Ukraine
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Day 64:
Register as Russian or lose your business, Ukrainian industries in occupied eastern areas told
Russia is asking Ukrainian businesses to register as Russian in the Luhansk Oblast, a businessman from the eastern region has claimed.
Yaroslav Mykhailov said: "Mostly our company specialised in growing and processing quinoa and sunflower seeds. We were one of the biggest producers of these products in eastern Ukraine.
"My business is closed. At the same time Russian authorities demand us to change the registration for a Russian one. If we don't change the registration they will possess our business." -
Putin set to fortify position in Ukraine- UK's Wallace
Russian President Vladimir Putin may seek to consolidate what he has got in Ukraine and dig in, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.
"You can see in his current statements he is, in almost desperation, trying to broaden this either with threats or indeed, with potential false flags or attacks," he told SkyNews."I think it's certainly the case that Putin, having failed in nearly all his objectives, may seek to consolidate what he's got, sort of fortify and dig in as he did in 2014. Just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country in Ukraine and make it very hard for people to move them out of those fortified positions."
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Air defence activated in Russia's Belgorod - TASS
Air defence systems were active in the Russian city of Belgorod in the early hours of this morning, the TASS news agency cited the local government as saying.
The Belgorod province borders Ukraine's Luhansk, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, all of which have seen heavy fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago.
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out strikes on targets in the region. -
UK will continue to support Ukraine's ability to defend itself
Britain's Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: "The international community believes Russia should leave Ukraine, the international community has condemned Russia for its invasion of Crimea, which was illegal in 2014.
"We've constantly said that Russia should leave Ukraine sovereign territory so that hasn't changed".Asked on Sky News whether Britain would support Ukrainians as they push into Crimea, Mr Wallace said: "There's a long way to go before Ukraine pushes into Crimea.
"I think what I would certainly say is, we are supporting Ukraine's sovereign integrity. We've done that all along. That of course includes Crimea.
"But you know, first and foremost, let's get Russia out of where they are now in its invasion plans and help Ukraine resolve and actually remember the Minsk agreement, which Russia has basically ripped up, was all about trying to resolve those two occupied territories. -
"But the key thing is to continue to support Ukraine's sovereign integrity and their ability to defend themselves".
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Ukraine can attack Russian logistics under international law - UK's Wallace
British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said it would be legitimate for Ukrainian forces to target Russian logistics, but if they did so they would be unlikely to be using British weapons.
"If Ukraine did choose to target logistics infrastructure for the Russian army, that would be legitimate under international law," Mr Wallace told the BBC.
"They currently don't have British weapons that could do that, so it is unlikely that it is our weapons. We don't really have many long range weapons that are delivered in the way their army does." -
Putin warns West of ‘lightning-fast’ retaliation
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of "lightning-fast" retaliation if countries interfere in Ukraine as European leaders accused Russia of "blackmail" over its cuts to gas supplies.
Russia has told the United States to stop sending arms to Ukraine, saying large Western deliveries of weapons were inflaming the conflict.
Addressing politicians in St Petersburg yesterday, Mr Putin said the West wanted to cut Russia up into different pieces and accused it of pushing Ukraine into conflict with Russia.
"If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast," said Mr Putin, according to video of his address supplied by Russian media.
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"We have all the tools for this, things no one else can boast of having now. And we will not boast, we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know that."
Russia's invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February and has reduced towns and cities to rubble and forced more than 5 million people to flee abroad.
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War Crimes
Canadian politicians voted unanimously yesterday to call Russia's attacks in Ukraine a "genocide", with members of parliament saying there was "ample evidence of systemic and massive war crimes against humanity" being committed by Russia.
Canada's parliament said in a motion war crimes by Russia included mass atrocities, wilful killing of civilians, the desecration of corpses, forcible transfer of children, torture, physical and mental harm, and rape.Russia denies targeting civilians.
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⚡️Canada lawmakers vote to label Russia’s acts in Ukraine as ‘genocide.’
Canadian lawmakers voted unanimously on April 27 to call Russia’s attacks in Ukraine a “genocide”, adding that there was “ample evidence of systemic and massive war crimes against humanity.”
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Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation has lodged a protest against the US' export of Russian-made Mi-17V-5 helicopters to Ukraine that were originally destined for Afghanistan, which reportedly violates their end-use restrictions.
