Ukraine war news latest: Sunak confirms UK will provide Challenger 2 tanks as Russia targets Kyiv

Alou Diallo says he was drinking tea with his family one morning last month when groups of “white soldiers” invaded his village in central Mali, setting fire to houses and gunning down people suspected of being Islamic extremists. He scrambled to safety in the bush, but his son was shot and wounded while fleeing, then was finished off as he lay on the ground.

“I watched my 16-year-old son die,” Diallo told The Associated Press in Mali’s capital, Bamako, where he lives in a makeshift camp for displaced people. As he recounted that awful Saturday in his village of Bamguel, the 47-year-old former cattle breeder made no attempt to hide the anger toward the troops, which he believed to be Russian mercenaries, who turned his world upside down.

“I really want peace to return and things to go back to normal,” he said. “Here in Bamako, I live a life I didn’t choose.”

Germany on Saturday inaugurated its second liquefied natural gas terminal, part of a drive by Europe‘s biggest economy to put reliance on Russian energy sources firmly behind it.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz took part in the ceremony in Lubmin on the Baltic Sea coast, which came less than a month after he inaugurated Germany’s first LNG terminal at Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea. Several more are expected to go online in the coming months, including another in Lubmin.

Editorial: Despite the success in Donetsk, this is a weak moment for Russia, and the West should ensure that Ukraine can take full advantage of it.

Senior military figures have criticised Boris Johnson and accused him of “looking for publicity” in a warzone after it was revealed he plans to visit Ukraine.

The former head of the army, Lord Dannatt, also warned that the ex-prime minister was a “loose cannon” whose plan could upstage Rishi Sunak.

Mr Johnson intends to travel to Kyiv in the coming months to show his support for the war-torn country, it has been reported.

Were the personal risks the team in Kherson faced were worth it? Yes, if it meant safeguarding the lives of 400 people, writes Julien Binet.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants to visit the United Nations to address a high-level meeting of the 193-member General Assembly on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of his country if the security situation permits, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Friday.

First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova cautioned in an interview with The Associated Press that many factors need to be in place for him to come, citing first and foremost the military situation on the ground and a warning from Ukraine’s intelligence service that Russia is planning “a very serious offensive in February.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russian attacks on civilian targets could be stopped only if Ukraine’s Western partners supplied necessary weapons.

“What is needed for this? Those weapons which are in the depots of our partners and which our soldiers are waiting for so much,” he said in his nightly video address, after the Russian missile attacks on cities.

“The whole world knows what and how to stop those who sow death. I thank everyone who helps us in this!”

Posting footage of the devastation in Dnipro, he vowed Ukraine would find those responsible.

“We’re fighting for every person, every life. We’ll find everyone involved in terror. Everyone will bear responsibility,” he wrote.

The death toll in the Dnipro apartment attack has risen to five, officials say.

At least 60 people, including 12 children, were also wounded in the shelling, with more people were still trapped under the rubble, the regional governor said.

Twenty people were rescued from the block where an entire section of the building was reduced to rubble, sending smoke billowing into the sky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office said.

As Russia claims to have seized the eastern town of Soledar after months of fighting, Bel Trew reports on what it means for Moscow’s invasion – and for the Ukrainians in the path of any further advance.

Germany on Saturday inaugurated its second liquefied natural gas terminal, part of a drive by Europe‘s biggest economy to put reliance on Russian energy sources firmly behind it.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz took part in the ceremony in Lubmin on the Baltic Sea coast, which came less than a month after he inaugurated Germany’s first LNG terminal at Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea.

Several more are expected to go online in the coming months, including another in Lubmin.