Pope Francis opened Holy Week Sunday with a call for an Easter truce in Ukraine to make room for a negotiated peace, highlighting the need for leaders to “make some sacrifices for the good of the people.”

Celebrating Palm Sunday Mass before crowds in St. Peter’s Square for the first time since the pandemic, Pope Francis called for “weapons to be laid down to begin an Easter truce, not to reload weapons and resume fighting, no! A truce to reach peace through real negotiations.”

Francis did not refer directly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the reference was clear, and he has repeatedly denounced the war and the suffering brought to innocent civilians.

During the traditional Sunday blessing following Palm Sunday Mass, the pontiff said leaders should be “willing to make some sacrifices for the good of the people.”

“In fact, what a victory would that be, who plants a flag under a pile of rubble?” he said.

During his Palm Sunday homily, the pontiff denounced “the folly of war” that leads people to commit “senseless acts of cruelty.”

“When we resort to violence … we lose sight of why we are in the world and even end up committing senseless acts of cruelty. We see this in the folly of war, where Christ is crucified yet another time,” he said.

Francis lamented “the unjust death of husbands and sons” … “refugees fleeing bombs” … “young people deprived of a future” … and “soldiers sent to kill their brothers and sisters.”

After two years of celebrating Palm Sunday Mass inside St. Peter’s Basilica without a crowd due to pandemic distancing measures, the solemn celebration returned to the square outside. Tens of thousands pilgrims and tourists clutched olive branches and braided palms emblematic of the ceremony that recalls Jesus’ return to Jerusalem.

Traditionally, the pope leads a Palm Sunday procession through St. Peter’s Square before celebrating Mass. Francis has been suffering from a strained ligament in his right knee that has caused him to limp, and he was driven in a black car to the altar, which he then reached with the help of an aide. He left the Mass on the open-top popemobile, waving to the faithful in the piazza and along part of the via della Conciliazione.

Palm Sunday opens Holy Week leading up to Easter, which this year falls on April 17, and features the Good Friday Way of the Cross Procession.
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Ukraine’s president says Russia’s ongoing and unprovoked war on his country is a “catastrophe” that endangers all of Europe. The Kremlin seems to have abandoned plans to topple the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, amid the war, now in its second month. Western powers describe retreating Russian soldiers as war criminals for alleged atrocities ranging from rape to execution-style murders of civilians. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. WARNING: Some viewers may find images in this story disturbing.
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Russian forces shelled a school and residential buildings in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, local Luhansk officials reported, even as the officials implored residents to escape the region “before it’s too late.”

Luhansk Governor Serihy Haidai said three apartment buildings in Severodonetsk burned down and two elderly residents had to be evacuated, but there were no casualties.

Separately, Dnipro Governor Valentyn Reznichenko, in southeastern Ukraine, said Russian forces struck targets across the region, wounding one person.

Ukrainian officials and the state railway announced new evacuation routes but voiced fears that the Russian missile attack Friday on a railway station in Kramatorsk that killed 52 people might be scaring off some Ukrainians from trying to flee the region by rail.

The continuing Russian assault on eastern Ukraine was in marked contrast to the scene in Kyiv, the capital in the country’s north. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Saturday strolled through streets that Russia recently controlled or were under near constant attacks before Moscow pulled its troops to concentrate its attacks on the eastern Donbas region.

Johnson said Britain would send 120 more armored vehicles and new anti-ship missiles to Ukraine, part of the West’s continuing military support of Ukraine, short of sending troops to fight alongside Ukrainian forces.

Zelenskyy has continued to contend that the West is not doing enough to help Ukraine, but U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan defended what it has done.

“The speed, scale and scope to equip the Ukrainian army is unprecedented,” Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” show on Sunday. He said the United States “will continue to rally the world” to assist Ukraine.

Sullivan said the Kremlin miscalculated in its February 24 invasion in thinking it would “be welcomed with open arms” into Ukraine.

“But what we have learned,” Sullivan said, “is that Ukraine will never be subject to Russia.”

In a separate interview, Sullivan told ABC’s “This Week” show that Russia was, in part, forced to acknowledge “significant” troop losses this past week because it did not take over Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine as it had expected to quickly accomplish.

Even as it moved troops to eastern Ukraine, Russia left behind a trail of destruction near Kyiv, with hundreds of Ukrainian civilians killed in the suburb of Bucha and elsewhere.

Sullivan said the U.S. believes that the massacre of some civilians was carried out by individual Russian troops “frustrated” at their inability to take control of the region around Kyiv.

He said, however, that responsibility for the slaughter of Ukrainian civilians “lies at the feet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There was a plan from the highest levels of the Russian government to target” Ukrainian civilians, Sullivan said. “This is something that was planned.”

He said the U.S. would continue to “squeeze the Russian economy” with sanctions, projecting that its economy will shrink by 10- to 15% this year, diminishing it sharply as a world economic power.

In Rome, Pope Francis celebrated Palm Sunday and opened Holy Week by calling for an Easter truce in Ukraine leading to a negotiated peace. He said leaders needed to “make some sacrifices for the good of the people.”

Celebrating Mass before crowds in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis called for “weapons to be laid down to begin an Easter truce, not to reload weapons and resume fighting, no! A truce to reach peace through real negotiations.”

Zelenskyy warned Saturday in his nightly address that Russian aggression is “not intended to be limited to Ukraine alone. To the destruction of our freedom and our lives alone.” The president cautioned, “The whole European project is a target for Russia.”

Ukraine has opened 5,600 war crimes cases since Russia’s invasion, top prosecutor Iryna Venediktova said Sunday, but the country will face a struggle getting Russian officials to court.

She called the missile strike on the train station in Kramatorsk, a city in the Donetsk region, “absolutely … a war crime.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, after seeing the devastation in Bucha, said, “If this is not a war crime, what is a war crime? But I am a medical doctor by training and lawyers have to investigate carefully.”

Russian officials have called the Bucha killings a “monstrous forgery.”

The Russian invasion has forced more than 10 million people from their homes in Ukraine or from the country and killed and maimed thousands.
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For many in the U.K., the pandemic may as well be over.

Mask requirements have been dropped. Free mass testing is a thing of the past. And for the first time since spring 2020, people can go abroad for holidays without ordering tests or filling out lengthy forms.

That sense of freedom is widespread even as infections soared in Britain in March, driven by the milder but more transmissible omicron BA.2 variant that’s rapidly spreading around Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere.

The situation in the U.K. may portend what lies ahead for other countries as they ease coronavirus restrictions.

France and Germany have seen similar spikes in infections in recent weeks, and the number of hospitalizations in the U.K. and France has again climbed — though the number of deaths per day remains well below levels seen earlier in the pandemic.

In the U.S., more and more Americans are testing at home, so official case numbers are likely a vast undercount. The roster of those newly infected includes actors and politicians, who are tested regularly. Cabinet members, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Broadway actors and the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut have all tested positive.

Britain stands out in Europe because it ditched all mitigation policies in February, including mandatory self-isolation for those infected. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s conservative government is determined to stick to its “living with COVID” plan, but experts disagree on whether the country is coping well.

Some scientists argue it’s the right time to accept that “living with COVID” means tolerating a certain level of disruption and deaths, much like we do for seasonal flu.

Others believe that Britain’s government lifted restrictions too quickly and too soon.

