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Evacuation order for people near frontline in Kharkiv region; Macron pledges more arms for Ukraine; TotalEnergies abandons sanctioned Russian gas project
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war against Ukraine. Here are the main points:
At least 17 people were injured in a Russian strike, probably using two S-300 missiles, on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Tuesday evening, said the regional governor, Oleg Synegubov. Residential buildings were destroyed and there were no military targets in the area, said the Kharkiv mayor, Ihor Terekhov.
Earlier, authorities in the Kharkiv region in Ukraine’s north-east region urged residents of more than two dozen villages near the frontline to evacuate because of worsening Russian attacks.
Emmanuel Macron said he would go to Ukraine in February to finalise a bilateral security guarantee under which France would deliver more sophisticated weapons, including long-range cruise missiles. The French president said about 40 Scalp long-range missiles and hundreds of bombs would be delivered in the coming weeks. “We cannot let Russia win and we must not do that.”
North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, has held talks in the Kremlin with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. The US and allies have condemned North Korean missile deliveries to Russia for use against Ukraine, in breach of international law.
Ukraine’s border authorities said Polish truck drivers who had been blocking three crossings on the Polish-Ukrainian border had lifted all blockades, allowing traffic to pass freely. Poland’s infrastructure minister said that truckers would suspend their protest until 1 March after signing an agreement with the government.
The French company TotalEnergies said that it had invoked force majeure over investment in Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 liquefied natural gas project, which is under anti-war sanctions. Putin’s war against Ukraine has forced global energy companies to write off billions of dollars and leave Russia. Force majeure allows companies to abandon contractual obligations when there are factors beyond their control.
Ukraine’s parliament has passed a law creating an electronic registry for the purposes of mobilisation, according to Yaroslav Zhelezniak, an MP.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Europe needed to continue backing Kyiv. “We must continue to empower their resistance. Ukrainians need predictable financing throughout 2024 and beyond.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the west should show unity and called for more support for Ukraine to ensure that Russia does not prevail. In a speech in Davos, Zelenskiy said that the west’s fears about escalation had lost Kyiv time in its struggle against Russia.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said it was “impossible” to take away from Russia the military gains it had made in Ukraine.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said that “if we want to help Ukraine, which I think we need to do, we have to do it in a way that doesn’t harm the EU’s budget”. At least 120 MEPs have signed a petition for Hungary’s voting rights to be suspended because of Orbán’s obstruction of EU processes including the approval of aid to Ukraine. Orbán is close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
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