Russia faced mounting international condemnation amid reports of possible war crimes committed by Russian forces in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and other parts of Ukraine.

In a post on Twitter on April 3, European Council President Charles Michel said Moscow will face “further EU sanctions.”

Michel said he was “shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv liberated region.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement that her government has seen “increasing evidence of appalling acts by the invading forces in towns such as Irpin and Bucha.”

Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said on April 2 that some 300 local civilians had been shot during the time the town was occupied by Russian forces. About 280 were allegedly dumped in a mass grave, while the rest were left in the streets.

Moving and graphic images of the bodies have been distributed on social media.

“These are the consequences of Russian occupation,” Fedoruk was quoted as saying.

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING – The following tweet contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing.

Russia has not responded to the reports.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Germany’s Bild newspaper that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide.” He said Russian President Vladimir Putin bore responsibility.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba said the “Bucha massacre was deliberate.”

“I demand new, devastating G7 sanctions NOW,” Kuleba wrote in an April 3 post on Twitter, referring to the Group of Seven leading economies.

The accusations of alleged atrocities have emerged as Russian forces pull back from positions around Kyiv and the northern cities of Chernihiv and Kharkiv.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on April 3 that it had “documented several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations against civilians in occupied areas of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine.”

The NGO said that, on March 4, Russian forces in Bucha shot at least one man in the back of the head.

Truss said on April 2 that she was “appalled by atrocities in Bucha and other towns in Ukraine” and promised that perpetrators would be prosecuted.

In his post on Twitter, Michel said the European Union was assisting Ukraine “in gathering of necessary evidence for pursuit in international courts.”

The International Criminal Court had earlier opened an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.

The Human Rights Watch report included several allegations of rapes, two cases of summary executions involving seven victims, and other instances of threats and violence against civilians.

“The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians,” Hugh Williamson, HRW’s Europe and Central Asia director, was quoted as saying.
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Polls opened across Hungary early Sunday as voters in the Central European country faced a choice: take a chance on a diverse, Western-looking coalition of opposition parties, or grant nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban a renewed mandate with a fourth consecutive term in office.

The contest is expected to be the closest since Orban took power in 2010, thanks to Hungary’s six main opposition parties putting aside ideological differences to form a united front against his right-wing Fidesz party.

Recent polls suggest a tight race but give Fidesz a slight lead, making it likely that undecided voters will determine the victor in Sunday’s vote.

Opposition parties and international observers have pointed out structural impediments to defeating Orban by electoral means, highlighting pervasive pro-government bias in the public media, domination of commercial news outlets by Orban allies and a heavily gerrymandered electoral map.

Yet despite what it calls an uneven playing field, the six-party opposition coalition, United For Hungary, has asked voters to support its efforts to introduce a new political culture in Hungary based on pluralistic governance and mended alliances with the EU and NATO.

The coalition’s candidate for prime minister, Peter Marki-Zay, has promised to bring an end to what he alleges is rampant government corruption, and to raise living standards by increasing funding to Hungary’s ailing health care and education systems.

After voting along with his family in his hometown of Hodmezovasarhely, where he serves as mayor, Marki-Zay on Sunday called the election an “uphill battle” due to Fidesz’s superior economic resources and advantage in the media, “but if everybody will vote, we still know that there are more people that want change in Hungary.”

“There is still a chance that we can defeat our 1,000-year-old history’s most corrupt government,” Marki-Zay said.

Orban – a fierce critic of immigration, LGBTQ rights and “EU bureaucrats” – has garnered the admiration of right-wing nationalists across Europe and North America.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson broadcast from Budapest for a week last summer, where he extolled Orban’s hardline approach to immigration and the razor wire fence he erected along Hungary’s southern border.

A proponent of what he calls “illiberal democracy,” Orban has taken many of Hungary’s democratic institutions under his control, and depicted himself as a defender of European Christendom against Muslim migrants, progressivism and the “LGBTQ lobby.”

In his frequent battles with the EU, of which Hungary is a member, he has portrayed the 27-member bloc as an oppressive regime reminiscent of the Soviet occupiers that dominated Hungary for more than 40 years in the 20th century, and has bucked attempts to draw some of his policies into line with EU rules.

Those policies, including what critics view as violations of the rights of LGBTQ people, misuse of EU funds and exerting undue control over Hungary’s media, have put him at odds with Brussels and resulted in billions of euros in EU funding being withheld from his government.

While Orban had earlier campaigned on divisive social and cultural issues, he dramatically shifted the tone of his campaign after Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February, and has portrayed the election as a choice between peace and stability or war and chaos.

While the opposition called for Hungary to support its embattled neighbor and act in lockstep with its EU and NATO partners, Orban, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has insisted that Hungary must remain neutral and maintain its close economic ties with Moscow, including continuing to import Russian gas and oil.

At his final campaign rally on Friday, Orban told a crowd of supporters that supplying Ukraine with weapons – something that Hungary, alone among Ukraine’s EU neighbors, has refused to do — would make the country a military target, and that sanctioning Russian energy imports would cripple the economy.

“This isn’t our war, we have to stay out of it,” Orban said.

But Marki-Zay said on Sunday that the stakes of the election were about even more than the immediate conflict next door, and that he and his movement were “fighting for decency, we are fighting for the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in Hungary.”

“We are fighting for the whole world. We want to show that this model that Orban has … introduced here in Hungary is not acceptable for any decent, honest man,” Marki-Zay said.
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Britain is experiencing a record number of COVID-19 cases, with almost 5 million people, or 1 person in every 13 infected, according to official data.

The news of the spike in infections came on the same day that Britain stopped giving free rapid COVID tests to most of its population, as part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “living with COVID” plan.

Under Johnson’s plan, people who do not have conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID-19 must pay for tests to find out if they have been infected.

The uptick is blamed on the highly contagious omicron variant BA.2, which is also causing an increase in hospitalization and death rates. However, the number of infections is expected to start decreasing this month and next month, officials say.

“Any infection that spreads rapidly, peaks quickly and decreases rapidly on the other side,” Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, told The Guardian.

According to an Associated Press report, a University of Oxford biology professor said he believes most people in the country will be infected with the variant this summer.

James Naismith said, “This is literally living with the virus by being infected with it.”

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday that it has recorded more than 490,000 global COVID cases and more than 6 million deaths.  Nearly 11 billion vaccines have been administered, according to Johns Hopkins.
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Pope Francis visited the grotto Sunday where St. Paul lived after washing up on Malta, recalling the welcome the apostle received and urging better treatment of modern-day arrivals on the Mediterranean island.