They warned that deaths and hospital admissions could keep rising because more people over 55 — those who are most likely to get seriously ill from COVID-19 — are now getting infected despite high levels of vaccination.

Hospitals are again under strain, both from patients with the virus and huge numbers of staff off sick, said National Health Service medical director Stephen Powis.

“Blinding ourselves to this level of harm does not constitute living with a virus infection — quite the opposite,” said Stephen Griffin, a professor in medicine at the University of Leeds. “Without sufficient vaccination, ventilation, masking, isolation and testing, we will continue to ‘live with’ disruption, disease and sadly, death, as a result.”

Others, like Paul Hunter, a medicine professor at the University of East Anglia, are more supportive of the government’s policies.

“We’re still not at the point where (COVID-19) is going to be least harmful … but we’re over the worst,” he said. Once a high vaccination rate is achieved there is little value in maintaining restrictions such as social distancing because “they never ultimately prevent infections, only delay them,” he argued.

Britain’s official statistics agency estimated that almost 5 million U.K. residents, or 1 in 13, had the virus in late March, the most it had reported. Separately, the REACT study from London’s Imperial College said its data showed that the country’s infection levels in March were 40% higher than the first omicron peak in January.

Infection rates are so high that airlines had to cancel flights during the busy two-week Easter break because too many workers were calling in sick.

France and Germany have seen similar surges as restrictions eased in most European countries. More than 100,000 people in France were testing positive every day despite a sharp dropoff in testing, and the number of virus patients in intensive care rose 22% over the past week.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government, keen to encourage voter turnout in April elections, is not talking about any new restrictions.

In Germany, infection levels have drifted down from a recent peak. But Health Minister Karl Lauterbach backed off a decision to end mandatory self-isolation for infected people just two days after it was announced. He said the plan would send a “completely wrong” signal that “either the pandemic is over or the virus has become significantly more harmless than was assumed in the past.”

In the U.S., outbreaks at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University are bringing back mask requirements to those campuses as officials seek out quarantine space.

Across Europe, only Spain and Switzerland have joined the U.K. in lifting self-isolation requirements for at least some infected people.

But many European countries have eased mass testing, which will make it much harder to know how prevalent the virus is. Britain stopped distributing free rapid home tests this month.

Julian Tang, a flu virologist at the University of Leicester, said that while it’s important to have a surveillance program to monitor for new variants and update the vaccine, countries cope with flu without mandatory restrictions or mass testing.

“Eventually, COVID-19 will settle down to become more endemic and seasonal, like flu,” Tang said. “Living with COVID, to me, should mimic living with flu.”

Cambridge University virologist Ravindra Gupta is more cautious. Mortality rates for COVID-19 are still far higher than seasonal flu and the virus causes more severe disease, he warned. He would have preferred “more gentle easing of restrictions.”

“There’s no reason to believe that a new variant would not be more transmissible or severe,” he added.
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Polls opened across France on Sunday for the first round of the country’s presidential election, where up to 48 million eligible voters will be choosing between 12 candidates.

President Emmanuel Macron is seeking a second five-year term, with a strong challenge from the far right.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. Sunday and close at 7 p.m. (1700 GMT) in most places and an hour later in some larger cities.

Unless someone gets more than half of the nationwide vote, there will be a second and decisive round between the top two candidates on April 24.

Aside from Macron, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon are among the prominent figures vying to take the presidential Elysee.

Macron, a political centrist, for months looked like a shoo-in to become France’s first president in 20 years to win a second term. But that scenario blurred in the campaign’s closing stages as the pain of inflation and of pump, food and energy prices roared back as dominant election themes for many low-income households. They could drive many voters Sunday into the arms of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Macron’s political nemesis.

Macron trounced Le Pen by a landslide to become France’s youngest president in 2017. The win for the former banker — now 44 — was seen as a victory against populist, nationalist politics, coming in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the White House and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, both in 2016.

With populist Viktor Orban winning a fourth consecutive term as Hungary’s prime minister days ago, eyes have now turned to France’s resurgent far right candidates — especially National Rally leader Le Pen, who wants to ban Muslim headscarves in streets and halal and kosher butchers, and drastically reduce immigration from outside Europe. This election has the potential to reshape France’s post-war identity and indicate whether European populism is ascendant or in decline.

Meanwhile, if Macron wins, it will be seen as a victory for the European Union.

Observers say a Macron re-election would spell real likelihood for increased cooperation and investment in European security and defense — especially with a new pro-EU German government.

With war singeing the EU’s eastern edge, French voters will be casting ballots in a presidential election whose outcome will have international implications. France is the 27-member bloc’s second economy, the only one with a U.N. Security Council veto, and its sole nuclear power. And as Russian President Vladimir Putin carries on with the war in Ukraine, French power will help shape Europe’s response.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has afforded Macron the chance to demonstrate his influence on the international stage and burnish his pro-NATO credentials in election debates.

Macron is the only front-runner who supports the alliance while other candidates hold differing views on France’s role within it. Melenchon is among those who want to abandon it altogether, saying it produces nothing but squabbles and instability.

Such a development would deal a huge blow to an alliance built to protect its members in the emerging Cold War 73 years ago.
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From the market stall outside Paris that she’s run for 40 years, Yvette Robert can see firsthand how soaring prices are weighing on France’s presidential election and turning the first round of voting Sunday into a nail-biter for incumbent President Emmanuel Macron.

Shoppers, increasingly worried about how to make ends meet, are buying ever-smaller quantities of Robert’s neatly stacked fruits and vegetables, she says. And some of her clients no longer come at all to the market for its baguettes, cheeses and other tasty offerings. Robert suspects that with fuel prices so high, some can no longer afford to take their vehicles to shop.

“People are scared — with everything that’s going up, with prices for fuel going up,” she said Friday as campaigning concluded for act one of the two-part French election drama, held against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Macron, a political centrist, for months looked like a shoo-in to become France’s first president in 20 years to win a second term. But that scenario blurred in the campaign’s closing stages. The pain of inflation and of pump, food and energy prices that are hitting low-income households particularly hard subsequently roared back as dominant election themes. They could drive many voters Sunday into the arms of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Macron’s political nemesis.

Macron, now 44, trounced Le Pen by a landslide to become France’s youngest president in 2017. The win for the former banker who, unlike Le Pen, is a fervent proponent of European collaboration was seen as a victory against populist, nationalist politics, coming in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the White House and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, both in 2016.

In courting voters, Macron has economic successes to point to: The French economy is rebounding faster than expected from the battering of COVID-19, with a 2021 growth rate of 7%, the highest since 1969. Unemployment is down to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis. When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, sparking Europe’s worst security crisis since World War II, Macron also got a polling bump, with people rallying around the wartime leader.

But the 53-year-old Le Pen is a now a more polished, formidable and savvy political foe as she makes her third attempt to become France’s first woman president. And she has campaigned particularly hard and for months on cost-of-living concerns, capitalizing on the issue that pollsters say is foremost on voters’ minds.

Le Pen also pulled off two remarkable feats. Despite her plans to sharply curtail immigration and dial back some rights for Muslims in France, she nevertheless appears to have convinced growing numbers of voters that she is no longer the dangerous, racist nationalist extremist that critics, including Macron, accuse her of being.

