VIENNA, AUSTRIA — Ukraine has managed to rotate staff working at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for the first time since Russia seized it last month as it invaded its neighbor, the U.N.’s nuclear agency said.

Ukraine told the International Atomic Energy Agency that around half of the staff were “finally” able to return to their homes on Sunday after working at the Russian-controlled site for nearly four weeks, IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said.

Those who left were replaced by other Ukrainian staff, Grossi said in a statement late Sunday. 

“It is a positive — albeit long overdue — development that some staff at the Chernobyl NPP have now rotated and returned to their families,” Grossi said. 

“They deserve our full respect and admiration for having worked in these extremely difficult circumstances. They were there for far too long. I sincerely hope that remaining staff from this shift can also rotate soon.”

On February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow’s troops seized the Chernobyl compound, the site of the 1986 core meltdown that sparked the worst nuclear reactor catastrophe in history. 

Around 100 technicians have been working under armed guard to maintain the site since then.

Grossi, who had expressed deep concern about the well-being of the Ukrainian staff at the site, “welcomed the news about the partial rotation of personnel,” the IAEA said. 

“Before today’s rotation, the same work shift had been on-site since the day before the Russian forces entered the area,” it continued. 

It is unclear why Russian soldiers seized Chernobyl, where the destroyed reactor is kept under close supervision within a concrete and lead sarcophagus, and the three other reactors are being decommissioned. 

In 2017, the site was one of several Ukrainian targets hit by a massive cyberattack thought to have originated in Russia, which briefly took its radiation monitoring system off-line.  
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Zelenskyy says he’s ready for negotiations with Putin   
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Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine   
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Russia has given Ukraine until the early hours of Monday to surrender the besieged city of Mariupol, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he is ready for peace negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

However, a short time later, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk rejected the ultimatum. “There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this,” she told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda.

According to a Russian state news agency RIA, Russia’s defense ministry wanted a response from Ukraine’s military by 5 a.m. Moscow time/4 a.m. in Kyiv (0200 GMT). Moscow referred to refusing to surrender as siding with “bandits.”

The ultimatum came hours after Zelenskyy told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview broadcast Sunday that failure to reach a negotiated agreement with Russia “would mean that this is a third World War.”

Zelenskyy has called for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow that restore the territorial integrity and provide justice for Ukraine. Russia’s lead negotiator has said in recent days the sides have moved closer to agreement on the issue of Ukraine dropping its bid to join NATO and adopting neutral status.

Zelenskyy told CNN that Russian forces entered Ukraine “to exterminate us, to kill us,” but he vowed that Ukraine would not concede its sovereignty or its integrity.

“Russians have killed our children. You cannot reverse the situation anymore. You cannot demand from Ukraine to recognize some territories as independent republics. These compromises are simply wrong,” said Zelenskyy.

Mariupol

A Mariupol art school where about 400 people had found shelter was bombed by Russian forces early Sunday.

Mariupol’s city council said that the building was destroyed in the attack. Information about survivors was not immediately available.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he thinks Russian forces are resorting to these brutal civilian attacks because its military “campaign is stalled.”

“This is really disgusting,” Austin said.

Just a few days earlier a Russian airstrike targeted a theater where hundreds of people had been sheltering. The word “CHILDREN” had been written in Russian in big letters visible from the sky on the ground just outside the theater, to alert Russian forces of who was inside.

More than 100 have been rescued from the theater, and it is still unclear how many casualties and fatalities the attack caused.

The city continues to resist Russian military forces, who are having to engage in attrition tactics and urban fighting that requires going from building to building.

“Mariupol has not yet fallen. It is out of food, fuel, water, everything except for heart. They are still fighting very hard,” retired Gen. David Petraeus told CNN Sunday.

Thousands of residents of Mariupol have been forcibly taken from their homes to Russian territory, according to a Mariupol city council statement on its Telegram channel.

“The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing,” the statement said.

“What the occupiers are doing today is familiar to the older generation, who saw the horrific events of World War II, when the Nazis forcibly captured people,” Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said.

Russia still stalled

Austin said that Russian forces across the country have been ineffective as Ukrainian forces continue to attrit Russian troops with weapons provided by the U.S. and NATO allies.

“It’s had the effect of him (Putin) moving his forces into a woodchipper,” Austin told CBS.

U.S. officials have estimated that Ukrainians have killed more than 3,000 Russian troops since the invasion began.

At least five of those have been senior Russian officers, according to the Ukrainian government.

Petraeus said Sunday at least four of the five Russian generals’ deaths “are absolutely confirmed,” adding that Ukrainian snipers “have just been picking them off left and right.”

Russian troops have failed to seize control of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, a major objective of the Kremlin, even as the invasion enters its fourth week.

Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement Saturday on Telegram that Russia was attacking the northwestern suburbs of Kyiv, while the regional Kyiv government reported the city of Slavutych, north of Kyiv was “completely isolated.”

Mykolaiv

Meanwhile, officials in Ukraine have yet to release the death toll following a Russian missile attack Friday on a military base where soldiers were sleeping in barracks, now destroyed, in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.

One soldier told AFP that 50 bodies have been found, while another said there could be as many as 100 dead under the rubble.

Mykolaiv is located 130 kilometers from the strategic military port of Odesa.

Russia said Saturday that its hypersonic missiles had destroyed an underground depot for missiles and ammunition Friday in Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region. Russian news agencies said it was the first time it used the advanced weapons system in Ukraine since it invaded February 24.

U.S Defense Secretary Austin said Sunday he could not confirm or dispute whether Russia had used those types of weapons in Ukraine but added he would not see it as a gamechanger if they had.

A Ukrainian air force representative verified the attack in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, but said Ukraine had no information on the type of missiles used.

Meanwhile, neighboring Slovakia’s defense minister said Sunday that Patriot air defense systems started arriving in Slovakia from NATO partner countries.

The systems will be operated by German and Dutch troops to help reinforce the defense of NATO’s eastern flank, in a move prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) reports that at least 902 civilians have been killed and upward of 1,459 have been wounded as of Saturday, while warning the actual count likely is higher. Most of the deaths were from explosions caused by shelling from heavy artillery and multiple missiles and airstrikes, OHCHR said. The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said 112 of those killed were children.

Millions of people have fled their homes since the Russian invasion. “The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million have fled — either displaced inside the country, or as refugees abroad,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grande tweeted Sunday.

U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.

Some information also came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The Russian editor who protested Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine during a state TV news broadcast called Sunday for other Russians to speak out against the “gruesome war.”

While working for Channel One television in Moscow, Marina Ovsyannikova barged onto the set of an evening newscast Monday, holding a poster reading “No War.”

She was subsequently detained, fined 30,000 rubles ($280), and then freed pending possible further prosecution, but has turned down a French offer of asylum.

On Sunday she described to US media her decision to protest as “spontaneous,” but said a sense of deep dissatisfaction with her government had been building for years — a feeling she said many of her colleagues shared.

“The propaganda on our state channels was becoming more and more distorted, and the pressure that has been applied in Russian politics could not leave us indifferent,” she told ABC News program “This Week.”

“When I spoke to my friends and colleagues, everyone until the last moment could not believe that such a thing could happen — that this gruesome war could take place,” she said from Moscow, speaking through an interpreter.

“As soon as the war began, I could not sleep, I could not eat. I came to work, and after a week of coverage of this situation, the atmosphere on [Channel One] was so unpleasant that I realized I could not go back there.”

Ovsyannikova said she considered joining a protest in a public square, but saw that protesters were being arrested and faced jail time.

“I decided that maybe I could do something else, something more meaningful… and I could show to the rest of the world that Russians are against the war, and I could show to the Russian people that this is just propaganda.”

She said she hoped to “maybe stimulate some people to speak up against the war.”

The sign she held up behind a news reader said: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They are lying to you here.”

Ovsyannikova, who has resigned her job, told France 24 television on Thursday that her protest had “broken the life of our family,” with her young son particularly anxious.

“But we need to put an end to this fratricidal war.”
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Alona Fartukhova has been coming to Berlin’s Ukrainian Orthodox Christian community every day since she arrived in Germany five days ago from war-torn Kyiv. The 20-year-old refugee has been attending daily prayers for peace and helped organize donations for her compatriots back home.

On Sunday, Fartukhova joined dozens of other Ukrainian worshippers at a red brick stone church in the German capital who sang together, lit candles, and received blessings from the head of the community, Father Oleh Polianko. Later they put medical crutches, sleeping bags, diapers, big boxes of gummi bears and countless jars of pickles — which were piling up everywhere inside the church — into big cardboard boxes to be sent to Ukraine.

“It’s some help for our army, and it is … a lot of things for children” said the university student, who fled by herself and is now living at a hotel in Berlin, as she stacked boxes onto the church pews. “It is so good that a lot of people support us, we really appreciate it.”

Across Europe, Ukrainians gathered for church services Sunday to pray for peace in their war-torn country. Newly arrived refugees mingled with longtime members of Europe’s 1.5 million-strong Ukrainian diaspora at houses of worship all over the continent from Germany to Romania to Moldova.

Since Russia attacked Ukraine more than three weeks ago, over 3.38 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Altogether, 10 million people have fled their homes — more than 6 million of them have been displaced internally, the UNHCR said Sunday.

Most have escaped to neighboring Poland, Romania or Moldova, but as the war continues many are moving farther west.

Germany has registered more than 200,000 Ukrainian refugees but the real numbers are expected to be much higher as Ukrainians don’t need a visa to come to Germany, and federal police only register refugees entering Germany by train or bus. Ukrainians coming to Germany from Poland by car are normally not registered.

Members of Germany’s Ukrainian immigrant community, which counts around 300,000 people, have not only been raising money and collecting donations, but also driven the goods to the border and beyond and on their way back to Germany have taken along refugees. Families already living in Germany have squeezed together to accommodate refugees and are helping them find jobs and get their kids into schools.

The diaspora Ukrainians’ religious communities — mostly Christian Orthodox, but also some Catholic and Jewish communities — have been leading refugee initiatives and have also become an anchor for those worrying about their families back in the war.

Polianko, who heads the 500-member-strong Orthodox Christian community in Berlin, held some one-on-one prayers on Sunday with worshippers who were especially distressed. He then gave blessings “for the souls of our soldiers who are fighting in Ukraine, and also for the souls of our soldiers who have died in Ukraine.”

Because the Berlin community has been so overwhelmed by donations, they temporarily moved from their small church building in the city’s Hermsdorf neighborhood to the bigger church of the Lutheran Philippus Nathanael community in Berlin-Friedenau. Here, they have plenty of space to organize donation drives and a wide driveway for trucks picking up the boxes, says Andriy Ilin, the deputy head of the community.

The Lutherans are currently holding their own services in a nearby community center.

“Initially, they offered us the church for March, now they’ve extended it to April, and they kindly let us know that if we need it beyond that, they will allow that too.” Ilin said.Elsewhere in Europe, local worshippers also opened their churches to welcome Ukrainians.

In Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, locals and refugees alike assembled for an Orthodox prayer service on Sunday.

Angelica Gretsai, a refugee from the northern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, lit candles just before the religious service in Russian began at a small Sfintul Gheorghe church.

“(I pray) for peace of course, for peace in Ukraine, for these two peoples (Russians and Ukrainians ) to make up, for this war to be no more,” Gretsai said adding that she was yearning to go back home and be with friends and family.

“I’m basically alone here, it’s the first time I came to Moldova,” she said, adding that she was staying with some distant relatives she had never met before. Moldova has welcomed more than 360,000 refugees since Russia invaded Ukraine.

In Suceava, Romania, south of the Ukrainian border, locals and new arrivals from Ukraine held a service together at St. John’s church. Romania has welcomed more than half a million refugees from Ukraine since the beginning of the war and several of them found their way to the church service.