On the final day of his weekend trip to Malta, the 85-year-old pontiff will also hold open-air mass before visiting a migrant center that will soon host refugees from the Ukraine war.

According to Christian tradition, Paul was shipwrecked on Malta in 60 AD while en route to Rome and performed several miracles in his three months there.

Following in the footsteps of former popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Francis visited the holy grotto in Rabat, lighting a candle and saying a prayer.

He recalled how Paul and his fellow travelers were welcomed, even though “no one knew their names, their place of birth or their social status.”

He called on God to “help us to recognize from afar those in need, struggling amidst the waves of the sea, dashed against the reefs of unknown shores” and grant that “our compassion be more than empty words.”

The pope, who last summer underwent colon surgery and canceled an event in February due to acute knee pain, appeared to have trouble walking during the visit, where he also met the sick and disabled at the connected Basilica of St. Paul.

Safe harbor

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has overshadowed the pope’s first trip to Catholic-majority Malta, a voyage delayed two years by coronavirus.

Addressing politicians and diplomats Saturday, he warned that “some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts” in a thinly veiled accusation against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Asked by a reporter about a possible trip to Kyiv, he said a visit to Ukraine’s capital was “on the table.”

The war has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, which feeds into a key theme of Francis’ nine-year papacy — the need to welcome those fleeing war, poverty or the effects of climate change.

Malta is on the frontline of the route from North Africa into Europe and thousands of people who risked the crossing in overcrowded boats have ended up here.

But charity groups have accused Malta of turning a blind eye to desperate people in its waters, and the pope on Saturday reminded the archipelago of its status as a “safe harbor”, while adding that other countries must also step in.

“The growing migration emergency — here we can think of the refugees from war-torn Ukraine — calls for a broad-based and shared response,” he said.

‘Very tired’

After visiting the grotto, the pope headed to Floriana, near the capital Valletta, where he was set to conduct mass for a 10,000-strong crowd of followers.

Awaiting him among the crowd was 67-year-old Anna Balzan from the nearby city of Qormi and her extended family. Over her shoulders was draped a Vatican flag she purchased during John Paul II’s visit in 1990.

“I’ve seen Benedict and John Paul when they came to Malta,” she said, expressing concern for the current pope’s health.

“I saw him as very tired yesterday… I think he is suffering.”

Later Sunday, Francis will return to the theme of migrants by visiting the John XXIII Peace Lab, a center inspired by the pope of that name, which is preparing for the arrival of Ukrainian refugees.

Run for the past five decades by a Franciscan friar, now 91, it already hosts around 55 young men from different parts of Africa who arrived in Malta without any legal papers. 
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The Muslim holy month of Ramadan — when the faithful fast from dawn to dusk — began at sunrise Saturday in much of the Middle East, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent energy and food prices soaring.

The conflict cast a pall over Ramadan, when large gatherings over meals and family celebrations are a tradition. Many in the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia planned to start observing Sunday, and some Shiites in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq were also marking the start of Ramadan a day later.

Muslims follow a lunar calendar, and a moon-sighting methodology can lead to different countries declaring the start of Ramadan a day or two apart.

Muslim-majority nations including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates had declared the month would begin Saturday morning.

A Saudi statement Friday was broadcast on the kingdom’s state-run Saudi TV and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, congratulated Muslims on Ramadan’s arrival.

Jordan, a predominantly Sunni country, also said the first day of Ramadan would be on Sunday, in a break from following Saudi Arabia. The kingdom said the Islamic religious authority was unable to spot the crescent moon indicating the beginning of the month.

Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic group, Muhammadiyah, which counts more than 60 million members, said that according to its astronomical calculations Ramadan begins Saturday. But the country’s religious affairs minister had announced Friday that Ramadan would start on Sunday, after Islamic astronomers in the country failed to sight the new moon.

It wasn’t the first time the Muhammadiyah has offered a differing opinion on the matter, but most Indonesians — Muslims comprise nearly 90% of the country’s 270 million people — are expected to follow the government’s official date.

Many had hoped for a more cheerful Ramadan after the coronavirus pandemic blocked the world’s 2 billion Muslims from many rituals the past two years.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, millions of people in the Middle East are now wondering where their next meals will come from. The skyrocketing prices are affecting people whose lives were already upended by conflict, displacement and poverty from Lebanon, Iraq and Syria to Sudan and Yemen.

Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which Middle East countries rely on to feed millions of people who subsist on subsidized bread and bargain noodles. They are also top exporters of other grains and sunflower seed oil used for cooking.

Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, has received most of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine in recent years. Its currency has now also taken a dive, adding to other pressures driving up prices.

Shoppers in the capital, Cairo, turned out earlier this week to stock up on groceries and festive decorations, but many had to buy less than last year because of the prices.

Ramadan tradition calls for colorful lanterns and lights strung throughout Cairo’s narrow alleys and around mosques. Some people with the means to do so set up tables on the streets to dish up free post-fast Iftar meals for the poor. The practice is known in the Islamic world as Tables of the Compassionate.

“This could help in this situation,” said Rabei Hassan, the muezzin of a mosque in Giza as he bought vegetables and other food from a nearby market. “People are tired of the prices.”

Worshippers attended mosque for hours of evening prayers, or tarawih. On Friday evening, thousands of people packed the al-Azhar Mosque after attendance was banned for the past two years to stem the pandemic.

“They were difficult (times) … Ramadan without tarawih at the mosque is not Ramadan,” said Saeed Abdel-Rahman, a 64-year-old retired teacher as he entered al-Azhar for prayers.

Higher prices also exacerbated the woes of Lebanese already facing a major economic crisis. Over the past two years, the currency collapsed and the country’s middle class was plunged into poverty. The meltdown has also brought on severe shortages in electricity, fuel and medicine.

In the Gaza Strip, few people were shopping on Friday in markets usually packed at this time of year. Merchants said Russia’s war on Ukraine has sent prices skyrocketing, alongside the usual challenges, putting a damper on the festive atmosphere that Ramadan usually creates.

The living conditions of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the impoverished coastal territory are tough, compounded by a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007.

Toward the end of Ramadan last year, a deadly 11-day war between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Israel cast a cloud over festivities, including the Eid al-Fitr holiday that follows the holy month. It was the fourth bruising war with Israel in just over a decade.

In Iraq, the start of Ramadan highlighted widespread frustration over a meteoric rise in food prices, exacerbated in the past month by the war in Ukraine.

Suhaila Assam, a 62-year-old retired teacher and women’s rights activist, said she and her retired husband are struggling to survive on their combined pension of $1,000 a month, with prices of cooking oil, flour and other essentials having more than doubled.

