Here’s a roundup of the key developments of the day: Vladimir Putin has insisted that “of course” he does not want a war amid conflicting claims he had withdrawn some his country’s forces from Ukraine’s borders. Speaking at a news conference following talks with German chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin suggested there was the opportunity for further talks between Moscow and the west. Putin said Russia had been told that Ukraine would not join Nato in the near future, but that Moscow did not think that was a good enough assurance and wanted to resolve the matter in its entirety now. Russia’s defence ministry has announced it is to withdraw some of its troops from the border with Ukraine in a possible de-escalation of the threat of a potential invasion. The size of the withdrawal remains unclear and may involve only a fraction of Russia’s forces at the Ukrainian border, which western officials estimate at more than 60% of the country’s ground forces. Boris Johnson said there were signs of a “diplomatic opening” to resolve the Ukraine crisis, but that there were “mixed signals” from Russia. He added that the “intelligence that we are seeing today is still not encouraging”, with Russian field hospitals being built close to Belarus’ border with Ukraine. Bob Seely, a Tory member of the commons foreign affairs committee, said reports of Russian troop withdrawals should not be seen as “the end of the story”. He said in a series of tweets that Moscow still had “many troops around Ukraine” and could “redeploy more at short notice”. A Russian invasion of Ukraine could pose a threat to Europe’s wider stability that emboldens aggressors around the world, Liz Truss said on Tuesday. The foreign secretary cited Iran and China as examples of potential aggressors who could be emboldened to expand their ambitions by seeing Russia attack Ukraine. Boris Johnson is expected to deny wrongdoing to the police by arguing his presence at Downing Street gatherings in lockdown was part of the working day, though No 10 said his official response to the Metropolitan police would remain private. The prime minister has until Friday to answer a questionnaire sent by the Met which may lead the force to issue a fixed penalty notice (FPN) or conclude there was no case to answer. The prime minister has insisted that “of course” he can lead the Tories in the next general election, despite ongoing questions over his leadership linked to lockdown parties in Downing Street. The total number of deaths involving Covid in the UK reached 183,502 in early February, figures published this morning show. The Office for National Statistics recorded 1,242 registrations where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate in England and Wales in the week to 4 February, or one in 10 deaths. A former Conservative minister, once at the heart of efforts to clamp down on money laundering in London, has revealed that during Theresa May’s premiership, No 10 “leant on him” when he tabled amendments to introduce a public register of overseas property owners. Thanks so much for joining me today and for all your tweets, emails and comments below the line. Sorry I couldn’t reply to everyone. We’re closing this blog but I’ll be back again tomorrow and we have some other live blogs which are still live. Our dedicated blog on the Ukraine crisis is here:
If interested, we also have a live blog on the news Prince Andrew has settled sexual abuse lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre here: