India is considering establishing a payment mechanism in local currencies to allow it to continue trade with Russia, which has been hit with Western sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, if the war in Ukraine does not wind down and the crisis drags on, he said “then we will have to readjust our position.”
…

A car slammed at high speed into carnival revelers in a small town in southern Belgium early Sunday, killing six people and leaving 10 more with life-threatening injuries. Several dozen were more lightly injured.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carnival is extremely popular in the area and the nearby version in Binche has even been declared UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
…

One of Europe’s biggest iron and steel works, Azovstal, has been badly damaged as Russian forces lay siege to the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, officials said Sunday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Considered pro-Moscow before the war began, Akhmetov has since accused Russian troops of committing “crimes against humanity against Ukrainians.”
…

Three companies have lodged a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, accusing the U.S. technology giant of anti-competitive practices in its cloud services, sources told AFP on Saturday, confirming media reports.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Microsoft has already been heavily fined multiple times by Brussels for anti-competitive practices regarding its Internet Explorer browser, Windows operating system and software licensing rules. 
…

Hoping to restore some normalcy after fleeing the war in Ukraine, thousands of refugees waited in lines in the Polish capital of Warsaw to receive local identification papers that will allow them to move on with their lives. The refugees started queuing by Warsaw’s National Stadium overnight
…

Katya Hill tried to talk her brother out of it. She urged Jimmy Hill to postpone his trip to Ukraine as she saw reports of Russian tanks lining up at the border. But he needed to help his longtime partner, who has been suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katya said Irina’s mother had been told about Jimmy’s death, but had not wanted to tell her daughter. She said they had hoped for help to evacuate back to their home village southeast of Kyiv, where Irina’s father was waiting, but it was unclear whether they could find an ambulance to take them or a safe route for the trip.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow in a video address released Saturday, as Russia reported its first hypersonic missile strike on Ukrainian territory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russian forced still stalled  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Human toll

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

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

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

US-China talks 

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

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

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

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

Jeff Seldin, Cindy Saine, Patsy Widakuswara, Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
…

Experts warn the war in Ukraine could increase hunger and food insecurity for some people in Africa. Most African countries import wheat and vegetable oil from Ukraine and Russia, a region now engulfed in conflict since Russia invaded its neighbor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Experts say intervention, like stabilizing local markets, cash transfers and creating savings and loan groups, can help Africa cope and reduce the impact of the global food crisis.
…

The World Food Program is warning the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine threatens severe food shortages and acute hunger there, and risks triggering a global surge in hunger and malnutrition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For example, he noted Egypt imports more than 80% of its wheat from Ukraine and Lebanon more than 50%.  He said these and other countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Yemen that are dependent on Ukrainian wheat will have to find other sources, pushing food prices up further.
…

Russian military officials said Saturday that they fired a hypersonic missile for the first time in Ukraine to target a weapons storage site in the west of the country.

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

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

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

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

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces acknowledged Friday that they have lost access to the Sea of Azov “temporarily” because Russian forces have managed to tighten their grip around Mariupol. Ukrainian officials say Russia has conducted 14 missile strikes and 40 air raids on targets, mainly civilian ones, Ukraine in the past 24 hours. 
…

All four people on board a U.S. military aircraft were killed when it crashed in a remote part of northern Norway on Friday during a NATO-led military training exercise, local police said Saturday.

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

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

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

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

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

Some 30,000 troops from 27 countries are involved in Cold Response, an exercise designed to prepare NATO member countries for the defense of Norway. 
…

Pope Francis, ramping up his implicit criticism of Russia, on Friday called the war in Ukraine a “perverse abuse of power” waged for partisan interests which has condemned defenseless people to violence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Vatican said the pope told Kirill: “The ones who pay the price of war are the people, the Russian soldiers and the people who are bombarded and die.”
…

President Joe Biden spoke with Chinese leader Xi Jinping for nearly two hours Friday, saying the U.S. wants Russian President Vladimir Putin to end to his war on Ukraine.  Chinese state media said Xi told Biden that Beijing does not want crisis or conflict. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
…

Three weeks ago, Haseeb Noori became a refugee — for a second time.

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

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

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

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

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

Mass migration

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only in the movies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uncertainty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Khalil Khan contributed to this report.
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US-China talks  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russia still stalled  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russia’s claims against U.S.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 
…

In just three weeks, amid Russia’s invasion, an estimated 3 million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries, including Poland where herculean efforts are underway to feed and care for the new arrivals. VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze reports from Medyka, a Polish town along the border with Ukraine.
…

Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor has accused Google’s YouTube of “spreading threats against citizens of the Russian Federation” in a statement released Friday.

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

Roskomnadzor did not identify the users broadcasting the alleged threats.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I was thinking of a hashtag, ‘Even Switzerland,'” Ambassador Jacques Pitteloud said half jokingly, noting that U.S. President Joe Biden had uttered this phrase in his State of the Union address as he highlighted the international reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On February 28, the Swiss Federal Council announced Switzerland was joining a growing list of countries that included the European Union and the United States in imposing unprecedented economic sanctions on Russia. The Swiss decision caught the world’s attention.

“Every time when sanctions are decided upon by the EU or the U.S., they approach their friends and allies and ask them to participate. Sometimes we say no, sometimes we say yes,” Bern’s top representative in Washington said in an interview at the ambassador’s residence. “This time we said yes.”

Switzerland remains neutral

Nonetheless, “Switzerland remains neutral and will remain neutral for the foreseeable future,” Pitteloud emphasized, brushing off global headlines that greeted the announcement from Bern with cries of “Switzerland ditches neutrality.”

“We’re still neutral. At the same time, we’re putting additional emphasis on something else that is very important to small countries like Switzerland – the respect of international law,” Pitteloud explained. “International law may not be that important for big countries, but for small countries, it is a matter of survival.”

He described his nation’s emphasis on international law as “another pillar” of Swiss foreign policy.

“We insist on international law because we know it is a matter of survival for us; so the moment we witnessed such a massive violation of international law, an aggression that we hadn’t seen in Europe since the Second World War, this is why this time the Swiss government decided to go further in terms of adopting sanctions,” Pitteloud said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “a direct attack against everything we hold dear” and poses a threat to countries far beyond Ukraine’s borders, the ambassador said. “It’s also important to our own security.”

Switzerland’s long-held position of neutrality had meant that the country often sat out conflicts and disputes in “the big, outer world,” as Pitteloud put it. Other times it supported sanctions without directly participating, by making sure that sanctions were not undermined through the Swiss financial system, he said.

“Every time there was this leeway in the political interpretation in terms of how far we want to go or how restrictive we want to go in interpreting neutrality,” Pitteloud said.

In this case, he explained, Switzerland has adopted a very restrictive interpretation, which stipulates that a neutral country will not participate in a military conflict unless it is attacked itself, and would not facilitate arms delivery to parties involved in a conflict.

Swiss sanctions now fully mirror EU

On Wednesday, Switzerland announced further sanctions against more than 200 Russian individuals and entities, fully matching the sanctions imposed by the European Union, of which Switzerland is not a member. 

Pitteloud thinks the debate over EU membership could go on within his country for another few decades. “Ultimately, it’s for the people to decide. In Switzerland, we vote on everything,” he noted, with a sense of delight in his country’s democratic system.

Asked about media reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s domestic partner and their children are “hiding out in a Swiss chalet,” Pitteloud replied that the world’s rich and powerful often come to Switzerland for medical treatment.

“This has happened in the past, this might have happened with quite a few people, we’re very discreet about that, because there’s no reason to comment,” he said.

“Personally I have no indication whatsoever of members of the Russian president’s family or, let’s say, close friends, being in Switzerland, even less so with a Swiss passport as was argued in one of the articles; I would not be aware of that.”

Switzerland, an Alpine nation in the center of Europe, has been so determined to avoid international entanglements that it became a member of the United Nations only in 2002. Twenty years later, the country has put in a bid for a non-permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council for 2023-24. 

“The matter of joining the U.N. Security Council prompted a very heated debate in Switzerland,” Pitteloud said. “Because by being on the Security Council, it means you have to take even more positions than if you’re just in the General Assembly.”

