Audio captures Russian soldiers discussing killing and raping Ukrainians, with one saying ‘if there are civilians, slay them all’
Kelsey Vlamis – April 10, 2022
People look at the gutted remains of Russian military vehicles on a road in Bucha, Ukraine, March 1, 2022.Serhii Nuzhnenko/AP Photo Audio captures Russian soldiers discussing killing and raping Ukrainians, with one saying ‘if there are civilians, slay them all’
Ukrainian officials said they intercepted radio transmissions of Russian forces.
The audio clips, published by CNN, include soldiers being instructed to kill civilians.
Another clip includes someone reporting that three soldiers raped a 16-year-old girl.
Ukrainian officials said they intercepted disturbing radio transmissions of Russian soldiers talking about killing and raping civilians.
The audio clips, which were obtained and published by CNN, include orders to kill civilians and the discussion of a 16-year-old being raped by Russian forces. It’s unclear who exactly is speaking in the recordings but Ukrainian officials said they are between Russian soldiers and their commanders.
“A car drove by, but I’m not sure if it was a car or a military vehicle. But there were two people coming out of the grove dressed as civilians,” one soldier said over the radio.
“Kill them all, for fuck sake,” a second person responded.
The original soldier starts to protest, saying the village is civilian, prompting the second person to respond: “What’s wrong with you? If there are civilians, slay them all.”
Ukraine has accused Russia of intentionally targeting civilians, a charge the Kremlin has denied. International leaders have called for Russia and its President Vladimir Putin to be investigated for potential war crimes.
The calls grew louder after Russian forces pulled out of the areas around Kyiv, revealing liberated Ukrainian towns alleging Russian forces had committed atrocities against them, including the murder and rape of civilians. One woman from the village of Shevchenkove said Russian forces killed her husband and raped her repeatedly – claims Ukrainian officials are investigating.
The intercepted audio published by CNN also included a Russian soldier in a tank regiment telling a woman over the radio that three tankers had raped a 16-year-old girl.
“Our tankers?” the woman asked.
After the soldier responded “yes,” the woman said: “Fuck.”
Some of the worst alleged atrocities occurred in Bucha, a town near Kyiv where a mass grave was discovered near a church after Russian forces retreated. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that many Ukrainians wonder “how many Buchas there are,” adding that it’s still unknown what has happened in some small towns.
“Some towns were destroyed completely,” Zelenskyy said. “Some towns simply don’t exist anymore – no more buildings, no more people. I do not know what we will find there.”
Last year, soaring prices meant oil and gas revenues accounted for 36% of Russia’s government spending.
Much of that income comes from the European Union, which imports about 40% of its gas and 27% of its oil from Russia.
This week, its top diplomat Josep Borrell said “a billion [euros] is what we pay Putin every day for the energy he supplies us”.
Dr Illarionov said if Western countries “would try to implement a real embargo on oil and gas exports from Russia… I would bet that probably within a month or two, Russian military operations in Ukraine, probably will be ceased, will be stopped”.
“It’s one of the very effective instruments still in the possession of the Western countries,” he added.
Dr Andrei Illarionov, President Putin’s chief economic adviser from 2000 to 2005, says a total energy embargo would be “very effective”.
While the oil and gas trade has continued during the conflict, widespread sanctions mean that a lot of other economic activity has stopped, many foreign companies have pulled out and exports have been disrupted.
One recent survey by Russia’s own central bank even forecasts the economy will shrink by 8% this year, while the International Institute of Finance says it could fall by as much as 15%.
Dr Illarionov suggested that President Putin was prepared to endure a hit to the economy that shows where his priorities lie.
“His territorial ambitions, his imperial ambitions, are much more important than anything else, including the livelihood of the Russian population and of the financial situation in the country… even the financial state of the his government,” he said.
Prices are rising for many food items in Russia as the country feels the impact of international sanctions.
Jobs under threat
Last week, amid tensions with Europe over how gas would be paid for, President Putin said that “key indicators” of the health of the Russian economy include the “creation of jobs, the reduction of poverty and inequality, the improvement of the quality of life of people, the availability of goods and services.”
World Bank figures suggest that almost 20 million Russians live in poverty.
President Putin has, in recent years, pledged to halve that number.
