One person has been killed and six people have been injured, including an 11-year-old, by Russian attacks in the Kharkiv region according to the latest status update of Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv.

The European court of human rights (ECHR) said it had issued an order to Russia to ensure that two Britons captured after fighting for Ukrainian forces do not face the death penalty. It is likely to have limited effect. This month, the Russian parliament passed legislation to end the jurisdiction of Europe’s top human rights court in Russia, and two weeks ago a Kremlin spokesperson, in reference to another ECHR ruling, said Moscow no longer implemented its decisions.

Nato leaders yesterday announced a new “strategic concept” in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, describing Moscow as “the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security and stability”. Nato has invited Sweden and Finland to become members of the military alliance, according to a communique published by the Nato summit in Madrid. Leaders also pledged further help to Kyiv and agreed on a package of support aimed at modernising the country’s defence sector.

Russian president Vladimir Putin earlier issued fresh warnings that Russia would respond in kind if Nato set up military infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after they joined Nato. He said it was inevitable that Moscow’s relations with Helsinki and Stockholm would sour over Nato membership.

Putin also pushed back against allegations that Russian forces were responsible for a strike on a crowded shopping centre in the Ukrainian town of Kremenchuk on Monday in which 18 people were killed. “Our army does not attack any civilian infrastructure site. We have every capability of knowing what is situated where,” Putin said. Moscow said its military fired a “high-precision air attack at hangars where armament and munitions were stored” and the explosion of those weapon caches caused a fire in the nearby shopping centre – a claim discredited by first-hand accounts from survivors and expert analysis.

Sweden will send more anti-tank weapons and machine guns to Ukraine, Sweden’s defence ministry said Thursday. The arms package, which also includes equipment for mine clearing, is valued at around £40m ($49m).

Spain will gradually raise defence spending to near the equivalent to 2% of the country’s gross domestic product by 2029, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said.

The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said it is a “realistic” ambition to push Russian forces out of Ukraine entirely. Truss has described Russian president Vladimir Putin as “an appalling dictator perpetrating a war that was neither legal nor justified” and said that “he has ordered the most appalling crimes to be committed in Ukraine.”

Norway’s foreign minister has said her nation is not blocking Russian access to Svalbard. On Wednesday Russia accused Norway of disrupting the delivery of critical supplies and threatened retaliation. Anniken Huitfeldt said: “Norway is not breaking the Svalbard Treaty. The shipment that was stopped at the Norwegian-Russian border has been stopped on the basis of the sanctions that prohibit Russian road transport companies from transporting goods on Norwegian territory”. She said Russia could deliver supplies in a different way, exclusively by ship or by air.

Trade through Lithuania to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad could return to normal within days as officials edge towards a compromise deal, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

British government complacency is allowing Russian “dirty money” to flow into the UK despite the war in Ukraine, MPs have warned. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said the failure of ministers to take effective action meant assets “laundered” through the City of London were being used to finance Putin’s war.

Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, has spoken of his visit to Kyiv to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, describing the visit as a “manifestation of the Indonesian people’s concern for the situation in Ukraine.”

Ukraine announced the largest exchange of prisoners of war since Russia invaded, securing the release of 144 of its soldiers, including 95 who defended the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. Ukrainian military intelligence said that most of the Ukrainians released had serious injuries, including burns and amputations, and are now receiving medical care.

Zelenskiy announced the end of diplomatic ties between Ukraine and Syria after the Russia-ally recognised the independence of eastern Ukraine’s two separatist republics, Donetsk and Luhansk. “There will no longer be relations between Ukraine and Syria,” Zelenskiy said, adding that the sanctions pressure against Syria “will be even greater.”