BERLIN — The International Committee of the Red Cross says its teams are ready to facilitate the evacuation of civilians out of the besieged city of Mariupol.
The Red Cross said “for logistics and security reasons, we’ll be ready to lead the safe passage operation tomorrow, Friday, provided all the parties agree to the exact terms, including the route, the start time, and the duration.”
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine is sending out several dozen buses to collect civilians from Mariupol after Russia’s military said it committed to a localized cease-fire from the city to Ukraine-held Zaporizhzhia from Thursday morning.
“It’s desperately important that this operation takes place. The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on it,” the Red Cross said.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— Russia shells areas in Ukraine where it vowed to scale back
— US intel determines Putin has been misled by advisers on Ukraine
— Poland to end Russian oil imports; Germany warns on gas
— UN agency says 4 million refugees have now fled Ukraine
— UN food chief says Ukraine war’s food crisis is worst since WWII
— Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
AMSTERDAM — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spoke by video link to the Dutch parliament.
Zelenskyy, who delivered his speech in Ukrainian, called on the Netherlands to be prepared to stop importing Russian energy, to halt trade with Russia and to provide more weapons.
He also addressed Prime Minister Mark Rutte, saying “Our EU membership depends on you.”
Rutte had told Zelenskyy at an EU summit earlier this month that Ukraine’s EU accession can’t be sped up. “There isn’t something like a fast track, a fast procedure,” Rutte said at the March 11 summit in Versailles.
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BRUSSELS — European Union antitrust regulators have raided the offices of several companies in Germany involved in the supply, transmission and storage of natural gas amid concern over skyrocketing prices in Europe.
The European Commission, which polices EU competition policy, did not name the companies targeted in the March 29 “surprise inspections.” But anti-trust regulators have been probing the actions of Russian energy giant Gazprom, which has premises in Germany, in the European market. Gazprom could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Commission suspects that the companies “have violated EU competition rules that prohibit abuse of a dominant position” in the market. It says the inspections do not imply that those involved are guilty.
Russia is the biggest exporter of oil, natural gas and coal to the 27-nation EU. About 40% of the bloc’s gas imports come from Russia, much of it piped through Ukraine.
In January, the head of the International Energy Agency blamed Russia for Europe’s natural gas crisis, saying that high prices and low storage levels are largely due to Gazprom withholding supplies.
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s top diplomat says Ankara is working to bring the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers together again for talks.
In an interview with Turkey’s A Haber channel, Mevlut Cavusoglu said the meeting could happen within two weeks.
His comments came days after Turkey hosted Ukrainian and Russian negotiators for face-to-face talks in Istanbul. Cavusoglu said decisions taken during the talks to reduce tensions had not fully been put into effect on the ground.
“We do not see these decisions being reflected on the field – for example, the removal of Russian soldiers from some areas,” he said.
Asked about the presence of sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in the negotiations, Cavusoglu said the businessman was engaged in “useful” efforts to end the fighting.
“Abramovich has been sincerely making efforts to end the fighting since the first day of the war,” he said.
During the talks in Istanbul Tuesday, Ukraine set out a detailed framework for a peace deal under which the country would remain neutral but its security would be guaranteed by a group of third countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Turkey, China and Poland.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A Red Cross warehouse in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol has been struck amid intense Russian shelling of the area.
Satellite pictures from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press on Thursday show clear damage to the warehouse’s roof along the Kalmius River near its mouth on the Sea of Azov. A red cross had been painted on the top of the warehouse.
At least one hole from suspected shelling could be seen in an image taken March 21. Some four holes in the roof were clearly visible in images taken Wednesday. The red cross had been on the warehouse’s roof from at least late August 2021, according to satellite images.
The International Committee of the Red Cross distributed all the supplies from inside the warehouse earlier in March and no staff have been at the site since March 15, the aid group said in a statement.
The Special Forces Unit “Azov,” a Ukrainian National Guard unit fighting in Mariupol whose members include far-right activists, has accused Russian forces of firing on the building. Russia did not immediately acknowledge the allegation.
Mariupol, home to some 430,000 people before the war, has seen intense fighting for weeks amid Russia’s war on Ukraine. Russian attacks have struck a maternity hospital, fire department locations and civilian homes.
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CANBERRA, Australia — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appealed directly to Australian lawmakers for more help in Ukraine’s war against Russia including armored vehicles and tougher sanctions.
Zelenskyy has been tailoring his message to individual countries through video appeals like the one shown Thursday to legislators in the Australian Parliament. Lawmakers gave him a standing ovation at the start and end of his 16-minute address.
He called for Russian vessels to be banned from international ports. Zelenskyy specifically asked for Australian-manufactured Bushmaster four-wheel drive armored vehicles.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison had earlier told Zelenskyy that Australia would provide additional military assistance including tactical decoys, unmanned aerial and unmanned ground systems, rations and medical supplies.
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LONDON — Britain’s defense ministry says Russia continues to pound Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, despite Moscow’s claim to have scaled back its offensive around that city and Kyiv.
The Ministry of Defense says “significant Russian shelling and missile strikes have continued.”
