The latest developments on the Russia-Ukraine war:
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron criticized "hypocritical" rhetoric and "cynicism" from Moscow about offering to open humanitarian corridors to Russia for Ukrainian civilians.
"Humanitarian actors need to be able to intervene, so we must get full ceasefires when they intervene to place under protection women, children, men who need to be protected. And (we must) be able to get them out of the conflict area," Macron said Monday in an interview on French news broadcaster LCI.
The issue won’t be solved via "corridors which are being threatened right away (by Russia)," he said. Saying that "we are going to protect people by bringing them to Russia" is "hypocritical," he added. "This is cynicism" that is "unbearable," he said.
Macron addressed the issue publicly after the Russian task force said the new pledge for humanitarian corridors was announced at his request, following a call with Putin on Sunday. Macron’s office said he asked for a broader end to military operations in Ukraine and protections for civilians.
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VIENNA — The head of the UN nuclear watchdog is pressing forward with efforts to secure an agreement with Ukraine and Russia on the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, amid deepening concerns about the situation.
Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Ukraine’s and Europe’s biggest, on Friday following an attack that set off a fire at a building on the site. The International Atomic Energy Agency says Ukraine has since informed it they tightened their control, with Ukrainian staff required to seek their approval for any operation and normal communications impeded.
The IAEA director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said Monday that the conditions are "absolutely extraordinary," adding that "there is safe operation, but there are many, many questions on the ability to sustain this for much longer if we don’t support this in some way."
He called for commitments "not to go anywhere near a nuclear facility when it comes to military operations."
Grossi initially proposed talks at the decommissioned Chornobyl plant, the site of the 1986 disaster, which is also controlled by Russian forces. The Kremlin said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes talks could be useful in principle but suggested they could be held by videoconference or in a third country.
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VIENNA — The head of the UN nuclear watchdog says that a neutron generator at a physics institute in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has apparently been destroyed but there has been no release of radiation.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said on Monday that the relatively new facility was considered "subcritical" and had "a very small inventory of material." He said it produced neutrons for scientific experiments.
The site was part of a cooperation between the U.S. and Ukraine, according to Grossi. He said that "it’s a scientific institution, so it’s really very regrettable what happened."
Kharkiv has been under sustained attack by Russian forces in recent days.
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WARSAW, Poland — Polish government officials on Monday said that Poland has not, and will not, send its fighter jets to Ukraine to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia.
A deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, said in an interview on Radio Zet that: "We will not open our airports and Polish planes will not fight over Ukraine – Polish planes will not fight over Ukraine."
But separately the government spokesman, Piotr Mueller, indicated a final decision had not been made. He said that a decision on whether to send fighter jets presents risks and is a "very delicate matter."
The comments come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky begged the United States to help Kyiv get more warplanes to fight Russia’s invasion and retain control of its airspace.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was looking at a proposal under which Poland would supply Kyiv with Soviet-era fighters and in turn receive American F-16s to make up for their loss.
Poland has been less than enthusiastic about the idea, at least publicly, largely because Russia has warned that supporting Ukraine’s air force would be seen in Moscow as participating in the conflict and could create a risk of retaliation.
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine will meet near the Turkish Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya this week.
Cavusoglu said Monday he would also take part in the meeting between Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba of Ukraine, which would be in a "trilateral format."
The meeting will take place on the sidelines of an international diplomacy forum in Antalya this week.
Turkey, which has close ties to both Russia and Ukraine, has sought to place itself as a mediator between the warring sides.
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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican says two cardinals dispatched by Pope Francis to promote peace will visit refugee centers in Poland and Hungary before going to war-ravaged Ukraine.
In the first details of the mission announced by Pope Francis on Sunday, the Vatican said Monday that both prelates will press the pontiff’s oft-repeated cry that war is folly.
Cardinal Michael Czerny will arrive in Hungary on Tuesday. There, he will "raise concern that African and Asian residents in Ukraine, also suffering fear and displacement, be allowed to seek refuge without discrimination."
Czerny also will highlight "the sad similarity between the Ukrainians’ sufferings and the protracted conflicts that no longer attract the world’s attention," the Vatican said, citing the pope’s frequent denunciation of suffering in wars in Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia.
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, a Pole, travelled to the Polish-Ukrainian border on Monday, where he will initially meet with refugees and volunteers in shelters and homes.
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GENEVA — A top official with the International Committee of the Red Cross says one of its teams attempting to lead a group of civilians out of the embattled port city of Mariupol discovered that the road they were to take out was mined — a "hugely dangerous situation."
Dominik Stillhart, ICRC’s director of operations, said the incident underpinned calls from the humanitarian group for the fighting sides to "agree on the details for safe civilian passage, including what time, exactly what road, who can leave, and if medical supplies can come in."
