The Ukrainian resistance is finally making some inroads into stopping Russian forces. Weeks of bombarding Mariupol hasn’t gotten very far. The Associated Press has the story:
Despite Ukraine repulsing Russian advancement, they are still working on a war of attrition
(AP) LONDON — A Western official says Ukrainian resistance has slowed Russia’s advance almost to a halt, and Ukraine has repulsed Russia’s attempts to take the strategic southern port of Mariupol despite weeks of bombardment.
But the official said Russian troops have not been pushed back from established positions, and had the capability to keep up a grinding war of attrition for some time — making a rapid breakthrough in negotiations aimed at ending the violence unlikely.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said Odesa, another strategic port on the Black Sea, was a key objective for Russia but there are no indications of an imminent siege.
Odesa has been spared major attack, though Russia has ships operating off the Black Sea coast. The U.S. also says Russia has increased naval activity in the northern Black Sea, but there are no indications at this point of an imminent amphibious assault on Odesa.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— Ukraine says it has retaken a strategically important suburb of Kyiv. Meanwhile, the Russian siege of Mariupol continues.
— A pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper briefly reported that almost 10,000 Russian soldiers had been killed.
— Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to nine year in prison
— Ukrainian orphans who are headed to refuge in the UK are stuck in Poland due to missing paperwork
— An Associated Press journalist recounts his team’s harrowing escape from Mariupol
Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
ANKARA, Turkey — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says his government would like to see Turkey join sanctions against Russia but said the country, which is talking to both Ukraine and Russia, is playing an invaluable role in trying to end the conflict.
Rutte made the comments during a visit to Ankara Tuesday ahead of a NATO summit in Brussels that is scheduled to discuss the situation in Ukraine.
“We would very much favor Turkey to implement all (of) the sanctions,” Rutte said during a joint news conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “But I think we also have to be happy with the fact that Turkey is playing now its diplomatic role and its leadership role in trying to end the conflict.”
Turkey has criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as unacceptable but has also pledged to maintain its close relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, while trying to mediate between the two sides. It has closed the Turkish Straits at the entrance of the Black Sea to some Russian warships but is not imposing sanctions on Russia.
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BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has again dismissed calls to boycott Russian energy supplies in the wake of the attack on Ukraine.
Scholz said Tuesday that the sanctions already imposed on Russia were already hitting its economy “and this will only get more dramatic every day.”
At the same time, the sanctions were designed to be “tolerable” for those imposing them, including in the long term, he said.
“That is why Germany’s position on this question (of an energy boycott) remains unchanged,” said Scholz.
He added that other countries in Europe are even more dependent on Russian oil, coal and gas than Germany “and nobody must be left standing out in the rain in this regard.”
Scholz said Germany is working to diversify its energy supply and that, while this will take time, it will eventually have the same effect as a boycott.
European countries pay Russia hundreds of millions of dollars each day for fossil fuels. Ukrainian officials say this trade effectively finances Russia’s war against their country.
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BERLIN — Germany has condemned the latest verdict against Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
In a statement, Germany’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the new prison sentence “is part of the systematic instrumentalization of the Russian judicial system against dissidents and the political opposition.”
The ministry noted that the latest trial took place largely behind closed doors and accused Russian authorities of breaching fundamental principles of rule of law while failing to present any credible evidence against Navalny.
“The German government renews its demand for Navalny’s immediate release,” it said.
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KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian photojournalist has gone missing in a combat zone near the capital, raising fears he could have been injured, killed or taken captive by Russian forces.
The UNIAN news agency reported Tuesday that Maksym Levin has been unaccounted since March 13 when he contacted his friend from Vyshhorod near Kyiv. His friend, Markiyan Lyseiko, said Levin went to the area in his car to report on fighting there.
Lyseiko said Levin left his car near the village of Huta Mezhyhirska and was going to head to the village of Moshchun. Levin hasn’t contacted him ever since and hasn’t been seen online, Lyseiko said.
Levin has worked as a photojournalist and videographer for many Ukrainian and international publications.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday that Ukrainian refugees should not be integrated into the Danish society but must instead return to Ukraine and help rebuild their homeland as soon as possible.
“Being a refugee is temporary, so you have to return and help build up your homeland when you get the opportunity. It gives us the opportunity to help other refugees,” Frederiksen said in Parliament during a debate.
Under a newly adopted law in Denmark, Ukrainian refugees can stay in the Scandinavian country for two years and can work, get an education and have access to health services.
