With the European Union pledging to end its dependence on Russian gas, Turkey is positioning itself as a key bridge to alternative energy supplies from other nations. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
Produced by: Rob Raffaele
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A prominent Russian opposition activist was arrested Monday near his home in Moscow and sentenced to 15 days in jail for allegedly disobeying a police order. 

The arrest comes just hours after Vladimir Kara-Murza gave an interview to CNN in which he called the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin “murderous” and predicted the war in Ukraine would lead to Putin’s downfall. 

“I have absolutely no doubt that the Putin regime will end over this war in Ukraine,” he told CNN, adding that it “doesn’t mean it’s going to happen tomorrow. The two main questions are time and price. And by price, I do not mean monetary — I mean the price of human blood and human lives, and it has already been horrendous. But the Putin regime will end over this, and there will be a democratic Russia after Putin.” 

In 2015 and again in 2017, Kara-Murza claimed he had been poisoned by Putin’s government. He said the poisonings were a result of his effort to get the United States and Europe to sanction Putin and other Russian officials. 

The first case reportedly left him with kidney failure. 

“Twice in the last seven years, Russian authorities have tried to kill (Kara-Murza) for seeking personal sanctions against thieves and murderers and now they want to throw him in jail for calling their vile and bloody war a war. I demand his immediate release!” Kara-Murza’s wife, Yevgeniya, tweeted. 

On Twitter Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was troubled by the arrest. 

“We are monitoring this situation closely and urge his immediate release,” he added.  

Kara-Murza’s lawyer said he will appeal the sentence. 

In March, Russia passed strict laws making use of the words “war” or “invasion” to describe Russia’s action in Ukraine prosecutable. 

 
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Humiliated in the polls, the country’s center-left and right contemplate their future 
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Britain’s prime minister and finance minister will have to pay fines for attending parties and violating the country’s pandemic lockdown rules, the government said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak have been under investigation for 12 parties at both No. 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, some of which were attended by the ministers and their staff.

“The prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer have today received notification that the metropolitan police intend to issue them with fixed penalty notices,” a government spokesperson said.

Police said some 50 people would face fines or other penalties over the parties.

The political opposition in Britain has called for Johnson’s resignation over the scandal.

Johnson apologized over one incident saying he thought it was a work event.

The parties were held during 2020 and 2021, according to news reports.

One event, captured in a photo published by the BBC, shows Johnson and others gathered at the No. 10 Downing Street garden drinking wine in May 2020 when other citizens were not allowed to leave their homes without a reason, and outdoor gatherings were limited to two for exercise.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.
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The WTO warned Tuesday that Russia’s war in Ukraine had darkened the prospects for world trade as it sounded the alarm against the global economy dividing into rival blocs over the conflict.

The World Trade Organization said the war would damage world trade growth this year and drag down global gross domestic product (GDP) growth as well.

“This is not the time to turn inward,” WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told a press conference at the global trade body’s headquarters in Geneva.

“In a crisis, more trade is needed to ensure stable, equitable access to necessities. Restricting trade will threaten the well-being of families and businesses and make more fraught the task of building a durable economic recovery from COVID-19.”

The former Nigerian foreign and finance minister said countries and international organizations must work together to facilitate trade amid sharp inflation pressures on essential supplies and growing difficulties for supply chains.

“History teaches us that dividing the world economy into rival blocs and turning our backs on the poorest countries leads neither to prosperity nor to peace,” said Okonjo-Iweala.

The WTO said world GDP, at market exchange rates, is expected to increase by 2.8% in 2022 — down 1.3% percentage points from the previous forecast of 4.1% — after rising 5.7% in 2021.

Growth should rise to 3.2% in 2023 — close to the average rate of three percent between 2010 and 2019.

The WTO now expects merchandise trade volume growth of 3% in 2022 — down from its previous forecast of 4.7% — and then 3.4% in 2023.

‘Immense human suffering’

“The war in Ukraine has created immense human suffering, but it has also damaged the global economy at a critical juncture. Its impact will be felt around the world, particularly in low-income countries, where food accounts for a large fraction of household spending,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

“Smaller supplies and higher prices for food mean that the world’s poor could be forced to do without. This must not be allowed to happen.”

The WTO said Western sanctions on Russian businesses and individuals were likely to have a strong effect on commercial services trade.

In 2019, the European Union accounted for more than 42% of Russia’s services imports and 31.1% of its services exports.

