A service member of pro-Russian troops walks near an apartment building in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol. (Photo: AP)Russia Ukraine War Crisis Live:More than 30 people were killed and over 100 were wounded in a Russian rocket strike in east Ukraine on Friday as civilians tried to evacuate to safer parts of the country, the state railway company said.
The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council over reports of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” by invading Russian troops in Ukraine. The US-led push garnered 93 votes in favour, while 24 countries voted no and 58 countries abstained. India abstained in the UNGA on a vote moved by the US to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.
The Biden administration on Thursday announced it is levying sanctions against Russia’s largest military shipbuilding and diamond mining companies. The move blocks their access to the US financial system as the United States looks to exact more economic pain on President Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine.
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)
Britain has added two adult daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin to its sanctions list, following similar moves by the US and the European Union. The government said Friday it is imposing asset freezes and travel bans on Putin's daughters Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, as well as Yekaterina Vinokurova, daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. --Reuters
Japan expelled eight Russian diplomats Friday, in a rare move it said was in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine, including the killing of civilians.
The step comes after European Union nations, including France and Germany, said this week they would expel Russian diplomats.
.Several trade officials were among the diplomats expelled by Japan, but not the Russian ambassador, Mikhail Galuzin, said foreign ministry officials, who declined to give further details. (Reuters)
For the first time since 1994, members of the legendary rock band Pink Floyd reunited to release a new single ‘Hey Hey Rise Up’ in support of the people of Ukraine. The new song features the vocals of Ukrainian musician Andriy Khlyvnyuk, who enlisted in the Ukrainian Army and was wounded in battle. All proceeds from the single will go to the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund, the band said in a statement.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year, Khlyvnyuk decided to cut short his US tour and return to his homeland, where he took up arms against Moscow’s military forces. In a video shared on Instagram a few days later, Khlyvnyuk, dressed in his military fatigues, performed the popular Ukrainian protest song ‘The Red Viburnum In The Meadow’ in Kyiv’s Sophia Square.
The European Union imposed has sanctions on two adult daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of a new package of measures targeting Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, according to two EU officials.
The EU included Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova in its updated list of individuals facing assets freeze and travel bans. The move from the European bloc follows a similar move two days earlier by the United States. (AP)
More than 30 people were killed and over 100 were wounded in a Russian rocket strike in east Ukraine on Friday as civilians tried to evacuate to safer parts of the country, the state railway company said. (Reuters)
Ukraine said two Russian rockets hit a railway station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, as per a Reuters report.
Donetsk governor, citing police and rescue workers, said that dozens are feared killed or wounded in a rocket strike on Kramatorsk railway station in east Ukraine.
Russia gave the most sombre assessment so far of its invasion of Ukraine, describing the "tragedy" of mounting troop losses and the economic hit from sanctions, as Ukrainians were evacuated from eastern cities before an anticipated major offensive.
➡️ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had sustained "significant losses" in Ukraine.
➡️ British military intelligence said Russian forces were shelling cities in the east and south and had advanced further south from the city of Izium, which is under their control. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
➡️ The governor of Ukraine's eastern region of Luhansk said on Friday Russia was accumulating forces in the country's east but had not broken through Ukrainian defences.
➡️ Capturing Mariupol is still the main focus of Russian troops and Russian battalions are blockading and bombarding the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian military said.
➡️ The United States will send new weapon systems to Ukraine, after Nato foreign ministers agreed to accelerate arms deliveries. Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned of a war that could last months or even years. (Reuters)
Ukraine forces control Sumy region bordering Russia, reports news agency AFP, quoting the region's governor.
Ukraine said it aimed to establish up to 10 humanitarian corridors to evacuate trapped civilians Friday, but civilians trying to flee besieged Mariupol will have to use private vehicles.
The 10 planned safe corridors announced by Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk were all in southern and eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have been regrouping for a new offensive, and that Moscow plans to seize as much territory as it can in the eastern part of Ukraine known as Donbas bordering Russia.
Vereshchuk said 4,676 civilians had been evacuated from Ukrainian towns and cities on Thursday. (Reuters)
The governor of Ukraine's eastern region of Luhansk said Friday Russia was accumulating forces in eastern Ukraine but had not broken through Ukrainian defences. (Reuters)
China’s abstentions on UN votes to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are a “win”, said the US envoy to the United Nations, underscoring how Beijing’s balancing act between its partner Russia and the West may be the best outcome for Washington.
