Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks from Kyiv, Ukraine. (AP)Russia Ukraine War Crisis Live Updates: Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says in a US television interview that Russian attacks in Ukraine amount to genocide. Zelenskyy told CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that there are more than 100 nationalities in Ukraine and “this is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities. Meanwhile, two blasts were heard in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine on Sunday, two witnesses told Reuters, days after Russian authorities accused Ukrainian forces of striking a fuel depot there. The cause of the blasts was not immediately clear.
A series of explosions were heard early Sunday morning and smoke was seen in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa, a Reuters witness said. The Russian defence ministry said missile strikes by its military destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities in near the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa on Sunday. The ministry said the facilities were used by Ukraine to supply its troops near the city of Mykolaiv. (Reuters)
On Saturday, Ukrainian forces seized back all areas around Kyiv, claiming complete control of the capital region for the first time since Russia launched the invasion, amid fears that Russian forces left booby-trapped explosives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian troops retaking areas around Kyiv and Chernihiv are not allowing Russians to retreat without a fight, but are “shelling them. They are destroying everyone they can.” Ukraine’s troops have retaken more than 30 towns and villages around Kyiv since Russia pulled back from the area this week, Ukrainian officials said. “The whole Kyiv region is liberated from the invader,” Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister, Hanna Malyar, wrote on Facebook.
Ukrainian servicemen check streets for booby traps in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Ukraine’s foreign minister called on the G7 on Sunday to impose “devastating” new sanctions on Moscow and accused Russia of carrying out a deliberate “massacre” in the town of Bucha outside Kyiv.
Ukraine said on Saturday its forces had retaken all areas around Kyiv and the mayor in Bucha, a liberated town 37 km (23 miles) northwest of the capital, said that 300 residents had been killed by the Russian army. (Read more)
French and German leaders on Sunday joined in growing international condemnation of alleged war crimes and civilian killings committed by Russian forces in Ukrainian towns including Bucha near Kyiv. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed shock about the “terrible and horrifying footage that has reached us this weekend from Ukraine”.
“Dozens of shot civilians have been discovered in Bucha ... Streets littered with bodies. Bodies buried in makeshift conditions. There is talk of women, children and the elderly among the victims,' he said. He added that international organisations should be given access to the areas to independently document the atrocities.
French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned “in the strongest terms” the alleged “massive abuses'. He said France will work with Ukrainian authorities and the International Criminal Court “to ensure these acts don't go unpunished and that those responsible are being sent to trial and convicted'. (AP)
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says in a US television interview that Russian attacks in Ukraine amount to genocide. Zelenskyy told CBS' “Face the Nation” Sunday that there are more than 100 nationalities in Ukraine and “this is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities.
We are citizens of Ukraine and we don't want to be subdued to the policy of Russian Federation.” In an excerpt of the interview released by CBS before it aired, he says, “This is the reason we are being destroyed and exterminated. And this is happening in the Europe of the 21st century. So this is the torture of the whole nation.” (AP)
The governor of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region said on Sunday that shelling had continued throughout the night and day, and described the situation in the region as "turbulent". Ukraine's military has said it believes that Russia has pulled forces from the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions to move them to Ukraine's eastern region of Donbas for a new attack aiming to occupy all of both the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. (Reuters)
The Ukrainian military says Russian troops have completed their pullback from the country's north. The military's General Staff said in Sunday's statement that Russian units have withdrawn from areas in the country's north to neighbouring Belarus, which served as a staging ground for the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian military said its airborne forces have taken full control of the town of Pripyat just outside the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the section of the border with Belarus. It posted a picture of the Ukrainian soldier putting up the country's flag with a shelter containing the Chernobyl reactor that exploded in 1986 seen in the background. (PTI)
Germany on Sunday condemned the killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha and called for fresh EU sanctions against Russia, news agency AFP reported.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, "The images from Butscha are unbearable. Putin's rampant violence is wiping out innocent families and knows no bounds."
"Those responsible for these war crimes must be held accountable. We will tighten sanctions against Russia," she added.
The mayor of a Ukrainian city on the northern outskirts of Kyiv on Sunday showed journalists dead bodies in an area that, he said, Chechen fighters controlled during the month that Russian forces occupied the city.
The mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk, showed a Reuters team two corpses with white cloth tied around their arms which - the mayor said - was what residents were forced to wear by fighters from Chechnya, a region in southern Russia that has deployed troops to Ukraine to support Russian forces. One corpse appeared to have his hands bound by the white cloth, and to have been shot in the mouth.
"Any war has some rules of engagement for civilians. The Russians have demonstrated that they were consciously killing civilians," Fedoruk said. (Reuters)
India's position on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has been steadfast and consistent, President Ram Nath Kovind has said, emphasising that the current global order is anchored in international law, UN Charter, and respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty of states.
Unlike many other leading powers, India has not yet criticised Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and it abstained from the votes at the UN platforms in condemning the Russian aggression. India has been pressing for the resolution of the crisis through diplomacy and dialogue.
Interacting with young students at the prestigious Institute of International Relations here on Saturday, President Kovind said that India is deeply concerned about the worsening humanitarian situation in Ukraine. “India's position on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has been steadfast and consistent,” he said. (PTI)
A leading rights group said on Sunday it had documented what it described as "apparent war crimes" committed by Russian military forces against civilians in Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement saying it had found "several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations" in Russian-controlled regions such as Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv.