“Prior to the pandemic, travel/tourism and air transport services were the largest traded services by Russia, accounting for 46% of its exports and 36% of its imports,” said the WTO.

“These services, already hit hard by the pandemic, may be heavily affected by economic sanctions.”

The WTO said the war in Ukraine was not the only factor currently weighing on world trade.

It said lockdowns in China to prevent the spread of COVID-19 were once again disrupting seaborne trade at a time when supply chain pressures appeared to be easing.

“This could lead to renewed shortages of manufacturing inputs and higher inflation,” it said.
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US, Britain say they are aware of unconfirmed reports of a chemical attack in Mariupol and are investigating 
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KIAMBU COUNTY, KENYA — Monica Kariuki is about ready to give up on farming. What is driving her off her about 40,000 square feet (10 acres) of land outside Nairobi isn’t bad weather, pests or blight — the traditional agricultural curses — but fertilizer: It costs too much.

Despite thousands of miles separating her from the battlefields of Ukraine, Kariuki and her cabbage, corn and spinach farm are indirect victims of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. The war has pushed up the price of natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and has led to severe sanctions against Russia, a major exporter of fertilizer. 

Kariuki used to spend 20,000 Kenyan shillings, or about $175, to fertilize her entire farm. Now, she would need to spend five times as much. Continuing to work the land, she said, would yield nothing but losses.

“I cannot continue with the farming business. I am quitting farming to try something else,” she said. 

Higher fertilizer prices are making the world’s food supply more expensive and less abundant, as farmers skimp on nutrients for their crops and get lower yields. While the ripples will be felt by grocery shoppers in wealthy countries, the squeeze on food supplies will land hardest on families in poorer countries. It could hardly come at a worse time: The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said last week that its world food-price index in March reached the highest level since it started in 1990. 

The fertilizer crunch threatens to further limit worldwide food supplies, already constrained by the disruption of crucial grain shipments from Ukraine and Russia. The loss of those affordable supplies of wheat, barley and other grains raises the prospect of food shortages and political instability in Middle Eastern, African and some Asian countries where millions rely on subsidized bread and cheap noodles. “Food prices will skyrocket because farmers will have to make profit, so what happens to consumers?” said Uche Anyanwu, an agricultural expert at the University of Nigeria.

The aid group Action Aid warns that families in the Horn of Africa are already being driven “to the brink of survival.” 

The U.N. says Russia is the world’s No. 1 exporter of nitrogen fertilizer and No. 2 in phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. Its ally Belarus, also contending with Western sanctions, is another major fertilizer producer. 

Many developing countries — including Mongolia, Honduras, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Mexico and Guatemala — rely on Russia for at least a fifth of their imports. 

The conflict also has driven up the already-exorbitant price of natural gas, used to make nitrogen fertilizer. The result: European energy prices are so high that some fertilizer companies “have closed their businesses and stopped operating their plants,” said David Laborde, a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute. 

For corn and cabbage farmer Jackson Koeth, 55, of Eldoret in western Kenya, the conflict in Ukraine was distant and puzzling until he had to decide whether to go ahead with the planting season. Fertilizer prices had doubled from last year. 

Koeth said he decided to keep planting but only on half the acreage of years past. Yet he doubts he can make a profit with fertilizer so costly. 

Greek farmer Dimitris Filis, who grows olives, oranges and lemons, said “you have to search to find” ammonia nitrate and that the cost of fertilizing a 10-hectare (25-acre) olive grove has doubled to 560 euros ($310). While selling his wares at an Athens farm market, he said most farmers plan to skip fertilizing their olive and orange groves this year. 

“Many people will not use fertilizers at all, and this as a result, lowers the quality of the production and the production itself, and slowly, slowly at one point, they won’t be able to farm their land because there will be no income,” Filis said. 

In China, the price of potash — potassium-rich salt used as fertilizer — is up 86% from a year earlier. Nitrogen fertilizer prices have climbed 39% and phosphorus fertilizer is up 10%. 

In the eastern Chinese city of Tai’an, the manager of a 35-family cooperative that raises wheat and corn said fertilizer prices have jumped 40% since the start of the year. 

“We can hardly make any money,” said the manager, who would give only his surname, Zhao. 

Terry Farms, which grows produce on about 90,000 000 square feet (2,100 acres) largely in Ventura, California, has seen prices of some fertilizer formulations double; others are up 20%. Shifting fertilizers is risky, Vice President William Terry said, because cheaper versions might not give “the crop what it needs as a food source.” 