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'War is an absurdity in 21st century,' says UN's Guterres in Ukraine
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described war as "evil" and absurd during a visit to Borodianka outside Kyiv, where Moscow's troops are accused of killing civilians during their occupation.
"I imagine my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black. I see my granddaughters running away in panic. The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil. There is no way a war can be acceptable in the 21st century," Mr Guterres said. -
Guterres urges Russia to cooperate with ICC on Ukraine
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged Russia to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on investigations into possible war crimes carried out during its invasion of Ukraine.
"I fully support the ICC and I appeal to the Russian Federation to accept, to cooperate with the ICC. But when we talk about war crimes, we cannot forget that the worst of crimes is war itself," the UN's chief said during a visit to Bucha outside Kyiv, where hundreds of dead civilians were discovered after Russian troops pulled out. -
Russia accuses OSCE of handing information to Western intelligence
Russia has accused the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) of handing information on the location of Russian and pro-Russian forces to Western and Ukrainian intelligence.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova made the allegation during a briefing with reporters but did not provide evidence for it.
She said investigators from the self-proclaimed breakaway Donetsk People's Republic, which is backed by Russia, would provide additional proof.
The OSCE has a monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian army since 2014. -
German parliament approves petition to deliver heavy arms to Ukraine
Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a petition on support for Ukraine backing the delivery of weapons including heavy arms to the country.
"Alongside the broad economic isolation and decoupling of Russia from international markets, the most important and effective means to stop the Russian invasion is to intensify and speed up the delivery of effective weapons and complex systems including heavy arms," the petition read.
The petition was backed by both the three parties in the ruling coalition as well as the opposition conservatives, passing with 586 votes in favour, 100 against and seven abstentions, according to Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki. -
Weapons deliveries to Ukraine threaten European security: Kremlin
The Kremlin has said that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine were dangerous for European security.
"The tendency to pump weapons, including heavy weapons into Ukraine -- these are the actions that threaten the security of the continent, provoke instability," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. -
EU states agree they are not willing to pay for Russian gas in roubles
EU countries all agree that they will not pay Russia directly in roubles for their imports of gas, noting that the deadline for next payments was expected to be 20 May, senior European Union officials said.
"What we do know, and there is consensus on this from all member states, is that none is willing to pay" in roubles, the official told a news briefing, adding that the EU Commission did not have an overview of how many buyers have opened accounts for gas payments with Gazprombank. -
Russia says it has not received response from Ukraine to latest peace proposal
Russia has still not received a response from Ukraine regarding its latest proposals for a possible peace agreement, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said .
"As of this morning, at the time of preparing for the briefing, the Russian side has not received an answer," she said.
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Bulgaria PM calls on Europe to be 'stronger', cut Russian gas use
Bulgaria's Prime Minister Kiril Petkov called on Europe to be "stronger" and cut back on Russian gas during a visit to Ukraine, after Moscow cut gas supplies to Sofia.
"We have to be stronger, we have to be tough," Mr Petkov said in Irpin, one of the towns outside Kyiv where Moscow is accused of committing war crimes.
He said Bulgaria has "alternative choices" to replace Russian gas flows. "If we are able to do it, everybody in Europe should be able to." -
Russia steps up its assault on east Ukraine
Russia has stepped up its assaults on eastern and southern Ukraine as President Vladimir Putin threatened "lightning-fast" retaliation against any Western countries that intervene on Ukraine's behalf.
More than two months into its invasion, Russia has mounted a push to seize two eastern provinces in a battle the West views as a decisive turning point in the war.
"The enemy is increasing the pace of the offensive operation. The Russian occupiers are exerting intense fire in almost all directions," Ukraine's military command said of the situation on the main front in the east.
It said Russia's main attack was near the towns of Slobozhanske and Donets, along a strategic frontline highway linking Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv with the Russian-occupied city of Izyum. -
The Kharkiv regional governor said Russian forces were intensifying attacks from Izyum, but Ukrainian troops were holding their ground.
Although Russian forces were pushed out of northern Ukraine last month, they are heavily entrenched in the east and also still hold a swathe of the south that they seized in March.
Ukraine said there were strong explosions overnight in the southern city of Kherson, the only regional capital Russia has captured since the invasion.
Russian troops there used tear gas and stun grenades yesterday to suppress pro-Ukrainian demonstrations, and were now shelling the entire surrounding region and attacking towards Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky's southern home city, Ukraine said. -
Ukraine accuses Russia of planning to stage a fake independence referendum in the occupied south.
