Russia Ukraine war latest news: Putin ally suggests Kremlin should kidnap Nato defence minister

French president Emmanuel Macron said that following a sixth European Union package of sanctions against Russia nothing could be ruled out in terms of additional sanctions in the coming weeks.

Speaking to reporters following an EU summit in Brussels, he also said he hoped that in the next days and weeks an agreement with Russia could be found for Ukrainian food exports, saying that recent talks between the Russian and Turkish presidents on the matter were a “positive sign”.

The eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk is being destroyed “block by block”, the town’s mayor said on Tuesday.

Elena Becatoros and Yuras Karmanau report:

A panel of investors said on Tuesday it will continue to discuss on 1 June whether missing payment of accrued interest on Russia’s foreign sovereign debt constitutes a “credit event”, which would bring the nation a step closer to a historic default and could trigger insurance payout.

The EMEA Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee said on its website it will meet at 1300 UTC on Wednesday to continue the discussion.

Cutting out Russian exports of gas is key to hampering the Kremlin’s war effort, Lord William Hague has said.

The Tory peer spoke to Times Radio after the EU agreed a partial embargo on Russian oil.

More comments from Hague below:

Ukraine has identified more than 600 Russian war crime suspects and has started prosecuting around 80 of them, Kyiv’s top prosecutor said on Tuesday.

The list of suspects includes “top military, politicians and propaganda agents of Russia”, prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova told a news conference in The Hague.

Venediktova said Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia had decided to join an international investigation team in Ukraine, which was originally formed by Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland in March to enable the exchange of information and investigation into suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity.

They are working with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which launched its investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine in early March.

Eurozone inflation hit a record 8.1 per cent in May amid surging energy and food costs fueled in part by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Annual inflation in the 19 countries that use the euro currency soared past the previous record of 7. 4 per cent reached in March and April, according to the latest numbers published Tuesday by the European Union statistics agency, Eurostat.

Inflation in the eurozone is now at its highest level since recordkeeping for the euro began in 1997.

A senior Russian lawmaker has suggested kidnapping a NATO defence minister in Ukraine and bringing them to Moscow for questioning about what “orders” the West has been giving to Kyiv.

Oleg Morozov, first elected to the Russian parliament in 1993 and a member of the dominant United Russia party, said the supply of Western arms to Ukraine posed a direct threat to Russia and might require Moscow to review its military aims.

“You know, perhaps it is a fantastical plot that I have brewing … that in the near future, at some stage, a war minister of some NATO country will go by train to Kyiv to talk with (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskiy,” Morozov told the “60 Minutes” talk show on Rossiya-1 state TV late on Monday.

“But he would not get there. And would wake up somewhere in Moscow,” Morozov said.

“You mean we abduct them?” TV host Olga Skabeyeva, one of the most pro-Kremlin journalists on television, asked with a smile.

“Yes. And then we would sort out who gave which order for what, who is responsible for what exactly,” Morozov said. “It is not such a mythical picture … There are new rules in the world now. Let all those war ministers gathering in Kyiv think a little about what it would be like to wake up in Moscow.”

Neither Morozov nor Skabeyeva could be reached for comment.

Severodonetsk is “turning into another Mariupol”, a top defence expert has warned.

Professor Michael Clarke of the London School of Economics said between 10,000 to 15,000 civilians remain trapped in the Donbas region city as fighting there intensifies.

Putin’s troops recently took control of Mariupol in the southeast after laying siege to it for months.

The city was razed to the ground by Russian bombs and estimates suggest that at least 3,500 civilians were killed during the bombardment and fighting.

My colleague Tom Ambrose reports:

Hungary and Slovakia can rely on Croatia for oil in case of any disruptions to imports from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline, Hungary’s foreign minister said.

European Union leaders gave concessions to Hungary and Slovakia in order to agree an oil embargo on Russia that aims to cut 90 per cent of Moscow’s crude imports into the bloc by the end of this year.

With its embargo the bloc aims to reduce Moscow’s income to finance the war it launched more than three months ago in Ukraine, but it exempted landlocked Hungary because the country relies on the Druzhba pipeline for oil.

Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said he had reached a long-term energy security co-operation agreement with Croatia‘s energy minister, whereby Hungary‘s southern neighbour would provide an alternative route for possible additional oil imports, if needed.

“Croatia is ready to provide a route for oil shipments towards Hungary, should they become necessary,” Szijjarto said, adding that Hungarian energy group MOL would start talks with Croatian officials later today.