She’s done that partly by diluting some of her rhetoric and fieriness. She also had outside help: A presidential run by Eric Zemmour, an even more extreme far-right rabble-rouser with repeated convictions for hate speech, has had the knock-on benefit for Le Pen of making her look almost mainstream by comparison.

Secondly, and also stunning: Le Pen has adroitly sidestepped any significant blowback for her previous perceived closeness with Russian President Vladimir Putin. She went to the Kremlin to meet him during her last presidential campaign in 2017. But in the wake of the war in Ukraine, that potential embarrassment doesn’t appear to have turned Le Pen’s supporters against her. She has called the invasion “absolutely indefensible” and said Putin’s behavior cannot be excused “in any way.”

At her market stall, Robert says she plans to vote Macron, partly because of the billions of euros (dollars) that his government doled out at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to keep people, businesses and France’s economy afloat. When food markets closed, Robert got 1,500 euros ($1,600) a month to tide her over.

“He didn’t leave anyone by the side of the road,” she says of Macron.

But she thinks that this time, Le Pen has a chance, too.

“She has changed the way she speaks,” Robert said. “She has learned to moderate herself.”

Barring a monumental surprise, both Macron and Le Pen are expected to advance again from the first-round field of 12 candidates, to set up a winner-takes-all rematch in the second-round vote April 24. Polls suggest that far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is likely to finish out of the running in third place. Some of France’s overseas territories in the Pacific, the Caribbean and South America vote Saturday, before Sunday voting on the French mainland.

When Macron made a campaign stop in Poissy, the town west of Paris where Robert has her stall, in early March, pollsters had him leading Le Pen by double digits. Although a Le Pen victory still appears improbable, much of Macron’s advantage has subsequently evaporated. Kept busy by the war in Ukraine, Macron may be paying a price for his somewhat subdued campaign, which made him look aloof to some voters.

Marketgoer Marie-Helene Hirel, a 64-year-old retired tax collector, voted for Macron in 2017 but said she’s too angry with him to do so again. Struggling on her pension with rising prices, Hirel said she is thinking of switching her vote to Le Pen, who has promised fuel and energy tax cuts that Macron says would be ruinous.

Although Le Pen’s “relations with Putin worry me,” Hirel said that voting for her would be a way of protesting against Macron and what she perceives as his failure to better protect people from the sting of inflation.

“Now I’m also part of the ‘all against Macron’ camp,” she said. “He is making fools of us all.” 
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There is a body in the basement of the abandoned yellow home at the end of the street near the railroad tracks. The man is young, pale, a dried trickle of blood by his mouth, shot to death and left in the dark, and no one knows why the Russians brought him there, to a home that wasn’t his.

There is a pile of toys near the stairs to the basement. Plastic clothespins sway on an empty line under a cold, gray sky. They are all that’s left of normal on this blackened end of the street in Bucha, where tank treads lay stripped from charred vehicles, civilian cars are crushed, and ammunition boxes are stacked beside empty Russian military rations and liquor bottles.

The man in the basement is almost an afterthought, one more body in a town where death is abundant, but satisfactory explanations for it are not.

A resident, Mykola Babak, points out the man after pondering the scene in a small courtyard nearby. Three men lay there. One is missing an eye. On an old carpet near one body, someone has placed a handful of yellow flowers.

At the beginning

Babak stands, a cigarette in one hand, a plastic bag of cat food in the other.

“I’m very calm today,” he said. “I shaved for the first time.”

At the beginning of their monthlong occupation of Bucha, he said, the Russians kept pretty much to themselves, focused on forward progress. When that stalled, they went house to house looking for young men, sometimes taking documents and phones. Ukrainian resistance seemed to wear on them. The Russians seemed angrier, more impulsive. Sometimes they seemed drunk.

The first time they visited Babak, they were polite. But when they returned on his birthday, March 28, they screamed at him and his brother-in-law. They put a grenade to the brother-in-law’s armpit and threatened to pull the pin. They took an AK-47 and fired near Babak’s feet. “Let’s kill him,” one of them said, but another Russian told them to leave it and go.

Before they left, the Russians asked him: “Why are you still here?”

Like many who stayed in Bucha, Babak is older, 61. It was not as easy to leave. He thought he would be spared. And yet, in the end, the Russians accused him of being a saboteur. He spent a month under occupation without electricity, without running water, cooking over a fire. He was not prepared for this war.

Maybe the Russians weren’t either.

Around 6 p.m. on March 31, and Babak remembers this clearly, the Russians jumped into their vehicles and left, so quickly that they abandoned the bodies of their companions.

“On this street we were fine,” Mykola said. In Bucha, everything is relative. “They weren’t shooting anyone who stepped out of their house. On the next street, they did.”

Witnesses to the occupation

Walking through Bucha, The Associated Press met two dozen witnesses of the Russian occupation. Almost everyone said they saw a body, sometimes several more. Civilians were killed, mostly men, sometimes picked off at random. Many, including the elderly, say they themselves were threatened.

The question that survivors, investigators and the world would like to answer is why. Ukraine has seen the horrors of Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and nearby Irpin. But the images from this town an hour’s drive from Kyiv have seared themselves into global consciousness like no other. Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said the count of dead civilians was 320 as of Wednesday.

Vladyslav Minchenko is an artist who helps to collect the bodies.

“It certainly appears to be very, very deliberate. But it’s difficult to know what more motivation was behind this,” a senior U.S. defense official said this week, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the military assessment.

The residents of Bucha, as they venture out of cold homes and basements, offer theories. Some believe the Russians weren’t ready for an extended fight or had especially undisciplined fighters. Some believe the house-to-house targeting of younger men was a hunt for those who had fought the Russians in recent years in separatist-held eastern Ukraine and had been given housing in the town.

By the end, discipline broke down.

Threats and worse

Grenades were tossed into basements, bodies thrown into wells. Women in their 70s were told not to stick their heads out of their houses or they’d be killed.

“If you leave home, I’ll obey the order, and you know what the order is. I’ll burn your house,” Tetyana Petrovskaya recalls one soldier telling her.

At first, the Russians behaved, said Nataliya Aleksandrova, 63. “They said they had come for three days.” Then they got hungry. They got cold. They started to loot. They shot TV screens for no reason.

They feared there were spies among the Ukrainians. Aleksandrova says her nephew was detained on March 7 after being spotted filming destroyed tanks with his phone. Four days later, he was found in a basement, shot in the ear.

Days later, thinking the Russians were gone, Aleksandrova and a neighbor slipped out to shutter nearby homes and protect them from looting. The Russians caught them and took them to a basement.

“They asked us, ‘Which type of death do you prefer, slow or fast?'” Grenade or gun? They were given 30 seconds to decide. Suddenly the soldiers were called away, leaving Aleksandrova and her neighbor shaken but alive.

The Russians became desperate when it became clear they wouldn’t be able to move on Kyiv, said Sergei Radetskiy. The soldiers were just thinking about how to loot and get out.

“They needed to kill someone,” he said. “And killing civilians is very easy.” 
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that he is committed to pressing for peace despite Russian attacks on civilians that have stunned the world, and he renewed his plea for countries to send more weapons ahead of an expected surge in fighting in the country’s east.

He made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press a day after at least 52 people were killed in a strike on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, and as evidence of civilian killings came to light after Russian troops failed to seize the capital where he has hunkered down, Kyiv.

