Russia-Ukraine war live: France calls on EU to label Wagner a terrorist group; Ukraine says Russia planning to evacuate nuclear power plant workers | Russia

• The French parliament has called on the EU to formally label the Russian mercenary group Wagner as terrorists, as the UK reportedly prepares to do the same. France’s parliament unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.

• Britain is also set to formally blacklist Wagner as a terrorist organization to increase pressure on Russia, the Times of London newspaper reported on Tuesday. After two months of building a legal case, proscription or a formal blacklisting of the group was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks, the newspaper reported citing a government source.

• Russian forces are planning to “evacuate” more than 3,000 workers from the town that serves the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, resulting in a “catastrophic lack” of personnel, Ukraine’s state-owned Energoatom company claimed on Wednesday. Ukraine’s Energoatom said it had received information about preparations for the evacuation of about 3,100 people from the southern city of Enerhodar, including 2,700 workers who had signed contracts with the Russian-installed company. Ukraine has repeatedly criticised Russia for forcibly deporting its citizens from occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian Federation territory.

• Russia may formally “denounce” the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe that it pulled out of in 2015, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The decree formally appoints deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov to represent Putin during parliamentary proceedings on denouncing the treaty, which aimed to regulate the number of forces deployed by Warsaw Pact and Nato countries. Russia announced in 2015 that it was completely halting its participation in the treaty, having already suspended cooperation in 2007. Russia argues that the treaty, which was intended to balance conventional forces towards the end of the cold war, was de facto in breach because former Soviet republics like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Warsaw pact nations like Bulgaria had become members of Nato by the early 2000s.

• The governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said on Wednesday that two drones attempted to attack a military facility in his region, but failed.

• Tass reports that the Russian Federation security service, the FSB, has claimed to have prevented an assassination attempt on a police chief in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region.

• The secretary general of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, has spoken in Brussels at a meeting of Nato’s military committee. He said the alliance needs to “redouble our efforts” in order to provide security to the 1 billion people in Nato countries, citing what he claimed was a range of rising threats.

Russian forces are planning to evacuate more than 3,000 workers from the town that serves the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, resulting in a “catastrophic lack” of personnel, Ukraine’s state-owned Energoatom company claimed on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s Energoatom said it had received information about preparations for the evacuation of about 3,100 people from the southern city of Enerhodar, including 2,700 workers who had signed contracts with the Russian-installed company.

“The Russian occupiers are proving their inability to ensure the operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, as there is now a catastrophic lack of qualified personnel,” Reuters reports it said in a statement on the Telegram messaging service.

“Even those Ukrainian workers who, having signed shameful contracts, … are going to be ‘evacuated’ soon. And this will exacerbate the already extremely urgent issue of having a sufficient number of personnel to ensure the safety of operation of the NPP (nuclear power plant) even in the current shutdown state.”

Last week, the head of the UN’s nuclear power watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said the situation around the Russian-held nuclear station had become “potentially dangerous” after Moscow-installed officials began evacuating people from nearby areas.

Russia’s Tass state news agency said on Monday the Moscow-installed governor of the Russia-controlled part of the surrounding region had suspended operations at the plant.

Reuters said it was not able to independently verify the reports, and Russia did not immediately comment.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is the largest in Europe, and has been under Russian occupation since the earliest days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused the other side of endangering nuclear safety by firing at the plant. Ukraine has repeatedly criticised Russia for forcibly deporting its citizens from occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian Federation territory.

The secretary general of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, has been speaking in Brussels at a meeting of Nato’s military committee. He has said the alliance needs to “redouble our efforts” in order to provide security to the 1 billion people in Nato countries, citing what he claimed was a range of rising threats. He told military leaders:

The transformation of our alliance over the last decade has been nothing short of remarkable. Since Russia illegally annexed Crimea and entered into eastern Ukraine in 2014, we have increased the readiness of our forces.

We have deployed combat troops to the east of the alliance for the first time in our history, and European allies and Canada have spent an additional $350bn extra on defence.

When President Putin launched his full fledge invasion of Ukraine in 2022, we were therefore ready. Within hours, we activated all our defence plans. We put 40,000 troops under Nato command, backed by significant air and maritime power, and we strengthened our forward defences from the Baltic to the Black Sea. These actions reduce the risk of miscalculation and escalation beyond Ukraine, by making crystal clear that we will defend every inch of Nato territory.

Stoltenberg went on to say:

As we prepare for a more dangerous future, we must redouble our efforts to keep our one billion citizens safe, and to uphold the rules-based international order.

High intensity warfare is back in Europe, global competition is rising, authoritarian regimes are challenging our values, interests and security, and other threats are also multiplying – from terrorism to cyber-attacks, from nuclear proliferation to climate change. So we need to step up for this new era of strategic competition.

