Ukraine v. Russia: Court ruling against Putin could ‘undermine his power’
Alexis Keenan, Reporter – March 16, 2022
The International Court of Justice on Wednesday ordered Russia to stop all military actions in Ukraine tied to its February invasion of the country, and to revoke its claim that Ukrainian citizens requested Russia’s military support.
In a 13-2 ruling, the court found it had jurisdiction over Ukraine’s allegations that Russia falsely accused Ukraine of genocide to justify waging war on the former member of the Soviet Union. The court’s judges voted 13-2 on the ruling.
“The court is profoundly concerned about the use of force by the Russian Federation in Ukraine, which raises very serious issues of international law,” ICJ president Joan Donoghue said Wednesday during the announcement of the court’s decision.
Donoghue emphasized that the court took into account Ukraine’s “extremely vulnerable” civilian population, and “significant material damage” to property caused by Russia’s invasion.
“Many persons have no access to the most basic foodstuffs, potable water, electricity, essential medicines, or heating. A very large number of people are attempting to flee from the most affected cities, under extremely insecure conditions,” she said.
While the order will likely have political consequences for Russia, experts say it will do little to force Russia’s retreat.
The emergency request reveals the multitude of challenges that Ukraine faces as it tries to fend off Russia, which invaded on Feb. 24 and prompted Western nations to impose harsh economic sanctions against President Vladimir Putin’s regime. While the international court has no power to enforce its own order, Ukrainian officials nonetheless moved forward with the legal claim.
“Here, there’s nothing really that the court can do to enforce its own order,” Milena Sterio, professor of international law at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, said prior to the court’s ruling.
But, she added, “The court’s order would carry a lot of weight in terms of further tarnishing the Russian reputation…it would add to the political and diplomatic pressure that’s mounting against Russia.”
In its application to the court — an emergency request to stop irreparable harm — Ukraine asked the court to order Russia to immediately suspend military operations in Ukraine, to cease planning further operations, and to require Russia to file periodic compliance reports. So far, Russia’s representatives have neither answered Ukraine’s claims, nor participated in the court’s proceedings.
The court declined to grant Ukraine’s request to direct Russia to file compliance reports.
Anton Korynevych, Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Oksana Zolotaryova, Director, International Law Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine at the International Criminal Court, where Ukraine took Russia to the top United Nations court over alleged breaches of the genocide convention, talk to the media in The Hague, Netherlands, March 7, 2022. Phil Nijhuis/Pool via REUTERS
“Even if Russia refuses to comply, the court’s judgment stands against it for the world to see,” Rebecca Hamilton, associate professor of law at American University, explained, prior to the ruling. “If decisions like this can penetrate through his lies, that will begin to undermine his power.”
Hamilton anticipates Russia to ignore the court’s ruling. Nonetheless, she says, other world leaders will take the decision into account.
“Just because President Vladimir Putin ignores international law does not mean that the law goes away,” she said. “The court’s decision can and will be used by those working diplomatic channels to try to bring an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
‘A clever argument’
Before the ruling, Sterio said she expected the court to grant at least some of Ukraine’s requests because it would be politically difficult for the court to rule against a country that’s currently being invaded on false pretenses. Still, she raised questions about the strength of Ukraine’s broader claims involving Russia’s repeated assertions that Ukraine is killing its own people.
Ukraine, she explained, has made a “clever” argument under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Both Ukraine and Russia are parties to the treaty, which gives the court jurisdiction over cases between member states that allege that one state is committing acts of genocide against another. However, Ukraine’s argument doesn’t make that claim.
“No matter how horrible and horrific the invasion is, there’s very little evidence that Russian troops are actually committing genocide,” Sterio said. To get around that, Ukraine argued that Russia must stop tarnishing Ukraine’s reputation by claiming that Ukraine is committing genocide.
Donoghue noted the unsettled jurisdictional issue saying that at the current emergency stage, the court “need not satisfy itself in a definitive manner that it has jurisdiction…” The main issues raised by Ukraine’s allegations, she said, could be properly addressed if the case moves forward.
