Ukraine was assisted by the US intelligence in locating and taking down Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea last month, serving a major blow to Moscow, according to reports.

The flagship was struck by two cruise missiles within minutes and sank while being towed to the port, confirming a major victory for Ukraine.

According to the reports, officials in Washington helped identify it as Moskva and helped confirm it location, allowing Ukraine to target and take down the massive ship.

However, the US officials have claimed that Washington had no advance warning that Ukraine was going to target the Moskva, and “was not involved in the decision to strike”.

Read the full report here:

Former US president George W Bush spoke to the Ukrainian wartime president and lauded his courage for the besieged country’s success.

“Your courage is very important for further success. If you continue to do what you do, you will always have our support if you continue to fight as you do now,” Mr Bush said, talking to Mr Zelensky on a video conference.

He added: “Your country has been invaded by forces that want to kill innocent people. And the fact that you stand firm inspires Americans.”

Mr Zelensky told the former US president that he feels both the countries share common values.

“Americans are sincere, open-minded people, and I feel it. We have common values. I feel that it is from the heart,” the Ukrainian leader said on the video call.

The two leaders also spoke of 9/11 terrorist attack in the US, following which Mr Zelensky underlined how many Ukrainians “sympathised with the American people and shared the pain of relatives and friends of the victims of the terrorist act.”

Naftali Bennett said on Thursday he had accepted the apology during a call with Mr Putin and thanked him for “clarifying his regard for the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust”.

Sergei Lavrov made the remarks in an interview on the Italian TV programme Zona Bianca on Sunday in an attempt to justify Russia’s portrayal of Ukraine as “Nazi.”

Read Emily Atkinson’s full report here:

It turns out that Russia had a far more realistic idea of its own strength, or lack of it, than the west allowed, writes Mary Dejevsky

German chancellor Olaf Scholz and US president Joe Biden agreed in a call today they would not recognize any Russian territorial gains in Ukraine, a German government spokesperson said in a statement.

The two leaders also denounced “recent comments of the Russian leadership seeking to discredit the democratically legitimized Ukrainian leadership,” the spokesperson said.

“They agreed that Ukraine needed to be further substantially and continuously supported in the practice of its legitimate right to self defence,” they added.

The White House has welcomed deliberations by Finland and Sweden on potentially joining Nato in response to the war in Ukraine.

“We obviously strongly support Nato’s open-door policy and the right of each country to decide its own future foreign policy and security arrangements,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.

“And we are confident we’ll be able to work with them to address any concerns either country may have, but those are ongoing discussions.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the evacuation of civilians from the besieged port city of Mariupol had continued on Thursday but did not say how many people had managed to leave.

In a video address, Zelensky also said Russian forces were still storming and shelling the city’s Azovstal plant, where civilians and military forces are sheltering.

A fresh operation is underway to free scores of civilians still trapped in underground bunkers in the Azovstal steelworks, the last holdout in the devastated city of Mariupol.

Russia’s military promised to pause its activity in Azovstal during Thursday and the following two days to allow civilians to leave, after what Ukrainian fighters described as “bloody battles” prevented evacuations. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said evacuees would be able to leave the besieged port city at noon local time on Friday.

The Kremlin said humanitarian corridors from the plant were in place and UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said a third operation to evacuate civilians from Mariupol was underway. “We must continue to do all we can to get people out of these hellscapes,” he told told the UN Security Council on Thursday.