Putin ally warns of nuclear world war as Moscow deploys new tanks

An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Tuesday that the world was probably on the verge of a new world war, cautioning that the risks of a nuclear confrontation were also rising, though neither scenario was inevitable.

“The world is sick and quite probably is on the verge of a new world war,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Putin’s powerful security council, told a conference in Moscow.

He said such a new world war was not inevitable but said the risks of a nuclear confrontation were growing – and more serious than concerns about climate change.

Russian generals responsible for war crimes in Ukraine could visit the UK without fear of prosecution unless a legal loophole is closed, MPs have been told.

Brendan O’Hara of the SNP raised concerns with existing legislation as he introduced his Universal Jurisdiction (Extension) Bill, which seeks to implement the calls to “tighten up” existing legislation and bring to justice those responsible for the “world’s most heinous crimes”.

The United Kingdom has sent “thousands of rounds of Challenger 2 ammunition to Ukraine, including depleted uranium armor-piercing rounds,” UK armed forces minister James Heappy said.

He added: “For operational security reasons, we will not comment on Ukrainian usage rates for the rounds provided.”

Mr Heappey was responding to written inquiries from Kenny MacAskill, House of Commons member from Scottish Alba Party.

The minister said that while the UK carried “no obligation” to clear up depleted uranium rounds fired from Challenger 2 tanks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the UK remains “committed to helping Ukraine emerge from this war secure, prosperous and free and we are supporting a range of activities to meet Ukraine’s immediate needs, restore essential infrastructure and services, and lay the groundwork for its longer-term recovery and post-war reconstruction.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has penned a sharp op-ed and argued for a place in Nato for the war-hit nation despite multiple apprehensions, stating that entry of Finland confirms that fears around Russian retaliation are “unwarranted”.

“Russia’s war on Ukraine is about more than killing Ukrainians and stealing our land. President Vladimir Putin is trying to destroy the very foundations of the European security order formed after 1945. This is why the stakes are so high, not only for Ukraine but for the entire Euro-Atlantic community,” Mr Kuleba wrote.

He added: “Ukraine did not choose this battle. Nor did the United States and its Nato allies. Russia started this war. But it falls to Ukraine and its Western partners to bring the conflict to an end, winning a just victory that guarantees peace and stability in Europe for generations to come.”

Volodymyr Zelensky has slammed Russia for carrying out a missile strike on civilian neighbourhood in Ukraine’s Kharkiv which killed two people.

“Throughout the day today, the rubble in the city of Kupyansk, Kharkiv region, was being cleared after a Russian attack with S-300 missiles. Attack on an ordinary civilian neighborhood. The terrorists targeted the local history museum and nearby houses. Russia killed two women with this strike,” Mr Zelensky said.

He extended condolences to the families and friends of the victims, and added that 10 people have also been wounded in the attack.

“In total, more than 60 museums and galleries in different regions of our country have been destroyed or damaged by the occupier,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address.

It was a month into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces had withdrawn from around Kyiv and in their wake Bel Trew and her team stumbled on a body by an abandoned Russian camp.

His hands were tied. He had been burned and shot in the back. Soldiers said he was a teenager.

As Bel tried to find out who he was and what had happened, she uncovered a nightmare world: a nation struggling to find thousands of its missing and to identify its dead.

A lawyer in New York has admitted to making $3.8m in payments to maintain properties that were beneficially owned by a Russian oligarch under US sanctions.

Washington imposed sanctions in 2018 on billionaire Viktor Vekselberg – who owns the Renova group of energy companies – over allegations of Russian interference in the US election won by Donald Trump, and again in 2022 over his ties to Vladimir Putin.

Robert Wise admitted to receiving wire payments from a shell company controlled by an associate of Vekselberg, and then using the funds to pay taxes, insurance and other fees on various properties, including two apartments on Park Avenue and an estate in the Hamptons.

“Admission to the bar carries with it a public trust that attorneys will act with honesty and integrity – a trust that Robert Wise chose to betray in exchange for an easy, illicit paycheck,” Andrew Adams, who leads a US Department of Justice unit targeting Russia-related sanctions violations, told Reuters.

Nasa administrator Bill Nelson has said that he expects Russians and Americans to work together on the International Space Station (ISS) until it is decommissioned.

American-Russian space cooperation was put in doubt after the invasion of Ukraine, with the chief of Russia’s space agency Yuri Borisov surprising Nasa by announcing in July that Moscow intended to leave the partnership “after 2024 – only to backtrack a day later.

During a visit to Ottawa, Mr Nelson underscored the history of US and Soviet collaboration in space during the Cold War, and said he expects it to continue despite the war in Ukraine.

“We are completely at odds with President Putin’s aggression” that is “slaughtering people and invading an autonomous sovereign country,” Nelson told Reuters in an interview in Ottawa.

But the collaboration aboard the ISS “continues in a very professional manner between astronauts and cosmonauts without a hitch”, he said, adding: “I expect that to continue all the way through the end of the decade, when they we will then de-orbit the space station.”

A court in Russia has convicted a former police officer of publicly spreading false information by criticising the war in Ukraine in a phone call with his friends, which officials tapped.

Semiel Vedel was sentenced to seven years in prison under a censorship law the Kremlin brought in days after invading Ukraine.

During three phone conversations with friends last year, Mr Vedel referred to Russia as a “murderer country”, used “Glory to Ukraine” as a greeting, and claimed that Russia was suffering “huge losses” in Ukraine, according to the case prosecutor.

Officials deemed the conversations public because Mr Vedel’s phone was tapped and an investigator listened in on the calls. That reasoning – which Mr Vedel’s lawyer rejected as absurd – hadn’t been previously used in cases involving spreading misinformation charges.

Dasha Litvinova has the full report: