Police investigators work with bodies of civilians, collected from streets to local cemetery, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in the town of Bucha, outside Kyiv. (Reuters)Russia Ukraine War Crisis Live: Russian Embassy in India on Thursday expressed grief over the attack in Ukraine’s Bucha and said, “The heinous attack in Bucha brings back the nightmares of the Nazi crimes during the Second World War. It raised revulsion and condemnation in Russia and India and globally.” It also said that Russia firmly stands for bringing to justice those involved in this outrageous war crime act.
The UN General Assembly is set to vote Thursday on whether to suspend Russia from the UN’s premier human rights body. The move was initiated by the United States after hundreds of bodies were found strewn on the streets of Bucha following the withdrawal of Russian troops near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, AP reported. Meanwhile, the Mayor of Mariupol put the number of civilians killed there at more than 5,000 Wednesday, as Ukraine collected evidence of Russian atrocities on the ruined outskirts of Kyiv and braced for what could become a climactic battle for control of the country’s industrial east, according to AP.
The United States on Wednesday announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian financial institutions, as well as Kremlin officials and their family members, following mounting global accusations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, Reuters reported. The measures include banning new investment in Russia, sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adult children and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s family members. A senior administration official told reporters that if Putin were to change course in Ukraine, sanctions could slow and possibly reverse.
Burned column of military vehicles are seen on a highway, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv region, Ukraine, April 5, 2022. (REUTERS/Gleb Garanich)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Kyiv had presented Moscow with a draft peace deal that contained "unacceptable" elements, but that Russia would nonetheless continue talks and press to secure its own requirements.
Lavrov also accused Ukraine of drawing out and undermining peace talks, in comments published by Interfax news agency. (Reuters)
Russian Embassy in India on Thursday expressed grief over the attack in Ukraine's Bucha. The Embassy said, "The heinous attack in Bucha brings back the nightmares of the Nazi crimes during the Second World War. It raised revulsion and condemnation in Russia and India and globally."
It also said that Russia firmly stands for bringing to justice those involved in this outrageous war crime act. Asserting that the main challenge is to ensure a genuinely independent and unbiased investigation, the embassy said, "Regrettably there've been so far widespread hollow allegations against Moscow while there’s evidence that in fact a cynical false flag operation,perpetrated by Kiev itself. It's vitally important to take this evidence into account as we seek justice."
Russia is facing its most difficult situation in three decades due to unprecedented Western sanctions, but foreign attempts to isolate it from the global economy will fail, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Thursday.
He also said the situation provided room for new business opportunities as foreign companies leaving Russia would make space for others. Western countries are progressively tightening a barrage of economic sanctions imposed to try to force Russia to end its military operation in Ukraine and withdraw its forces. (Reuters)
The mayor of Mariupol on Thursday said that over one lakh people still need urgent evacuation from the city, news agency Reuters reported. There are set to be ten humanitarian corridors open for civilian evacuations across Ukraine today, but earlier Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said residents trying to leave Mariupol will again have to use their own vehicles.
Meanhwile, Ukrainian official has warned the residents of 'last chance' to flee Russian attacks in eastern Lugansk region, news agency AFP reported.
Ukraine's deputy prime minister says Russian forces have agreed on 10 humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians in three eastern regions of Ukraine on Thursday. Russia is expected to intensify its military campaign for control of Ukraine's industrial east in coming days and weeks, and Ukraine has appealed to NATO for more weapons to help stop it.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said civilians from the Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions will be able to evacuate to the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut.
Vereshchuk said on the messaging app Telegram that it would be possible to travel from Mariupol and Enerhodar to Zaporizhzhia by car and from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Melitopol by car and on buses. (AP)
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg in its headquaters in Brussels. Kuleba in a tweet said, "I came here today to discuss three most important things: weapons, weapons, and weapons. Ukraine’s urgent needs, the sustainability of supplies, and long-term solutions which will help Ukraine to prevail."