“No one wants to negotiate with a person or people who tortured this nation. It’s all understandable. And as a man, as a father, I understand this very well,” Zelenskyy said. But “we don’t want to lose opportunities, if we have them, for a diplomatic solution.”

Wearing the olive drab that has marked his transformation into a wartime leader, he looked visibly exhausted yet animated by a drive to persevere. He spoke to the AP inside the presidential office complex, where windows and hallways are protected by towers of sandbags and heavily armed soldiers.

“We have to fight, but fight for life. You can’t fight for dust when there is nothing and no people. That’s why it is important to stop this war,” he said.

Russian troops that withdrew from northern Ukraine are now regrouping for what is expected to be an intensified push to retake the eastern Donbas region, including the besieged port city of Mariupol that Ukrainian fighters are striving to defend.

Zelenskyy said he is confident Ukrainians would accept peace despite the horrors they have witnessed in the more than six-week-long war.

Those included gruesome images of bodies of civilians found in yards, parks and city squares and buried in mass graves in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha after Russian troops withdrew. Ukrainian and Western leaders have accused Moscow of war crimes.

Russia has falsely claimed that the scenes in Bucha were staged. It also put the blame on Ukraine for the attack on the train station as thousands of people rushed to flee ahead of an expected Russian offensive.

Despite hopes for peace, Zelenskyy acknowledged that he must be “realistic” about the prospects for a swift resolution given that negotiations have so far been limited to low-level talks that do not include Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zelenskyy displayed a palpable sense of resignation and frustration when asked whether the supplies of weapons and other equipment his country has received from the United States and other Western nations was en

ough to turn the tide of the war. “Not yet,” he said, switching to English for emphasis. “Of course it’s not enough.”

Still, he noted that there has been increased support from Europe and said deliveries of U.S. weapons have been accelerating.

Just this week, neighboring Slovakia, a European Union member, donated its Soviet-era S-300 air defense system to Ukraine in response to Zelenskyy’s appeal to help “close the skies” to Russian warplanes and missiles.

Some of that support has come through visits by European leaders.

After meeting Zelenskyy in Kyiv earlier Saturday, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he expects more EU sanctions against Russia even as he defended his country’s opposition so far to cutting off deliveries of Russian natural gas.

The U.S., EU and United Kingdom responded to the images from Bucha with more sanctions, including targeting Putin’s adult daughters. While the EU went after the Russian energy sector for the first time by banning coal, it has so far failed to agree on cutting off the much more lucrative oil and natural gas funding Putin’s war chest, but that Europe relies on to generate electricity, fill fuel tanks and keep industry churning.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson also made an unannounced visit to meet Zelenskyy, with his office saying they discussed Britain’s “long-term support.”

In Kyiv, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented Ukraine’s leader Friday with a questionnaire marking the first step for applying for EU membership. The head of the bloc’s executive arm said the process for completing the questionnaire could take weeks — an unusually fast turnaround — though securing membership would take far longer.

Zelenskyy turned introspective when asked what impact the pace of arms deliveries had for his people and whether more lives could have been saved if the help had come sooner.

“Very often we look for answers in someone else, but I often look for answers in myself. Did we do enough to get them?” he said of the weapons. “Did we do enough for these leaders to believe in us? Did we do enough?”

He paused and shook his head.

“Are we the best for this place and this time? Who knows? I don’t know. You question yourself,” he said. 
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Saturday joined the stream of European leaders showing their support for Ukraine by traveling to the nation’s capital for face-to-face meetings with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Johnson’s surprise visit included a pledge of new military assistance, including 120 armored vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems. This came a day after he promised to send an additional 100 million pounds ($130 million) of high-grade military equipment to Ukraine, saying Britain wanted to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression.

Johnson also confirmed further economic support, guaranteeing an additional $500 million in World Bank lending to Ukraine, taking Britain’s total loan guarantee to up to $1 billion.

“Today I met my friend President @ZelenskyyUa in Kyiv as a show of our unwavering support for the people of Ukraine,” Johnson said on Twitter. “We’re setting out a new package of financial & military aid which is a testament of our commitment to his country’s struggle against Russia’s barbaric campaign.”

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said “the conversation was rich and constructive,” but offered no details.

An image of the two leaders meeting was posted online by the Ukrainian Embassy in London with the headline: “Surprise,” and a winking smiley face.

The package of military aid Britain announced Friday includes more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, another 800 anti-tank missiles and precision munitions capable of lingering in the sky until directed to their target.

“Ukraine has defied the odds and pushed back Russian forces from the gates of Kyiv, achieving the greatest feat of arms of the 21st century,” Johnson said in a statement. “It is because of President Zelenskyy’s resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people that Putin’s monstrous aims are being thwarted.”

As Zelenskyy makes a continuous round of virtual appearances to drum up support from lawmakers around the world, an increasing number of European leaders have decided the time is right to travel to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, for in-person talks. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was in Kyiv on Friday, following earlier visits from the Czech, Polish and Slovenian prime ministers.

Nehammer met with Zelenskyy earlier Saturday and pledged that the EU would continue to ratchet up sanctions against Russia “until the war stops.”

“As long as people are dying, every sanction is still insufficient,” he said, adding that Austrian embassy staff will return to Kyiv from western Ukraine.

Von der Leyen, who heads the European Union’s executive branch, traveled to Warsaw on Saturday to lead a fundraising event for Ukraine. She was joined by Polish President Andrzej Duda, with Zelenskyy and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appearing by video link.

At the end of the 90-minute meeting, von der Leyen said 10.1 billion euros ($11 billion) had been raised for Ukrainian refugees.

The event was held in Warsaw because more than 2.5 million of the 4.4 million people who have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began February 24 have entered Poland. Many have stayed, though some have moved on to other countries.

Convened jointly by von der Leyen and Trudeau, the event sought to attract pledges from governments, global celebrities and average citizens.

It ended with Julian Lennon singing his father John Lennon’s peace song “Imagine,” which he said is the first time he did so publicly.

Julian Lennon posted on social media that he always said he would only sing the song if it was the “end of the world.” He says it’s the right song to sing now because “the war on Ukraine is an unimaginable tragedy,” and he felt compelled to respond in the most significant way that he could.
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The discovery of civilian bodies in Ukrainian towns has “permanently polluted” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reputation, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a visit to Kyiv on Saturday.

“What Putin has done in places like Bucha and Irpin is war crimes that have permanently polluted his reputation and the reputation of his government,” Johnson said, standing next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Johnson became the latest European leader to visit Kyiv this weekend after the bodies were discovered in several towns from where the Russian army retreated.  

Ukraine ‘defied odds’  

Johnson praised Ukraine for “defying odds” and rebuffing a Russian offensive on Kyiv.

“The Russians believed Ukraine could be engulfed in a matter of days and that Kyiv would falls in hours to their armies,” he said, referring to Western intelligence.  

“How wrong they were,” he said.

The Ukrainian people have “shown the courage of a lion,” he added.

“The world has found new heroes and those heroes are the people of Ukraine,” Johnson said.

After talks with Zelenskyy, Johnson vowed U.K. armored vehicles and anti-ship missiles for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy called on the West to follow the U.K. in providing military aid to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.

“Other Western democratic countries should follow the U.K.’s example,” Zelenskyy said after talks with Johnson.  

“It is because of President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy’s resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people that [Vladimir] Putin’s monstrous aims are being thwarted,” Johnson said after meeting Zelenskyy, according to a Downing Street statement.

