By The Related Press
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces are blockading Ukraine’s largest cities to create a “humanitarian disaster” with the goal of persuading Ukrainians to cooperate with them.
He says Russians are stopping provides from reaching surrounded cities within the heart and southeast of the nation.
“It is a completely deliberate tactic,” Zelenskyy mentioned in his nighttime video tackle to the nation, filmed outdoors in Kyiv, with the presidential workplace within the lamplight behind him.
He mentioned greater than 9,000 folks have been capable of depart besieged Mariupol previously day, and in all greater than 180,000 folks have been capable of flee to security by humanitarian corridors.
He once more appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to carry talks with him straight. “It’s time to fulfill, time to talk,” he mentioned. “I need to be heard by everybody, particularly in Moscow.”
He famous that the 200,000 folks Putin gathered in and round a Moscow stadium on Friday for a flag-waving rally was about the identical variety of Russian troops despatched into Ukraine three weeks in the past.
Zelenskyy then requested his viewers to image the stadium stuffed with the 1000’s of Russians who’ve been killed, wounded or maimed within the preventing.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— Russia has attacked the outskirts of the western metropolis of Lviv, a crossroads for folks fleeing the battle and for others getting into to ship assist or struggle.
— President Vladimir Putin appeared at an enormous patriotic rally in Moscow and praised the Russian army
— President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping spoke because the White Home seems to discourage Beijing from offering help to Russia.
— Rescuers seek for survivors at a Mariupol theater hit by Russian airstrike; 130 rescued, tons of nonetheless lacking
— An estimated 6.5 million folks have been displaced inside Ukraine, on prime of the three.2 million who’ve already fled the nation
— Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for extra protection
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS TODAY:
NEW YORK — Three Russian cosmonauts have arrived on the Worldwide House Station sporting flight fits in yellow and blue colours that match the Ukrainian flag.
The boys have been the primary new arrivals on the area station because the begin of the Russian battle in Ukraine final month.
Video of one of many cosmonauts taken because the capsule ready to dock with the area station confirmed him sporting a blue flight swimsuit. It was unclear what, if any, message the yellow uniforms they turned into have been supposed to ship.
Oleg Artemyev was requested in regards to the yellow flight fits when the newly arrived cosmonauts have been capable of speak to household again on Earth.
He mentioned each crew chooses its personal flight fits, in order that they aren’t all the identical.
“It grew to become our flip to select a shade. However the truth is, we had gathered lots of yellow materials so we would have liked to make use of it. In order that’s why we needed to put on yellow,” he mentioned.
Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov blasted off efficiently from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan of their Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft at 8:55 p.m. Friday (11:55 a.m. EDT). They easily docked on the station simply over three hours later, becoming a member of two Russians, 4 Individuals and a German on the orbiting outpost.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine misplaced entry to the Azov Sea throughout Russia’s siege of the southern port metropolis of Mariupol, the Ukrainian Normal Workers mentioned late Friday.
Mariupol is the important thing business port on the Azov Sea, which is linked to the a lot bigger Black Sea by a slim strait.
The Normal Workers mentioned the Russian forces have been nonetheless making an attempt to storm Mariupol and the preventing was ongoing. It was unclear from its assertion whether or not the Russians have seized the town.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s inside minister mentioned Friday that it’ll take years to defuse unexploded ordnances after the Russian invasion.
Talking to The Related Press within the besieged Ukrainian capital, Denys Monastyrsky mentioned that the nation will want Western help to deal with the large activity as soon as the battle is over.
“An enormous variety of shells and mines have been fired at Ukraine and a big half haven’t exploded, they continue to be underneath the rubble and pose an actual menace,” Monastyrsky mentioned. “It should take years, not months, to defuse them.”
Along with the unexploded Russian ordnances, the Ukrainian troops even have planted land mines at bridges, airports and different key infrastructure to forestall Russians from utilizing them.
“We received’t have the ability to take away the mines from all that territory, so I requested our worldwide companions and colleagues from the European Union and the USA to organize teams of specialists to demine the areas of fight and services that got here underneath shelling,” Monastyrsky instructed the AP.
He famous that one other prime problem is coping with fires attributable to the relentless Russian barrages. He mentioned there’s a determined scarcity of personnel and gear to take care of the fires amid the fixed shelling.
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UNITED NATIONS — Russia’s first deputy U.N. ambassador says Twitter has blocked his account, accusing him of “abuse and harassment,” resulting from a tweet in regards to the maternity hospital within the besieged southern Ukrainian metropolis of Mariupol.
“That is very deplorable,” Dmitry Polyansky instructed reporters after a U.N. Safety Council assembly Friday, “and this clearly illustrates how a lot various view and free press, and free info is valued by Twitter and on this nation.”
Polyansky, who had greater than 22,000 followers and was a prolific Twitter person, mentioned he acquired a message earlier Friday from Twitter’s cloud service saying he was violating Twitter’s guidelines and was “engaged in abuse and harassment.”
He mentioned Twitter referred to his warning in a tweet on March 7 “that the hospital in Mariupol had been was a army object by radicals. Very disturbing that UN spreads disinformation with out verification.”
Related Press journalists, who’ve been reporting from inside blockaded Mariupol since early within the battle, documented the March 10 assault on the maternity hospital and noticed the victims and harm firsthand. They shot video and photographs of a number of bloodstained, pregnant moms fleeing the blown-out maternity ward as medical staff shouted and youngsters cried.
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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday requested Russian President Vladimir Putin to carry the siege of Mariupol, permit humanitarian entry and order a direct cease-fire, Macron’s workplace mentioned.
Macron spoke with the Russian chief on the telephone for 70 minutes. Earlier within the day, Putin had a dialog with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who additionally pressed for a direct cease-fire.
Macron, who has spoken quite a few occasions with Putin, revisited complaints over repeated assaults on civilians and Russia’s failure to respect human rights in Ukraine, the presidential Elysee Palace mentioned.
It mentioned that Putin, in flip, laid the blame for the battle on Ukraine.
Macron, who’s campaigning to resume his mandate in April elections, mentioned throughout a city hall-style assembly shortly earlier than the decision that he talks to Putin as a result of he believes there’s a approach towards peace, between the Ukrainian resistance, powerful Western sanctions and diplomatic strain. “We should do all the things to seek out it,” he mentioned.
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KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian officer answerable for defending the area across the nation’s capital says his forces are effectively positioned to defend the town.
Maj. Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk mentioned in an interview with The Related Press that “the enemy is halted,” including that “we’re enhancing this method of defensive traces” to make Kyiv “inapproachable for the enemy.”
Regardless of three weeks of Russian bombardment, Ukraine has saved up a stiff protection of its cities. Preventing continued in Kyiv’s suburbs, depriving 1000’s of warmth and clear water.
“Infrequently, the enemy exams our defenses,” mentioned Pavlyuk, a battle-hardened officer who earned his rank by main Ukrainian troops within the battle with Russia-backed separatists in jap Ukraine that erupted in 2014. “However our boys are sturdy of their positions and in addition play an energetic position in stopping the enemy to satisfy their plans.”
Pavlyuk, who has been put answerable for Kyiv’s defenses earlier this week, mentioned that the Russians are utilizing the identical techniques as they used within the east to focus on civilian buildings to attempt to break Ukraine’s resistance.
“That’s why now that battle has been remodeled into killing civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, to frighten our folks to the utmost,” he mentioned. “However we’ll by no means quit. We are going to struggle till the top. To the final breath and to the final bullet.”
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UNITED NATIONS — Six Western nations have accused Russia of utilizing the U.N. Safety Council to launder disinformation, unfold propaganda, and justify its unprovoked assault on Ukraine. And the U.S. is once more warning that Moscow’s declare that the U.S. has organic warfare laboratories in Ukraine “can be a potential false flag effort in motion.”
