How Russia unleashed a new one round of strikes on Friday in Kyiv and Lviv, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke for almost two hours about crisis in Ukraine as the United States seeks to dissuade China from supporting Russia.
China’s foreign ministry said in a statement on the video call that the conflict was “not in anyone’s interest.” But the country has also resumed criticism of sanctions against Russia and has abandoned the use of the terms “war” or “invasion.”
The White House said Biden “described the consequences and consequences if China provides material support to Russia.” After the call, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not say whether China cares about supporting the Kremlin or whether the country condemns Putin’s actions in Ukraine. She said the United States would closely monitor any Chinese action.
China is one of a number of nations, including India and South Africa, that remain neutral or critical of NATO, maintaining ties with Russia as Western nations seek to cut Moscow off from the world community as much as possible.
According to emergency services and Mayor Vitali Klitschko, Russian strikes on a residential building in Kiev killed and wounded 19, as well as on a military aircraft repair facility in Lviv.
The strike in Lviv was closest to the fact that Russia approached the strike in the center of the western city. The Western Command of the Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down two of the six missiles fired at the city from the Black Sea. Lviv, near the border with Poland, was largely saved from heavy fighting, but a strike on a training facility last weekend killed nearly three dozen people. The bus repair facility was also on Friday, Mayor Andrei Sadovy said.
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Meanwhile, about 130 were rescued from a bombed theater in the southeastern city of Mariupol, said Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova. More than 1,300 people remain trapped, Denisova told Ukrainian television on Friday. The theater was used as a bomb shelter before Russia attacked it during the siege of the port city.
As a result of the fighting, more than 3.27 million people fled Ukraine and 6.5 million were forced to leave the country, the UN estimated. More than 2 million people have left for Poland, the country’s border agency said on Friday. The death toll remains unknown, although Ukraine said thousands of civilians were killed.
Among the most doomed attacks of the Russian invasion was an airstrike last week on a maternity hospital in Mariupol that killed three people and injured 17.
The World Health Organization says it is just one of 43 confirmed attacks by Russian troops on hospitals and medical facilities since the start of the war. As a result of these attacks, 12 were killed and 34 were injured.
JOURNALIST AND REFUGEE:As one reporter helps cover the war in Ukraine, experiencing the consequences.
Recent events:
►Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Friday that his country would formally submit a proposal for a peacekeeping and humanitarian mission in Ukraine at NATO’s summit next week. Denmark has said it is ready to join such a mission.
►On Friday, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania coordinated the expulsion of Russian embassy staff in the Baltic states. Bulgaria also said 10 Russian diplomats were “non grata” and demanded their expulsion.
►The Ukrainian military says it has captured about a thousand Russian servicemen and an estimated 14,000 more have been killed in action. Meanwhile, the UN Office for Human Rights said on Friday that since the invasion, 816 civilians have been killed and 1,333 wounded – probably underestimated.
►In an evening address to the nation on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked President Joe Biden for additional military assistance, but avoided details about the transfer of Russian forces.
►Europe will not try to send its first rover to Mars this year due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Space Agency confirmed on Thursday. The mission took place in cooperation with Roscosmos, Russia’s state space corporation.
► French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to lift the blockade of Mariupol, allow humanitarian access and order an immediate ceasefire during a 70-minute telephone conversation, Macron’s office said. Earlier in the day, Putin spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who also insisted on an immediate ceasefire.
►Dens of European lawmakers have called on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to renew the candidacies so that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the people of Ukraine can be nominated for the award.
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Putin appears at a large rally during the military attack on Ukraine
Vladimir Putin on Friday appeared at a huge rally with a flag waving at a Moscow stadium and praised his troops fighting in Ukraine three weeks after the invasion, which resulted in heavier-than-expected Russian losses on the battlefield and increasingly authoritarian rule. at home.
“They help and support each other shoulder to shoulder,” the Russian president said of the Kremlin’s forces in a rare public appearance since the start of the war. “We haven’t had such a unity in a long time,” he added to the crowd’s shouts.
Demonstrations of support amid a flurry of anti-war protests in Russia have led some to say that the rally – officially commemorating the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which was seized from Ukraine – was a fabricated demonstration of patriotism.
Several Telegram channels criticizing the Kremlin reported that students and government officials in a number of regions had been ordered to attend rallies and concerts on the occasion. These messages could not be verified independently.
Moscow police said there were more than 200,000 people in and around Luzhniki Stadium. The event featured patriotic songs, including the performance “Made in the USSR” with the introductory lines “Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, this is all my country.”
UK defense official: Russia moves to ‘depletion strategy’
On Friday, a spokesman for the British defense said that Russia’s strategy in the war was becoming a strategy of depletion because it was not moving as fast as previously expected.
The shift was due to the fact that Russia did not quickly capture major Ukrainian cities and began to attack more civilian infrastructure, said the head of the intelligence department, Lieutenant General Jim Hockenhall.
The change “will involve reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower. This will increase civilian casualties, destroy Ukrainian infrastructure and exacerbate the humanitarian crisis,” he added.
An American killed in Ukraine was “shot” in a queue for bread, confirms sister
An The American was killed in an attack by Russia in the city of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, where he turned to his partner. Jim Hill’s death was announced on Thursday by his sister.
“My brother Jimmy Hill was killed yesterday in Chernihiv, Ukraine. He was waiting in line for bread with several other people when they were shot dead by the “Russian military,” his sister Cheryl Hill Gordon wrote on Facebook. “His body was found on the street by local police.”
Ukrainian officials say 10 people died in a queue for bread in Chernihiv on Wednesday.
Russia will not ask for a humanitarian vote, instead will press for “biological laboratories” in the Security Council
At Friday’s UN Security Council meeting, Russia will not ask to vote on its humanitarian resolution on Ukraine, but instead will discuss its claims to US “biological laboratories” in Ukraine, which the United States said were unfounded.
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, said on Thursday that he would not seek a vote on a humanitarian resolution that US Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield called “farcical” and “doomed to failure.”
Russia last week discussed its claims to alleged biological laboratories in Ukraine, but the United States responded by calling the allegations disinformation.
“We know that if Russia really cared about the humanitarian crises it created, it could simply stop its attacks on the people of Ukraine,” said Thomas Greenfield.
Blinken: “There will be responsibility for any war crimes”
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Thursday that he agrees with President Joe Biden that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine.
“Deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime,” he told a White House briefing. “It’s hard for me to conclude that the Russians are acting differently.”
Blinken’s comments came the day after Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.” On Thursday, Biden called Putin “a murderous dictator, a pure bandit who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine.”
Describing the recent attack on Ukrainians waiting in lines for bread, and the bombing of a theater where children were sheltered, Blinken said the U.S. was helping to document potential war crimes for prosecution.
Asked what would happen to Putin if convicted, Blinken said he would not anticipate the investigation, but promised there would be consequences.
“I can say with confidence that any war crimes that are alleged to have taken place will be the responsibility,” he said.
“Morin Gropp.”
The house is moving towards further suspension of trade between Russia and Belarus
The House of Representatives voted Thursday in a two-party attempt to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus, a decision likely to be made by the Senate.
The House of Representatives, by an overwhelming majority of 424 to 8, voted to abolish “most favored nation” status for Russia. If adopted, the suspension will be largely symbolic: previous sanctions on imports of Russian oil, gas and coal have already reduced about 60% of US imports.
Thursday’s vote will make imports of some steel, aluminum and plywood products more expensive.
– Selina Tebar
Contributed by: Associated Press