Now Dr Illarionov said “we’ll see probably doubling the number of those people, maybe even tripling” as the economy struggles.
The Moscow-based think tank, the Centre for Strategic Research, estimated two million jobs could be lost this year as the unemployment rate rises from a record low.
Those concerns are shared by Vladimir Milov, who is a former Russian deputy energy minister, but is now part of Alexei Navalny’s Russia of the Future opposition party.
“Many people are concerned about losing their jobs, I think it’s just that the majority does not really realise the severity of the economic situation,” he said.
Inflation, which has already risen to 15.7% because of the war, means people might stop spending money on things such as gyms and meals in restaurants and “that’s bad news for a lot of small businesses”, said Mr Milov.
Some basic food items such as sugar, onions and cabbages have risen in price by more than 40% since the start of this year.
Mr Milov said any noticeable falls in living standards would help his party’s cause as an opposition.
“We have been explaining to people all along [that] Putin’s policy would lead Russia into a catastrophe, including a complete social and economic catastrophe, including [a] deterioration of living standards that we haven’t seen in decades,” he said.
“I have to say that comes at an extremely high price. We would prefer not to see what is happening today.”
However Mr Milov, who fled to Lithuania last year, thinks it will take time for falling living standards to translate to political change.
“Russia is a country with big inertia in society, and a lot of fear instigated by the authorities. Specifically people really are very much afraid of protesting because right now they can end up in jail for a long, long time for doing that”.
He added: “But I would say [that within a] few months [of] real deep economic trouble, that we haven’t seen in 30 years, it will change the mood of the society. More people will start to speak out loudly.”
Dr Andrei Illarionov is seen here watching President Putin give a speech in 2004.
President Putin’s former adviser Dr Andrei Illarionov, who now lives in the United States, said a change of government is inevitable “sooner or later”.
He said “it is absolutely impossible to have any positive future for Russia, with the current political regime”.
Under President Putin, he suggested, “there is no way that country might be integrated back into the international relations, in the world economy”.
New Russian war chief will bring more brutality in Ukraine, US warns
Luke Harding in Kyiv and Ed Pilkington in New York – April 10, 2022
Photograph: Reuters
The newly appointed general in command of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine is likely to usher in a fresh round of “crimes and brutality” against civilians, the US has said.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser in Washington, said the appointment of Alexander Dvornikov as theatre commander of Russian forces in Ukraine could not disguise the strategic failure of Vladimir Putin’s war so far. “Ukraine will never be subjugated to Russia; it doesn’t matter which general President Putin tries to appoint,” he told CNN.
Dvornikov’s appointment follows the withdrawal of Russian forces from around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Dvornikov, 60, came to prominence at the head of Russian troops in Syria in 2015-16, when there was particularly brutal bombardment of rebel-held areas, including civilian populations, in Aleppo.
Sullivan said Dvornikov’s promotion would lead to more atrocities. “This particular general has a résumé that includes brutality against civilians in other theatres – in Syria – and we can expect more of the same” in Ukraine, he said.
“This general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians, and the United States is determined to do all that we can to support the Ukrainians as they resist him and the forces that he commands.”
Dvornikov’s ascent, disclosed by US officials on Sunday, signals an effort by Moscow to impose military order on a campaign that has had serious setbacks. In the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance supported by US, UK and European armaments, Russia appears to be regrouping for a potentially long battle for Donbas, in the east of the country.
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told NBC News: “Ukraine won the battle for Kyiv. Now another battle is coming – the battle for Donbas.”
Asked whether the Ukrainian military was capable of responding to an even more ferocious onslaught from the Russians under Dvornikov, Kuleba said history would demonstrate who would prevail. “Whatever Russia is planning to do, we have our strategy based on the confidence that we will win this war and we will liberate our territories.”
In what seemed to be further evidence of Russia’s intention to attack Donbas, satellite images showed a 7 mile-long Russian convoy moving south in the Kharkiv region. It included armoured vehicles, trucks with artillery and support equipment.
After failing to capture Kyiv, the Kremlin has rebranded its invasion. It now says its objective is to restore the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, which are partly controlled by pro-Russia separatists. Moscow wants to seize additional Ukrainian-controlled territory and cut off Kyiv’s defending army.