Military aid

Johnson set out extra military aid of 120 armored vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems, “to support Ukraine in this crucial phase while Russia’s illegal assault continues,” the statement added.

That is on top of U.K. aid announced Friday of more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles and another 800 anti-tank missiles, along with “loitering” drones for “precision strikes” against the Russians.

As world powers held a fundraising round for Ukraine, Johnson also promised an extra $500 million via the World Bank.

Johnson said it had been a “privilege” to meet Zelenskyy in person on his surprise visit, which was not pre-announced in London.

“Ukraine has defied the odds and pushed back Russian forces from the gates of Kyiv, achieving the greatest feat of arms of the 21st century,” he said.

“I made clear today that the United Kingdom stands unwaveringly with them in this ongoing fight, and we are in it for the long run.”
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United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths is calling for localized cease-fires in war-torn Ukraine to allow humanitarian aid into areas under siege and to allow trapped civilians to leave.

Griffiths this week discussed a possible humanitarian cease-fire in Ukraine with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Griffiths, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, stopped in Moscow Monday on his way to Ukraine.

He did not obtain a commitment for a cease-fire, but U.N. humanitarian spokesman Jens Laerke said Friday that Griffiths views the meeting as only a first step in what is likely to be a long process. Meanwhile, he said Griffiths considers it of utmost importance to get the warring parties to agree to localized cease-fires.

“It is a top priority of that is to get silencing of the guns in those cities with Mariupol being the worst-affected,” he said. “Those cities where civilians are trapped, to allow them to get to safety voluntarily, to a place of their choosing and to allow aid to get in.”  

Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of Mariupol have been under siege since Russia invaded Ukraine more than six weeks ago.  They have been forced to hide in underground bunkers while their city was being turned into rubble by Russian strikes.

Laerke said during his visit to Ukraine, Griffiths witnessed first-hand the scenes of death and destruction in the towns of Bucha and Irpin on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv.  He said Griffiths, who saw a mass grave and dozens of destroyed building blocks in Bucha, described the sights as horrifying and called for an investigation into the atrocities allegedly committed by Russian forces.

Russian troops have failed to win control of the capital, Kyiv, and have retreated.  They have shifted their focus toward capturing the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Laerke said U.N. officials hope the situation of Mariupol will not be repeated as fighting moves toward Luhansk and Donetsk.  

“People are still hunkered down in basements in Luhansk and Donetsk,” he said.  “We have in our planning convoys to go there, I understand, already next week.  If everything, again—whether that happens or not depends on the security situation.  But it will be ready to go there if we can get there.”  

Laerke said Griffiths is very worried about what might happen in the Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine. Since leaving Ukraine, Griffiths has told media he is not optimistic about a cease-fire.
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Civilian evacuations moved forward Saturday in patches of battle-scarred eastern Ukraine a day after a missile strike killed at least 52 people at a train station where thousands were waiting to leave the increasingly vulnerable region before an expected Russian onslaught.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded a tough global response to Friday’s train station attack in Kramatorsk, calling it the latest sign of war crimes by Russian forces and hoping to prod Western backers to step up their response to help his country defend itself.

“All world efforts will be directed to establish every minute of who did what, who gave what orders, where the missile came from, who transported it, who gave the command and how this strike was agreed,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address, his voice rising in anger.

Russia denied it was responsible and accused Ukraine’s military of firing on the station to try to turn blame for civilian slayings on Moscow. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman detailed the missile’s trajectory and Ukrainian troop positions to bolster the argument. Western experts and Ukrainian authorities insisted that Russia launched the missile.

Ukraine’s state railway company said in a statement that residents of the country’s contested Donbas region, where Russia has refocused its forces after failing to take over the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, could flee through other train stations on Saturday.

“The railways do not stop the task of taking everyone to safety,” the statement on the messaging app Telegram said.

Watch related video by Henry Ridgwell:

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 10 evacuation corridors were planned for Saturday in hopes of allowing residents to leave war zones in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which comprise the Donbas, as well as neighboring Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian authorities have called on civilians to get out ahead of an imminent, stepped-up offensive by Russian forces. Britain’s Defense Ministry reported Saturday that Russian naval forces were launching cruise missiles to support the ground operations in eastern Ukraine, including in the port cities of Mykolaiv and Mariupol.

Photos taken after Friday’s missile strike showed corpses covered with tarpaulins, and the remnants of a rocket painted with the words “For the children” in Russian. The phrasing seemed to suggest the missile was sent to avenge the loss or subjugation of children, although its exact meaning remained unclear.

The attack came as Ukrainian authorities worked to identify victims and document possible war crimes by Russian soldiers in northern Ukraine. The mayor of Bucha, a town near Kyiv where graphic evidence of civilian slayings emerged after the Russians withdrew, said search teams were still finding the bodies of people shot at close range in yards, parks and city squares.

On Friday, workers unearthed the bodies of 67 people from a mass grave near a church, according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general. Russia has falsely claimed that the scenes in Bucha were staged.

After failing to occupy Kyiv in the face of stiff resistance, Russian forces have set their sights on eastern Ukraine. Many of the civilians now trying to evacuate are accustomed to living in or near a war zone because Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 in the Donbas.

The same week Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of areas controlled by the separatists and said he planned to send troops in to protect residents of the mostly Russian-speaking, industrial region.

Although the Kramatorsk train station is in Ukrainian government-controlled territory in the Donbas, the separatists, who work closely with Russian troops, blamed Ukraine for the attack.

Western experts, however, dismissed Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s assertion that Russian forces “do not use” Tochka-U missiles, the type that hit the station. A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence, said Russian forces have used the missile — and that given the strike’s location and impact, it was likely Russia’s.

Ukrainian authorities and Western officials have repeatedly accused Russian forces of committing atrocities in the war that began with Russia’s February 24 invasion. A total of 176 children have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war, while 324 more have been wounded, the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office said Saturday.

Ukrainian authorities have warned they expect to find more mass killings once they reach the southern port city of Mariupol, which is also in the Donbas and has been subjected to a monthlong blockade and intense fighting.

As journalists who had been largely absent from the city began to trickle back in, new images emerged of the devastation from an airstrike on a theater last month that reportedly killed hundreds of civilians seeking shelter.

Military analysts had predicted for weeks that Russia would succeed in taking Mariupol but said Ukrainian defenders were still putting up a fight. The city’s location on the Sea of Azov is critical to establishing a land bridge from the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine eight years ago.

Some of the grisliest evidence of atrocities so far has been found in Bucha and other towns around Kyiv, from which Russian troops pulled back in recent days. An international organization formed to identify the dead and missing from the 1990s Balkans conflicts is sending a team of forensics experts to Ukraine to help put names to bodies.

In an excerpted interview with American broadcaster CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Friday, Zelenskyy cited communications intercepted by the Ukrainian security service as evidence of Russian war crimes. The authenticity of the recordings could not be independently verified.

“There are [Russian] soldiers talking with their parents about what they stole and who they abducted. There are recordings of [Russian] prisoners of war who admitted to killing people,” he said. “There are pilots in prison who had maps with civilian targets to bomb. There are also investigations being conducted based on the remains of the dead.”

The deaths of civilians at the train station brought renewed expressions of outrage from Western leaders and pledges that Russia would face further reprisals for its actions in Ukraine. On Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry tried to counter the dominant international narrative by again raising the specter Ukraine planting false flags and misinformation.

