he said was a “righteous battle” in Ukraine.

“Our fighters and commanders go on the attack, and the entire country, all of Russia, is waging this righteous battle and working hard,” Putin said in a video published on the Kremlin’s website.

“Together we are defending our love for the Motherland and the unity of our historical destiny, we are fighting and we are prevailing.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, calling it a “special military operation” to demilitarise and de-nazify its neighbour.

Kyiv and its allies say the invasion is an unprovoked imperialistic attempt to grab land.

Russian forces have taken control of two more frontline settlements in key areas of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the Russian defence ministry said on Monday.

Ukrainian officials did not address the Russian announcement concerning the two villages, but president Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv’s counter-offensive operation near the town of Dobropillia, also in Donetsk region, made progress.

It could not be independently verified.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces were now in control of Shandryholove and Zarichne, both northeast of the city of Sloviansk – one of the centres Moscow hopes eventually to capture in its drive westward through Donetsk region.

It then issued a second statement saying defence minister Andrei Belousov had congratulated the unit for the “bold and decisive” actions that led to the capture of Zarichne, identified by its Soviet-era name, Kirovsk.

Video released by Russia’s ministry of defence purport to show Russian troops moving from building to building and holding aloft a Russian flag as they take control of Shandryholove.

Moscow has been advancing slowly along the frontline crossing eastern and southern areas of Ukraine, announcing the capture of new villages nearly every day.

It does not release casualty figures, but Ukrainian and Western military analysts say the advances have come at a high cost in men and equipment.

Ukraine’s president has offered to help European countries after several nations saw a wave of drone incursions last month.

Poland, Romania and Denmark saw drones breaching the international borders, forcing the closure of airports, exposing the gaps in Nato’s ability to respond in a timely manner.

Offering support, Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was offering “to Poland and all our partners to build a joint, truly reliable shield against Russian aerial threats”.

He said his country’s military “can counter all types of Russian drones and missiles”, adding that “if Russia loses the ability to strike in the skies, it will be unable to continue the war”.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that Russia’s war on Ukraine is a war against Europe’s freedom.

In comments during a media event in Duesseldorf, he said that while Europe “is not at war”, it is also “no longer at peace” with Russia.

Elaborating, the German chancellor said, Moscow’s war is “a war against our democracy and a war against our freedom.”He added that Moscow’s intention was to undermine unity in the bloc.

President Trump has previously denied Ukraine’s requests for the use of long-range missiles in the past, but as he grows more frustrated with Moscow, he appears to be more accepting of Zelensky’s requests.

Here, The Independent takes a look at what weapons the US and other countries have been sending to Ukraine and Russia as the war show no signs of ending soon.

Moldovans gave the country’s pro-Western governing party a clear parliamentary majority in a weekend election, defeating pro-Russian groups in a vote widely viewed as a stark choice between East and West.

European leaders on Monday hailed Moldovans for re-affirming their commitment to a Western path and future membership in the European Union in the face of alleged Russian interference. The country is small in size and population but with outsized geopolitical importance.

“You made your choice clear: Europe. Democracy. Freedom,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X.

“No attempt to sow fear or division could break your resolve.”

Landlocked between war-torn Ukraine and EU and Nato member Romania, Moldova was a Soviet republic until it proclaimed independence in 1991.

In recent years it has taken a clear Westward path, turning the country into a geopolitical battleground between Russia and Europe.

The outcome of Sunday’s high-stakes ballot was noteworthy considering Moldovan authorities’ repeated claims that Russia was conducting a vast “hybrid war” to try to sway the outcome.

Moldova applied to join the EU in 2022 in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and was granted candidate status that year. Brussels agreed to open accession negotiations last year.