Russian President Vladimir Putin (AP Photo)Russia Ukraine War Live, Mariupol Fall to Russia: Russia will cut off natural gas to Finland after the Nordic country that applied for NATO membership this week refused President Vladimir Putin’s demand to pay in rubles, the Finnish state-owned energy company said Friday, the latest escalation over European energy amid the war in Ukraine.
In a sign of Russia’s urgent need to bolster its war effort in Ukraine, parliament said on Friday it would consider a bill to allow Russians over 40 and foreigners over 30 to sign up for the military. The website of the State Duma, parliament’s lower house, said the move would enable the military to utilise the skills of older professionals.
Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the industrial Donbas region, the focus of recent Russian offensives, has been destroyed. Since turning away from Ukraine’s capital, Russia is using massed artillery and armour to try to capture more territory in the Donbas, comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, which Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.
1. Russian troops bombarded a riverside city in what appeared to herald a major assault to seize the last remaining Ukrainian-held territory in a province it claims on behalf of separatists.
2. The commander of Ukraine's Azov Regiment said in a video that civilians and heavily wounded fighters had been evacuated from Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks, giving no further clue about the fate of the rest of its defenders.
3. Germany will deliver the first 15 Gepard tanks to Ukraine in July, a defence ministry spokesperson in Berlin said.
4. In a sign of Russia's urgent need to bolster its war effort, parliament will consider a bill to allow Russians over 40 and foreigners over 30 to sign up for the military.
5. President Vladimir Putin said that the number of cyber attacks on Russia by foreign "state structures" had increased several times over and that Russia must bolster its cyber defences by reducing the use of foreign software and hardware.
6. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies said they have mobilised $19.8 billion for Ukraine and pledged to give more if needed.
7. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he will speak to Finland on Saturday, while maintaining his opposition to Finnish and Swedish NATO membership bids over their history of hosting members of groups Ankara deems terrorists.
8. Not all Russians should be blamed for their government's decision to invade Ukraine and that includes Russian members of the International Olympic Committee, IOC president Thomas Bach said, defending his decision not to sanction them. ---Reuters
Russia will cut off natural gas to Finland after the Nordic country that applied for NATO membership this week refused President Vladimir Putin’s demand to pay in rubles, the Finnish state-owned energy company said Friday, the latest escalation over European energy amid the war in Ukraine. Read more
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said on Friday that it was surprised but not offended by a proposal to name a nearby intersection "Defenders of Donbas Square", suggesting disingenuously that it was to honour Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russian aggression.
The Moscow city assembly said on Wednesday that its members were considering naming the intersection after soldiers fighting against alleged "Nazism" in the largely Russian-speaking Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Russia says one of the reasons why it sent its armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24 was to protect its Russian-speakers from "Nazi" or "fascist" persecution.
Kyiv and the West say the allegation of fascism is a baseless pretext for an unprovoked act of aggression, and the United States has led Western allies in supporting Ukraine with money and heavy weaponry as well as sanctions against Russia.
"Surprised but not offended by the Russian government's proposal to rename a part of downtown Moscow near the U.S. Embassy 'Defenders of Donbas Square', presumably in honour of Ukrainian soldiers bravely defending their homeland from Kremlin aggression," the embassy said. "The country should know its heroes." ---Reuters
Russian forces bombarded areas of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region from land and air on Friday, destroying houses in residential districts and killing a number of civilians, Ukrainian officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the assaults had turned the Donbas into "hell".
In the southern port city of Mariupol, scene of the war's bloodiest siege, the last heavily wounded fighters from hold-out Ukrainian units had been evacuated from their bastion, the Azovstal steelworks, their commander said. It was not clear if the remaining defenders there had definitively laid down their arms.
The Kremlin meanwhile said it was bolstering its forces on Russia's western border, saying that moves by Finland and Sweden to join NATO were part of an increase in military threats. As the war neared its three-month mark, the Ukrainian military said massive artillery barrages, including from multiple rocket-launchers, had hit civilian infrastructure in the Donbas region bordering Russia. Russian aircraft had also struck targets, the general staff said in a statement. ---Reuters
A since the start of the war in Ukraine testified Thursday that he shot a civilian on orders from two officers and pleaded for his victim’s widow to forgive him.
Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin told the court that the officer insisted that the Ukrainian man, who was speaking on his cellphone, could pinpoint their location to the Ukrainian forces. Read more
OTP Bank will step up lending to Ukraine's farmers this year under a Kyiv-backed programme to help them overcome financing problems due to the Russian invasion, an executive at the Hungarian bank told Reuters.
Central Europe's largest independent lender, which is also present in Russia, has started scaling back its activity there as part of plans for a possible exit, with its chief executive saying prospects for the Russian economy were "not very bright".
The Russian and Ukrainian units together accounted for 15.8% of OTP's profit last year. Lending in Ukraine rose by 5% in the first quarter from the previous three months, while lending in Russia fell by 7%, OTP has said.
The new lending in Ukraine, which OTP expects to amount to some 1 billion hryvnia ($34 million), or about a fifth of total lending expected by the end of the planting season, will go to small businesses previously funded by large conglomerates.
"Part of the market froze up because of the war," said Andras Kuharszki, supervisory board chairman of OTP's Ukrainian unit, which also leases agricultural machinery.
"The war has created a new situation, which meant supplementary financing was needed for this group of clients to stave off the collapse of the entire chain at the first link." ---Reuters
In a sign of Russia's urgent need to bolster its war effort in Ukraine, parliament said on Friday it would consider a bill to allow Russians over 40 and foreigners over 30 to sign up for the military.
The website of the State Duma, parliament's lower house, said the move would enable the military to utilise the skills of older professionals.
"For the use of high-precision weapons, the operation of weapons and military equipment, highly professional specialists are needed. Experience shows that they become such by the age of 40–45," it said. Previously only Russians aged 18-40 and foreigners aged 18-30 could enter into a first contract with the military. (Reuters)
Russian forces attacked the cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk in Ukraine's eastern region of Luhansk, the region's governor said Friday.
Serhiy Haidai said in a Telegram messaging app post on Friday that 12 people were killed in Severodonetsk as a result of the assault, and more than 60 houses were destroyed across the region.
He added that the attack on Severodonetsk “was unsuccessful - the Russians suffered personnel losses and retreated.” His remarks could not be independently verified.
Ukraine's General Staff in its morning update on Friday also said that the Russians tried to assault Severodonetsk but suffered losses and retreated. (AP)
The rouble extended recent gains Friday and crossed the 60 mark against the dollar for the first time since April 2018, boosted by capital controls and domestic tax payments that usually lead to increased demand for the Russian currency.
So far this year, the rouble has firmed more than 24% despite a full-scale economic crisis and has become the best-performing currency, artificially supported by controls that Russia imposed in late February to shield its financial sector after it sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.
The stronger rouble helps to put brakes on inflation and is beneficial for importers but hurts exporters who sell goods and services abroad for foreign currency, meaning reduced incomes for Russia's export-dependent budget. (Reuters)
With the number of defenders left holed up in a Mariupol steel factory dwindling, Russian commanders will be coming under increasing pressure to reallocate troops from the strategic southern port city to bolster their offensive in eastern Ukraine, Britain's Defense Ministry said Friday.
“Staunch Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol since the start of the war means Russian forces in the area must be re-equipped and refurbished before they can be redeployed effectively," the ministry wrote on Twitter.
“Russian commanders, however, are under pressure to demonstrably achieve operational objectives. That means that Russia will probably redistribute their forces swiftly without adequate preparation, which risks further force attrition.” Analysts have said it is likely that most of the Russian forces that were tied down by the battle there have already left. (AP)
People of Ukraine celebrated the Day of the Embroidered Shirt (Vyshyvanka), an integral part of the national Ukrainian costume, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine on May 19.
Several politicians too joined in, donning their Vyshyvankas in solidarity.
China's efforts to replenish its strategic reserves with Russian oil would not contravene US sanctions, White House officials aboard Air Force One said Thursday.
