Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin claims 95% of Russia’s nuclear forces modernised; drone strike in Odesa kills three, Kyiv says | Ukraine

US president Joe Biden on Friday announced Washington would issue more than 500 new sanctions targeting Russia as the US seeks to increase pressure on Moscow to mark the second anniversary of its war in Ukraine.

The US will also impose new export restrictions on nearly 100 entities for providing support to Russia and take action to further reduce Russia’s energy revenues, Biden said in a statement.

Reuters reports that these measures, Biden has said, seek to hold Russia to account over the war and the death of opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. Washington expects to continue to support Ukraine even as it faces shortages of ammunition and US military aid has been delayed for months in Congress.

“They will ensure Putin pays an even steeper price for his aggression abroad and repression at home,” Biden said of the recent sanctions.

Friday’s measures will target individuals connected to Navalny’s imprisonment as well as Russia’s financial sector, defence industrial base, procurement networks and sanctions evaders across multiple continents, he said.

“Two years into this war, the people of Ukraine continue to fight with tremendous courage. But they are running out of ammunition. Ukraine needs more supplies from the United States to hold the line against Russia’s relentless attacks, which are enabled by arms and ammunition from Iran and North Korea,” Biden added. “That’s why the House of Representatives must pass the bipartisan national security supplemental bill, before it’s too late.”

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday announced a fresh wave of more than 500 sanctions against Russia for its war in Ukraine and the death of Alexei Navalny, the White House said.

More information to come …

Chuck Schumer is heading to Ukraine on Friday to try to reassure president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Congress will deliver another round of aid, AP reports.

Schumer’s trip comes at a perilous time for Ukraine. A package that would provide $60bn to the war-torn country is stalled in the U.S. House.

In an interview ahead of his trip, Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Associated Press that he plans to tell Ukrainian officials that “we’re going to win this fight, and America is not abandoning them.” Zelenskiy has said delays in aid from the U.S. and other western countries are creating an opening for Russia to make advances on the battlefield, with Ukrainian forces running dangerously low on ammunition and weaponry.

Republican party opponents of aiding Ukraine are a vocal faction in the House, where the GOP have narrow control and former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, holds more sway. Trump has opposed the aid package and urged Republicans to vote against it.

Schumer said opposition to the aid “may be the view of Donald Trump and some of the hard right zealots. But it is not the view of the American people, and I don’t think it’s the view of the majority of people in the House or Senate.”

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that 95% of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces had been modernised and that the Air Force had just taken delivery of four new supersonic nuclear-capable bombers.

Putin made the comments in a statement released to coincide with Russia’s annual Defender of the Fatherland Day, which celebrates the army, a day after he flew on a modernised Tu-160M nuclear-capable strategic bomber.

“Today, the share of modern weapons and equipment in the strategic nuclear forces has already reached 95 per cent,” Putin said. He added that the naval component of the ‘nuclear triad’ – Russia’s strategic land, sea and air nuclear capabilities – was “at almost 100 per cent.”

A Russian drone hit a commercial area in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, killing three people, the Ukrainian military and regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Friday.

The military said Russia launched 31 drones at Ukraine overnight, with air defences destroying 23 of them.

In a post on the Telegram messaging app, the military’s Southern Forces said they had intercepted nine drones, but one struck an area near the port, causing a blaze.

Firefighters recovered one body and said people might still be under the rubble as emergency teams fought to control the blaze. Pictures posted by the military show heavy damage to buildings in the area and rescue teams picking their way through debris.

“The bodies of two more people were found under the rubble,” Kiper, the regional governor, said on Telegram. “In total, three people died as a result of the enemy attack.”

The Guardian was unable to independently verify the accounts.

Welcome to our live coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The US is set to unveil hundreds of sanctions later on Friday mostly targeting Vladimir Putin’s “war machine”, the undersecretary of state, Victoria Nuland, has said, ahead of the second anniversary of Russia’ invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. Further sanctions will also be imposed in response to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after being imprisoned by the Kremlin, and to close gaps in existing sanctions.

Joe Biden said on Thursday he had met Navalny’s wife and daughter, and told reporters afterwards: “We are going to announce sanctions against Putin, who is responsible for his death, tomorrow. We are not letting up.” The White House said the sanctions were in response to “Alexei’s death, Russia’s repression and aggression, and its brutal and illegal war in Ukraine”.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the west’s reaction to the death of Navalny “hysteria”, and said that western countries had no right to meddle in Russia’s affairs.

In other developments:

• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on the US Congress to approve additional aid for Kyiv, saying in an interview broadcast on Thursday that a failure to do so would cost Ukrainian lives. Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives have stalled the approval of $60bn in new aid for Ukraine, and Zelenskiy made his appeal for action during an interview with Fox News – a favoured channel for US conservatives. “Will Ukraine survive without Congress’ support? Of course. But not all of us,” he said in an interview near a frontline in Ukraine. The Ukrainian leader also warned that the price of helping Kyiv now is much lower than the potential cost of confronting Putin later if he succeeds in Ukraine.

• The International Monetary Fund and Ukraine’s government has reached a staff-level agreement, paving the way for the release of about $880m once approved by the IMF’s board, the fund said. The agreement came after six days of meetings between Ukrainian officials and IMF staff in Warsaw as part of a third review of Ukraine’s $15.6bn four-year Extended Fund Facility Arrangement. The IMF said Ukraine’s progress on the program was “broadly on track”, and that its economy demonstrated strong growth, declining inflation and strengthening reserves in 2023, though the outlook for 2024 remained highly uncertain.

• The UK has added 50 new entities to its Russia sanctions list, with the foreign secretary, David Cameron, saying “our sanctions are starving Putin of the resources he desperately needs to fund his struggling war”. The government claims the targets of the sanctions are people and businesses supplying munitions such as rocket launch systems, missiles and explosives.

• The UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, has announced the UK will send 200 more anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. PA Media reports he added that the UK would train more Ukrainian troops alongside other allies, adding: “Together we will train a further 10,000 in the first half of 2024.”

• Biden endorsed the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, to be the next Nato head, a US official told Reuters. The official said: “President Biden strongly endorses PM Rutte’s candidacy to be the next secretary general of Nato.” Rutte would be succeeding the current Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, a Norwegian national.

• Putin has described as “rude” Biden’s comments in which the American president called the Russian leader a “crazy SOB”. On Thursday, after a flight onboard a strategic bomber that is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, Putin agreed with a reporter’s suggestion that the remark was rude, while Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the remarks were “probably some kind of attempt to look like a Hollywood cowboy”.

• Alexei Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said she has been shown her son’s body. Navalnaya has accused Russian investigators of “blackmailing” her over the funeral of her son, claiming they are trying to force her to hold a private burial ceremony without mourners. She quoted one of the investigators as saying: “Time is not on your side, corpses decompose.”