Kremlin: no high-level contact with US over drone incident; US-Russia relations in ‘lamentable state’The Kremlin said on Wednesday that relations with the US were in a “lamentable state” and at their lowest level, after Washington accused Russia of downing one of its reconnaissance drones over the Black Sea.
Reuters reports that the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said there had been no high-level contact with Washington over the incident and that Russia would never refuse to engage in constructive dialogue.
Key events
Show key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Russian authorities say they will try to recover the remnants of the US surveillance drone that fell into the Black Sea after an encounter with Russian fighter jets.
Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s security council, said in televised remarks that Russia planned to search for the drone’s debris. He said:
I don’t know if we can recover them or not, but we will certainly have to do that, and we will deal with it. I certainly hope for success.
The German government has called on Russia to extend a deal allowing the export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports beyond 60 days.
The deal should continue indefinitely, a German government spokesperson said, after Russia said on Monday that it had agreed to extend the deal but only for another 60 days, drawing an immediate challenge from Kyiv.
Speaking at a regular news conference, the German spokespesrson added that the collision of a Russian fighter jet with a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday is “cause for concern”.
Earlier we reported that the Chinese defence ministry had announced that China, Iran and Russia would conduct joint maritime drills in the Gulf of Oman starting today.
The “Security Bond-2023” exercises will also involve other countries, the ministry said, without giving details.
The drills would “help deepen practical cooperation between the participating countries’ navies … and inject positive energy into regional peace and stability”, a ministry statement said.
The White House was not concerned by the joint training exercise, spokesperson John Kirby said. He told CNN:
We’re going to watch it, we’ll monitor it, obviously, to make sure that there’s no threat resulting from this training exercise to our national security interests or those of our allies and partners in the region. But nations train. We do it all the time. We’ll watch it as best we can.
Russia plans to recruit 400,000 contract soldiers – reportRussia’s defence ministry will start a new recruitment campaign on 1 April, with the aim of recruiting 400,000 professional soldiers to the Russian army, according to a report.
Radio Svoboda, citing several regional media outlets, has reported that the Russian defence ministry has already sent orders to regions indicating the number of people with whom military contracts should be signed.
According to the plan, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk oblasts will have 10,000 contractors each, it said. In Perm Krai, 9,000 individuals will reportedly be recruited.
The main part of the work will be carried out by military enlistment offices, and governors will be responsible for the implementation of the plan, it said.
Russian military recruitment offices are trying to compensate for its losses in specialised soldiers, such as tank drivers and artillerymen, the Vyorstka outlet has reported.
Ukraine can defend a $3bn Eurobond lawsuit brought by Russia, the UK’s supreme court has declared in a long-awaited ruling.
Britain’s top court ruled that Ukraine could defend the lawsuit, which was brought in 2016, on the basis that Russia’s threats of military force amounted to illegitimate pressure on Ukraine to assume the $3bn debt, Reuters is reporting.
The case centres on billions of dollars borrowed from Russia from Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Russian Ukrainian president who was toppled in a popular uprising in 2014.
Ukraine says the debt was procured by duress, including unlawful trade measures to deter the country from signing an association agreement with the EU and threats to its territory.
Today’s ruling paves the way for a full trial of Ukraine’s case that it had to accept the money in the face of Russian aggression.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the ruling as a “another decisive victory against the aggressor”, writing on Twitter: “Justice will be ours.”
Today Ukraine secured another decisive victory against the aggressor, this time in the UK Supreme Court in the $3bn bonds case. The Court has ruled that Ukraine’s defence based on russia’s threats of aggression will have a full public trial. Justice will be ours.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 15, 2023US drone may never be recovered from Black Sea, says White HouseThe US MQ-9 drone that crashed into the Black Sea has not been recovered and may never be recovered, the White House’s spokesperson, John Kirby, has said.
“It has not been recovered,” Kirby said in an interview with CNN.
I’m not sure that we’re going to be able to recover it. Where it fell into the Black Sea – very, very deep water. So we’re still assessing whether there can be any kind of recovery effort. There may not be.
He added:
We did the best we could to minimise any intelligence value that might come from somebody else getting their hands on that drone.
The US state department summoned the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, to express concerns over the incident, the first since the war in Ukraine began.
US officials told Antonov that Moscow has to be more careful when flying in international airspace, Kirby said.
The message that we delivered to the Russian ambassador is that they need to be more careful in flying in international airspace near US assets that are, again, flying in completely legal ways, conducting missions in support of our national security interests.
Hello everyone, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong here taking over the live blog from Martin Belam. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Here are some recent images from Ukraine that we have received via the news wires.