Friday’s council assembly was alleged to be for a vote on Russia’s draft decision on humanitarian aid for Ukraine which has been broadly criticized for making no point out of Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor. Russia as a substitute raised allegations once more of U.S. involvement in organic warfare actions, which have been repeatedly denied by each the USA and Ukraine.
The six Western nations — U.S., U.Okay., France, Albania, Eire and Norway — delivered a joint assertion simply earlier than the council session, saying: “This assembly and these lies are designed for one function, to deflect accountability for Russia’s battle of selection and the humanitarian disaster it has triggered.”
They confused that Russia has lengthy maintained a organic weapons program in violation of worldwide regulation and has a well-documented historical past of utilizing chemical weapons — not Ukraine.
“There aren’t any Ukrainian organic weapons laboratories — not close to Russia’s border, not wherever,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield mentioned.
Reiterating the Biden administration’s severe concern of a possible false flag effort, the U.S. envoy mentioned, “We proceed to imagine it’s doable that Russia could also be planning to make use of chemical or organic brokers towards the Ukrainian folks.”
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MOSCOW — The pinnacle of the Russian delegation in talks with Ukrainian officers says the events have come nearer to an settlement on a impartial standing for Ukraine.
Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian negotiators in a number of rounds of talks with Ukraine, together with this week, mentioned Friday that the edges have narrowed their variations on the difficulty of Ukraine dropping its bid to hitch NATO and adopting a impartial standing.
“The problem of impartial standing and no NATO membership for Ukraine is likely one of the key points in talks, and that’s the situation the place the events have made their positions maximally shut,” Medinsky mentioned in remarks carried by Russian information businesses.
He added that the edges at the moment are “half-way” on points concerning the demilitarization of Ukraine. Medinsky famous that whereas Kyiv insists that Russia-backed separatist areas in Ukraine’s east should be introduced again into the fold, Russia believes that individuals of the areas should be allowed to find out their destiny themselves.
Medinsky famous {that a} assembly between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is feasible after the negotiators finalize a draft treaty to finish the hostilities and it receives a preliminary approval by the international locations’ governments.
Medinsky additionally bristled at a current assertion by Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskyy, who known as for disrupting railway hyperlinks to produce Russian troops in Ukraine, saying it may undermine the talks.
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LVIV, Ukraine — The president of Belarus, who has allowed Russia to make use of his nation’s territory to invade Ukraine, says he has no intention to host Russian nuclear weapons.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has beefed up army ties with Moscow after Western sanctions over his crackdown on protests after his reelection to a sixth time period in an August 2020 vote that the opposition and the West rejected as rigged. He has
Lukashenko had beforehand supplied to host Russian nuclear weapons, however in an interview with Japanese broadcaster TBS launched by his workplace on Friday, he mentioned he has no such plans.
“I’m not planning to deploy nuclear weapons right here, produce nuclear weapons right here, create and use nuclear weapons towards anybody,” he mentioned, dismissing the allegations of such plans as an “invention by the West.”
Lukashenko mentioned that he had made an earlier assertion a few doable deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus in response to the speak within the West a few doable redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Germany to Poland.
The Belarusian chief famous that the constitutional amendments authorized in a vote final month that shed Belarus’ impartial standing has no relation to nuclear weapons.
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GENEVA — The U.N. migration company estimates that just about 6.5 million folks have now been displaced inside Ukraine, on prime of the three.2 million refugees who’ve already fled the nation.
The estimates from the Worldwide Group for Migration suggests Ukraine is quick on a course in simply three weeks towards the degrees of displacement from Syria’s devastating battle – which has pushed about 13 million folks from their houses each within the nation and overseas.
The findings are available a paper issued Friday by the U.N. Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It cited the IOM figures as “ illustration of the dimensions of inside displacement in Ukraine — calculated to face at 6.48 million internally displaced individuals in Ukraine as of March 16.”
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WASHINGTON — There have been no indications that Russia is transferring troops out of Syria to bolster its forces in Ukraine, or that any quite a lot of Syrian fighters have been recruited to hitch the battle, the highest U.S. commander for the Center East mentioned Friday.
Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie instructed reporters that he has seen little change in Russian army actions in Syria. And he added that the U.S. army nonetheless has and makes use of a deconfliction telephone line with the Russians in Syria, in distinction to the blended success the U.S. has had in sustaining such contact in reference to the Ukraine battle.
“We will at all times contact them if we’ve got an issue. They’ll at all times choose up the telephone, and we really feel that we reply in form to them,” mentioned McKenzie in regards to the Russians, whose forces in Syria assist the regime of President Bashar Assad. “That relationship has been very, very skilled.”
McKenzie, who’s retiring after three years on the head of U.S. Central Command, mentioned he additionally has seen no indication that Russia is transferring any troops or property from Syria or central Asian international locations equivalent to Tajikistan, to Ukraine. And he mentioned he additionally has seen no proof that “the temperature is rising” between Russia and the U.S. in Syria on account of the Ukraine battle.
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LONDON — Britain’s protection intelligence chief says Russia is shifting to a ”technique of attrition” after failing to achieve its targets within the invasion of Ukraine.
Chief of Protection Intelligence Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull says Russian forces have modified their method after failing to take main Ukrainian cities throughout the three-week invasion.
He mentioned Friday that the battle of attrition “will contain the reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower. This may lead to elevated civilian casualties, destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and intensify the humanitarian disaster.”
Western officers say Russian forces have sufficient artillery ammunition to maintain up the bombardments for weeks and even longer.
Even supposing there have been 1000’s of Ukrainian civilian casualties, Russia denies focusing on civilians throughout what it calls a particular army operation in Ukraine.
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ROME — For the second time this week, Italy’s monetary police have carried out measures to freeze luxurious property of Russian magnates being sanctioned by the European Union for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The newest motion on Friday concerned the seaside villa, valued at some 105 million euros ($116 million) and positioned within the Sardinian city of Portisco, belonging to Alexei Mordaschov, a metal baron, the Italian authorities mentioned.
Only a few days earlier, a sprawling actual property advanced on Sardinia’s coast belonging to Petr Aven, a detailed affiliate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sequestered. A yacht moored off the Italian Riviera and belonging to Mordaschov was sequestered earlier this month by Italian authorities. That vessel is valued at 27 million euros ($30 million).
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ATLANTA — NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson on Friday performed down current feedback by the pinnacle of Russia’s area company that the USA must use broomsticks to fly to area after Russia mentioned it will cease supplying rocket engines to U.S. corporations.
“That’s simply Dmitry Rogozin. He spouts off once in a while. However on the finish of the day, he’s labored with us,” Nelson instructed The Related Press. “The opposite those who work within the Russian civilian area program, they’re skilled. They don’t miss a beat with us, American astronauts and American mission management.”
The battle has resulted in canceled spacecraft launches and damaged contracts, and lots of fear Rogozin is placing many years of a peaceable off-planet partnership in danger, most notably on the Worldwide House Station.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei is because of depart the Worldwide House Station with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a landing in Kazakhstan on March 30.
NASA has mentioned Vande Hei’s homecoming plans stay unchanged.
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping spoke Friday for almost two hours by way of a video name because the White Home seems to discourage Beijing from offering army or financial help for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
China’s International Ministry was the primary to situation a readout of the dialog, deploring “battle and confrontation” as “not in anybody’s curiosity,” with out assigning any blame to Russia.
Chinese language International Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying in a Twitter message known as the U.S. place “overbearing.”
Forward of the decision, White Home press secretary Jen Psaki mentioned Biden would query Xi about Beijing’s “rhetorical assist” of Putin and an “absence of denunciation” of Russia’s invasion.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Satellite tv for pc photographs analyzed by The Related Press present the Russian strike on the Lviv airport Friday destroyed the restore hangar simply to the west of the north finish of its runway. Firetrucks stood parked amid the rubble.
A row of fighter jets close to the hangar appeared intact, although an obvious impression crater sat proper in entrance of them. Two different buildings close by the hangar additionally seem to have taken direct hits within the strike, with particles littered round them.
