A man walks past a burning gas pipeline that was hit during shelling from Russian positions in a neighbourhood in northern Kharkiv as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, Ukraine, March 31, 2022. (Reuters)Russia Ukraine War Crisis Live: Russian troops began leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after soldiers got “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company said Thursday as fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian withdrawals from the north and center of the country were just a military tactic and that the forces are building up for new powerful attacks in the southeast. A new round of talks was scheduled for Friday, five weeks into the war that has left thousands dead and driven 4 million Ukrainians from the country.
Meanwhile, top Indian-American US advisor and a key architect of Washington’s punitive economic sanctions against Moscow, Daleep Singh, has had productive conversations with his Indian counterparts, the White House said Thursday. At a separate news conference, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price, responding to a question on the India visit of the Russian Foreign Minister said that every country has their own relationship.
A woman holds a child next to a destroyed bridge during evacuation from the Irpin town, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine March 28, 2022 | Reuters
To mark the death of children who died in the ongoing Ukraine war, activists in Georgia put 145 pairs of children’s shoes outside their parliament building in the capital Tbilisi.
This demonstration in Tbilisi took place on Wednesday, March 30, 2022.
According to Nexta, a Belarusian media outlet, 145 pairs were used to represent the estimated number of children who have lost their lives since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started in late February this year.
Ukraine will soon be able to better protect its skies and cities from Russian attacks because it expects "super modern" military equipment from the United States and Britain, Ukraine's ambassador to Japan, Sergiy Korsunsky, said Friday.
"They still have superiority in air force, in airplanes and missiles, and we expect to begin to receive super-modern equipment from the United States and Britain to protect our skies and our cities," Korsunsky told a news conference.
"When they fire cruise missiles from long distance, we cannot get to the launch place. We have to intercept them. That's why we need this modern equipment." (Reuters)
After the invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a passionate speech about the historic injustice of Ukrainian independence. Earlier this year, he returned to that line of rhetoric, insisting that Ukraine was a part of Russia and lambasting it for its so-called “atrocities” against ethnic Russians.
On Thursday, Putin expanded upon his earlier sentiments, stressing that Russia’s actions were justified as the West continually threatened Moscow’s strategic interests.
A fire broke out at a fuel storage facility in the Russian city of Belgorod located close to the Ukrainian border, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, two days after the province was rocked by blasts at an arms depot.
Two people were hurt in Friday's fire, Gladkov said on Telegram, and residents of three city streets were being evacuated.
Gladkov said this week that the arms depot explosions were believed to be a result of another fire, although he said the regional authorities were awaiting confirmation from the defence ministry. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for any of the incidents. (Reuters)
It was 11.25 pm in Lviv when a message popped up: “Air alarm: Lviv, Rivne!!!” No, this wasn’t a government-issued notification to warn Ukrainians of a missile strike. This was a post on the UkraineNOW telegram channel that has around a million people who have been dependent on it since the war started.
And this is not the only channel alerting people about the war. As Russian troops and tanks rolled into Ukraine over a month ago, various such channels on the messaging application have helped keep people safe, debunk potential Russian disinformation, and counter emerging threats.
The Ukrainian government, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rely on the app for everything — from rallying global support to disseminating air raid warnings and maps of local bomb shelters. So do both the Russian government and Russian opposition channels, who now find themselves cut off from most mainstream social media.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that Australia will send armoured Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy specifically asked for them while appealing to Australian lawmakers for more help in Ukraine's war against Russia.
Zelenskyy addressed the Australian Parliament on Thursday and asked for the Australian-made, four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Morrison told reporters the vehicles will be flown over on Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport planes. He didn't specify how many would be sent or when. (AP)
➡️European governments rejected Putin's energy ultimatum, with the continent's biggest recipient of Russian gas, Germany, calling it "blackmail".
➡️ US President Joe Biden announced the largest release from the US emergency oil reserve to bring down gasoline prices that have soared during the war.
➡️ The war also threatens to disrupt global food supplies, with a US government official sharing images of what they said was damage to grain storage facilities in Ukraine, the world's fourth-largest gain exporter in the 2020/21 season.
➡️ Russia and Ukraine are to resume peace talks online on April 1, a senior Ukrainian official said.
➡️ The Russian defence ministry said it would open a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia on Friday, Tass news agency reported.
Russian troops began leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after soldiers got 'significant doses' of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine's state power company said as fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts.
Energoatom gave no details on the condition of the troops or how many were affected. But it said the Russians had dug in in the forest inside the exclusion zone around the now-closed plant, the site in 1986 of the world's worst nuclear disaster.
The troops 'panicked at the first sign of illness,' which 'showed up very quickly,' and began preparing to leave, Energoatom said. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin. (AP)
Negotiations aimed at ending the five-week war were set to resume even as Ukraine braced for further attacks in the south and east.
