Ukraine war news – live: Putin suspends key nuclear arms deal and blames invasion on West

Toward the end of his speech, president Vladimir Putin said that Russia was suspending its participation in the New START treaty with the United States that limits the two sides’ strategic nuclear arsenals.

“In this regard, I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty,” Putin said.

The New START treaty was signed in Prague in 2010, came into force the following year and was extended in 2021 for five more years just after US president Joe Biden took office.

Watch live as president Joe Biden meets with Polish President Duda after Ukraine visit.

More than 8,000 civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago, the US Human Rights Office has said.

The new toll represents a significant upward revision from the previous tally of 7,199 killed since the start of the full-scale invasion on 24 February, the UN report said.

Around 90 per cent of the victims were killed by explosive weapons, it added.

The UN human rights mission in Ukraine, which has dozens of monitors in the country, said it expects the real toll to be “considerably higher” than the official tally since corroboration work is ongoing.

During Putin’s address, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni arrived in Kyiv to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Just hours earlier, she had pledged continued military support for the embattled nation.

Ms Meloni said she was “honoured” to make the visit as she stepped off a train coming from Poland. Ukrainian officials greeted her with a bunch of flowers.

“I am here to understand the needs of a people fighting for their freedom. It’s always different seeing things with your own eyes and I think it helps Italians understand,” Ms Meloni said.

“Russia will respond to any challenges. Because we are all a single country. We are one big united people. We are confident in our power. The truth is on our side,” the Russian president said in the closing remarks to his almost two-hour-long speech.

A fanfare of the Russian national anthem then blared out as members of the audience sang along.

Western leaders are either “cynical or stupid” in their approach to Moscow and arms control, Putin said.

He then went on to accuse the US of “step by step…destroy[ing] the system of world security and arms control.”

Putin then said Russia would not make the first nuclear strike.

Putin’s focus has turned back to tensions with the West after a protracted rundown of Russia’s internal affairs.

The Russian leader claimed that US, French and UK nuclear weapons are all aimed at Russia.

“The latest statements of their leaders confirms this,” he said.

Putin’s speech is now in the territory of health services and improving access to care, especially in rural areas.

He has included Donetsk and Luhansk – Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia in “sham” referenda last year – as being possible beneficiaries of Russia’s new healthcare aims.

Recycling programmes and eliminating old landfill sites are also on the agenda.

The Russian president’s assertion that the West is to blame for the Ukraine war is an “absurdity”, a top US official says.

“Nobody is attacking Russia,” White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan says.

“There’s a kind of absurdity in the notion that Russia was under some form of military threat from Ukraine or anyone else.”