Ukraine Russia war live: Zelensky sees opportunity to end Putin’s invasion in 2025 but calls for weapons

Nato allies could have averted Russia’s full-scale invasion by arming Ukraine in 2014, former Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said.

“I continue to believe that if we had armed Ukraine more after 2014, we might have prevented Russia from invading — at least we would have increased the threshold for a full-scale invasion,” he told Politico.

A staunch ally of Kyiv, Mr Stoltenberg expressed regret at the end of his term over the alliance’s insufficient response to Russian aggression in 2014, which included the illegal occupation of Crimea.

“I worked hard to try to convince Nato allies to do more, to provide more military support, more training,” Mr Stoltenberg said.

“Some allies did, but it was relatively limited, and that was very difficult for many years because the policy in Nato was that Nato should not provide lethal support to Ukraine,” he added.

“If we had delivered a fraction of the weapons we have delivered after 2022, we may have actually prevented the war,” Mr Stoltenberg said.

Britain launched a trade sanctions unit with new powers to penalise companies that fail to comply with restrictions on exporting services to Russia.

The UK government has announced sanctions on more than £20bn ($26bn) worth of trade with Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, and said the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation would support companies in complying with those sanctions.

“This new unit will help ensure businesses comply with trade sanctions and take decisive enforcement action where needed so that, together with business, we can continue to exert maximum pressure on Putin’s regime,” business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in a statement.

The government said that the OTSI would have powers to fine companies that breached sanctions, and also be empowered to publicise them – essentially “naming and shaming” the firms involved.

At least six people were killed and eight were injured in a Russian ballistic missile attack on the port infrastructure of Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, governor Oleh Kiper said.

The injured were all Ukrainian nationals and four of them are in serious condition, Mr Kiper said.

Deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said a Panamanian-flagged container ship, the Shui Spirit, sustained damage in the attack.

“An insidious enemy is trying to disrupt the work of the Ukrainian grain corridor, killing civilians and destroying infrastructure,” the minister wrote in his post.

This attack on the port of Chornomorsk is the third in the region in the past four days.