Ariadna Belciug, a local resident at the service, said she was praying “especially for the children, because no one deserves to go through these times.”

“I pray for them to be all right, to be safe and for better days for them to come,” Belciug added.
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India is considering establishing a payment mechanism in local currencies to allow it to continue trade with Russia, which has been hit with Western sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

New Delhi is proceeding with purchases of Russian crude at discounted prices despite pressure from the United States.

The state-run Indian Oil Corp. has concluded a deal to buy 3 million barrels of Russian crude, according to local media reports.

Although it has not officially confirmed the deal, India has defended the country’s decision to look at purchasing Russian oil.

“A number of countries are importing energy from Russia, especially in Europe,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi told reporters earlier this week. He said India, which imports most of its oil, is “always exploring all possibilities in global energy markets.”

While the United States has banned Russian oil imports, several European countries, such as Germany, which are dependent on Russian imports of energy, continue to buy it. India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, imports only about 3% of its crude from Russia, but cheap Russian oil could help cushion its economy from spiraling international crude prices.

India will study the impact of Western sanctions against Russia while devising a payment mechanism to settle its trade with Moscow officials say.

“We will await details to examine the impact on our economic exchanges with Russia,” according to Bagchi.

As sanctions limit Russia’s ability to do business in major currencies such as the dollar or the euro, an Indian business body has asked the government to set up a rupee-ruble mechanism to facilitate trade.

“We have proposed that local currency trading may be explored in the given situation. It is one of the plausible options that are on the table,” according to Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations. Indian exporters say payments of about $500 million are stuck because Russian buyers cannot pay in foreign exchange.

Work was ongoing to set up a rupee-ruble trade mechanism to be used to pay for oil and other goods, an Indian official, who refused to be identified, has told Reuters.

The trade in local currencies could take place between Russian banks and companies with accounts in Indian state-run banks.

This is not the first time that such a mechanism is being considered — India and the former Soviet Union had a rupee-ruble exchange plan in place during the Cold War to bypass the U.S. dollar.

India has also used a similar program with Iran, under Western sanctions for its nuclear weapons program.

New Delhi has taken a neutral stance on the Russian invasion, calling for a cease-fire and diplomacy to resolve the crisis, but abstaining from condemning Moscow, with which it has longstanding ties.

It has been under pressure from Washington, which has been urging India to the U.S. and other countries’ tough stand on the invasion.

When asked if the U.S. plans to reach out to India for curbs on oil purchases from Russia, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that Washington has been in touch with Indian leaders but added that countries have different “economic reasoning,” including some in Europe.

“But what we would project or convey to any leader around the world is that the world — the rest of the world is watching where you’re going to stand as it relates to this conflict, whether its support for Russia in any form as they are illegally invading Ukraine,” she told reporters.

New Delhi however has shown no indication that it will weaken trade or strategic ties to Russia — Moscow supplies India with more than 70% of its weapons, which are critical for New Delhi as it faces Chinese troops all along its Himalayan border. During a visit three months ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi, both countries pledged to increase trade in the defense and energy sectors.

Analysts in New Delhi are optimistic that differences over Russia will not harm ties with Washington, which have grown in recent years as both India and the United States look at how to contain a more assertive China.

“It is not as if U.S. and India are on the same page on every issue,” said Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs at O.P. Jindal University. Pointing out that India’s focus is primarily Asia and Indo-Pacific region, he said, “We are really fearful of what China could do along our borders and that remains our primary concern. And New Delhi feels that whether or not we take a joint position on Ukraine with the U.S., the Europeans and others, they will still partner with us to counterbalance China.”

That is why India believes that it can navigate its partnerships with both Russia and the United States for the time being, analysts such as Chaulia say.

However, if the war in Ukraine does not wind down and the crisis drags on, he said “then we will have to readjust our position.”
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A car slammed at high speed into carnival revelers in a small town in southern Belgium early Sunday, killing six people and leaving 10 more with life-threatening injuries. Several dozen were more lightly injured.

“What should have been a great party turned into a tragedy,” said Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden.

The prosecutor’s office said that in the early stages of the investigation there were no elements to suspect a terror motive, and two locals in their thirties were arrested at the scene in Strépy-Bracquegnies, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Brussels.

In an age-old tradition, carnival revelers had gathered at dawn, intending to pick up others at their homes along the way, to finally hold their famous festivity again after it was banned for the past two years to counter the spread of COVID-19. Some dressed in colorful garb with bells attached, walking behind the beat of drums. It was supposed to be a day of deliverance.

Instead, said mayor Jacques Gobert, “what happened turned it into a national catastrophe.”

More than 150 people of all ages had gathered around 5 a.m. and were standing in a thick crowd along a long, straight road.

Suddenly, “a car drove from the back at high speed. And we have a few dozen injured and unfortunately several people who are killed,” Gobert said.

The driver and a second person were arrested when their car came to a halt a few hundred meters further on.

Since Belgium was hit with twin terror attacks in Brussels and Zaventem that killed 32 civilians six years ago, thoughts of a terror motive are never far away.

But prosecutor Damien Verheyen said “there is no element in the investigation at this time that allows me to consider that the motivations of the two could have been terror related.”

The prosecutor’s office also denied media reports that the crash may have been caused by a car that was being chased by police.

King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo were expected in Strépy-Bracquegnies later Sunday to express support for the families and victims.

Carnival is extremely popular in the area and the nearby version in Binche has even been declared UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
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One of Europe’s biggest iron and steel works, Azovstal, has been badly damaged as Russian forces lay siege to the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, officials said Sunday.

“One of the biggest metallurgic plants in #Europe destroyed. The economic losses for #Ukraine are huge. The environment is devastated,” tweeted Ukrainian lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko.

Vasylenko posted a video of explosions on an industrial site, with thick columns of grey and black smoke rising from the buildings. 

One of her colleagues, Serhiy Taruta, wrote on Facebook that Russian forces “had practically destroyed the factory.”

“We will return to the city, rebuild the enterprise and revive it,” Azovstal’s director general, Enver Tskitishvili, wrote on messaging app Telegram, without specifying the extent of the damage.

