BBC News

Ukraine war causes giant leap in global food prices, says UN

April 8, 2022

The Ukraine war led to a “giant leap” in food prices last month to another record high, the United Nations says.

The war has cut off supplies from the world’s biggest exporter of sunflower oil which means the costs of alternatives have also climbed.

Ukraine is also a major producer of cereals such as maize and wheat which have risen sharply in price too.

The UN said “war in the Black Sea region spread shocks through markets for staple grains and vegetable oils”.

The UN Food Prices Index tracks the world’s most-traded food commodities measuring the average prices of cereal, vegetable oil, dairy, meat, and sugar.

Food prices are at their highest since records began 60 years ago according to the index, which jumped nearly 13% in March, following February’s record high.

The price of vegetable oils soared 23% while cereals were up 17%. Sugar rose 7%, meat was up 5%, while dairy – which has been less affected by the war – only climbed 3%.

Food commodity prices were already at 10-year highs before the war in Ukraine according to the index because of global harvest issues.

That has fuelled a cost-of-living crisis that is worrying politicians and has sparked warnings of social unrest across the world.

In the UK, industry experts have warned that the cost of food could rise by up to 15% this year.

The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation warned last month that food prices could rise by up to 20% as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, raising the risk of increased malnutrition across the world.

It has cut its world wheat projection for 2022 from 790 million tonnes to 784 million, because of the possibility that at least 20% of Ukraine’s winter crop will not be harvested because of “direct destruction”.

But it said global cereal stocks could end the year 2.4% higher than the start because of stockpiles building up in Russia and Ukraine as both countries exports would shrink.

Business Insider

How a private aviation company is helping nonprofits transport supplies to Ukraine in support of the global airlift

Taylor Rains – April 8, 2022

• Private aviation consultancy Private Jet Services has coordinated the transport of thousands of meals to Ukraine.
• The company works with NGOs to organize airlift shipments from the US to Poland, which are then trucked to Ukraine.
• PSJ provides logistical support, like processing paperwork, finding available freighters, and planning the flights.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, countries and carriers have launched vital humanitarian efforts to help the Ukrainian people.

For example, in early March, Hungary-based Wizz Air offered 100,000 free seats to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the nation.

A European low-cost airline is offering Ukrainians 100,000 free plane tickets from neighboring countries

Meanwhile, American Airlines has created a fundraiser to support UNICEF’s Change for Good program that helps families gain access to basic necessities.

Source: American Airlines

Several non-government organizations (NGOs) have also jumped into action, with some focusing on getting life-saving supplies to Ukraine, like food and medical equipment.

However, air-freight constraints worldwide have caused delays in getting some supplies to Ukraine. Moreover, some countries are hesitant to help Ukraine because of pressure from Russia.

The Ukrainian manufacturer of the world’s largest plane says rebuilding it would cost $3 billion. See the full history of the famous six-engine jet that was destroyed.

Because of the logistical and political obstacles, North American private charter consultancy Private Jet Services (PSJ) has initiated its own relief effort.

Source: United States Institute of Peace

PSJ CEO Greg Raiff told Insider that, in partnership with several NGOs, the company has begun coordinating the shipment of meals-ready-to-eat (MRE) and medical kits to Poland via air transport.

Once the supplies arrive via air, they are then driven to Ukraine on trucks. Each shipment has 59,136 MREs, according to the company.

Seven planes have been flown to Poland to date, including Airbus A340s, Boeing 767s, and a Boeing 777. The company also helped coordinate last-minute relief efforts during the Afghanistan crisis in August.

Raiff explained that PSJ does not operate the aircraft itself, but rather uses its resources to locate available cargo planes when a load of goods gets put together by one of the NGOs in the US. Then, it coordinates the charter flight to Poland.

He told Insider that while these are airliners being flown, it is a private charter operation. “I think people would be willing to move one Gulfstream-worth of bullet proof vests, but the plane is small by comparison and really wouldn’t move the needle,” Raiff said.

Specifically, he explained PSJ uses passenger jets that airlines have made available in the charter market for on-demand missions, like relief flying to Ukraine.

“Several of the airlines are what we call “zero-LOPA” aircraft, meaning you take a passenger planes and take the seats out, then you boatload the upper deck and still use the pallet or container cargo down below,” Raiff explained.

He also said that there is a lot of legal work that goes into shipping abroad because of the licenses needed to export goods from the US and import goods to Europe.

“It doesn’t matter if there is a war going on, the amount of paperwork involved to use an aircraft to transport non-lethal equipment is still shockingly huge even though we know the purpose of sending MREs to Poland these days,” Raiff told Insider.

Having idle aircraft standing by waiting on paperwork to airlift the goods would waste millions of dollars, Raiff explained, so that’s why PSJ comes in to organize the operation.

“We are the ‘air arm’ for the NGOs that provides the lift and logistical support so things can get moving,” he said.

Raiff said he has a great team of people that have supported the operation, and it’s what gets them up in the morning. “The team has gotten really good at tracking and knowing where every transport category aircraft is that may be available for charter,” he said.

PSJ’s relief flying has contributed to the world effort to get humanitarian shipments to Ukraine.

“We all clearly have a moral obligation to help out if we possibly can,” Raiff said. “We’re not looking to carry lethal ammunition or anything of a war-fighting nature, we are simply looking to move supplies and equipment to help people survive.”

Ukrainians begin grim work of investigating ‘absolute horror’ near Kyiv: ‘It is a hell’

Grace Hauck and Chris Kenning, USA TODAY – April 8, 2022

• Volodymyr OmelyanMinister of Infrastructure of Ukraine

It was the “smell of death” that struck Vladimir Basovskyi of Kyiv as he delivered food and medicine to the surviving residents of towns surrounding Ukraine’s capital city.

Burned cars. Blackened apartments. Demolished roofs. Streets crawling with journalists and investigators, documenting bodies.

“Then everything was like in fog – a lot of crying, a lot of happiness to see Ukrainian people, a lot of fear in eyes, a lot of anger,” Basovskyi, 35, told USA TODAY this week via WhatsApp from Kyiv. “Next what I remember, I am sitting at home and crying like a child.

“It is a hell.”

Days after Russian forces retreated from the Kyiv area, investigators and volunteers are beginning the long, grim work of chronicling what U.S. officials have described as a “troubling campaign” of brutality against civilians.

Ukrainian officials say the bodies of more than 400 civilians were found in towns around Kyiv after Russian forces withdrew. In Bucha, more than 320 civilians were killed, Mayor Anatolii Fedoruk said Wednesday.

A day after visiting Bucha, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy detailed reports of killing, rape and torture in an address to the U.N. Security Council. He said Russian forces “killed entire families,” crushed civilians with tanks, cut off limbs and slashed throats.

