Ukraine War: Russia said it would only use nuclear weapons if it were facing an “existential threat.”
New Delhi:
Two “super powerful bombs” rocked Mariupol on Tuesday as Ukrainian authorities made a fresh attempt at rescuing civilians from the besieged southern port city.
Almost 100,000 people are trapped in the city described by those who managed to escape as a “freezing hellscape riddled with dead bodies and destroyed buildings”, Human Rights Watch says.
Kyiv is under curfew until Wednesday morning as Russian troops continue their advance on the capital.
After several rounds of inconclusive negotiations, Russia said that it would like its peace talks with Ukraine to be “more substantial.” The Kremlin also said Tuesday that it would only use nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict if it were facing an “existential threat.”
So far, a Kremlin-allied tabloid has reported that 9,861 Russian troops have been killed and 16,153 injured in the nearly month-old war, 20 times the official tally.
Here are the Live Updates on Russia-Ukraine War:
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday urged citizens around the world to take to the streets to protest Russia’s invasion of his country.
“Come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life,” Zelensky said in a video address in English. “Come to your squares, to your streets, make yourselves visible and heard.”
From huge donations to political parties and bids for games of tennis with senior ministers, to nominations for peerages, Russian money in British politics has been a recurrent issue for years.
But the invasion of Ukraine has intensified calls for party finances to be cleaned up.
Anti-corruption activist Bill Browder, formerly a major investor in Russia, said it is not just the ruling Conservative party that is affected.
US President Joe Biden arrived in Brussels on Wednesday for crunch summits with European, G7 and NATO allies, expected to focus on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pictures on broadcaster CNN showed.
Biden, who will be seeking to rally allies to forge a united response to Moscow, will participate in meetings of NATO, the European Union and G7 Thursday before visiting Poland Friday and Saturday.
A Russian journalist for the investigative news outlet The Insider was killed when Russian troops shelled a residential neighbourhood in the Ukrainian capital, the outlet said Wednesday, the latest reporter to die in war.
Oksana Baulina, who previously also worked for Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s anti-corruption group, “died under fire in Kyiv” while “filming the destruction” caused by Russian shelling, The Insider said on its website.
Germany will send 2,000 additional anti-tank weapons to Ukraine to help it repel the Russian invasion, a parliamentary source told AFP on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian forces have already received 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger-type surface-to-air missile launchers from the Bundeswehr, the German army.
Russia on Wednesday said it was expelling US diplomats in retaliation for Washington’s move to remove 12 of Moscow’s representatives to the UN based in New York.
“On March 23, a note with the list of the American diplomats declared ‘persona non grata’ was handed to the head of the American diplomatic mission who was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the ministry said in a statement.
The United States has reached the assessment that Russian military forces committed war crimes in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday.
The US top diplomat said last week that he believed Russia was guilty of committing war crimes by attacking civilians in Ukraine — echoing a statement by President Joe Biden who has branded his counterpart Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”
On Wednesday Blinken said the US government — after “documenting and assessing” evidence that civilians had been deliberately targeted during the month-long invasion — had now made a determination.
“Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the US government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” Blinken said in a statement.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday held extensive talks with his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias, covering the crisis in Ukraine, the situation in Afghanistan and exploring the possibility of enhancing the bilateral ties to the level of strategic partnership.
Both sides noted the importance of the movement of people in an orderly and legal way and signed a declaration of intent on migration and mobility.
Dendias arrived in India on Tuesday on a two-day visit.
Kyiv said Wednesday that talks with Russia to end nearly one month of fighting were encountering “significant difficulties” after Moscow accused the United States of hindering peace efforts.
“The negotiations are continuing online. They are proceeding with significant difficulties because the Ukrainian side has clear and principled positions,” Ukraine’s lead negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak told reporters in written comments.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Japan on Wednesday to increase sanctions pressure on Russia by introducing a trade embargo on Russian goods.
Addressing the parliament in Tokyo via video link, Zelensky thanked Japan for leading the way among Asian countries in condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and introducing sanctions.
Nearly 239,000 refugees from Ukraine have been recorded in Germany so far, the German Interior Ministry said.
Federal police said 238,932 people – mostly women, children and the elderly – have arrived from Ukraine as of Wednesday, according to the ministry.
Poland’s counter-espionage service ABW has identified 45 Russian diplomats as suspected spies and called on the foreign ministry to expel them, its spokesman said on Wednesday.
“The internal security agency has drawn up a list of 45 people working in Poland under the cover of diplomatic activities,” ABW spokesman Stanislaw Zaryn told reporters, accusing the suspects of targeting Poland.
He said the list of suspects had been transferred to the foreign ministry, tweeting that “ABW is requesting that they be expelled from Polish territory”.
The ABW “has detained a Polish national on suspicion of espionage for the Russian secret services,” the spokesman added on Twitter.