He said that when the invasion began on Feb. 24, the factory had taken measures to reduce the environmental damage in the event of being hit.

“Coke oven batteries no longer pose a danger to the lives of residents,” he wrote. “We have also stopped the blast furnaces correctly.”

Azovstal is part of the Metinvest group, which is controlled by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov.

Considered pro-Moscow before the war began, Akhmetov has since accused Russian troops of committing “crimes against humanity against Ukrainians.”
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Three companies have lodged a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, accusing the U.S. technology giant of anti-competitive practices in its cloud services, sources told AFP on Saturday, confirming media reports.

Microsoft is “undermining fair competition and limiting the choice of consumers” in the computing cloud services market, said one of the three, French company OVHcloud, in a statement to AFP.

The companies complain that under certain clauses in Microsoft’s licensing contracts for Office 365 services, tariffs are higher when the software is not run on Azure cloud infrastructure, which is owned by the U.S. group.

They also say the user experience is worse and that there are incompatibilities with certain other Microsoft products when not running on Azure. 

In a statement to AFP, Microsoft said, “European cloud service providers have built successful business models on Microsoft software and services” and had many options on how to use that software.

“We continually evaluate how best to support all of our partners and make Microsoft software available to all customers in all environments, including those with other cloud service providers,” it continued.

The complaint, first reported this week by The Wall Street Journal, was lodged last summer with the EU Commission’s competition authority.

Microsoft is also the subject of an earlier 2021 complaint to the European Commission by a different set of companies led by the German Nextcloud.

It denounced the “ever-stronger integration” of Microsoft’s cloud services, which it said complicated the development of competing offers.

Microsoft has already been heavily fined multiple times by Brussels for anti-competitive practices regarding its Internet Explorer browser, Windows operating system and software licensing rules. 
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Hoping to restore some normalcy after fleeing the war in Ukraine, thousands of refugees waited in lines in the Polish capital of Warsaw to receive local identification papers that will allow them to move on with their lives. The refugees started queuing by Warsaw’s National Stadium overnight
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Katya Hill tried to talk her brother out of it. She urged Jimmy Hill to postpone his trip to Ukraine as she saw reports of Russian tanks lining up at the border. But he needed to help his longtime partner, who has been suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis.

“He said, ‘I don’t know what I would do if I lost her, I have to try to do everything I can to try to stop the progression of MS,'” Katya said. “My brother sacrificed his life for her.”

James “Jimmy” Hill, 68, was killed in a Russian attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv that was reported Thursday, as his partner Irina Teslenko received treatment at a local hospital. His family says she and her mother are trying to leave the city, but because of her condition they would need an ambulance to help and it was unclear when or if that could happen.

In an interview from Pittsburgh Saturday, Hill’s sister called her brother’s relationship with Irina a “beautiful love story, but unfortunately it has a tragic ending.”

Katya Hill said Irina’s illness had progressed to the point that she had lost the ability to walk and much of the use of her hands. She said her brother — a native of Eveleth, Minnesota, who was living in Driggs, Idaho — had spent months trying to secure treatments to stop the progression of the disease and had finally arranged for treatment in February.

Katya said her brother thought the world wouldn’t let the invasion happen.

Katya said the two met while her brother, who taught social work and forensic psychology at universities in various countries, was teaching a class in Ukraine. He knew instantly that he was in love and they spent years together, talking for hours every day on the phone when Jimmy was back in the Unites States.

Katya said in the last few weeks as the bombings grew more frequent and resources more scarce, her brother had been daydreaming of ways to get Ukrainian families to the U.S. to set up a “little Ukraine” at his Airbnb properties he owned in Idaho and Montana. She said her brother loved Ukraine and even on the day he was killed, friends had helped her piece together that he had decided to stay to be with Teslenko and her mother at the hospital.

It was initially reported that Jimmy was gunned down while waiting in a breadline, but Katya said the family had received new details through their senators and from Jimmy’s friends in Ukraine Saturday.

Katya said Jimmy and a friend who lives near the hospital had gone to an area where they had heard buses were waiting to evacuate people who wanted to leave the city via a safe corridor. There were more than a thousand people already waiting in line, and Jimmy told the friend he was going to return to the hospital. The friend told Katya that Russian shelling began as he was leaving, and the blast that killed her brother had caused the friend to lose hearing in one of her ears.

Katya said her family is still waiting to hear directly from the U.S. State Department to get details of where his body is.

Chernihiv police and the State Department confirmed the death of an American but did not identify him. The Associated Press reached out to the State Department to confirm details of Hill’s death, but had not received information as of early Saturday.

In poignant posts on Facebook in the weeks before his death, Hill described “indiscriminate bombing” in a city under siege. Katya said he had described increasing hardships in a Facebook Messenger group, starting each day by saying he was still alive.

But electricity and heat had been cut off, and food and supplies were becoming more scarce. Katya said he would go out to wait in line for food and supplies and bring back whatever he could for the hospital staff.

Most patients at the hospital had moved to the basement bomb shelter, but Irina and her mother remained in the upper levels because of the cold and so she could continue the treatment.

Katya said Irina’s mother had been told about Jimmy’s death, but had not wanted to tell her daughter. She said they had hoped for help to evacuate back to their home village southeast of Kyiv, where Irina’s father was waiting, but it was unclear whether they could find an ambulance to take them or a safe route for the trip.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow in a video address released Saturday, as Russia reported its first hypersonic missile strike on Ukrainian territory.

“The time has come for a meeting, it is time to talk,” Zelenskyy said. “The time has come to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia’s losses will be such that it will take you several generations to recover.”

Zelenskyy’s appeal for another round of talks came one day after Russia’s lead negotiator said the sides have moved closer to agreement on the issue of Ukraine dropping its bid to join NATO.  

Vladimir Medinsky said Friday the two countries also are “halfway there” on the question of Ukraine adopting neutral status.  

Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted, “Our positions are unchanged. Cease-fire, withdrawal of troops & strong security guarantees with concrete formulas.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow expected its negotiations with Ukraine to end with a comprehensive agreement on security issues, including Ukraine’s neutral status, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

Meantime, Russia said Saturday its hypersonic missiles destroyed an underground depot for missiles and ammunition Friday in Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region. Russian news agencies said it was the first time Russia used the advanced weapons system in Ukraine since it first invaded Ukraine on February 24.

Russia’s claims that it used hypersonic missiles, which can fly at least five times the speed of sound, were not independently confirmed. A Ukrainian air force spokesperson verified the attack, but said Ukraine had no information on the type of missiles used.

Russian forced still stalled  

The latest British defense intelligence assessment of the conflict, made Saturday, concluded that “Russia has been forced to “change its operational approach and is now pursuing a strategy of attrition.”

“This is likely to involve the indiscriminate use of firepower resulting in increased civilian casualties,” the ministry warned. 

As the invasion enters its fourth week, Russian troops have failed to seize control of Kyiv, a major objective of the Kremlin.  

On Saturday, Ukrainian authorities said they have not seen any significant developments over the past 24 hours in front line areas. But they said the southern cities of Mariupol, Mykolaiv and Kherson, and Izyum in the east were where the heaviest fighting continued. 

Additionally, Russia was bombarding the cities of Mariupol, Avdiivka, Kramatorsk, Pokrovsk, Novoselydivka, Verkhnotoretske, Krymka and Stepne, damaging at least 37 residential buildings and infrastructure facilities, and killing or injuring dozens of civilians, Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement Saturday on Telegram.

“Among the civilian objects that Russia destroyed are multistory and private houses, a school, a kindergarten, a museum, a shopping center and administrative buildings,” the statement said.

The national police said Russia also attacked the northwestern suburbs of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Saturday, while the regional Kyiv government reported the city of Slavutych north of Kyiv was “completely isolated.”

After Ukraine said Friday it had “temporarily” lost access to the Sea of Azov, Moscow said Saturday its troops had breached Ukrainian defenses to enter the strategic southern port city of Mariupol. 

Also Saturday, Ukraine said that a Russian general had been killed in attacks on an airfield outside the southern city of Kherson, the fifth senior Russian officer killed since the invasion began. 

In other developments, a humanitarian corridor in Ukraine’s Luhansk region was set to open Saturday to allow people to evacuate the area, according to regional Governor Serhiy Gaiday, who said food will also be available during the evacuation.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked significant rises in energy and food prices,” the Center for Global Development reported Friday.  The center said its analysis “suggests the scale of price spikes will push over 40 million into extreme poverty.”

“Governments and international agencies will need to act quickly and generously to anticipate and support humanitarian needs—but they should also use the crisis as an opportunity to reform agricultural policies in the EU and U.S. that are undermining food security,” the center said. 

Ukrainian officials have yet to report any casualties in the ruins of a theater hit by a Russian airstrike Wednesday in the southern city of Mariupol.

As of Friday,130 people had been rescued from the theater’s basement, Ukrainian officials said, as the search continues for the hundreds more who could be trapped in the makeshift bomb shelter.  

The theater was bombed despite signs indicating that civilians, including children, were sheltering there. Russia denies striking the theater.  

Human toll

On Saturday, Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said 112 children had been killed since the war began.

Nearly 3.3 million people have fled the war in Ukraine, according to U.N. estimates.  

The U.N. migration agency said Friday that in addition to those who have left the country, nearly 6.5 million people have been displaced inside Ukraine and that another 12 million people have been stranded or unable to leave parts of Ukraine because of heightened security risks or a lack of resources.

US-China talks 

On the diplomatic front, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a rare videoconference call Friday. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden conveyed “very directly, leader to leader, what the implications and consequences would be” if China provided material support to Russia. 

“China has to make a decision for themselves about where they want to stand and how they want the history books to look at them and view their actions,” she added. 

China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement after the nearly two-hour discussion that “conflict and confrontation” is “not in anyone’s interest.”  

Jeff Seldin, Cindy Saine, Patsy Widakuswara, Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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Experts warn the war in Ukraine could increase hunger and food insecurity for some people in Africa. Most African countries import wheat and vegetable oil from Ukraine and Russia, a region now engulfed in conflict since Russia invaded its neighbor.

African families are feeling the pinch as prices of essential commodities increase due to persistent drought, the coronavirus pandemic, and now, the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The United Nations says Russia and Ukraine produce 53% of the world’s sunflowers and seeds, and 27% of the world’s wheat.

The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development figures show Africa imported wheat from the two countries worth $5.1 billion between 2018-2020.

The study shows at least 25 African countries import a third of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and 15 of them import more than half from those two countries.

Kenya is one of the African countries affected by the global food price increase.

The head of policy research and advocacy at the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, Job Wanjohi, says the cost of importing wheat to the country has increased by 33%.

“The cost of wheat per ton, of which Kenya is heavily dependent on Russia and Ukraine, has increased to $460 per ton. Before, it was $345 per ton and the landing cost in Nairobi is likely to increase from $500 to $550 per ton. So, the Ukraine-Russia war is aggravating the situation, food security in the country is concerned,” Wanjoh said.

Vegetable oil prices have also increased. Malaysia and Indonesia account for 85% of global crude palm oil exports.

Malaysian authorities warned this week the price of palm oil could reach $2,200 a ton and is expected to remain that way until the third quarter of the year.

Peter Kamalingin, head of Pan Africa at charity Oxfam International, says Africa is more vulnerable to food insecurity.  

“Relying on the global food chain only means you are going to be more vulnerable for a long time. Oxfam has said what we need is investing in small farmers, making them more resilient, bringing technology that is responsive and sensitive to their unique needs. Small food producers are still the most important, and our agricultural produce and extension services, our national budget investment have not been focused on this. Food sovereignty means producing as much food as possible within the country, if not within the country at least within the region,” he said.

Kamalingin also says African governments are not investing enough in their communities.

