Russia Ukraine War News Live: A view shows an ambulance car damaged by a military strike, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk region, Ukraine April 16, 2022. (Reuters)Russia Ukraine War Crisis Live: The Russian military has warned that Ukrainian troops refusing to surrender in the besieged port of Mariupol will be destroyed. The Russian Defence Ministry gave the Ukrainians at Mariupol’s giant Azovstal steel mill until 3 pm Sunday to surrender, saying that those who put down their weapons will be “guaranteed to keep their lives.”
In other news, a Ukrainian health official says that at least five people have been killed in the Russian shelling of Kharkiv. Rescuers have been working to help survivors after the shelling that hit residential and administrative buildings and caused fires.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will seek to put his domestic problems behind him when he visits India this week on a trip to strengthen links between the two countries which have not seen eye to eye over the response to the Ukraine crisis. Johnson is scheduled to visit India on Thursday and is expected to have in-depth talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the two nations’ “strategic defence, diplomatic and economic partnership”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives to take part in a global event titled 'Stand Up For Ukraine' at the Palace on the Isle in Royal Lazienki Park in Warsaw, Poland. (Reuters)
A Ukrainian health official says that at least five people have been killed in the Russian shelling of Kharkiv.
Maksym Haustov, the head of the Kharkiv regional administration's health department, said that another 13 residents were wounded by Sunday's shelling of Ukraine's second-largest city.
Rescuers have been working to help survivors after the shelling that hit residential and administrative buildings and caused fires. Officials said the centre of Kharkiv came under shelling by multiple rocket launchers. (AP)
The remaining Ukrainian forces in the southern port of Mariupol are still fighting and continue to defy a Russian demand that they surrender, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Sunday.
"The city still has not fallen," Shmyhal told ABC's "This Week" program, adding that Ukrainian soldiers continue to control some parts of the city. "So there is no whole control" of Mariupol by Russian forces, Shmyhal said.
Shmyhal said that he and Ukrainian finance officials will seek more financial assistance this week during International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington. "We need more money for executing of our humanitarian and social obligations," Shmyhal said. "Now, only half of our economy is working. So we ask for financial support." Shmyhal added that Ukraine is currently running a budget deficit of about $5 billion per month. (Reuters)
The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on India will be among the topics of discussion during the five-day Army Commanders’ Conference beginning Monday in the national capital. The conference will be addressed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on April 21.
“During the conference, the senior leadership of the Indian Army will review the operational situation along the active borders, assess threats in the entire spectrum of conflict and undertake analysis of capability voids to further focus on capability development and operational preparedness plans,” a Defence Ministry statement said. “Discussions on aspects pertaining to infrastructure development in border areas, modernisation through indigenisation, induction of niche tech and assessment on any impact of the Russia-Ukraine war are also scheduled.”
For 45 years, Lithuania and Russia both belonged to the Soviet Union. After gaining independence, Lithuania joined NATO in 2004. In recent years, tensions with Russia have been growing.
The Ukraine war is a wakeup call, says Lithuanian MP Laurynas Kasciunas. His country must be better armed to fend off a potential Russian attack, he told DW. “We only have a few years left to prepare, that’s why we need a bigger NATO presence as a major deterrent.”
Ukraine's Prime Minister said that the country will seek financial support at the IMF and World Bank meetings this week in Washington. (Reuters)
The Russian military has warned that Ukrainian troops refusing to surrender in the besieged port of Mariupol will be destroyed.
The Russian Defence Ministry gave the Ukrainians at Mariupol's giant Azovstal steel mill until 3 pm Sunday to surrender, saying that those who put down their weapons will be "guaranteed to keep their lives."
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov said the Ukrainian military command had banned its troops from surrendering. He said the Russian military received the information from intercepted communications. (AP)
As a grim reminder of the cost of war, organisers of a protest in Romania display items sprayed in red paint. According to the organisers, they symbolise the children killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The items were placed on the tarmac in front of the Russian embassy in Bucharest, Romania on April 16, 2022.
Nepal doesn’t boast strong economic ties to either Russia or Ukraine, but the war between those two countries has battered the Himalayan nation’s already feeble economy.
Skyrocketing fuel and food prices brought on by the conflict are hitting Nepal’s economy, which has already been weakened by a pandemic-induced loss of tourism, a fall in remittances, a widening trade deficit and depletion of foreign exchange reserves.
Even before the war, the country’s financial health was not sound, said Roshee Lamichhane, assistant professor at Kathmandu University. Lamichhane points to the drop in tourist arrivals and foreign investment, among other problems. “And the ongoing conflict has further aggravated the situation,” she told DW.
Pope Francis, marking an "Easter of war" Sunday urged leaders to hear the people's plea for peace in Ukraine and implicitly criticised Russia for dragging the country into a "cruel and senseless" conflict.
The 85-year-old pope made his comments in his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) address to about 50,000 people in St. Peter's Square after a long Mass. It was the first Easter since 2019 that the public was allowed to attend following two years of Covid-19 restrictions. (Reuters)
Russia is worried about the increased activity of Nato forces in the Arctic and sees risks of "unintended incidents" occurring in the region, TASS news agency cited Russian ambassador-at-large Nikolai Korchunov as saying on Sunday.
