Ukraine-Russia war – live: US ‘to station nuclear weapons in UK’ amid Putin threat

The Independent sat down with Ukrainian war photographer Mstyslav Chernov, who has just been nominated for an Oscar for his documentary 20 Days in Mariupol.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has castigated Europe for “Russophobia” and criticised the Baltic States over human rights at the unveiling of a World War Two memorial.

Since he sent Russian troops into Ukraine nearly two years ago, Putin has been making comparisons with the fight against the Nazis in order to rally his nation.

“The regime in Kyiv exalts Hitler’s accomplices, the SS men … In a number of European countries, Russophobia is promoted as state policy,” Putin said in the Leningrad region for the 80th anniversary of the end of the Nazi siege.

The Germans’ aims then were to steal the Soviet Union’s resources and eliminate its people, he said.

Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union and itself suffered devastation at the hands of Hitler’s forces, rejects comparisons as spurious pretexts for a war of conquest.

In his speech, Putin also lambasted the Baltic States over human rights. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – ruled from Moscow during the Cold War but now members of the European Union and NATO military alliance – have been among the strongest critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“In the Baltic states, tens of thousands of people are declared subhuman, deprived of their most basic rights, and subjected to persecution,” Putin said, referring to migration crackdowns. Moscow has repeatedly accused the Baltic nations of xenophobia and treating Russian minorities as “second-class”.

Britain must be prepared to form a “citizen army” of tens of thousands in the event of war with countries such as Russia, the head of the army has warned in an ominous intervention.

Speaking at a conference on armoured warfare in southwest London, Gen Sanders said that within three years Britain should be able to increase its army to 120,000, including regular soldiers, reserves and a “strategic reserve” group – which is understood to mean retired troops who have been recalled.

Nazi crimes “will never be forgotten”, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has said in a Holocaust Memorial Day message.

“The manmade disaster that claimed the lives of millions of innocent people.

“Six million Jews were killed…Every new generation must learn the truth about the Holocaust. Human life must remain the highest value for all nations in the world.”

The chief of the general staff and head of the army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, has given a valedictory address in which he describes the current population of the UK as a “pre-war generation”, and one that must now get ready to take “preparatory steps to enable placing our societies on a war footing”.

A “national mobilisation” against Vladimir Putin’s Russia is the sort of language that would have been unthinkable, if not alarmist or satirical, only a few years ago, but the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a consistently bellicose stance from the Kremlin has suddenly made such notions mainstream.

As the head of Britain’s army says the nation must prepare for conflict on a global scale, Sean O’Grady asks if he is right:

The Biden administration has approved the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey following the Turkish government’s ratification this week of Sweden’s membership in NATO.

The move is a significant development in the expansion of the alliance, which has taken on additional importance since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Officials in Ukraine said Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that their own forces shot down a military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian POWs.

The Ukrainian agency that deals with prisoner exchanges said late Friday that Russian officials had “with great delay” provided it with a list of the 65 Ukrainians who Moscow said had died in the Wednesday plane crash in Russia’s Belgorod region.

Ukraine’s Coordination Staff for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said relatives of the named POWs were unable to identify their loved ones in crash site photos provided by Russian authorities. The agency’s update cited Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Lt. Col. Kyrylo Budanov, as saying that Kyiv had no verifiable information about who was on the plane.

“We currently don’t have evidence that there could have been that many people onboard the aircraft. Russian propaganda’s claim that the IL-76 aircraft was transporting 65 Ukrainian POWs (heading) for a prisoner swap continues to raise a lot of questions,” Budanov said.

Officials in Ukraine said Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that their own forces shot down a military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian POWs.

The Ukrainian agency that deals with prisoner exchanges said late Friday that Russian officials had “with great delay” provided it with a list of the 65 Ukrainians who Moscow said had died in the Wednesday plane crash in Russia’s Belgorod region.

United States President Joe Biden will welcome German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the White House on 9 Feb in a bid to rally support for additional assistance for Ukraine, the White House said on Saturday.

The two leaders will reaffirm their resolute support for Ukraine’s defence of its land and its people against Russia’s war of aggression, the White House said in a statement.

Biden and Scholz will discuss efforts to prevent regional escalation in the Middle East, their steadfast support for Israel’s right to self-defence, and the imperative of increasing life-saving assistance and protection of civilians from harm in Gaza.

President Biden and Chancellor Scholz will also coordinate in advance of the NATO Summit in Washington, the statement added.

The press office of the German government declined to comment.