The statement, published in Warsaw, came one day after dead civilians were found lying scattered through the streets of the Ukrainian country town of Bucha, three days after the Russian army pulled back after a month-long occupation of the area 30 km (20 miles) northwest of Kyiv. The Russian defence ministry in Moscow did not immediately reply to a request for comment when asked on Sunday about the bodies found in Bucha and the HRW statement. (Reuters)
Several Russian rockets have hit Ukraine's Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, Anton Gerashchenko, an aide to the country's interior ministry, said on Sunday. Gerashchenko said in a social media post that local authorities had reported the attack.
Russian forces have attacked Ukraine's southern ports including Odesa, Mykolaiv and Mariupol as they try to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and establish a land corridor from Russia to Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized in 2014. (Reuters)
Two blasts were heard in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine on Sunday, two witnesses told Reuters, days after Russian authorities accused Ukrainian forces of striking a fuel depot there. The cause of the blasts was not immediately clear. (Reuters)
Ukraine on Sunday claimed that the killing of civilians in Bucha was a "deliberate massacre" by the Russian troops.
Ukraine's foreign Minister in a tweet said, "Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kicking them out.
"He also demanded the G7 countries to impose new 'devastating' sanctions immediately, including oil, gas and coal embargo; closing of all ports to Russian vessels and goods and also to bar all Russian banks from SWIFT.
Allegations of attacks against civilians during Russia's invasion of Ukraine must be investigated as war crimes, Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said, adding that the UK would fully support any such move by the International Criminal Court.
"As Russian troops are forced into retreat, we are seeing increasing evidence of appalling acts by the invading forces in towns such as Irpin and Bucha," Truss said in a statement, referring to places near Kyiv.
"Their indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians during Russia's illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine must be investigated as war crimes." Russia has previously denied targetting civilians and rejected allegations of war crimes in what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine. (Reuters)
Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius was killed on Saturday in Ukraine's Mariupol, a city whose fate he had documented for many years, according to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry's information agency and a colleague.
"While trying to leave Mariupol, Russian occupiers killed Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius," the agency tweeted on Sunday. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
"We lost a creator well known in Lithuania and in the whole world, who until the very last moment, in spite of danger, worked in Russia-occupied Ukraine," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Sunday. Kvedaravicius, who was to turn 46 this year, was best known for his conflict-zone documentary "Mariupolis", which premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival. (Reuters)
As Ukraine said its forces had retaken all areas around Kyiv, the mayor of a liberated town said 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army, and victims were seen in a mass grave and still lying on the streets.
Ukrainian troops have retaken more than 30 towns and villages around Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday, claiming complete control of the capital region for the first time since Russia launched its invasion on Feb 24. At Bucha, a town neighbouring Irpin just 37 km (23 miles) northwest of the capital, Reuters journalists saw bodies lying in the streets and the hands and feet of multiple corpses poking out of a still-open grave at a church ground.
After more than five weeks of fighting, Russia has pulled back forces that had threatened Kyiv from the north to regroup for battles in eastern Ukraine. 'The whole Kyiv region is liberated from the invader,' Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar wrote on Facebook on Saturday. (Reuters)
Russia missiles struck "critical infrastructure", most likely a fuel depot, near Ukraine's southern port city of Odesa in the early hours of Sunday but there were no casualties, officials in the city said. Odesa, on the Black Sea coast, is a key Black Sea port and the main base for Ukraine's navy. It has been a focus for Russian forces because if it is taken it would allow Moscow to build a land corridor to Transdniestria, a Russian-speaking breakaway province of Moldova which hosts Russian troops.
Russia's defence ministry said missile strikes by its military destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities near Odesa on Sunday, adding that the facilities were used by Ukraine to supply its troops near the city of Mykolaiv.
Vladyslav Nazarov, an officer of Ukraine's South Operational Command, said on Telegram: "Russia began with a missile strike. The Odesa region was among the priority targets. The enemy continued its vile practice of strikes against critical infrastructure." "Smoke is visible in some areas of the city. All relevant systems and structures are working ... No casualties reported." (Reuters)
Russia’s talks with a “hostile” Ukraine have not been easy, but the main thing is that they are continuing, RIA news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Saturday.
“Ukraine is a very difficult country, very difficult for us. In its current state it is hostile towards us,” the agency cited him as telling Belarus television. Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of negotiations, both in Turkey and by video conference.
“The main thing is that the talks continue, either in Istanbul or somewhere else,” said Peskov, adding that the negotiations were “not easy”.
First came the warnings, in messages among friends and families and on social media, to stock up on vital drugs in Russia before supplies were affected by crippling Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. Then, some drugs indeed became harder to find at pharmacies in Moscow and other cities.
“Not a single pharmacy in the city has it now,” a resident of Kazan told The Associated Press in late March about a blood thinner her father needs. Experts and health authorities in Russia say the drug shortages are temporary — due to panic- buying and logistical difficulties for suppliers from the sanctions — but some remain worried that high-quality medicines will keep disappearing in the Russian market.
“Most likely there will be shortages. How catastrophic it will be, I don’t know,” said Dr. Alexey Erlikh, head of the cardiac intensive care unit in Moscow Hospital No. 29, and a professor at the Moscow-based Pirogov Medical University. (AP)
The Russian defence ministry said missile strikes by its military destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities in near the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa on Sunday. The ministry said the facilities were used by Ukraine to supply its troops near the city of Mykolaiv. (Reuters)
The towering memorial, erected on the battlefield where the Russian imperial army routed Hungarian troops, mourns Russia’s 1849 victory over “brave homeland defenders.” It is a reminder of how, for centuries, the Hungarian psyche has been shaped and scarred by the specter of Russian domination. “There has been a constant fear of Russia,” said Gyorgy Miru, a history professor in Debrecen, a Hungarian city near the border with Ukraine where the battle took place. Read the NYT story here