A Russian ministry spokesman, Major Gen. Igor Konashenkov, alleged Ukraine’s security services were preparing a “cynical staged” media operation in Irpin, another town near Kyiv. Konashenkov said the plan was to show — falsely, he said — more civilian casualties at the hands of the Russians and to stage the slaying of a fake Russian intelligence team that intended to kill witnesses. The claims could not be independently verified.

A senior U.S. defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal military assessments said Friday the Pentagon believes Russia has lost between 15% and 20% of its combat power overall since the war began.

While some combat units are withdrawing to be resupplied in Russia, Moscow has added thousands of troops around Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in the country’s east, the official said.  

Ukrainian officials have almost daily pleaded with Western powers to send more arms, and to further punish Russia with sanctions, including the exclusion of Russian banks from the global financial system and a total European Union embargo on Russian gas and oil.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Saturday was the latest in a parade of top leaders from the European Union to visit Zelenskyy in Kyiv. The head of the EU’s executive arm, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, gave the Ukrainian president a questionnaire Friday that could lead to Ukraine’s membership in the 27-member-country bloc.

Zelenskyy wryly promised to fast-track a response.
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Spain is awaiting the publication in coming days of a new law banning the intimidation or harassment of women entering abortion clinics.

The law comes into force when it is published in the Government Gazette, possibly next week, after the Spanish Senate on Wednesday endorsed a law passed earlier by parliament.

The Senate gave its blessing by 154-105 votes for changes to the penal code in Spain, where abortions are available for free in the public health service through the 14th week of pregnancy.

The legal changes mean that anyone harassing a woman going into an abortion clinic will be committing a crime that can be punished with up to one year in prison.

Spain’s government, led by the center-left Socialist government, proposed the law last year and lawmakers approved it in September.

In the Senate, as in parliament, the changes were opposed by right-of-center political groupings.

They argued that the alterations flew in the face of the constitutional right to free speech and the right to assemble.

Anti-abortion groups said their gatherings outside abortion clinics were organized to pray and offer help to the women.

The national Association of Accredited Clinics for Pregnancy Termination says that more than 100 cases of harassment are reported outside clinics each year.
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Their government still unrecognized by any country in the world, Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have found a way to beat international isolation: opening diplomatic ties with neighboring countries and others, with an eye to gaining formal recognition.

In recent months, at least four countries — China, Pakistan, Russia and Turkmenistan — have accredited Taliban-appointed diplomats, even though all have refused to recognize the 8-month-old government in Afghanistan.

Last month, Russia became the latest country to establish diplomatic ties with the Taliban when its Foreign Ministry accredited Taliban diplomat Jamal Nasir Gharwal as Afghan charge d’affaires in Moscow.

“We regard this as a step towards the resumption of full-fledged diplomatic contacts,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Wednesday.

Although Zakharova said it was premature “to talk about official recognition of the Taliban,” the move is not sitting well in Washington, where officials are concerned it could confer undeserved legitimacy on the Taliban.

A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. and its allies “remain deeply troubled by recent steps the Taliban have taken, including steps to restrict education and travel for girls and women.”

“Now is not the time to take any steps to lend credibility to the Taliban or normalize relations,” the spokesperson said in response to a query from VOA. “This move sends the wrong signal to the Taliban.”

In the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last August, the U.S. and other Western countries shut down their diplomatic posts in Kabul. But they’ve maintained contact with the group, if only to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid into the country and influence Taliban policies.

The countries that have received Taliban diplomats all maintain embassies in Afghanistan.

Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul and the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, said it was a “mistake” for Russia and other nations to accredit Taliban diplomats while the international community seeks cooperation from the Taliban on a number of fronts.

“When they accredit the diplomats, then they weaken the influence of the pressure that says you have to allow girls’ education and you have to cooperate with the NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) to help feed people or you won’t get recognition,” Neumann said. “So what the Taliban will see is that if they pay no attention to those statements, some states will begin to move toward recognition anyway.”

Accrediting a foreign diplomat is not the same as giving formal recognition, Neumann said. But that’s not how the Taliban see it.

“In practice, this is the equivalent of recognition, but it is not enough,” said Suhail Shaheen, who has been appointed by the Taliban to serve as Afghanistan’s envoy to the U.N. “Countries must recognize the Islamic Emirate.”

Shaheen, whose appointment has not been endorsed by the U.N., told VOA that about 10 countries have “accepted” Taliban diplomats, including China, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan.

Of those, only four — China, Pakistan, Russia and Turkmenistan — have formally accredited diplomats appointed by the Taliban, according to announcements by Afghan embassies and the foreign ministries of the host countries.

But previously appointed diplomats at Afghanistan’s embassies in Iran, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia now follow the Taliban foreign ministry’s “instructions,” Shaheen said.

“We don’t have any problem with anyone who contacts the current government of the Islamic Emirate and follows its instructions,” Shaheen said via WhatsApp. “That’s what they’ve done.”

Abdul Qayyum Sulaimani, the Afghan charge d’affaires in Tehran and a holdover from the previous government, told reporters in January that he’d received a letter from Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban foreign minister, confirming his status as acting ambassador.

Representatives of the Afghan embassies in Kaula Lumpur and Ryadh could not be reached for comment.

Qatar is a “special case,” Neumann said. The Gulf state has long allowed the Taliban to operate a political office in Doha, and it represents some U.S. diplomatic interests in Afghanistan. In November, Muttaqi met with Afghan embassy staff in Doha.

The Qatar Embassy in Washington did not respond to a question about whether the Qatari government had accredited any Taliban diplomats.

Afghanistan maintains 45 embassies and 20 consulates around the world. The majority are still run by diplomats appointed by the government of former President Ashraf Ghani and have refused to work with the Taliban government.

Mohammad Zahir Aghbar, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Tajikistan, said Taliban pressure to oust Afghan diplomats won’t work.

“No country will let them do that,” Aghbar told VOA’s Afghan Service.

Tajikistan, which maintains close ties to an anti-Taliban resistance group, is the only Afghanistan neighbor that has refused to allow Taliban officials to visit the Afghan Embassy.

Last week, a senior Taliban foreign ministry official visited an Afghan consulate in neighboring Uzbekistan “to improve and organize the consular affairs of the Afghan consulate” in the border town of Termez, according to a Taliban official.

Last month, Afghanistan’s embassy in Washington and its consulates in New York and Los Angeles shut down after running out of money.

Senior State Department Correspondent Cindy Saine and VOA Afghan Service’s Mirwais Rahmani contributed to this article.
…

More than 50 civilians have been killed and dozens wounded in a missile strike on a railway station in Ukraine, which Kyiv blamed on Russian forces. Henry Ridgwell’s report contains graphic images that may be disturbing to some viewers. Cameras: Henry Ridgwell, Oleksiy Merkulov, Serhiy Horbatenko.
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Ukraine has recaptured the northern city of Chernihiv from Russian forces. But after a rocket attack in the east killed dozens of people Friday, residents are wary, saying they are expecting they could be attacked again. VOA’s Heather Murdock has more from Chernihiv, Ukraine.
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About 30 Sudanese citizens living in Europe demonstrated Friday outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague, demanding that Sudanese officials surrender more individuals accused of committing atrocities in Darfur.