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UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations chief says his discussions with officials indicate “there is enough on the table to cease hostilities now” and seriously negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Tuesday that the war is “unwinnable,” and the only question is how many more lives will be lost and how many more cities like Mariupol will be destroyed before the war moves from the battlefield to the peace table.
“From my outreach with various actors, elements of diplomatic progress are coming into view on several key issues,” he said, enough to end hostilities now.
Guterres did not state what those elements are or answer any questions.
He said the war is intensifying and “getting more destructive and more unpredictable by the hour.” Ten million Ukrainians have already been forced to flee their homes.
“Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house,” the secretary-general said.
Guterres said “the Ukrainian people are enduring a living hell,” and the war’s reverberations “are being felt worldwide with skyrocketing food, energy and fertilizer prices threatening to spiral into a global hunger crisis.”
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PRZEMSYL, Poland — The flow of refugees from Ukraine into a primary entry point in Poland has slowed to fewer than 8,000 people a day, the city’s mayor said.
That number is six to seven times lower than during the height of the Ukrainian exodus into Poland, Przemyśl Mayor Wojciech Bakun said Tuesday outside the city’s train station. He compared the Polish effort to provide safe harbor for refugees to a marathon.
“After one month, a lot of people are very tired, so we have to think about next month, or maybe, hopefully not, but maybe about years,” Bakun said. “So that’s the main thing at this moment. Not only for Poland, but also for EU countries.”
Poland has established a system to help new arrivals, providing them with immediate assistance and helping arrange travel to other parts of Poland and other European countries.
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BRUSSELS — Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Nicu Popescu is warning that the plight of Ukrainian refugees in his country could get much worse if the war launched by Russia approaches its borders.
Popescu says that about 360,000 refugees have crossed into Moldova in recent weeks. Around 100,000 of them – equivalent to 4% of Moldova’s population – have remained, and many are minors. The rest have moved further into Europe.
“This is a very, very dramatic speed and scale of a humanitarian situation and, in our assessment, it could get much worse if the frontline approaches our borders,” he told European Union lawmakers on Tuesday.
Russia has troops in Moldova, a country of 2.6 million located between Ukraine and Romania, stationed in the disputed territory of Transnistria. Concern is rife in Europe that Russian President Vladimir Putin might push his forces west though Ukraine to join up with them.
Popescu says that “for now, the situation is calm” in Transnistria, but that things could change rapidly if the fighting spreads.
He says the war in Ukraine has hurt Moldova’s economy, notably its trade, just as the country struggles to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and an energy crisis.
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MEDYKA, Poland — Ukrainians, mostly women and children, continued to cross into the Polish border town of Medyka on Tuesday.
Viktoria Totsen, 39, arrived there from Mariupol.
“Mariupol is almost 99% destroyed,” Totsen said. “They bombed us for the past 20 days. During the last five days the planes were flying over us every five seconds and dropped bombs everywhere, on residential buildings, kindergartens, art schools, everywhere. We live near the theater in the city center, and, as you know, they damaged the theater. It was horrible and we took a risk and we left. They city is under blockade, and when we left we got (mobile phone) connection, and we managed to find the route to Zaporizhzhia.”
Olena Almazova, 54, fled Kharkiv, a northeast Ukrainian city near the Russian border.
“It is a very difficult situation in Kharkiv,” Almazova said. “Every day they bomb, 40, 50, 60 times a day. They bombed suburbs and city center. They damaged the culture center, they damaged ancient architecture. So far, 700 buildings have been destroyed.”
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says this week’s meeting between NATO leaders should be focused on ways of securing a cease-fire in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and not just on sanctions and deterrence.
“Everyone’s first aim should be a cease-fire,” Cavusoglu told Turkish journalists on the sideline of an Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Pakistan on Tuesday. “It should be to stop the war that is going on right now. Everyone should act responsibly and constructively.”
Cavusoglu continued: “Of course, we need to show unity and solidarity within NATO, we need to show deterrence. But who is paying the price of the ongoing war?”
U.S. President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders are scheduled to meet Thursday in Brussels. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the meeting is intended not just to show NATO’s “support to Ukraine, but also our readiness to protect and defend all NATO allies,”
Cavusoglu said Turkey was pressing with its efforts as a “mediator and facilitator” to end the fighting and was in touch with negotiators on both sides. Turkey was also trying to bring the warring sides to meet face to face again, Cavusoglu said.
