China promises Putin ‘friendship without limits’, but experts say Beijing will exact a price from Russia

China might appear ridiculous to much of the world by issuing a joint condemnation, alongside Moscow, of “unilateral bullying of one country”, i.e. Russia, even as it stands shoulder to shoulder with Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

But that won’t worry Beijing, says Steve Tsang, director of the Soas China Institute in London. “For a regime that is used to enjoying ‘a monopoly on the truth’, it is not that surprising that it is comfortable with its rhetoric regardless of the perception of the outside world,” he says.

It was all smiles on Wednesday in Moscow as China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, arrived to meet Putin and show the world the strength of ties between the two nuclear powers.

“Russian-Chinese relations are developing as we planned in previous years. Everything is moving forward and developing,” Vladimir Putin told reporters as he sat beside Wang.

Wang met Putin even as Russian and Chinese warships prepared for joint naval drills off the coast of South Africa.

Some reports suggest Wang’s visit, just days before the anniversary of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is a precursor to a meeting between Putin and Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.

But despite insistence on their “friendship without limits”, Beijing and Moscow want different things from this marriage of convenience, and there’s little doubt who’s the dominant one in this partnership.

An isolated Russia desperately needs Chinese support. Xi is expected to make a “peace speech” on Friday in relation to Russia’s war on Ukraine (Kyiv says there can be no talk of peace with Russian troops in Ukraine).

China sees Russia as a useful tool as it seeks to challenge Western political and economic dominance. But it fears financial fallout from the war, and the potential damage to important economic ties with the US and Europe.

With its economy stuttering due to dire demographics, an imploding property sector and the effects of Covid and Ukraine war oil shock, Beijing knows it can’t afford to risk serious secondary sanctions for breaching Western sanctions on Russia.

“I think Xi and China are very concerned about it,” says professor Tsang. “They will support Putin to the maximum level short of taking actions that will clearly trigger secondary sanctions. Dual use components are not included in items that will result in secondary sanctions, hence China’s willingness to supply to Russia.”

But this could change as supporters of Ukraine call for the US to start penalising countries like China and even Turkey that are allowing these hi-tech components, which are made in Europe and America, to find their way into Russia.

Another analyst, Patricia Lewis, director of Chatham House’s International Security Programme, says China “will exact a price” for supporting Russia over Ukraine.

She thinks Beijing will be eyeing mineral resources in the central Asian, former Soviet states, over which Moscow still holds some sway. “Russia has all sorts of geography that China is interested in,” she says. “And that includes Arctic territory. I think Russia is selling itself down the river.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...6754a1228c4e96

I'm guessing the Chinese will help the Russians just enough to keep them in the fight and bleeding. The last thing they want is a stronger Russia, especially when the Russians have open designs on Mongolia.

Some days ago there was photo or video footage on some websites and reports in some newspapers that the Chinese actually do provide weapons and missiles to Russia, and since longer time already. I had not read it, however, I wanted to do so later, went onto some other internet stories, and never got back to it. Cannot say where it was.



China does not want a too weak Russia, becasue in the end both countries' prime enemy is the USA. It also doe snot want Russia loosing trhe war, or havign to giv eup Ukraine,t usi wpoiuöldm open unwanted questions about Chians own policies ion Tibet, Soth chinese Sea, Taiwan.



What both countries want is more freedom and untouchability for their totalitarian leaders and their land-grabbing, stealing and plundering.

IMO, what Xi needs is a Russia that can design China's military hardware. Whether China steals that tech or buys it for pennies-on-the-dollar is a moot point. China also needs ores and minerals plus oil.

I don't think Xi dreams of a perfect future where China and Russia get to dictate terms to the rest of the world. :yep:

Washington does not know Putin’s true intentions, but it is unlikely to be in his interests to start nuclear arms race - Pentagon

Russian President Vladimir Putin has left it open for Russia to return to the New START Strategic Arms Reduction and Limitation Treaty, saying the Kremlin is suspending its participation in the deal, not withdrawing from it.

This was stated by US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs Colin Kohl in an interview with the Voice of America Ukrainian service, Censor.NET informs.

