Ukraine news – latest: Russia ‘blocking evacuation of wounded’ from Mariupol plant

Holocaust survivors and their relatives are walking alongside Ukrainian refugees in the annual March of the Living through the grounds of the former Auschwitz death camp.

The event returns after a three-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic and this year takes place against the backdrop of war in eastern Europe.

It’s expected that more than 2,500 participants from 25 countries – including Ukraine – will come together to march.

Eight Holocaust survivors, who have participated for many years, are expected to lead the group.

Nato is ready to support Ukraine for years in the war against Russia, including helping Kyiv to advance from old Soviet-era weapons to modern Western military equipment, the alliance’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said today.

“We need to be prepared for the long term … There is absolutely the possibility that this war will drag on and last for months and years,” Mr Stoltenberg told a youth summit in Brussels, adding that Nato allies were preparing to help Ukraine to move on to Nato-standard weapons.

Mr Stoltenberg is the latest western official to raise the possibility of a yearslong war in Ukraine. British foreign secretary yesterday called on western allies to “double down” on support for Ukraine and warned the war could last five years, perhaps even 10.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany will organise training for Ukrainian soldiers on how to use howitzers supplied by the US.

Washington said it was supplying 90 of its howitzer heavy artillery weapons to Ukraine to shore up the Ukrainian army’s defence against Russia in the Donbas.

The cannons are part of America’s multi-billion package of military aid for Ukraine.

A US defence official said last week a small number of Ukrainian soldiers were being trained to use the howitzers at an undisclosed location outside of Ukraine. The training would last a week, the official said.

Finland and Sweden would be ‘warmly welcomed’ into Nato, the head of the military alliance claimed on Thursday (David Harding writes).

Jens Stoltenberg said both countries would be embraced with open arms should they decide to join the 30-nation military organisation and could become members quite quickly.

“It’s their decision,” Mr Stoltenberg said in Brussels. “But if they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be warmly welcomed, and I expect that process to go quickly.”

They are expected to submit a simultaneous application, possibly as early as next month.

A senior European Union official said that the mere fact of opening a bank account in roubles at Gazprombank may be in breach of EU sanctions against Russia, but the EU had no indication about whether any EU gas company had done so.

The official said that “at first sight” the opening of a bank account in roubles by gas importers would appear to be a breach of sanctions.

The official added that the European Commission had no formal indication that EU companies have set up gas payment accounts with Gazprombank in roubles.

Russia yesterday cut off the gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria in a warning shot to countries who refuse to meet the Kremlin’s demand that gas payments be made in roubles – a demand made in retaliation to western sanctions.

Most foreign Russian gas contracts are met with euros or US dollars but the Kremlin wants roubles to counteract the damaging effect of western sanctions on the Russian economy. Payment in roubles would support Russia’s home currency amid the financial distress.

Russia is not allowing wounded Ukrainian fighters to be evacuated from the Azovstal steel works where they are holed up in the southern city of Mariupol, the local governor said.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Donetsk region’s governor, said Russia was also not allowing humanitarian corridors to be established to evacuate civilians in the region.

But he said only 370,000 residents remain in Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region compared to 1.67 million before Russia’s invasion. Russia denies targeting civilians in the invasion.

Mariupol city council earlier warned that the lives of the 100,000 residents who remain in the besieged city may be in danger from disease due to “the lack of centralised water supply and sewerage, the decomposition of thousands of corpses under the rubble, a catastrophic shortage of drinking water and food”.

The council cited cited Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko as saying living conditions in the city were “medieval” and “an immediate and complete evacuation is needed”.

The water and power supplies in the city were cut off early in the Russian invasion and remaining residents have had to struggle with food shortages, with only a few humanitarian aid deliveries being able to safely reach them.

Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak joined the discussion around the legitimacy of strikes in Russia, saying Ukraine will “defend itself”.

He said: “Ukraine should decide whether to strike Russian military facilities, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said. Russia has attacked Ukraine and killing civilians.

“Ukraine will defend itself in any way, including strikes on the warehouses and bases of the killers in Russia. The world recognises this right.”

Russia has still not received a response from Ukraine regarding its latest proposals for a possible peace agreement, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

“As of this morning, at the time of preparing for the briefing, the Russian side has not received an answer,” she said.

A Ukrainian soldier holed up in a steel works in Mariupol said his forces will fight for as long as needed, before urging world leaders to find a way to save civilians and the hundreds of troops trapped in Russia’s “medieval” siege.

Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, 39, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, spoke in an interview with Reuters from the steel works that is the last redoubt for the port city’s defenders.

My colleague Tom Balmforth has more:

Mariupol authorities are sounding the alarm about unsanitary conditions in the ravaged port city that they say pose a “deadly danger” to its remaining residents.

Mariupol City Council said on the messaging app Telegram Thursday that “deadly epidemics may break out in the city due to the lack of centralized water supply and sewerage, the decomposition of thousands of corpses under the rubble, a catastrophic shortage of drinking water and food.”

It said that the lives of 100,000 people who still remain in Mariupol, out of 450,000 pre-war residents, may be in danger — pointing to diseases like cholera and dysentery.

The Telegram post cited Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko as saying that “the invaders are not able to provide the remaining population with food, water and medicines – or are simply not interested in that.”

He said that “living conditions in the ruined Mariupol are now medieval” and that “an immediate and complete evacuation is needed.”