Earlier this month, the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey on the sidelines of a diplomacy forum.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Exhausted Mariupol survivors continued to arrive by train in the western city of Lviv on Tuesday.
“In one compartment there were 10 or eleven people, with others in the corridor, but when you’re going to safety it doesn’t matter,” said one woman, Julia Krytska, who made it out with her husband and son. Her hands were shaking.
They were lucky to get out after volunteers found them in the besieged city, she said. “There’s no connection with the world,” she said. “We couldn’t ask for help.”
The people of Mariupol don’t have a chance to be heard, she said. “They are in need of help. People don’t even have water there,” Krytska said.
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KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian actor is now serving in the Territorial Defense Forces on the outskirts of Kyiv in a unit packed with people from showbusiness.
Sergiy Volosovets said on Monday that the fight against Russian forces has drawn in people from all walks of life.
“There is a lot of very different people here, I met a lot of my friends here, as well as artists,” he said.
“I think maybe their artistic spirit just broke the fear and that allowed them to come and be here. For example in my units there were actors, singers, cameramen, photographers, people related to the showbusiness in various ways. Those people are artists, they believe they could change their country for better as well as defeat the enemy.”
Volosovets has acted in theater, movies and TV and has won awards for his work.
He now commands a unit of 11 men, and oversees the military training of volunteers in a base northeast of Kyiv, a few kilometers away from the frontlines where Ukraine’s army is trying to block the Russian advance towards the capital.
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BRUSSELS — International news channel Euronews says it has been blocked from broadcasting in Russia due to its Ukraine war coverage.
“We firmly condemn this intolerable restriction imposed on millions … in Russia who relied on us to get impartial news,” Euronews said, adding that Russian authorities pulled the channel off air and blocked its websites in Russia.
Euronews said it might launch legal action to continue to freely broadcast in the country. Euronews is broadcast in 160 countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has intensified a crackdown on media and individuals who fail to toe his line on Russia’s war in Ukraine, blocking Facebook and Twitter and signing into law a bill that criminalizes the intentional spreading of “fake” reports.
Euronews said it strongly rejected Russian claims it spread “fake news” and that it allegedly called on Russians to protest the war. It said it faced an “unacceptable threat of criminal liability” due to the new Russian law.
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ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s foreign minister says he intends to personally escort humanitarian aid into the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said Tuesday he had sent an official request to the Ukrainian side to facilitate the sending of humanitarian aid into the city, and an official request to the Russian side to let the delivery in. A sizeable Greek community lives in the Mariupol area.
Dendias did not provide any details on a possible date for the delivery or what the humanitarian aid would consist of.
He made the announcement after meeting with the Greek consul general in Mariupol, Manolis Androulakis, who arrived in Athens last Sunday after being evacuated from the city on March 15.
Androulakis was the last European Union diplomat to leave the city, which has been pummeled by Russian forces for weeks. Living conditions in the city are dire.
On arriving in Athens, Androulakis said civilians in the city were being hit “blindly and indiscriminately” and likened Mariupol to other cities decimated by war in the past, such as Guernica, Aleppo and Grozny.
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WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s president has compared the conduct of Russian forces in Ukraine to that of Adolf Hitler’s infamous SS troops during World War II.
“Today, the Russian army is behaving in exactly the same way … as the German SS,” President Andrzej Duda said during a visit to Bulgaria on Tuesday.
Duda, whose country suffered a brutal Nazi occupation during World War II, noted that Russia had already violated international law when it attacked Georgia in 2008 and first invaded Ukraine in 2014.
He said he hoped that those responsible for attacks on civilians in Ukraine would be brought before international courts.
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PARIS — The former Paris-based Europe correspondent for Russian state-controlled broadcaster Channel One says she quit her job earlier this month over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Zhanna Agalakova, who used to be a newsreader at the channel, said she believes Russian networks have been commandeered by the Kremlin to broadcasts lies and propaganda.
The 56-year-old journalist said there is little independent media in Russia, meaning that Russians are being “zombified” by the stream of media-sponsored untruths.
Agalakova quit March 3, leaving the channel officially on March 17.
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BELGRADE, Serbia — A senior Serbian official says Belgrade will never impose sanctions or join the Western “hysteria” against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Serbia’s Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said Tuesday: “Serbia will never be part of the anti-Russian hysteria in which the property of Russian citizens and the property of the Russian Federation is stolen, just as we will not ban Russian media.”