As the growing season approaches in Maine, potato farmers are grappling with a 70% to 100% increase in fertilizer prices from last year, depending on the blend. 

“I think it’s going to be a pretty expensive crop, no matter what you’re putting in the ground, from fertilizer to fuel, labor, electrical and everything else,” said Donald Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board. 

In Prudentopolis, a town in Brazil’s Parana state, farmer Edimilson Rickli showed off a warehouse that would normally be packed with fertilizer bags but has only enough to last a few more weeks. He’s worried that, with the war in Ukraine showing no sign of letting up, he’ll have to go without fertilizer when he plants wheat, barley and oats next month. 

“The question is: Where Brazil is going to buy more fertilizer from?” he said. “We have to find other markets.” 

Other countries are hoping to help fill the gaps. Nigeria, for example, opened Africa’s largest fertilizer factory last month, and the $2.5 billion plant has already shipped fertilizer to the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico. 

India, meanwhile, is seeking more fertilizer imports from Israel, Oman, Canada and Saudi Arabia to make up for lost shipments from Russia and Belarus. 

“If the supply shortage gets worse, we will produce less,” said Kishor Rungta of the nonprofit Fertiliser Association of India. “That’s why we need to look for options to get more fertilizers in the country.” 

Agricultural firms are providing support for farmers, especially in Africa where poverty often limits access to vital farm inputs. In Kenya, Apollo Agriculture is helping farmers get fertilizer and access to finance. 

“Some farmers are skipping the planting season and others are going into some other ventures such as buying goats to cope,” said Benjamin Njenga, co-founder of the firm. “So, these support services go a long way for them.” 

Governments are helping, too. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last month that it was issuing $250 million in grants to support U.S. fertilizer production. The Swiss government has released part of its nitrogen fertilizer reserves.

Still, there’s no easy answer to the double whammy of higher fertilizer prices and limited supplies. The next 12 to 18 months, food researcher LaBorde said, “will be difficult.” 

The market already was “super, super tight” before the war, said Kathy Mathers of the Fertilizer Institute trade group. 

“Unfortunately, in many cases, growers are just happy to get fertilizer at all,” she said. 
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Greece’s conservative government on Monday denied any role in an alleged case of surveillance of an investigative journalist via spyware in his mobile phone.

The statement from the government came after Greek investigative website Inside Story on Monday alleged that financial journalist Thanasis Koukakis had had his phone hacked.

Its story cited a three-page report by the Canadian laboratory Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto, which had revealed several cases of this kind of espionage.

Koukakis’ phone had been infected with a spyware called Predator between July 12 and September 24 last year, said the Citizen Lab report.

The malware could not only record conversations but also hack the phone’s passwords, photos, internet history and contacts.

Spokesperson Yannis Economou denied that the government had had any role in the affair, calling for “the competent authorities to do their job to clear up this affair and for justice to be done.”

Posting on Twitter, Koukakis noted the government statement and said he was awaiting the findings of an investigation by the ADAE, the Greek body responsible for communications security and privacy.

His investigations have included series on a Greek bank, expenses claims at the migration ministry, and defense contracts.

The Global network for Independent Journalism tweeted on Monday that it was “alarmed” at reports that the Predator spyware had been used to spy on Koukakis.

“We will be demanding answers from the Greek government,” it added.

This latest affair follows a row last November after the Greek left-wing daily Efsyn published internal intelligence memos on political activists – and on one journalist.

A government minister at the time denied there was any state surveillance of journalists in Greece.

According to Citizen Lab, the Predator malware was developed by a business called Cytrox, which is based in neighboring North Macedonia.

 
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Austria’s chancellor held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday, amid warnings that the Kremlin is preparing to launch a large offensive in the eastern Donbas region. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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As in 2017, France’s President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen will meet in a runoff later this month, after placing first and second in Sunday’s first round of presidential elections, with about 27% and 23% of the vote, respectively. Macron is favored to win a second term, but polls show a tight race — and a chance for a far-right victory. From Paris, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA.  
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A United Nations agreement aimed at sparing populated areas from explosive weapons is near completion and is expected to be finalized in early June. Some 200 delegates from more than 65 states participated in negotiations last week at the United Nations’ European headquarters in Geneva. 

The new international agreement would oblige states to reduce harm to civilians by limiting the use of explosive weapons including airstrikes, multi-barrel rocket systems, and mortars in cities and towns.