“Women were raped and killed in front of their children. Their tongues were pulled out,” Zelenskyy said.

ATROCITIES NEAR KYIV: Will it be a tipping point in the war?

While Russian officials continue to deny the allegations and attribute the killings to Ukrainian forces, satellite images shared by numerous outlets – including The New York Times, CNN and Reuters – show bodies were lying on the streets of Bucha weeks ago, during Russian occupation.

U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet said this week that preserving, exhuming and identifying bodies would be crucial for an independent investigation into possible war crimes. Meanwhile on Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said for the first time that the Justice Department is assisting in efforts to examine possible war crimes.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, is overseeing a sweeping investigation into civilian killings in various parts of the country, gathering evidence and personal accounts. In Bucha, she reported a “horrifying fact of torturing, killing and attempting burning of bodies of six civilians,” she said Tuesday on Twitter.

The nearby town of Borodyanka, further outside Kyiv, suffered the greatest number of civilian casualties under Russian occupation, Venediktova said on national television Monday.

Volodymyr Omelyan, Ukraine’s former infrastructure minister who joined the nation’s volunteer Territorial Defense Forces, visited Borodyanka on Wednesday with other volunteers and national guardsmen. He shared images with USA TODAY of brick homes turned to piles of rubble and buildings with glass windows blown out.

“Many multi-story buildings were ruined during the occupation because of Russian artillery,” Omelyan said over the phone from Kyiv, “but we still don’t know how many people are under those ruins.”

Omelyan said his small convoy also traveled to Irpin, Hostomel, Bucha and a number of surrounding villages, where residents are without electricity or heat. As his group reached the village of Zdvyzhivka, residents were concluding a funeral for five people.

“It is a disaster when you see. But it’s a much bigger disaster when you hear also stories of how people suffered,” Omelyan said.

Also documenting deaths and destruction are a patchwork of groups including Human Rights Watch and Ukrainian nonprofits and volunteers.

Yuriy Bilous, an attorney who lives near Bucha, said via WhatsApp on Wednesday that he began collecting accounts of killings near Kyiv even before the Russian military left the area and sent some to the International Criminal Court.

Bilous, 34, said he interviewed the family of a man shot and killed at a checkpoint while riding bicycles with his 14-year-old son to get medicine.

“It hurts,” Bilous said of hearing such stories. USA TODAY could not independently verify the account.

‘NOW WE ARE LIKE ONE FAMILY’: Despite past tensions, Poles open their homes to Ukrainians in wake of war

A Human Rights Watch researcher was in Bucha on Wednesday, the group said. An NBC video showed him examining casings near a damaged building to try to determine how a woman was killed. Elsewhere, workers hauled bodies from inside a building.

Among those killed in Bucha were people caught in the crossfire or from shelling, along with apparent “face-to-face” violence against civilians while Russians held the town, said Fred Abrahams, an associate program director for Human Rights Watch who spoke via phone from Germany where he was helping coordinate the effort.

It wasn’t one large massacre, he said. It was scores of incidents spread across the town. ADVERTISEMENThttps://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf.html

“It’s an absolute horror show. There are crime scenes on almost every corner,” Abrahams said, adding the process would take months. “They’re still finding bodies.”

Trained volunteers are helping interview witnesses and document the targeting of civilians.

Kyiv resident and activist Kateryna Butko, who said she works for a nongovernmental organization focused on judicial reform, was among them. She was working Tuesday in Bucha to help “ensure that the stories that people have experienced are not forgotten and those who are guilty are punished,” she told USA TODAY in a series of messages.

The once-comfortable suburb she had visited, home to many young families, was now a scene of devastation, with burned children’s bicycles and toys littering yards. Near a church was an open pit where bodies had been laid, Butko said.

Butko said she listened to the account of a man as he stood in the basement of a building where he had been hiding with others when a Russian soldier shot a woman in the head.

“There are still her sneakers,” the man kept repeating, Butko said.

USA TODAY could not independently verify the account.

Butko said she was stunned by what she heard from residents: “It is very difficult to realize that these stories that are told can happen now, in 2022, right next to you.”

Other volunteers have been focused on distributing humanitarian aid.

Omelyan’s group distributed bread, meat and water to residents Wednesday. Many, fearing the return of Russian forces, were still hiding in basements until he and others called out to them, Omelyan said.

In the small village of Andriivka, a group of children ran out of a damaged building to greet Omelyan and the other volunteers. “One kid was just kissing bread – not eating it, but was just kissing it like a miracle happened in his life,” he said.

Some Ukrainians are working to clean up the streets and bring generators to towns and villages, Omelyan said. By the time his caravan returned to Kyiv, the vehicles’ tires had been torn up by pieces of mines and artillery on the streets.

LAND MINES: Russians leave deadly land mines behind as troops withdraw in Ukraine

For 12 hours Sunday, Basovskyi and others in a caravan of eight cars delivered aid – bread, fruit, medicine and hygiene products – to exhausted adults and children in many of the same towns and villages.

“After all (the) days of war, I understood (the) scales of disaster – awareness (of) what really is happening to my compatriots. And I was afraid for everyone who is in even more dangerous places, such as Mariupol,” Basovskyi said, referencing the southeastern port city that has been under siege for weeks.

Fellow volunteer Oleksandr Kuzniak, 27, said the group fell silent as they passed by corpses on the ground. He recalled seeing the body of an old man on the side of a road near Irpin, a bicycle lying next to him.

“I still cannot realize what suffering they endured,” Kuzniak told USA TODAY in a series of WhatsApp messages.

Kuzniak said he has been heartened by a few precious moments: Children laughing when he gave them sweets, older women crying when he gave them tangerines, a group of kids running off to play with the soccer ball he had in his trunk.

Though reports suggest Putin is believed to have shifted focus on eastern Ukraine, it remains unclear if the Russian military was gone for good from the Kyiv area.

Asked how he keeps going, Basovskyi said: “I am dreaming and talking with everyone about Ukrainian future.”

The Hill

Finland hit by cyberattack, airspace breach

Lexi Lonas – April 8, 2022

Finland was hit with cyberattacks and an airspace breach on Friday while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was speaking to the Finnish Parliament.

The country’s Ministry of Defense tweeted earlier Friday its website was under attack and it would shutter until further notice.

A few hours later, after resolving the issue, the department clarified that the cyberattack was a denial-of-service attack, which aims to shut down a website so users are unable to access its information.

The attack also affected the Finnish foreign ministry’s websites, according to the ministry’s Twitter.

The ministry said it was investigating the matter and got its sites working hours later.

Right before the cyberattacks, Finland announced a Russian aircraft had potentially violated the country’s airspace, Bloomberg reported.