Ukrainian soldiers fire an SPG-9 anti-tank weapon during an exercise in Zaporizhzhia region. Photograph: ReutersA Ukrainian soldier of the 110th Battalion peers from the hatch of a T72 tank near the frontline town of Kreminna, Luhansk region. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura/ReutersPresident Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the Day of Ukrainian Volunteers in Kyiv. Photograph: APAImages/REX/ShutterstockAndriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has posted to social media to say that the area hit in Kharkiv this morning was near a school and that there were no casualties.
The Russians launched a missile attack on Kharkiv. A school area was hit, the building is partially damaged, windows off. No casualties, fortunately.
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) March 15, 2023Summary of the day so far … The Kremlin said on Wednesday that relations with the US were in a “lamentable state” and at their lowest level, after Washington accused Russia of downing one of its reconnaissance drones over the Black Sea. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there had been no high-level contact with Washington over the incident.
On Tuesday the US said a Russian fighter collided with a US Reaper drone, forcing it down into the Black Sea in what US forces called an “unsafe and unprofessional” intercept. A US European Command statement said the collision happened just after 7am on Tuesday, when two Russian Su-27 fighter jets flew up to the MQ-9 Reaper drone over international waters west of Crimea. The statement said the Russian pilots sought to disrupt the US aircraft before the collision.
The US state department summoned Russia’s ambassador over the drone incident. The White House said the drone’s downing was unique and would be raised directly by state department officials with their Russian counterparts.
The Russian ambassador to the US called the incident a “provocation”. Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Anatoly Antonov as saying: “We do not want any confrontation between the United States and Russia. We are in favour of building pragmatic relations.” Antonov made the comments after being summoned to the US state department. He later added: “We are concerned about the unacceptable activity of the US military in the immediate vicinity of our borders,” accusing the US of supplying intelligence to Kyiv.
The Pentagon said the drone was on a routine ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) mission. US air force Brig Gen Pat Ryders said Russia did not have the drone, but he declined to say whether Russia was seeking the wreckage so that its military intelligence could dissect it.
Russia’s defence ministry maintained that its fighters “did not use airborne weapons and did not come into contact” with the US drone. The ministry said fighters from its air defence forces were raised into the air to identify the drone, which the ministry said was heading “in direction of the state border of the Russian Federation”.
British defence secretary Ben Wallace has urged Moscow to respect international airspace.
State broadcaster Suspilne is reporting that the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv was struck on Wednesday by a S-300 missile fired from the Belgorod region of Russia.
Turkey is planning to approve Finland’s application for Nato membership – independently from Sweden’s – before parliamentary and presidential elections that will take place on 14 May, two Turkish officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, will travel to Turkey on 16 March and meet with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Danish government and a broad majority of parties in Denmark’s parliament have agreed to establish a fund of 7bn Danish crowns (£822m / $1bn) for civil, military and business aid to Ukraine. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has expressed his thanks on social media.
Germany’s defence industry says it is ready to ramp up its output, including the production of the kinds of arms and ammunition needed by Ukraine, but that it needs clarity about what governments want before investing in further production capacity.
China, Iran and Russia will conduct maritime drills in the Gulf of Oman starting today, the China defence ministry says. The drills will run until 19 March.
Russia has proposed suspending its double taxation agreements with what it calls “unfriendly countries” – those that have imposed sanctions on Moscow, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.
Kremlin: no high-level contact with US over drone incident; US-Russia relations in ‘lamentable state’The Kremlin said on Wednesday that relations with the US were in a “lamentable state” and at their lowest level, after Washington accused Russia of downing one of its reconnaissance drones over the Black Sea.
Reuters reports that the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said there had been no high-level contact with Washington over the incident and that Russia would never refuse to engage in constructive dialogue.
Here is a clip of the UK’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, calling for Russia to respect international airspace.
Ben Wallace urges Russia to ‘respect international airspace’ – videoVolodymyr Zelenskiy has expressed his thanks to Denmark for setting up a new fund to help support Ukraine. [See 8.15GMT]
The president of Ukraine tweeted:
Sincerely grateful to Denmark’s Folketinget, prime minister and government for establishing the Ukrainian support fund. More than $1bn in military, humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine is a guarantee of bringing our common victory over the aggressor and the return of peace to Europe closer!
Sincerely grateful to 🇩🇰 @folketinget, PM @Statsmin and Government for establishing 🇺🇦 Support Fund. More than $1 billion in military, humanitarian & economic aid to Ukraine is a guarantee of bringing our common victory over the aggressor and the return of peace to Europe closer!
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 15, 2023 State broadcaster Suspilne is reporting that the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has been struck by a S-300 missile fired from the Belgorod region in Russia. It posted to Telegram to say that “the shot was near one of the buildings of the Shevchenkivskyi district, said Dmytro Chubenko, the spokesperson of the regional prosecutor’s office”.