It comes as Russia has warned that there can be “no more talk of a nuclear-free Baltic” if Sweden and Finland join Nato.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said today that if the two nations were to join the alliance then the “balance must be restored” and Russia would have to strengthen its land, naval and air forces in the region. 

It comes a day after reports indicated that Sweden had already decided to join Nato, and Finland said a decision on whether to join would likely come “within weeks”. 

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has taunted Europe for its inability to wean itself off Russian gas as he said the Kremlin was working to re-direct energy supplies eastwards.

Russian ship damaged

The bravado from the Kremlin comes after the county’s ministry of defence admitted the flagship of Russia’s fleet in the Black Sea was evacuated overnight after a fire caused munitions on board to explode. 

The terse announcement came a few hours after the governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region announced that the ship had been hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles fired by Ukrainian forces. 

Read why the Moskva was so strategic for the Russians and how Moscow’s fleet in the region is far more exposed without it.

Ukrainian forces have been outmanned and outgunned by Russia since the Feb 24 invasion but here is a round up of the country’s military achievements to date. 

Today, Moscow accused Ukraine of conducting a helicopter attack in Russia.

Pro-Ukrainian pranksters

Over in the US, the Russian embassy in Washington DC has a façade that is mostly large, flat and white. 

It is a design that, however accidentally, gives the building some resemblance to a projector screen. 

That is exactly how it has been used by pro-Ukrainian pranksters. 

A video uploaded to social media today shows Boris Nemtsov Plaza, home of the embassy. 

Watch the comical game of cat and mouse as Russians fail to thwart the image of the Ukrainian flag being beamed onto the embassy.

Comment and analysis

Around the world: Woman tried to escape relationship

Murdered British woman Caroline Crouch was trying to escape an abusive relationship with her Greek husband in the months before she was killed, telling a therapist that she was “suffocating”, a court in Athens has heard. Ms Crouch, who was born in Liverpool but grew up on the Aegean island of Alonissos, told a therapist that her husband, Babis Anagnostopoulos, 33, was manipulative and controlling. The helicopter pilot confessed to killing his 20-year-old wife at their house outside Athens in May last year but said it was done in a fit of rage because he was afraid that she was about to leave him. Read how he only confessed after initially concocting an elaborate story involving three burglars.

Thursday big-read

Revealed: ‘Secret society’ of tennis umpires living under a ‘rule of fear’, power abuses and sexual favours