Amid the violation of Finnish airspace and the cyberattacks, Zelensky was speaking to Finland regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“President Zelenskyy gave a historic address to the Parliament today,” the foreign ministry tweeted. “Finland firmly supports Ukraine in its efforts to defend freedom and democracy. #StandWithUkraine.”

Finland has been reconsidering its stance on NATO membership since the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, angering Moscow.

Russia previously threatened Finland and Sweden if they attempted to join the NATO alliance.

“Finland and Sweden should not base their security on damaging the security of other countries and their accession to NATO can have detrimental consequences and face some military and political consequences,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said soon after Russia attacked Ukraine.

Daily Mail.com

The monstrous Russian general behind the attack on a Ukrainian railway station that was branded a ‘crime against humanity’ after it killed at least 50 civilians – including five children – who were fleeing Kremlin’s atrocities

By Chris Jewers and Jacob Thornburn, Mailonline – April 8, 2022

• Ukraine’s state railway company announced attack on Kramatorsk’s station, a city in the east of the country  
• The governor of Ukraine’s Donesk region said later on Friday the death toll had risen to at least 50 people
• Pictures from outside the station showed bodies strewn across the ground. Some were in body bags
• Other pictures showed wreckage of a missile with Russian text written on the side reading ‘For (our) children’
• Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky took to Instagram to decry the attack, confirming the casualties
• Russia’s defence ministry denied the attack, and instead claimed Ukraine was attacking its own civilians 
• Kramatorsk is found in the east of the country, about 80 miles west of Luhansk in the country’s Donbas region
• Ukrainian authorities have urged residents to flee west as Russia refocuses its military efforts in the country’s eastern Donbas region after recently pulling its forces back from Kyiv
• WARNING: Graphic images

A fearsome Russian general has been linked to the deadly railway station strike that killed dozens of fleeing civilians that was branded a ‘crime against humanity’ within the international community.

Western officials believe Captain General Aleksandr Dvornikov, a Russian commander who oversaw devastation in Syria, is likely to have ordered yesterday’s fatal air strike on the station in Kramatorsk.

Graphic images on Friday from the eastern Ukrainian city showed bodies strewn across the floor, lying amongst luggage and children’s prams outside the city’s busy station.

Some had already been put into green body bags, while other photos showed smoke rising from the building as firefighters rushed to the scene. Ukraine claims around 300 were injured by the blast.

The wreckage of the large Tochka-U missile was left lying on the grass outside the station showed white Russian text written down the side of its casing reading: ‘For (our) Children’ – a revenge message from the suspected pro-Moscow soldiers that launched it.

It comes as France branded suspected Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian refugees at a railway station a ‘crime against humanity’ after at least 50 people including five children were killed in yet another atrocity that has sparked international condemnation.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France 5 television that ‘these crimes cannot remain unpunished’ as he called for the perpetrators to be hauled before the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Across the Atlantic, President Joe Biden accused Russian warmonger Vladimir Putin of carrying out a ‘horrific atrocity’ against civilians fleeing Moscow’s bombs at Kramatorsk railway station in the east, where Kremlin forces are regrouping to launch a massive offensive.   

Moscow and Kyiv have both accused each other of carrying out the attack, with Russia’s defence ministry calling allegations it had carried out the attack ‘absolutely untrue’ while state media tried to shift the blame onto Ukrainian troops.

In a message on Instagram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raged: ‘[Russian forces] are cynically destroying the civilian population. This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop’. He added no Ukrainian soldiers were at the station when it was hit.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said on Telegram: ‘Fifty dead, five of them children. This is the death toll at this hour after the strike by Russian occupational forces on the train station in Kramatorsk’.

Western officials believe Captain General Aleksandr Dvornikov, (above) a Russian commander who oversaw devastation in Syria, is likely to have ordered yesterday’s air strike on the station in Kramatorsk that killed dozens of fleeing Ukrainians

Russian soldiers wrote a chilling message of revenge on the Tockha-U missile (pictured Friday being inspected by Ukrainian investigators) that killed at least 39 people – including four children – and wounded 87 when two strikes hit a railway station in east Ukraine today, as thousands of desperate evacuees tried reach safer parts of the country 

The strike was on Kramatorsk’s train station, with graphic pictures on Friday showing bodies strewn across floor outside, lying amongst abandoned luggage

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the attack on refugees and civilians as a ‘crime against humanity’

US President Joe Biden later accused Vladimir Putin’s troops of carrying out a ‘horrific atrocity’ against non-active combatants who were fleeing from Russian occupiers. Ukrainian authorities have said at least 300 were injured by the blasts

Pictured: A scene of devastation outside the train station on Friday after ‘Russian’ missiles struck, killing more than 30 people

An evangelical church became a shelter for the survivors of the Kramatorsk missile strike on Friday

Survivors huddle around their luggage in a room with curtains blocking the windows in Kramatorsk, Ukraine

An interior photos shows survivors gathering inside the evangelical church used as temporary shelter after the Kramatorsk missile strike killed dozens of civilians, including children, on Friday. Ukraine claims around 300 were injured by the blast

Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said thousands of people were at the train station at the time of the strike, preparing to evacuate to safer regions as Russia focuses its troops in eastern Ukraine. Pictured: Body bags are seen outside the station

Graphic pictures on Friday from Kramatorsk showed bodies strewn across the floor, lying amongst luggage and children’s prams outside the city’s busy station. Some had already been put into green body bags, while other photos showed smoke rising from the building as firefighters rushed to the scene

Moscow and Kyiv have both accused each other of carrying out the attack, with Russia’s defence ministry calling allegations it had carried out the attack ‘absolutely untrue’ while state media tried to shift the blame onto Ukrainian troops

A view of people’s belongings and bloodstains on the ground after a missile strike on a railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, in this picture uploaded on April 8, 2022Blood-soaked toys and luggage left behind at Kramatorsk station

Kramatorsk is found in the east of the country, about 80 miles west of Luhansk. Pictures this week have shown hundreds of people at the station boarding trains heading west Russian missile that hit Ukrainian station leaving at least 30 dead

Pictured: Smoke rises from the station on Friday as firefighters work at the scene

Western officials revealed last night that General Dvornikov has been ordered by the Kremlin to seize the entirety of the Donbas, as the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are known.

But officials say that he may struggle to please Vladimir Putin. ‘Unless the Russian Army becomes a lot more effective it is difficult to see how it succeeds,’ one said.

Nato chiefs have compiled a database of General Dvornikov’s achievements and tactical preferences in an attempt to predict his moves in the weeks ahead. 

Military commentators said the missile used in Friday’s attack was a Soviet-era Tochka U missile – accurate to within 200 to 500 feet. The station is found in the centre of Kramatorsk – a town of more than 150,000 people. Both Russian and Ukraine both still use the missiles, and the evacuations would have been known about.

