Putin threatens Ukraine allies as Truss urges ‘doubling down’ on support for Kyiv
Russian president says retaliation against outside interference will be lightning-fast' as UK foreign secretary calls for total expulsion of Russian forces.
Vladimir Putin has warned of a lightning-fast" retaliation if countries intervened in Ukraine as Britain pressed for Moscow to be so weakened militarily by its war that the Russian president can never pose a threat to European security.
The Russian president told lawmakers in St Petersburg on Wednesday the west wanted to cut Russia into pieces and accused it of pushing Ukraine into conflict with Moscow. If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast," said Putin.
The United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has arrived in Ukraine after meeting Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow. Guterres will meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Thursday.
Russia warned other EU customers may be cut off from its natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov's comments came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders and Zelenskiy denounced as blackmail".
The damage bill from the war has reached $600bn, Zelenskiy said in a video address on Wednesday night. More than 32m square metres of living space, more than 1,500 educational facilities and more than 350 medical facilities have been destroyed or damaged," he said. About 2,500km of roads and almost 300 bridges have been ruined or damaged."
A series of explosions were heard near a TV tower in the Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Wednesday night, temporarily knocking Russian channels off the air, Ukrainian and Russian news organisations reported. RIA Novosti said the broadcast later resumed. Russian channels began broadcasting from Kherson last week, it reported.
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