The early morning assault on Lviv’s edge was the closest strike but to the middle of the town, which has turn into a crossroads for folks fleeing from different components of Ukraine and for others getting into to ship assist or struggle. The battle has swelled Lviv’s inhabitants by some 200,000.
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BERLIN — Switzerland is adopting the newest spherical of European Union sanctions towards Russia focusing on luxurious items and banning ranking businesses from working with Russian purchasers.
The Swiss authorities mentioned Friday that it’ll echo the EU’s fourth bundle of sanctions imposed on Russia following its assault on Ukraine.
It mentioned that “the ban on the export of luxurious items contained within the new sanctions impacts solely a small portion of Switzerland’s international exports of such items.”
Nevertheless, it mentioned that “particular corporations could possibly be critically affected,” with out naming them.
Not like the EU and the USA, Switzerland has not but determined whether or not to take away Russia from its checklist of “most favored” buying and selling companions.
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MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Officers say 130 folks have been rescued from the ruins of a theater that served as a shelter when it was blasted by a Russian airstrike Wednesday within the besieged southern metropolis of Mariupol.
Ludmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, mentioned Friday that 130 folks had survived the theater bombing.
“As of now, we all know that 130 folks have been evacuated, however in accordance with our information, there are nonetheless greater than 1,300 folks in these basements, on this bomb shelter,” Denisova instructed Ukrainian tv. “We pray that they’ll all be alive, however thus far there is no such thing as a details about them.”
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ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s prime minister is providing to rebuild the maternity hospital in Mariupol that was bombed by Russian forces final week.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted Friday that “Greece is able to rebuild the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the middle of the Greek minority in Ukraine.”
Some 100,000 folks of Greek origin have been residing within the besieged metropolis earlier than the Russian invasion.
Mitsotakis known as Mariupol “a metropolis pricey to our hearts and image of the barbarity of the battle.”
Related Press journalists documented the assault and noticed the victims and harm firsthand. They shot video and photographs of a number of bloodstained, pregnant moms fleeing the blown-out maternity ward as medical staff shouted and youngsters cried.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Finnish authorities has begun posting info in Russian in regards to the invasion of Ukraine.
“We … need to present Russian audio system with fact-based info from the authorities,” the Finnish authorities tweeted Friday.
The transfer comes within the face of a Russian propaganda and disinformation marketing campaign that goals to strengthen home assist for the invasion and undermine the resolve of Ukrainians.
The web site of the Finnish authorities is on the market in Finnish and Swedish — the Nordic nation’s two official languages — and in English.
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President Vladimir Putin appeared at an enormous patriotic rally Friday at a Moscow stadium on the eighth anniversary of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
Putin, talking to a crowd of tens of 1000’s of individuals waving Russian flags on the Luzhniki Stadium, praised the Russian army for its actions in Ukraine.
“Shoulder to shoulder, they assist and assist one another,” Putin mentioned in a uncommon public look. “We have now not had unity like this for a very long time,” he added to cheers from the group.
Earlier than Putin spoke, bands performed patriotic Soviet songs about nationwide identification and audio system praised Putin as preventing “Nazism” in Ukraine, a declare flatly rejected by leaders throughout the globe.
Some folks, together with presenters on the occasion, wore T-shirts or jackets with a “Z” — a logo seen on Russian tanks and army automobiles in Ukraine and embraced by supporters of the battle.
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ROME — Pope Francis has denounced the “perverse abuse of energy” on show in Russia’s battle in Ukraine. He’s calling for assist to Ukrainians who he mentioned had been attacked of their “identification, historical past and custom” and have been “defending their land.”
Francis’ feedback, in a message Friday to a gathering of European Catholic representatives, marked a few of his strongest but in asserting Ukraine’s proper to exist as a sovereign state and to defend itself towards Russia’s invasion.
It got here simply days after Francis instructed the pinnacle of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, that the idea of a “simply battle” was out of date since wars are by no means justifiable and that pastors should preach peace, not politics.