The ICC’s trial of suspected Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb got underway this week, with Kushayb pleading not guilty to 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape, torture, pillaging and murder.

Darfur human rights activist Amaat Sefeldin, who traveled from Germany to The Hague to attend the protest, told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus that she wanted Sudanese officials to turn over former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was in power during the campaign that killed more than 200,000 people in Darfur nearly 20 years ago.

“We are demanding the handover of all criminals, especially Bashir, the president, and Raheem Muhammad Hussein, and Mohammad Harun and others,” she told VOA. “And we would also demand for the court to try the other criminals, because the genocide in Darfur and the crimes committed in Sudan are not done by those few people. It’s a long list of people who committed crimes. They have committed war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur since 2003.”

In 2012, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein, former minister of defense and Bashir’s special representative in Darfur. In 2007, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Ahmad Muhammad Harun, former Sudan minister of state for the interior.

The protesters praised the ICC for putting Kushayb on trial. It’s the first trial for anyone accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the Darfur conflict, which began in 2003 with a rebellion by armed groups against Bashir’s government.

Kushayb was a reputed leader of pro-government Janjaweed militia members who attacked and burned numerous villages in Darfur as part of attempts to crush the rebel groups.

Call for others’ trials

“Sudanese are in support of the trial and accountability for crimes committed in Darfur, but in general for crimes committed in Sudan,” said another protester, Neimat Ahmadi, president of the Darfur Women Action Group. “They also want to raise concern about the ongoing violence against protesters and the escalation of violence in areas like Darfur, South Kordofan, the Blue Nile.”

“Our message is also to the international community that it is important to try Kushayb, but it is more important to pursue others who have been indicted by the International Criminal Court and be brought to face the court,” Neimat told VOA.

Maisa Altyayib, a member of the Sudanese diaspora who also attended the protest, said she wanted to see the “real criminals” brought to justice in The Hague.

“Not only Kushayb — he only executed orders given to him. The real criminals are in Khartoum and we will not be satisfied until they are brought here to the ICC. So Kushayb is only the beginning of achieving justice,” Altyayib told VOA.

South Darfur-based human rights lawyer Abdulbasit Al Haj said the Kushayb trial should lead prosecutors to more evidence of crimes committed by former officials.

“This trial also should identify individuals who have been involved in funding and supplying the Janjaweed militia with the logistic process in Darfur,” Al Haj told South Sudan in Focus, adding “they are crimes that have touched the humanity around the world.”

However, another Sudanese human rights expert, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from security operatives, said she did not think the government was willing to hand over others accused of war crimes because they include current top officials who took power in last year’s military coup.

“I don’t think they will hand them [over],” the expert said. “I don’t think they will hand [over] anyone. Now, after the coup that took place, I don’t see it happening at all.”

Army ties seen protecting Bashir

Sudanese political analyst and researcher Jahid Mashamoun told South Sudan in Focus he believed military leaders running Sudan would never turn over Bashir.

“I doubt it,” he said.  “Omar Bashir, he hails from the army, so handing him over to a foreign judiciary, that tarnishes the image or integrity of the armed forces.”

The ICC indicted Bashir in 2009 over alleged atrocities committed by his government. He remains imprisoned in Khartoum after being found guilty on corruption charges.

The U.S. State Department also praised the opening of Kushayb’s ICC trial, noting it was the first against “any senior leader for crimes committed by the Bashir regime and government-supported forces following the genocide and other atrocities in Darfur.” The statement added, “This trial is a signal to those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in Darfur that impunity will not last in the face of the determination for justice to prevail.”

Carol Van Dam contributed to this report, which originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.
…

As Turkish military dive teams this week safely defused their third floating naval mine in Turkish waters since March 26, some maritime experts said the explosives still pose a threat to Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait.

On March 19, Russia’s FSB intelligence service said 420 naval mines were drifting freely in the Black Sea after breaking loose in a storm. The FSB says Ukrainian forces set the mines, but Ukrainian authorities dismissed that accusation as disinformation.

Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of planting the naval mines in the Black Sea and using them as “uncontrolled drifting ammunition.”

“If these mines were broken loose as claimed, the risk continues even in the Bosphorus [Strait],” Bora Serdar, a retired staff colonel from the Turkish Naval Forces, told VOA. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if at least a few mines went in the strait.”

A regional threat

On March 26, Turkey, a NATO member, detected the first stray mine on the Black Sea coast of Istanbul near its Bosphorus Strait. The second one was found off the coast of Igneada, near the Bulgarian border, on March 28.

Turkish authorities announced Turkish Underwater Defense teams safely detonated both mines.

“Our mine hunter vessels and naval patrolling ships are all vigilant,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on March 29, adding that Turkey is working on identifying the source of floating naval mines.

The Bosphorus Strait connects the Black Sea with the Marmara, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean seas and runs through Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul. It is a major shipping route for Black Sea countries.

Besides Turkey, Romania neutralized a mine on March 28 after fishermen first spotted it and reported it to the naval forces.

On Thursday, defense ministers of Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine met virtually at Turkey’s request to discuss the threat.

“The importance of cooperation in the Black Sea for peace, calm, and stability, including the fight against the mines, was emphasized at the meeting,” Turkish Defense Minister Akar said in a statement.

Propaganda wars

Some analysts argue that the stray mines in the Black Sea are part of propaganda wars between Russia and Ukraine.

“I think these stray mines are part of a Russian operation to create some confusion,” said Yoruk Isik, Istanbul-based geopolitical analyst and head of the Bosphorus Observer consultancy.

“Russia may have dropped a few naval mines around the Bosphorus, perhaps from somewhere close to Bulgaria, to reach the strait,” he told VOA.

According to Isik, Russia’s motivations include distracting observers from its actions in Ukraine as several countries, including the United States and Germany, accused Russian forces of committing war crimes.

Isik says that Russia also might have used the naval mines to put Kyiv in “a difficult position in the international arena as the stray mines would appear as [though] Ukraine is hindering international trade” in the Black Sea.

On the other hand, some experts think that Ukraine might have used the naval mines to prevent Russia’s actions and bring more international actors into the war, including Turkey.

Turker Erturk, a former Turkish Naval Academy commander, says that Moscow’s war plans included an amphibious operation near Odesa.

“Russia would never choose anything that would limit this operation,” Erturk told VOA. 

Ukraine’s primary goal of setting mines afloat, he speculated, would be to show that safe navigation in the Black Sea has disappeared.

“The stray mines would create a perception that there is no safe passage in the Bosphorus, an international waterway. What would this perception inevitably trigger? It would trigger an international naval force under the auspices of NATO, EU, or U.N. to go to the Black Sea,” Erturk said.

“This would lead to the ‘de facto’ violation of the Montreux Convention. It looks like a provocation to me,” Erturk added.

NATO’s London-based Shipping Centre — the official link between NATO and international merchant shipping — released an advisory Monday saying, “the threat of additional drifting mines cannot be ruled out.”

A United Kingdom Ministry of Defense intelligence update on April 3 also warned that mines in the Black Sea “pose a serious risk to maritime activity.”

“Though the origin of such mines remains unclear and disputed, their presence is almost certainly due to Russian naval activity in the area and demonstrates how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is affecting neutral and civilian interests,” the UK intelligence update said.