The Balkan country is a staunch ally of Russia, though it has condemned its invasion of Ukraine.
Serbia is seeking membership of the European Union, but it is the only European country that has refused to join international sanctions against the Kremlin.
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MOSCOW — The Kremlin has refused to comment on a newspaper’s reporting of Russian military casualties in Ukraine.
The pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda reported Monday that 9,861 soldiers have been killed in action in Ukraine and another 16,153 have been wounded. It cited the Russian defense ministry.
The newspaper quickly removed the article from its website, describing it as the work of hackers.
Asked about the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on it at Tuesday’s conference call with reporters, referring questions about the military casualties to the defense ministry.
On March 2, the defense ministry reported 498 soldiers had been killed and hasn’t released any casualty numbers since then.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Dutch government has frozen nearly 400 million euros ($440 million) in funds linked to Russians targeted by sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag revealed the latest figures on frozen accounts in a letter to Parliament on Tuesday.
She said that more than 242 million euros ($267 million) in funds linked to Russians have been frozen at Dutch trust companies and nearly 145 million euros ($160 million) in bank accounts.
The remainder of the frozen assets are held at investment companies and pension funds.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s natural resources minister says wildfires have been extinguished in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which is under the control of Russian forces.
The fires have raised concern about the possible release of radiation from the plant, where a 1986 explosion and fire sent radioactive emissions across large parts of Europe.
But Natural Resources Minister Ruslan Strelets said Tuesday that radiation levels in the area are within the norms.
Ukrainian officials had earlier accused Russian forces of deliberately setting the fires or causing them with artillery shelling.
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PARIS — A group of 20 Ukrainian children with cancer and leukemia has arrived in Paris as part of a rescue plan coordinated by French First Lady Brigitte Macron and Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska.
The children are accompanied by their parents as they flee the war with Russia. They arrived at Orly airport near the French capital on Monday evening.
Speaking to Le Parisien newspaper in an interview, Zelenska said “when it became clear that it was impossible to treat children with cancer in the bomb shelters, we immediately sought a solution.”
She said some of the evacuated children will remain in Poland, while others are heading to France, Italy, Germany, the United States and Canada.
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ROME — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is urging Italy to beef up sanctions against Russia and seize more assets from President Vladimir Putin and his allies as a way of pressuring Moscow into negotiating an end to the war.
Zelenskyy spoke to the Italian parliament Tuesday via video from Kyiv, as he has done with other foreign parliaments. Wearing a collared shirt and speaking through an Italian translator, Zelenskyy told Italian lawmakers that he had just spoken by phone to Pope Francis and that the pontiff had endorsed Ukraine’s right to defend itself.
He said that 117 children have been killed in the war with Russia and that the city of Mariupol has been flattened by the Russian onslaught.
He warned that Europe’s security is at risk if Russia advances and that grain deliveries to the developing world are being jeopardized because Ukraine’s farmers can’t plant crops.
Italian Premier Mario Draghi praised the “heroic” resistance of the Ukrainian people.
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MOSCOW — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s warning that Russia may be planning a cyberattack against the United States.
Asked about Biden’s comments, Peskov said Tuesday that “the Russian Federation, unlike many Western countries including the United States, does not engage in banditry on the state level.”
Biden told a meeting of corporate CEOs on Monday that “evolving intelligence” indicated a cyberattack may be planned. He urged private companies to invest in their own security to counter cyberattacks.
Biden has suggested a cyberattack could be Russia’s response to economic sanctions imposed by the U.S.
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GENEVA — The U.N. refugee agency says more than 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, passing another milestone in an exodus that has led to Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
UNHCR reported Tuesday that 3.56 million people have left Ukraine, with Poland taking in the lion’s share — more than 2.1 million — followed by Romania with more than 540,000 and Moldova with more than 367,000.
Shortly after the invasion on Feb. 24, UNHCR predicted that some 4 million refugees might leave Ukraine, though it has been re-assessing that prediction. The outflows have been slowing in recent days after peaking at more than 200,000 each on two straight days in early March.
The International Organization for Migration estimates that nearly 6.5 million people are internally displaced within Ukraine, suggesting that some if not most of them might to flee abroad if the war continues.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, says it has confirmed 62 attacks on health care assets in Ukraine since the conflict began and through last Friday. The attacks caused 15 deaths and 37 injuries. The assets include hospitals and medical facilities, transport of medical supplies, warehouses, and health care workers.
