Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kremlin responds to claims Russia is targeting Olympics (2024)

We're pausing our coverage for today but we will be back tomorrow with more updates.

Here is a rundown of the key developments today:

• Norway's top general said NATO only has two to three years to prepare before Russia regains its ability to launch a conventional attack on the alliance;
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Ukraine's use of Western-supplied weapons to strike targets in Russia will not "contribute to escalation";
• Microsoft made allegations in the New York Times that Russia was targeting the upcoming Olympics with a disinformation campaign;
• The mother of Alexei Navalny and his supporters visited his grave to lay flowers and pay tribute to the late Kremlin critic on what would have been his 48th birthday.

You can scroll back through the blog to read all our updates from today.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said any foreign military staff training Ukrainian troops will not have any "immunity" from Russian strikes.

"Any instructors who train the Kyiv regime's troops don't have any sort of immunity," he said in a conference call with reporters today.

Reports have suggested talks are ongoing over whether French instructors could soon be sent to support training centres in Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops have been preparing to fire towards Russian positions on the frontline in the eastern Donetsk region.

Donetsk is one of the four provinces Vladimir Putin proclaimed as part of Russia in an illegal referendum at the start of the war and fighting here is particularly intense.

Russia's two biggest banks plan to open branches and offices in the regions of Ukraine that Moscow claimed to have annexed next month.

Sberbank chief executive German Gref said in Russia's upper house of parliament the bank would be "present throughout the whole country's territory".

VTB chief executive Andrei Kostin said they would open two offices in Luhansk in July and had plans to start serving clients in Donetsk and the port city of Mariupol by the end of the year.

For context: Vladimir Putin illegally annexed Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in September 2022, after what Ukraine and its Western allies branded sham referendums.

The move was condemned by many countries as illegal.

Russian forces only partly control the four regions.

Manufacturers and distributors need to improve compliance with Russia-related sanctions, the deputy secretary of the US Treasury has said.

American companies in particular need to pay more attention to their supply chains to ensure they are not complicit with Russia's evasion of sanctions over Ukraine, Wally Adeyemo said in an interview with CNBC.

He said manufacturers of microelectronics and machine tools especially needed to step up compliance to help cut off supplies of "dual use" goods to Russia, including from Chinese producers.

Freight forwarders and distributors need to do the same and financial institutions need to look at their relationships with small and medium-sized banks in "countries of concern" because Moscow is looking for ways around US sanctions, Mr Adeyemo said.

VolodymyrZelenskyy's chief of staff has said that using Westernweapons to strike inside Russia was a vital decision that wouldimpact Moscow's tactical aviation and its offensive ability in border regions.

"This will impact the conduct of the war, planning ofcounteroffensive actions, and will weaken Russians' abilities touse their forces in the border areas," Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.

Russia has said the move would mark an escalation to the conflict and has threatened war with NATO if Western weapons are used in its airspace.

ByIvor Bennett, Moscow correspondent

Dozens of Alexei Navalny supporters have visited his grave to lay flowers and pay tribute to the late Kremlin critic on what would have been his 48th birthday.

The opposition leader died at an Arctic prison colony in February, prompting outrage from Western governments.

Nearly four months on, his family say the cause of his death remains unexplained.

His widow Yulia Navalnaya has accused Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder, and last week his allies called for additional sanctions to punish the Russian president's inner circle.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in his death. According to his death certificate, he died of natural causes.

Navalny's mother, Lyudmila, as well as his mother-in-law Alla Abrosimova, were among those who gathered at his grave in the Borisovskoye cemetery in southeast Moscow today.

Video posted by SOTAvision on the social media platform Telegram shows a memorial service led by Dmitry Safronov, a priest who was previously banned from clerical duties by the Russian Orthodox Church for presiding over a similar service in March, which marked 40 days since the activist's death.

According to the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, three police officers were on duty near the cemetery but they did not make any arrests.

Having been convicted of multiple charges, ranging from fraud to extremism, Navalny was serving sentences totalling more than 30 years when he died.

His Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) is outlawed in Russia, and has been accused by the authorities of having links to the CIA.

What remains of his team now operates in exile.

Polish farmers have resumed their protest blockade at the Ukrainian border crossing due to agricultural imports from the country.

Farmers in Poland have staged sporadic demonstrations at the border since last autumn.

The demonstrators are blocking trucks from leaving Ukraine.

Cargo vehicles heading to Ukraine are allowed to enter by 12 trucks per 12 hours and by four trucks with humanitarian aid per hour, the Ukrainian Border Guard Service said.

Other vehicles are continuing as usual.

"Representatives of Polish farmers demand reduced imports of Ukrainian crops to Polish territory from Ukraine," the Border Guard Service said.

Disputes over crop imports have strained the relationship between Warsaw and Kyiv, with both countries being major agricultural producers.

Polish farmers have complained that Ukrainian products create uneven competition, particularly since the EU lifted tariffs in 2022.

Poland banned the import of several products from Ukraine, including grain, corn, and rapeseed, in 2023.

In our last post, we brought you news that Microsoft had made allegations in the New York Times that Russia was targeting the upcoming Olympics with a disinformation campaign.

Moscow has now branded those accusations "absolute slander", with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying there is no substance to them.

Russia is widely accused of having waged disinformation campaigns over the years, often targeting elections in the United States, Europe and Britain.

Moscow has always denied it uses disinformation to influence public opinion.

The Paris Olympics are being targeted by a Russian-linked disinformation campaign, according to the New York Times.

Since last summer, efforts have been under way by a hacker group named Storm-1679, the paper reports.

The campaign "began in earnest" when a documentary was released with a doctored International Olympic Committee (IOC) logo, along with an AI-powered impersonation of Tom Cruise's voice.

The hackers "are trying to cultivate an anticipation of violence", said Clint Watts, the head of Microsoft's Digital Threat Analysis Centre.

"They want people to be fearful of going to the Olympics."

Storm-1679 makes around three to eight disinformation videos a week, Mr Watts told the newspaper, many of which appear as if they come from media outlets such as the BBC or Al Jazeera.

Both Russia and Belarus have been banned from competing in the Olympics over the war in Ukraine, but some athletes from those countries will be allowed to compete as "neutral athletes", the IOC announced in March.

The Paris games will take place between 26 July and 11 August.