“This is a horrible lie. Putin lies, and Ukrainians, our citizens, die,” Anton Korynevych, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s envoy to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, told the court during arguments on March 7. “With its false claim of genocide, Russia uses one pillar of modern international legal order to destroy the other.”
This story was updated to include the ICJ’s ruling issued on Wednesday.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance.
Russian forces bombed a theater in the city of Mariupol on Wednesday, according to Ukrainian officials.
The building was serving as a shelter for hundreds of refugees in the embattled city.
New satellite images show the word “CHILDREN” written largely in Russian outside the theater.
The theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, targeted in an alleged Russian attack on Wednesday had the word “CHILDREN” written largely in Russian on the pavement outside, according to satellite images.
The theater was serving as a shelter for hundreds of civilian refugees, including many children, in the embattled city of Mariupol, which has been left without water, heat, and food for several days amid Russia’s escalating attack.
The total deaths resulting from the attack are currently unknown, but a city official said more than 1,000 people had been hiding in the building.
Maxar satellite images of the theater show the word “CHILDREN” written in large, white, Cyrillic letters on two sides of the building — a possible attempt to alert Russian forces to the presence of young civilians hiding inside.
The type of weapon that damaged the theater was not immediately known but is consistent with an air-dropped bomb, Ukrainian officials said. Russia is denying responsibility for the attack, and President Vladimir Putin suggested without evidence that a Ukrainian ground force element could be responsible.
A post from the city council shared on Telegram said the theater suffered “severe damage” as a result of the attack.
City officials accused Russian troops of “purposefully and cynically” destroying the theater, according to CNN.
This story is breaking. Please check back for updates.
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense on Tuesday announced that Russia’s military has sought to call in reinforcements as the country has faced “continued personnel losses” during its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia is increasingly seeking to generate additional troops to bolster and replace its personnel losses,” the ministry stated in a public intelligence assessment, according to CNN.
The ministry also suggested that the call for more troops could be due to the strong resistance that Ukraine has managed to present since the invasion first began, the news outlet noted.
“It is likely Russia is struggling to conduct offensive operations in the face of sustained Ukrainian resistance,” the ministry reportedly added in its assessment.
Russia has also been reassigning troops from “its Eastern Military District, Pacific Fleet and Armenia” as well as calling on “private military companies, Syrians, and other mercenaries” to fight in Ukraine, CNN reported.
“Russia will likely attempt to use these forces to hold captured territory and free up its combat power to renew stalled offensive operations,” the British assessment reportedly said.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on Tuesday announced that more than 13,500 Russian personnel have been lost since the start of the invasion. The ministry also said that Russia has reportedly lost 1,279 armored combat vehicles and 404 tanks.
It also stated that both sides still maintain about 90 percent of their combat power.
3 Ukrainian women describe their lives as volunteer fighters in the Russia-Ukraine war
Julia Beil, Nathan Rennolds, Business Insider Deutschland – March 16, 2022
From left to right: Mila Makarova, Marharyta Ruvchachenko, Olga Kharchenko.
Three women spoke to Insider about serving in Ukraine’s volunteer Territorial Defense Forces.
Mila Makarova and Marharyta Ruvchachenko are in the capital, Kyiv.
Olga Kharchenko trains fighters in first-aid medical care in Lviv in the west.
Marharyta Ruvchachenko, 25
Ruvchachenko said her PR experience has been useful to her in the military.
It’s hard being single in war, said Marharyta Ruvchachenko. She often feels alone, saying she wants “that special” support” which sometimes only a partner or family can provide.
She joined the army when the war began, working as a paramedic and helping to coordinate a supply of medicine for Kyiv’s soldiers. She also helps the army to arrange the transport of helmets, bulletproof vests, and binoculars.
“I’m constantly on the phone,” she said, “with helpers from Ukraine, from abroad, with soldiers.” Sometimes she even drives to the soldiers herself to deliver what they need.
Ruvchachenko has no medical training — only a first-aid course four years ago when she was a student studying literature at Kharkiv.
She’s a writer and is enrolled in journalism at university in Kyiv. She also works for a Ukrainian newspaper and several PR agencies.
She didn’t expect the war, she said, “but I also didn’t have time to think long. I’m standing by because I’m needed.”