In an update on Sunday, Ukraine’s general staff said the “enemy” was trying to break through near the city of Izyum, south of Kharkiv. It claimed Ukrainian forces had wiped out another “large column of enemy equipment and manpower” heading towards Izyum during an overnight operation.
They had also cleared the village of Vilkhivka, immediately east of Kharkiv. Ukrainian soldiers discovered the corpses of Russian soldiers left behind in a pit, said Oleg Synegubov, a regional military administration head. “This is an example of how these scoundrels act even with their own,” he declared.
The northern column is trying to link up with Russian forces advancing from Mariupol to the south. A number of Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov battalion still control a few central areas, more than a month into a Russian siege in which thousands of civilians have been killed.
The regiment released a video that appeared to show a Russian armoured vehicle next to a beach being blown up. The occupants had been sent “to hell”, it said.
Ukraine’s armed forces claim 19,300 Russian soldiers have been eliminated since the invasion, and 1,911 armoured vehicles destroyed. The Kremlin says the figure is lower, but Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has acknowledged that there have been terrible casualties.
Russian rockets completely destroyed the airport and nearby buildings in the city of Dnipro. In occupied Kherson, troops broke up another large peaceful rally in the city’s main square. There was a much smaller pro-Russia rally in Nova Kakhovka, in the southern Kherson region.
Ukrainian officials described the meeting as fake, and part of an attempt by Russia to establish a so-called Kherson people’s republic. Yurii Sobolevskyi, the first deputy head of the Kherson regional council, described the rally as a “gathering of clowns”.
“When thousands turn out of their own free will for a pro-Ukrainian rally, it’s a call of the heart,” Sobolevskyi said. “When a few dozen people carrying the flag of a nation of murderers try to make any kind of picture of a rally, these are purely theatrical actions,” he said, adding that those who attended were not Ukrainian citizens.
As evidence of Russian atrocities including the torture of civilians continues to emerge, the White House is coming under pressure to declare the war an act of genocide. So far the Biden administration has been wary of adopting the term.
Sullivan said Russia’s record of “systematically targeting civilians, the grisly murder of innocent people … absolutely constitutes war crimes”. But he stopped short of embracing the international legal concept of genocide.
He told ABC News that a specialist unit within the state department was equipped to make that assessment. “That is a determination that we work through systematically,” he said.
Under the UN definition, first codified in 1948, genocide constitutes killing and otherwise inflicting destruction “in whole or in part” on “a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
First NATO country sends Ukraine powerful surface-to-air missiles to shoot down Russian aircraft and cruise missiles
Alia Shoaib – April 9, 2022
An S-300 anti-aircraft missile launches during a Greek army military exercise near Chania on the island of Crete on December 13, 2013.Costas Metaxakis/AFP via Getty Images
Slovakia said it sent Ukraine an S-300 air defense system to defend against Russian attacks.
The Soviet-era S-300 is a long-range surface-to-air missile system that can shoot down cruise missiles and aircraft.
The small Eastern European country is the first NATO member to send Ukraine such advanced weaponry.
Slovakia Prime Minister Eduard Heger has confirmed that it had sent its S-300 air defense system to Ukraine, becoming the first NATO country to answer the calls by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to supply powerful missile weaponry.
The S-300 is a Soviet-era long-range surface-to-air missile system that can shoot down cruise missiles and aircraft and has a range of up to 90 miles.– ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
On Friday, the Slovakian prime minister wrote on Facebook that donating the system did not mean that Slovakia, a NATO country, has become a part of the armed conflict in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy has urged Western allies to send planes, tanks, and defense systems to Ukraine and mentioned S-300s during an impassioned speech to Congress by video last month.
“Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death for thousands of people,” Zelenskyy told Congress.
“You know what kind of defense systems we need, S-300 and other similar systems.”
NATO countries have begun to step up their support of Ukraine by sending more heavy-duty weaponry as Russia’s invasion continues.
The Czech Republic became the first NATO country to send tanks to Ukraine earlier this week, as a Czech defense source told Reuters.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told AP on Thursday that individual NATO countries were planning to increase the supply of weapons to Ukraine following recent atrocities but did not provide details.
