Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Ukraine says 'confrontational' Russia talks moving forward as West plans more sanctions

Reuters:

Ukraine says 'confrontational' Russia talks moving forward as West plans more sanctions






Rescuers work at a site of an industrial building damaged by an airstrike, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine, in this handout picture released March 22, 2022. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS



Summary

  • Biden to announce more sanctions on visit to Europe
  • Air strikes turning Mariupol into 'ashes' - council
  • At least 100,000 people want to leave city - deputy PM

LVIV/KYIV, Ukraine, March 23 (Reuters) - Talks between Ukraine and Russia are confrontational but moving forward, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday, as the West plans to announce more sanctions against the Kremlin amid a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Intense Russian air strikes are turning besieged Mariupol into the "ashes of a dead land", the city council said on Tuesday, as street fighting and bombardments raged in the port city.


Hundreds of thousands are believed to be trapped inside buildings, with no access to food, water, power or heat. Both civilians and Ukrainian troops were coming under Russian fire, said regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Russian forces and Russian-backed separatist units had taken about half of the port city, normally home to around 400,000 people, Russia's RIA news agency said, citing a separatist leader.


But in an early morning address, Zelenskiy held out hope for negotiations, which have yielded little since the Feb. 24 invasion began.

"It's very difficult, sometimes confrontational," he said. "But step by step we are moving forward."

Russian President Vladimir Putin's incursion into Ukraine has forced more than 3.5 million to flee, brought the unprecedented isolation of Russia's economy, and raised fears of wider conflict in the West unthought-of for decades.


Mariupol has become the focus of the war that erupted when Putin sent his troops over the border on what he calls a "special military operation" to demilitarise Ukraine and replace its pro-Western leadership.

The port city lies on the Sea of Azov and its capture would allow Russia to link areas in the east held by pro-Russian separatists with the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Western nations plan to heap more pressure on the Kremlin.

Alongside European leaders, U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce new sanctions against Russia and new measures to tighten existing ones when he visits Brussels this week.

The United States is preparing sanctions on more than 300 members of Russia's lower house of parliament as soon as Thursday, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed officials and internal documents.

"No final decisions have been made about who we will sanction and how many we will sanction," said a White House spokesperson.

"We will have additional sanctions measures to announce that will be rolled out in conjunction with our allies on Thursday when the President has the opportunity to speak with them."

Biden's Europe trip is also set to include an announcement on joint action to enhance energy security on the continent, which is highly reliant on Russian gas, and a visit to Poland to show solidarity with Ukraine's neighbour.

The United States and its Western allies are also assessing whether Russia should remain within the Group of Twenty (G20) major economies, sources told Reuters. (Full Story)

NUCLEAR OPTION

Having failed to seize the capital Kyiv or any other major city with a swift offensive, Russia is waging a war of attrition that has reduced some urban areas to rubble and prompted Western concern that the conflict could escalate, even to a nuclear war.

Russia's security policy dictates that the country would only use such weapons if its very existence were threatened, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN.

"If it is an existential threat for our country, then it (the nuclear arsenal) can be used in accordance with our concept," he said.

Earlier he said "no one" had ever thought the operation in Ukraine would take just a couple of days and the campaign was going to plan, TASS news agency reported.

Western officials said Russian forces were stalled around Kyiv but making some progress in the south and east. Ukrainian fighters are repelling Russian troops in some places but cannot roll them back, they said.

Russia's combat power in Ukraine has declined below 90% of its pre-invasion levels, a senior U.S. defence official said on Tuesday, without providing evidence. If confirmed, it would suggest heavy losses of weaponry and growing casualties. (Full Story)

'HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE'

The United Nations human rights office in Geneva said on Tuesday it had recorded 953 civilian deaths and 1,557 injured since the invasion. The Kremlin denies targeting civilians.

Millions have fled abroad, according to the United Nations, leaving Eastern Europe scrambling to provide them with care, schools and jobs. (Full Story)

The United States plans to launch an effort this week to make it easier for some to enter after only a handful of refugees were admitted in the first two weeks of March, according to three people familiar with the matter. (Full Story)

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, speaking on Ukrainian television on Tuesday, said at least 100,000 people wanted to leave Mariupol but could not.

A Reuters team that reached a Russian-seized part of the city on Sunday described a wasteland of charred apartment blocks and bodies wrapped in blankets lying by a road. (Full Story)

Ukraine says Russian shells, bombs and missiles have struck a theatre, an art school and other public buildings, burying hundreds of women and children sheltering in cellars.

Kyiv accused Moscow of deporting residents of Mariupol and separatist-held areas of Ukraine to Russia. This includes the "forcible transfer" of 2,389 children to Russia from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said.

Moscow denies forcing people to leave, saying it is taking in refugees.

In Kherson, a city under Russian control, Ukrainian officials said Moscow's forces were preventing supplies from reaching civilians.

"Kherson's 300k citizens face a humanitarian catastrophe owing to the Russian army's blockade," foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said on Twitter.

Russia did not immediately comment on the situation in Kherson.

Zelenskiy warned the crisis in Ukraine, one of the world's biggest grain exporters, would bring famine elsewhere.

