People walk down a street near past a building damaged by shelling in Irpin, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 11, 2022. (AP)Russia Ukraine War Crisis Live: All options would be on the table in how the West responds to any use of chemical weapons in Ukraine by Russia, British armed forces minister James Heappey said Tuesday. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Britain was working with its partners to verify the details of reports that Russian forces may have used chemical agents in an attack on Mariupol, where thousands are believed to have died during a near-seven week siege.
Pushing against criticism over the purchase of oil from Russia, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said India’s total purchase of oil from Russia in a month is probably less than what Europe does in an afternoon. The White House too came to India’s defence on the issue of oil purchase noting that its total purchase is less than one and two per cent as against 10 per cent from the United States.
Meanwhile, the departure of Russian forces from the outskirts of Kyiv has brought to light allegations of war crimes including executions and rape of civilians. Moscow dismisses the allegations as Ukrainian and Western provocations and has also accused Ukrainian forces of sexual violence.
Debris covers the yard of a maternity hospital damaged in a shelling attack in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Telecoms equipment maker Nokia is pulling out of the Russian market, its CEO told Reuters, going a step further than rival Ericsson, which said Monday it was indefinitely suspending its business in the country.
While several sectors, including telecoms, have been exempted from some sanctions on humanitarian or related grounds, Nokia said it had decided that quitting Russia was the only option.
"We just simply do not see any possibilities to continue in the country under the current circumstances," CEO Pekka Lundmark said in an interview. He added Nokia would continue to support customers during its exit, and it was not possible to say at this stage how long the withdrawal would take. (Reuters)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday said that global food stock is dwindling due to the war in Ukraine.
In my meeting with President Biden, I said if the World Trade Organisation will allow some relaxation in rules so that we can start providing Indian food stock to the world, said Modi.
All options would be on the table in how the West responds to any use of chemical weapons in Ukraine by Russia, British armed forces minister James Heappey said on Tuesday.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Monday Britain was working with its partners to verify the details of reports that Russian forces may have used chemical agents in an attack on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where thousands are believed to have died during a near-seven week siege.
"There are some things that are beyond the pale, and the use of chemical weapons will get a response and all options are on the table for what that response could be," Heappey told Sky News, adding that British defence intelligence so far had been unable to verify the reports.
Asked on LBC Radio whether he could rule out this including deploying British or NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, Heappey said: "No, all options are on the table." (Reuters)
Corpses are now "carpeted through the streets" of Mariupol after Russian troops killed more than 10,000 civilians over the past six weeks in their unsuccessful fight to capture the strategic southern port, the mayor said, while Western powers warned a convoy was on the move for a suspected Russian assault in Ukraine's east. Mariupol has been the site of some of the heaviest attacks and civilian suffering in the 6-week-old war, but the land, sea and air assaults by Russian forces fighting to capture it have increasingly limited information on circumstances inside the city.
Speaking by phone Monday with The Associated Press, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused Russian forces of having blocked weeks of attempted humanitarian convoys into the city in part to conceal the carnage. Boychenko said the death toll in Mariupol alone could surpass 20,000.
Residents who returned to their homes in Irpin, near Kyiv, were shocked at the state of their homes. Bombed and gutted, the residential structures now resemble piles of bricks.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine will intensify over the next two to three weeks as Russia continues to refocus its efforts there, the UK's Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin on Tuesday.
Russian attacks remain focused on Ukrainian positions near Donetsk and Luhansk with further fighting around Kherson and Mykolaiv and a renewed push towards Kramatorsk, British military intelligence said. The report also said that Russian forces continue to withdraw from Belarus in order to redeploy in support of operations in eastern Ukraine. (Reuters)
A bird is seen next to a missile from a previous Russian military attack as the damaged Kharkiv Regional State Administration building is seen in the background, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, April 11, 2022.
➡️Russia has nearly completed its buildup for a renewed assault on Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukraine's defence ministry said. The governor of Luhansk said Russia was moving military vehicles closer to the front lines in the region.
➡️ Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow did not leave him optimistic. "The offensive is evidently being prepared on a massive scale," he said.
➡️ Putin will meet Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Ukraine and Western sanctions, news agencies in Russia and Belarus reported.
➡️ EU foreign ministers plan to intensify the delivery of weapons to Ukraine, Germany's foreign minister said.
➡️ Russia will not pause its military operation for subsequent rounds of negotiations, its foreign minister said.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin will meet Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Ukraine and Western sanctions, news agencies in Russia and Belarus reported.
Welcoming India’s humanitarian support for the people of Ukraine and calling the Russian invasion a “horrific assault”, US President Joe Biden Monday said the US and India are going to continue “close consultation on how to manage the destabilizing effects of this Russian war”.
