What’s happening in Ukraine today and how are countries around the world responding? Read live updates on Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
BEIRUT – Kremlin officials boasted early in their war on Ukraine that thousands of experienced fighters from the Middle East would join Russian forces. Military analysts say only a small number appears to have arrived in Russia for training before being deployed to the front lines, but they say that could change as Russia prepares for a full-scale offensive.
U.S. officials and activists monitoring Syria say the Russians have been actively recruiting. Rami Abdurrahman leads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. He reported that about 40,000 people have registered so far with the Russian military and with Wagner Group, which is a Russian private contractor.
Rayan Maarouf of Suwayda24, an activist collective that covers IS activities in the Syrian desert, said fighters were promised no less than US$600 a month. That’s a huge sum of money amid widespread unemployment in Syria.
Analysts say fighters from Syria are more likely to be deployed in coming weeks, especially after Gen. Alexander Dvornikov was named war commander. Dvornikov is well acquainted with the paramilitary forces Russia trained in Syria. Though some question how effective Syrian fighters would be in Ukraine, they could be brought in if more forces are needed to besiege cities or to make up for rising casualties.
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MOSCOW – Russia’s President Vladimir Putin says that the barrage of Western sanctions against Russia has failed.
Putin said Monday that the West “expected to quickly upset the financial-economic situation, provoke panic in the markets, the collapse of the banking system and shortages in stores.” He added that “the strategy of the economic blitz has failed.”
The Russian leader spoke in televised remarks during a video call with top economic officials.
Putin noted that “Russia has withstood the unprecedented pressure,” arguing that the ruble has strengthened and the country has recorded a historic high trade surplus of US$58 billion in the first quarter of the year.
Instead, he contended that the sanctions backfired against the U.S. and its European allies, speeding up inflation and leading to a drop in living standards.
Putin acknowledged a sharp hike in consumer prices in Russia, saying they rose by 17.5% as of April on a year-to-year basis and directing the government to index wages and other payments to alleviate the impact of inflation on people’s incomes.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said Russia can be prosecuted for war crimes over its refusal to allow humanitarian corridors for civilians trapped in the city of Mariupol.
Earlier on Monday, Iryna Vereshxjmtzywchuk had said no evacuations were possible for the second day in a row because of Russian attacks on civilian convoys.
“Your refusal to open these humanitarian corridors will in the future be a reason to prosecute all involved for war crimes,” she wrote on her Telegram and Facebook channels.
Vereshchuk called again on Russia to allow safe evacuation of civilians from Mariupol, especially the Azovstal steel mill, which covers more than 11 square kilometres (4 square miles) and is laced with tunnels.
According to Vereshchuk, the government had been negotiating passage from Mariupol and Berdyansk, among other towns, as well as from the Luhansk region. The Luhansk government said four civilians trying to flee the region were shot to death by Russian forces.
The Russians, in their turn, have accused the “neo-Nazi nationalists” in Mariupol of hampering the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol.
Ukraine’s state security service has posted a video of a Ukrainian politician held on a treason charge offering himself in exchange for the evacuation of Mariupol’s trapped civilians, while two British men who surrendered to Russian forces in Mariupol appeared on Russian media asking to be part of an exchange.
The video of Viktor Medvedchuk, the former leader of a pro-Russian opposition party with personal ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was posted Monday. In it, he appeals to Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by name to consider the exchange.
Medvedchuk was detained last Tuesday in a special operation carried out by Ukraine’s state security service, or the SBU. The 67-year-old oligarch escaped from house arrest several days before the hostilities broke out Feb. 24 in Ukraine. He is facing between 15 years and life in prison on charges of treason and aiding and abetting a terrorist organization for mediating coal purchases for the separatist, Russia-backed Donetsk republic in eastern Ukraine.
The British men identified themselves as Sean Pinner and Aiden Aslin. In one video, Pinner asked British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hoped to be exchanged. Pinner had deep circles beneath his eyes and appeared exhausted, but he said the two men had been treated appropriately.
Ukrainian officials have said Kyiv wants try Medvedchuk and ultimately exchange him for Ukrainian prisoners.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s government has halted humanitarian evacuations for the second day, saying Russian forces were targeting civilian evacuation corridors.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Monday that Russia was shelling and blocking the humanitarian evacuation routes. The humanitarian evacuations have been repeatedly paused since the war began after civilian convoys came under shelling.
According to Vereshchuk, the government had been negotiating passage from Mariupol and Berdyansk, among other towns, as well as from the Luhansk region. The Luhansk government said four civilians trying to flee the region were shot to death by Russian forces.
Separately, shelling in a residential area in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Monday killed at least three people and injured three others, according to AP journalists on the scene.
One of the dead was a woman who appeared to have been going to collect water in the rain. She was found lying bloodied with a water canister and umbrella near her body.