Although Moscow denied the attack saying Ukraine also uses the same missile, the projectile was painted green as Russian weapons are – while Kyiv’s equivalent is painted grey, according to experts 

The Mayor of Kramatorsk Oleksander Honcharenko said there were around 4,000 people at the city’s railway station when it was bombed by at least two rockets. He said most were women, elderly and children preparing to evacuate to safer regions as Russia focuses its troops in eastern Ukraine.

Honcharenko told Ukrainian TV that between 30 and 40 surgeons were treating the wounded, and hospitals were unable to cope with the surge in admissions.   

The EU directly accused Russia of the ‘horrifying’ attack, while Britain’s defence secretary Ben Wallace called it a ‘war crime’ that used ‘precision missiles’.

Meanwhile TASS – another state-run news agency – reported that Donetsk separatist commander Eduard Basurin said the attack on the station was Ukrainian ‘provocation’ against Russia. 

Moscow said the missile was of a type used only by the Ukrainian military, and similar to one that hit the center of the city of Donetsk on March 14, killing 17 people, RIA reported. However pictures from the scene show it was painted green, while Ukrainian versions are painted grey, according to experts.

Since launching its invasion on February 24, Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians and civilian buildings, despite mounting evidence showing otherwise. Western nations have warned that Russia might employ false flag attacks in an attempt to justify its actions in Ukraine.

Kramatorsk is found in the east of the country, about 50 miles north of Donetsk and 80 miles west of Luhansk. Pictures this week have shown hundreds of people at the station boarding trains heading west.  

Three trains carrying evacuees were blocked in the same region of Ukraine on Thursday after an air strike on the line, according to the head of Ukrainian Railways.

Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have been regrouping for a new offensive, and that Moscow plans to seize as much territory as it can in the Donbas – an eastern industrial region in eastern Ukraine where many speak Russian as second language, and where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years. 

Local authorities have been urging civilians to leave while it is still possible and relatively safe to do so.

This general view shows personal belongings of victims and burnt-out vehicles after a rocket attack on the railway station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, in the Donbass region on April 8, 2022. UN chief declares attack on Kramatorsk rail station as unacceptable

Ukrainian servicemen stand next to damaged cars after Russian shelling at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Friday, April 8

Ukrainian servicemen stand next to damaged cars after Russian shelling at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Friday

A man hugs a woman after Russian shelling at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Friday

A view from inside the station where 39 people were killed in a Russian attack, April 8, 2022

A fragment of a Tochka-U missile lies on the ground following an attack at the railway station in Kramatorsk.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in an Instagram after the attack: ‘The occupiers hit the Kramatorsk railway station with a Point-U, where thousands of peaceful Ukrainians were waiting to be evacuated… About 30 people died, about 100 people were injured to varying degrees. Police and rescuers are already on the scene. Russian non-humans do not abandon their methods. Lacking the strength and courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, they are cynically destroying the civilian population. This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop.’

More than 7,000 unclaimed Russian soldiers’ bodies are in Ukrainian morgues, claims Kyiv as the Kremlin finally admits it has suffered ‘significant losses of troops’ 

Ukraine has boasted it has the corpses of 7,000 unclaimed Russian soldiers in morgues and refrigerated cars, while the total Kremlin death toll is as high as 19,000.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser in Ukraine’s presidential administration, said they tried to return the bodies of 3,000 troops early in the war but Russia refused, saying it did not believe their casualties were so high.

He told the Washington Post: ‘They said, ‘We don’t believe in such quantities. We don’t have this number. We’re not ready to accept them.”

Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has since set up a website and Telegram channel for Russians to search photos of the dead and prisoners of war.

The Kremlin has been playing down its huge death toll in the faltering war, only admitting the loss of 1,351 soldiers. 

But on Thursday, Putin’s mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov finally acknowledged the heavy casualties: ‘We have significant losses of troops. And it’s a huge tragedy for us.’

The Kremlin has a policy of playing down military casualties with a 2015 decree declaring all deaths in conflict a state secret, and last year any statement discrediting the military were criminalised.

NATO has estimated that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian troops have been killed, while Ukraine believes the number is higher based on battlefield reports and intercepted communication.

Among the dead is Vadim Kolodiy, a 19-year-old gunner from the 136th Reconnaissance Battalion near Moscow.

He died after he was attacked while trapped in an armoured vehicle, the Russian military told his mother, although his body was never returned.  

Tatyana said: ‘I am hysterical. Vadim didn’t even have a chance to escape. He burned inside. ‘The first week was like darkness. Pain, tears. I could not sleep or eat.

‘No one is looking for these children. No one cares about them. How many of these children, husbands, are there? How much pain had this all brought?’ 

Anya Deryabina, 25, from Chelyabinsk, buried the body of her sniper husband last month after he was killed in Ukraine on March 8.

She said: ‘I still can’t realise or believe that this is true. Every day I talk to him. Every day I ask him what for and why.

‘My brain refuses to accept the information that Nikitka is dead. I am still waiting for him to call, to come back.’ 

In a wide-ranging interview with Sky News yesterday, Peskov repeatedly refused to admit any wrongdoing on Russia’s part and described footage of war crimes committed by its soldiers as ‘fake’ and ‘lies’. 

He rejected allegations of a massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha as ‘a well-staged insinuation’, claiming that bodies found in the streets were placed after Russian troops withdrew.

‘We are living in days of fakes and lies which we meet every day,’ he said, speaking in English by video link from Moscow.     

‘The occupiers hit the Kramatorsk railway station with a Point-U, where thousands of peaceful Ukrainians were waiting to be evacuated… About 30 people died, about 100 people were injured to varying degrees,’ Zelensky wrote in an Instagram after the attack.

‘Police and rescuers are already on the scene. Russian non-humans do not abandon their methods. Lacking the strength and courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, they are cynically destroying the civilian population. This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop,’ he added. 

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, published a photograph online showing several bodies on the ground beside piles of suitcases and other luggage. Armed police wearing flak jackets stood beside them. 

Another photo showed rescue services tackling what appeared to be a fire, with a pall of grey smoke rising into the air. ‘The ‘Rashists’ (‘Russian fascists’) knew very well where they were aiming and what they wanted: they wanted to sow panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible,’ he wrote in an online post. 

‘They (Russian forces) wanted to hit the station,’ Mayor Honcharenko said, a view shared by presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych. ‘It must be understood that such strikes are preceded by a thorough reconnaissance of the target, at least by drones, gunners on the ground – it’s too expensive a missile and too difficult and risky to organise such strikes,’ Arestovych said.

‘They (Russian forces) could clearly see that they were striking civilians early in the morning, that there were thousands of people trying to evacuate at the station at that time – families, children, the elderly.’ 

