Russia Ukraine war live: Putin’s drones enter Nato airspace in Romania and Latvia

Sweden will send its 17th aid package to Ukraine with further military support totalling £340milllion, defence minister Pal Jonson said.

The new package will include ammunition for infantry fighting vehicles already donated by Sweden, as well as purchases that would facilitate a transfer of Gripen fighter jets in the future, though no such transfer has been decided on yet.

“We want to have the ability to donate Gripens to Ukraine at a possible later stage,” Mr Jonson told a press conference.

Mr Jonson said support included additional combat boats, missiles and camouflage gear as well as funding to support defence procurements for Ukraine

Fragments from a Russian drone were found a Romanian village near the Danube River that borders Ukraine on Sunday after an overnight attack on Ukrainian river ports, the defence ministry of Nato-member Romania said on Monday.

The ministry said it was conducting searches in a second area where drone parts might have fallen. Romania has found drone fragments after attacks several times since last year.

In a Ukrainian stronghold near the front line, less than 20 miles from the eastern city of Donetsk, a winged bomb is seen hurtling towards a multistorey building.

The 1,500-kilogram explosive hits the structure in the town of Krasnohorivka, erupting into a fireball before engulfing the whole building in a plume of grey and black smoke.

The camera, filming from several hundred metres away, shakes as the ground beneath it rocks from the aftereffects of the explosion.

The bear and the dragon can never be friends. That is a lesson Xi Jinping heard at a young age. And it explains why the Chinese leader’s “no limits” partnership with Vladimir Putin may turn into a limitless liability – for the Kremlin.

While researching a new biography of Xi, I came across a startling declassified US document. It reveals that the man who was Xi’s mentor in his first job, at the heart of China’s military, was fiercely anti-Russian. Never trust Moscow, he told his staff.

Today, it all looks fine. The two autocrats have boasted of their alliance for more than two years now. It’s clear that Putin gave his “friend” a tip that he was about to invade Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, Xi has stood alongside him, talking peace but sending Russia weapons technology in exchange for oil and gas.

Read the full article by Michael Sheridan, longtime foreign correspondent and diplomatic editor of The Independent:

A 16-year-old girl has died following Russian artillery fire in the city of Nikopol, in the south of Ukraine, over the weekend, a regional governor has said.

Serhiy Lysak, head of Dnipropetrovsk OVA, said emergency crews pulled the teenager from the rubble of a damaged building in a statement shared on Telegram. However, medics were unable to save her, he wrote.

Three other people suffered shrapnel wounds, he said, including a 79-year-old man who was taken to hospital with injuries of “moderate severity”.

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander denied reports that Iran was transferring missiles to Russia, Iranian media said on Monday, amid concern in the West that they could be deployed in the war in Ukraine.

CNN and the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing unidentified sources, that Iran had transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia.

Brigadier Fazlollah Nozari, deputy commander of the Khatam al-Anbia Central Headquarters, was quoted by the Iranian Labour News Agency as saying: “No missile was sent to Russia and this claim is a kind of psychological warfare.”