Russia-Ukraine war live: Sweden approves bill to allow country to join Nato; US says China is watching west’s response to Russia

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During the first few months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the cruise missiles fired by Moscow at its neighbour remained embedded for days at a time in the buildings and streets of the north-eastern province Kharkiv.

Then, one by one, officials working for Ukrainian prosecutors recovered, registered and catalogued them, before moving them to a fenced-off area in an industrial district of Kharkiv city that has become known as the “missile cemetery”. More than 1,000 explosives and the debris of rockets are lined up in rows, covering an area half the size of a football field.

Ukraine’s army calculates that Russia has fired more than 5,000 cruise missiles, in addition to countless artillery rockets, since the war began. A large number have fallen on Kharkiv.

Local authorities say that one day the devices could become part of a museum to remember the atrocities of war. In the meantime, though, they hope the debris can provide information to help bring prosecutions against Russian authorities and soldiers.

“This place was created for collecting evidence of war crimes,” said Dmytro Chubenko, the spokesperson for the Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office.

These devices were all found in Kharkiv city. But it is approximately only half of what they shot at us. These are pieces of evidence that we hope will be used in the international criminal court.

About 95% of all the devices stored in the missile cemetery are parts of multiple launch rocket systems, including Smerch systems that can be used to carry cluster bombs, which were banned by most of the world under a 2008 treaty and have been used by Russia in areas of Ukraine where there were neither military personnel nor military infrastructure.

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Sweden’s parliament has formally approved a bill to allow the country to join Nato.

Lawmakers in the 349-seat Riksdagen voted overwhelmingly – 296 in favour and 37 votes against – for Sweden’s accession to Nato, with 43 members absent.

Membership in Nato “is the best way to safeguard Sweden’s security,” foreign minister Tobias Billstr?m said during the nearly seven-hour debate.

He called it “a historical event” and “one of the most important security policy decisions ever for our country.”

Sweden and its neighbour Finland applied to join Nato in May 2022, abandoning decades of non-alignment in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The process has been held up by Turkey, which along with Hungary has yet to ratify the memberships. Sweden in particular has faced objections from Turkey, which says Stockholm harbours members of what Turkey considers terrorist groups – a charge Sweden denies.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, said last week that his government would move forward with ratifying Finland’s application, paving the way for the country to join the alliance before Sweden. Erdo?an said Sweden still must resolve the Turkish concerns that had delayed action on the joint application.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said China is watching “very carefully” to see how Washington and the world respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

If Russia was allowed to attack Ukraine with impunity, it would “open a Pandora’s box” for would-be aggressors and lead to a “world of conflict”, he told lawmakers at a US senate appropriations subcommittee hearing.

Blinken, speaking hours after China’s president Xi Jinping returned to Beijing from his state visit to Russia, said:

The stakes in Ukraine go well beyond Ukraine … I think it has a profound impact in Asia, for example.

Russia’s invasion of its neighbour has led to debates over how the war will affect China’s military thinking regarding Taiwan. Blinken added:

I think if China’s looking at this – and they are looking at it very carefully – they will draw lessons for how the world comes together, or doesn’t, to stand up to this aggression.

China’s political and material support for Russia goes against Washington’s interests, Blinken said, but added that Washington had not yet seen evidence that Beijing is providing Moscow with lethal aid for the conflict.

The International Monetary Fund, the global lender of last resort, has agreed a package of support for Ukraine of $15.6bn (?12.8bn).

The loan, the first the Washington-based lender will make to a country at war, could represent one of the biggest tranches of financial support for Ukraine so far. It still needs to be signed off by the IMF’s executive board, a process that should conclude within weeks.

War had taken a “horrific humanitarian toll” on Ukraine, said Gavin Gray, the IMF’s mission chief for the country, but it also “continues to have a devastating impact on the economy”.

Ukraine’s economic output – GDP – shrank by 30% last year and poverty levels have risen significantly. Pressure on public spending to support the economy and manage its war effort is considerable.

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Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that the number of people injured in the attack on Zaporizhzhia has increased to 31. On its Telegram channel, citing the national police, it writes:

In Zaporizhzhia, the number of people injured by a rocket attack has increased to 31. 27 of them, including three children, were hospitalised.

There are some official photographs of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visiting the Bakhmut frontline region today, but the one that is causing the biggest stir on social media is a picture that appears to show him stopping for coffee and meeting staff at a petrol station en route.

The spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians said on Wednesday that Russia’s powerful Orthodox church shared responsibility for the conflict in Ukraine but that he stood ready to help in Russia’s postwar “spiritual regeneration”.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s comments are a rebuke for Russian Patriarch Kirill, whose vocal support for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has splintered the worldwide Orthodox church.

Bartholomew, who in 2019 infuriated Moscow by recognising the newly established Orthodox church of Ukraine, said Russian authorities were using the church as an “instrument for their strategic objectives”.

“The church and the state leadership in Russia cooperated in the crime of aggression and shared the responsibility for the resulting crimes, like the shocking abduction of the Ukrainian children,” Reuters report he told a conference held in Lithuania’s parliament.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has returned to Beijing after a state visit to Russia, state broadcaster CCTV has reported.

Russia will not leave “unanswered” a UK plan to supply Ukraine with tank shells made with depleted uranium, its foreign ministry has said.

In a statement, Russia’s foreign ministry said:

This decision will not remain without serious consequences both for Russian-British bilateral relations and at the international level, where the initial reaction from multilateral structures already indicates the complete rejection of London’s plans. We will not leave such actions unanswered.

It added:

Violating the fundamental norms of international law, London must not forget that it will have to bear full responsibility for this.

Separately, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Britain’s decision took the situation to new and dangerous levels.

Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverley, earlier today said there was no “nuclear escalation” in the country’s decision.

Almost 20 people have been injured by a Russian attack on a residential building in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, officials in Ukraine have said.

Footage from a security camera captured the moment the strike hit, causing an explosion and a large plume of smoke to rise from two nine-storey buildings.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it is “deeply concerned” about the situation in Bakhmut and nearby communities around the frontline in eastern Ukraine and the “deep civilian suffering caused by constant military hostilities”.

ICRC staff delivered humanitarian assistance to Kostiantynivka, Chasiv Yar and Selydove, close to the frontline, where they said the extent of destruction was evident. In a statement, it said:

Homes, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure have sustained heavy damage. The humanitarian situation is dire for those who have not fled, and the constant hostilities prevents them from accessing the most basic services.

Most civilians who are able to leave have already been evaluated, but thousands still remained around the frontline, it said. Those are mainly elderly people, or people with disabilities or low mobility, as well as people who refuse to leave their homes or have been displaced from frontline villages.

One resident was quoted as saying:

It is a really difficult situation here; it’s loud and scary. Yesterday a rocket flew over our heads. We are not living but surviving.

Here are some images we have received of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy making a surprise visit to Ukrainian troops near the frontline city of Bakhmut.

Zelenskiy, dressed in a dark sweatshirt and military khaki trousers, was seen handing out medals to soldiers he said were heroically defending their country’s sovereignty.

Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu said armed forces in the east have received around 400 items of modern military equipment over the past year, including SU-57 jets and anti-aircraft missile systems.

The military capabilities of the eastern military district have “significantly increased”, Shoigu told his country’s top army brass.

He also said the modernisation of Russia’s air defence system would be completed this year.

On the subject of Ukraine, Shoigu said Russian aerospace forces had so far destroyed more than 20,000 Ukrainian military facilities since the start of what Moscow calls its “special military operation”.

The Russian minister’s claims have not been independently verified.