As an organization, NATO has refused to send weapons or troops to non-member Ukraine, but individual countries can choose to act.
Zelenskyy warned that the predicted fighting in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, could result in the biggest war in centuries.
Speaking to the German newspaper BILD, owned by Axel Springer, Insider’s parent company, on Friday, Zelenskyy predicted intense fighting in the coming days.
“It could be a big war in Donbas — like the world has not seen in hundreds of years,” he told BILD reporter Paul Ronzheimer.
“We will go on defending our country until the end,” the Ukrainian president continued.
“The battle for Donbas will remind you of the Second World War,” Kuleba said.
He used this warning to immediately call on Western allies to provide more heavy weaponry, including air defense systems, artillery, armored vehicles, and jets.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces are regrouping for a new eastern offensive on the Donbas region after failing to capture Kyiv.
President Joe Biden said on Friday that the US was supporting Slovakia’s decision to ship the S-300 missile system to Ukraine and was sending the Eastern European country a US-made Patriot missile-defense system as a replacement.
“I want to thank the Slovakian government for providing an S-300 air defense system to Ukraine, something President Zelenskyy has personally raised with me in our conversations,” Biden said.
“Now is no time for complacency,” Biden said in a statement while accusing the Russian military of committing “horrific acts of brutality.”
60 elite Russian paratroopers refused to fight in the invasion of Ukraine, report says
Alia Shoaib – April 9, 2022
Russian paratroopers march during the military parade at Red Square on May 9, 2021 in Moscow, RussiaMikhail Svetlov/Getty Images 60 elite Russian paratroopers refused to fight in the invasion of Ukraine, report says
At least 60 Russian paratroopers from a unit in Pskov province refused to fight in Ukraine, a report says.
The troops were fired and some are being threatened with criminal prosecution, a Russian newspaper reported.
Russian forces have suffered heavy losses and reports suggest that morale is deteriorating.
Up to 60 Russian paratroopers from one unit in Pskov province refused to fight in Ukraine, according to independent Russian newspaper Pskovskaya Gubernia.
The troops were fired, and some were threatened with criminal prosecution for desertion or failure to comply with an order, the paper wrote on its Telegram channel.–
Insider was unable to verify the report independently.
Pskovskaya Gubernia is a Russian newspaper known for its independent reporting. Amid the country’s crackdown on independent media, last month authorities raided the paper’s offices and the homes of senior employees, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Local activist Nikolay Kuzmin, who is affiliated with the opposition Yabloko party in Russia, appeared to corroborate the report on Telegram.
Kuzmin said he spoke to a driver who transported some of the paratroopers from Belarus back to Pskov, an important base for Russia’s airborne forces.
One unit within the VDV, the renowned 331st Guards Parachute Regiment, lost its commander, Col. Sergei Sukharev, and at least 39 other members.
Russian forces have suffered heavy losses since it began its invasion of Ukraine, and reports suggest that morale is deteriorating.
The Pskov paratroopers are not the only ones reported to have refused to fight.
At least 11 members of Russia’s Rosgvardia National Guard in the Khakassia region similarly rebelled, Newsweek reported, citing Russian-language news outlet New Focus.
Human rights lawyer Pavel Chikhov said on Telegram that Captain Farid Chitav and 11 of his Rosgvardia subordinates refused to invade Ukraine on February 25 because the orders were “illegal,” Newsweek said.
Some captured Russians have said that their leaders lied to them about the plan to invade Ukraine, which left them unprepared for the fierce resistance.
Despite the Russian military’s many advantages, it has failed to achieve the swift victory it had hoped for in Ukraine.
UK intelligence chief Jeremy Fleming said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “massively misjudged” the situation before invading, partly because his advisers are “afraid to tell him the truth.”
In a rare frank admission, a Kremlin spokesman admitted on Sky News on Thursday that Russia had “significant losses of troops and it’s a huge tragedy for us.”
My Take: Putin’s messiah syndrome drives the invasion
Robert S. Becker – April 8, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Why this unilateral, overwrought plunder against Ukraine now? Why devastate a nation full of what the invader brags are “brotherly” kin? Why instantly threaten weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological? Why exalt the primitivism of might makes right, inciting global outrage (and all the more mortifying when it fails)?
