Russia is the world’s third largest producer of oil, behind the United States and Saudi Arabia. It accounts for 8-10% of global oil supply. Europe relies on Russia for nearly 40% of its natural gas. So, given Russia’s crucial position in the
Many thousands are now fleeing the city, leaving behind homes, families and jobs. Many have made it by train as far as the city of Lviv in the west of Ukraine, some to a makeshift refugee shelter in an old theatre on
Some military aid has already been sent. Poland has sent ammunition across the border, the US has already sent in some 90 tonnes of military assistance, Sweden is breaking with its tradition of not sending weapons to countries engaged in armed conflict,
“In that TV address, Putin wasn’t acting like the master of the Kremlin, but the master of the planet; in the same way the owner of a flash car shows off by twirling his keyring round his finger, Putin was twirling the
Thousands of people packed on a crowded platform at a train station in the city of Lviv near the Polish border have tried to force their way onto a train bound for Poland. The BBC’s Fergal Keane describes the scenes, as a
At the Vysne Nemecke border crossing, about 2km from the Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod, a trickle of refugees made their way across the border. The same scene repeated itself every five minutes or so, usually a youngish woman pulling a child by
The roads out of the city are blocked with traffic, but it’s a perilous journey – sitting in long, slow-moving queues of traffic you could easily run out of fuel far from home. Trains are operating, but there are big crowds of
It introduces personal document checks, blocks military reservists from leaving the country, bans mass gatherings and places restrictions on radio communication systems. Kyiv’s mayor said checkpoints would be set up in roads into the city, and access to government buildings would be
The agreements “were killed long before yesterday’s recognition of the people’s republics of Donbas,” he said, using the administrative name for the two regions of eastern Ukraine. “And not by us, not by representatives of these republics, but by the current Kyiv
He referred to Russia having been “robbed” during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, accused Ukraine of being a “US colony” run by a puppet government, and alleged that people were suffering under its current leadership. He painted the 2014