But he said the bid is backed by both the Swiss government and parliament, and is seen in Bern as “an extraordinary opportunity to once again stress multilateralism, respect for international law, respect of procedures enshrined in the U.N. system. We think we can be an additional voice in stressing the importance of international values.”
…

Several Russian missiles were targeted at a western Ukrainian area near Lviv’s airport Friday.

The airport was not hit, according the Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy, but an aircraft repair facility was.  

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the attack near Lviv, which is about 80 kilometers from Ukraine’s border with Poland.  

A large cloud of smoke could be seen in the area surrounding the airport. 

Meanwhile, in Mariupol, survivors have begun to emerge from a theater in Mariupol that was hit by Russian missiles Wednesday. 

Hundreds of people, including children, are believed to have taken refuge in The Drama Theater.

Satellite images of the site released by the Maxar space technology company showed the word “children” written in Russian on the pavement outside the theater as recently as Monday.

It is not yet clear how many people survived the attack. 

Biden to speak with Xi

U.S. President Joe Biden has scheduled a rare telephone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping Friday, a high-stakes conversation as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asks the world for help fighting against a three-week Russian invasion. 

China has played an increasingly important role in the conflict amid reports that Russia asked China for military assistance. The United States is providing the bulk of military assistance to Ukraine, with Biden announcing another $800 million defense package this week. 

“We have made clear our deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia and the potential implications and consequences of that,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. 

Friday’s call, she said, “is an opportunity for President Biden to assess where President Xi stands. There’s been, of course, rhetorical support — or the absence of clear rhetoric and denunciation, or the absence of denunciation — by China of what Russia is doing. This flies in the face, of course, of everything China stands for, including the basic principles of the U.N. Charter, including the basic principles of respect for sovereignty of nations. And so the fact that China has not denounced what Russia is doing in and of itself speaks volumes.”
…

Britain’s communications regulator has revoked the license of Russian-backed broadcaster RT amid investigations of its coverage of the Ukraine war.

The regulator, Ofcom, said it a statement that it did not consider RT’s licensee, ANO TV Novosti, to be “fit and proper to hold a U.K. broadcast license.”

Ofcom says Friday’s decision followed 29 ongoing investigations into the impartiality of RT’s news and current affairs coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The regulator says: “We have concluded that we cannot be satisfied that RT can be a responsible broadcaster in the current circumstances. Ofcom is therefore revoking RT’s license to broadcast with immediate effect.”
…

According to U.S. and Ukrainian officials, Moscow’s efforts to win over the world with its accounts of events in Ukraine are doing no better than Russia’s military forces inside Ukraine.

More often than not, they are meeting with stiff resistance.

“Outside of Russia, we have not seen their information operations really find purchase,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Thursday in response to a question from VOA.

“We have seen a continuation of Russian attempts to blame stuff they’re doing on the Ukrainians, to accuse Ukrainians of doing stuff that they (the Russians) haven’t done yet,” the official said, on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence. “But outside of Russia, there’s little to no evidence that their information ops are working. In fact, we’ve seen quite the opposite.”

Despite such assessments, Russian officials and Russian-affiliated media continued to try to seed social media and the airwaves in places their broadcasts have not been blocked, with allegations of wrongdoing by Ukraine and its backers.

One of Russia’s perhaps most successful recent tropes has been its allegation that the United States has been funding bioweapon research in Ukraine.

A survey by the Washington-based Alliance for Securing Democracy, a national security advocacy group that tracks disinformation efforts online, found that Russian officials and Russian state-backed media tweeted the word “biological” almost 600 times in the past week.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense sought to push those claims further Thursday, publishing new allegations on its English-language Telegram feed.

“Russian specialists of nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops have studied original documents revealing details of the implementation of a secret project by the United States in Ukraine to study ways of transmitting diseases to humans through bats at a laboratory in Kharkov,” one post said.

The Russian Telegram feed also began pushing claims that a theater in Mariupol where civilians had been sheltering was not hit by a Russian airstrike as claimed by the Mariupol city council, but blown up by the Azov Battalion, a pro-Ukrainian force that analysts say has embraced neo-Nazi views.