AFP journalists on the scene saw at least 20 bodies of people grouped and lying under plastic sheets next to the station. Blood was pooling on the ground and packed bags were strewn outside the building in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Bodies were later seen being loaded onto a military truck.

The journalists said four cars next to the station had been destroyed and the remains of a large rocket with the words ‘for our children’ in Russian were lying adjacent to the main building. 

‘I was in the station. I heard like a double explosion. I rushed to the wall for protection,’ said a woman searching for her passport among the abandoned belongings on the ground.

‘I saw people covered in blood coming into the station and bodies everywhere on the ground. I don’t know if they were just injured or dead,’ the woman told AFP. 

A policeman clearing away debris and collecting mobile phones from the ground next to the impact site, had one that was ringing on repeat.

‘I’m looking for my husband. He was here. I can’t reach him,’ a woman told AFP, sobbing and holding her phone to her ear. 

Railway has been seen as one of the few remaining safe modes of travel available to Ukrainians. Millions have fled west and into neighbouring countries by train. According to the UN, more than 4 million have left Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the attack on fleeing civilians at the Kramatorsk train station was ‘unconscionable’, as he suggested Vladimir Putin’s forces were guilty of a war crime.

He told a Downing Street press conference: ‘The attack at the train station in eastern Ukraine shows the depth to which Putin’s once vaunted army has sunk.

‘At least 39 people killed and dozens wounded on a train platform crowded with women and children.

‘It is a war crime indiscriminately to attack civilians and Russian crimes in Ukraine will not go unnoticed or unpunished.’ 

Speaking during a visit to NATO ally Romania, Britain’s defence secretary Ben Wallace called alleged attack by Russia on the station a war crime. 

‘Not very far away, this morning in a place called Kramatorsk, what appears to be a Russian missile struck civilian people queuing for trains to seek a safer place from the war,’ he said, speaking from an air field.

‘The striking of civilian critical infrastructure is a war crime. These were precision missiles aimed at people trying to seek humanitarian shelter. It’s not the first time – in fact it’s sadly a repeat of many occasions when the Russian state, president Putin and his generals seek to take the war out on civilians, civilian areas and civilian national infrastructure,’ he continued.

‘Whatever happens in Ukraine, we must not let the international community forget that. What Putin is doing today, is building his own cage around himself – that sanctions on his activities must not be freely lifted to allow him to go back to his superyachts and normality. What we are seeing is a criminal endeavour on a free and sovereign country – and Britain and Romania and other NATO allies will not stand by.’

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss also warned Russia that targeting civilians is a war crime. She tweeted: ‘Appalled by the horrific reports of Russian rocket attacks on civilians at Kramatorsk railway station in eastern Ukraine. The targeting of civilians is a war crime. We will hold Russia and Putin to account.’ 

EU Council chief Charles Michel in Brussels directly accused Russia of the ‘horrifying’ attack. He said ‘action was needed’ and pointed to a fifth wave of EU sanctions on Russia agreed on Friday. 

‘Horrifying to see Russia strike one of the main stations used by civilians evacuating the region where Russia is stepping up its attack,’ Michel said on Twitter. 

Efforts are already underway by the International Criminal Court in the Hague and Ukrainian prosecutors to compile evidence for future criminal indictments. 

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said he had opened a formal investigation into possible atrocities on Ukrainian soil since 2014, when Moscow-based separatists seized part of the country’s far east.

The ICC investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. Such crimes include genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. Putin’s forces have been accused of committing war crimes after Ukrainian cities were indiscriminately shelled, leaving thousands of civilians dead and many more wounded. 

APRIL 6: Civilians gather at the train station to be evacuated from combat zones in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast after being told by Ukrainian authorities to evacuate the eastern regions of the country in anticipation of Russia re-focusing its military invasion on the Donbas region

Pictured: Civilians board trains as they are being evacuated from combat zones in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, in eastern Ukraine on April 6, 2022. Hundreds of Ukrainians at Kramatorsk station before missile attack

Finland is just weeks away from submitting an application to join NATO despite Russian warnings that it would secure ‘the destruction of their country’, a former Prime Minister of the country said today.

The Nordic country, which has a long border with Russia and was invaded by the Red Army in 1939, has never been a member of the Cold War defence alliance, preferring instead to organise its own protection.

But since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, opinion polls commissioned by Finnish media outlets have shown a swift U-turn in public opinion with the majority now favouring joining.

Finland has opted to remain neutral since WWII, choosing to act as a buffer between East and West when Europe was carved up during the Cold War, affording it more flexibility in its foreign policy while allaying Russian fears of Western expansion.  

Alexander Stubb, who headed Finland’s government in 2014 and 2015, said the country could decide to join the military alliance as soon as May. 

He said: ‘In the beginning of the war I said that Putin’s aggression will drive Finland and Sweden to apply for NATO membership. 

‘I said it was not a matter of days or weeks, but months. Time to revise: Finland will apply within weeks, latest May. Sweden to follow, or at the same time.’ 

Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov said this week that it is not likely ‘the Finns themselves will sign a card for the destruction of their country’, threatening a repeat of the Ukraine invasion which was sparked in part by its desire to join NATO.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov added yesterday if Finland and Sweden joined NATO then Russia would have to ‘rebalance the situation’ with its own measures in another thinly-veiled warning.   

The Civilians in eastern Ukraine struggled to evacuate Friday as Russia redirected its firepower, with Zelensky warning of ‘even more horrific’ devastation being uncovered around the capital.

Ukrainian allies tightened the screws on Moscow further in response to shocking images from Bucha and other regions around Kyiv, with the European Union announcing an embargo on Russian coal and a ban on Russian vessels at its ports.

And at the United Nations, the General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council, only the second-ever suspension of a country from the body.

‘Russia’s lies are no match for the undeniable evidence of what is happening in Ukraine,’ US President Joe Biden said, calling Russia’s actions in the country ‘an outrage to our common humanity.’ 

More than a month into President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has shifted its focus after stiff resistance put paid to hopes of an easy capture of the country.

Instead, troops are being redeployed towards the east and south, aiming to create a long-sought land link between occupied Crimea and the Moscow-backed separatist statelets of Donetsk and Lugansk in Donbas.

‘In the north, Russian forces have now fully withdrawn from Ukraine to Belarus and Russia,’ Britain’s defence ministry said. ‘At least some of these forces will be transferred to east Ukraine to fight in the Donbas,’ it added, noting that troops would need ‘significant replenishment’ and a mass redeployment would take at least a week.

Heavy shelling has already begun to lay waste to towns in the region, and officials have begged civilians to flee, but the intensity of fighting is starting to hamper evacuations.

Lugansk governor Sergiy Gaiday said Russian shelling had damaged a railway route being used by evacuees in the town of Schastia, north of Lugansk. ‘The railway was damaged. Train evacuation is in question. Thousands of people are still in the cities of Lugansk region,’ he wrote on Facebook.