“We, as Iraqis, use cooking oil and flour a lot. Almost in every meal. So how can a family of five members survive?” she asked.

Akeel Sabah, 38, is a flour distributor in the Jamila wholesale market, which supplies all of Baghdad’s Rasafa district on the eastern side of the Tigris River with food. He said flour and almost all other foodstuffs are imported, which means distributors have to pay for them in dollars. A ton of flour used to cost $390.

“Today I bought the ton for $625,” he said.

“The currency devaluation a year ago already led to an increase in prices, but with the ongoing (Ukraine) crisis, prices are skyrocketing. Distributors lost millions,” he said.

In Istanbul, Muslims held the first Ramadan prayers in 88 years in the Hagia Sophia, nearly two years after the iconic former cathedral was converted into a mosque.

Worshippers filled the 6th-century building and the square outside Friday night for tarawih prayers led by Ali Erbas, the government head of religious affairs. Although converted for Islamic use and renamed the Grand Hagia Sophia Mosque in July 2020, COVID-19 restrictions had limited worship at the site.

“After 88 years of separation, the Hagia Sophia Mosque has regained the tarawih prayer,” Erbas said, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. 
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The friendship of Ukrainian musician Valeriya Sholokhova and Russian musician Nikita Morozov transcends the fighting between their countries. For VOA News, Iacopo Luzi has the story.
Camera: Iacopo Luzi
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French President Emmanuel Macron held his first big rally Saturday in his race for reelection, promising the French more “progress” and “solidarity” over the next five years, but his campaign has hit a speed bump.

It’s been dubbed “the McKinsey Affair,” named after an American consulting company hired to advise the French government on its COVID-19 vaccination campaign and other policies. A new French Senate report questions the government’s use of private consultants and accuses McKinsey of tax dodging. The issue is energizing Macron’s rivals and dogging him at campaign stops ahead of France’s April 10 first-round presidential vote.

Macron, a centrist who has been in the forefront of diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine, has a comfortable lead in polls so far over far-right leader Marine Le Pen and other challengers.

“We are here to make possible a project of progress, of independence, for the future, for our France,” Macron told a crowd of about 30,000 at a stadium that usually hosts rugby matches. “I see difficulties to make ends meet, situations of insecurity … and so much more to accomplish to turn back extremism.”

Inflation, bonuses, pensions

Speaking to those who see “all their salary go into gasoline, bills, rent” as the war in Ukraine is driving up food and energy prices, Macron promised to let companies give a tax-free bonus to employees of up to 6,000 euros ($6,627) as soon as this summer.

He also promised to raise the minimum pension to 1,100 euros ($1,214) a month for those who have worked full time — up from about 700 euros now. The retirement age will need to be progressively raised from 62 to 65 to finance the plan, he said.

Supporters welcomed him, chanting “Macron, president!” “One, two, five more years!” and waved the French tricolor flag.

McKinsey

But for those trying to unseat Macron, the word “McKinsey” is becoming a rallying cry.

Critics describe the French government’s 1 billion euros spent on consulting firms like McKinsey last year as privatization and Americanization of French politics and are demanding more transparency.

The French Senate, where opposition conservatives hold a majority, published a report last month investigating the government’s use of private consulting firms. The report found that state spending on such contracts has doubled in the past three years despite mixed results, and warned they could pose conflicts of interest. Dozens of private companies are involved in the consulting, including giants like Ireland-based multinational Accenture and French group Capgemini.

Most damningly, the report says McKinsey hasn’t paid corporate profit taxes in France since at least 2011, but instead used a system of “tax optimization” through its Delaware-based parent company.

McKinsey issued a statement saying it “respects French tax rules that apply to it” and defending its work in France.

McKinsey notably advised the French government on its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, which got off to a halting start but eventually became among the world’s most comprehensive. Outside consultants have also advised Macron’s government on housing reform, asylum policy and other measures.

Macron’s defense

The Senate report found that such firms earn smaller revenues in France than in Britain or Germany, and noted that spending on outside consultants was higher under conservative former President Nicolas Sarkozy than under Macron.

Budget Minister Olivier Dussopt said the state money spent on consultants was about 0.3% of what the government spent on public servants’ salaries last year and that McKinsey earned only a tiny fraction of it. He accused campaign rivals of inflating the affair to boost their own ratings.

The affair is hurting Macron nonetheless.

A former investment banker once accused of being “president of the rich,” Macron saw his ratings surge when his government spent massively to protect workers and businesses early in the pandemic, vowing to do “whatever it takes” to cushion the blow. But his rivals say the McKinsey affair rekindles concerns that Macron and his government are beholden to private interests and out of touch with ordinary voters.

Everywhere Macron goes now, he’s asked about it.

“The last few days, I heard a lot speaking about tax evasion, an American company,” Macron said at Saturday’s rally. “I want to remind those who show outrage that they used them (consulting firms)” in local government as well.

He also pointed to his government’s fight to make sure corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

“The minimum tax in Europe, we fought for it, we did it,” he said.

France is pushing for quick implementation in the 27-nation European Union of the minimum corporate tax of 15%, on which more than 130 countries agreed last October.
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This is Radio Ukraine calling.

A new Prague-based internet radio station has started to broadcast news, information and music tailored to the day-to-day concerns of some 300,000 Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in the Czech Republic since Russia launched its military assault against Ukraine.

In a studio at the heart of the Czech capital, radio veterans work together with absolute beginners to provide the refugees with what they need to know to settle as smoothly as possible in a new country.

The staff of 10 combines people who have fled Ukraine in recent weeks with those who have been living abroad for years. No matter who they are, their common goal is to help fellow Ukrainians and their homeland facing the brutal Russian invasion.

Natalia Churikova, an experienced journalist with Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said she couldn’t say no to an offer to become the broadcaster’s editor-in-chief.

“It was for my people. For people who really needed help, who really needed support, something that would help them start a new life or restart their lives here after they have lived through very bad things trying to escape from Ukraine,” Churikova said.

Staffer Sofia Tatomyr is one of those who left to escape the war. The 22-year-old from the western town of Kalush was making plans to move to another city in Ukraine when a friend called one morning: “Sofia, the war has just begun.”

Her parents and older brother opted to stay home, but they wanted her to join her aunt in Prague.

“It happened all of a sudden,” she said. She boarded a bus alone in Chernivtsi and arrived 28 hours later in the Czech capital, a city she’d never visited.

“When I was already abroad, I remember the moment that I was crying and I was trying to buy a ticket and I couldn’t spell what ticket I need. It was really difficult,” she said.