Is Putin’s aggression the smartest, most defensible response to prolonged western pressures — or a self-defeating set of blunders? Whether “evil” or justified, is there method in the madness of this war? Is it worth the cost, per historian Benjamin Sawyer, “Ukraine is now bringing Russia to the verge of financial ruin once again”?
As this era teaches all too well, genocidal war crimes don’t just happen: they result from a mania to crush an already bloodied (sub-human) foe. Especially in the fascist mode, unprovoked takeovers seek not just economic predation but to co-opt the heart and soul of a (decadent) culture. Putin’s militarism qualifies as a messianic bombardment by a presumptive master race — plus warning others not to impede Making Russia Great Again.
To avenge lost “Russian glory” is understandable, but Putin wants to reconstruct, even resurrect Ukraine in his own image, with czarist muscle. An historic motherland for Russian religiosity (and plagued by civil unrest), Ukraine provides the first round for Putin’s power-play. He told French President Macron last week the offensive will continue, “his fallback” being halving Ukraine “along the Dnieper River,” formulating a new eastern “Ukrainian Republic.” Remaking borders (that bust up illegitimate nations) is what zealous empire-builders do.
According to This Week’s apt summary, “Putin’s messianic mission”: “‘In his mind, Mr. Putin finds himself in a unique historical situation in which he can finally recover for the previous years of humiliation,’ said Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar. … To see Ukrainians building a Western-style democracy within those old borders is a “mortal threat to his imperial ambitions. Putin has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church as a core element of nationalistic Russian identity.”
The Daily Beast augments the holy war theme, “Putin Isn’t Just Insane. It’s Far Worse Than That.” Depicting a messiah complex, A. Craig Copetas fleshes in Putin’s inner mental sanctum:
“The Imperial Kremlin has two masters, one temporal, the other spiritual. … And Putin’s hammer is wielded by God.”
Ditto from Washington Post’s David Ignatius: “A month into war, Putin’s mind-set is complex — and dangerous”: “Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Ukraine, angry at his generals, paranoid about enemies at home and abroad, and wrapping his bloody deeds in spiritual language almost mystical in its vision of Russia’s past and future.”
Ignatius quotes Putin’s earlier writing where “he noted that the roots of his faith were in Kyiv, where St. Vladimir in 988 converted from paganism to Orthodoxy. The Orthodox faithful [abused and repressed] persisted in Russia and Ukraine. … “We are one people,” he declared [decrying Ukraine as] a separate republic carved out of Mother Russia. … “One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed.”
Here’s the latest for Tuesday April 5: Ukrainian Pres. Zelenskyy set to address UN Security Council; Biden says Putin should face war crimes charges; Man arrested after Sacramento shooting going to court; Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson gains GOP support.
In place of communism, Putin personifies what esteemed Yale professor Timothy Snyder terms “Russian fascism … Russia as a spiritual organism served not only all of the Orthodox nations … but all the nations of the world.” Putin is no imperial bully or craven opportunist, “swayed by economic pressure or vanquished by arms. He believes deeply in the evil that he is doing. He sees the destruction of an independent Ukraine almost as a religious duty.”
In short, Putin feels anointed by Orthodox Eastern Catholicism to redeem “lost Russia” with all the fire and purist violence at his disposal while expressing the radical white nationalist rejection of modernity. From Biblical times through New World conquests and massive European religious strife, capped by the Nazi Holocaust and subsequent genocides, war and death from racial/tribal/religious passion surpass that from imperialism and/or unhinged leaders. Not that the categories don’t overlap. Imposing an invader’s take-no-prisoners domination is so much easier when entrenched, unelected, missionary prelates promote holy wars.
The brain behind Putin’s brain
Finally, we confront Aleksandr Dugin, the visionary fascist prophet called Putin’s brain who pushes a maximal Russian imperium. Dugin’s 1997 “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia” foresees [after Ukraine is dispatched] a “gradual dividing of Europe into zones of German and Russian influence, with Russia very much in charge thanks to its eventual stranglehold over Germany’s resource needs … China, too, must fall. Russia’s ambitions in Asia will require “the territorial disintegration, splintering and the political and administrative partition of the [Chinese] state.” Say what?
