RAF scrambles fighter jets to respond to Russian aircraft – live

Germany has confirmed the appointment of Alexander Graf Lambsdorff as its new ambassador to Russia, weeks after the two countries announced a downgrading of diplomatic ties after relations collapsed in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

Graf Lambsdorff, a 56-year-old diplomat and member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the ruling coalition, will take up his post in the summer after Russia gave the green light for the move.

He replaces Geza Andreas von Geyr, who has represented Germany in Russia since September 2019 and is now set to become Germany’s ambassador to Nato in Brussels.

Germany last month said it would shut down four out of five Russian consulates by revoking their licences, a tit-for-tat move after Moscow’s decision to limit the number of German officials in Russia.

Mr Graf Lambsdorff has sharply criticised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and backed Germany shoring up Ukraine’s armed forces with military aid. He is a descendent of a political and aristocratic family that traces its roots to Baltic Germans living in the Russian tsarist empire.

The United States will provide more than $1.3bn (£1bn) in additional aid to Ukraine to help the country recover and rebuild its energy grid, secretary of state Antony Blinken has told the conference in London.

Of that amount, $520m will go towards helping Kyiv overhaul its battered energy grid, while $657m will be used to help modernise its border crossings, ports, rail lines and other critical infrastructure, Mr Blinken said.

Some $100m will be used to help digitise Ukraine’s customs and other systems “to boost speed and to cut corruption”, and another $35m to help Ukrainian businesses through financing and insurance.

“Recovery is about laying the foundation for Ukraine to thrive as a secure, independent country, fully intergrated with Europe, connected to markets around the world,” Mr Blinken told delegates.

The European Union has a “special responsibility” towards Ukraine in the long term, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has told the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London.

“This is for Ukraine’s immediate needs. But let’s talk about the future. I believe the European Union has a special responsibility,” Ms von der Leyen said.

Addressing the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she had “no doubt” that Ukraine would join the EU, adding: “We can never match their sacrifice, but we can and we do stand united.”

Praising the progress and speed of reform in the country, Ms von der Leyen said she hoped Ukraine would become a “country that attracts foreign investment, a country that is master of its future, a country that is a member of the European Union”.

“Together we gather here to tell Ukrainians that their dream is also our dream,” she told the conference. “Ukrainians tell us, when they imagine their future, they see Europe’s flag flying over their cities. I have no doubt that Ukraine will be part of our union.”

“Ukraine has accelerated its reform agenda with impressive speed and resolve,” she said.

Volodymyr Zelensky, who is pushing for Ukraine to join Nato and the European Union, urged Western leaders to have the “courage” to acknowledge that his country is already a key part of their economic and defence alliances.

He told the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London: “We are only waiting for the courage of the alliance leaders to recognise this reality, politically.”

Mr Zelensky highlighted Ukraine’s importance in global food supply and its potential to become a major green energy power.

He said the country could be “the largest source of economic, industrial and technological growth in Europe for decades and decades”.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London that it was necessary to move towards real projects for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

“We must move from agreement to real projects,” the Ukrainian president said. “There is a Ukrainian delegation that will present concrete things and we propose to do them together during my tour,” he said.

Speaking at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, Rishi Sunak highlighted Ukraine’s technological expertise, saying IT experts and the military have developed a mobile app to track the Shahed drones being used by Russia.

The prime minister said that, when he visited Kyiv in November, he saw the people’s spirit of “ingenuity and innovation”, adding: “In a converted office block I met tech experts – civilian and military – who were working together to find new ways to bolster the country’s defences.

“They were networking mobile phones so that people across Ukraine could download an app which would allow their phone to pick up the sound of the Shahed drones and feed back the location so that Ukrainian air defence could track them and shoot them down.”

Ukraine represents an investment opportunity, with its resistance to the Russian invasion demonstrating its people’s capacity for innovation, Rishi Sunak said as he opened the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London.

“Before this terrible war, Ukraine’s economy was becoming a huge investment opportunity,” the prime minister told delegates.

“It was the breadbasket of Europe, exporting millions of tonnes of food and grain each month, a top-five exporter of iron ore and steel, a leader in energy – pushing forward renewables, hydrogen and electric vehicles – and a start-up nation which helped spark names like PayPal, WhatsApp and Revolut, with a thriving tech sector which actually had a record year in 2022.

“The truth is, that opportunity is still there today – in fact the war has only proved how much Ukraine has to offer.”

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claims to have detained a resident of Russia’s eastern Khabarovsk region for treason for attempting to send money to the Ukrainian military.

State news agency Tass quoted the FSB as saying that the detainee had attempted to send money to Ukraine for drones, thermal imaging cameras, munitions and medical supplies “by way of cryptocurrency instruments”.

Another state news agency published FSB footage purporting to show a man being detained by two officers on a country road, and a subsequent search of his house.

Tass separately claimed the FSB had arrested a group of “saboteurs” in the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol who were preparing an assassination attempt against officials. It did not say how many people had been detained, or who their alleged targets were.