Russia has faced a slew of measures since launching its Feb. 24 invasion, the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. (AP Photo)Russia-Ukraine War News Live Updates: Russia on Wednesday said that “categorically disagrees” with US President Joe Biden’s description of Russian invasion of Ukraine as “Genocide”, news agency Reuters reported. “Statements such as these are unacceptable from the President of the United States, whose own country has committed high profile crimes in recent history,” the statement read. Kremlin also said that pro-russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk’s capturing by Ukraine did not have any back channel to Russia. On Ukrainian proposal of exchanging Medvedchuk with prisoner of war held by Russia, the Kremlin said that Medvedchuk is a Russian and a foreign politican, hinting it would not intiated any deal on this.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday addresed the Estonian parliament and said that Ukraine should get “EU candidate” status. Zelenskyy, who has already spoken to more than a dozen assemblies – including the US Congress, the British parliament and the European Parliament, via video conferencing also asserted that Russia can only be stopped by “acting together”. In his address, Zelenskyy also informed the parliament about Russia use of Phosphorus bomb against the Ukrainian forces. Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said that 1,026 soldiers of Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade surrendered in the city of Mariupol, the TASS news agency reported on Wednesday.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday said Russia’s war in Ukraine “amounted to genocide,” accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.” Speaking in Iowa shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington, Biden said he meant it when he said at an earlier event that Putin was carrying out genocide against Ukraine.
Halina Feoktistova mourns the death of her son Volodymyr Feoktistov, 50, who was shot dead on March 4 by Russian soldiers, at a communal grave by the Church of St. Andrews in Bucha, Ukraine, April 8, 2022. As the Russian advance on Kyiv stalled, a campaign of terror and revenge against civilians nearby in Bucha began, survivors and investigators say. (Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times)
The Sea of Azov port of Mariupol, reduced to a wasteland by seven weeks of siege and bombardment that Ukraine says killed tens of thousands of civilians, could become the first big city captured by Russia since its invasion.
Russia said on Wednesday more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines, among the last defenders holed up in the Azovstal industrial district, had surrendered, though Ukraine did not confirm that. (Read more)
Switzerland has adopted the latest round of European Union sanctions against Russia and Belarus for Moscow's military aggression against Ukraine, the government said on Wednesday, keeping the neutral country in line with EU measures. It also approved sanctioning a further 200 individuals and entities, including two of Russian President Vladimir Putin's daughters.
"Switzerland's list of sanctions now fully mirrors that of the EU," it said in a statement. The amendments will come into force at 1600 GMT.
The EU on Friday formally adopted sweeping new sanctions against Russia, including bans on the import of coal, wood, chemicals and on all transactions with four Russian banks, including VTB. Switzerland deviated from the package only by omitting bans on road and sea transport to the EU, which it said were not needed due to Switzerland's geographic location. (Reuters)
Russia on Wednesday said that "categorically disagrees" with US President Joe Biden's description of Russian invasion of Ukraine as "Genocide". "Statements such as these are unacceptable from the President of the United States, whose own country has committed high profile crimes in recent history.
Kremlin also said that pro-russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk's capturing by Ukraine did not have any back channel to Russia. On Ukrainian proposal of exchanging Medvedchuk with prisoner of war held by Russia, the Kremlin said that Medvedchuk is a Russian and a foreign politican, hinting it would not intiated any deal on this. (Reuters)
The World Bank cut its economic growth forecast for India and the whole South Asian region on Wednesday, citing worsening supply bottlenecks and rising inflation risks caused by the Ukraine crisis.
The international lender lowered its growth estimate for India, the region's largest economy, to 8% from 8.7% for the current fiscal year to March, 2023 and cut by a full percentage point the growth outlook for South Asia, excluding Afghanistan, to 6.6%.
In India, household consumption will be constrained by the incomplete recovery of the labour market from the pandemic and inflationary pressures, the bank said.
"High oil and food prices caused by the war in Ukraine will have a strong negative impact on peoples' real incomes,” Hartwig Schafer, World Bank Vice President for South Asia, said in a statement. (Reuters)
Russia will view U.S. and NATO vehicles transporting weapons on Ukrainian territory as legitimate military targets, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the TASS news agency in an interview on Wednesday.
"We are warning that US-NATO weapons transports across Ukrainian territory will be considered by us as legal military targets," news agency TASS quoted him as saying. (Reuters)
Ukraine's Deputy Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskiy said on Wednesday at a conference in Prague that Ukraine could export 2 million tonnes of wheat by the end of the current season. (Reuters)
Western countries are trying to provoke a default in Russia, the TASS news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Wednesday.
Ryabkov also said that Russia remained open to finding solutions to problems on strategic issues, TASS reported. (Reuters)
An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff, Serhiy Leshchenko, denied in an interview with CNN that Zelenskiy had rejected a visit offer from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as reported by the Bild newspaper.
Steinmeier said on Tuesday that he had planned to visit Kyiv with his Polish counterpart and the presidents of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia "to send a strong signal of European solidarity with Ukraine ... (but) that was not wanted in Kyiv".
Bild reported that Zelenskiy had rejected Steinmeier's plans to visit due to his close relations with Russia in recent years and his years of support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, a project designed to double the flow of Russian gas direct to Germany but which has since been cancelled. (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Russia was using phosphorous bombs in Ukraine and he accused Moscow of deploying terror tactics against civilians.
