Live updates l UK says Russian cyber soldiers target leaders


LONDON — Russian “cybersoldiers” have launched a new offensive against foreign leaders, targeting social media platforms with a large-scale disinformation campaign seeking to legitimize the invasion of Ukraine, according to UK-funded research.

Paid factory workers in St. Petersburg use the Telegram messaging app to recruit and coordinate supporters who then flood the social media accounts of Kremlin critics with comments supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. the UK Foreign Office said on Sunday.

The so-called troll factory has developed new techniques to avoid detection by social media platforms, posting comments and amplifying pro-Kremlin content created by legitimate users instead of creating its own content, the Foreign Ministry said. Traces of his activity have been found on eight social media platforms, including Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.

The operation has targeted politicians and wider audiences in a number of countries, including the UK, South Africa and India, the Foreign Office said. He is believed to have links to Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who has been sanctioned by both the United States and Britain for funding the Kremlin’s online influence operations.

“We cannot allow the Kremlin and its shady troll farms to invade our online spaces with their lies about Putin’s illegal war,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in the statement. “The UK government has alerted international partners and will continue to work closely with allies and media platforms to undermine Russian information operations.”

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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:

— Ukrainian forces fight Russian advance in eastern Donbass region

— The wives of the defenders of Mariupol call for the evacuation of the soldiers of the final resistance

— Some Ukrainians return to cross the front line towards their homes, despite the dangers

— Ukrainian women learn how to clear landmines at a course in Kosovo

— Angelina Jolie makes a surprise visit to Ukraine, meets children

Follow all AP stories on Russia’s war against Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

LVIV, Ukraine — Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show damage to oil deposits across the border from Ukraine in Russia after suspected Ukrainian attacks.

Photos from Saturday show damage at two sites in Bryansk. The explosions damaged multiple tanks, leaving the surrounding land charred.

The explosions occurred on Monday. One hit an oil depot owned by Transneft-Druzhba, a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned Transneft company that operates the west-bound Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline that transports crude oil to Europe.

The second facility is within walking distance of the other.

Bryansk is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.

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KYIV, Ukraine — The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, met with the President of Ukraine.

Images released early Sunday by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office showed Pelosi in kyiv with a congressional delegation. Those with Pelosi included Reps Jason Crow, Jim McGovern and Adam Schiff.

Zelenskyy told the delegation: “You are all welcome.”

Pelosi later said: “We think we visited to thank you for your fight for freedom. We are on a border of freedom and your fight is a fight for everyone. Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is over.”

The visit was not previously announced.

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kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Some women and children have been evacuated from a steel plant that is the last defensive bastion in the bombed-out ruins of the port city of Mariupol, a Ukrainian official and Russian state news organizations said.

But hundreds are believed to remain trapped with little food, water or medicine.

The United Nations was working to negotiate an evacuation of up to 1,000 civilians living below the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal plant after numerous previous attempts failed.

Ukraine has not said how many fighters are also at the plant, the only part of Mariupol not occupied by Russian forces, but Russia put the number at around 2,000. An estimated 100,000 civilians remain in the city.

UN humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu said the world organization was negotiating with authorities in Moscow and kyiv but could not provide details about the ongoing evacuation effort “due to the complexity and fluidity of the operation.”

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LVIV, Ukraine — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says US diplomats are making plans to return to Ukraine as soon as possible.

Blinken made the comment while speaking with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. A statement late Sunday said Blinken told Kuleba that the United States “plans to return to kyiv as soon as possible.”

He said diplomats had been making “initial visits” to Lviv to prepare.

The United States evacuated its embassy in kyiv in February, just before Russia launched its war against the country. The United States had been bringing diplomats across the Polish border every day to work in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, before stopping the practice.

Lviv has largely been spared from the conflict, although a missile attack several days ago targeted a railway facility near the city.

The United States is one of the main sponsors of Ukraine in the war, providing billions in aid and weapons.

