(Reuters) – Finland will become a member of NATO on Tuesday, completing a historic security policy shift which alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said was triggered directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
DIPLOMACY
* Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that Finland’s accession to NATO and NATO’s move to increase its own combat-readiness increased the risk of conflict.
* China has a moral duty to contribute to the establishment of peace in Ukraine and must not support the aggressor in the war started by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union’s top diplomat said on Tuesday.
* Russia’s parliament speaker said on Tuesday that Western leaders have blood on their hands for supporting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and that support has led to the creation of a “terrorist state” in Europe’s centre.
* Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights , accused by the International Criminal Court alongside President Vladimir Putin of war crimes in Ukraine, said on Tuesday that the ICC’s allegations were false and unclear.
* The United States and the European Union are exploring ways to further reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.
BATTLEFIELD
* Ukrainian defence forces destroyed 14 out of 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones Russia launched overnight, Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday, with 13 drones destroyed over the Odesa region in the country’s southwest.
* Hundreds of residents of the Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk turned out to mourn four-times world kickboxing champion Vitalii Merinov after he was killed in action fighting Russian troops.
* Russian investigators on Tuesday formally charged Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old woman, with terrorism offences over the killing of pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a bomb blast in St Petersburg.
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(Compiled by Reuters editors)
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