Adressing the Estonian parliament, Zelenskiy said: "The Russian army is using all types of artillery, all types of missile, air bombs in particular phosphorous bombs against residential districts and civilian infrastructure. "This is clear terror against the civilian population."
Russia has denied targeting civilians since it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and has said Ukrainian and Western allegations of war crimes are fabricated. Ukraine has said it is checking unverified information that Russia may have used chemical weapons while besieging the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. But Russia-backed separatists trying to seize complete control of the city have denied using chemical weapons and Moscow has in the past labelled U.S. talk of Russian forces using chemical weapons a tactic to divert attention away from awkward questions for Washington. (Reuters)
Britain on Wednesday said that it had added a further 206 listings under its Russia sanctions regime, in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the country has also announced an asset freeze and travel ban on Russian–Azerbaijani businessman, and the president of the leading Russian oil company LUKOIL, Vagit Yusufovich Alekperov and also on an Ukrainian lawyer Viktor Volodymyrovich Medvedchuk, who is considered close to Kremlin. (Reuters)
Russia can easily redirect exports of its vast energy resources away from the West to countries that really need them while increasing domestic consumption of oil, gas and coal, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
Putin also said that "unfriendly countries" had destroyed supply chains in Russia's Arctic regions and some nations were not fulfilling their contractual obligations.
Speaking at a meeting with officials to discuss development in the Russian Arctic, Putin said this had created problems for Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday addresed the Estonian parliament and said that Ukraine should get “EU candidate” status. Zelenskyy, who has already spoken to more than a dozen assemblies – including the US Congress, the British parliament and the European Parliament, via video conferencing also asserted that Russia can only be stopped by “acting together”.
The President also said that the visits of President of Poland and Baltic countries on Wednesday is important signal of support for Ukraine. In his address, Zelenskyy also informed the parliament about Russia use of Phosphorus bomb against the Ukrainian forces.
Meanwhile, talking about pressuring Russia for peace, Zelenskyy said, "Sanctions on Russia need to continue, it is the only instrument that could force Russia toward a path of peace."
"Russia military operations in Ukraine is clear terror against civilian population," he added. (Reuters)
Germany will go in recession by 2023 if they stop buying gas from Russia, country's leading economic institutes said in a forecast, news agency AFP reported.
The statement read: An immediate end to Russian gas imports would send Germany into a "sharp recession" next year.
At least seven people were killed and 22 wounded in Kharkiv over the past 24 hours, Governor Oleh Synegubov said. A 2-year-old boy was among those killed in the 53 artillery or rocket strikes Russian forces had carried out in the region, he said in an online post. News agency Reuters could not independently verify the information. (Reuters)
Germany must draw up a timetable to end Russian gas supplies, the head of energy utility association BDEW said on Wednesday.Europe's biggest economy relies heavily on Russian gas, but is coming under growing pressure from some European Union partners to cut supplies following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
"We must now use all our energy to prepare our exit from Russian gas supplies in detail and to underpin the necessary measures with an ambitious timetable," Marie-Luise Wolff said in a statement, while also advising "care before haste.
"A third of the gas used in Germany goes to its export-geared industry, and half of Germany's homes depend on gas for heating."All companies, but also private households, must know what to expect and which screws have to be turned," said Wolff, who is the chairwoman of utility Entega, which focuses on renewable power.The head of Germany's energy regulatory authority, Klaus Mueller, said on Tuesday the country's gas reserves would last until at least late summer if Russian supplies ended now. (Reuters)
The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are on their way to Kyiv to meet Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an adviser to the Polish leader said on Wednesday.
The four join a growing number of European politicians to visit the Ukrainian capital since Russian forces were driven away from the country's north earlier this month."Heading to Kyiv with a strong message of political support and military assistance," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda tweeted on Wednesday, along with a picture of the presidents next to a train. (Reuters)
Russia's defence ministry said that 1,026 soldiers of Ukraine's 36th Marine Brigade surrendered in the city of Mariupol, the TASS news agency reported on Wednesday. (Reuters)
Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said it was not possible to open any humanitarian corridors on Wednesday, and she accused occupying Russian forces of violating a ceasefire and blocking buses evacuating civilians.Vereshchuk added in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that authorities would work to reopen the humanitarian corridors as soon as possible. (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had largely vanished from public view since his forces were driven from the approaches to Kyiv this month, resurfaced on Tuesday to defend his "noble" invasion of Ukraine, saying peace talks had come to a dead end.
In a press event inside a hangar at a far eastern space base six time zones from Moscow, Putin rattled off talking points: that Moscow had "no choice" but to intervene to protect separatists, defeat neo-Nazis and "help people".
Russia's economy was standing on its feet despite Western sanctions, he added, and signs of war crimes allegedly carried out by Russian troops were fakes staged by the West. (Reuters)
As millions of Ukrainians fled their country, a longtime Tokyo resident did the opposite. Sasha Kaverina left her life in Japan and rushed to Ukraine to rescue her parents after a Russian missile hit their apartment building.
Kaverina's main goal in returning was to get her parents out of their hometown of Kharkiv, the second-largest city in battered eastern Ukraine, to a safer place in western Ukraine. But Kaverina, who had organized fund-raising and antiwar rallies in Japan for her homeland, also delivered medicine, first-aid kits and other relief goods.
Like many Ukrainian expats around the world, the war in her homeland has upended her life. Despite reports of horrendous Russian attacks, she said she is not afraid for herself, but for her parents and relatives. (AP)