"I think he chose that phrase on purpose, I think he probably doesn't think it's in Russia's best interest, given that the country is going broke, to engage in a full-scale nuclear arms race with the United States, as we've seen under during the Cold War".

Kohl stressed that Washington does not know Putin's true intentions, but "from the point of view of the US government, even at the height of the Cold War, it was important for us to negotiate strategic stability with the Soviet Union."

"The same applies to Russia today, we have a special responsibility as the world's two largest nuclear powers to not allow our nuclear arsenals to get out of control and never to use them in conflict," Kohl added, explaining that in the view of the presidential administration Joe Biden's New START arms reduction agreement is in the interests of the United States. "So we will continue to explore whether we can get back to that conversation," the senior official said.

It will be recalled that on February 21, during a speech before the Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia is "suspending" its participation in the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty and is preparing to conduct nuclear weapons tests.

The very next day, the State Duma of Russia unanimously adopted a law suspending the Russian Federation's participation in the Treaty on Strategic Offensive. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3401513

EU ambassadors could not agree on tenth package of sanctions against Russian Federation

Since the ambassadors of the EU countries could not agree on the tenth package of sanctions against Russia, the negotiations will continue tomorrow.

This was reported by Rikard Jozvyak, the editor of Radio Liberty in Europe, Censor.NET informs.

"Today, there is no agreement among EU ambassadors on the 10th package of sanctions against Russia. Negotiations will continue tomorrow, worryingly close to the deadline of February 24," he tweeted.

Jozviak also reminded that Hungary previously wanted to remove 9 Russian oligarchs from the list of sanctions.

"Hungary backed down. At first, they talked about 9 people, then about 4, yesterday about 2, today - an agreement about 0. But the extension is only for 6 months, not 9 or 12 months, as requested by many other EU member states," he added journalist.

Earlier it was reported that the European Union intends to adopt the tenth package of sanctions before the anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. As stated by the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in the tenth package of sanctions against the Russian Federation, it is proposed, in particular, to introduce export controls on 47 electronic components that can be used in weapons systems, including drones, missiles, and helicopters.

According to Politico, four Russian banks, including Alfa Bank, and about 130 individuals and legal entities, including military personnel, officials, and journalists of Russian state media, may be included in the tenth package of EU sanctions. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3401506

It is necessary to support Ukraine for victory, and then prevent history from repeating itself - Stoltenberg

It cannot be allowed that Russia continues to destroy European security.

As Censor.NET reports with reference to Sky News, this was stated by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

He emphasized that a year after the invasion, Putin is not preparing for peace, but "is preparing for a new war."

Stoltenberg called on allies to give Ukraine the support it needs to win and then ensure history does not repeat itself.

"We have seen the Russian model of aggression for many years," he said, mentioning Georgia, Crimea and Donbas.

"We cannot allow Russia to continue destroying European security. We must break this cycle of Russian aggression," Stoltenberg said.

The Secretary General of the Alliance emphasized that the NATO Allies will protect every inch of the Allies' territory.

"Your visit to Kyiv sent a clear message of unwavering support for Ukraine," he told Biden. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3401478

The "huge offensive" of the Russians is not even noticed by everyone. Why is Kyrylo Budanov sure that a turning point in the war will come in the spring. Big Forbes interview

The stockpile of artillery shells in Russia has decreased to 30%, the remaining missiles are almost exhausted, and the maximum of Russian production is about 40 cruise missiles per month. All this forced Moscow to abandon its ambitious plans to seize Kyiv and shift its efforts to an attempt to occupy the entire Luhansk region and Donetsk region. Summing up the year of the great war in Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Ukrainian SSR, told Forbes in an interview about this.

Kyrylo Budanov, 37, is one of the most media-savvy military personnel of Ukraine, he gave dozens of interviews to Ukrainian and international media. The scout is categorical in his answers: Russia is almost exhausted, Ukraine will soon win.

Such forecasts sound reassuring to war-weary Ukrainians, but they tend to come true. Budanov was one of the few official representatives of the authorities who warned of the Russian invasion at 5 a.m. on February 24. He also predicted the first victories of the Ukrainian defenders from the de-occupation of Kharkiv Oblast and Kherson.