“A refugee from Mariupol said that militants from the Azov nationalist battalion, while retreating, blew up the city drama theater where there were civilians, whom they used as a ‘human shield,’” the Ministry of Defense said on Telegram.

Within hours, the allegations about the bioweapons and the theater were being echoed on official Russian government and media Twitter accounts and websites, in multiple languages.

The senior U.S. defense official declined Thursday to elaborate on the Russian accounts of how the theater in Mariupol was destroyed, saying only that none of the accounts could be confirmed at this time.

But U.S. officials have repeatedly denied Russia’s ongoing accusations about developing bioweapons in Ukraine.

“It’s a bunch of malarkey,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters last week. “We are not, not developing biological or chemical weapons inside Ukraine.”

U.S. intelligence officials also denied the charges, instead saying Moscow’s insistence on repeating the allegations might indicate it is planning a chemical or biological attack.

“This is something … that’s very much a part of Russia’s playbook,” CIA Director William Burns told a Senate panel last week. “They’ve used those weapons against their own citizens. They’ve at least encouraged the use in Syria and elsewhere, so it’s something that we take very seriously.”

Still, there are some concerns that even if Russia is failing to sway most people in the West, a small minority are repeating the Kremlin’s talking points on podcasts and even on some U.S. cable news networks.

U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio last week noted that the bioweapons allegations in particular have “got some people fired up.”

Others are more optimistic.

“The sharing of intelligence to shine a light on disinformation … I’ve never seen it better in the 35 years I’ve spent in uniform,” the head of the U.S. National Security Agency, General Paul Nakasone, told lawmakers late Thursday.

Ukrainian officials have likewise said their efforts are paying off.

“Ukraine is winning this information war and winning it massively” Heorhii Tykhy, an adviser to the spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said during a virtual forum last week.

“Defensive strategies are not enough. … What really helps fight the disinformation is proactive strategies,” he added.

The senior U.S. defense official on Thursday was complimentary of Kyiv’s efforts, saying the impact is being felt far beyond Ukraine.

“Ukrainians are doing a good job staying ahead of the information ops,” the official said. “They’re doing a good job communicating … using social media to great effect.”

“So, we just haven’t seen the Russians have much success.”
…

Ukrainian and Russian officials say they have made progress in negotiations toward a cease-fire in the 3-week war. Experts detect a shift in Russia’s demands as the war has gone on much longer than it planned. But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he sees no evidence Russia is serious about diplomacy. VOA’s senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
Camera: Yan Boechat 
…

Speaking Thursday about the war in Ukraine, the head of the World Health Organization told the U.N. Security Council that “the lifesaving medicine we need now is peace.”

“Prolonged conflict is in nobody’s interests and will only prolong the suffering of the most vulnerable,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an emergency council session on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Ukraine, which has been under Russian airstrikes and shelling for the past three weeks.

Tedros reported that WHO has verified 43 attacks on health care facilities, which have killed a dozen people and injured 34 others.

Attacks on hospitals can rise to the level of war crimes.

Tedros said WHO is working with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health and has so far sent about 100 metric tons of medical supplies to the country.

“We have now established supply lines from our warehouse in Lviv to many cities of Ukraine, but challenges with access remain,” Tedros said. Lviv is in western Ukraine, which has remained relatively safe.

He said WHO has critical supplies ready to enter difficult areas on joint U.N. convoys but has so far not been able to get them in.

Besieged cities

“Today, for example, the U.N. convoy to Sumy that included a WHO truck carrying critical medical supplies was unable to enter,” he said. Sumy, near the Russian border in the northeast, has come under heavy bombardment, making it difficult and dangerous for civilians to evacuate safely.

“Loads ready for Mariupol remain in staging areas and cannot proceed,” Tedros said of the besieged southern city. “Access to these and other areas is now critical.”

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo said hundreds of residential buildings, as well as schools and hospitals, have been destroyed or damaged in three weeks of conflict.

Since Russia began its invasion on February 24, the U.N. has verified the killing of 726 civilians, including 52 children. More than 1,000 other civilians have been injured. The U.N. says the true numbers are likely much higher.

