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Joe Biden on Thursday said that there was a full-blown investigation going on with the US intelligence community and the justice department over the leaking of classified Pentagon documents. Were getting close, he said on answers. But I dont have an answer. Speaking in Dublin, the US president said that while he was concerned that sensitive government documents had been leaked, theres nothing contemporaneous that Im aware of that is of great consequence.

The man responsible for the leak of hundreds of classified Pentagon documents is reported to be a young, racist gun enthusiast who worked on a military base, and who was seeking to impress two dozen fellow members of an internet chat group. MPs have warned that British lives have been put at risk by the leak.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russias Wagner mercenary group, said it was too early to say that Russian forces had surrounded the eastern city of Bakhmut. Prigozhin, whose forces have spearheaded much of the fighting for the embattled city, was responding to a statement by the Russian defence ministry that said Moscows forces were blocking Ukrainian forces from getting in or out of Bakhmut. The statement by the ministry said airborne troops are providing support to advancing assault troops, blocking the transfer of Ukrainian army reserves to the city and the possibility of retreat for enemy units. It added that Wagner assault units were continuing high-intensity combat operations to oust the enemy from the central quarters of the city in eastern Ukraine.

Alexei Navalny, Russias most prominent opposition leader, is grappling with a mystery ailment in jail that could be some sort of slow-acting poison, and has lost 8kg in weight in just over two weeks, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh has said. We do not exclude that at this very time Alexei Navalny is being slowly poisoned, being killed slowly so that it attracts less attention, Yarmysh said in a post on Twitter. He is being held in a punishment cell with acute pain without medical help, she said.

The Kremlin has denied a report that Vladimir Putin personally approved the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter imprisoned in Russia. Russias deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on Thursday suggested Moscow may be willing to discuss a potential prisoner swap for Gershkovich after his trial.

Ukraines state-owned gas company Naftogaz on Thursday said Russia has been ordered by an arbitration court in The Hague to pay $5bn (4bn / 4.5bn) in compensation for unlawfully expropriating its assets in Crimea, which the Russian Federation claimed to annex in 2014.

All Ukrainian cities and Crimea must and would be part of Ukraine again, and a real peace would come by restoring the countrys borders, Ukraines foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Thursday.

Russias foreign ministry has issued a press release about the Black Sea grain initiative, in which it states Russia reaffirms its position that there can be no discussion of the Black Sea Grain Initiative after 18 May without any progress regarding the five systematic problems which it claims are blocking Russias agricultural products from being exported.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has been holding talks in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, with the foreign minister of China, Qin Gang.

Russias state-owned news agency Tass is reporting that authorities in Russia have identified another suspect in the explosion that killed the pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky at a St Petersburg cafe. It named a citizen of Ukraine, Yuriy Denisov.

Norways foreign ministry has said it has decided to expel 15 Russian embassy officials in Oslo, claiming that they were intelligence officers operating under the cover of diplomatic positions. The Russians declared persona non grata must leave Norway within a short time, Norwegian foreign minister Anniken Huitfeldt said. The Russian foreign ministry said Moscow would respond in kind to Norways action.

Prosecutors in Sweden said on Thursday they had charged a 52-year-old man with illegally possessing and spreading secret and sensitive information about a large number of military installations. The man has not been linked to a foreign power, but senior prosecutor Lars Hedvall said in a statement the information disclosure may hurt national security.

Finlands president, Sauli Niinist, on Thursday warned that the countrys new status as a Nato member doesnt solve every problem, and said Helsinki should not let down its guard on security issues.

The European Games in Poland must be revoked as qualifiers for the 2024 Paris Olympics because athletes from Russia and Belarus have been barred from competing, amateur boxings Russian-led world body said on Thursday.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged international leaders to act after a disturbing video emerged on Wednesday of Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war lying on the ground. Ukraines president said the world could not ignore the evil footage, which has not been verified by the Guardian.

Russias prosecutor general said it had opened an investigation into a video showing Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war. Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Tuesday that the video was awful but first of all, we need to verify the authenticity of the footage.

The EU has pledged to hold those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine to account, a spokesperson said, while the UN said it was appalled by particularly gruesome videos circulating on social media.

Belarus has extradited a Russian man who was separated from his daughter and sentenced to two years in prison after she drew anti-war pictures at school. Alexei Moskalyov, a 54-year-old single parent from the town of Yefremov, 150 miles south of Moscow, fled house arrest last month, hours before a court handed him a two-year sentence for discrediting the Russian army.

See more here:
Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 414 of the invasion - The Guardian