A group of 40 US Republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives Armed Services Committees urged President Joe Biden to include a 5% increase above inflation for defense spending in his proposal for the fiscal 2023 U.S. budget.
Biden is expected to announce his budget next week.
“As you prepare your fiscal year 2023 budget for submission to Congress, we strongly encourage you to reject the approach you took last year when you proposed to cut defense spending below the rate of inflation,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, made public on Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has stalled despite the daily assaults inflicted by his troops, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday, insisting that Kyiv can “count on our help”.
“Putin’s offensive is stuck despite all the destruction that it is bringing day after day,” Scholz said, adding that the Russian leader “must hear the truth” that not only is the war destroying Ukraine, “but also Russia’s future”.
Russia’s Defence Ministry on Wednesday said Russian forces had hit a Ukrainian arms depot outside the country’s northwestern city of Rivne on Tuesday, destroying an arsenal of weapons and equipment.
The ministry said it had struck the depot using high-precision, long-range weapons fired from the sea.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the report.
One of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s closest allies said on Wednesday that the United States aimed to humiliate, divide and ultimately destroy Russia, and vowed the country would never allow that to happen.
Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said such a plan – if ever achieved – could have catastrophic results for the world.
“Russia will never allow such a development,” he said in a message posted on Telegram.
Agreement has been reached to try to evacuate civilians trapped in Ukrainian towns and cities through nine “humanitarian corridors” on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
Signalling no agreement had been reached with Russia to establish a safe corridor from the heart of Mariupol, where about 100,000 people are trapped and suffering starvation, she said people wishing to leave the besieged port city would find transport in nearby Berdyansk.
The governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine said agreement had been reached on a local ceasefire to evacuate civilians trapped by fighting.
Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on the Telegram messaging app that the ceasefire would come into force at 9 a.m. (0700 GMT).
The war in Ukraine has killed 121 children so far, the office of the prosecutor general said on Wednesday in a message on the Telegram app, adding that the number of wounded children stood at 167.
Reuters could not immediately verify the details.
we will win
there will be new cities
there will be new dreams
there will be a new story
there will be, there’s no doubtand those we’ve lost will be remembered
and we will sing again, and we will celebrate anew
🇺🇦President @ZelenskyyUa pic.twitter.com/fb7sIxAXAM
– Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) March 20, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to attend a G20 summit being hosted by Indonesia later this year, Russia’s ambassador in Jakarta said on Wednesday, following calls by some members for the country to be barred from the group.
“Not only G20, many organisations are trying to expel Russia….the reaction of the West is absolutely disproportional,” ambassador Lyudmila Vorobyova told a news conference on Wednesday.
The United States and its Western allies are assessing whether Russia should remain within the Group of Twenty (G20) grouping of major economies following its invasion of Ukraine, sources involved in the discussions told Reuters.
President Joe Biden departs for Brussels on Wednesday for talks with European leaders about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, carrying with him plans for more sanctions on Moscow that sources said include members of the Russian parliament.
Biden leaves the White House at 8:40 a.m. EDT on a trip that will include talks in Brussels with NATO and European leaders and a visit to Warsaw for consultations with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Two sources familiar with the situation said Biden and his team were developing plans to impose sanctions on members of the Russian parliament, the Duma, in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions are expected to be announced on Thursday.
The Wall Street Journal said 300 members of the Duma could face sanctions.
After the West broke off cooperation with Russia in the Arctic over its invasion of Ukraine, Canada is now scrambling to fortify defenses of what its top general called “NATO’s northern flank.”
Canada’s chief of the defense staff, General Wayne Eyre, has warned that “much more effort” is needed to bolster domestic security with a strong “focus on the north.”
“As we’re taking a look at what is happening in Ukraine, we’re also having a very close look at what else Russia is doing in the world, and the far north is a key area of concern,” Eyre told a security conference in Ottawa earlier this month.
He noted that Russia in the past decade has “reoccupied formerly abandoned Cold War bases” in the region, and said “it’s not inconceivable that our sovereignty may be challenged.”
The general and others downplayed the likelihood of Russia landing troops in Canada’s Arctic, citing the harsh climate and 1,000 miles of sea ice between the two. Norway, which shares a small land border with Russia, should be more concerned.
Almost 100,000 people are trapped among the ruins of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, facing starvation, thirst and relentless Russian bombardment, President Volodymyr Zelensky said as the UN sharpened demands for Moscow to end its “absurd” and “unwinnable” war.
Tens of thousands of residents have already fled the besieged southern port city, bringing harrowing testimony of a “freezing hellscape riddled with dead bodies and destroyed buildings”, according to Human Rights Watch.
In his latest video address Tuesday, Zelensky said more than 7,000 people had escaped in the last 24 hours alone, but one group travelling along an agreed humanitarian route west of the city were “simply captured by the occupiers.”
He warned that many thousands more were unable to leave as the humanitarian situation worsens.