Category Archives: Europe

Ukraine: UN says more than 1.3 million have fled since Russian invasion began

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United Nations calling exodus Europe’s fastest-moving refugee crisis since end of second world war

More than 1.3 million Ukrainians have crossed borders since the Russian invasion started on the 24 February in what the United Nations is now calling Europe’s fastest-moving refugee crisis since the end of the second world war.

Figures released today by the United Nation’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) show that to date 1.37 million people have fled Ukraine into neighbouring European countries after the military offensive ordered by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: western sanctions akin to declaration of war, says Putin; Russia and Ukraine to hold third round of talks on Monday – live

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Vladimir Putin criticises economic sanctions imposed on Russia, and warns western countries against implementing a no-fly zone over Ukraine

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said 66,224 Ukrainian men had returned from abroad to help fight against Russia’s invasion.

That’s how many men returned from abroad at this moment to defend their country from the horde. These are 12 more combat and motivated brigades! Ukrainians, we are invincible,” Reznikov said in statement posted online.

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Mariupol evacuation postponed as Russia accused of breaking ceasefire

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Local authorities in Ukrainian city ask residents to return to shelters and wait for further information

Authorities in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol have said an evacuation of civilians has been postponed because Russian forces encircling the city were not respecting an agreed ceasefire.

In a statement, the city council asked residents to return to shelters in the city and wait for further information on evacuation.

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As 1.3 million people flee, Ukraine’s refugee crisis is only just beginning

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Analysis: despite the EU’s solidarity in helping those escaping war, aid agencies are overwhelmed with many people stuck at borders

Just over a week after Russian rockets first began to slam into Ukraine, more than 1.3 million people have fled over the borders of neighbouring European countries into a frightening and uncertain future. What we are witnessing, the United Nations has warned, is the largest refugee crisis in a century.

All week, the world has watched families fighting to board trains in chaotic crowds, fathers kissing their children goodbye through car windows, and seen the shock and exhaustion on the faces of those who have made it to safety.

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Boris Johnson praises ‘astonishing’ courage of UK journalists shot by Russian hit squad

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Prime minister says press reporting conflict will not be cowed after Sky News team ambushed near Kyiv

Boris Johnson has praised British journalists who were hit by bullets in Ukraine and said press reporting on the conflict “will not be intimidated or cowed”.

The prime minister commended the “astonishing” courage of the Sky News journalists, who he said were “putting themselves in terrifying and dangerous situations”.

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‘We understand what war means’: Poles rush to aid Ukraine’s refugees

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Ordinary citizens are volunteering time and money – but the pleas for the government to do more are getting urgent

In a giant food depot in Poland, a few miles from the border with Belarus, thousands of people, many of them women and children wrapped in woollen blankets, are crammed together in corridors and hallways. As Polish locals and volunteers frantically work alongside soldiers to try to distribute food and water to those most in need, buses pull up outside carrying more shellshocked and exhausted people needing help.

There is no attempt to register the new arrivals. There is no time. Just over a week since Russia invaded Ukraine, those working here know that this crisis has just begun. Since the violence began, more than 650,000 people have crossed into Poland, leaving their lives behind and becoming refugees.

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UK nationals should leave Russia while they can, Foreign Office says

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Website update advises Britons to ‘consider leaving by remaining commercial routes’

The UK government has urged British nationals in Russia whose presence is “not essential” to consider leaving the country amid the mounting crisis in Ukraine.

The Foreign Office said it had updated its travel advice to say that Britons who can should use the remaining commercial routes to leave Russia.

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Italy seizes yachts and villas from Russian oligarchs, say state sources

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Authorities clamp down on wealthy individuals placed on EU sanctions list over Russian invasion of Ukraine

Italian police have seized villas and yachts worth at least €140m (£126m) from four high-profile Russians who were placed on an EU sanctions list after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sources said on Saturday.

A police source said a villa owned by the billionaire businessman Alisher Usmanov on Sardinia, and a villa on Lake Como owned by the Russian state TV host Vladimir Soloviev, had both been seized.

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Sky News journalists evacuated after being shot at by Russian ‘death squad’

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Footage shows team’s vehicle being attacked by a Russian ambush squad on Monday near Kyiv

A Sky News crew has been evacuated back to the UK from Ukraine after journalists were shot during an ambush by a suspected Russian “death squad” on Monday.

The team of five were attacked while out in a car, after unsuccessfully trying to visit the town of Bucha near Kyiv.

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Italian police seize yacht owned by Russia’s richest man

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$27m boat impounded after EU blacklists owner Alexei Mordashov following Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine

Italian police have seized a yacht owned by Alexei Mordashov, the richest man in Russia before being blacklisted this week by the European Union following Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

The 65-metre (215-ft) “Lady M” was impounded in the northern Italian port of Imperia.

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Cheers erupt as Ukraine president addresses huge protest in Prague via video link – video

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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addressed crowds in several European cities remotely, appealing for support as the Russian invasion of his country continued. 