Russian state media quoted an official from a self-styled pro-Russian "military-civilian commission" in Kherson as saying the area would start using Russia's rouble currency from 1 May.Western countries have ramped up weapons deliveries to Ukraine in recent days as the fighting in the east has intensified.
More than 40 countries met this week at a US airbase in Germany and pledged to send heavy arms such as artillery for what is expected to be a vast battle of opposing armies along a heavily fortified front line.
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The United States now says it hopes Ukrainian forces can not only repel Russia's assault on the east, but weaken its military so that it can no longer threaten neighbours. Russia says that amounts to NATO waging "proxy war" against it.
"If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast," Mr Putin told MPs in St Petersburg.
"We have all the tools for this, things no one else can boast of having now. And we will not boast, we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know that."
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Moldova
The second stage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is underway. The scope of the war now appears to be establishing full control over Donbas and southern Ukraine. If successful, this would mean Russian occupation of approximately one-third of Ukraine, cutting the country off from its Black Sea ports, including Odesa.
If fully realised, these objectives also raise the deeply worrying prospect of a Russian move on Moldova and its break-away region of Transnistria. Stage two of Vladimir Putin's war could thus very well imply a more serious escalation.
Russia's foreign policy strategy towards its neighbours is intimately linked with Putin's longstanding aspiration to turn Russia into a great power akin to the Soviet Union, whose demise he has lamented as a geopolitical catastrophe. Short of recreating the Soviet Union, Russia needs friendly political regimes in neighbouring countries, or at least regimes it can influence and prevent from sliding into the western orbit of the EU and NATO. -
For a long time, one of Russia's main levers of such influence were so-called "de-facto states" in former republics of the erstwhile Soviet Union. These include Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova and – since 2014 – the self-declared people's republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) in the Donbas region. Moscow's price for restoring control of these breakaway regions to their countries would be to legitimise proxy regimes there. This would give the Kremlin long-term influence over these countries' foreign policy choices. This has always been a non-starter.
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But that doesn't diminish the territorial value of these areas. By recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, by annexing Crimea in 2014, and by recognising the DPR and LPR in 2022, Russia achieved at least part of its aim of restoring a dependable sphere of influence beyond its borders. This strategy is now evident in Russia's latest moves in Ukraine, including the announcement of a "referendum on independence" in the key southern city of Kherson on April 27, 2022.
Moscow's aim to occupy all of southern Ukraine is the logical conclusion of this strategy. Nonetheless, it reflects how much things have changed with Russia's original aspirations. From the ultimatum for Kyiv's unconditional surrender in February 2022, to demands that Ukraine recognise the independence of the DPR, LPR and the annexation of Crimea the following month, it now appears that a negotiated agreement on Russian terms is less and less likely. -
If successful, the land-grab by force that the Kremlin is now pursuing would also create a land bridge to Transnistria – one of the early Russian-controlled de-facto states – something that had already appeared to be a possibility after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
There is very little enthusiasm in Transnistria for being drawn into Russian aggression against Ukraine. But there is also limited ability to resist Moscow's ambitions if Russian forces advanced all the way there. It would leave Moldova even more exposed to Russian aggression, given the fact that it has nowhere near the defensive capabilities that Ukraine has, despite having a "cooperative arrangement" with the alliance which has included supplying troops to Nato's peacekeeping effort in Kosovo since 2014. -
Moreover, give the country's sizeable ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking community, the Kremlin would likely again cry "genocide" in justifying military aggression against Moldova and could rely on a small minority of hardline pro-Russian supporters to do its bidding, pushing for more "independence referenda".
So, regardless of actual capabilities, the Kremlin has clear incentives to pursue its second-stage goals of capturing more Ukrainian territory and entrenching itself and its proxies along the entire Black Sea coast.
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The consequences of Russian success would be extremely damaging for Ukraine. Central government control would be limited to a landlocked, economically devastated territory. Major population centres, including the capital Kyiv, would likely be within easy reach of Russian artillery and missiles and frontlines would remain highly volatile zones of low-intensity conflict. Meanwhile, large numbers of Ukrainian citizens would be subjected to a brutal Russian occupation regime whose excesses have been witnessed in places like Bucha.
Analysis by Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham
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RU forces strike Artyom defense plant in Kiev with 3 misiles, meanwhile Russian telegram users are starting to show discontent in their Governments lack of substantial reactions towards attacks on Russian soil..
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