"The recent increase in Nato's activity in the Arctic is a cause for concern. Another large-scale military exercise of the alliance was recently held in northern Norway. In our view, this does not contribute to the security of the region," Korchunov said.
According to Korchunov, such activity raises the risk of "unintended incidents", which, in addition to security risks, can also cause serious damage to the Arctic ecosystem. He did not specify what type of incident he might be referring to. (Reuters)
The capital of France maybe thousands of miles away from the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, but what happens in French voting stations this month could have repercussions there.
Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has close ties to Russia and wants to weaken the European Union and NATO, which could undercut Western efforts to stop Russia’s war on Ukraine. Le Pen is trying to unseat centrist President Emmanuel Macron, who has a slim lead in polls ahead of France’s April 24 presidential runoff election.
➡️ Russia gave holdout Ukrainian soldiers an ultimatum to lay down arms on Sunday in the southeastern port of Mariupol, which Moscow said its forces nearly completely controlled.
➡️ Russian armed forces destroyed an ammunition factory near Kyiv, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. * A missile attack in the early hours of Sunday damaged infrastructure in the city of Brovary, near Kyiv, Brovavy mayor Igor Sapozhko said.
➡️ Russia said on Saturday its troops had cleared most of Mariupol with only a small contingent of Ukrainian fighters left in the giant Illich steelworks.
➡️ The EU will sanction Russian banks, particularly Sberbank, and is seeking "clever mechanisms" to include oil, said European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. (Reuters)
For many in Europe, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and passionate discussions about how to ban Russian energy exports are yet another sign that renewable energies are the future.
Wind, solar and hydropower are seen as tools to building energy security, as well as being more environmentally sustainable.
The Middle East has plenty of potential for solar power. Some countries there also have pressing national concerns about electricity, especially in those where the government-run electricity grid doesn’t function or fuel must be imported.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian journalist Farida Rustamova used the Telegram chat app for one purpose: messaging friends.
But as authorities shut down media outlets that strayed from the official line, including the publications she wrote for, she started posting her articles on Telegram. Her feed there — where she has written about the consolidation of Russia’s elites around President Vladimir Putin and the reaction among employees of state-run media to an on-air protest — has already garnered more than 22,000 subscribers.
“This is one of the few channels that are left where you can receive information,” she said in a call over Telegram.
Students who returned from Ukraine gathered along with their parents at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi demanding admission to Indian institutions to complete their education, reported news agency ANI.
Government should save our children's careers the way they saved their lives and brought them back from Ukraine, said their parents.
Russia gave holdout Ukrainian soldiers an ultimatum to lay down arms in the pulverised southeastern port of Mariupol which Moscow said its forces nearly completely controlled in what would be its biggest capture of the nearly two-month war.
Several hours after the 0300 GMT deadline there was no sign of compliance by Ukrainian fighters holed up in the vast Azovstal steelworks overlooking the Sea of Azov.
Having failed to overcome Ukrainian resistance in the north since President Vladimir Putin's Feb. 24 invasion, the Russian military has refocused on the eastern Donbas region where Mariupol is the main port.
The Russian Defence Ministry said its troops had cleared the urban area of Mariupol, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting and worst civilian suffering with bodies littering streets and thousands hunkered down in atrocious conditions underground.
The steelworks, one of Europe's biggest metallurgical plants with a maze of rail tracks and blast furnaces, has become a last stand for the outnumbered defenders. (Reuters)
A missile attack in early hours of Sunday damaged infrastructure in the city of Brovary, near Ukraine's capital of Kyiv, Igor Sapozhko, mayor of Brovary said in an online post. There were no details on the extent of the destruction and potential casualties. Reuters was not able to immediately verify the reports.
Russia is committed to compelling Ukraine to abandon its Euro-Atlantic orientation and asserting its own regional dominance, even as Moscow’s operational focus has shifted to the east of its neighbouring country, British military intelligence said.
Russian forces were continuing to redeploy combat and support equipment from Belarus towards eastern Ukraine, including to locations close to Kharkiv and Severodonetsk, the UK Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin.
Russian artillery continues to strike Ukrainian positions throughout the east of the country where Russia plans to renew its offensive activity, the bulletin added. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Russia said its troops had cleared the urban area of Mariupol and only a small contingent of Ukrainian fighters remained inside a steelworks in the besieged southern port, as missile strikes hit Ukraine's capital Kyiv and other cities.
Moscow's claim to have all but taken control of Mariupol, scene of the war's heaviest fighting and worst humanitarian catastrophe, could not be independently verified. It would be the first major city to have fallen to Russian forces since the Feb. 24 invasion.
"The situation is very difficult" in Mariupol, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the Ukrainska Pravda news portal. "Our soldiers are blocked, the wounded are blocked. There is a humanitarian crisis ... Nevertheless, the guys are defending themselves." (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 of his country's troops have died since the Russian invasion began on February 24, while about 10,000 have been wounded. The office of Ukraine's prosecutor general said Saturday that at least 200 children have been killed, and more than 360 wounded.