China is in talks with Russia to buy additional supplies of oil in order to add to its strategic crude inventories, according to a Bloomberg News report on Thursday.
The US has led global efforts to ban the imports of Russian oil amid the county's invasion of Ukraine. (Reuters)
Russian shelling in Ukraine's eastern region of Luhansk has killed 13 civilians over the past 24 hours, the regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said Friday.
Twelve were killed in the town of Sievierodonesk, where a Russian assault has been unsuccessful, he said. The town and the city of Lysychansk are in an area where Russian troops have launched an offensive. (Reuters)
Amid fear of Russian reprisals, hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who surrendered after enduring the merciless assault on Mariupol's steel factory were registered as prisoners of war, and the Ukrainian president vowed to seek international help to save them.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that it had gathered personal information from hundreds of the soldiers — name, date of birth, closest relative — and registered them as prisoners as part of its role in ensuring the humane treatment of POWs under the Geneva Conventions.
More than 1,700 defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol have surrendered since Monday, Russian authorities said. At least some of the fighters were taken by the Russians to a former penal colony in territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. Others were hospitalized, according to a separatist official. (AP)
There was no possibility that Imran Khan would have known about Russia's plans to invade Ukraine when he visited Moscow, Pakistan's new Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said, as he defended the ousted premier's controversial visit to meet President Vladimir Putin nearly three months ago.
“As far as the former Prime Minister's (Khan) trip to Russia, I would absolutely defend the former prime minister of Pakistan. He conducted that trip as part of his foreign policy and without knowing that — no one is psychic, no one has a sixth sense — there's no way we could have possibly known that that would be the time [when] the current conflict will start,” Bilawal said while addressing the press at the UN headquarters on Thursday, and added that “it is very unfair to punish Pakistan for such an innocent action.”
Amidst the war, as homes are bombed and lives lost, residents are trying to find moments of normalcy. In the Associated Press photo below, local resident Anatolii Virko plays a piano outside a house likely damaged after a Russian bombing in Velyka Kostromka village, Ukraine on May 19, 2022.
Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region, the focus of recent Russian offensives, has been destroyed, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Since turning away from Ukraine's capital, Russia is using massed artillery and armour to try to capture more territory in the Donbas, comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, which Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.
"The occupiers are trying to exert even more pressure. It is hell there - and that is not an exaggeration," Zelenskiy said in a late Thursday address. "(There are) constant strikes on the Odesa region, on the cities of central Ukraine. The Donbas is completely destroyed," he said. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia Thursday of weaponising food and holding grain for millions of people around the world hostage to help accomplish what its invasion of Ukraine has not — "to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people."
He told a UN Security Council meeting called by the United States that the war has halted maritime trade in large areas of the Black Sea and made the region unsafe for navigation, trapping Ukrainian agricultural exports and jeopardising global food supplies.
Blinken said the meeting, which he chaired, was taking place "at a moment of unprecedented global hunger" fuelled by climate change and Covid-19 "and made even worse by conflict." (AP)
A since the start of the war in Ukraine testified Thursday that he shot a civilian on orders from two officers and pleaded for his victim’s widow to forgive him.
Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin told the court that the officer insisted that the Ukrainian man, who was speaking on his cellphone, could pinpoint their location to the Ukrainian forces.
The 21-year-old sergeant could get life in prison if convicted of shooting the Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in a village in the northeastern Sumy region on Feb. 28, four days into the Russian invasion.
The Senate whisked a $40 billion package of military, economic and food aid for Ukraine and US allies to final congressional approval Thursday, putting a bipartisan stamp on America's biggest commitment yet to turning Russia's invasion into a painful quagmire for Moscow.
The legislation, approved 86-11, was backed by every voting Democrat and most Republicans. While many issues under President Joe Biden have collapsed under party-line gridlock, Thursday's lopsided vote signalled that both parties were largely unified about sending Ukraine the materiel it needs to fend off Russian President Vladimir Putin's more numerous forces.
"I applaud the Congress for sending a clear bipartisan message to the world that the people of the United States stand together with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their democracy and freedom," Biden said in a written statement. (AP)