Her PR experience has been useful to her in the military, she said. “Communication I can do.”
She writes to well-known business people and founders to ask for donations or other help across social media channels. “I know that suits me better than others here.”
All the work distracts her from her anxiety, she said. “I’m not a scared woman now, I’m a strong woman. That helps me survive.”
Her family is still in her hometown of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine — her parents, grandparents, and 17-year-old sister. She’s afraid for them, “but I think they’re safe,” she added.
She said her parents are worried for her since she joined Kyiv’s Territorial Defense Forces, but added: “They understand my decision.”
Since making the decision to stay in Kyiv, Ruvchachenko has carried a Kalashnikov rifle.
“I never held a gun before the war, I never want to use it,” she said. “I don’t want to shoot at anyone. I really don’t.”
Nor has she had to yet. She’s only seen or heard the Russian tanks, missiles, and explosions from a few miles away.
She said the city resembles a ghost town in parts but there are still signs of life. “Kyiv is alive,” she said, “this isn’t Gotham City.
“Yesterday I saw a family walking on the street with their little daughter. And in a café next to the hospital, you can still get coffee to go.”
She’s certain that Kyiv will return to normal soon, stressing that she believed in her people, in their president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and in the soldiers. “We must not give in to our fear,” she said.
After the war, Ruvchachenko wants to open her own PR agency, travel to South America, and write about the stories of people around the world as a journalist. She also wants to get married and have children.
Mila Makarova, 36
Makarova works as a medic for the Ukrainian army in Kyiv.
Normally, Mila Makarova said she’d feel terrible if she hadn’t jogged in two weeks. Keeping fit has always been important to her.
Makarova is no longer worried about her fitness, but about how long she’ll stay healthy enough to provide medical care to others. “I hope I stay alive,” said Makarova, who works as a medic for the Ukrainian army in Kyiv.
There, she and her brigade are awaiting the Russian army. “They’re getting closer and closer,” Makarova said. “And we’re realistic.”
They’re preparing for a situation similar to the one in Irpin, a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, which has endured continuous shelling by the Russian army for days.
“We don’t expect anything good,” Makarova said of Kyiv. “The Russians could come any hour, any minute.”
Makarova has given first aid to traumatized and wounded people, people injured from shell or bomb fragments. She said she expected that she’d soon have to treat much more serious injuries.
“I think that we’re dealing with a completely psychopathic group of people who have decided to use all the military ‘toys’ at their disposal. They fire them at peaceful people,” she said.
Makarova once wanted to become a tour guide, guiding tourists through European cities.
“I love traveling,” she said. Before the war, she’d been to Africa, Asia, and many European countries.
The war put an end to this, however — a war that she believes really began in 2014, the year Vladimir Putin sent his troops to Crimea.
These events radically changed Makarova’s life. Instead of traveling the world, she’s been deeply involved with life in Ukraine instead.
She’s a member of various civil society initiatives, worked with international journalists as a translator in eastern Ukraine, trained as a paramedic, and now joined the military.
She said everyone can see how strong Ukrainian society is, how closely everyone stands together and cares for one another.
“But the price for us is high,” she added. Many of her good friends have already died, she said. “Wonderful, smart people.”
She really hopes to stay alive. “But I know that’s not certain.”
Still, she won’t run away — she’s needed in Kyiv. “But I’m scared.”
Makarova’s boyfriend is on the other side of Kyiv’s Dnepr River and is also part of the Territorial Defense Forces.
“It is possible to get across the river, but it takes a long time,” Makarova said.
Her commander is extremely reluctant to let her and her colleagues go that far — if the Russian army moved in, they wouldn’t be able to get back.
It would take “hard steps” to stop Russia. Why are people in the West afraid of risking a third world war, she asked. For Ukrainians, she said, it began long ago.
Olga Kharchenko, 36
Kharchenko served in the army before, from 2016 to 2019.
A Cat, a dog, and weapons were the main things Olga Kharchenko’s parents packed in when they moved two weeks ago from their apartment in Kyiv to their workplace, the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine.