Tatomyr worked as graphic designer and singer in Ukraine after getting a degree as a publisher and media editor. Radio broadcasting was part of her university training. To her surprise, her aunt’s brother found an announcement about jobs for a new Ukrainian radio station.

She said she needed “some time to understand that not everybody can be at the front line at the war and everybody has to do what he or she can do the best.”

“So this is how I’m cheering myself up: That I’m doing my profession, that I’m doing what I can do the best, and this is the best way I can help our people, I can help Ukraine,” she said.

Safe in Prague, she was still trying to come to terms with the invasion of her homeland.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “I can’t still find any logical explanation for what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. In the 21st century, a war? Why? We were a peaceful nation.”

Another announcer, Marharyta Golobrodska, was working as a copywriter for a software company when she received a call from Churikova, whom she knew from an internship at Radio Free Europe.

“I used to consider those who get up early to be ready to work from 6 a.m. crazy, but that’s what I do now and I thoroughly enjoy it,” Golobrodska said. “That’s what I always wanted to do, to be helpful for my country, even though I live so far away.”

For 12 hours each weekday — and 11 hours on weekends — Radio Ukraine plays Ukrainian and western music while presenting news of Ukraine and the Czech Republic together with information for refugees every 15 minutes. It includes details about where they can get the documents they need from local authorities, how to get a job or medical treatment, or how to find a place for children at schools. Children can also listen to Ukrainian fairy tales.

A native of the southern city of Mykolaiv, Golobrodska has lived in the Czech Republic for eight-and-a-half years. After the invasion, she traveled to western Ukraine to meet her mother and 9-year-old sister and drive them to safety. In Prague, she got them involved in her broadcast.

“My mum, for example, told me she’d like to hear what she’s not supposed to do here. For example, that she can’t park the car anywhere she wants to, like in Ukraine,” she said.

Bohemia Media, which operates several radio stations in the Czech Republic, came up with the idea to launch the station. It provided a studio and its people cooperated with the Ukrainian embassy, the local Ukrainian community and others to make it reality in just three weeks. It also covers the salaries.

Lukas Nadvornik, the director of the project, said the plan is for the station to remain on air as long as it’s needed. The key task for now is to let as many potential listeners as possible know about its existence.

One of them is Sophia Medvedeva. The 23-year-old web designer couldn’t hold back tears as she talked about the recent six-day drive with her mother and younger brother from Mykolaiv to Krakow, Poland.

But in Prague, she joined her fiancé and Radio Ukraine helped her adapt to a new life.

“I’m so amazed about the chance to listen to Ukrainian music when I’m not in my homeland. I feel that I’m not alone,” she said. Her only recommendation for it is to invite a psychologist to “advise Ukrainian refugees about how to fight the survivor syndrome and how to fight depression.”
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Ukrainian forces were advancing Saturday into areas north of Kyiv as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused departing Russian soldiers of leaving behind mines. A Red Cross convoy was heading to Mariupol, set to try again to evacuate civilians from the besieged port.

Fighting

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russian soldiers of deliberately mining areas in northern Ukraine as they withdraw or are pushed out by Ukrainian forces.

• Ukrainian forces continue to advance against withdrawing Russian forces in the vicinity of Kyiv, British military intelligence said.

• Russian missiles hit two cities in central Ukraine, damaging infrastructure and residential buildings, the head of the Poltava region said.

• Russia’s defense ministry said high-precision air-launched missiles had disabled military airfields in Poltava and Dnipro.

• Maks Levin, a photographer and videographer who was working for a Ukrainian news website and was a long-time contributor to Reuters, was killed while covering the war.

Diplomacy

• Pope Francis implicitly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine, saying a “potentate” was fomenting conflict for nationalist interests.

• Russia’s space director said the restoration of normal ties between partners at the International Space Station (ISS) and other joint space projects would be possible only once Western sanctions against Moscow are lifted.

Economy

• Ukraine’s economy shrank 16% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year and could contract 40% in 2022 as a result of Russia’s invasion, the economy ministry said, citing preliminary estimates.

• Ukraine’s railways are struggling with a backlog of grain wagons on the country’s western border as traders look for alternative export routes after Russia’s invasion blocked off the main Black Sea ports, analyst APK-Inform said.

• The European Union is working on further sanctions on Russia, but any additional measures will not affect the energy sector, the EU’s Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said.

Quotes

• “At each checkpoint we were stopped … We were checked, undressed. They checked our shoulders, arms … (to see) if I had been taking part in the fighting.” Vladimir Andreev, a 63-year-old pensioner from Mariupol describing checks by Russian troops as he and the group he was with fled the city.
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Pope Francis set off on a two-day visit to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta Saturday, a visit that was postponed in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The pope is expected to use this visit to address the issue of European migration, which has become an increasing concern with the war in the Ukraine.

The plight of migrants in Europe as the world watches an endless flow of Ukrainians seek refuge following Russia’s invasion is of utmost importance to Pope Francis as he embarks on a weekend visit to Malta, an island that has always been on the frontline in dealing with the large numbers of sea arrivals from Africa. Maltese authorities have often found the situation complicated and NGOs have accused the island nation of not doing enough to help people in distress. 

Before leaving Rome on Saturday, the 85-year-old pope met with three Ukrainian refugee families hosted by the Catholic community of Sant’Egidio. In recent weeks he has often spoken of the need to assist fleeing Ukrainians forced to leave everything behind because of the war.

Francis is the third pope since 1990 to visit the three-island archipelago, where 85% of the roughly half a million population professes the Catholic faith. 

At the end of a general audience in the Vatican Friday, the pope said he was looking forward to visiting that “luminous land,” following in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, who was said to have been warmly welcomed there after being shipwrecked on his way to Rome. 

The pope added that this trip would give him the opportunity to experience for himself the Christian community there, whose lively history dates back thousands of years, and to meet the people of a country which is at the center of the Mediterranean and south of the European continent. Francis paid tribute to the Maltese people for their welcome and commitment to “so many brothers and sisters seeking refuge.”

Saturday the pope will meet Maltese authorities and after lunch take a catamaran trip from Valletta harbor to the island of Gozo where he will preside over a prayer meeting at the national shrine of Ta ‘Pinu.

Sunday he will visit the Grotto of St. Paul, the island nation’s patron saint, whose ship, according to account, washed up on Maltese shores in 60 A.D. He will then celebrate a mass before thousands of people in a square in Floriana. Before returning to Rome, Francis will meet with migrants at the peace center in Hal Far that was established in honor of Pope John Paul XXIII. The center is run by volunteers who help Franciscan friar Dionysius Mintoff, who founded it 50 years ago and still runs it today at the age of 91.
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United Nations agencies say humanitarian needs are increasing and spreading throughout Ukraine as the war there intensifies and expands to more areas of the country.