The words of Budanov, who became the head of the GUR at the age of 34, have weight for the president as well. Forbes sources in Bankova say that the chief intelligence officer is one of the few in the country who has direct access to Zelenskyi.

Budanov meets Forbes journalists in his half-dark office. There are photos on the walls. They include the GUR mission, which evacuated people from Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul in 2021, and the defenders of Azovstal during the deaf encirclement by the Russians. Behind Budanov, there is no longer a map with Russia divided into parts. It lies folded on the table. "Now we are cutting it," jokes the head of GUR.

In an interview with Forbes, he told whether we should be afraid of an attack on Kyiv, where the GUR gets its information from, and how long Ukraine is ready to keep Bakhmut.
Russian offensive and mobilization

Russia is currently on the offensive on almost the entire eastern front. Is this the big offensive that has been talked about for the last two months, or should we expect something else from Russia in March?

The big Russian offensive they have in mind is already underway. But it continues so much that not everyone even sees it - such is the quality of this attack. They have a strategic task - to reach the administrative borders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions by March 31.

Do you think this is the maximum they can announce now? Announcements are usually more ambitious than real possibilities.

I don't think, I know. This is what they dream of, they will not be able to do it.

Western mass media actively wrote about the fact that mass mobilization will begin in Russia at the end of January or at the beginning of February. They predicted numbers up to 500,000 people . Now it does not look like it has started.

And who told you that she is not there? It is hidden.

Is it possible to covertly recruit so many people?

In a country with a population of more than 100 million, what is the problem with recruiting 500,000.

What do we now know about mobilization in Russia, since the numbers vary?

During the first open wave of mobilization, they recruited a little more than 316,000. Here the question is: if everything is fine in Russia and they called another 316,000, why continue the mobilization? So, not everything is good. This will lead us to a simple conclusion: how many losses in the Russian Federation? This figure is sky high.

Of these 316,000, how many are already directly at the front?

More than 90% were sent immediately. No one trained them - immediately to the front.

There is no conditional stock?

A small percentage went to the formation of new units, but the majority went to the restoration of units that suffered losses, they are all at the front.

There is an assumption that we need to pay close attention to news about mobilization. If Russia manages to recruit 300,000 or 500,000 men, then the section of the front will be short-circuited for such a number of men on their side, and then an attack on Kiev can be expected. What do you think about it?

This is questionable logic, I do not share this opinion. The offensive in one direction or another is not limited by the number of people you want or can place somewhere.

But it increases Russia's capabilities.

We have an open war. What is surprising, that there is such an opportunity? Besides the possibility, there is also the reality. The reality is that they set themselves the goal of reaching the administrative borders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions by March 31. You can feel the difference: taking Kyiv in three days and going to some borders someday.

Is there an understanding of how many they can call up, not in terms of the number of people, but how many machine guns, armored vehicles, and tanks they can issue?

There are enough automatic machines for any number, there is not enough armored vehicles even now, but this does not hinder them at all. Now there are many divisions that are being formed from scratch. They go without equipment, on "Urals" and "Kamazas". They no longer have BMPs and armored personnel carriers in their state. The equipment is all removed from long-term storage, they have already removed more than 60%, there is about 35% left, which can be quickly restored. Single production, and it does not cover needs.

What about Medvedev's claim of 800 tanks a year?

800 tanks a year, they are not able to do what they did in wartime, but in their best years.
About Bakhmut

It is not the first time that materials appear in foreign media where they advise us to reduce our presence in Bakhmut in order to preserve forces for a possible counteroffensive in the South. And they say that the importance of the city is not so much strategic as political.

I would like to see how such an offer would be made to the President of France. To say that you have a problem, leave the city of Marseille, it is not so strategic.

Is there more political expediency or military expediency in keeping Bakhmut?

Can you imagine that the President of the United States would be told: "Let's temporarily surrender New York, that's the way to do it"?

If we recall the Second World War, then Stalin was told that Kyiv should be withdrawn. He also said: "How can you retreat from the mother of Russian cities." We know what that led to.

If we go further according to your logic, then this led to the victory of the Soviet Union.

But 400,000 people were killed and captured during that operation.

