Ukraine-Russia war latest: UK responds to Moscow’s ‘absurd’ claim Kyiv building nuclear weapon with Europe – UK Times

The British govermment has dismissed Russian claims on plans to provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons as an attempt to distract by Vladimir Putin.

“This is a clear attempt by Vladimir Putin to distract from his heinous actions in Ukraine. There is no truth to this. You’ll have seen the PM’s words this morning paying tribute to the incredible resilience of the Ukrainians… We will continue with our efforts to secure a just and lasting peace,” the prime minister’s spokesperson said.

The statement comes as Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), accused Britain and France of preparing to secretly supply Ukraine with nuclear weapons parts and technology, without providing evidence.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has threatened Russia could use nuclear arms against the UK, Ukraine and France “if necessary”.

The Ukrainian government received a formal, official message from the US State Department recently after attacks by Ukraine on the Russian port of Novorossiysk affected US interests in Kazakhstan, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Olha Stefanishyna, said on Tuesday.

Most of Kazakhstan’s oil is sent to Novorossiysk for export.

Stefanishyna, speaking on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, declined to provide details about the State Department’s demarche.

She added that it focused on strikes affecting US interests, not halting attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.

“We have heard from the Department of State that we should refrain from… attacking American interests,” Stefanishyna told reporters.

“This reach-out was not related to encouraging Ukraine from refraining to attack Russian military and energy infrastructure. It was related to the very fact that American economic interest was affected there,” the official said.

She said the incident made clear that Ukraine had failed to establish similarly close economic ties with the US in the decades since its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and she was determined to change that.

Donald Trump has said his administration is working very hard to end the war in Ukraine which he claimed is killing at least 25,000 people every month.

“And we’re working very hard to end the ninth war, the killing and slaughter between Russia and Ukraine were 25,000. Soldiers are dying each and every month. Think of that,” he said, addressing the US lawmakers in his State of the Union speech today.

“25,000 soldiers are dying a month, a war which would have never happened if I were president, would have never happened,” Trump said.

Democratic and Republican US senators have introduced a resolution supporting Ukraine as it battles Russian invaders, hours before president Donald Trump was due to make his nationally televised State of the Union address to the nation.

The resolution was led by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Thom Tillis, who are co-chairs of the Senate Nato Observer Group. It had at least 26 other co-sponsors, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, representing more than a quarter of the Senate.

Provisions in the measure include encouragement of strong cooperation among Nato allies and a call for any negotiated settlement to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and “include Ukraine as the central party to discussions regarding its future”.

Members of Congress, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, have urged him to do more to help Zelensky’s government, including sending all of the financial and military aid they have authorized over the past several years.

“Congress must continue to support Ukraine and place real pressure on the Kremlin. That pressure must include sanctions against Russia’s shadow fleet to cut off Putin’s ability to fund the war and must be done in conjunction with our allies,” Shaheen said in a statement, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attempts to evade sanctions on oil shipments.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said the war there remained “as a stain on our collective conscience” and reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire.

In remarks for a session of the United Nations Security Council to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Guterres commended the efforts of the United States and others to end the war, but said concrete measures were needed to de-escalate and create space for diplomacy.

“We have witnessed the cascading consequences of this blatant violation of international law,” he said, referring to the Russian invasion.

He said more than 15,000 civilians had been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war and over 41,000 hurt. Among those killed or hurt were 3,200 children.

Guterres’ remarks were read on his behalf by Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN under-secretary-general for peacebuilding.

Guterres warned that the fighting posed direct risks to the safe and secure operation of Ukraine’s nuclear sites, and added: “This unconscionable game of nuclear roulette must cease immediately.”

Vladimir Putin’s forces can sustain the war in Ukraine throughout this year even if the country faces economic and manpower pressures, a military think tank has said.

There is “little indication” that “Russia’s ability to continue its war against Ukraine for a fifth year is diminished”, Bastian Giegerich, the director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said as the war completed four years.

According to the IISS, the Kremlin has spent at least $186bn (£138bn) on defence in 2025, more than twice the proportion spent by the US and about three times the spending of the UK.

This also marks a three per cent increase in real terms, estimated to be 7.3 per cent of its GDP, the think tank said. Russia’s military spending has “doubled in real terms since 2021”, said Fenella McGerty, a defence finance expert at the IISS.

The increased military budget allows Russia to spend more heavily on military equipment and recruitment to sustain relentless ground and air attacks against Ukraine in the immediate future, she said.

In his address earlier today to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Volodymyr Zelensky called for Donald Trump to visit Ukraine.

“Only by coming to Ukraine, and seeing with one’s own eyes our life and our struggle, feeling our people and the enormity of this pain – only then can one understand what this war is really about. And because of whom. Who the aggressor is here and who must be pressured,” the Ukrainian president said in the address, as he stressed the importance of a visit by Trump.

He said Ukraine is defending life, adding that it is “not a street fight” but an “attack by a sick state on a sovereign one”.

Zelensky added: “Putin is this war. He is the cause of its beginning and the obstacle to its end. And it is Russia that must be put in its place. So that there can be real peace.”

I could hear the take-off detonation being filmed live and broadcast around the world in my earpiece, along with my TV colleague’s report of the Russian attack. It was the morning that Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Standing in the pre-dawn freeze on a terrace overlooking Kharkiv’s Freedom Square four years ago, it was less than a minute before I was reporting on those rockets when they exploded on impact.

The skyline bulged orange, then came the concussive thump, then the cracks of the rockets exploding. They’d been fired from Russia into Ukraine’s second-biggest city.

Our world affairs editor Sam Kiley writes:

South Africa’s government has said that 11 of a group of 17 men who were lured into fighting for Russia in Ukraine were set to return home soon, after an initial four landed back in the country last week.

A further two remained in Russia, with one in a hospital in Moscow, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement.

Ramaphosa raised the fate of the 17 men, who sent distress calls to the South African government in November after getting trapped in Ukraine’s Donbas region, in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin this month.

Reports of African men being lured into Russia with promises of jobs and ending up on Ukraine’s front line have become more frequent in recent months, creating tensions between Moscow and some of the countries involved.

A Kenyan intelligence report presented to lawmakers last week estimated that more than 1,000 Kenyans had been recruited to fight on Russia’s side in the war in Ukraine. Kenya’s foreign minister has said he plans to visit Russia to address the issue.