The World Food Program says food is dwindling and becoming harder to get in Ukraine. Despite the security risks, WFP says it has managed to provide food to 1 million people since Russia’s military forces invaded Ukraine February 24.

Speaking from the western city of Lviv, WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri said it is difficult to assess the extent of damage to the country or the needs of a fast-moving population during a volatile security situation.

“I have just returned from a voucher distribution center in Lviv, and people are stretched,” he said. “They are running out of options and, with each day, it is taking a toll on them. Our plan as the World Food Program is to support more and more people.”  

Phiri said the WFP aims to provide food and cash assistance to more than 3 million people inside Ukraine, as well as 300,000 people who have fled to neighboring countries.

However, one of the biggest challenges facing WFP, he said, is finding enough partners to distribute the food aid in besieged places.  He said the WFP is trying to enlist the help of nongovernmental and civil society organizations, and even churches in this effort. 

“In areas that are indirectly affected by the war and where food is still available and retail shops are operating normally, we continue to roll out cash and vouchers as a means of support,” Phiri said. “Where possible as well, WFP will purchase food from within Ukraine so that we also inject money into the economy to support people who have been displaced.”  

United Nations and international agencies say the conflict in Ukraine is having a profound impact on the world’s food supply.  The Food and Agriculture Organization says Russia and Ukraine account for nearly 30% of the global wheat trade, with at least 50 countries dependent on imports from them.

The FAO says global hunger will increase as Russian and Ukrainian wheat exports decrease and food prices spiral to new heights.
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As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters a second month, social media and television continue to constantly broadcast disturbing images and news about the conflict. That’s raising some concerns about the effect it might be having on children’s mental health. Video: Artyom Kokhan
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New details have emerged about Belarusians fighting for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion as part of a broader struggle to free their own country from Russian domination and the rule of Moscow-backed autocrat Alexander Lukashenko.

Speaking exclusively to VOA in a Tuesday phone interview, the deputy commander of the largest pro-Ukraine Belarusian fighting force said its numbers have almost reached the size of an average Ukrainian battalion, which he said has about 450-500 troops.

“Several thousand more have applied to join us through our online recruitment tool,” said Vadim Kabanchuk of the Kastus Kalinouski battalion, named after a Belarusian revolutionary who led a regional uprising against Russian occupation in the 1860s.

The Kalinouski battalion began forming in Kyiv after Russia had begun its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The battalion uses the Telegram channel @belwarriors to share news and images of its activities. On March 9, it announced its adoption of the Kalinouski name in a video posted to the platform.

Kabanchuk said he is one of a number of the Belarusian battalion’s fighters who have been active in Ukraine’s defense starting in 2014. That year, Russian forces invaded eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region to foment a separatist uprising within its Russian-speaking community.

Belarusians have been drawn to fight for Ukraine for years in the hope that freeing it from Russian occupation would boost their own efforts to rid Belarus of Moscow’s influence and end the 27-year presidency of Lukashenko, a key Russian ally.

The Kalinouski battalion swore an oath of allegiance to Belarus and Ukraine in a Telegram video posted March 25. Four days later, in another video, battalion members said they had a new status as part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and held up green booklets that resembled Ukrainian military IDs.

There has been no confirmation of the Kalinouski battalion’s announcement on websites run by the Ukrainian government and military. The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a VOA email asking whether it could provide such a confirmation.

Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told VOA that he believes the Kalinouski battalion’s declared integration into the Ukrainian Armed Forces is credible. He described the battalion as the biggest and “perhaps best organized” of the Belarusian groups fighting for Ukraine and said it has earned a right to display Belarus’ national flag and coat of arms in its operations.

“As of now, they will be fighting not only in one place, not only in defense of Kyiv, but all over Ukraine,” Viacorka said.

As Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Belarusian fighters of what later became the Kalinouski battalion joined the Ukrainian military’s volunteer Territorial Defense Force units in Kyiv, according to deputy commander Kabanchuk. The Kyiv Independent news site had reported in January that the Territorial Defense Force units would comprise former active-duty Ukrainian military personnel and other volunteers, including civilians.

Kabanchuk said some of the Kyiv territorial defense units that his fellow Belarusian fighters joined included Ukrainian fighters with ties to the Azov regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard. The Azov regiment is known for the far-right beliefs of some of its members and has been most active in Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian port besieged by Russia for weeks.

“We initially were part of Kyiv territorial defense units whose members called themselves part of the ‘Azov movement,'” said Kabanchuk. “But we are not part of the Ukrainian National Guard’s Azov regiment and don’t want to be confused with it,” he added.

Most Belarusians who volunteer to fight for Ukraine are driven not by far-right ideology but by a belief that Kyiv’s struggle is part of their own fight to free Belarus from Russian imperialism, said former Belarusian Foreign Ministry official Pavel Slunkin in a phone call with VOA.

“They include bloggers, journalists, I.T. specialists, factory workers. All kinds of professions. And they want to see Belarus as a democratic state,” said Slunkin, now an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Not all Belarusians who seek to join the Kalinouski battalion will make it through a multistage vetting process aimed at weeding out security threats, Kabanchuk explained. Those threats include the possibility of Lukashenko’s agents trying to infiltrate the battalion, he said.

“Many of the thousands who applied will be rejected after in-person interviews at the Belarusian recruitment center in the Polish capital, Warsaw, which acts as a first-stage filtration hub for potential fighters,” Kabanchuk said. “Others will be rejected as unsuitable after they arrive to the battalion bases.”

Smaller groups of Belarusian fighters have been active in other parts of Ukraine in recent weeks, according to Belarusian opposition figures. In a Thursday tweet, Tsikhanouskaya said a recently formed regiment called Pahonia is training new volunteers on behalf of Ukraine’s armed forces.

In a Friday statement to VOA, a spokesperson for the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, Norwegian-born Damien Magrou, responded to a question about Pahonia by saying Ukrainian officials are considering an initiative to integrate “suitable” Belarusian volunteers into the legion.

Kabanchuk said the Kalinouski battalion prefers not to join the international legion because his fighters have much more autonomy as a separate unit.

Viacorka, the Tsikhanouskaya adviser, said in a Thursday tweet that he hopes the Pahonia regiment will form the basis of a new professional Belarusian army in a post-Lukashenko era.

Lukashenko derided the pro-Ukraine Belarusian fighters last month, telling a government meeting that the fighters are “crazy” and motivated only by money.