"How can we sow (crops) under the strikes of Russian artillery?" he told Italian lawmakers.

7 comments:

  1. This is likely the moment of greatest opportunity for peace to move ahead , or greatest danger of Armageddon if Russia proceeds to destroy Ukraine completely.

    It is clear that Strategically, Ukraine's people and military have fought the Invading Russians to a stalemate.

    Russia has not been able to gain meaningful additional territory , with a heavy toll of Invaders in Killed in Action, smashed equipment and increasing number of dead generals.

    Of course Ukrainians have suffered greatly as well, but Ukrainians are defending their homes, their land, their families. They will fight with stones if they have to, but Yankee and Brit Javelins, NLAWs and Stingers , with Ukrainia heroic courage and determination make a big difference.

    The Budapest Memorandum 1994 between Ukraine, Russia , Britain and USA under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons provided in return for Security Assurances (unfortunately for Ukraine, no Guarantee) for Ukraine. The Yankees and Brits are today providing these security assurances with thousands of Anti-tank Missiles , anti-aircraft missiles.
    This is no idle Yankee interference, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum was a legally binding agreement lodged with the UN Security Council

    Russia can no longer win military in Ukraine. Ballistic missies, even Hypersonic ones, mass artillery barrages, cannot win a war if you are unable to take and hold territory. You just kill more civilians.

    Putin may finally recognise he has to sit down to talk with Zelensky, or Putin may decide to destroy everything. The equivalent in chess, this may be the moment the Mad Player decides to call for a draw, or kick over the whole chessboard.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wakakakakaka…

      Know-nothingness in shameless parade!

      Mfer, remember to revisit this piece of shit that u have just vomited when the Ukraine crisis is over!

      Ooop… don't play wishy-washy on both outcomes. There is ONLY one end result in this Ukraine crisis!

      Delete
  2. Can sanctions work on Russia?

    Why almost all the US/EU sanctions applying to individual Russian oligarchs rather than trade entities?

    What r the effects of these sanctions?

    Ever since the glasnost proposed by Gorbachev, many US/EU conglomerates have been invested heavily in Russia. Some r direct investments, while many r substantial shareholders in many key industries. There r many too that work through the politically well-connected oligarchs.

    Thus a total encompassing sanctions would hurt not only the Russians but also all those western investors.

    Key in point - almost 95% of the commercial flights r using planes based on western hire purchase plan. The sanction on these flights has grounded many of these planes. & these planes, worth thousands of million dollars r trapped within Russian soil as no flight sanction applied. Meanwhile, Putin has issues legal declaration that due to this flight sanction, all these planes would be nationalized!

    Many western shareholders of major Russian key industries r facing the similar dilemmas. Sale out at a heavy lost & yet no taker due to imposed sanction. Meanwhile the threats of nationalized r looming high & real.

    Shell, BP and ExxonMobil have done business in Russia for decades. BP has a 20‰ stake, worth US$14B in Russian state-owned energy giant Rosneft. Ditto with Shell *& Exxon.

    The personal sanction on the oligarchs works but it also hit hard with those western entities, many of whom r national outfits, that worked with these oligarchs. With these oligarchs sanctioned many of their 'plans' also turn air castles!

    Thus, the US orchestrated sanctions would see very limited effect on Russia. In fact if these sanctions prolonged, many of the western investors/shareholders would be in deep finsncial troubles as many of their Russia investments would turn nought due to nationalization!

    ReplyDelete
  3. https://youtu.be/WdWoV77CjVY

    Wakakaka... "Wali" pops up in Ukraine, very much alive...

    Lesson for Russia-lovers who believe every piece of Bollocks served up in "Military Watch".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wakakakakaka…

      Mfer, do check the date & authenticity of that YouTube fart!

      Wali is alive hiding in Poland. He won't be back to Ukraine anytime soon. He is a marked duck walking on spurious fame!

      Delete
  4. "...100,000 civilians wanted to to leave Mariupol but unable to leave"

    This video won't make the rounds in the Western MSM..it was taken down immediately, and have to be uploaded again and again, the truth is too damning because it will cause even the brainwashed zombies to start disbelieving every word spewed by the lying Western media :

    CNN "news" VS Ukrainians speaking out in Mariupol. These people were trapped in the buildings/basement BY THEIR OWN MAYOR AND THE ARMY ! Being used as human shield. Watch !

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3dv8Xxo0-Q

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Remember that YouTube disinformation of a heartbreaking parting father & daughter scene at an Ukraine railway station?

      Many western MSM adulterated that scene as a father sending his young daughter to western Ukraine for safety while remaining to fight the 'invading' Russians.

      It turns out that the father, a Donbass Ukrainian, is sending his beloved young daughter to Russia territory while voluntary remaining in Mariupol, together with the Russians, to fight the Azov battalion who have been ravaging his land!

      There were many similar parting scenes in the Donbass region!

      Yet, just a few days ago, that nationalist mayor DARED to claim that many children were forcedly kidnapped to Russia territory from Donbass!

      Many blurred bleedinghearts fall for that scam due to their years of indoctrinated fear of things/ideologies that r differed from that demoNcracy they fed on!

      Delete