Russia Ukraine war live: UK ‘greenlights’ storm shadow missile strikes against Putin’s forces

Norway will give 1 billion crowns ($92.69 million) to boost Ukraine’s air defences, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Thursday at a NATO summit where alliance members have promised more aid to Kyiv as it fights Russian invaders.

The announcement came a day after Norway said it would give Ukraine six F-16 fighter jets. “The Ukrainians need more air defence to protect their population from Russian bombs and missiles,” Stoere said in a statement.

“The brutal attacks we have seen this past week show why it is so vital for the Ukrainians to have greater protection from Russian air attacks,” he added.

Russia will not attend a follow-up to last month’s Ukraine peace summit, state news agency RIA quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin as saying on Thursday.

Russia was not invited to the initial summit in Switzerland that was attended by representatives of 92 countries, and said that discussing the war in its absence was a waste of time.

Ukraine has said it wants to hold another such summit later this year, probably in the Global South, and that representatives from Russia could be invited this time.

Hungary does not want, and will not support, Nato becoming an “anti-China” bloc, foreign minister Peter Szijjarto told Hungary’s state television while in Washington on Thursday.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Nato summit, Szijjarto also said Ukraine’s admission to the alliance would weaken unity within the group.

It comes after Nato labelled China a “decisive enabler” of Putin’s war in Ukraine – in the alliance’s strongest rebuke of Beijing.

But Beijing hit back and accused Nato of smearing the country while demanding the transatlantic alliance stay out of Asia.

A record number of Chinese warplanes breached Taiwanese airspace as part of Beijing’s military exercises amid a key Nato summit, according to Taiwanese authorities.

Up to 66 Chinese aircraft were detected around the self-governing island and 56 of them breached the median line of the Taiwan Strait, Taipei’s defence ministry said. It is a single-day record for this year.

China’s military drills came amid a key Nato summit in Washington, where Western leaders issued their strongest-ever condemnation of Beijing for being a “decisive” enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

China accused Nato on Thursday of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia.

The statement by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson came a day after NATO labeled China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“Nato hyping up China’s responsibility on the Ukraine issue is unreasonable and has sinister motives,” spokesperson Lin Jian said at a daily briefing. He maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the Ukraine issue.

The Chinese military has begun joint drills in Belarus that are being held over the next 11 days in Brest, close to the border with Nato state Poland.

The joint military exercises by two of Russia’s most important allies come after Belarus became the 10th member of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) during its 24th meeting of heads of council in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Belarus’s government said the drills “will allow … the laying of a foundation for further development of Belarusian-Chinese relations in the field of joint training of troops”.

Oleg Orlov, a veteran Russian human rights campaigner, on Thursday lost an appeal against his two-and-half-year prison sentence but said he stood by his denunciation of “mass repression” in Russia.

Orlov, the 71-year-old co-chair of rights group Memorial, was found guilty in February of discrediting the Russian army after he protested against the war and wrote an article accusing President Vladimir Putin of leading the country into fascism.

“I have no remorse or regrets. I am in the right place at the right time,” he told a packed courtroom in Moscow, speaking by video link from a detention centre about 750 km (470 miles) away.

“When there is mass repression in the country, I am there alongside those who are persecuted, and in this way I help…” Orlov continued, before the sound was cut from his video feed.

On Wednesday, Nato labelled China a “decisive enabler” of Putin’s war in Ukraine – in the alliance’s strongest rebuke of Beijing.

But Beijing hit back and accused Nato of smearing the country while demanding the transatlantic alliance stay out of Asia.

“Nato keeps playing up the interlink between Europe’s security and the security in Asia-Pacific. We urge it to stay within its role as a regional defensive organisation in the north Atlantic,” Beijing said.