Zelenskiy appeared via video link in cities including Prague, Paris and Frankfurt. He appealed for people to do what they could to support Ukraine, and led the crowd in a moment of silence for those who had died in the conflict, according to local media

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International students trapped in Ukraine appeal for urgent evacuation

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At least 1,200 foreign students are thought to be stranded in Sumy, with some running out of food and water

International students trapped in a Ukrainian town near the Russian border have made desperate appeals for evacuation, as the number thought to be stranded in Sumy has risen to between 1,200 and 1,500, and they are running out of basic supplies.

Jana Kalaaji, a Syrian-Lebanese student who has been at the city’s university for a year, said: “There’s no electricity now. There is no water. There is no tapwater. There are no supplies. There is no heat because the heat comes with electricity.”

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BBC, Bloomberg and CBC ‘temporarily suspending’ work of all news journalists in Russia

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BBC’s director-general says new Russian legislation ‘appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism’

Global news media said they were temporarily suspending reporting in Russia to protect their journalists after a new law cracking down on foreign news outlets was passed that threatened jail terms of up to 15 years for spreading “fake news”.

Britain’s BBC said Friday it had temporarily halted reporting in Russia, and by the end of the day, the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Bloomberg News said their journalists were also stopping work. CNN and CBS News said they would stop broadcasting in Russia, and other outlets removed Russian-based journalists’ bylines as they assessed the situation.

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Russia appears to have no way out as Putin goes ‘all in’

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Analysis: Rising stakes seem to lure the president deeper into the Ukraine war, with polls backing him and his officials compromised

The first week of Vladimir Putin’s invasion into Ukraine has not gone to plan, with the Russian military admitting the deaths of 500 soldiers (Ukrainian estimates are higher) and western sanctions dealing a body blow to the Russian economy that will only grow worse in the coming weeks.

And yet the Russian leader seems even more invested in his campaign to conquer Ukraine, lured in by the growing stakes of the most ambitious and dangerous gamble of his 22 years in power.

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A beloved New York restaurant becomes place of unity for Ukraine

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Veselka, a restaurant raved about by celebrities and food critics alike, has become a meeting place and fundraising operation

In New York’s East Village neighborhood, home to a wide array of popular restaurants and bars, is a decades-old staple in the city’s famous food scene. Veselka, located in a smaller pocket of the area once known as “Little Ukraine”, now sits at the corner of food and international politics.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has displaced millions and forced ordinary citizens to take up arms, or flee across borders to safety. Those problems aren’t just affecting the people of Ukraine, but thousands of their loved ones abroad – including some at this beloved New York restaurant.

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Russia steps up onslaught after Ukraine ‘narrowly’ escapes nuclear disaster

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Putin forces intensify strikes on civilian areas as Zelenskiy issues furious rebuke to Nato over no-fly zone refusal

The US envoy to the UN said the world had narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe in Russia’s attack on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, as Moscow’s forces intensified their devastating campaign of artillery and airstrikes against civilian areas of Ukraine.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN security council in New York on Friday, the US envoy said Russia’s actions, which caused a major fire at the Zaporizhzhia compound, reflected a “dangerous new escalation” in its invasion of Ukraine. “Russia’s attack last night put Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at grave risk,” she said. “It was incredibly reckless and dangerous. And it threatened the safety of civilians across Russia, Ukraine and Europe.”

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‘90% of houses are damaged’: Russia’s Syria-honed tactics lay Ukraine towns to waste

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Residents say shelling of Schastia and Volnovakha is revenge for standing up to ‘Russian aggression’

Happiness lies in ruins. This small town – Schastia in Ukrainian – has been out of the headlines since Moscow took its brutal war against civilians to the country’s biggest cities.

But it is here, and in nearby Volnovakha, that the illegal tactics of terrorising civilians for military aims, honed in Syria and then brought back so close to home, have reached a grim high point.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Nato gives ‘green light to bombing’ with lack of no-fly zone, says Zelenskiy

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Linda Thomas-Greenfield tells emergency security council meeting Russia actions were ‘reckless’; Jens Stoltenberg warns of ‘more death, more suffering and more destruction’

US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc will not pre-emptively ban all Russians from using the platform, chief executive officer Brian Armstrong said in a tweet on Friday.

“We don’t think there’s a high risk of Russian oligarchs using crypto to avoid sanctions,” Armstrong said, adding that “some ordinary Russians are using crypto as a lifeline now that their currency has collapsed”.

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Global shares tumble after Russian attack on Ukraine nuclear plant – business live

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As reported earlier, Russian elites could have their property seized and handed over to Ukrainian refugees, Britain’s deputy prime minister has suggested.

Dominic Raab made the remarks as he defended the UK’s response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and the prime minister, Boris Johnson, called for an emergency UN summit after a Russian attack on a nuclear power station in Ukraine.

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