Ukraine-Russia war – live: French and German leaders says Ukraine should be allowed to hit Russian targets

Sweden has become the third country in as many days to pledge more than $1 billion (£785m) in additional military aid to Ukraine as president Volodymyr Zelensky concluded a three-day tour of Europe.

The package, announced by defence minister Pal Jonson, is the largest single tranche of support donated by Sweden since Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, valued at 13.3 billion Swedish crowns (£981m).

It comes at a vital time for Ukraine as Russian forces, emboldened by an advantage born from a US military package delayed by more than six months, advance across the 640-mile frontline.

Tom Watling has more:

The British government has said it is “determined to hold to account“ those responsible for hundreds of Ukrainians with disabilities, including children, believed to have been forcibly removed to Russian-held territory and Russia itself, after a special report by The Independent.

In response to the 18-month investigation, the deputy foreign secretary, Andrew Mitchell, called the practice “despicable” and pledged further support to the disabled community in the war-wracked country.

The Independent’s four-article series revealed evidence that since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, people with disabilities have been held incommunicado, in squalid conditions and even forced into adopting Russian passports in order to secure treatment or care. The series reveals other horrific abuses, including that groups were used by Russian soldiers as human shields and deprived of food and critical medicine resulting in death – potential war crimes against the most vulnerable in society.

Our international correspondent Bel Trew has more here:

Western countries should let Ukraine strike military bases inside Russia with the sophisticated long-range weapons they are providing to Kyiv, French President Emmanuel Macron said, pressuring his allies in the most recent sign of a potentially significant policy shift that could help change the complexion of the war.

The question of whether to allow Ukraine to hit targets on Russian soil with Western-supplied weaponry has been a delicate issue since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

Prominent Russian nationalist ex-militia commander Igor Girkin, who accused President Vladimir Putin and the army of failure in the war in Ukraine, lost his appeal on Wednesday against a four-year jail term, the RIA state news agency reported.

Girkin, who used the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov during fighting in east Ukraine a decade ago, was convicted by a Moscow court in January of inciting extremism, a charge he denied.

Russian strikes killed two civilians in the city of Nikopol in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said.

Lysak said a Russian drone targeted an ambulance killing a 54-year-old driver and severely injuring his wife. Another civilian, a 52-year-old man, died in a hospital after being wounded in an artillery shelling earlier in the day, he said.

Nikopol which is located just across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, is being pounded regularly with Russian artillery fire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Alexei Dyumin, his former bodyguard, as secretary of the advisory State Council on Wednesday, a step that fuelled speculation about Dyumin’s presidential potential.

Putin was re-elected for another six-year term in March and made Dyumin, 51, an aide overseeing the defence industry in May, bringing him to Moscow and closer to the centre of power.

A decree signed by Putin appointing Dyumin to the State Council was published on the Kremlin’s website on Wednesday. It gave no further details of his new role.

“Russia‘s elite is abuzz with the appointment of Dyumin as secretary of the State Council,” Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser and Putin supporter, said on Telegram.

“This is seen as confirmation that Dyumin is the future president of Russia, Putin’s choice,” Markov said, adding that this was something that had long been rumoured.

Asked about Dyumin’s appointment, the Kremlin said it was part of a rotation - he is taking over the role from Igor Levitin, 72 - and said he would look at how the State Council would function. Putin chairs the council and there has long been speculation that it could take on more importance.

Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday that police carried out searches at the residence of an employee of the European Parliament and at his office in the Parliament’s building in Brussels over suspected Russian interference.

Prosecutors said in statement that the suspect’s office in Strasbourg, where the EU Parliament’s headquarters are located in France, was also searched in partnership with the EU’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, and French judicial authorities.

The raids took place less than two weeks before Europe-wide polls on June 6-9 to elect a new EU parliament.

Ukrainian drones have the capability of striking up to 2,500 kilometres (1,553 miles) into Russia, but the capital Moscow has been protected from their strikes, a senior Russian airforce official warned on Wednesday.

The statement from Dmitry Bogdanov, head of the radio-electronic warfare department of the Russian Aerospace Forces, was carried by the TASS state news agency and suggests that a wide swath of Russian territory bordering Ukraine is vulnerable to potential attack.

“The enemy is not standing still,” Bogdanov was quoted as saying.

“Now unmanned aerial vehicles can traverse an area of up to 2,500 kilometres, and many (Russian) regions are aware of this,”, Bogdanov told a security conference, TASS reported.

Bogdanov said measures had been taken to protect Moscow, the Russian capital, from Ukrainian drone attacks and that other regions were working on their defences.