The two now live, sleep, and work there. Kharchenko’s mother cooks in the academy for art students and soldiers from Kyiv’s Territorial Defense Forces, while her father guards the building outside, armed with a Kalashnikov.
Olga Kharchenko’s mother and father (second and third from the left) in Kyiv.
Their daughter is a medic about 342 miles to the west, in Lviv.
“Here in Lviv, I’m far from the front lines, so we don’t have any wounded to care for right now,” she said.
Instead, she’s currently filling masses of first aid kits for servicemen and women. Kharchenko is also an instructor, giving courses in “Tactical Combat Casualty Care” to the volunteer fighters, showing them how to provide first aid during a firefight.
Getting up early, lining up, being disciplined are nothing new for Kharchenko, who served in the army before, from 2016 to 2019.
She had a very different life before the Russian invasion.
She studied art history in the academy – where her parents are now staying – and has worked as a game designer, a freelance journalist, and volunteered for an organization fighting for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine.
Kharchenko rejoined the Territorial Defense Forces on February 28, four days after the invasion.
The problems in Lviv are different to those in Kyiv.
“Rents here have skyrocketed,” Kharchenko said, as hundreds of thousands of refugees have flocked to Lviv from all over the country, pushing the city in western Ukraine to the edge of its capacity.
Her landlord has not increased her monthly rent, however, and even allowed her to have a key made to her apartment for all her friends. “My apartment has become a kind of camp for people who want to go further west because of that.” Right now, two relatives of a friend were living with her.
Kharchenko had expected that Putin would attack Ukraine before the invasion, she said. Together with her father, she convinced her little sister early on to leave her home in Kyiv.
“She fled to Prague on February 18,” Kharchenko said. “My sister didn’t believe until the very end that the war would come to Kyiv.”
When asked whether she felt prepared, she said no one can ever fully prepare for war, adding: “War always means shock, pain, and anger.”
Kharchenko didn’t want to make a prediction about what would happen, but added: “We will not give up.”
This is a translation of an article that originally appeared on Business Insider Deutschland on March 12, 2022. It has been edited for length.
Why Russia’s attempt to bend Ukraine to its will could have the opposite effect
A divided Ukraine appears to be becoming more united in opposition to Russia.
Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC Opinion Columnist – March 16, 2022
A funeral service for two Ukrainian soldiers in Lviv on March 8.Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
While the precise scope of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military operation in Ukraine is unclear, experts like Thomas Graham, a former senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff between 2004 and 2007, believe he’s seeking regime change and the destruction of Ukraine’s military infrastructure in a bid to bring Kyiv back under the influence of Moscow.
But reports documenting a deepening bitterness toward Putin across Ukraine are a reminder that the fury and suffering he’s generating with his brutal invasion could undermine his plans to control the country.
According to a recent New York Times report, the “one overriding emotion gripping Ukraine right now … is hate.” It said:
Billboards have gone up along roadsides in gigantic block letters, telling Russians in profanity-laced language to get out. Social media posts in spaces often shared by Russians and Ukrainians have been awash in furious comments.
The article described how the backlash against the invasion — which has targeted civilian infrastructure, appears to be using indiscriminate cluster bombs and has already displaced millions of Ukrainians — is not just driving hatred of Putin, but hatred of Russian society more broadly.
“Yuri Makarov, the chief editor of the Ukrainian national broadcasting company and the head of a national literature and arts award committee, said the war had driven a deep wedge between the Ukrainian and Russian societies that will be hard to heal,” the Times reported. “Russians, he said, have become Ukrainians’ ‘collective enemies.’”
This kind of shift in national sentiment undermines the idea that this invasion could serve as a straightforward way for Moscow to bring Kyiv back under its control after years of Kyiv drifting toward Western influence. Instead, it’s looking like the operation could backfire by intensifying anti-Russian attitudes and laying the groundwork for a potential long-term insurgency.
Experts like Ben Judah, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, have noted that Putin appears to be surrounded by yesmen who may want to confirm the assumptions that underlie his own worldview. That may have included an unwillingness among his advisers to point out that some of his assumptions about Ukrainian identity and Russia’s ability to intervene militarily without much resistance were out of touch with reality.
