Ukraine war live: Terror threat emerges in Moscow as Putin warns of full-scale war in Europe

Turkish and U.S. officials held comprehensive talks about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and various bilateral issues during meetings in Washington, Turkey’s foreign minister said late on Friday.

The NATO allies started the meetings, dubbed the Strategic Mechanism, on Thursday to discuss efforts to move beyond deep policy disagreements and improve cooperation in other areas.

Ties between the allies have been strained in recent years amid growing disagreements over a range of issues, although relations have since gained momentum following Ankara’s approval of Sweden’s bid to join NATO.

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan said officials from the countries held several rounds of discussions on topics including Syria, the Ukraine, Gaza, defence industry cooperation, energy, and counterterrorism.

“At the moment, especially given the point we have reached, with a renewed psychology, a more positive agenda, we have the opportunity to continue on our path by turning a new page,” he told Turkish media in Washington.

“While managing the problems we face now, it is important to also realise the joint potential the two nations can create and the opportunities they can bring,” he said.

Car traffic was temporarily suspended over the Crimea bridge on Saturday, Russian authorities said on the Telegram messaging app, a move often made because of expected or actual attacks.

The bridge connects mainland Russia to Crimea which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014 but which Kyiv still considers its territory.

Ukraine‘s former military chief has been appointed the country’s new ambassador to the United Kingdom, a month after he was sacked as head of the armed forces by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy announced that he has approved the appointment of Valerii Zaluzhnyi to one of Ukraine’s most important diplomatic positions.

Britain is a key supporter of Ukraine in its war with Russia.

In Beijing and Kyiv, the divide between China and Europe over the war in Ukraine was on display this week.

As a Chinese envoy crisscrossed Europe for talks on ending the war, his boss, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, trumpeted a sharp rise in China-Russia trade — which the West sees as providing an economic lifeline to Moscow that undermines the sanctions it has imposed to try to pressure Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.

“Russian natural gas has entered thousands of households in China, and Chinese cars are driving in the streets of Russia, which fully demonstrates the strong resilience and broad prospects of mutually beneficial cooperation,” Wang said at an annual news conference on Thursday.

Hours later, Chinese envoy Li Hui was given a rundown of the horrors of the war by Ukrainian officials in Kyiv. It wasn’t clear how Li reacted. China released a terse statement on Friday saying only that Li arrived by train at noon, held candid and friendly talks, and departed by train the same evening.

The war has created a deep division between the West and China that threatens Beijing’s relations with Europe, a major trading partner, and further strained ties with the United States.

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Turkey is ready to host a summit between Ukraine and Russia to end the war, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Istanbul.

In a meeting lasting about an hour, Erdogan and Zelensky discussed developments in the Ukraine-Russia war, shipping security in the Black Sea including the defunct grain deal, and defence industry cooperation, according to the two sides.

NATO member Turkey supports Ukraine‘s territorial integrity, but also maintains cordial relations with Russia, and regularly speaks with both sides in the conflict, notably as a sponsor of the Black Sea deal that lifted a de facto Russian blockade of Ukrainian grain exports.

“We discussed developments about the war in detail today, I stated our observations with all my sincerity,” Erdogan said at a press conference alongside Zelensky, whose trip comes before an expected visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin following elections in Russia on March 15-17.

“We are giving our utmost contribution for the war to end on the basis of negotiations. We are ready to host a peace summit that Russia will attend too,” he said, adding he had reiterated Ankara’s support for Ukraine‘s sovereignty.

Turkey had hosted peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, but has since complained that no diplomatic step has been taken to advance these discussions. It has repeatedly offered to host further talks, saying a summit of leaders was needed.

Zelenski said Russia would not be invited to the first peace summit due to be held in Switzerland in the coming months, but that a Russian representative could be invited to the next meeting after a roadmap for peace had been agreed upon with Ukrainian allies.

“We do not see any representatives of Russia at this summit. We don’t see how you can invite people who block, destroy, and kill everything. We want to get a result – a just peace,” he said.

Last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said after meeting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that it was time for Ukraine and Russia to start ceasefire talks, but added that this must not mean the recognition of Russia’s occupation.

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on two entities it accused of advancing Russia’s “malign activities” in the Central African Republic (CAR) and enabling the Wagner mercenary group, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

The entities, a CAR-based timber company and a Russia-based company, sought to benefit financially “from illicit natural resource extraction and provided material and financial support to the Wagner Group and other organizations” tied to Wagner’s former owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who died in a 2023 plane explosion in Russia, the Treasury said.

The action targets CAR-based Bois Rouge SARLU for its ties to Wagner and St. Petersburg-based Broker Expert for its support of Bois Rouge, it said in a statement.

“Russia has sought to leverage these Wagner-affiliated companies in its efforts both to secure additional revenue from abroad and to advance its interests in Africa, often at the expense of the host countries, their institutions, and their citizens, Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in the statement.

The United States remains focused on disrupting the networks that enable Russia’s illicit and destabilizing activities in Africa.”

The Central African Republic, a former French colony, has become one of Russia’s closest African allies in recent years, playing host to one of the Wagner Group mercenary army’s largest foreign operations.

Wagner has also battled in Libya, Syria, Mali and other countries, and has fought some of the bloodiest clashes of the war in Ukraine. It was founded in 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine‘s Crimea peninsula and started supporting pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine‘s eastern Donbas region.

The United States has previously imposed sanctions on Wagner and has repeatedly warned of what it says are Wagner’s destabilizing activities and human rights abuses as Washington has ramped up sanctions against the private army following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last yea

Russian drones killed three people in Ukraine‘s south and north on Friday, while a missile strike a day earlier killed two and wounded dozens more, local authorities said.

The missile strike on Thursday damaged a hospital, an emergency medical care centre, and a water utility in the northern city of Sumy, bordering Russia, the regional military administration said on Friday.

Two people were killed and 26 wounded, of whom six remained in hospitals, it added.

On Friday afternoon, a civilian car was hit by a kamikaze drone in Kharkiv region, killing a man and a woman, the regional governor said on the Telegram messenger app.

Another drone hit a village in the southern Kherson region, its governor added. A woman was killed.

All three regions frequently come under Russian drone and missile attacks.

Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians, though many have been killed in frequent air strikes across Ukraine in the course of the two-year-old war.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has warned that the country needs unrestricted and timely arms supplies to fight Russia’s invading forces.

“The strategy of dripping support for Ukraine drop by drop does not work anymore,” he told a press conference in the capital of Lithuania.

“What is required is an unrestricted and timely supply of all types of weapons and ammunition to ensure that Ukraine defeats Russia and the war in Europe does not spill over,” he said.