For me, as a patriot and a soldier, the surrender of even a millimeter of territory is a disaster. This is my personal logic, you can agree with it, you can not. From a military point of view, holding Bakhmut gives us the ability to contain the Russians in that area and inflict catastrophic losses on them.

Are we exhausting them in this way?

We exhaust them and defend our territory, which in no case can be evaluated in the context of whether it is appropriate or inappropriate to leave.

It is about redistributing forces, not about simply surrendering the city. Perhaps it is more effective to use people in other directions?

I do not agree with this logic.
About the remnants of Russian weapons

You mentioned earlier that Russia is running out of supplies of equipment and shells, in particular 152 caliber. That they have shells left at the limit of 30% of the total number. With so many shells and with such equipment, how can they go on the offensive?

Any. Therefore, this "huge offensive" is not even noticed by everyone. As for the stockpile of weapons, they are now setting up mass production of artillery shells. This once again confirms that there are no stocks of shells, they are not enough.

For two months now, the Russian groups operating in our country have been living in a mode of maximum saving of ammunition. More or less normal ammunition is now used exclusively in Bakhmut and in the Lyman direction. They tried to storm Ugledar several times , and will continue to try, so this location was added. All other areas are in ammunition saving mode.

How many of them are now manufactured in Russia?

They produce much less than they use.

When and if they will be able to develop this production, sufficient to conduct an artillery war?

It will never succeed. Russia is not the Soviet Union. They have already felt it and understood it, it is a fact.

But the projectile is not a drone, it does not need to import electronics.

It is not so easy, it requires a lot of industries that have been destroyed in 30 years. For 30 years, Russia, like many other countries of the post-Soviet space, sold stocks.

Do they have the ability to find these shells in North Korea?

Theoretically, there is an opportunity. Do they deliver from there? There are no confirmed cases in North Korea. A test batch was imported from Iran, now they are trying to import another batch, no longer a test batch, it is about 20,000 shells. This is nothing compared to the numbers that are used... More at https://forbes-ua.translate.goog/war..._x_tr_pto=wapp

https://wartranslated.com/forbes-ua-...nov-interview/

Will it end with a war between China and NATO-Where Ukrainian and Russian is fighting our war.

Would that be a possibility ?

Markus

Russian Troops Know How Little They Mean to Putin
By Dara Massicot Ms. Massicot is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, focusing on Russian defense and security issues.

On the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its leaders expected a quick success. The Russian military, modernized in the past decade and emboldened by campaigns in Ukraine and Syria, was confident using force abroad. As Russia moved nearly 200,000 troops, missile launchers and combat aviation apparatus into place early last year, many feared the worst.

But Russian victory never came. Instead, the Russian military has sustained staggering losses: Senior U.S. officials place Russian casualties at well over 100,000. The army has lost thousands of pieces of armored equipment and several squadrons of fighter jets and helicopters, and expended a large proportion of its precision strike munitions and artillery shells. Any finesse or operational art in doctrine has given way to brute force and repetitive attacks. Russia’s army is becoming unrecognizable from what it was one year ago.

But that’s not stopping it. In fact, Russian leaders are preparing for a protracted conflict. To replace lost personnel, Russia mobilized 300,000 men last September, and to replace equipment losses, the military is withdrawing older equipment from strategic reserves. The Kremlin, for its part, increased defense budgets and ordered accelerated production of defense equipment. The military may be battered and bruised, but Russia is still intent on fighting.

The danger of that determination is plain to see. In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces are waging attritional battles as part of a new offensive that may last through the spring or early summer. In the face of Ukraine’s strong will to fight and continued Western support, the gains have been minimal and the losses steep. But the attacks are relentless.

This is a change from last fall. After retreating from the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, Russia assumed a defensive stance on the ground while it launched missiles at critical Ukrainian infrastructure and tried to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses from a distance. Such a strategy was supposed to give its forces time to regroup and regenerate, while complicating Ukrainian counteroffensives.

Yet Vladimir Putin was not satisfied. So last month, the Kremlin demoted Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the commander who had overseen the defensive shift. He was replaced by Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the long-serving chief of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces who oversaw the invasion one year ago. In making this move, the Kremlin had clearly decided that an offensive approach — even with shaky forces and depleted equipment — was preferable to a defensive one.

