Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its damaged naval flagship Moskva had sunk in the Black Sea while being towed in a storm. Ukraine had claimed it hit the cruiser with two missiles. Moscow has denied that the ship was struck, but acknowledged it was on fire.
The sinking of the warship is a blow to Russian forces that could also have strategic consequences.
Although analysts said the loss of the ship would not alter the course of the war, an attack by the Neptune missile systems, if confirmed, would be a significant sign of Ukraine’s military capability and could serve as a deterrent to Russian naval attacks. It would also be the first successful Ukrainian attack on a major Russian warship at sea rather than at port.
The development comes as European officials are drafting the most contested measure yet to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, an embargo on Russian oil products — a move long resisted because of its enormous costs for Germany and its potential to disrupt politics around the region and increase energy prices.
The growing consensus around a step previously seen as politically untenable underscores the extent to which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unified the world’s biggest trading bloc against Russian aggression. It would need to be approved by the European Union’s 27 member countries to go into effect.
Europe is highly dependent on Russian energy supplies, and in the past the E.U has equivocated over such a drastic move because of fears of economic turmoil that could follow. There is also worry over President Vladimir V. Putin’s longstanding tactic of wielding Russian energy as a geopolitical weapon.
Here are other major developments:
The director of the C.I.A. said that Vladimir V. Putin’s “potential desperation” to extract the semblance of a victory in Ukraine might tempt him to order the use of a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon, publicly discussing for the first time a concern that has coursed through the White House during the seven weeks of conflict.
Senator Steve Daines of Montana and Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana traveled to Kyiv and sites of rights abuses in the city’s suburbs, becoming the first American officials to turn up since the start of the war. The United States is also considering whether to send a high-level official to Kyiv in the coming days.
Russia is continuing to target southern Ukraine, where it hopes to complete a “land bridge” to connect Crimea to its forces in the east. The main remaining obstacle to that goal is the besieged southern city of Mariupol.
Dmitri A. Medvedev, Russia’s former prime minister, said Moscow would be forced to “seriously strengthen” its defenses in the Baltics if Finland and Sweden joined NATO, as the two countries are considering.
Moscow said on Thursday that Ukrainian helicopters had launched strikes against a Russian town near the Ukrainian border, the latest in a series of reported attacks that has prompted Russian threats of retaliation.
Ukrainian officials say that departing Russian soldiers have laced large swaths of the country with buried land mines and jury-rigged bombs.
@nytimes