‘Nato will be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power,’ Russia tells UN – live

• Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the UN security council on Friday that if western countries allow Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes in Russia then Nato countries would be “conducting direct war with Russia”. “The facts are that Nato will be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power, I think you shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences,” Nebenzia told the 15-member council

• The comments echo words from Russian president Vladimir Putin who on Thursday said any western decision to let Kyiv use such longer-range weapons against targets inside Russia would mean Nato would be “at war” with Moscow. On Friday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin had delivered a clear message to the west about the consequences of allowing Ukraine to hit Russian territory, and that there was no doubt that Putin’s message had reached those it was intended for

• The UK’s prime minister Keir Starmer is in Washington to meet with US president Joe Biden later today, in which it is expected they will agree that Ukraine can use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside the Russian Federation

• Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been meeting foreign ministers from Poland and Lithuania in Kyiv today, and said they discussed “the need to use long-range weapons against military targets on the territory of the aggressor state”

• The UK government has said that claims made by Russia’s security services about six members of British diplomatic staff it has expelled from Russia are “baseless”. The FSB security agency said on Friday it had taken the measure after uncovering documents showing that part of the Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine. Russian media has named and published photographs of the six British members of diplomatic staff who were expelled

• Russia’s investigative committee has opened a criminal case against the head of Ukraine’s armed forces Maj Gen Dmitry Krasilnikov over the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Zelenskiy said today that the Kursk offensive had “slowed” Russia’s advance in east Ukraine

• 49 captured Ukrainian service personnel and civilians have been returned from captivity by Russia. Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights, said “the state of health of the prisoners is very serious”

• Nato said on Friday it strongly condemned a Russian missile strike on a civilian grain ship in the Black Sea on Thursday

• The governor of Russia’s Bryansk region has claimed that air defences there have shot down seven Ukrainian drones in a day

• Several people have been killed and injured by Russian strikes in Odesa, Sumy and Kherson

• Rights campaigners say that as many 3,000 Ukrainian refugees living in Hungary have been affected by a new Hungarian decree that cancels state-funded shelters for refugees from western Ukraine

Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the UN security council on Friday that if western countries allow Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes in Russia then Nato countries would be “conducting direct war with Russia.”

“The facts are that Nato will be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power, I think you shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences,” Nebenzia told the 15-member council.

The comments echo words from Russian president Vladimir Putin who on Thursday said any western decision to let Kyiv use such longer-range weapons against targets inside Russia would mean Nato would be “at war” with Moscow – a dramatic escalation of his rhetoric about the war which began with the Russian invasion in February 2022.

“This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,” the Russian president told a state television reporter. “It would mean that Nato countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia. He added that Russia would take “appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face” as a result.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Putin had delivered a clear message to the west about the consequences of allowing Ukraine to hit Russian territory, and that there was no doubt that Putin’s message had reached those it was intended for.

The UK’s prime minister Keir Starmer is in Washington to meet with US president Joe Biden later today, in which it is expected they will agree that Ukraine can use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside the Russian Federation.

Nato said on Friday it strongly condemned a Russian missile strike on a civilian grain ship in the Black Sea on Thursday.

“There is no justification for such attacks. Yesterday’s strike shows once again the reckless nature of Russia’s war,” Reuters reports Nato spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said.

Ukraine accused Russia on Thursday of using strategic bombers to strike a civilian grain vessel in Black Sea waters near Nato member Romania. It was the first time a missile has struck a civilian vessel transporting grains at sea since the start of Moscow’s invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that the Kursk offensive “slowed” Russia’s advance in east Ukraine, AFP reported.

It gave the results we expected, to be honest. In Kharkiv region, the enemy has been stopped, the progress in Donetsk region has been slowed down, although it is very difficult there.

The Ukrainian president said there are 40,000 Russian troops fighting in the Kursk region.