Live: West must provide more military support to Ukraine, says EU’s Josep Borrell

Issued on: 19/02/2023 – 10:18

9:56am: West must provide more military support to Ukraine, says EU’s Borrell

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Sunday the West must provide more military aid to Ukraine and speed up its deliveries.

“Much more has to be done and much quicker. There is still a lot to be done. We have to increase and accelerate our military support,” Borrell said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference.

9:31am: Kremlin scolds US for casting Crimea as legitimate target

The Kremlin on Sunday cast the United States was a “major provocateur” of international tensions for condoning attacks on Crimea, warning that the remarks about the peninsula underscored the depth of disagreement between the two countries.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to comments by US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland who said the United States considers that Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, should be demilitarised and that Washington supports Ukrainian attacks on military targets on the peninsula.

“Nuland belongs to a very broad camp of the most aggressive ‘hawks’ in American politics. This is a point of view we know well,” Peskov said in comments published by the TASS news agency.

5:41am: In meeting, Blinken warns China’s Wang Yi against aiding Russia in Ukraine

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday warned top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi of consequences should China provide material support to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying in an interview after the two met that Washington was concerned Beijing was considering supplying weapons to Moscow.

The top diplomats of the two superpowers met at an undisclosed location on the sidelines of a global security conference in Munich, just hours after Wang scolded Washington as “hysterical” in a running dispute over the US downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

5:19am: US seeks Ukraine crisis with claims of crimes against humanity, says Russian envoy 

Russia’s US ambassador accused the United States of trying to justify its own actions in fomenting the crisis in Ukraine with allegations of Russian crimes against humanity, TASS state news agency said on Sunday.

“We regard such insinuations as an unprecedented attempt to demonise Russia in the framework of the hybrid war unleashed against us,” Ambassador Anatoly Antonov was quoted as saying.

“There is no doubt that the purpose of such attacks by Washington is to justify its own actions to fuel the Ukrainian crisis.”

9:10pm: Macron says Russia must be defeated but not ‘crushed’

French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview released Saturday that he wanted Russia to be defeated in its war with Ukraine, but did not want to see the country “crushed”.

“I am convinced that, in the end, this will not conclude militarily,” he told two French newspapers and broadcaster France Inter. But while he wanted Russia’s defeat, he did not share the position of those who wanted to see the country crushed.

“I do not think, as some people do, that we must aim for a total defeat of Russia, attacking Russia on its own soil. Those observers want to, above all else, crush Russia. That has never been the position of France and it will never be our position,” Macron said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)