“It is the responsibility of all sides to fully abide by their obligations to protect the lives of all civilians everywhere,” DiCarlo said.

She expressed particular concern for residents trapped in Mariupol, where a maternity hospital was bombed on March 9 and a theater, where 1,000 people were sheltering, was hit on Wednesday. The city has been cut off from food, water, electricity and medical care, and bodies lie in the streets uncollected.

“The devastation in Mariupol and Kharkiv raises grave fears about the fate of millions of residents in Kyiv and other cities facing intensifying attacks,” DiCarlo said.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, says the conflict has sent more than 3.1 million people fleeing to neighboring European countries and has displaced 2 million more inside Ukraine.

Impact beyond Ukraine

“Russia will be held accountable for its atrocities,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. “There is only one way to end this madness. President [Vladimir] Putin: Stop the killings. Withdraw your forces. Leave Ukraine once and for all.”

Several council members echoed her disgust with Moscow’s war and the suffering it has caused.

“The main news is that Ukraine is holding on, that Ukraine is resisting and Ukraine is winning and Russia is deep in the mud: on the ground, morally, legally and internationally,” Albania’s ambassador, Ferit Hoxha, said.

There were also concerns about the broader humanitarian implications of the conflict.

Russia and Ukraine account for nearly one-third of the world’s wheat, and almost 50 nations are dependent on both countries for over 30% of their wheat import needs. War could disrupt food supplies to many countries already grappling with food insecurity.

“I find it a damning indictment that this council has to plead with the Russian Federation not to deprive civilian populations of food and water, not to deny them the basic infrastructure they need for daily existence, for survival,” Ireland’s envoy, Geraldine Byrne Nason, said.

China, which has not criticized Russia for its invasion, called for maximum restraint and the protection of civilians.

“The international community shares the common wish for a cease-fire at an early date to alleviate the situation on the ground and prevent civilian casualties,” Ambassador Zhang Jun said. “This is also the expectation of China.”

He said Beijing, which is not usually among the big international aid donors, has sent humanitarian supplies to Ukraine through its Red Cross Society, including milk powder and blankets for children.

Several council members also mentioned Wednesday’s decision by the International Court of Justice, which ruled Russia must “immediately suspend its military operations” in Ukraine. The decision is legally binding, but Russia is unlikely to comply with it.

Russia doubles down

For its part, Russia’s ambassador repeated the narrative of being the victim of a Western disinformation campaign about the offensive, saying it is “reaching new heights.”

“We note with regret that Ukraine has always [been] a pawn in the geopolitical struggle against Russia and remains such a pawn still,” Vassily Nebenzia told the council. “Western politicians could not care less about the suffering of the people in Donbas.”

Donbas is the region in eastern Ukraine that comprises Luhansk and Donetsk, the two breakaway republics that Putin recognized as independent days before he ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

On the humanitarian situation, Nebenzia said he was calling off his delegation’s planned vote Friday morning on a draft resolution. It was drawn up to counter a text from Western council members deploring the humanitarian consequences of Russia’s invasion and seeking a cease-fire for humanitarian access.

Moscow was certain to be isolated again in the council if it brought its doomed resolution to a vote. Council members repeatedly noted Thursday that Russia putting forward such a draft was cynical and hypocritical, and that if Moscow really wanted to solve the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, it could start by ending its war.

“But we are not withdrawing the draft resolution,” Nebenzia insisted. “Instead, tomorrow morning we will ask for an emergency meeting to discuss again the issue of U.S. biolaboratories in Ukraine, using the new documents we obtained in the course of the special military operation.”

Last Friday, the Russians called for a meeting on the same subject. Nebenzia spoke for nearly 20 minutes, alleging without evidence that Ukraine, funded by the U.S. military, was developing biological weapons in at least 30 laboratories across the country.

U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu told council members that the U.N. “is not aware of any biological weapons programs.”

The United States and Ukraine have both dismissed Moscow’s accusations.

U.S. officials have expressed concerns that Moscow is making such accusations because it may be laying the groundwork for a false flag operation in Ukraine involving biological or chemical weapons.
…