As for his own troops, he has avoided sending them into Ukraine to join in Russia’s invasion.

Kabanchuk said that if Lukashenko were to do that, some of the Belarusian military’s forces would surrender, and others would turn against the Belarusian autocrat.

“He understands very well that sending troops into Ukraine will speed up the fall of his regime,” Kabanchuk said.
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Shouts of fear and panic. The thunder of gunfire. Dozens of corpses in pools of blood on the floor of the Bataclan concert hall. A Paris court Friday released audio recordings and photos of the 2015 Paris terror attacks that had never been made public before, to expose the horrors of that night. 

Some survivors of the attacks cried while others left the courtroom in shock. 

It was a jarring end to the most crucial week in the monthslong trial over the Islamic State attacks on the Bataclan, cafes in Paris and France’s national stadium Nov. 13, 2015, which killed 130 people. With thousands of plaintiffs, this trial is among the biggest in modern French history. 

Lawyers and victims’ families saw this week as crucial for shedding light on what happened, but it left many of them frustrated. 

The last surviving member of the attack team, Salah Abdeslam, and suspected accomplices were questioned at last about the day of the attacks itself. They stayed largely silent, refusing to answer most questions, while the courtroom waited in breathless silence. 

And when Abdeslam finally chose to speak briefly, instead of expressing remorse for his role in the attacks, he expressed regret that he didn’t detonate his suicide belt that bloody night. 

“I didn’t go all the way,” Salah Abdeslam told the court Wednesday. “I gave up trying to put on the (suicide) belt, not out of cowardice or fear. I didn’t want to, that’s all.” 

Abdeslam dropped off three attackers in a car, who then blew themselves up on the forecourt of France’s national soccer stadium moments after a France-Germany match kicked off. Abdeslam said he subsequently drove to the north of Paris, and took the metro to the southern suburb of Montrouge, where he hid his explosives belt after he claimed didn’t have the nerve to detonate it. 

Abdeslam said he lied to his co-attackers that the belt had not worked “because I was ashamed of not having gone all the way. I was afraid of the eyes of others.” Abdeslam’s testimony contradicted that of a police explosives expert who has told the court that the suicide belt was faulty. 

Then Friday, the court heard audio recordings and was shown photos from inside the Bataclan concert hall that have never been made public before. 

The first recording marked the moment the attackers entered the theater. Music from the performers onstage — American band Eagles of Death Metal — can still be heard as the assailants unleashed a solid minute of constant gunfire from their automatic weapons. The crowd shouted and cried, and the music stops. And then the shooting starts again. 

The second recording involved the subsequent hostage-taking, including the voice of one victim who said, “they’re going to blow up everything — they have explosives.” 

Then came the final assault: A volley of gunfire from police, followed by blasts from the attackers’ suicide belts. Then the evacuation, as police commanded: “Go! Go! We’re getting out, hands up and run!” 

The 20 photos included images from around the Bataclan hall — the entry, the balcony, the stairwell. Blood is everywhere. One shows about 30 corpses in the dance pit below the stage. 

Some survivors cried while watching the images. About 20 other people left the courtroom, visibly upset, as the audio played. 

All the attackers were killed that night, but Abdeslam fled France and traveled to the Molenbeek district of Brussels where he grew up. He was arrested in March 2016. For years, he refused to speak to investigators, and he has stayed largely silent through the trial. 

During Wednesday’s key session, chief judge Jean-Louis Peries spent an hour asking Abdeslam questions. No answer, again and again. 

Finally, Abdeslam agreed to answer the questions of just one of the plaintiffs’ many lawyers. He said three days before the attacks, he was planning to travel to Syria and was unaware of the attack plot until his brother Brahim filled him in. Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up Nov. 13, 2015, after attacking a Paris cafe. 

Abdeslam’s lawyers Olivia Ronen and Martin Vettes defended his reluctance to speak. In a statement to The Associated Press, they said Abdeslam “made use of his right to silence” but then decided to answer the questions of one lawyer for the civil parties who “sought to understand what he had to say.” 

A total of 20 people are on trial on charges including attack planning, the supply of weapons and giving logistical support. Several are presumed to have been killed while fighting for the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. The end of the trial is scheduled for June. 
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The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the western Ukrainian town of Ternopil was full at lunch time — as it has been most days since Russia invaded Ukraine.

“The cathedral is full of people praying for peace,” Archbishop Vasyl Semeniuk told me. But as I reported Thursday, the Greek-Catholic prelate can sound like a holy warrior: He sees Vladimir Putin’s army as an evil that must be overcome so it cannot again attack Ukraine or others. His sentiment is not out of line with the thoughts of many in his flock.

While no one wants a long war, both growing confidence and fury with what weeks of war have done to Ukraine — with the loss of life and widespread damage — has left many Ukrainians in no mood to concede very much to Russia to end the fighting.

“You have to do what you have to do, if you want to keep what you have, or get what you want,” one of Semeniuk’s priests told me. He said he hopes for peace but suspects this might turn into a long war.

Anti-Russia sentiments are hardening. A group of lawmakers has drafted a law to strip the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate — an autonomous church subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church — of its property, churches and monasteries. More than 150 of its churches have already defected to the smaller Kyiv-based Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Their priests and congregants have reacted furiously to the spiritual defense that Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has made for Russia’s invasion. In weekly broadcasts the 75-year-old Kirill has depicted the war as an apocalyptic battle against evil forces determined to shatter the God-given unity of Holy Russia. He has described the conflict as having a “metaphysical significance” as he echoes President Putin’s painting of a depraved and decadent West.

The late American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who played a key role in negotiating the 1995 Dayton Accords that put an end to the three-and-a-half-year-long Bosnian War, used to say that warring parties could only strike a peace deal when both had become exhausted. It is not clear that either Russia or Ukraine is yet exhausted.

But many people are — the millions of Ukrainians who are displaced, mainly sheltering in central and western Ukraine.

The displaced

Outside Ternopil’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, local volunteers crowd around a truck delivering humanitarian aid sent by churches in Sicily. They quickly unload its contents for distribution — the consignment including food, clothes and diapers. They make short work of the unloading.

Nearby, some of the displaced sort through items already laid out in front of the cathedral.

“People come here from the east and south of Ukraine with nothing,” says Maria, a 30-year-old local journalist. “They arrive with just what they were wearing when they crawled out of bunkers and fled.”

She has taken time off from work to help with the humanitarian effort.

“They need clothes, shampoo, soap, food and toys for the kids,” she adds. “They also have no money — most Ukrainians live from month to month and don’t have savings.”