It said Thursday that “Russian forces continue to hold positions to the east and west of Kyiv despite the withdrawal of a limited number of units. Heavy fighting will likely take place in the suburbs of the city in coming days.”
The U.K. intelligence update also said heavy fighting continues in the southern port of Mariupol, which has been besieged by Russia for weeks, but that Ukrainian forces remain in control of the center of the city.
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Russia and Ukraine both say they are making efforts to help civilians evacuate westwards out of the besieged port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian military said it committed to a local cease-fire along the route from Mariupol to the Ukraine-held city of Zaporizhzhia from Thursday morning.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Thursday that Ukraine was sending 45 buses to collect people. She said the International Committee of the Red Cross was acting as an intermediary between the two sides.
Similar evacuation efforts have been planned before and collapsed amid recriminations over fighting along the route. Ukraine accused Russian forces last week of seizing bus drivers and rescue workers headed to Mariupol.
Civilians who have managed to leave the city for Ukraine-held territory have typically done so using private cars, but the number of drivable vehicles left in Mariupol has dwindled and fuel stocks are low.
Russia has operated its own evacuations from territory it has captured in Mariupol. Ukraine alleges Russia is sending its citizens to “filtration camps” in separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine and then forcibly taking people to Russia.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has recalled Ukraine’s ambassadors to Georgia and Morocco, suggesting they hadn’t done enough to persuade those countries to support Ukraine and punish Russia for the invasion.
“With all due respect, if there won’t be weapons, won’t be sanctions, won’t be restrictions for Russian business, then please look for other work,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation Wednesday. “I am waiting for concrete results in the coming days from the work of our representatives in Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa.”
Zelenskyy also said he was expecting results from Ukraine’s military attaches in embassies abroad.
He said “the diplomatic front is one of the key fronts” in Ukraine’s battle to win the war against Russia.
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The talks between Ukraine and Russia will resume on Friday by video, according to the head of the Ukrainian delegation, David Arakhamia.
The delegations met in-person on Tuesday in Istanbul, after two weeks of meeting by video, and the faint outlines of a possible peace agreement seemed to emerge.
The Ukrainian delegation offered a framework under with the country would declare itself neutral – dropping its bid to join NATO, as Moscow has long demanded – in return for security guarantees from a group of other nations.
Russian diplomats responded positively to Ukraine’s proposal.
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DUBLIN — An aircraft-leasing company has filed $3.5 billion in insurance claims for planes and aircraft engines that are stranded in Russia because of sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
AerCap said it had leased 135 planes to Russian airlines and has repossessed 22 of them outside of Russia.
The Dublin-based company said AerCap says it’s unclear whether it will recover more, and Russian airlines continue to use its planes even though it terminated the leases and demanded that the planes be returned.
After sanctions prohibited U.S. and European companies from leasing, selling or servicing planes and aircraft parts to Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law letting his country’s airlines re-register foreign planes and use them for domestic flights.
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The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency visited a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Wednesday to meet Ukrainian officials and provide technical assistance.
Rafael Mariano Grossi said the IAEA is not involved in political talks with the Russians.
“We are trying to be very active in order to ensure that as soon as possible, the situation is regressed, and the facilities are back in the hands of the Ukrainians,” Grossi said.
Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors at four plants, one of which (Zaporizhzia) is under the Russian military’s control.
Ukraine also is home to the decommissioned Chernobyl plant, the site of the 1986 nuclear accident, with the Russian military seized early in the war. As of Tuesday, eight reactors were operating and the rest were shut down for regular maintenance.
— From video published by Energoatom Press Service in Media Port -Mykolaiv region, Ukraine
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LONDON — A U.K. intelligence chief is warning that Russia is looking for cyber targets and bringing in mercenaries to shore up its stalled military campaign in Ukraine.
Jeremy Fleming, who heads the U.K.’s GCHQ electronic spy agency, said Russian President Vladimir Putin “massively misjudged” his chances for a swift military victory in Ukraine.
In a speech in Australia, Fleming praised Ukraine’s “information operation” for effectively countering Russia’s big disinformation campaign about the war.
While there were expectations that Russia would launch a major cyberattack as part of its military campaign, Fleming said such a move was never part of Moscow’s playbook.
But Fleming warns that Russia’s “cyber actors are looking for targets in the countries that oppose their actions.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the White House for pledging an additional $500 million in direct aid, but said he was open with U.S. President Biden about Ukraine needing more to resist the Russian invasion.
“If we really are fighting for freedom and in defense of democracy together, then we have a right to demand help in this difficult turning point,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation Wednesday. “Tanks, aircraft, artillery systems. Freedom should be armed no worse than tyranny.”
Prior to Wednesday’s announcement of $500 million in aid, the Biden administration had sent Ukraine about $2 billion in humanitarian and security assistance since the start of the war last month. That’s all part of the $13.6 billion that Congress approved earlier this month for Ukraine as part of a broader spending bill.
Zelenskyy said the negotiations with Russia were continuing but for now, they were only “words without specifics.”
About the supposed withdrawal of Russian forces from Kyiv and Chernihiv, Zelenskyy said: “We know that this is not a withdrawal but the consequences of being driven out. But we also are seeing that Russia is now concentrating its forces for new strikes on Donbas and we are preparing for this.”
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