There’s a problem: Russia’s forces are currently ill equipped for an offensive and need more time to train. But not according to General Gerasimov. Within a few weeks of his appointment, he ordered localized assaults in Donetsk and Luhansk to bring them under full Russian occupation and bog down Ukrainian forces elsewhere.

The tactics are crude. The Russians are using repetitive armored assaults in some areas and human waves of “storm” troops in others. In other words, they use infantry to draw fire from defending Ukrainian forces, exposing Ukrainian positions that can then be targeted by Russian artillery. The result is rates of Russian casualties not seen since the early weeks of the invasion. Newly mobilized Russian troops, knowing they are being used as cannon fodder, have even made public appeals to officials to be spared.

However rudimentary, the method has brought some success. Some Ukrainian positions, like Bakhmut, are under serious and mounting pressure. Russian forces are also attacking Kreminna, a city in Luhansk, where the situation is described by Ukrainian officials as tough. Farther south, the Russians are creating defensive positions along the front line, especially in Zaporizhzhia, perhaps out of concern for a Ukrainian counteroffensive there. Missile strikes by the Russian Air Force, meanwhile, continue to chip away at Ukrainian air defenses.

Russia still has untapped manpower and could call for another mobilization this year. Returns would be diminishing, though: The remaining equipment is in various states of disrepair and the men would require months of training. Without mobilizing even more men and pulling battalion sets of equipment from the reserves, another attack on northeastern Ukraine, such as the Kharkiv region, would be difficult. Another attack on Kyiv seems well beyond the ability of Russian forces now.

Despite such diminished capacity, the Russian command shows a high tolerance for losses and continues to push its troops forward, prepared or not. After this current offensive ends, it may be obvious to Russian leaders that the military cannot overcome its lack of trained crews, noncommissioned officers, junior officers, logisticians and other specialists who were casualties of the war’s early days. The transmission in the Russian Army’s engine has broken. Flooring the gas pedal with barely trained men and old tanks cannot force a shift into a higher gear.

Yet for now, Mr. Putin shows no signs of abandoning this war. He seems willing to sacrifice the lives of Russian men and mortgage Russia’s future to achieve what he can. For Ukraine, in need of urgent and sustained support, it is a deadly commitment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/o...e=articleShare

No China wants economic political power but has no global intentions to got to war with us that is not in their interest.

New mud and rain season ahead again. Will bog down what already is an anything but impressive Russian offensive. A reasonable expectation would be that after that season Ukraine will launch its own counteroffensive with whatever has arrived in mechanized combat vehicles from the West. until then they maybe will conduct preparatory bombardments of logistics and strongholds, HQs, supply lines, troop concentrations and so forth with their new longer range missiles.

Correct the coming 2 months we will not see any big advances from both side.

I was thinking in this term

We send weapons and ammo to Ukraine. and technically fighting the Russians by proxy.

There's no doubt in my mind that China is or will start sending military aid to Russia-Mostly ammo.

This ammo will be used in the war in Ukraine Ergo

Will China be fighting NATO in Ukraine by proxy.

I could be thinking wrong.

Markus

No they can not afford an economic decline sending military will mean endanger their trade with big markets economic decline will mean unhappy Chinese that is still the CCP biggest fear we have seen that with Covid after protest suddenly covid was a goner no word about it out of the party.

For many outside the west, Russia is not important enough to hate
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, American pundits would plaintively ask: “Why do they hate us?” A year into Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, a variation on that question has begun to take shape: “Why do they not hate them?”

“Them”, of course, refers to Putin’s Russia. The reluctance of non-western governments to impose sanctions on Moscow can be easily explained by economic interests. But how to explain why non-western publics do not feel more moral outrage at the Kremlin’s outright aggression?

A new study, United West, Divided by the Rest, reveals that the war and Russian military setbacks have not forced people in many non-western countries to downgrade their opinion of Russia or to question its relative strength. Russia is seen either as an “ally” or a “partner” by 79 per cent of people in China (unsurprisingly). But the same is true for 80 per cent of Indians and 69 per cent of Turks. Moreover, about three-quarters of respondents in each of these countries believe that Russia is either stronger, or at least as strong, as they perceived it to be before the war.