Weirdly, Dugin sees Japan, not China, as Russia’s best Far East partner, wildly twisting history: “The wrong alliance won World War II. If only Hitler had not invaded Russia, Britain could have been broken. The U.S. would have remained at home, isolationist and divided, and Japan would have ruled the former China as Russia’s junior partner.” What a world! If Putin reveres this fascist revisionist, the world is Russia’s oyster for the taking — and before dying, Putin imagines himself alongside history’s most domineering conquerors.
In part this terrifying, world-tilting vision explains per AlterNet why “far-right white evangelicals are among Vladimir Putin’s strongest American supporters,” endorsing stances on “homosexuality, authoritarianism and fealty to former President Donald Trump.” Imagine your willfully-blind, next door neighbor positing Putin’s Russia is “the way America should be.” Though Putin is today the world’s most conspicuous crusader, here is backwoods, evangelical Protestantism aligning itself with equally ultra-conservative Russian Catholic orthodoxy.
Now that’s scary, a most curious finale to past centuries of vicious, religious strife wherein millions died because their internal thought patterns (called faith) differed. Thus does such absurdity make our Founders look downright civilized when banning all religious tests for office-holders. That aspect of our democracy rocks.
— Robert S. Becker’s writes on politics and culture analyze overall trends, history, implications, messaging and frameworks.
17-year-old Ukrainian girl remains in U.S. border custody
Camilo Montoya-Galvez – April 9, 2022
A 17-year-old Ukrainian girl remained in U.S. government custody on Saturday after being denied immediate entry into the country by authorities along the southern border, where a growing number of Ukrainians have been traveling in hopes of entering the U.S., her caregivers told CBS News.
On Wednesday evening, Yelyzaveta, 17, who was training to be a missionary in Mexico, traveled to the San Ysidro U.S. border crossing in Southern California alongside Alina Dolinenko, 21, a fellow missionary trainee from Ukraine. Unable to return to war-torn Ukraine, Yelyzaveta and Dolinenko hoped to enter the U.S. to live with a Maryland resident who sponsored their missionary program in Mexico.
U.S. border officials have been allowing hundreds of Ukrainians to enter the country per day through the San Ysidro crossing after being instructed in early March to consider exempting those with Ukrainian passports from pandemic-era restrictions currently blocking other migrants from seeking asylum.
But when they were processed at the San Ysidro port of entry, Dolinenko said U.S. border officials told them that Yelyzaveta could not be immediately allowed to enter the country because she was a minor and was not traveling with her parents or legal guardians.
Yelyzaveta in Tijuana, Mexico / Credit: Sharon Fletcher
U.S. border officials told them that they would take Yelyzaveta “away for an indefinite period of time, because she has no right to cross without her parents,” said Dolinenko, who was allowed into the U.S. “She cried a lot.”
A 2008 law requires U.S. border officials to temporarily hold undocumented children who are processed without their parents or legal guardians until they can transfer them to shelters overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The law generally requires this transfer to occur within 72 hours.
The law was designed to protect migrant children from violence and trafficking, and has mainly been applied to minors from Central America, who make up the vast majority of unaccompanied youth in HHS care.
However, the unprecedented number of Ukrainians flying to Mexico to try to escape the Russian invasion and gain quick entry into the U.S. has led to that anti-trafficking law affecting a small number of Ukrainian children.
As of Friday, HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement was housing at least four Ukrainian children recently transferred from U.S. border custody, a U.S. government official told CBS News, requesting anonymity to discuss internal data.
CBS News is using only Yelyzaveta’s first name because she is a minor. Her exact whereabouts were unknown on Saturday. Sharon Fletcher, the Maryland resident who was hoping to provide housing to Yelyzaveta and Dolinenko, said Yelyzaveta told her during a two-minute call on Thursday that she remained in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody.
“She just burst into tears, saying, ‘I don’t want to be here,'” Fletcher told CBS News. “She doesn’t want to be in that place. She wants to be free.”
Representatives for CBP and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about Yelyzaveta’s processing and whereabouts. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A U.S. official said that Yelyzaveta was not in an HHS shelter as of Friday evening.
