Russia Ukraine War Updates: Zelenskyy to address UN Security Council today
Of the more than 4 million refugees that have fled Ukraine, over 2.4 million have crossed into Poland. While many have traveled onward throughout Europe, plenty have stayed in Poland which is offering free temporary accommodation, medical care, education and some social benefits.
Videos and photos of streets in Bucha strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians, some with their hands tied behind their back, have led to global revulsion, calls for tougher sanctions, and Russia’s suspension from the U.N.’s premiere human rights body, the Human Rights Council. According to Ukraine’s prosecutor-general Iryna Venediktova, the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address the UN Security Council for the first time at a meeting Tuesday that is certain to focus on what appear to be deliberate killings in the town of Bucha on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv. The discovery after the withdrawal of Russian troops has sparked global outrage and vehement denials from the Russian government.
Facebook, Instagram unblock hashtags to Bucha killings
Meta-owned Facebook app and Instagram on Monday unblocked hashtags for Bucha killings, outside Kyiv in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
The social media site had briefly blocked the hashtags owing to its automated system of blocking violent content.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said automated systems that scan for violent imagery on Facebook and Instagram, which the company also owns, were responsible for blocking hashtags including #bucha and #buchamassacre.
“This happened automatically because of the graphic content people posted using these hashtags. When we were made aware of the issue yesterday, we acted quickly to unblock the hashtags,” he wrote on Twitter.
Huge scale of sexual violence endured in Ukraine emerges
Women across Ukraine are grappling with the threat of rape as a weapon of war with growing evidence of sexual violence emerging from areas retaken from retreating Russian forces, The Guardian reported.
The world was horrified on Sunday by a picture taken by Mikhail Palinchak on a highway 20 km outside Kiev, in which the bodies of one man and three women were piled under a blanket. The women were naked and their bodies had been partially burnt, the photographer said.
German consumer sentiment at historic low due to Russia-Ukraine conflict: Survey
Consumer sentiment in Germany “deteriorated massively” in April due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to the Consumer Barometer published by the German Retail Federation (HDE).
The index tracks German consumers’ propensity to buy and to save, their financial situation as well as other factors relevant to consumption. It has declined for five months in a row to its current all-time low, according to the monthly HDE survey of 1,600 German consumers.
Like the Covid-19 pandemic two years ago, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has worsened German consumers’ economic expectations, Xinhua news agency reported.
Moscow hopes Kiev won’t listen to ‘advisers’ from afar: Russian FM
Moscow hopes Kiev will follow its national interests at Russia-Ukraine peace talks, but not listen to “advisers” from afar, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“It is not the talks that influence the course of the operation, but external ‘players’ who are trying to hinder these negotiations and keep the clashes ‘on the ground’ going on for as long as possible,” he told a press conference on Monday following talks with Arab League (AL) representatives on Ukraine, according to a statement published by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“We know who gives such ‘advice’ to our Ukrainian neighbours. This is done with useless goals that have nothing to do with the interests of the Ukrainian people, the security of Ukraine, the security in the region of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and in our European region,” he added.
Half of Canadian firms affected by conflict in Ukraine: Survey
Roughly half of Canadian firms expected to be affected by the conflict in Ukraine, results from a special business survey in March have showed.
In the interviews conducted on Monday by the Bank of Canada’s regional offices with the senior management of more than 100 firms selected to reflect the composition of the gross domestic product of Canada’s business sector, 77 out of 152 firms anticipated that they would be affected by the conflict, Xinhua news agency reported.
The most common expected impact is upward cost pressure, tied mainly to increased prices for energy and other commodities as well as further supply chain disruptions, the central bank said.
Zelensky forms delegation to negotiate security guarantees with Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has formed a delegation to participate in talks with Russia on the preparation and approval of a draft ‘Treaty on Security Guarantees of Ukraine’.
Under a presidential decree issued on Monday, MP David Arakhamia, who also leads the Ukrainian side in the peace talks with Russia, was appointed head of the delegation, reports Ukrayinska Pravda.