Being listed as a terrorist organisation means EU members could freeze assets of the Wagner group and its members, with European companies and citizens barred from dealing with the group.

Prigozhin had his assets in the European Union frozen in 2020 and was placed on a visa blacklist over the deployment of Wagner fighters to war-torn Libya, a decision he unsuccessfully appealed.

The French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, conceded to lawmakers on Tuesday that legally the EU terrorist label would not have any “direct supplemental effect” on the group. But “we should not underestimate the symbolic importance of such a designation, nor the dissuasive effect that it could have on states tempted to turn” to Wagner.

In the UK, the blacklisting would make it a criminal offence to belong to Wagner, attend its meetings, encourage support for it, or carry its logo in public, the Times said. It would impose financial sanctions on the group and there would be implications for Wagner’s ability to raise money if any funds went through British financial institutions.

On Tuesday, the Times newspaper reported that after two months of building a legal case, Britain would also formally list Wagner as a terrorist organisation to increase pressure on Russia.

Citing a government source, the Times said the blacklisting was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks.

Britain’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Reuters reports that Russia’s air defence forces shot down an “enemy” drone in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, its governor said on Wednesday, adding that falling debris damaged a gas pipeline and a house.

“Debris fell in the village of Tolmachevo. No one was hurt,” the regional governor, Roman Starovoyt, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.

However, Kyiv has recently said that undermining Russia’s logistics is part of preparation for a planned counteroffensive

The French parliament has called on the EU to formally label the Russian mercenary group Wagner as terrorists, as the UK reportedly prepares to do the same.

France’s parliament unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.

“Wherever they work, Wagner members spread instability and violence,” MP Benjamin Haddad told parliament on Tuesday. “They kill and torture. They massacre and pillage. They intimidate and manipulate with almost total impunity.”

He said they were not simple mercenaries driven by an “appetite for money” but they “follow a broad strategy, from Mali to Ukraine, of supporting the aggressive policies of President [Vladimir] Putin’s regime towards our democracies”.

Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.

Our top stories this morning: the French parliament has unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.

And Russia’s air defence forces shot down an “enemy” drone in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, its governor said on Wednesday, adding that falling debris damaged a gas pipeline and a house.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly.

In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:

• Vladimir Putin has told Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine that the “whole country is praying for them”, as he used his Victory Day speech to defend his invasion of Ukraine. Speaking on the 78th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Russian president drew historical parallels between the second world war and fighting in Ukraine. “We are proud of the participants of the special military operation. The future of our people depends on you,” Putin said.

• Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner force said he was told he and his mercenaries would be regarded as “traitors” if they abandoned their positions. Prigozhin threatened to withdraw his troops from the city in east Ukraine, which has been the site of a long-running battle since 2022 to try to capture it, because of a lack of ammunition. He then rowed back on it, but has again threatened to do so.

• Arman Soldin, a 32-year-old video journalist for Agence France Presse in Ukraine, was killed by Grad rocket fire near Chasiv Yar, in eastern Ukraine, AFP said on Twitter, citing AFP colleagues who witnessed the incident.

• The UK foreign secretary James Cleverly and US secretary of state Antony Blinken have urged Russia not to use hunger as a weapon of war, as discussions over the Black Sea grain deal continue.

• Ukraine said its air defences shot down 23 of 25 missiles, fired overnight by Russia, chiefly at Kyiv, and there were no reported casualties. It was the second night in a row of major Russian airstrikes and fifth so far this month.

• Ukraine is planning a “very important” counteroffensive against Russian forces that must “demonstrate success”, the country’s prime minister has said. Denys Shmyhal told Sky News that the operation would be launched when the time was right.

• European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen hailed Ukraine as “the beating heart of today’s European values”. Zelenskiy discussed European integration, defence matters and sanctions against Russia at a meeting with Von der Leyen in Kyiv. He said he expected the EU to soon approve more sanctions on Russia.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said there is currently no prospect of peace between Russia and Ukraine because “both sides are convinced that they can win”. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País on Tuesday, Guterres was pessimistic about the EU and the UN’s ability to broker an end to the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion last year.

• The US has announced a “new security assistance package” to help bolster Ukraine’s air defences and artillery ammunition needs. This package, confirmed by the Department of Defense on Tuesday, totals up to $1.2bn and is being provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).

• A UK-led group of European countries has asked for expressions of interest to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles. The call for responses from companies who could provide the munitions with range of up to 300km (190 miles) was included in a notice posted last week by the International Fund for Ukraine.

• Germany’s foreign minister has said China could play a decisive role in ending the war in Ukraine. Speaking alongside her Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, at a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday, Annalena Baerbock said that as a permanent member of the UN security council, China had the power to be influential in the conflict and bring it to an end.

• The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, said Russia “will prevail” in its fight against what he described as “imperialists”, the state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday, in remarks seen to be aimed at Ukraine and its western supporters such as the US.