And in Donetsk, the head of the regional military administration Pavlo Kyrylenko said three evacuation trains had been temporarily blocked after a Russian airstrike on an overpass by a station.

But officials continued to press civilians to leave where possible.

‘There is no secret – the battle for Donbas will be decisive. What we have already experienced, all this horror, it can multiply,’ warned Gaiday. ‘Leave! The next few days are the last chances. Buses will be waiting for you in the morning,’ he added.  

A barrage of shells and rockets was already hammering the industrial hub Severodonetsk, the easternmost city held by Ukrainian forces in Donbas, leaving buildings engulfed in flames.

‘Every day it’s worse and worse. They’re raining down on us from everywhere. We cannot take it anymore,’ said Denis, a man in his forties with a pale, emaciated face. ‘I want to escape this hell.’

Around the capital meanwhile, residents and Ukrainian officials returning after the Russian redeployment are trying to piece together the scale of the devastation.

Violence in the town of Bucha, where authorities say hundreds were killed – including some found with their hands bound – has become a byword for allegations of brutality inflicted under Russian occupation.

But Zelensky warned worse was being uncovered.

‘They have started sorting through the ruins in Borodianka,’ northwest of Kyiv, he said in his nightly address. ‘It’s much more horrific there, there are even more victims of Russian occupiers.’

Civilians gather at the train station to be evacuated from combat zones in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, in eastern Ukraine on April 6, 2022Luggage left behind inside Kramatorsk station after missile attack

Violence in the area has caused massive destruction, levelling and damaging many buildings, and bodies are only now being retrieved.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said Thursday that 26 bodies had been recovered from two destroyed apartment buildings so far.

‘Only the civilian population was targeted: there is no military site here,’ she said, describing evidence of war crimes ‘at every turn’.

Fresh allegations emerged from other areas too, with villagers in Obukhovychi, northwest of Kyiv, telling AFP they were used as human shields.

And in besieged Mariupol, even the pro-Russian official designated ‘mayor’ of the destroyed city acknowledged that around 5,000 civilians had been killed there.  

Moscow has denied targeting civilians in areas under its control, but growing evidence of atrocities has galvanised Ukraine’s allies to pile on more pressure.

On Thursday, the EU approved an embargo on Russian coal and the closing of its ports to Russian vessels as part of a ‘very substantial’ new round of sanctions that also includes an export ban and new measures against Russian banks. In addition, it backed a proposal to boost its funding of arms supplies to Ukraine by 500 million euros, taking it to a total of 1.5 billion euros.

In a show of support, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also headed to Kyiv on Friday with the bloc’s diplomatic chief Josep Borrell for talks with Zelensky.

And the Group of Seven industrialised nations agreed to more sanctions, including a ban on new investments in key sectors and fresh export restrictions, as well as the phasing out of Russian coal.

At the United Nations, 93 of the General Assembly’s 193 members voted to suspend Russia from the body’s rights council over its actions in Ukraine.

Russia blasted the move as ‘illegal and politically motivated’, while Biden said it confirmed Moscow as an ‘international pariah’.

Ukraine has welcomed new measures on Moscow, as well as the UN suspension, but it continues to push for more support. ‘Ukraine needs weapons that will allow us to win on the battlefield, and this will be the strongest sanction,’ Zelensky said in his address, echoing calls from his foreign minister, who earlier asked NATO for heavy weaponry, including air defence systems, artillery, armoured vehicles and jets.

‘Either you help us now – and I’m speaking about days, not weeks – or your help will come too late, and many people will die, many civilians will lose their homes, many villages will be destroyed,’ Dmytro Kuleba said after meeting NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

The Washington Post

China is Russia’s most powerful weapon for information warfare

Elizabeth Dwoskin – April 8, 2022

Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine cratered last month after Russian state news channels were blocked in Europe and restricted globally. But in recent weeks, China has emerged as a potent outlet for Kremlin disinformation, researchers say, portraying Ukraine and NATO as the aggressors and sharing false claims about neo-Nazi control of the Ukrainian government.

With over a billion followers on Facebook alone, China’s state-controlled channels offer Russian President Vladimir Putin a powerful megaphone for shaping global understanding of the war – often called a “special operation” in line with Kremlin rhetoric. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, researchers say, Chinese channels have touted the false claim that the United States runs bioweapons labs in Ukraine, have asserted that Ukrainian neo-Nazis bombed a children’s hospital which was in fact bombed by Russian troops, and have suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was being manipulated by U.S. billionaire George Soros.

Chinese channels also have given airtime and amplification to high-ranking Russian government officials and to presenters from Russian government channels whose shows have been restricted or blocked. Last month, after a host on Sputnik, the Russian state news outlet, posted a video on his personal YouTube channel discussing how neo-Nazis were on the rise in Ukraine, the clip was tweeted by Frontline, a Chinese government outlet. 

“With governments and tech platforms moving to censor or limit the spread of Russian propaganda, pro-Kremlin talking points are now being laundered through influencers and proxies, including Chinese officials and state media outlets that obviously do not face the same restrictions that have been placed on Russian state media outlets,” said Bret Schafer, senior fellow and head of the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonpartisan initiative housed at the U.S. German Marshall Fund that tracks Chinese and Russian state media. “This has allowed the Kremlin to effectively skirt bans meant to limit the spread of Russian propaganda.”

Putin’s success in seeding some of these misleading narratives through proxies and allies is casting doubt on the ability of Western governments and the tech giants to effectively rein in the most pernicious forms of authoritarian propaganda. With China’s help, experts say, Russia also is regaining its ability to cloud the narrative around Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

“While the world’s eyes are still on Ukraine, and the journalists are there, it’s going to be hard for the Russian government to make great progress. But they can make progress on the edges,” said Kate Starbird, an associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. “And in the long run, if the public is confused enough about what happened, then we might not give our leadership a clear message to take action.”

Since the war’s early days, when the European Commission blocked Russian state channels and Twitter, YouTube and Facebook restricted their reach, Russia has raced to create workarounds. Journalists have uncovered a coordinated campaign to pay TikTok influencers to push pro-Kremlin views, while researchers from the data science company Trementum Analytics have documented pro-Russia trolls spamming YouTube videos about Ukraine with pro-Russian comments.

The Russian government also has used its embassies to push out misinformation to tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and the messaging app Telegram. According to the Israeli disinformation research group FakeReporter, Russian embassies have created at least 65 new Telegram channels since the war began. Twitter stopped recommending these accounts this week.

Fox News and other right-leaning American outlets also have picked up Russia’s talking points – notably when Fox host Tucker Carlson last month promoted to his prime time audience the baseless claim that Ukraine was developing biological weapons with the assistance of the U.S. government. According to disinformation researchers and the fact-checking group PolitiFact, that claim, which has been circulating for years, is a misleading reference to a public health research partnership between the United States and Ukraine; the White House has called it “preposterous.”