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LVIV, Ukraine — The British military says the Russian ruble will be used as currency in a Ukrainian city Moscow took earlier in the war.

The British military wrote that the city of Kherson will begin a four-month transition from the Ukrainian hryvnia to the ruble from Sunday. The British Defense Ministry said the move is “indicative of Russia’s intention to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson in the long term.”

He added: “Enduring control over Kherson and its transport links will increase Russia’s ability to maintain its north and west advance and enhance the security of Russia’s control over Crimea.”

Kherson is about 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of the Ukrainian capital, kyiv. Russia seized the city on the other side of the Crimean peninsula in early March.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke in Russian in his late-night video address to urge Russian soldiers not to fight in Ukraine, saying even his generals expected thousands of them to die.

He said that Russia has been recruiting new troops “with little motivation and little combat experience” for units that were destroyed during the first weeks of the war so that these units can return to battle.

He said Russian commanders fully understand that thousands of them will be killed and thousands more wounded in the coming weeks.

“Russian commanders lie to their soldiers when they tell them that they can be held seriously responsible for refusing to fight and then they also fail to tell them, for example, that the Russian military is preparing additional refrigerated trucks to store the bodies. . They are not informed about the new losses that the generals expect,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday night.

“Each Russian soldier can still save his own life. It is better for you to survive in Russia than to perish on our land,” he said.

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STOCKHOLM — Sweden says a Russian military plane has violated Swedish airspace.

The incident occurred on Friday night in the Baltic Sea near the island of Bornholm.

In a statement on Saturday, the Swedish Armed Forces said a Russian AN-30 propeller plane flew into Swedish airspace and entered briefly before leaving the area.

The Swedish Air Force sent fighter jets that photographed the Russian plane.

Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told Swedish public radio that the breach was “unacceptable” and “unprofessional.”

In a similar incident in early March, four Russian warplanes violated Swedish airspace over the Baltic Sea.

Sweden and neighboring Finland are considering joining NATO following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has warned that such a move would have consequences, without elaborating.

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LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson discussed the progress of UN efforts to evacuate people from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and “offered the UK’s continued economic and humanitarian support” during a conversation Saturday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskky.

“The prime minister reiterated that he is more committed than ever to strengthening Ukraine and ensuring that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin fails, noting how hard Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom,” Johnson’s office said in a statement. Downing Street.

“He confirmed that the UK will continue to provide additional military assistance to provide Ukrainians with the equipment they need to defend themselves,” the statement said.

The United Nations has been trying to negotiate an evacuation in the port city where some 100,000 civilians remain. Up to 1,000 civilians live below a Soviet-era steel plant in Mariupol, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine has not said how many fighters are also at the plant, but the Russians put the number at around 2,000.

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A Russian rocket attack destroyed an airport runway in Odessa, Ukraine’s third-largest city and a key Black Sea port, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday.

In a Telegram post, Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command said there was no way the Odessa runway could be used as a result of the rocket attack.

Local authorities urged area residents to shelter in place, as the Ukrainian UNIAN news agency, citing army sources, reported that “several” explosions were heard in Odessa.

Odessa regional governor Maksym Marchenko said the rocket was fired from Russian-occupied Crimea. He said there were no reports of injuries.

Russian forces have embarked on a major military operation to seize significant parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, the country’s industrial heartland, and capture the country’s Black Sea and Sea of ​​Azov coastlines.

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KYIV, Ukraine – Ukraine’s national grid operator says it has restored “reliable” power supply in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, around the site of the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster.

“In the afternoon the last necessary 330 kV power transmission line was put into operation,” state-owned Ukrenergo wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday.

According to the same publication, Ukrenergo also restored another 330 kV line in the northern kyiv region, which helped stabilize the power supply in the capital. He said that the reconstruction of more transmission lines in and around kyiv is still underway.



Reference-www.wivb.com

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