Some 230 kilometers to the east, in the crowded central Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia, accommodating the steady influx of evacuees from farther east and south is becoming harder.

Despite local aid efforts here on the ground, most continue moving west.

“People come here in an awful state: they’re physically exhausted because the way here is long and most probably they were staying in the basements and in shelters for days and weeks in terrible conditions,” says Valeriy Dyakiv, director of a reception facility sheltering around 300 evacuees.

Dyakiv told me air raid sirens sounded at the same time a young couple was arriving with their child, after having been under shelling for days.

The couple’s daughter “got a panic attack; she started screaming and she couldn’t keep quiet and so he hugged her, and then she finally calmed, eventually,” Dyakiv said.

People from all walks of life shelter at Dyakiv’s reception — among them theater director Oleksandr Kovshun and thespian Olena Prystup. Kovshun is the director of the world famous Berezil Theater in Kharkiv, the beleaguered eastern Ukrainian town.

“The building is still intact,” he tells me. But a building next door was struck by a Russian missile.

Prystup said many of the theater company sheltered at the Berezil for 10 days mainly huddled in the capacious wardrobe. She and her photographer husband decided to leave the city when the neighboring building was hit. She has been in Vinnytsia for three weeks and with Kovshun has organized drama classes and poetry readings for the kids.

“But I so want to go back to our theater,” she says.

Journalists

Journalists are urging Ukrainian authorities to clarify and discuss wartime reporting rules following a series of ugly confrontations between TV crews and Ukrainian officials and soldiers at media centers in both Kyiv and Lviv, as well as on the streets. A team of British broadcasters was at the center of a heated confrontation Thursday when Ukrainian soldiers waved guns at the reporter and crew as they filmed blast scenes from Russian missile strikes.

Ukrainian authorities say real-time footage can be used by Russian commanders to assess the impact of missile strikes and to repeat an attack, if they judge it unsuccessful. Foreign TV crews have been accused of being “camera killers.”

Media companies say the Russians have other means for damage assessment — including footage and images they get from drones and satellites. They also point out that the Russian armed forces are notorious in Syria for striking at targets twice. The technique is called a “double tap” — when an initial strike is followed by a second attack shortly after, targeting and often killing rescuers and first responders who have converged on the site.

There have been mounting frustrations among the foreign press corps over accreditation hold-ups, resulting in applications taking weeks to receive approval or never materializing at all. Ukrainian photographers have complained of being obstructed in Kyiv and having their cameras snatched or broken. Journalists, led by the local Ukrainian media, appealed this week to authorities to develop more transparent rules for covering Russian shelling.

With relations souring, Ukraine’s defense and culture ministries issued a statement this week urging the media to adhere to the rules of martial law. They praised the media, saying: “It is difficult to overestimate the work of a journalist in wartime. Working in combat zones, they are constantly in an atmosphere of fear and tension, risking their own lives to convey the most complete, true and unbiased picture of developments.

But they continued: “Under martial law, information must be balanced and portioned, as the enemy is constantly monitoring the information field to counter Ukrainian defenders. So, we call on the media to continue to follow the rules during martial law so as not to endanger themselves and others.”

The ministries acknowledged the tensions, adding that after the war, government and media can pool their experience and “work together to develop the necessary solutions for more effective interaction.”

In the meantime, media organizations — foreign and local — are worried at the lack of clarity about what is allowed or not.
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Ukraine’s presidential office says Ukrainian and Russian officials held online peace talks Friday, but gave no further details. The meeting follows Tuesday’s face-to-face peace talks in Istanbul, which both Turkish and Ukrainian officials described as positive.  

In a television interview Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, while acknowledging that some Russian commitments to deescalate in Ukraine remain unfulfilled, said efforts continue to build on Tuesday’s meeting. 

Cavusoglu said in the second stage, the necessary work is being carried out to bring together the foreign ministers. He said he texted Thursday with both Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmtryo Kuleba and Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and conveyed Turkey’s views on this issue to them, saying mediators will do whatever they can to make this happen.

Last month, Turkey hosted a meeting between Kuleba and Lavrov, which ended in deadlock. But Lavrov, speaking Friday during a visit to India, said peace talks needed to continue and that they were preparing a reply to Ukrainian proposals made at Tuesday’s Istanbul meeting. 

Lavrov, appearing to strike a positive note, said Kyiv had shown “much more understanding” of the situation in Crimea and Donbas, as well as demands for Ukraine’s neutrality. Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region by force and is calling for international recognition of the breakaway republic’s Donbas and Luhansk regions.  

But Kyiv insists it remains committed to retaining the country’s territorial integrity. Cavusoglu has said there were convergences in those critical areas of dispute.  

Russian expert Samuel Bendett, of the Center for Naval Analyses International Affairs Group, said Turkey is now playing an increasingly important role in peace efforts. 

“Turkey is a significant factor here because the Russian president is talking to the Turkish president, the Ukrainian president is talking to the Turkish president, so Turkey is involved and in the know,” he said. “So potentially, it could be an important mediator if both sides feel it’s time for Turkey to step up into that role.” 

Kyiv is looking to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to use his influence on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to arrange a meeting with Ukraine’s president. 

Kuleba reiterated his call Friday for a presidential summit. For now, however, Moscow insists such a meeting is only possible once there are tangible proposals to resolve the conflict.  

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich also appears to be playing a growing role in peace efforts, attending Tuesday’s Istanbul talks, with Cavusoglu saying Abramovich is making sincere efforts to end the war. 

 
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The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said he has reached separate agreements with Ukrainian and Russian authorities on what assistance his agency will provide as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters a second month.

Fears have been high throughout the five-week-long war of a potential nuclear accident, as Russia indiscriminately shells many parts of Ukraine. On March 3, shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine exacerbated those fears.

“We delivered some equipment; this is a start,” International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told reporters after returning to Vienna Friday from a field visit to Ukraine and meetings in Russia. “But we have a structured set of activities that are going to start as of next week.”

That assistance will include sending expert teams and equipment, as well as establishing a rapid assistance mechanism.

“In case there was a situation — an emergency — that maybe taking place, we are setting up a mechanism whereby we could be sending a team to assess and to assist almost immediately,” Grossi said.

Early in its invasion, Russian troops occupied the defunct Chernobyl plant. On Thursday, it was confirmed they were leaving. Reports emerged that hundreds of Russian soldiers had radiation poisoning after digging trenches in the most polluted part of the Exclusion Zone, known as the Red Forest.

Grossi said the general radiation situation around the plant is “quite normal” now and he could not confirm the reports about the Russian troops being sickened.