Fletcher runs a non-profit organization called Forgotten Places, which she said sponsors a program called Youth With A Mission that trains young Christian missionaries across the world, including in Mexico. Yelyzaveta arrived in Mexico in January to join Youth With A Mission, Fletcher said.
After the war in Ukraine started, Fletcher said she told Yelyzaveta and Dolinenko that she would host them in her Maryland home, noting that Yelyzaveta does not have family in the U.S.
Fletcher said Yelyzaveta has not been able to contact her parents for months and that her brother remains in Ukraine helping to transport civilians displaced by the war. The family used to live in Vorzel, a town in the outskirts of Kyiv that was occupied by Russian forces last month.
If Yelyzaveta is transferred to an HHS shelter or foster home, she would remain in government custody until she turns 18 in June unless she’s released to a sponsor in the U.S. According to a Ukrainian passport reviewed by CBS News, Yelyzaveta was born on June 6, 2004.
However, HHS typically only releases unaccompanied children to family members, such as parents, older siblings, grandparents, uncles and aunts. The agency can place unaccompanied children with sponsors who are not family members but the process is lengthier because of heightened vetting, unless the child’s parents consent to the release.
Fletcher urged the government to release Yelyzaveta as soon as possible to ensure she’s not further traumatized by her time in U.S. custody. Fletcher said she’s ready to sponsor and host Yelyzaveta.
“To let somebody sit in a cell, or in this facility, knowing that her parents are stranded, she’s not even sure whether they are alive or not, there’s a war going on in Ukraine, I mean all this trauma, no human being should go through that — that’s what bothers me,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher said she has reached out to several congressional offices about Yelyzaveta’s situation, including Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, whose staff told her they are looking into the matter.
Ukrainian single adults and families traveling with children are being processed at U.S. ports of entry along the southern border under exemptions to a pandemic-era restriction known as Title 42, which is being used to quickly expel other migrants to Mexico or their home countries.
Facing limited legal pathways to reach the U.S. directly, thousands of Ukrainians have traveled to Tijuana in recent weeks hoping to benefit from the Title 42 exemptions. After their numbers come up on an ad hoc list set up by volunteers, Ukrainians show up to the San Ysidro crossing to ask for permission to enter the U.S.
Last week alone, nearly 3,000 Ukrainians were processed by U.S. border officials, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CBS News Wednesday. In February, U.S. authorities along the Mexican border reported encountering fewer than 300 Ukrainians, CBP data show.
Dolinenko, the young missionary trainee who traveled with Yelyzaveta, said she’s currently in San Diego waiting to see if U.S. border officials will release Yelyzaveta.
“I’m very worried,” she said over a WhatsApp message.
Zelenskyy says Putin is ‘convinced’ that his ‘special operation’ in Ukraine is going as planned
John L. Dorman– April 9, 2022
Zelenskyy said in recent a Fox News interview that Ukrainians would not accept “any outcome” of the conflict not involving a defeat of Russian forces.Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/Associated Press Zelenskyy says Putin is ‘convinced’ that his ‘special operation’ in Ukraine is going as planned
Zelenskyy said he’s “convinced” Putin believes the Russian invasion of Ukraine is going as planned.
He made the comments during an interview with BILD, the German-based newspaper.
“He is not really interested in the real process of this war,” Zelenskyy said of Putin during the talk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday said Russian President Vladimir Putin is “convinced” that his country’s invasion of Ukraine is “going according to plan.”
The European leader made the comments during an interview with reporter Paul Ronzheimer at BILD, the German-based newspaper.
Zelenskyy said that he felt as though Putin continued to harbor a sense that things are going smoothly for Russia in Ukraine.
“I think he is convinced that his ‘special operation’ is going according to plan. I think he has more plans to fire rockets on Ukraine. He is not really interested in the real process of this war,” Zelenskyy said.
He continued: “We are the ones who suffer from this process. I told that to our negotiation circle.”
Zelenskyy touched on a range of subjects, including his current feelings toward Russia, his thoughts on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the role of the United States as it has implemented a broad array of economic sanctions against Putin, among other topics.
When Zelenskyy was asked how he would react if Putin called him to have direct face-to-face talks, the Ukrainian leader said he would jump at the opportunity to come to a workable agreement.