“Government in our part of the world have had to go into increasing problem of debt and some of the economies in the region, for every 10 shillings of the national budget probably seven is going to repaying debt. That also means governments are not investing in social services, in water, health, education. So, that burden is being transferred to the household and most of the household, it means women and children are the ones bearing that burden. And now we have had this Ukraine crisis, which is exacerbating the problem in many fronts,” Kamalingin said.

The U.N.’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) warns that the ongoing war in Ukraine will escalate global hunger and poverty.

Gerrishon Ikiara, who teaches economics at the University of Nairobi, says African countries need to build infrastructure that can help with the movement of goods.

“But also try to see how we can integrate Africa economies much better, because there are some countries with surplus food countries like DRC, Uganda, and quite a number of others have the capacity to feed a big part of Africa if it’s properly connected,” Ikiara said.

Experts say intervention, like stabilizing local markets, cash transfers and creating savings and loan groups, can help Africa cope and reduce the impact of the global food crisis.
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The World Food Program is warning the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine threatens severe food shortages and acute hunger there, and risks triggering a global surge in hunger and malnutrition.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has driven millions of Ukrainians from their homes, forced them to hide in bomb shelters and forage for scraps of food and water.

Jakob Kern, World Food Program emergency coordinator for Ukraine, says the war has brought many people to the brink of famine. He says, as Ukraine is also a key agricultural producer, it also is threatening food security globally, especially in hunger hot spots.

Speaking from WFP’S regional office in Krakow, Poland, Kern says the agency has mobilized enough food to feed 3 million people for a month.

“The country’s food supply chain is falling apart.  Movement of goods has slowed down due to insecurity and reluctance of drivers to drive to places like Dnipro let alone Mariupol or Sumy. … We have prepositioned bulk food, wheat flour for bakeries, and food rations near the encircled cities for distribution by partners and city administrations,” Kern said.  

The Black Sea basin is known as Europe’s breadbasket.  It is one of the most important grain and agricultural production areas and a global grain trade route.  Russian forces reportedly have kept up to 300 ships from leaving the Black Sea.

Kern says food and fuel prices are soaring, putting millions at risk of hunger in Ukraine and in particularly vulnerable Middle Eastern and North African countries.

“The consequences of the conflict in Ukraine are radiating outwards, triggering a wave of collateral hunger across the globe.  Russia and Ukraine alone account for almost 30% of global wheat trade.  Those shipments are on hold now.  Ukraine is also, is the No. 5, actually, producer and exporter of wheat.  So, that has a big impact,” Kern said.

For example, he noted Egypt imports more than 80% of its wheat from Ukraine and Lebanon more than 50%.  He said these and other countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Yemen that are dependent on Ukrainian wheat will have to find other sources, pushing food prices up further.
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Russian military officials said Saturday that they fired a hypersonic missile for the first time in Ukraine to target a weapons storage site in the west of the country.

“The Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aeroballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region,” the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.

When announcing the development of the Kinzhal hypersonic missile in 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the weapon as “invincible.”

Russia on Saturday also claimed its soldiers have entered the center of the besieged port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine, which has been shelled for days.

Russian officials say they are “squeezing the encirclement” of the town.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces acknowledged Friday that they have lost access to the Sea of Azov “temporarily” because Russian forces have managed to tighten their grip around Mariupol. Ukrainian officials say Russia has conducted 14 missile strikes and 40 air raids on targets, mainly civilian ones, Ukraine in the past 24 hours. 
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All four people on board a U.S. military aircraft were killed when it crashed in a remote part of northern Norway on Friday during a NATO-led military training exercise, local police said Saturday.

“As far as the police are aware, all four are of American nationality,” police said. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere tweeted condolences over what he said was the death of four Americans.

The MV-22B Osprey aircraft belonging to the U.S. Marine Corps was taking part in an exercise called Cold Response.

Rescue services reached the crash site by land early on Saturday after helicopters were unable to land due to poor weather conditions. Gale-force winds were blowing, heavy rains were falling, and there was a risk of avalanches, according to local weather forecasts.

“Police reached the crash site at around 0030 GMT. It is regrettably confirmed that all four on board the plane have perished,” Ivar Bo Nilsson, head of the operation for Nordland police, said in a statement.

Police were investigating the cause of the crash although their work was halted because of the weather conditions. The work was set to resume once the weather improves.

Some 30,000 troops from 27 countries are involved in Cold Response, an exercise designed to prepare NATO member countries for the defense of Norway. 
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Pope Francis, ramping up his implicit criticism of Russia, on Friday called the war in Ukraine a “perverse abuse of power” waged for partisan interests which has condemned defenseless people to violence.

The pope has not actually named Russia in his condemnations, but he has used phrases such as “unacceptable armed aggression” to get his point across and on Friday spoke of “people defending their land” and escaping bombardments.

“The tragedy of the war taking place in the heart of Europe has left us stunned,” he said, adding that few people would have imagined scenes similar to the two world wars in the 20th century.

His latest condemnation came in a message to a Catholic Church conference in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, one of the countries bordering Ukraine that has opened its doors to refugees.

“Once more humanity is threatened by a perverse abuse of power and partisan interests which condemns defenseless people to suffer every form of brutal violence,” he said.

“The blood and tears of children, the suffering of women and men who are defending their land or fleeing from bombardments shakes our conscience,” he said.

Moscow says its action is a “special military operation” designed not to occupy territory but to demilitarize and “de-Nazify” its neighbor.

The pope has rejected that term, however, saying previously it could not be considered “just a military operation” but a war that had unleashed “rivers of blood and tears.”

On Wednesday held a video call with Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kirill, 75, has made statements defending Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and sees the war as a bulwark against a West he considers decadent, particularly over the acceptance of homosexuality.

The Vatican said the pope told Kirill: “The ones who pay the price of war are the people, the Russian soldiers and the people who are bombarded and die.”
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President Joe Biden spoke with Chinese leader Xi Jinping for nearly two hours Friday, saying the U.S. wants Russian President Vladimir Putin to end to his war on Ukraine.  Chinese state media said Xi told Biden that Beijing does not want crisis or conflict. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Three weeks ago, Haseeb Noori became a refugee — for a second time.