Turkey has control of the passage of naval vessels through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits under the 1936 Montreux Convention.

Fishing

On March 26, Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry banned fishing at night until further notice.

Fishermen say that because they are concerned about the floating mines, they assign one person to the front of their boat for mine control.

“We fear that the stray mine will hit us,” Recep Koc, who has worked as a fisherman for 38 years in Istanbul’s Sariyer district, told VOA.

“While we were watching our boat so that nothing would wrap around its propeller, we are now trying to pay attention to the mines if they crash or explode,” Koc added.
…

Russia has declared 45 Polish embassy and consulate staff “persona non grata” in retaliation for Warsaw’s expulsion of 45 Russian diplomats from Poland, Moscow’s foreign ministry said Friday. 

Poland said in March that the 45 Russian diplomats were suspected of working for Russian intelligence. 

 
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The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR says it is beefing up its humanitarian aid operation for millions of Ukrainians forced to flee their homes in the face of intensified fighting and increased brutality by Russia’s military forces.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began February 24 has triggered one of the fastest-growing displacement and humanitarian crises in the world.  UNHCR says the carpet bombing of Ukrainian cities and towns, and the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure have caused more than 4.2 million Ukrainians to flee as refugees to neighboring countries.  An additional 7.1 million people are displaced inside Ukraine.

The UNHCR says it is increasing aid both inside and outside Ukraine to keep pace with the burgeoning needs of the displaced. Agency spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said reception and collective centers are being expanded to receive more internally displaced people.  

While the distribution of life-saving aid is being increased, he noted delivering aid remains challenging in places of active fighting. Nevertheless, he said aid workers continue to try to reach besieged areas, such as Mariupol and Kherson.

“The latest such convoy was on the sixth of April, where UNHCR was among those carrying aid to Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk (region), eastern Ukraine,” said Saltmarsh. “For weeks, people there have endured relentless shelling and shortages of basics like water, gas, and electricity. Our team was able to deliver solar lamps, blankets, hygiene kits, baby formula and tarpaulin sheets.”  

Saltmarsh said most Ukrainians fleeing the country head for Poland, which has welcomed more than 2.5 million refugees since the start of the war.

“While the pace of arrivals is slowing, overall flows continue given the ongoing hostilities,” he said. “UNHCR staff have observed that newly arrived refugees are coming from various parts of the country, including the east, with some reporting having spent weeks hunkering down at home or in shelters in dire conditions.”

Saltmarsh said the UNHCR’s initial response to refugee needs has been eclipsed by the new, more horrifying realities in Ukraine. He said the agency’s appeal on March 1 for $550.6 million is now seen as insufficient to deal with the crisis. He said a new, more comprehensive response plan will be revealed later this month.
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Ukrainian state railway officials say more than 30 people were killed and 100 were wounded Friday in a Russian rocket attack on a railway station in east Ukraine that was being used to evacuate civilians.

Two rockets are said to have struck the station in Kramatorsk.  Reuters reports that the governor of the Donetsk region said thousands of people were at the station trying to leave for safer areas.  

The European Union formally enacted more sanctions on Russia Friday, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell traveled to Kyiv in a show of support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The new measures include bans on the importation of coal, wood and chemicals and a block on all transactions with four Russian banks.

Russian troops in Ukraine have fully withdrawn from northern Ukraine to Belarus and Russia, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday.  The intelligence update said some of the forces likely will be deployed to east Ukraine to fight in the Donbas, a Ukrainian region bordering Russia.  

Late Thursday Zelenskyy said the situation in the town of Borodianka is worse than that in Bucha. Borodianka is about 60 kilometers northwest of Kyiv. Zelenskyy said “it is significantly more dreadful there.  Even more victims from the Russian occupiers.”

Stories of atrocities inflicted on northern Ukrainians by the Russians have emerged, prompting more countries to expand and further tighten sanctions on Russia.     

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Thursday that more credible reports of Russian atrocities against Ukrainian civilians are coming out of the war-ravaged country and vowed that “one day, somehow, there will be accountability” for Moscow.

The top U.S. diplomat, after meeting with an array of NATO and allied foreign ministers in Brussels, said, “The revulsion at what the Russian government is doing is palpable.”

Russia has denied killing civilians in Bucha.  

Blinken said the U.S. and its NATO allies remain wholly committed to supplying Ukraine with more arms to defend itself against Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed new Western sanctions against Russia but called for further measures, including a full embargo on Russian oil and gas sales, blocking all Russian banks from the SWIFT banking system and closing ports to Russian vessels and goods.  

Japan is expelling eight Russian diplomats and trade officials.  A Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman called Russia’s actions in Ukraine “categorically unacceptable” and said the action was taken “as a result of the country’s comprehensive judgement.”

There is a mounting death toll from the six-week-long war, including Ukrainian civilians and fighters from both sides.  

“We have significant losses of troops, and it’s a huge tragedy for us,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the British channel Sky News in an interview.

VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara and Masood Farivar contributed to this report.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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Stores in Istanbul, once filled with Russian and Ukrainian shoppers, are now experiencing hard times because of the war in Ukraine. The conflict is also causing prices for food and fuel in Turkey to rise. VOA’s Behzod Muhammadiy reports from Istanbul.
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Voters in France head to the polls Sunday for the first of a two-round election that could see centrist President Emmanuel Macron become the first French leader to win a second term in nearly two decades. For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports from Paris.
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Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of one of Russia’s leading independent newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, said he was attacked by an assailant who threw a mixture of red paint and acetone on him.

Muratov, co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize with Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, was on a train bound from Moscow to Samara on Thursday when the attack occurred.

A photo of Muratov posted by the newspaper on Telegram showed his head, shirt, hands and arms covered in red paint.

Muratov said the attacker shouted, “Muratov, here’s to you for our boys.”

He told the new European edition of Novaya Gazeta about the attack, saying that his eyes were burning badly.

Novaya Gazeta, a leading independent Russian newspaper, suspended operations last month after it said it received warnings from Russian authorities.

The newspaper said it had been warned twice by Roskomnadzor, meaning the state communications regulator was open to pursuing closure of the independent outlet through legal action.

Earlier on Thursday, journalists from Novaya Gazeta who fled Russia amid the ongoing crackdown on independent reporting said they have launched a new media outlet that aims to cover news and developments in Russia and around the world in Russian and several other languages.

Kirill Martynov, the former editor of Novaya Gazeta’s unit on political issues, will be the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe, the publication said in a statement on its website.

“We know that we have readers around the world who are waiting for verified information,” the statement said.

“That is why we, Novaya Gazeta journalists who were forced to leave their country because of a de facto occupational ban being put into effect, are pleased to announce that we have launched Novaya Gazeta Europe — an outlet that shares our values and standards.”

The statement did not say where the newspaper would be based.

Russia has placed strict limits on how media can describe the war Moscow launched in Ukraine. According to the regulator, media must follow official government communications only for what Moscow calls a “special military operation.” Usage of the words “war” or “invasion” with regard to the fighting in Ukraine is banned.

In early March, President Vladimir Putin signed into law legislation that punishes those who distribute what is deemed “false information about the Russian Army” in their reports about Ukraine with a prison sentence of as much as 15 years.

Several other Russian media outlets have already opted for suspending operations rather than face heavy restrictions on what they can report, and the Kremlin has also blocked multiple foreign news outlets, including RFE/RL.
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