Peace negotiations are set to resume by video conference on Friday. Seeking to bolster its position, Moscow is redeploying forces from Russian-backed breakaway regions in Georgia to Ukraine, Britain's defence ministry wrote on Twitter. (Reuters)
European buyers of Russian gas faced a deadline to start paying in roubles Friday, while negotiations aimed at ending the five-week war were set to resume even as Ukraine braced for further attacks in the south and east.
➡️ Ukrainian forces are preparing for new Russian attacks on the Donbas region in the southeast after they repelled Russia's assault on the capital Kyiv, Zelenskyy said.
➡️ Zelenskyy said the situation in the south and the Donbas remained extremely difficult and Russia was building up forces near the besieged southern port of Mariupol.
➡️ Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in Mariupol, the mayor's office estimates, and about 170,000 people remain trapped amid ruins without food, heat, power or running water.
➡️ Russian forces have killed 148 children during shelling and air strikes, fired 1,370 missiles and destroyed 15 Ukrainian airports since the start of the invasion, Ukraine's defence ministry said.
➡️ The Ukrainian state nuclear company said all of the Russian forces occupying the Chernobyl nuclear power station had withdrawn from the territory of the defunct plant. (Reuters)
Hours before Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Delhi, United States Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh, the chief architect of the sanctions imposed on Russia, said that there will be “consequences” to countries that “actively attempt to circumvent the sanctions”.
Red-flagging the China-Russia relationship which both sides have termed as one with “no limits,” Singh said that had implications for India.
“No one should kid themselves — Russia is going to be the junior partner in this relationship with China. And the more leverage that China gains over Russia, the less favourable that is for India,” he said.
An unscripted sharp exchange Thursday between External Affairs minister S Jaishankar and his counterpart, visiting British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, highlighted the divergences between New Delhi and London on the issue of sanctions on Russia.
With Secretary Truss listening, Jaishankar said that talk of sanctions “looks like a campaign” and it was Europe that was buying more oil from Russia than before the war.
While the British Foreign Secretary repeatedly talked about Russian aggression, Jaishankar did not name Russia in his statements during the 45-minute panel discussion at the first India-UK Strategic Futures Forum, jointly organised by Indian Council of World Affairs and Policy Exchange. This followed a bilateral meeting.
Top Indian-American US advisor and a key architect of Washington's punitive economic sanctions against Moscow, Daleep Singh, has had productive conversations with his Indian counterparts, the White House said Thursday.
Singh was in India on March 30 and 31 to discuss the consequences of Russia's "unjustified war" against Ukraine and the development of an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
"Daleep Singh, the deputy national security adviser for international economics, had really good discussions with his counterparts. And I know that the conversation was productive," White House Director of Communications Kate Bedingfield told reporters at her daily news conference.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a rare sign of internal dissent, said in a video address that he had sacked two senior members of the national security service on the grounds they were traitors.
Zelenskyy also said he had fired two top officials at the national security service — the overall head of internal security as well as the head of the agency's branch in the Kherson region.
"I do not have time to deal with all the traitors, but they will gradually all be punished," he said, adding that the two men had betrayed their oath to defend Ukraine. He did not give specific details. The occasion marked the first time Zelenskiy has announced high-profile sackings of those involved in Ukraine's defence. (Reuters)
The Ukrainian government said Russian forces blocked 45 buses that had been sent to evacuate civilians from the besieged port city of Mariupol, and only 631 people were able to get out of the city in private cars.
Twelve Ukrainian trucks were able to deliver humanitarian supplies to Mariupol, but the supplies were seized by Russian troops, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said late Thursday.
Vereshchuk said about 45,000 Mariupol residents have been forcefully deported to Russia and areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists. (AP)
Russian forces have killed 148 children during shelling and air strikes, fired 1,370 missiles and destroyed 15 Ukrainian airports since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24, Ukraine's defence ministry said on Thursday.
More than 10 million Ukrainians have fled their homes, it said in a statement. Reuters could not independently verify the information.(Reuters)
President Joe Biden on Thursday accused U.S. oil companies of enjoying record profits while Americans pay high gasoline prices and said they should use the money to produce more oil or restart idle wells rather than pay investors."This is not the time to sit on record profits, it's time to step up for the good of your country," he said. (Reuters)
"Putin seems to be self-isolating," US President Joe Biden said. "He seems to be self-isolated and there's some indicatio that he has fired or put under house arrest some of hi advisers," he said.
President Joe Biden on Thursday will announce the release of 1 million barrels of oil a day for the next six months from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to bring down gasoline prices, the White House said.
Biden’s aim is to try to bring down gasoline prices that have soared in recent months particularly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden is to make the announcement at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) event at the White House. Read More
Britain and its allies have agreed to send more lethal weapons to Ukraine to help defend it against Russia's invasion, British defence minister Ben Wallace said on Thursday. "There'll be more lethal aid going into Ukraine as a result of today. A number of countries have come forward either with new ideas or indeed more pledges of money," Wallace told reporters after hosting over 30 international partners at a conference. He said the lethal aid included longer range artillery, ammunition, and more anti-aircraft weapons.