"Without this kind of agreement the situation is extremely perilous for civilians," Stillhart said.
ICRC has been working to help facilitate the evacuation of civilxjmtzywians from Mariupol, after a second attempt failed Sunday to start evacuating an estimated 200,000 people out of the city.
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GENEVA — The United Nations’ refugee agency says the number of people who have fled the war in Ukraine has increased to more than 1.7 million.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Monday put the number of people who have arrived in other countries since the Russian invasion started on Feb. 24 at some 1.735 million. That’s up from more than 1.53 million on Sunday.
Nearly three-fifths of the total – nearly 1.03 million — arrived in Poland, according to the agency. Over 180,000 went to Hungary and 128,000 to Slovakia.
In Montpellier, France, EU foreign affairs policy chief Josep Borrell called on mobilizing "all the resources" of the bloc of 27 nations to help countries welcoming refugees from Ukraine, including neighbouring Poland and Romania. Borrell spoke ahead of a meeting of development ministers of the EU.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Monday for a global boycott of all Russian products — including oil.
"If the invasion continues and Russia does not abandon its plans against Ukraine, then we need a new sanctions package," Zelensky said in a video address Monday, including "a boycott of Russian exports, in particular, the rejection of oil and oil products from Russia."
"The international community must act even more decisively."
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says it will end transactions with Russia’s central bank and two sovereign wealth funds as it lends further support to a U.S.-led economic pressure campaign against Moscow over an escalating invasion of Ukraine.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Monday the Seoul government will prohibit financial transactions with the Russian central bank, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation and the Russian Direct Investment Fund starting Tuesday.
South Korea will also stop transactions with Rossiya Bank, which is one of seven Russian banks the European Union is aiming to exclude from the SWIFT global payment system, the ministry said in a press release.
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LVIV, Ukraine — A senior Ukrainian official on Monday rejected a Russian proposal to evacuate civilians from besieged Ukraine to Russia and Belarus.
"This is an unacceptable option for opening humanitarian corridors," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said at a briefing.
According to the Russian proposal, the only options for civilians fleeing Kyiv and its suburbs would be to go to Gomel in neighboring Belarus. Civilians in Kharkiv and Sumy in eastern Ukraine would have to flee to the Russian city of Belgorod.
Belarus is a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and served as a launching ground for the invasion.
The Ukrainian government is proposing eight humanitarian corridors, including from the southern port of Mariupol, that would allow civilians to travel to the western regions of Ukraine, where there is no Russian shelling.
"We demand that the Russian Federation stop manipulating and abusing the trust of the leaders of France, China, Turkey and India," Vereshchuk said
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BEIJING — China’s Foreign Minister on Monday called Russia Beijing’s "most important strategic partner," amid its continued refusal to condemn the invasion of Ukraine.
Wang Yi told reporters ties with Moscow constituted "one of the most crucial bilateral relationships in the world," adding "no matter how perilous the international landscape, we will maintain our strategic focus and promote the development of comprehensive China-Russia partnership in the new era."
China has broken with the U.S., Europe and others that have imposed sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. It says Washington is to blame for the conflict in Ukraine.
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VILNIUS, Lithuania — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has begun a lightning visit to the three Baltic states that are increasingly on edge as they watch Russia press ahead with its invasion of Ukraine.
The former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are all members of NATO and Blinken aims to reassure them of the alliance’s protection in the event Russia chooses to expand its military operations to other neighboring countries.
Memories of Soviet occupation are still fresh in the Baltics and since the invasion of Ukraine last month, NATO has moved quickly to boost its troop presence in its eastern flank allies while the U.S. has pledged additional support.
Blinken’s Baltic tour opened Monday in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, where support for Ukraine’s resistance to the invasion government is palpable with signs of solidarity with Ukrainians in many businesses and on public buildings and buses.
"Unfortunately, the worsening security situation in the Baltic region is of great concern for all of us and around the world," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told Blinken. "Russia’s reckless aggression against Ukraine once again proves that it is a long-term threat to European security, the security of our alliance."
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LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said more than 20,000 people from 52 countries have already volunteered to fight in Ukraine, where they will serve in a newly created international legion. He did not say how many of the foreign volunteers have arrived in Ukraine.
"The whole world today is on Ukraine’s side not only in words but in deeds," Kuleba said on Ukrainian television Sunday night.
He did not name the home countries of the volunteers, saying that some of them forbid their citizens from fighting for other countries.
Kuleba also urged Ukrainians living in other countries to begin a campaign to push for Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.
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A Ukrainian woman dressed in military attire prays inside the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church in Lviv, western Ukraine, on March 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