Beijing has refused to call Russia’s actions in Ukraine an invasion and has repeatedly criticised what it says are illegal Western sanctions to punish Moscow.
The International Energy Agency said Thursday that its member countries are releasing 60 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves on top of previous US pledges to take aim at energy prices that have soared since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Paris-based organisation says the new commitments made by its 31 member nations, which include the United States and much of Europe, amount to a total of 120 million barrels over six months, the largest release in the group's history.
Half of that will come from the US as part of the larger release from its strategic petroleum reserve that President Joe Biden announced last week. (AP)
Microsoft Corp said it had disrupted hacking attempts by Russian military spies aimed at breaking into Ukrainian, European Union, and American targets.
In a blog post, the tech firm said a group it nicknamed "Strontium" was using seven internet domains as part of an effort to spy on government bodies and think tanks in the EU and the United States, as well as Ukrainian institutions such as media organizations.
Microsoft did not identify any of the targets by name. (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday night that work has begun to dig through the rubble in Borodianka, another city northwest of Kyiv that was occupied by the Russians.
He also said "it is much scarier" there, with even more victims of the Russian troops.
In his daily nighttime video address to the nation on Thursday, Zelenskyy said the Russians were preparing to shock the world in the same way by showing corpses in Mariupol and falsely claiming they were killed by the Ukrainian defenders. (AP)
The United States and its allies have imposed sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two daughters as the West looks to penalise Moscow for the killing of Ukrainian civilians.
As the spotlight now shines upon a family shrouded in secrecy for years, we take a look at who Putin’s daughters are.
Putin has two children, Maria and Katerina, from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina, a former Aeroflot steward whom he divorced in 2013, becoming the first Russian leader to divorce since Peter the Great in 1698.
In the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine and images of the devastation wrought there flooded the news, Hoan Ton-That, CEO of the facial recognition company Clearview AI, began thinking about how he could get involved.
Ton-That drafted a letter explaining that his app “can instantly identify someone just from a photo” and that police and federal agencies in the United States used it to solve crimes. That feature has brought Clearview scrutiny over concerns about privacy and questions about racism and other biases within artificial intelligence systems.
The tool, which can identify a suspect caught on surveillance video, could be valuable to a country under attack, Ton-That wrote. He said the tool could identify people who might be spies, as well as deceased people, by comparing their faces against Clearview’s database of 20 billion faces from the public web, including from “Russian social sites such as VKontakte.”
Russia gave the most sombre assessment so far of its invasion of Ukraine, describing the "tragedy" of mounting troop losses and the economic hit from sanctions, as Ukrainians were evacuated from eastern cities before an anticipated major offensive.
Moscow has previously acknowledged its attack has not progressed as quickly as it wanted, but on Thursday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov lamented the rising death toll.
"We have significant losses of troops," he told Sky News. "It's a huge tragedy for us." (Reuters)
This was India’s 12th vote at the United Nations where it abstained — 11th since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 — but it was New Delhi’s sharpest message to Moscow so far.
For, an abstention — it doesn’t count to calculate the tally — at the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council is, effectively, seen as siding with those who voted “Yes”, essentially the West-led by the US.
More so, when according to a note accessed by Reuters, Russia had warned countries that a Yes vote or abstention will be viewed as an “unfriendly gesture” with consequences for bilateral ties. has learnt that Russian envoy Denis Alipov had reached out to top Indian diplomats to vote in its favour.
Yet, New Delhi chose to abstain. Here's why.
The chairman of Russian aluminium giant Rusal called Thursday for an impartial investigation into the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, which he described as a crime, and urged an end to the "fratricidal" conflict.
While the statement from Chairman Bernard Zonneveld, a Dutch national, did not touch on who was to blame for the deaths of civilians in the town, it is unusual for a large Russian company to comment publicly on the conflict.
Ukraine and several Western governments have accused Moscow of war crimes after the bodies of civilians shot at close range were found in the town of Bucha following a Russian withdrawal. (Reuters)
The United States blacklisted two Russian state-owned enterprises, United Shipbuilding Corp and the Alrosa diamond mining company, denying them access to the US financial system over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Treasury Department said Thursday. (Reuters)