Last week, the New York Post wrote an article tying the discredited biolab claim to President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, claiming that the younger Biden had helped secure funds for a start-up that worked on the research biolabs in Ukraine. The Washington Post has reported that Hunter Biden “was not part of a decision” to invest in the start-up.

Meanwhile, highly active online communities, such as anti-vaccine activists and adherents of the radicalized movement QAnon, have seized on the biolab claim and other Russian narratives. An early, prolific spreader of the theory, according to the Anti-Defamation League, was a Virginia man with ties to QAnon.

China is, by far, the Kremlin’s biggest promoter, however. The top four Chinese outlets – CGTN, Global Times, Xinhua News and T-House – command a massive audience with a combined follower count on Facebook of 283 million, according to research from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). All told, Chinese outlets on Facebook have over 1 billion followers, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy – far more than the roughly 85 million total followers for Russia’s main channels.

Asked how Facebook was addressing China’s emergence as a vector for Russian propaganda, Facebook shared several examples of fact checks applied to misleading pro-Russian content from Chinese state media. The company did not respond to questions about whether it has restricted Chinese state media accounts or has plans to do so.

Twitter spokeswoman Madeline Broas said the company had placed some limits on Chinese state media for several years, and that – beginning last Friday – it had begun putting highly-visible labels on any tweet that contained a link to Chinese state media. (Previously, such labels were shown only to people who searched for the account.)

YouTube declined to answer questions about Chinese state media. Spokeswoman Elena Hernandez said the company does fact-check misinformation and that it prohibits content that minimizes, trivializes, or denies the existence of well-documented, violent historical events.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

China and Russia have long been allies, extending back to the Cold War, and view their alliance as a bulwark against Western power. The two countries strengthened their bond ahead of the Ukraine invasion, issuing a joint statement on Feb. 4 describing their relationship as a “no limits” friendship.

Russia has refused to acknowledge the invasion, referring to its actions in Ukraine as a “special operation.” Chinese state media immediately adopted that term, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s tracker, with Chinese accounts using it 180 times between Feb. 24 and March 12. The term “invasion” was mentioned 145 times, but more than the third were references to the U.S. invasion of Iraq – an attempt to equate Russian and American military actions.

Chinese media also began to take up neo-Nazi storylines, according to ASD. Chinese diplomats and state media have tweeted about Nazis more than 140 times since the start of the war, according to the tracker. In the year preceding the war, Chinese state- affiliated accounts tracked by the group tweeted about Nazis only twice. The Azov Battalion, a group partially made up of anti-Russian nationalists and neo-Nazis, has been part of Ukraine’s military since 2014. But experts say the controversial battalion does not have major influence in the country whose president, Zelensky, is Jewish.

Lately, China has focused more attention on blaming NATO for the conflict, researchers say. A recent Facebook post from T-House, a millennial-focused outlet, compared Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO to Hitler’s attempt to conquer Ukraine, according to research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “The moves by the US-led #NATO have pushed the #Russia-Ukraine tension to the breaking point,” said a recent tweet by China’s ambassador to the Asia-Pacific region.

In late March, NATO was the tenth most used key phrase in Chinese tweets, according to the ASD tracker. Meanwhile, China’s consul general in Belfast recently tweeted a false claim from Russian state media that Zelensky is hiding in Poland, a NATO member.

China also is giving a boost to Russian presenters whose audiences appear to have been limited by Western bans. The personal talk show for U.K. presenter George Galloway, host of the “Mother of All Talk Shows” on Sputnik, been shared numerous times by several large Chinese outlets such as Global Times. Currently, the Sputnik website that hosted Galloway’s show appeared to be blocked in the United Kingdom, according to ASD. But his personal YouTube channel, which does not make visible references to his Sputnik backing, continues to stream it.

Galloway did not respond to a request for comment. In a tweet on Wednesday, Galloway tweeted in response to Twitter’s decision to label his account “Russian state media,” saying, “Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work for NO #Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.”

Experts disagree about how the tech companies should police China and other Russian proxies.

The tech companies have cast their crackdowns on Russian media as drastic actions taken under extraordinary circumstances; they largely do not want to impose blanket bans on state outlets. Experts also have noted that if state outlets are banned for disinformation, the tech companies would face increasing pressure to ban nonstate channels that spread misinformation, such as Fox News.

Instead, the tech companies more recently have opted for transparency, such as fact-checking and labeling. In 2018, YouTube began labeling state media outlets. Twitter did so in 2020, as did Facebook.

But labeling is premised on the idea that informed users will make wise decisions about whether to trust content, and that has had mixed results.

In 2020, George Washington University researchers studying the impact of YouTube labels on content from RT found that they were effective at making people more aware of misinformation, but only when the labels were prominently displayed. A separate study from the Election Integrity Partnership, a consortium of prominent disinformation researchers, found that labeling was inconsistent and that tech platforms failed to prominently show the labels in search results.

Since the Ukraine war began, Twitter has added more prominent labels, saying the move has reduced the reach of Russian propaganda by 30%. But some advocates said transparency measures are insufficient in the face of China’s global disinformation campaign, and called on the tech giants to do more.

“When there is clear disinformation targeted at foreign populations, the tech companies have a perfectly legitimate moral case for limiting or removing that propaganda,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive of CCDH, which has researched Chinese state media.

Not all companies have embraced the same level of transparency. TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is Chinese-owned, started its first pilot project to label a few dozen Russian state outlets last month, and the company has plans to start labeling Chinese outlets. Researchers say state propaganda probably has a massive presence on its service – but it is difficult to detect with such limited labels and without providing researchers the ability to review the platform’s data. The company says it is still developing a state media policy.

Rather than adopting ad hoc policies during an emergency like the Ukraine war, platforms should have distinguished long ago between media outlets run by authoritarian governments and outlets, such as PBS or the BBC, that receive support from democratic governments, said Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, which is a member of the Election Integrity Partnership.

Stamos, who once was Facebook’s chief security officer, argued that social media companies should not give a megaphone to state media outlets from countries, such as China, where free speech is suppressed. Russia would now also fall into that category, he said.

“This is the time,” Stamos said, “for the tech platforms to finally create rules about state media run by authoritarian governments.”

Reuters

Russians’ spending on food doubles following Ukraine war – U.N. food agency

Maytaal Angel – April 8, 2022

LONDON (Reuters) – Russian citizens are spending on average 40% of their disposable income on food – about twice as much as they did before the Russia-Ukraine war, the director of the U.N. food agency’s Russia liaison office told Reuters.