“We were attacked from Russia and Belarus, and when our delegation was in Turkey, I already said this: When we are offered negotiations, we will take that chance,” he said.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have sat down for peace talks in recent weeks, and Zelenskyy last week floated adopting a “neutral status” with Russia in order to stop the conflict. However, such an arrangement would require security guarantees from Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said in recent a Fox News interview that Ukrainians would not accept “any outcome” of the conflict not involving a defeat of Russian forces.
NATO has estimated that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops have died in the nearly two-month conflict, while Ukraine has put the total at 18,900, according to The Guardian.
The Kremlin on Friday said that their official total of Russian troop casualties is 1,351.
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Germany Announces New Plan to ‘Turbocharge’ Transition to Renewable Energy
Olivia Rosane – April 07, 2022
A solar energy field next to a coal plant in Germany. Jens Schlueter / Getty Images
Responding to both the climate crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany unveiled a major package Wednesday to speed its transition to renewable energy.
The goal of the new plan is for Germany to get at least 80 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030 and achieve almost 100 percent renewable energy by 2035, DW reported.
“On the one hand, the climate crisis is coming to a head. On the other hand, Russia’s invasion shows how important it is to phase out fossil fuels and promote the expansion of renewables,” Economy Minister Robert Habeck told the press, as Reuters reported.
The package comes days after the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warned that nations must reduce carbon dioxide emissions 43 percent by 2030 in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It also comes as European countries have vowed to wean themselves off of Russian fossil fuels “well before 2030” in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The new energy plan is a 600-page document known as the “Easter Package,” DW reported. Habeck said it was “the biggest comprehensive energy package in two decades” and would “turbocharge” the transition to renewable energy.
The plan is the work of Germany’s coalition government, which includes the Free Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens, according to Reuters. It was approved by the German cabinet. It increases Germany’s previous renewable energy target from 65 percent by 2030. Currently, the country gets around 40 percent of its energy from renewable sources. Meeting the 100 percent 2035 goal will require the country to more than double its current rate in 13 years, AP News reported.
The new plan also sets specific targets for different types of renewable energy, according to DW. These include:
Increasing land-based wind power by 10 gigawatts a year, to reach 115 gigawatts by 2030.
Increasing solar by 22 gigawatts a year, to reach 215 gigawatts by 2030.
Reaching 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, 40 by 2035 and at least 70 by 2045.
While the plan is ambitious, Germany may miss its near-term climate targets because of failing to take action in the past, Habeck said, as AP News reported. The transition to renewable energy has lagged in recent years because of regulations and changes to feed-in subsidies, and the country added no offshore wind power in 2021. The new package labels renewable energy as having “overriding public interest,” which should help speed changes through the bureaucracy.
In the immediate push to phase out Russian fossil fuels, Germany may have to increase the use of domestic coal, Habeck acknowledged. He said that the country would stop importing Russian oil and coal this year and gas by halfway through 2024.
“You can see at what speed we are becoming independent of Russian energy,” he said.
Germany aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.
Sweden Democrats leader wants party to change on NATO membership if Finland applies to join alliance
April9, 2022
Sweden Democrats party leader Jimmie Akesson speaks to the media after the no-confidence vote against PM Stefan Lofven, in Stockholm
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – The leader of Sweden’s second-biggest opposition party will, should neighbour Finland apply to join NATO, suggest that his party change its stance towards favouring a Swedish membership, he told daily Svenska Dagbladet.
A change of stance by the Sweden Democrats party would mean a swing to a parliamentary majority in favour of long-neutral Sweden joining the alliance.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted the two countries to consider joining, although Sweden is more hesitant than Finland which has a 1,300 km border with Russia.
The Finnish government has said it would clarify next steps in the coming weeks regarding a possible decision to seek membership.
“Then (if Finland applies) my ambition is to go to the party council with a request that we change our mind,” the paper on Saturday quoted Sweden Democrats party leader Jimmie Akesson as saying in an interview.
“What’s changed now is that Finland is very clearly moving towards a NATO membership and there are many indications this may happen in the near future. That, and the fact Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, is completely alone, has made me turn.”
The nationalist Sweden Democrats said last month, after a poll showed a majority of Swedes for the first time in favour of joining NATO, that it was reviewing its stance.
(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
