Category Archives: Ukraine

Killing of civilians in Bucha and Kyiv condemned as ‘terrible war crime’

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Europe pledges further sanctions against Russia after reports of killing of scores of unarmed Ukrainians

Russia stands accused of “terrible” war crimes, as western leaders condemned the killings of unarmed civilians in Bucha and the surrounding areas of Kyiv in alleged atrocities that prompted fresh demands for tougher action against Moscow.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the Kremlin-ordered attack on his country amounted to genocide, after local officials reported scores of civilians had been killed in the towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel near the capital following the withdrawal of Russian forces.

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Russian missiles strike fuel depot in key Ukraine port of Odesa

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Officials say no casualties reported after attack, while evidence of war crimes around Kyiv mounts in wake of Russian withdrawal

Russian airstrikes have hit “critical infrastructure” in the Ukrainian city of Odesa as evidence of horrific war crimes in areas around Kyiv where Russian troops have pulled back continued to mount.

Odesa, an important port on the Black Sea coast and the main base for Ukraine’s navy, had largely been spared violence in the five-week-old conflict until the attacks early on Sunday.

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‘It was like a movie’: recaptured Bucha recounts violence of Russian invasion

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Claims of war crimes in the Ukraine city mount up as residents tell of a month of fear

It was, said Taras Schevchenko, like a scene from a film.

At 6am on the morning of 24 February, from the vantage point of the kitchen window of his fifth-storey apartment overlooking Gostomel airport, on the northern outskirts of the Ukrainian town of Bucha, Schevchenko watched as about 20 Russian helicopters flew into vision, spilling paratroopers on to the tarmac below.

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Red is dead: Russian anti-war protesters fly a new flag for peace

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Seeing the tricolour as tainted, they took the ‘blood’ out to leave blue and white, then found others had done so too

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest developments

When Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, anti-war Russians such as Kai Katonina, a 31-year-old designer who lives in Berlin, joined protests around the world. Katonina held up a sign that read “No to war”, but few in the crowd knew that they (Katonina’s preferred pronoun) were Russian.

They said: “Onlookers thought we were Ukrainians because our people look the same. It was crucial for us to stand apart and show that Russians also oppose the war. We needed to identify ourselves.”

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Zelenskiy vows to investigate and prosecute all Russian ‘crimes’ in Ukraine – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. Read the latest live developments in the Russia-Ukraine war here.

Russian chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky has said Russia’s position on Crimea and Donbas remains unchanged and that peace talks had not progressed enough for a leaders’ meeting.

Medinsky’s comments appear to be a rebuttal of earlier reports suggesting Moscow had “verbally” agreed to key Ukrainian proposals.

A Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia told media on Saturday that Russia had “given an official answer to all positions, which is that they accept the (Ukrainian) position, except for the issue of Crimea (which was annexed by Russia in 2014).”

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‘They were all shot’: Russia accused of war crimes as Bucha reveals horror of invasion

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Ukrainian forces liberating the town near Kyiv find streets littered with corpses of civilians and burned-out Russian tanks

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The retreat of Russian forces around Kyiv has left horrifying evidence of atrocities against civilians littered across the region’s suburbs and towns, turned into hellish war zones by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

As Ukrainian armoured columns rolled into Bucha, a town north-west of the capital, they found streets blocked by burned-out Russian tanks and military vehicles, and strewn with the bodies of civilians whom locals said had been killed by the invading forces without provocation.

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‘It is a war crime’: two young boys among neighbours shot dead during attempted evacuation

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Civilians fleeing in cars mown down in the town of Bucha, north-west of Kyiv, where 20 bodies were found on the streets

Halyna Tovkach, 55, is searching for the body of her husband, Oleg, 62. His death, she says, is part of a war crime in which Russian soldiers also killed two young boys and their mother.

The incident is said to have happened at 7.15 on the morning of 5 March in Bucha, a town north-west of Kyiv, when two families who were neighbours on Ivana Rudenka street tried to escape their hell.

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Ukraine claims Russia has ‘verbally’ accepted peace proposals, except on Crimea – as it happened

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Deputy defence minister says territory is ‘liberated from the invader’ as disturbing images in Bucha show bodies had been bound and hooded

At least 158 children have been killed and more than 254 injured in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, the country’s office of the prosecutor general has said.

The office said two of the fatalities were among 13 people killed when Russian forces fired at civilian cars on a highway in Chernihiv around 18 March.

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Ukrainian photographer Maksim Levin killed while covering war

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Levin, who worked for Ukrainian news website and contributed to Reuters, found dead in village north of Kyiv

Maksim Levin, a photographer and videographer who was working for a Ukrainian news website and who was a longtime contributor to Reuters, has been killed while covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He leaves behind his wife and four children.