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MADRID — Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says Spain will reopen its embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in a few days.
Following similar decisions by several European neighbours, Sánchez said the reopening was “to show again the commitment of the Spanish government and Spanish people with the Ukrainian people.”
“Spain is with Ukraine and we are against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Sánchez said in an interview on Spain’s Antena 3 television. “This is a war by Putin against what the European Union stands for.”
Spain closed the embassy within hours of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said six people were killed and another 11, including a child, were wounded by Russian strikes in the western Ukrainian city.
Plumes of thick black smoke could be seen rising over the city as multiple explosions believed to be caused by missiles struck, according to AP staff Lviv.
Lviv Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyy said there were four Russian missile strikes, three of which hit military infrastructure facilities and one struck a tire shop. He said emergency teams were putting out fires caused by the strikes.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, the chairman of the Ukrainian rail service, said the strikes hit near railway facilities. He said train traffic has resumed with some delays, and he vowed to restore the damaged network.
Lviv and the rest of western Ukraine has been less affected by the fighting than other parts of the country, and is considered to be a relatively safe haven.
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MOSCOW — The Russian military says it has struck over 20 Ukrainian military targets with missiles.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Monday that precision-guided air-launched missiles destroyed 16 military facilities, including five command headquarters, a fuel depot, three ammunition depots and concentrations of Ukrainian military vehicles and personnel in several areas in the Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro regions.
Konashenkov also said that the military fired Iskander land-based missiles to destroy four ammunition depots and three groups of Ukrainian troops near Popasna and Kramatorsk in the east and Yampil in central Ukraine.
He said that the military used artillery to hit 315 Ukrainian targets, and Russian warplanes performed 108 strikes to target Ukrainian troops and military equipment.
Konashenkov’s claims couldn’t be independently verified.
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LONDON — Britain’s defence ministry says the continuing siege of Mariupol is tying up Russian forces and slowing its advance ahead of a planned major offensive in eastern Ukraine.
In a daily intelligence update, Britain’s military says “concerted Ukrainian resistance has severely tested Russian forces and diverted men and materiel, slowing Russia’s advance elsewhere.”
The Sea of Azov port city has been devastated in weeks of Russian pummelling. Britain says “large areas of infrastructure have been destroyed” and there are “significant” civilian casualties.
Britain accuses Russia of using similar tactics of all-out war on civilian areas that it deployed in Chechnya and Syria, despite Russian claims at the start of its invasion “that Russia would neither strike cities nor threaten the Ukrainian population.”
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LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian troops in southern Ukraine have been carrying out torture and kidnappings, and he called on the world Sunday to respond.
“Torture chambers are built there,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address to the nation. “They abduct representatives of local governments and anyone deemed visible to local communities.”
Zelenskyy said humanitarian aid has been stolen, creating famine.
In occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, he said, the Russians are creating separatist states and introducing Russian currency, the ruble. Intensified Russian shelling of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, has killed 18 people and wounded 106 in the last four days alone, Zelenskyy said.
“This is nothing but deliberate terror. Mortars, artillery against ordinary residential neighbourhoods, against ordinary civilians,” he said.
He said a planned Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine “will begin in the near future.”
Zelensky again called for increased sanctions against Russia, including its entire banking sector and oil industry. “Everyone in Europe and America already sees Russia openly using energy to destabilize Western societies,” Zelenskyy said. “All of this requires greater speed from Western countries in preparing a new, powerful package of sanctions.”
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WASHINGTON — Ukraine’s foreign minister is describing the situation in Mariupol as dire and heartbreaking and says Russia’s continued attacks there could be a “red line” that ends all efforts to reach peace through negotiation.
Dmytro Kuleba tells CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the remaining Ukrainian military personnel and civilians in the port city are basically encircled by Russian forces.
He says the Ukrainians “continue their struggle” but that the city effectively doesn’t exist anymore because of massive destruction.
Kuleba says his country has been keeping up “expert level” talks with Russia in recent weeks in hopes of reaching a political solution for peace. But citing the significance of Mariupol, he echoed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in saying the elimination of Ukrainian forces there could be a “red line” that stops peace efforts.
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden says he’s praying on Easter for those living in the “dark shadow” of war, persecution and poverty.
Biden released an Easter message Sunday in which he says he’s also praying for peace, freedom and basic dignity and respect for all of God’s children.
Biden didn’t say which war he had in mind, but the president has been deeply involved in trying to force an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The American president says he’s grateful that the easing of the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed many people around the world to celebrate by attending religious services and in-person family gatherings. He also acknowledges that the holiest day on the Christian calendar “falls on heavy hearts for those who have lost loved ones and those among us living in the dark shadow of war, persecution and poverty.”
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People light candles forming Ukraine’s map, in memory of lost lives, in front of the Taras Shevchenko monument, in Lviv, western Ukraine, April 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