These weapons are designed for use in open battlefields and have devastating consequences when used in populated areas.

An NGO coalition, the International Network on Explosive Weapons, reports the use of heavy explosive weapons in cities and towns kills and wounds tens of thousands of civilians every year and lays waste to civilian infrastructure.

This is borne out by recent data from Ukraine, Ethiopia, Iraq, Gaza, Yemen, and Syria where 90 percent of the victims were civilians.

Despite the heavy toll caused by these weapons, the network reports that several states, including Belgium, Canada, Israel, Turkey, Britain, and the United States, sought to weaken the text of the agreement.

The coordinator of the International Network on Explosive Weapons, Laura Boillot, says these states argue that the new agreement should re-affirm what International Humanitarian Law already obliges them to do and not go beyond that.

Without mentioning Russia by name, Boillot says more is needed.

“The situation in Ukraine, where we are seeing extensive use and widespread use of a range of different explosive weapons from air-dropped bombs, rocket systems missiles into major towns and cities in Ukraine is making it very difficult for States to not take this issue seriously,” she said.

Boillot notes there were strong calls for a more humanitarian-centered text by states such as Chile and Mexico, Togo and Nigeria, as well as Austria and New Zealand.

Alma Taslidzan is the network’s civilian advocacy manager. She says discussions are still ongoing regarding the extent of assistance to victims. She says any assistance should include people injured, and families of those killed and injured.

“It includes that ensuring basic needs are met and safe access to provisions of first medical care, emergence medical care, because that is very important. Then physical rehabilitation to those that have lost their limbs. Psycho-social support is something that is often forgotten but is extremely important and has to be tackled,” she said.

Russia and Syria have stayed away from the talks. China also did not participate in this negotiating round, although they have taken part previously in the process. Network activists say they hope to see China involved when final discussions are held in June.
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Russian former reporter Ivan Safronov said ahead of the resumption of his treason trial on Monday that he plans to vigorously fight the charges against him and does not fear the prospect of being jailed.

Safronov, who covered military affairs for the Vedomosti and Kommersant newspapers before becoming an aide to the head of Russia’s space agency two months before his arrest in July 2020, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

He denies accusations of passing military secrets about Russian arms sales in the Middle East and Africa to the Czech Republic, a NATO member, while he worked as a reporter in 2017, calling them “a complete travesty of justice and common sense.”

His detention sent a chill through Russia’s media landscape, where controls were already tight and have been tightened further since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

His trial resumes behind closed doors later on Monday.

Striking a defiant tone in personal correspondence seen by Reuters on Monday, Safronov said he harbored no illusions about the prospect of being imprisoned for his alleged offenses.

“I will fight until the end, there is no doubt about that,” Safronov wrote in a letter sent from Moscow’s Lefortovo prison and dated March 26.

“If it’s a prison term, then it’s a prison term. It absolutely doesn’t scare me,” said the letter, shown to Reuters on condition the addressee remained anonymous.

Safronov has said state investigators pointed to his acquaintance with a Czech journalist he met in Moscow in 2010 who later set up a website which Safronov said he contributed to using information entirely based on open sources.

Since sending troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, Moscow has introduced a law outlawing the use of certain terms to describe its military intervention in Ukraine, which it calls a “special military operation.”

That prompted many independent media outlets to close or relocate.
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Ukrainian leader urges US to send more weapons
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Macron and Le Pen in runoff vote April 24
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As the hospital train sped away from the frontline in war-torn Ukraine, electrician Evhen Perepelytsia was grateful he would soon see his children again after almost losing his life.

“We hope that the worst is over — that after what I’ve been through, it will be better,” the 30-year-old said, lying on a train carriage bed swaddled in a grey blanket.

He was among 48 wounded and elderly patients to be evacuated from embattled east Ukraine this weekend, pulling up in the western city of Lviv Sunday evening after a long trip overnight.

The evacuation was the first from the east since a Russian strike killed 52 people among thousands waiting for the train at the eastern railway station of Kramatorsk on Friday.

And it was the fourth to be organized by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

Inside one of the carriages turned ward-on-wheels, Perepelytsya recounted how he lost his leg to shelling in his hometown of Hirske in the eastern region of Luhansk.

He was standing outside and had just discussed abandoning their home to join their children in the west of the country, he said.

“I took one step forward, and when I made the second, I fell,” he said. “It turned out that it hit very close to me, hit a monument, and a fragment from it tore off my leg.”

