Ukraine war: Putin ‘ready to freeze war’ as Kyiv ‘secures combat’ around Kharkiv

Hungary will seek to opt out of any NATO operations aimed at supporting Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday, suggesting that the military alliance and the European Union were moving toward a more direct conflict with Russia.

Orbán told state radio that Hungary opposes a plan NATO is weighing to provide more predictable military support to Ukraine in coming years to repel Moscow’s full-scale invasion, as better armed Russian troops assert control on the battlefield.

Ukranian attacks killed four Russians in southern Belgorod region were on Saturday, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Three people were killed in the village of Oktyabrsky and a woman working in her garden was killed in the village of Dubovoye, Mr Gladkov said on Telegram.

Twelve people, including a child, were injured in the multiple rocket attacks.

The governor said the Ukranian military also shelled the town of Shebekino near the border and damaged several homes.

Finance officials from the Group of Seven rich democracies said they had moved toward agreement on a U.S. proposal to squeeze more money for Ukraine from Russian assets frozen in their countries. But the ministers left a final deal to be worked out ahead of a June summit of national leaders.

“We are making progress in our discussions on potential avenues to bring forward the extraordinary profits stemming from immobilized Russian sovereign assets to the benefit of Ukraine,” the draft statement said, without providing details.

Despite the progress made at the the meeting in Stresa, on the shores of Lago Maggiore in northern Italy, a final decision on how the assets will be used will rest with the G7 national leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, next month at their annual summit in Fasano, in southern Italy.

It began last month with the arrest of a Russian deputy defense minister. Then the head of the ministry’s personnel directorate was hauled into court. This week, two more senior military officials were detained. All face charges of corruption, which they have denied.

The arrests began after President Vladimir Putin began his fifth term and shuffled his ally, longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, into a new post.

The U.S. sought to build support for squeezing more money for Ukraine out of frozen Russian assets and for uniting against China’s trade practices as finance ministers from the Group of Seven rich democracies opened a two-day meeting on Friday on the shores of northern Italy’s scenic Lago Maggiore.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is pushing at the meeting in Stresa for “more ambitious options” to unlock money from some $260 billion in Russian central bank reserves frozen in Europe and the U.S. after the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion.

The Biden administration announced on Friday an additional $275 million in military aid for Ukraine as Kyiv struggles to hold off advances by Russian troops in the Kharkiv region.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the package, which was previewed on Thursday by two U.S. officials, “is part of our efforts to help Ukraine repel Russia’s assault near Kharkiv.”

“Assistance from previous packages has already made it to the front lines, and we will move this new assistance as quickly as possible so the Ukrainian military can use it to defend their territory and protect the Ukrainian people,” Blinken said in a statement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to eastern Europe next week as concerns mount about Russia’s advances in Ukraine, potential Russian interference in neighboring Moldova and pro-Moscow legislation being promoted in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the State Department said Friday.

Blinken will visit the Moldovan capital of Chişinau on Wednesday before attending a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Prague on Thursday and Friday. That meeting will be the military alliance’s last major diplomatic get-together before leaders meet at a summit to celebrate NATO’s 80th anniversary in Washington in July.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters that European banks face growing risks operating in Russia and the U.S. is looking at strengthening its secondary sanctions on banks found to be aiding transactions for Russia‘s war effort.

“We are looking at potentially a tougher stepping-up of our sanctions on banks that do business in Russia,” Yellen told Reuters in an interview, declining to provide specifics and not identifying any banks at which they could be aimed.

Speaking on the sidelines of a G7 finance leaders meeting in northern Italy, Yellen said that sanctions related to banks’ dealings in Russia would only be imposed “if there was a reason to do so, but operating in Russia creates an awful lot of risk,” she added.

Asked whether she would like to see Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International and Italian bank UniCredit pull out of Russia, Yellen said: “I believe their supervisors have advised them to be extremely careful about what they do there.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived Thursday in Belarus for a two-day visit as part of several foreign tours to kick off his fifth term in office, underscoring close ties with a neighboring ally that has been instrumental in Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

Putin traveled to China earlier this month, and is expected in Uzbekistan on Sunday. Earlier on Thursday, the Russian president hosted Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in the Kremlin.

In Belarus, Putin is to hold talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko greeted him on the tarmac, and then the two sat down for a “short conversation” at the airport, the Kremlin reported. Lukashenko promised to discuss “security issues at the forefront, and tomorrow we will discuss economic issues together with our colleagues from the governments.”