His body was found in a village north of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on 1 April, the news website LB.ua, where he worked, said on Saturday.

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Ukraine says it has recaptured city of Brovary but warns of mines left by Russians

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Key city east of Kyiv has been liberated, says mayor, as Zelenskiy says Russians withdrawing ‘slowly but noticeably’

A key city east of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, has been recaptured from Russian forces, Ukrainian officials have said, but retreating troops were said to be heavily mining the lost territory in their wake.

The city of Brovary was said by its mayor to have been liberated with Ukrainian forces working to drive out the last Russian troops and clear the area of “military hardware”.

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UK prevents use of private jet linked to Russian oligarchs

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After recent seizures of aircraft and yacht, Grant Shapps grounds plane at Luton airport pending investigation

The transport minister, Grant Shapps, has said he has prevented the use of another private jet that has links to Russian oligarchs.

Shapps tweeted on Saturday: “We won’t stand by and watch those who’ve made millions through [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s patronage live their lives in peace as innocent blood is shed.”

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Pope Francis says visit to Kyiv ‘on the table’ after invitation from Zelenskiy

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Move would be highest-profile visit of a world figure since Vladimir Putin began invasion of Ukraine

Pope Francis has said he is considering visiting the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in what would be the most high-profile visit of a world figure since Russia invaded the country.

The head of the Catholic church was invited by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, along with Ukrainian religious leaders on 8 March.

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Russia to halt cooperation over International Space Station

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Director of space agency Roscosmos says partnership will be restored only when ‘illegal sanctions’ are removed

Russia says it will end cooperation with western countries over the International Space Station until sanctions are lifted.

Russia’s space director said on Saturday that the restoration of normal ties between partners at the ISS and other joint space projects would be possible only once western sanctions against Moscow were lifted.

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How war in Ukraine is affecting food supply in Africa and the Middle East

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Prices of basics such as oil and wheat are shooting up and shortages are showing on supermarket shelves in Lebanon, Somalia and Egypt

When Lebanon’s Muslims sat down to their first iftar of Ramadan tonight, the meal in front of them will have cost significantly more than it did six weeks ago.

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China accused of launching cyber-attacks on Ukraine before Russian invasion

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UK government confirmed that the National Cyber Security Centre is investigating the allegations

China launched cyber-attacks on Ukrainian military and nuclear targets shortly before the Russian invasion, according to a report.

The UK government confirmed that the National Cyber Security Centre is investigating the allegations, which claim that more than 600 websites, including Ukraine’s defence ministry, were subjected to thousands of hacking attempts coordinated by the Chinese government.

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US ends Trump-era policy of blocking asylum seekers on Covid grounds – live

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention terminates Title 42 from 23 May, ending policy widely criticized as pretext to keep migrants out

• Senate deal on drastically pared-down Covid aid package may be imminent

US adds 431,000 jobs as hiring spree cuts unemployment rate to 3.6%

• Disney staff stage walkouts over ‘don’t say gay’ bill

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The late supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is to be honoured by having a US navy ship named after her.

The yet-to-be-built fuel tanker will join a fleet of John Lewis-class “replenishment oilers” named for historical figures in human and civil rights. The navy took delivery of the first of the fleet, a tribute to the former Democratic congressman, last summer.

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At least 53 culturally important sites damaged in Ukraine – Unesco

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True list of casualties of war, which include museums, churches and a Holocaust memorial, likely to be much longer

The UN’s cultural agency has confirmed that at least 53 historical sites, religious buildings and museums have sustained damage during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This is the latest list, but it is not exhaustive, as our experts are continuing to verify a number of reports” filed by Ukrainian authorities, a Unesco spokesperson told AFP as the body published a list of the 53 damaged sites in the north and east of the country.

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Ukraine rejects Kremlin claim it sent helicopters to attack oil depot in Russia

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If Moscow’s accusation is true, the airstrike would be first raid on Russian territory so far in the war

Russia has claimed that Ukraine sent attack helicopters across the border to strike an oil storage facility in what, if confirmed, would be the first raid on Russian soil since it launched its invasion.

Ukraine denied that it launched the attack, raising questions about whether Russian negligence may be to blame.

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London-based port operator accused over Abramovich $600m superyacht

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Global Ports Holding facility in Turkey may be breaching UK sanctions by letting vessel dock, say lawyers

A London-headquartered port operator could be breaching sanctions laws by allowing Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to dock his $600m (£460m) superyacht Solaris at a port that it operates in Turkey.

Legal experts said Global Ports Holding, which has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2007, was taking “a very big risk” by allowing a superyacht owned by a sanctioned individual to use one of its ports.

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