The Afghan lawyer, 45, was living with his wife and five children at a makeshift refugee camp near the Ukrainian-Slovak border when Russian bombs started falling.

“My children panicked, and we decided to leave and head for the border,” Noori said in an interview with VOA.

Thousands were dashing to Ukraine’s borders with Western European countries. After a futile attempt to cross into Slovakia on February 24, the family turned around and headed north to the Polish border, joining other refugees in a replay of their frantic exit out of Kabul last year.

“After two days and two nights and walking for more than 50 kilometers, we entered Poland,” Noori said, speaking from a refugee camp in Barneveld, Netherlands, where he arrived two weeks ago.

Noori and his family were among several hundred Afghans who were evacuated to Ukraine by the country’s military following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on August 15.  Some of the evacuees resettled in the United States and Canada in recent months, but most were still living in Ukraine when Russia invaded the country last month.

Mass migration

The war has forced more than 3 million people out of the country, the largest mass migration in Europe since World War II. Among them were more than 162,000 foreign nationals who were living in Ukraine, according to International Organization for Migration.

In response to the crisis, the European Union on March 4 launched an emergency protection program for refugees from Ukraine, granting them residency rights, health insurance, education and other benefits across the 27-member bloc.

The benefits are applicable to refugees and other permanent residents of Ukraine. But the EU directive is carried out differently by different countries, and it’s not clear how many Afghan escapees from Ukraine are entitled to temporary protection.

Before war broke out in Ukraine, there were more than 5,000 Afghans living in Ukraine, according to Nigara Mirdad, a political counselor at the Afghan Embassy in Warsaw.

While some escaped to Romania and Ukraine’s other neighbors, the majority — about 3,000 Afghans — have crossed into Poland, according to Mirdad.

Unable to move to other European countries, some have remained in Poland.

Only in the movies

‘Najibullah Mohammad Hafiz was two weeks into his second semester at Kharkiv Medical University when fighting erupted. Two days later, the 20-year-old left Kharkiv on a five-day, 1,100-kilometer-plus perilous trek on foot and by car and train to the Polish border.

“By my count, we walked for 67 kilometers to get to the Polish border,” Hafiz said.  “What we experienced, you can only see in movies. I never imagined it would happen in real life.”

With his student documents left behind in Kharkiv, Hafiz is staying put.

“It’s not clear how long we’re staying here, what’s going to happen,” he said.

Mirdad, the counselor at the Afghan Embassy in Warsaw, said most Afghans spend a day or two in Poland before moving to Western European countries, primarily Germany and the Netherlands. The flow of Afghan refugees has slowed in recent days, she added.

Hajira Sadat, a Nuremberg-based interpreter who works with refugees in Germany, said Afghans with Ukrainian permanent residency are issued two-year residency permits by German authorities.

“They also enjoy government benefits given to other refugees,” she said.

Uncertainty

But not every Afghan with Ukrainian residency has received benefits under the new European Union temporary protection scheme. Mohammad Isa, who said he had a five-year residency permit in Ukraine, was issued a two-month visa upon arrival in Munich.

“After two months, [it] will be extended, but I don’t know what’s going to happen after that,” he told VOA.

In the Netherlands, newly arrived Afghan refugees face similar uncertainty. Noori, the Afghan lawyer, said Dutch immigration authorities have yet to register his family as refugees.

“It’s not clear whether we’ll receive temporary protection or what,” Noori said.

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he said, the State Department evacuated several Afghan families from Ukraine to Qatar and “made a lot of promises” to help the other evacuees. On March 7, the State Department contacted him to inquire about his safety and whereabouts.

“I told them I’d gotten out of Ukraine and was currently in Holland,” Noori said. “They said they’d contact their supervisors to see if they could evacuate us or not. They haven’t contacted me in a week.”

The State Department did not respond to a query about the fate of the Afghan evacuees fleeing Ukraine.

Khalil Khan contributed to this report.
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Ukrainian officials say they have yet to find any casualties in the ruins of a theater hit by a Russian airstrike this week in the southern city of Mariupol as Russian forces continue to fire on Ukrainian cities and negotiators from both countries seek to find common ground.   

As of Friday, 130 people have been rescued from the theater’s basement, Ukrainian officials said, as the search continues for the hundreds more who could be trapped in the makeshift bomb shelter that was hit Wednesday.

Mariupol’s city council said on Telegram that “according to initial information, there are no dead. But there is information about one person gravely wounded.”  

The theater was bombed despite signs indicating that civilians, including children, were sheltering there. Russia denies striking the theater.  

Also Friday, Russia’s lead negotiator in talks with Ukraine said the sides have moved closer to agreement on the issue of Ukraine dropping its bid to join NATO.  

Vladimir Medinsky said Friday the two countries are also “halfway there” on the question of Ukraine adopting neutral status.  

Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter, “Our positions are unchanged. Cease-fire, withdrawal of troops & strong security guarantees with concrete formulas.”  

Meanwhile, Russia bombarded the outskirts of Kyiv on Friday, and Russian missiles launched from the Black Sea landed in western Ukraine, near Lviv’s airport, more than three weeks after Russia’s war on its neighbor began.  

The airport was not hit, according to Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy, but an aircraft repair facility and a bus repair facility were. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the attack near Lviv, about 80 kilometers from Ukraine’s border with Poland. Sadovy said work at the facilities had been stopped before the attack.  

Ukraine’s air force western command said on Facebook that two of six missiles launched from the Black Sea were intercepted.  

In the Podil neighborhood of Kyiv early Friday, a residential building was hit, killing at least one person, according to emergency services, which said 98 people were evacuated.  

Two people were also killed in attacks on residential and administrative buildings in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, according Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration.  

US-China talks  

On the diplomatic front, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a rare videoconference call Friday.  

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden conveyed “very directly, leader to leader, what the implications and consequences would be” if China provided material support to Russia.