And while a plurality of Americans and Europeans want Ukraine to win even if it means a longer war and economic hardship for themselves, most Chinese, Indians and Turks who expressed a view said they would prefer the war to stop as soon as possible — even if that means Ukraine giving up part of its territory. They see western support for Kyiv as motivated by reasons other than the protection of Ukraine’s territorial integrity or its democracy.

Western support for Ukraine, particularly the delivery of advanced weapons, has made it easier for non-western nations to accept the Kremlin’s narrative of the conflict as a proxy for the confrontation between Russia and the west. This explains why Moscow’s military reverses at the hands of Ukrainian forces hardly register with many in the so-called global south. If Russia is facing off against the west as a whole, it is not surprising that it has been unsuccessful.

Confronted with such public attitudes, western analysts usually lament the corrosive effect of Russian propaganda and the legacies of colonialism. But much more important is that Europeans see the war as a return to cold war-style polarisation between two antagonistic blocs, whereas others tend to believe that the world is fragmenting into multiple centres of power. In the words of a former senior Indian diplomat, for many outside of the west “the war in Ukraine is about the future of Europe, not the future of the world order”.

Talking recently to journalists, writers and politicians in Colombia, I also detected a certain resentment at Europe’s geographic privilege. What exasperates the non-western “street” is that when something happens in Europe it is immediately treated as a global concern; while if takes place in Africa or Latin America, this is almost never the case. By ignoring war in Ukraine, many outside the west, either consciously or unconsciously, question Europe’s centrality in global politics. Although Putin and his propagandists may be relieved by the way non-western societies view what is happening in Ukraine, the question, “why do they not hate them” also has an answer that is less flattering to Moscow. Developing countries are not outraged by Putin’s aggression because Russia has ceased to be seen as a global superpower. For countries such as India and Turkey, Russia has become like them, so they do not need to fear it. The customary privilege of regional powers is to not be hated outside their region; Moscow now enjoys this privilege.

The Soviet Union was an ideological superpower. Soviet advisers in what used to be called the third world in the 1970s and 1980s were there to stir revolutions. Putin, on the other hand, does not have a transformative agenda outside of his imperial project in the post-Soviet space. The Wagner Group in Africa are mercenaries who fight for money, not ideas. Paradoxically, it is Russia’s lack of soft power that leaves the non-western world relatively unmoved by what Moscow is doing in Ukraine.

Now that it is just one “great middle power” among many, Russia’s wars blend into all the other conflicts around the world — they take their place alongside the violence in Syria, Libya, Ethiopia and Myanmar. The war in Ukraine is not a turning point in the non-western imagination. So the answer to the question, “why do they not hate them?” is simple. It’s because Russia is no longer important enough to hate.


https://www.ft.com/content/01b69c54-...8-1fff649bf424

Well kinda but it's not necessarily going to lead to anything. After all Russia sent military equipment, advisors and pilots to the North Koreans during the 1951 conflict. Rumors have it that some of our captured troops were even sent to the gulag but we never declared war on them over it. Same thing happened in Vietnam with the ChiComs.

To further emphasize that point, a good number of North Korean MiG's were in fact piloted by " Sovietski " pilots. The same holds true in Vietnam with regards to the MiG-21's there. Soviet supplied SAM's brought down a good number of American Pilots and aircraft. Since a number of the pilots were fairly high ranking officers in the Navy and Air Force, they had intimate knowledge and understanding of American air defenses and strategic planning. That made them highly valuable and we know a number of Pilots ended up in the former Soviet Union.

Ukraine has been told to expect Russian missile attacks to coincide with the anniversary of the invasion, its intelligence service says.

The United Nations is expected to approve a resolution that condemns Russia's invasion of Ukraine and calls for peace as soon as possible.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine was described as an "affront" to the world's collective conscience by UN head António Guterres.

Guterres also denounced "implicit threats to use nuclear weapons" by Vladimir Putin.

In Kyiv today, the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is meeting Ukrainian leaders.