???? Live: US reaffirms support for Ukraine after intelligence leaks

Issued on: 12/04/2023 – 10:32Modified: 12/04/2023 – 10:33

9:55am: Ukraine has ‘much of the capability’ it needs, Pentagon says after damaging leaks

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken and defence chief Lloyd Austin spoke with their Ukrainian counterparts on Tuesday as Washington sought to reassure its allies after a leaked trove of highly sensitive documents appeared online.

The breach – which has sparked a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice – includes classified information about Ukraine’s battle against invading Russian forces, as well as secret assessments of US allies.

A document reviewed by AFP highlighted US concerns about Ukraine’s capacity to keep defending against Russian strikes, while the Washington Post reported that another expressed doubts about the success of an upcoming offensive by Kyiv’s forces.

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Blinken said he had spoken with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba and “reaffirmed our enduring support for Ukraine and for its efforts to defend its territorial integrity, its sovereignty, its independence”.

Austin, speaking alongside Blinken, said he had also talked to his counterpart in Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, adding that Ukraine’s forces “have much of the capability that they need to continue to be successful”.

Ukraine is expected to launch an attack on invading Russian troops in the spring – its first major military push of the year. But one top secret document said tough Russian defences and “enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive”, the Post reported.

7:05am: Russia conducts test launch of ‘advanced’ ICBM

Russia has conducted what it said was the successful test launch of an “advanced” intercontinental ballistic missile, weeks after it suspended participation in its last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the United States.

The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that a “combat crew successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) of a mobile ground-based missile system” from its Kapustin Yar test site on Tuesday. “The missile’s training warhead hit a mock target at the Sary-Shagan training ground (Republic of Kazakhstan) with given precision,” it added.

Since sending troops into Ukraine last year, President Vladimir Putin has issued thinly veiled warnings that he could use nuclear weapons there if Russia were threatened.

In late February, Putin said Moscow was suspending participation in the New START treaty, under which Russia and the United States had agreed to limit nuclear stockpiles and submit to mutual inspections.

And less than three weeks ago, Putin said he would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in neighbour and ally Belarus, bringing the arms to the doorstep of the European Union. 

5:10am: Deutsche Bank to close its remaining IT operations in Russia

The Financial Times is reporting that Deutsche Bank will be winding down its remaining software technology centres in Russia’s Moscow and St. Petersburg as the German lender looks to end its two decades of reliance on Russian IT expertise.

1:15am: World Bank says Western Europe should also fund Ukraine’s reconstruction

World Bank head David Malpass, speaking at a meeting with officials from the International Monetary Fund, noted that the World Bank had played a big role in rebuilding Europe’s steel industry after World War Two and could play a similar role in Ukraine.

“But the size is daunting,” he said, citing a recent estimate that it would cost $411 billion to rebuild Ukraine’s economy, or 2.6 times its expected 2022 gross domestic product. The number, calculated by the World Bank, United Nations, European Commission and Ukraine, was up sharply from an estimate of $349 billion released last September.

The European Union had large funding sums that could be brought to bear, Malpass said. “The bank is prepared to play its role in the reconstruction, but I do need to set the expectations for the world that the amount to rebuild the electricity sector, the road sector, a railroad sector are way bigger relative to the size of the balance sheets of the international financial institutions,” he said.

• Key developments from Tuesday, April 12:

Russia’s lower house of parliament voted unanimously to introduce electronic mobilisation papers to make it harder for Russian men to avoid the draft. More than 300,000 are believed to have been called up since President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine last year.

The UN, meanwhile, said the confirmed civilian death toll in Ukraine is approaching 8,500 but several thousand more unverified deaths are feared.

>> Read our live blog for all of yesterday’s developments as they unfolded

 (FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and Reuters)