Sitting on the end of his bed, his wife, Yuliya, 29, said she had been terrified she would lose him.

“He was unconscious twice in the intensive care unit,” she said. “We couldn’t save his leg, but we saved his life.”

She said their three children were waiting in Lviv with their grandmother.

“We’re not going back,” she said.

The United Nations says at least 1,793 civilians have been killed and 2,439 wounded since Russia launched its invasion, but the actual tally is likely much higher.

More than 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes.

The Ukrainian authorities have in recent days urged all residents in the east of the country to flee westwards to safety as they fear Moscow will unleash the full force of its military there after setbacks around the capital Kyiv.

As the blue carriages pulled into Lviv, medics carried those who were unable to walk on stretchers into waiting ambulances and helped the others on foot or in wheelchairs onto buses.

In one bus, 77-year-old Paraskevia sat patiently with a large white bandage on her eye, and a net over her head to keep it in place.

“My eye hurts,” said the elderly lady from the village of Novodruzhesk in Luhansk, who did not give her second name.

“But the doctors on the train were great,” she added, of the 13 staff members on board, most of them Ukrainian.

In front of her, a 67-year-old who gave his name as Ivan said he had to wait in a basement for two days after being shot in the street.

Neighbors in the town of Popasna, also in Luhansk, bandaged him up as best they could until the medics could arrive.

On the platform, MSF train hospital coordinator Jean-Clement Cabrol caught his breath.

The train had successfully ferried 48 people to safety, but still many more needed help, the doctor said.

Earlier in the war, a first train had traveled to Zaporizhzhia to pick up three families who were wounded while trying to flee the besieged port city of Mariupol.

After that, two operations whisked dozens of patients — mostly elderly people — out of Kramatorsk, leaving just days before the deadly Russian attack.

By the tracks on Sunday evening, the doctor said another train would soon depart to continue evacuations as long as it was possible.

“We are heading back tonight,” he said.
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Russian ally Serbia took the delivery of a sophisticated Chinese anti-aircraft system in a veiled operation this weekend, amid Western concerns that an arms buildup in the Balkans at the time of the war in Ukraine could threaten the fragile peace in the region.

Media and military experts said Sunday that six Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes landed at Belgrade’s civilian airport early Saturday, reportedly carrying HQ-22 surface-to-air missile systems for the Serbian military.

The Chinese cargo planes with military markings were pictured at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport. Serbia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment.

The arms delivery over the territory of at least two NATO member states, Turkey and Bulgaria, was seen by experts as a demonstration of China’s growing global reach.

“The Y-20s’ appearance raised eyebrows because they flew en masse as opposed to a series of single-aircraft flights,” wrote The Warzone online magazine. “The Y-20’s presence in Europe in any numbers is also still a fairly new development.”

Serbian military analyst Aleksandar Radic said that “the Chinese carried out their demonstration of force.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic all but confirmed the delivery of the medium-range system that was agreed in 2019, saying on Saturday that he will present “the newest pride” of the Serbian military on Tuesday or Wednesday.

He had earlier complained that NATO countries, which represent most of Serbia’s neighbors, are refusing to allow the system’s delivery flights over their territories amid tensions over Russia’s aggression on Ukraine.

Although Serbia has voted in favor of U.N. resolutions that condemn the bloody Russian attacks in Ukraine, it has refused to join international sanctions against its allies in Moscow or outright criticize the apparent atrocities committed by the Russian troops there.

Back in 2020, U.S. officials warned Belgrade against the purchase of HQ-22 anti-aircraft systems, whose export version is known as FK-3. They said that if Serbia really wants to join the European Union and other Western alliances, it must align its military equipment with Western standards.

The Chinese missile system has been widely compared to the American Patriot and the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems although it has a shorter range than more advanced S-300s. Serbia will be the first operator of the Chinese missiles in Europe.

Serbia was at war with its neighbors in the 1990s. The country, which is formally seeking EU membership, has already been boosting its armed forces with Russian and Chinese arms, including warplanes, battle tanks and other equipment.

In 2020, it took delivery of Chengdu Pterodactyl-1 drones, known in China as Wing Loong. The combat drones are able to strike targets with bombs and missiles and can be used for reconnaissance tasks.

There are fears in the West that the arming of Serbia by Russia and China could encourage the Balkan country toward another war, especially against its former province of Kosovo that proclaimed independence in 2008. Serbia, Russia and China don’t recognize Kosovo’s statehood, while the United States and most Western countries do.
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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.
…

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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