European Union envoys are set to approve on Thursday a ban on Russian coal that would take full effect from mid-August, a month later than initially planned, two EU sources told Reuters, following pressure from Germany to delay the measure.
The phase-out of EU imports of Russian coal is the cornerstone measure in a fifth package of sanctions against Russia that the EU Commission proposed this week, as a reaction to atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Once approved, it will be the EU's first ban on any import of energy from Russia since the start of what the Kremlin calls a "special operation" in Ukraine on February 24.
Oil and gas, which represent far bigger imports from Moscow, are still untouched. The EU Commission had initially proposed a wind-down period of three months for existing contracts, meaning that Russia could effectively still export coal to the EU for 90 days after sanctions were imposed, according to a document seen by Reuters. (Reuters)
Hundreds of Ukrainian refugees arriving daily have a message for family and friends in Europe: the fastest route to settle in the United States is booking a flight to Mexico.
A loose volunteer coalition, largely from Slavic churches in the western United States, is guiding hundreds of refugees daily from the airport in the Mexican border city of Tijuana to hotels, churches and shelters, where they wait two to four days for U.S officials to admit them on humanitarian parole. In less than two weeks, volunteers worked with US and Mexican officials to build a remarkably efficient and expanding network to provide food, security, transportation, and shelter. (AP)
Hundreds of Ukrainian refugees arriving daily have a message for family and friends in Europe: the fastest route to settle in the United States is booking a flight to Mexico.
A loose volunteer coalition, largely from Slavic churches in the western United States, is guiding hundreds of refugees daily from the airport in the Mexican border city of Tijuana to hotels, churches and shelters, where they wait two to four days for U.S officials to admit them on humanitarian parole. In less than two weeks, volunteers worked with US and Mexican officials to build a remarkably efficient and expanding network to provide food, security, transportation, and shelter. (AP)
President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser said the administration has warned India against aligning itself with Russia, and that US officials have been “disappointed” with some of New Delhi’s reaction to the Ukraine invasion.
“There are certainly areas where we have been disappointed by both China and India’s decisions, in the context of the invasion,” the director of the White House National Economic Council, Brian Deese, told reporters at a breakfast Wednesday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
The US has told India that the consequences of a “more explicit strategic alignment” with Moscow would be “significant and long-term,” he said. Read more.
The UN General Assembly will vote Thursday on a draft resolution seeking to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, a move initiated by the US after harrowing images emerged of corpses strewn across streets of the Ukrainian city Bucha, with Washington terming “Moscow’s participation in the top human rights body as a farce”.
When is it going to take place, and who are the movers?
The UNGA will resume its Emergency Special Session on Thursday after a request from Antigua and Barbuda, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Georgia, Japan, Liberia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, the UK, the US and the Head of the Delegation of the European Union, on behalf of 27 members of the EU bloc.
The Assembly will vote on a draft resolution that will decide to suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of the Russian Federation”.
What’s the Human Rights Council?
The Human Rights Council consists of 47 member states, elected directly and individually by secret ballot by the majority of the members of the General Assembly. Read more.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who was holding talks with G7 and NATO nations on Thursday, said his country was seeking "long-term solutions" to help it win its war with Russia.
"I came here today to discuss three most important things: weapons, weapons, and weapons. Ukraine’s urgent needs, the sustainability of supplies, and long-term solutions which will help Ukraine to prevail," Kuleba wrote in a tweet which he said was sent from NATO headquarters in Brussels." (Reuters)
A day after coal and fertilizer billionaire Andrey Melnichenko was placed on the European Union's sanctions list on March 9, his superyacht Motor Yacht A stopped broadcasting its location while in Maldives' waters, maritime data shows.
In Italy, four days later, authorities seized another of Melnichenko's vessels – the world's largest sailing yacht, estimated by Italian financial police to be worth $578 million.Switching off devices that allow authorities to track a ship's whereabouts can help keep yachts out of their sight.