“There was a relatively higher level of localized radiation because of the movement of heavy vehicles at the time of the occupation of the plant, and apparently this might have been the case again on the way out,” Grossi said. “We heard about the possibility of some personnel being contaminated, but we don’t have any confirmation about that.”

The director general said that his staff would be moving to Chernobyl “very, very soon” and that there is a lot of technical work to be done there, as they have lost a lot of remote monitoring capabilities that need to be reconnected. He said that could be done quickly.
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The Kremlin’s clampdown on news of the war in Ukraine has hackers and volunteers from around the world are sending messages directly to Russian citizens’ phones to keep them informed. Matt Dibble has the story.
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The besieged Southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol is waiting Friday to see whether Russia will honor a humanitarian corridor that could allow aid into the city and allow evacuations out.

“We remain hopeful, we are in action moving towards Mariupol … but it’s not yet clear that this will happen today,” Ewan Watson, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday.

Convoys delivering the aid and the evacuation buses were stopped Thursday by Russian forces.

Turkey’s top diplomat, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said in a televised interview Thursday that Turkey is working to bring the two sides back to the bargaining table.

The head of the Ukrainian delegation, David Arakhamia, said that talks would resume Friday by videoconference.

A Russian regional official says two Ukrainian helicopters launched an airstrike on a fuel depot early Friday in the  Russian city of Belgorod, setting the facility afire.  The incident is the first time Russia has reported a Ukrainian attack on Russian territory.

Ukraine’s president said in his nightly address Thursday that he has stripped two top generals of their rank.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the generals “antiheroes.”  One of the generals had been the chief of internal security at the country’s main intelligence agency, while the other had been the intelligence agency’s chief in the Kherson region.

The Ukrainian leader said he did “not have time to deal with all the traitors, but gradually they will all be punished.”

Ukrainian authorities estimate Russia overnight withdrew 700 units of equipment from the Kyiv region, moving them back into Belarus, VOA’s Jamie Dettmer writes from Vinnytsia, Ukraine.

Gen. Oleksandr Gruzevych, deputy chief of staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, said the departing armored personnel carriers could be redeployed to eastern Ukraine’s Donbas to strengthen forces there for an offensive.

“The troops that are leaving the area around Kyiv are pretty significant,” Gruzevych said.

The withdrawal seems to be consistent with Russian declarations that it intends to deescalate around Kyiv and to focus on the Donbas. Ukraine’s General Staff said Friday that it believes Russia aims to seize areas in the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts that it does not currently occupy, as well as blockade the towns of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and it predicts Russian will continue to relocate troops to eastern Ukraine.

However, Russian ground forces are facing stiff resistance in their efforts to enlarge their occupation in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian military officials say overnight seven Russian attacks were repelled in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. They claimed three Russian tanks, two armored personnel carriers, two artillery systems were destroyed and a Russian drone shot down.

But Russia is also transferring more missile units to Belarus — a possible prelude to an intensification of ballistic missiles attacks on targets across Ukraine.

Britain’s military intelligence division warned early Thursday that a majority of Russia’s forces near Kyiv were holding in place “despite the withdrawal of a limited number of units.”

“Heavy fighting will likely take place in the suburbs of the city in coming days,” Air Vice-Marshal Mick Smeath, the British defense attaché, said in a statement.

A senior U.S. defense official described the Russian movements as “minor,” warning that Russian forces continue to target Kyiv and other northern cities with airstrikes and artillery.

“It has not been wholesale by any means, nor has it been rapid,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said later Thursday, saying less than 20% of the Russian forces arrayed against Kyiv and Chernihiv had been moved.

“It’s not exactly clear … where they’re going to go, for how long, and for what purpose,” Kirby said. “But we do not see any indication that they’re going to be sent home.”

U.S. defense officials believe most of the repositioned Russian forces are likely headed to Belarus for supplies and maintenance before heading back into Ukraine, possibly to help Russian forces fighting in the eastern part of the country.

However, even there, U.S. officials believe, Russia’s military has been stymied.

“As for actual progress, pinching it off or sealing it off and fixing Ukrainian armed forces [in the Donbas], they have been frustrated and not successful,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence.

Russia has put more effort into the Donbas, the official added, warning that “it could mean that this could be a lengthy, more drawn-out conflict.”

Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the largest-ever release from the strategic petroleum reserve, announcing the release of 1 million barrels a day for six months — a move aimed at lowering domestic oil prices as the sanctions on Russian oil and gas have sent prices skyrocketing globally.

This is the third time Biden has ordered releases from the strategic reserve. The first two did not cause a meaningful decline in prices in global oil markets.

Sanctions

Russia on Thursday said it would expand the list of European Union officials prohibited from entering the country in response to a broad range of Western sanctions that continue to be imposed on Russia after its February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

The travel ban applies to the EU’s “top leadership,” which includes “a number of European Union commissioners and heads of EU military structures” and the “vast majority” of parliamentary members, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday. Other public officials and “media workers who are personally responsible for promoting illegal anti-Russian sanctions” were also targeted.

VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin, Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer and White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report.
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An accident in a mine in central Serbia killed at least eight people and wounded 20 Friday, state Serbian television RTS reported.

The accident in the Soko coal mine happened around 5 a.m. (0300 GMT). The RTS report says part of the mine pit collapsed trapping the miners inside.

The head of the medical center in nearby Aleksinac, Rodoljub Zivadinovic, said that 18 people have been hospitalized there, mostly with light injuries.

The TV report said that 49 miners were inside when the accident happened. No more details were immediately available.

The Soko mine, about 200 kilometers southeast of Belgrade, has been operating since the early 1900s. An accident in the mine in 1998 killed 29 miners.
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A Russian opera said Thursday it had canceled a concert by Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko over her comments on Moscow’s military operation in neighboring Ukraine.

The 50-year-old singer who lives in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Wednesday “condemned” the operation, after she and other Russian artists in Europe and the United States came under pressure to publicly take a stance.

The Novosibirsk Opera in Siberia canceled a concert at which she was to perform on June 2.

“Living in Europe and having the opportunity to perform in European concert halls appears to be more important (for her) than the fate of the homeland,” it said in a statement.

But “our country is brimming with talent and the idols of yesterday will be replaced by others with a clear civic position.”

Netrebko, who has voiced pro-Kremlin views over the years, and in 2014 posed with a flag in the separatist Donetsk region in Ukraine, also holds Austrian citizenship.

Netrebko’s statement on Wednesday was, however, not enough for the Metropolitan Opera in New York to reconsider its ban on her performance there. 
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