In his virtual meeting with Biden ahead of the 2+2 talks between their Defence and Foreign Ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who did not name Russia, called the “killings of innocent civilians” in Ukraine’s Bucha city “very worrying”, and said India immediately condemned the killings and called for an independent probe.
This is the first time the Prime Minister has spoken on the Bucha killings — External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and T S Tirumurti, India’s envoy at the UN, have condemned it unequivocally in recent days.
With the United States imposing sanctions on Russian state-owned rough diamond mining company Al Rosa, a major source of rough diamonds for the industry in Surat and Mumbai, the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) Gujarat chairman Dinesh Navadia sees a payment crisis looming on the industry.
“The US market consumes 70 per cent of polished diamonds and diamond-studded jewellery of India. The diamond industry will be badly affected by such sanctions and it will not only affect the diamond and jewellery businessmen but also the artisans,” Navadia told The Indian Express.
The rough diamonds from the Al Rosa mines of Russia are cut and polished in Surat and are exported to the world. Due to the sanctions, there is a shortage of supply of rough diamonds which will eventually result in rising prices of rough diamonds.
India's total purchase of oil from Russia in a month is probably less than what Europe does in an afternoon, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday.
'I noticed you refer to oil purchases. If you are looking at energy purchases from Russia, I would suggest that your attention should be focused on Europe. We do buy some energy, which is necessary for our energy security. But I suspect looking at the figures, probably our total purchases for the month would be less than what Europe does in an afternoon,' Jaishankar told a reporter when asked about India's oil purchase from Russia. (PTI)
Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia's invasion, and the United Nations has verified the deaths of 142 youngsters, though the number is almost certainly much higher, the UN children's agency said Monday.
Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF's emergency programs director who just returned from Ukraine, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine's 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is "quite incredible." He said it is something he hadn't before seen happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work. (AP)
Russia will take legal action if the West tries to force it to default on its sovereign debt, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper on Monday, sharpening Moscow's tone in its financial wrestle with the West.Russia faces its first external sovereign default in more than a century after it made arrangements to make an international bond repayment in roubles last week, even though the payment was due in U.S. dollars.’
It had been due on April 4 to make a payment of $649 million to holders of two of its sovereign bonds, but the U.S. Treasury blocked the transfer, preventing Russia from using any of its frozen foreign currency reserves to service its debt."Of course we will sue, because we have taken all the necessary steps to ensure that investors receive their payments," Siluanov told the newspaper in an interview.
"We will present in court our bills confirming our efforts to pay both in foreign currency and in roubles. It will not be an easy process. We will have to very actively prove our case, despite all the difficulties." (Reuters)
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer had tough face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Nehammer said after the first meeting between Putin and a European Union leader since the invasion of Ukraine." This is not a friendly meeting," Nehammer was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his office, reiterating that he had hoped to help bring an end to the war or improve conditions for civilians." The conversation with President Putin was very direct, open and tough." (Reuters)
The United States believes that Russia has started reinforcing and resupplying its troops in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official said on Monday.
The United States did not however believe this was the start of a new offensive in the region, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said the United States did not have evidence that any S-300 missile defense system had been destroyed by Russia. (Reuters)
Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Monday became the first European Union leader to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine, as various Austrian media including newspaper Kronen Zeitung said the meeting had started.
As news of Nehammer's visit aimed at helping end the war emerged on Sunday, reactions ranged from surprise to dismay. Nehammer's own coalition partner the Greens condemned the trip as a public relations coup for Putin, although German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he welcomed it. (Reuters)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow will not pause its military operation in Ukraine before the next round of peace talks. (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday asked Seoul for any military aid it could provide as he said Russia could only be forced to make peace. Speaking in a video address to South Korean lawmakers, Zelenskyy said his country needed more help, including weapons, if it is to survive the war. "You have something that can be indispensable for us ... armoured vehicles, anti-aircraft, anti-tank, anti-ship weapons," he said.
Zelenskyy said South Korea had many weapons that could not only help save the lives of ordinary Ukrainians but help prevent Russia from attacking other nations. "There is and cannot be a hope that Russia will stop on its own," Zelenskyy said. "Russia can only be forced to do this, can only be forced to seek peace."
He said tens of thousands of people had likely been killed in Russia's assault on the southeastern city of Mariupol alone. Reuters could not verify the accuracy of his estimate. Russia, which calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation,” invaded Ukraine in late February. (Reuters)
Croatia on Monday told 24 Russian embassy staff to leave over Russia's invasion of Ukraine and "brutal aggression", the foreign ministry said in a statement, following similar moves by other EU countries.
The 24 included 18 diplomats, it said. The ministry said that the Russian ambassador was summoned in a protest over the "brutal aggression on Ukraine and numerous crimes committed (there)"."The Russian party was informed about the reduction of administrative-technical staff of the Russian Federation's embassy in Zagreb," the statement said. (Reuters)