But in Maldives, the chances of action against the property of sanctioned oligarchs are in any case slim, according to interviews with a dozen people familiar with internal discussions about how to respond to US and European financial sanctions, including government ministers, diplomats and experts in the country's superyacht industry. (Reuters)
Just days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, thousands of people in Canada joined a truckers' protest movement called the "freedom convoy" to oppose government health measures. To support the protest movement organisers launched a fundraising campaign on the GoFundMe platform.
However, the social funding platform seized the approximately USD 10 million in donations that were raised, alleging that the movement failed to both prohibit the promotion of violence and harassment and adhere to sanctions Canadian authorities had imposed. Organisers responded quickly by turning to the world of cryptocurrency to evade seizures and continue funding their movement. They raised nearly USD 1 million in a matter of days. (The Conversation)
The UN General Assembly will vote Thursday on a draft resolution seeking to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, a move initiated by the US after harrowing images emerged of corpses strewn across streets of the Ukrainian city Bucha, with Washington terming Moscow's participation in the top human rights body as a "farce".
The UNGA will resume its Emergency Special Session on Thursday after a request from Antigua and Barbuda, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Georgia, Japan, Liberia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, the UK, the US and the Head of the Delegation of the European Union, on behalf of 27 members of the EU bloc. (PTI)
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that Russia should be expelled from the Group of 20 major economies forum, and the United States will boycott "a number of G20 meetings" if Russian officials show up.
Her comments at a US House Financial Services Committee hearing raised questions about the G20's future role in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Since 2008, the club has served as a key international forum for issues from Covid-19 relief to cross-border debt and also includes China, India, Saudi Arabia and other countries that have been reluctant to condemn Russia's actions. Yellen told lawmakers Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the killings of civilians in Bucha "are reprehensible, represent an unacceptable affront to the rules-based global order, and will have enormous economic repercussions in Ukraine and beyond."
The United States and its key allies have placed greater emphasis in recent months on the G7 grouping of industrial democracies, whose interests are more aligned, using G7 meetings to coordinate their response to Russia's war in Ukraine. (Reuters)
The UN General Assembly will vote Thursday on whether to suspend Russia from the UN's premier human rights body. The move was initiated by the United States in response to the discovery of hundreds of bodies after Russian troops withdrew from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, sparking calls for its forces to be tried for war crimes.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the call for Russia to be stripped of its seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council in the wake of videos and photos of streets in the town of Bucha strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians. The videos and reporting from the town have sparked global revulsion and calls for tougher sanctions on Russia, which has vehemently denied responsibility. (AP)
The mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol put the number of civilians killed there at more than 5,000 Wednesday, as Ukraine collected evidence of Russian atrocities on the ruined outskirts of Kyiv and braced for what could become a climactic battle for control of the country's industrial east.
Ukrainian authorities continued gathering up the dead in shattered towns outside the capital amid telltale signs Moscow's troops killed civilians indiscriminately before retreating over the past several days. In other developments, the US and its Western allies moved to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin over what they branded war crimes.
And Russia completed the pullout of all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply and reorganize, probably to return to the fight in the east, a US defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said. (AP)
One of the world’s most derided visions of international affairs is Samuel Huntington’s infamous “Clash of Civilisations”. Huntington saw the state of the post-Cold War conflict as chiefly being between civilisational complexes that had shared history, geographic contiguity and a common culture. He argued that the primary axis of future conflict would be cultural fault lines between civilisations rather than between political ideologies.
Huntington mapped civilisations largely in line with geographically clustered ethno-religious groupings. For example, he predicted (in 1993) that the Islamic world would be the Western culture’s chief antagonist, the likelihood of a Sino-Islamic alliance, and positioned India (“Hindu” culture) and Russia (“Orthodox” culture) as “swing civilisations”. It is particularly interesting to dust off Huntington’s pages and revisit his predictions regarding Russia and India. Most importantly, he also identified Ukraine as a unique “cleft” between civilisations due to the linguistic and religious divide between western and eastern Ukraine. Read more.