“I think, in general,” Graham told me in an interview shortly after the invasion began, “senior people in the Kremlin underestimate the degree of unity among the Ukrainian people at this point — and that’s Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers.”
“They have underestimated the consequences of their annexation of Crimea and what they’ve done in the Donbas over the past eight years and how that has changed attitudes towards Russia,” he added, referring to Russia’s support for separatist rebels in Ukraine’s southeastern region since 2014.
Ukraine has a mix of Ukrainian and Russian speakers, with the eastern regions of the country being more Russian-speaking and historically more receptive to or susceptible to Russian political influence. But it seems that Putin is providing a stronger force for fostering a more coherent and strongly held Ukrainian national identity than could’ve ever emerged from within the country itself in the short to medium term.
As civilians organize resistance, take up arms or leave the country out of fear, we could be seeing the birth of the very kind of united anti-Russian sentiment and action that Putin constantly seemed to fear before his invasion. He may have just created his own worst nightmare.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Politico, and he has also been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation and elsewhere.
N. Korea silent after reported missile explosion over Pyongyang
Josh Smith – March 16, 2022
SEOUL, March 17 (Reuters) – More than 24 hours after a missile test reportedly ended in a fiery failure over Pyongyang on Wednesday, North Korea had yet to say anything about the incident.
South Korea said a presumed ballistic missile exploded mid-air shortly after it was launched from the international airport near Pyongyang on Wednesday morning.
North Korea’s government did not immediately comment on the South’s report, and state media had made no mention of a test a day later.
Strikingly, no photos or named eye witnesses had emerged publicly, despite the missile exploding over a city of around three million people.
Human rights activists said the silence underscored the complete control the government wields over communication in the country.
“We shouldn’t become numb to how ridiculous and outrageous that is just because its North Korea,” Sokeel Park, of Liberty in NK, which helps North Korean defectors, said on Twitter.
Debris fell in or near Pyongyang after the failed test, Seoul-based NK News reported, citing unnamed witnesses and a photograph it said it had seen of the test showing a red-tinted ball of smoke at the end of a zig-zagging plume that traced the rocket’s launch trajectory in the sky above the city.
The website did not release the photograph, citing a need to protect the source.
“If it was London, Istanbul or Seoul imagine our newsfeeds – filled with video, images and eyewitness accounts,” Park said. “But it was Pyongyang, so there isn’t a SINGLE public image or video. A complete visual blackout for a huge explosion in the sky above an Asian capital in 2022.”
Cell phones have proliferated in North Korea in recent years, but the government retains tight control of phone networks and internet connections, most of which do not link to the outside world.
The country’s isolation has deepened amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with border closures choking off most cross-border travel and communication with China, and forcing many foreign embassies and international aid organizations to pull their staff from the country. (Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Expired arms, tepid fighters: Russian ally Transnistria may have little to offer for Putin’s war
Tom Kington – March 15, 2022
SERGEI GAPON
CHISINAU, Moldova – A breakaway republic on Ukraine’s south-west border, which supports Russia and is seen as a possible staging post for Moscow’s Ukraine invasion, hosts out-of-date weaponry and reluctant fighters, experts have said.
Transnistria, a 250 mile long strip of land sandwiched between Ukraine and Moldova, has attracted attention from military analysts as Russian forces edge closer to it, but concerns it could enter the war may be exaggerated, experts have told Defense News.
The territory remained loyal to Russia in the early 1990s when its two larger neighbors – both former Soviet republics – gained independence from Moscow at the end of the Cold War.
Officially part of Moldova, Transnistria has since been an unrecognized statelet with a population of 300,000, claiming autonomy while receiving free Russian gas and keeping a military force of around 1,300.
Now, as Russia slowly pushes west into Ukraine and may seek to occupy nearby Odessa, speculation has grown that Russian troops will advance to Transnistria and use it as a launch pad for further operations in Ukraine or even an invasion of Moldova.
On paper, Transnistria looks like a perfect place for President Vladimir Putin’s forces to occupy. As well as hosting a garrison of pro-Russian troops, it stores 20,000 tonnes of weaponry, much of which was stashed there by the Russian military at the start of the 1990s when it pulled out of Moldova.
