Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy addressing parliament after arriving in UK for surprise visit

Volodymyr Zelenskiy is addressing the UK parliament now. Speaking in English, he thanks Britain on behalf of Ukraine’s warriors, air gunners, defenders of the sky, conscripts and those who will be deployed to the frontline of the war.

He says he is speaking:

On behalf of every father and every mother who are waiting for their brave sons and brave daughters back home from the war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is about to address British MPs in a speech from Westminster Hall, on his first visit to the UK since his country was invaded by Russia on 24 February 2022.

You can watch his address live here:

An international team said “there are strong indications” that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, “decided on supplying” the Buk missile system used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

The BUK-TELAR missile system was used to shot down MH17 on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014, investigators said.

The investigators outlined their findings as they suspended their probe, saying they have insufficient evidence to launch any fresh prosecutions.

Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer said “the investigation has now reached its limit. All leads have been exhausted” as the team began laying out the evidence it has uncovered.

Investigators added:

Although a lot of new information has been discovered about various people involved, the evidence is at the moment not concrete enough to lead to new prosecution.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is due to address the UK parliament at 1pm.

We will be following his speech live on the blog.

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has criticised the “public competition” among some countries over who can supply weapons to Ukraine, arguing that it “harms unity” among allies.

“Cohesion within our alliances is our most valuable asset,” Scholz told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

He added:

What harms our unity is a public competition to outdo each other along the lines of: battle tanks, submarines, aircraft - who is asking for more?

Scholz used his speech to parliament to assure Kyiv that its future was in the EU. He said:

Ukraine belongs to Europe, its future lies in the European Union. And this promise holds true.

He added:

Putin will not achieve his goals - not on the battlefield and not through a dictated peace. That much, at least, is certain after a year of war.

Poland and the Baltic states have urged the EU to work on seizing frozen Russian state assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine “as soon as possible”, raising pressure to act on a legally-fraught question.

Ahead of a two-day EU summit that will discuss the Russian invasion, the leaders of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia said “in order to be credible on this matter vis-à-vis Ukraine” the bloc had to go beyond reiterating previous commitments and “accelerate our work in the Council right now”.

The quartet of countries, Ukraine’s most outspoken allies in the EU, want western governments to use Russia’s €300bn of frozen central bank reserves to help Ukraine’s internally-displaced people and start rebuilding the country.

“Those frozen assets must be used as soon as possible, we cannot wait until the war is over and a peace agreement is signed,” the four write in a joint letter seen by the Guardian to EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, and Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson. Sweden currently holds the rotating presidency and is responsible for drawing up agendas for the EU council of ministers.

Last November, the European Commission suggested creating a structure to manage €300bn of frozen Russian Central Bank assets and €19bn of Russian oligarchs’ money under EU sanctions. Officials said only the proceeds could go to Ukraine, amid uncertainty over the legality of seizing the funds.

Poland and the Baltic states go further, arguing “all assets should be used to cover the costs of Russian aggression against Ukraine”.

The idea is likely to come up at the EU summit on Thursday that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to attend in what would be his first visit to Brussels since Russia’s invasion.

Zelenskiy’s surprise visit to the UK – not leaked in advance – will raise expectations he will go to Brussels on Thursday. An unpublished agenda note shows the European parliament decided on Tuesday to hold a last-minute plenary session this Thursday, suggesting Zelenskiy could address MEPs.

At the summit, EU leaders are expected to endorse Zelenskiy’s ten-point peace plan, which calls for the withdrawal of all Russian troops, restoration of Ukraine’s borders and a special tribunal for the prosecution of Russian war crimes.

On Thursday, European leaders are also set to express support for a “peace formula summit aiming at launching [the peace’s plan’s] implementation”, according to draft summit conclusions. The document also notes: “Russia has not shown any genuine willingness regarding a fair and sustainable peace”.

We have a clip of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy landing at Stansted airport this morning, before travelling in a police-escorted convoy to Downing Street for talks with Rishi Sunak before an address to parliament.

Zelenskiy will then head to Buckingham Palace to meet with King Charles III in the afternoon.

My colleague Kiran Stacey has a clip of Zelenskiy and Sunak arriving at Downing Street earlier.