“China has to make a decision for themselves about where they want to stand and how they want the history books to look at them and view their actions,” she added. 

China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement after the nearly two-hour discussion that “conflict and confrontation” is “not in anyone’s interest.”  

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, however, criticized the U.S. suggestion that China risks being on the wrong side of history, saying the U.S. administration is being “overbearing.”

China could play a critical role in the conflict depending on its response to Russia’s reported request for military assistance. The U.S. is providing the bulk of military assistance to Ukraine, with Biden announcing another $800 million defense package this week.  

Russia still stalled  

The latest British defense intelligence assessment of the conflict is that “Russian forces have made minimal progress this week.” 

As the invasion enters its fourth week, Russian troops have failed to seize control of the capital, Kyiv, a major objective of the Kremlin.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense tweeted Friday that “Ukrainian forces around Kyiv and Mykolaiv continue to frustrate Russian attempts to encircle the cities.” 

“The cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol remain encircled and subject to heavy Russian shelling,” it said. 

U.S. defense officials have repeatedly described Russia’s military as facing stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces.  

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed tens of thousands of people at a stadium rally Friday, praising the Russian troops fighting in Ukraine. 

“We have not had unity like this for a long time,” he said.

“We know what we need to do, how to do it and at what cost. And we will absolutely accomplish all of our plans,” he added. 

Russia’s claims against U.S.  

Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council met Friday at Russia’s request for the second time in one week to discuss its latest allegations that the U.S. was operating a secret biological weapons program in Ukraine.  

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia claimed that Russian forces had uncovered new documents during their military offensive, and that Ukraine was playing only a secondary role in the alleged project.

“The Ukrainian specialists were not informed about the potential risks of transfer of biological materials and were kept in the dark,” Nebenzia said of the allegedly secret military biological program. “They don’t have a real idea about the real objectives of the research being carried out.”  

U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield dismissed the earlier allegations as “bizarre conspiracy theories” and said the latest claims sounded like they came from “some dark corner of the internet.”  

She expressed Washington’s continued concern that Moscow may be planting the seeds for an attack it would then blame on Ukraine.  

“We continue to believe it is possible that Russia may be planning to use chemical or biological agents against the Ukrainian people,” Thomas-Greenfield said.  

The United Nations’ human rights office said Friday it has verified 816 civilian killings since the fighting began February 24 but believes the death toll is vastly understated. Ukrainian officials say thousands of civilians have been killed.  

Nearly 3.3 million people have fled the war in Ukraine, according to U.N. estimates.  

The U.N. migration agency said Friday that in addition to those who left the country, nearly 6.5 million people have been displaced inside Ukraine and that another 12 million people have been stranded or unable to leave parts of Ukraine because of heightened security risks or a lack of resources. 

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, “By these estimates, roughly half the country is either internally displaced, stranded in affected areas or unable to leave, or has already fled to neighboring countries.”  

VOA’s White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson and U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.  

Some information also came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  

 
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In just three weeks, amid Russia’s invasion, an estimated 3 million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries, including Poland where herculean efforts are underway to feed and care for the new arrivals. VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze reports from Medyka, a Polish town along the border with Ukraine.
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Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor has accused Google’s YouTube of “spreading threats against citizens of the Russian Federation” in a statement released Friday.

“Earlier it became known that YouTube video hosting users are broadcasting commercials with calls to disable the railway communications of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus,” the statement added. “The actions of the YouTube administration are of a terrorist nature and threaten the life and health of Russian citizens.”

Roskomnadzor did not identify the users broadcasting the alleged threats.

While the statement did not mention blocking YouTube in Russia, an unnamed official told Russian state media outlet Sputnik that YouTube could be blocked “by the end of next week,” or as early as Friday.

If YouTube is blocked, it will be the latest salvo in a battle between Russia and American tech platforms following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Google officials did not provide Reuters with a comment on the latest developments.

The Russian government has already blocked or limited access to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The country has a Facebook alternative, VKontakte, and domestic photo and video sharing sites are reportedly in the works.

American big tech firms have also taken measures to block or limit access to Russian state media on their platforms. For example, YouTube, which is owned Google’s parent company Alphabet, blocked YouTube channels operated by RT and Sputnik.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.
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When Iraqi-born American entrepreneur Emad Ballack watched footage of war breaking out in Ukraine from his office in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, he decided he had to act.

As civilians started to pour out of the country, Ballack, who is an ethnic Kurd, began a four-day trip to Kyiv, a city he has called home for the last eight years.

“I was not scared but more worried about how I would manage to get into the country,” he said.

During his journey by plane and train, the 45-year-old started to think about how he could use his businesses, including restaurants and an e-commerce company, to help Ukrainians under fire.

“Fighting is not only about holding a gun. Because of who I am, I am more useful getting support, finances,” Ballack said. “Growing up during war times in Iraq gave me some sort of resilience. I grew up being able to adapt to tough situations.”

After a childhood in Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war, Ballack and his family fled to the Netherlands. He later settled in the United States before coming back to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2012.

A couple of years later he decided to start investing in Ukraine, just before Islamic State took over large swathes of Iraqi territory and dragged the Kurdistan region into a prolonged economic crisis.

Until Russia’s invasion, Ballack considered Ukraine a safe and promising country to invest in.

Now, using his own ventures and political and business connections in Ukraine and abroad, he is mobilizing support to deliver food, basic necessities and clothing to civilians and security forces.

After arriving in Kyiv on March 8, the entrepreneur started preparing free meals for security forces and civilians in his restaurant, while raising donations mostly in the United States.

Using his e-commerce company Zibox as a tool to manage the relief support, Ballack is organizing the delivery of goods to the Polish border with Ukraine, where local authorities assist with logistics to deliver the aid to those in need.

Unsure what the future holds, Ballack said he might bring more of his businesses to Iraqi Kurdistan.

“I am nervous about everything coming to a halt now,” he said. “But what I tell people to reassure them is that I myself am a war child. But look … I managed to rebuild my life.”
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