The other delegation members include Minister of Justice Denys Malyuska, Senior Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, Minister of Defence Oleksiy Reznikov and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mykola Tochytsky.
Air raid alerts go off in almost every region of Ukraine
Sirens have been activated in the Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytsky, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zakarpattya, Zaporizhzhia, Zhytomyr oblasts and in Kyiv
18 journalists killed amid Ukraine invasion
The Ukrainian government says that 18 journalists have been killed in the country since Russia’s invasion began on Feb. 24. The Ukrainian Culture and Information Ministry said in a statement on social media Monday that each of the deaths and other crimes against media representatives will be investigated.
The ministry added that another 13 journalists had been wounded, eight had been abducted or taken prisoner and three journalists were still missing. It said that several crimes had been committed against journalists from 11 countries, including Ukraine.
US: Russia shifting war focus to Ukraine’s east and south
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned Monday that Russia was shifting its focus in its war in Ukraine to the country’s east and south, after experiencing a stronger-than-expected defense by Ukrainians supported by Western allies.
Sullivan said “the Russians have now realized that the West will not break” in its support of the Ukrainian government. But he warned that Russia was redoubling its offensive after pulling many troops from around the capital of Kyiv to the east and south of Ukraine.
Sullivan said the U.S. expects Russia to continue to launch air and missile strikes against Kyiv and the western city of Lviv to cause terror and economic damage across the rest of the country.
Russia faces global outrage over bodies in Ukraine’s streets
Moscow faced global revulsion and accusations of war crimes Tuesday after the Russian pullout from the outskirts of Kyiv revealed streets strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians, some of whom had seemingly been killed at close range. The grisly images of battered bodies left out in the open or hastily buried led to calls for tougher sanctions against the Kremlin, namely a cutoff of fuel imports from Russia. Germany and France reacted by expelling dozens of Russian diplomats, suggesting they were spies, and U.S. President Joe Biden said Russian leader Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes.
This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous,” Biden said, referring to the town northwest of the capital that was the scene of some of the horrors.
Russia faces global outrage over bodies in Ukraine’s streets
Moscow faced global revulsion and accusations of war crimes Tuesday after the Russian pullout from the outskirts of Kyiv revealed streets strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians, some of whom had seemingly been killed at close range. The grisly images of battered bodies left out in the open or hastily buried led to calls for tougher sanctions against the Kremlin, namely a cutoff of fuel imports from Russia. Germany and France reacted by expelling dozens of Russian diplomats, suggesting they were spies, and U.S. President Joe Biden said Russian leader Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes.
This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous,” Biden said, referring to the town northwest of the capital that was the scene of some of the horrors.
US will work with world to ensure there is accountability for crimes by Russia in Ukraine: Sullivan
The United States will work with the world to ensure that there is full accountability for the crimes by Russia in Ukraine, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said.
We had already concluded that Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine and the information from Bucha appears to show further evidence of the same. And as the president said, we will work with the world to ensure there is full accountability for these crimes,” he told reporters at a White House news conference on Monday.
The United States (US) is also working intensively with its European allies on further sanctions to raise the pressure and cost on Putin and Russia.
Early in the morning, President Joe Biden told reporters that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is a war criminal”
Russia will continue to exercise its veto in UNSC on Ukraine crisis: US
Russia will continue to exercise its veto in the United Nations Security Council on issues related to its invasion of Ukraine, the United States has said.
“Obviously, with Russia as a permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC), it will be difficult to imagine that they will not attempt to exercise their veto to block something,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at a White House news conference on Monday.
But there have been creative solutions to the question of accountability in the past, and I am not going to prejudge what solution would be applied here or what forum or venue would be applied,” he said when asked about the challenges that the US and its other partners are facing in UNSC at a time when it is trying to hold Russia accountable for the atrocities in Ukraine.
News Credit: India TV News
