Ukraine urges citizens to use guerilla tactics

Russian forces have also taken a strategic Ukrainian seaport and set siege to another as Moscow tries to cut its neighbor off from the Black Sea

As Russian forces advance on strategic points in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities on Thursday called on compatriots to launch a guerrilla war against Russian forces.

In a video message posted online, Ukrainian presidential aide Oleksiy Arestovich urged men to cut down trees and destroy rear columns of Russian troops.

“We urge people to begin providing total popular resistance to the enemy in the occupied territories,” Arestovich said.

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“The weak side of the Russian army is the rear - if we burn them now and block the rear, the war will stop in a matter of days,” he said.

Arestovich said that such tactics are already being used in Konotop in northeast Ukraine and Melitopol near the Azov Sea, which were captured by Russian troops.

He called on the civilian population to build barricades in cities, hold rallies with Ukrainian flags, and create online networking groups. “Total resistance ... this is our Ukrainian trump card and this is what we can do best in the world,” Arestovich said, recalling guerrilla actions in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II.

Meanwhile, a Panama-flagged cargo vessel belonging to an Estonian shipping company has reportedly driven into a mine and sank off the Ukrainian port city of Odessa.

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The m/v Helt was built in 1985 and is owned by the VISTA Shipping Agency AS, Estonian media outlets reported Thursday, adding that two crew members have been rescued, while four others are missing.

Ukrainian authorities said earlier this week that Russian sailors had captured the ship.

Estonian Foreign Minister Eva-Maria Liimets said Estonian officials are currently dealing with the issue and the ministry would give details on the incident as soon as possible.

Elsewhere, the organization that awards the Nobel Prize in literature broke a long-standing practice of not making political statements by condemning “in the strongest possible terms the Russian regime's illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

The Swedish Academy said Thursday that its history and mission “are deeply rooted in the traditions of freedom of expression, freedom of belief and freedom of inquiry.”

“We therefore join the legion of our fellow academies, literary and cultural institutions, places of higher learning, defenders of a free press, human rights organizations and nation states in expressing our abhorrence of the Russian government's unjustified attack on Ukraine and its people,” the academy said in a statement.

Russian forces have taken a strategic Ukrainian seaport and set siege to another as Moscow tries to cut its neighbor off from the Black Sea.

The Russian military said Thursday it had control of Kherson, which has a population of 280,000 people, making it the first major city to fall since a Russian invasion began last week.

Russian armored vehicles were seen in the otherwise empty streets of Kherson, in videos shared with The Associated Press by a resident

Meanwhile, heavy fighting continued in Mariupol, in the outskirts of the strategic the Azov Sea port city. Electricity and phone connections are mostly not working in Mariupol, which faces food and water shortages.

The Russians are pressing their offensive on a variety of fronts, even as the Kremlin says it is ready for talks to end the fighting that has triggered more than 1 million refugees.

The British government is defending its sanctions against rich Russians amid criticism it is lagging compared to its American and European allies.

The UK has slapped sanctions on only a handful of wealthy Russians accused of links to the Kremlin who have assets in Britain. That is fewer than the European Union or the US

The Conservative government is under pressure to add more names, including Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, who has announced plans to sell the team.

The government says more individuals will be sanctioned but it has not said when. It denies the delay is giving oligarchs time to move assets out of the UK, long a favoured haven for Russian wealth.

Opposition lawmakers are also urging the government to seize oligarchs' properties in Britain.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman, Max Blain, denied the government was dragging its feet. He said penalizing individuals was only part of the picture and it was sanctions on large banks and companies that would put the most pressure on the Russian government.

The British satellite company OneWeb says it is cancelling all launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is run by the Russian Aerospace Forces and Russia's space agency, Roscosmos.

The firm said in a one-line statement that “the Board of OneWeb has voted to suspend all launches from Baikonur.” OneWeb had been due to launch a batch of its internet satellites Friday on Russian rockets from the base.

The launch was put in doubt after Russia demanded the British government sell its stake in OneWeb, which it partly owns. It also wanted a guarantee from the company that none of its satellites would have military uses.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has thrown international space cooperation into turmoil and put a planned Europe-Russian mission to Mars this year on hold.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says his country will freeze the assets of Russian oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin as Tokyo steps up sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Kishida said Thursday that Japan is adding oligarchs to the list of sanctions as part of a collective effort by the United States and European countries. The step adds to Japan's freezing of the assets of Putin and top officials in his government.

Kishida also said that Japan has taken steps to disconnect seven Russian banks from the SWIFT international financial messaging systems.

Japan, which wants to regain control over some Russian-held islands in a dispute that still prevents the two countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending their World War II hostilities, used to be reluctant to impose strict sanctions on Russia.

Spain's prime minister says the 27 European Union countries will be strict about applying sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his circle, aiming to asphyxiate the Russian economy over the invasion of Ukraine.

“Putin has to know that we are not going to stop applying the sanctions against him and the oligarchy that has prospered within his regime, to isolate it and choke it economically to end an unjustified and unfair invasion,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Thursday.

Spain's defense ministry announced that two planes loaded with Spanish offensive military material will depart for Ukraine on Friday.

The cargo includes 1,370 anti-tank grenade launchers and 700,000 rounds of ammunition for rifles and machine guns, as well as an unspecified number of light machine guns.

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