Nicu Popescu, Moldova’s foreign minister said an arms dump is situated in the village of Cobasna on the Ukrainian border.
But the age of the armaments would render most of them unusable in a conflict today, he said.
“We estimate 11,000 tonnes have expired and 9,000 tonnes are usable,” he said, adding no recent access had been granted, making an accurate assessment difficult.
“Right before the war we had a dialogue with the Russian Federation about destroying the expired weapons. … They said they were willing to evacuate or destroy most of the weapons. But we have not discussed the matter in the new context,” he said.
The troops stationed there may not be much use either. Although local forces fought a brief war of independence with Moldova in 1992 in which 1,000 died, they reportedly do not have much will to fight today.
Of the 1,300 soldiers now stationed in Transnistria, 400 take part in a local peacekeeping mission. Of the total, only 50-100 are Russian soldiers dispatched from Russia, said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank.
Most of the remainder are locals who have been given Russian passports said Popescu.
“They were born there, they have homes there, why would they want to fight?” said Alexandru Flenchea, a former deputy prime minister of Moldova.
Popescu said, “We do not see signs of intentions by the region of Transnistria or its local security forces or Russian military personnel stationed in Transnistria (to prepare) for deployment in military action in Ukraine.”
He cautioned however, “We need to be prepared for all possible risks and a lot will depend on the course of the war in Ukraine.”
While free gas and pension payment top-ups from Russia have kept Transnistria loyal to Moscow in recent years, the statelet has also been admitted into the European Union’s free trade zone. It sells electricity to Moldova and is also a flourishing crossroads for smuggling gasoline and cigarettes between Moldova and Ukraine.
All of which means it has benefitted from its unresolved status and, despite professing loyalty to Russia, is not pleased with the prospect of being reabsorbed into Russia – should Russia take over Ukraine, analysts said.
The problem facing the republic’s leaders is that if the Russians do arrive, they will be unable to turn them away, said De Waal.
“If the Russians show up they will say ‘You owe us,’ and Transnistria would be unable to say no,” he said.
Live Updates: Biden Will Announce $800 Million in New Aid for Ukraine
The announcement is expected to come shortly after the Ukrainian president gives a virtual address to Congress on Wednesday. The prime ministers of three NATO countries visited Ukraine’s battered capital to show their “unequivocal support.”
Mark Landler and Matina Stevis-Gridneff – March 15, 2022
Ukrainian forces fortified a market that provides food to shelters, hospitals and soldiers around northern Kyiv, as Russian troops advanced toward the city limits on Tuesday.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
European Leaders visit Kyiv to show support as Russian bombardment terrifies city.
Emergency crews evacuating civilians from a residential building that was struck by shelling on Tuesday in Kyiv.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
LONDON — Three European leaders staged a defiant show of support for Ukraine on Tuesday, traveling to its besieged capital, Kyiv, even as a relentless Russian artillery bombardment left apartment towers in the city ablaze, forcing terrified residents to flee into the street with only the clothes on their backs.
The dramatic visit by the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, which unfolded in tight secrecy as they crossed the Ukrainian border by train after dawn, was a strikingly personal gesture. But it caught other European leaders off guard, angering some and baring uncomfortable divisions in how best to demonstrate Western solidarity with Ukraine.
It also came as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia disparaged the second consecutive day of negotiations with Ukraine, undercutting the faint glimmers of hope raised from talks the day before that both sides were looking for a way to halt the war.
The Kremlin slapped retaliatory sanctions on President Biden and other senior American officials. Mr. Biden announced his own plans to travel to Europe next week to showcase the unity of the NATO alliance in the face of Russian aggression.
People crowding to board an evacuation train in Odessa on Tuesday evening.Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
A spokesman for Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said the three visitors were “de facto” representing the European Union in Ukraine. In Brussels, however, officials said the trio did not have the E.U.’s blessing, and some European diplomats complained that the trip was too risky, given the Russian forces encircling Kyiv.
Others said they admired the audacity of the group, which also included Prime Minister Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic and Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia, casting it as a powerful symbol of the backing for Ukraine among countries on Europe’s eastern flank, where the specter of Russian aggression looms larger than in Paris or London.
