Russia-Ukraine War: The war between Russia and Ukraine has entered its fourth week.
New Delhi:
Russian forces shelled a school and cultural centre, killing at least 21 people and wounding 25 in the town of Merefa outside Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine yesterday. Authorities in Ukraine’s Mariupol say they are clarifying information on possible victims of the Russian shelling of a theatre sheltering civilians. Ukrainian officials said more than 1,000 civilians had been sheltering in a basement bomb shelter beneath the theatre, and that Russian shelling was continuing.
A day after pleading with US Congress to send more help to Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned German lawmakers that Russia is building a new “Wall” in Europe, evoking the Berlin Wall during the Cold War.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says President Joe Biden will warn Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping when he speaks to him on Friday of retaliation if Beijing provides military aid to Russia.
At ongoing peace talks, officials in Kyiv say Russia has agreed to nine humanitarian corridors for fleeing refugees, including one out of Mariupol.
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Saudi Arabia issued a royal directive extending tourist and business visas of Ukrainian citizens without fees or fines for humanitarian considerations, state news agency SPA said on Friday.
The extension will be automatic without the need to visit the migration authorities.
Russian forces struck an area around Lviv’s airport in western Ukraine, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on Friday, with ambulance and police vehicles racing to the scene.
Writing on messaging app Telegram, Sadovyi said he could not give a precise address of the targeted area ” but it’s definitely not an airport.”
At least three blasts were heard in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Friday morning, Ukraine 24 television station reported through the Telegram messenger.
It published a short video in which a mushroom-shaped plume of smoke could be seen rising on the horizon.
PayPal Holdings Inc on Thursday expanded its services to allow Ukrainian citizens and refugees to receive payments from overseas, a move a senior Ukrainian official called a huge help as Russian forces continued to attack the country.
PayPal Chief Executive Dan Schulman told Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov in a letter that Ukrainians would also be able to transfer funds from their PayPal accounts to eligible credit and debit cards. The company has waived its fees on such transactions through June 30.
Australia imposed sanctions on Friday on two Russian oligarchs with links to its mining industry, one of them a billionaire with an investment connection to Rio Tinto’s Gladstone alumina refinery joint venture.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australia was working in close cooperation with international partners to increase sanctions pressure on oligarchs close to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine.
From her shelter in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, Vera Lytovchenko has become a social media sensation with her violin performances that help her forget the war, if only for a few minutes.
Her renditions of Vivaldi and Ukrainian melodies have triggered an avalanche of messages of support from around the world and she has used the attention to launch a fundraiser.
“I’m not a doctor, a soldier, or a politician. I just play the violin,” Lytovchenko told AFP over WhatsApp. Read here
The United States has anecdotal signs of flagging Russian troop morale in some units in Ukraine as the war enters its fourth week, a senior US defense official said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A Chinese foreign ministry official met with Russia’s ambassador to China on March 17 to exchange views on bilateral relations, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Cheng Guoping, Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Affairs at China’s foreign ministry, met with Andrey Denisov of Russia and exchanged views on bilateral counter-terrorism and security cooperation, according to the statement.