Russian government data shows annual food inflation hit 18.75% on April 1 as the economy reels from Western sanctions imposed on Moscow following its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Oleg Kobiakov of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said many Russian households are now resorting to crisis coping strategies as much of their income goes towards basic needs like food.

“People are postponing plans like going to college or buying a house. They’re saving in case they lose their job, in case of death,” he said.

The average EU household spends about 12% of its income on food, he said, adding that while hunger is not on the cards in Russia, poorer households will face increased levels of food insecurity.

Western sanctions on Russia have closed its economy off from much of global trade, blocked it from swathes of the global financial system and pushed multi-nationals to cut ties with the country.

Many Russians have been panic buying staples like sugar and buckwheat since the war for fear that prices have further to rise, piling pressure on the government to cool inflation.

Moscow is considering regulating prices for food, medicines and other goods and has temporarily banned some agricultural exports. It says it could also move to price almost all its commodity exports in roubles.

While the measures have had some impact in capping consumer inflation, it is still expected to accelerate to 23.7% this year, its highest since 1999, according to a Reuters poll.

The poll also has Russia’s economy shrinking 7.3% in 2022 – in its deepest contraction since 2009.

Kobiakov said Russian salaries have stayed roughly the same since the war, but with prices rising, purchasing power has been eroded and people are worried about job security with many Western firms pulling out of the country.

Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to demilitarise the country.

(Reporting by Maytaal Angel; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

The Conversation

UN Security Council is powerless to help Ukraine – but it’s working as designed to prevent World War III

Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center – April 8, 2022

A clearly anguished Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on April 5, 2022, castigated the U.N. Security Council members for their inaction on alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine: “Are you ready to close the U.N.? Do you think that the time of international law is gone?” We asked Thomas G. Weiss, a veteran scholar with expertise in the politics of the United Nations, to discuss the historic role of the Security Council and what its failure to stop the carnage in Ukraine means over the long term.

What did you think when you heard Zelenskyy’s questions?

I was impressed by his honesty. There’s a saying in Washington that a gaffe is when truth is spoken inadvertently. Well, he wasn’t speaking it inadvertently. He was speaking openly and directly. He was speaking truth to power in that instance. The U.N. Charter has been violated many times, but this really was an egregious violation by a single country, Russia.

However, we all know the shortcomings of exaggeration. The number of times that, as Mark Twain would have said, the U.N.‘s death has been prematurely declared are numerous. But this inaction really is a black eye for the U.N. that’s in the news, day in and day out. It’s going to be impossible to ignore this tragedy and ignore his testimony in front of the Security Council.

What did you mean by saying Russia’s actions were a violation of the UN Charter?

The Kellogg Briand Act at the end of the 1920s was an international treaty that outlawed war. Well, that didn’t go very well. But the U.N. Charter was a step in the right direction by trying to eliminate the illegal use of force, backed up with the threat of military action.

The use of force was only supposed to be permitted in self-defense or when the Security Council authorized it. The Charter’s provisions have been violated on numerous occasions. But this time is the most egregious violation seen recently, with a major power trying to swallow up a smaller country next door. That’s one of the things that supposedly was put behind us, but clearly it hasn’t been.

When the UN was established, what was the Security Council supposed to be and do?

The idea was that there would be an automatic response to aggression, with the condition that the five permanent members – at that time, China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, all allies who defeated Germany’s fascism in World War II – would agree.

Later, that meant the U.N. would respond if the permanent members at least didn’t object, including economic, judicial and military responses. You didn’t need five affirmative votes, but you couldn’t have any negative votes, which constituted a veto. Unless the five agree – and that obviously is not a lot of the time because they all have friends and foes – there is no decision, and this was the way it was supposed to function.

So while you can agree with Zelenskyy, actually the Security Council is functioning exactly the way it was supposed to work.

So one country could exercise veto power straight from the beginning. Was there a recognition then that such a structure ran the risk of disempowering the organization?

A greater risk was that there would be no organization.

Without the veto, Congress wouldn’t have signed on to the U.S. joining the U.N., and clearly without the veto the Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin would not have signed on either. The idea was during World War II these allies got along, and they were supposed to continue getting along; but that working proposition obviously evaporated. I mean, the ink was hardly dry on the 1945 U.N. Charter before this cooperation ended — recall that Winston Churchill already spoke of the “iron curtain” in March 1946.

But there’s also a second reason behind the structure, which applies currently. In terms of the war on Ukraine, it explains, I think, the prudence that certainly U.S. President Joe Biden and the West in general has applied. Part of the logic at the founding was, “Listen, it’s all for one and we come automatically to the rescue if there’s aggression – unless, of course, it’s a major power. And if it’s a major power, let’s not at least make things worse. Let’s not start World War III by taking on China or the U.S. or the Soviet Union.” And that principle continues to apply, alas, to other nuclear powers. The Security Council would never agree to take on India, would never agree to take on Pakistan, and wouldn’t even agree to take on North Korea.

Has the five-member veto power diminished the UN’s status with the public?

It certainly means that the United Nations in the area of international peace and security is really hamstrung.

The awful truth is that this beast works when member states want it to work, and it doesn’t when they don’t. Once governments decide to do something, and they’re on the same wavelength, it works; but that certainly is not the majority of the time.

I think we should still remember that, even while the hopeless Security Council is acting hopelessly in Ukraine, other parts of the U.N. continue to help. There are four and a half million Ukrainian refugees that the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees is trying to assist. At the same time, there happens to be UNICEF struggling to help children in the Ukraine and refugee kids elsewhere while trying valiantly to further girls’ education in Afghanistan. That is the bulk of what the U.N. does most days of the week, serving in other humanitarian emergencies, protecting human rights, trying to publicize the disastrous condition of the human environment and climate change.

Is there a danger – through the current lack of action by the Security Council – that it could be damaged by what’s going on in Ukraine? So Vladimir Putin in one way has assured the cohesion of NATO, but this war could hurt the United Nations?

It certainly might. It’s a little hard to know whether the war in Ukraine would be lethal to the institution’s future. As I say, the U.N. has been declared to be on life support on numerous previous occasions. Yet, despite all of the black eyes, an annual Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll has found for decades that around 60% of the U.S. public support the U.N. I’d be very surprised if the handling of Ukraine ended up inflicting terminal damage on the U.N., but it is going to take awhile to recover. And we still don’t know what the end of this mess is, so we’ll probably have to have the same conversation in a month or six months.

The U.N. could have done better on numerous occasions, as I argue in my book “Would the World Be Better without the UN.” But it also could have done far worse. The planet would be worse off without a Secretary-General to do shuttle diplomacy during the Cuban Missile Crisis or the U.N.’s deployment of peacekeepers on the Golan Heights.

And do we really want to do without an organization that can get rid of smallpox and is close to getting rid of guinea worm and malaria? I think the answer to that is no.