Russia is not ready to relent just yet to the pressure from the West on ending the Ukraine war, and the latest remarks from the country’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday made it clear. Moscow has developed ‘ultrasonic weapons’ to counter a possible attack from the West, he was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters while he simultaneously downplayed the threat of a nuclear war. “The western media misrepresent the Russian threats. Russia has never interrupted efforts to reach agreements that guarantee that a nuclear war never develops,” the 72-year-old minister insisted, stressing that Moscow was working to “prevent a nuclear war”. Meanwhile, in the war-hit country, a partial evacuation was carried out from the Mariupol steel plant where a large number of civilians were stuck amid the Kremlin’s assault.
Here are ten points on the Ukraine war:
1. In his latest nightly address, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged Moscow was waging “a war of extermination”. He said that Russian shelling had hit food, grain and fertilizer warehouses, and residential neighborhoods in the Kharkiv, Donbas and other regions, news agency AP reported. “The targets they choose prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army. What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war? Honestly, I do not know,” Zelensky was quoted as saying.
2. Russia’s Lavrov, meanwhile, said that country “only wanted to guarantee the security of pro-Russians in the east”. As a part of “long-standing anti-Russian strategy”, he alleged, the US had formented the Ukrainian hostility.
3. On Sunday, after a long spell of fears over civilian safety, evacuations began from the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol. “Evacuation of civilians from Azovstal began. The 1st group of about 100 people is already heading to the controlled area. Tomorrow we’ll meet them in Zaporizhzhia. Grateful to our team! Now they, together with #UN, are working on the evacuation of other civilians from the plant. (sic),” Zelensky tweeted.
4. Later, however, according to officials, the Russian shelling resumed, which yet again interrupted the evacuation efforts.
5. While several other parts of Ukraine continue to see violence, an explosive damaged a railway bridge Sunday in the Kursk region of Russia, which borders Ukraine, and a criminal investigation has been started, according to an AP report.
6. In the Donetsk region, four civilians were reported killed and 11 more were injured by Russian shelling, the Ukrainian regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Sunday evening. One person also died in the city of Bakhmut from injuries received in the Luhansk region, he said.
7. The war-torn nation saw another high-profile visit by a US diplomat as US speaker Nancy Pelosi met Zelensky. The Ukraine president said his meeting with Pelosi included discussions of defense supplies, financial support to the country and sanctions against Russia.
8. The European Union is working towards a phased-out ban of Russian oil imports, reports said.
9. Hungary, however, has said it would veto any European proposal that leads to the restriction of energy imports from Russia. “We’ve made it clear that we’ll never support” extending European Union sanctions against Russia to the field of energy, Cabinet Minister Gergely Gulyastold HirTV on Sunday, according to a Bloomberg report.
10, More than 5 million have been displaced from their homes in nearly ten weeks of war.
(With inputs from Reuters, AP, AFP)