Still, for all the symbolism of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine’s leaders under the threat of Russia’s rockets, Ukraine was facing the devastating barrage largely on its own. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, imposed a 35-hour curfew, starting on Tuesday evening, which suggested the capital was entering an even more difficult phase of its grinding struggle to hold off Russian troops and tanks.On the Ground: Ukraine Under Attack
“This is their attempt to annihilate the Ukrainian people,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in an emotional video address to the Canadian Parliament, repeating his plea for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone over the country. “It is an attempt to destroy our future, our nation, our character.”
Mr. Zelensky asked the lawmakers to imagine if the CN Tower in Toronto were shelled like the towers in Kyiv. His language has become more pointed, even scolding, with each speech to a Western audience, revealing his frustration with leaders who have resisted more direct military involvement out of fear that it would entangle them in a wider conflict with Russia.
The Ukrainian leader, who has become a hero to many in the West, is scheduled to speak via video to Congress on Wednesday, where he is expected to amplify his pleas for more help and increase the pressure on the United States and its allies.
Mr. Biden is planning to announce $800 million in new security assistance to Ukraine on Wednesday, according to White House officials. The administration last week announced $200 million in security assistance for Ukraine and has made available a total of $2 billion in such funding.
On Tuesday evening, the Polish state broadcaster carried video of the Czech, Slovene and Polish leaders meeting Mr. Zelensky and other officials across a long table, with Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flag behind them.
“They are here to support us,” Mr. Zelensky said at a news briefing after the meeting, which also was shown on Ukrainian television. “It is a great, courageous, right, friendly step. I am confident that with such friends, such countries and neighbors and partners, we can really win.”
“It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made,” Mr. Morawiecki said in the Twitter post. “It is here, that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance.”
The White House announced that Mr. Biden would fly to Brussels for an extraordinary summit meeting of NATO on March 24. That may result in further economic and military aid for Ukraine but will likely fall short of Mr. Zelensky’s request for a no-fly zone. Administration officials declined to say whether Mr. Biden planned to meet with the Ukrainian president, whom he has called a hero. But they said Mr. Biden may go on to somewhere in Eastern Europe to meet with refugees streaming out of Ukraine.
The river of people fleeing the war continued unabated on Tuesday, as Russia claimed to have seized control of the strategic Kherson region in the south. Russian forces kept up their pounding of civilian targets in Kyiv, where Ukrainian troops were fortifying intersections with sandbags, tires, and iron spikes.
Hedgehog barriers, which serve as anti-tank obstacle defense, are welded in a factory in Odessa.Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
A pre-dawn rain of rockets on Kyiv shattered windows, left craters in buildings, and turned a 16-floor apartment house into a towering inferno. The fire spread quickly after a missile struck the building, blowing a jagged hole at its entrance. Firefighters rescued residents from windows by ladder through billowing smoke. By midafternoon, they had carried out two bodies encased in black bags.
“I came out with nothing,” said Mykola Fedkiv, 85, a retired geologist. “I left everything, my telephone, my medicines, everything.”
When the missile struck, Mr. Fedkiv fled his 12th-floor apartment and made his way down the stairs. He climbed through the blasted entrance hall and found himself in the bomb crater. People pulled him out by his arms. He stood outside for hours, hoping to re-enter his apartment to collect personal documents. Asked where he planned to stay the night, he responded, “God knows.”
Kateryna Pomomarenko, her son Sergei and daughter-in-law Yana cleaning up the damage to Kateryna’s apartment after part of a Russian missile, intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses, hit their building in Kyiv.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
Conditions were even more desperate in the coastal city of Mariupol, which has been pummeled by Russian forces in a two-week siege that has left some residents crushed in the rubble and many others dying in a winter freeze with no heat, food, or clean water. Officials can no longer account for the number of dead and missing.
Officially, 2,400 civilians killed in Mariupol have been identified, but Pyotr Andryushchenko, an adviser to the city government, said he believed the toll was far higher, possibly as many as 20,000. Ukrainian estimates of the number of people trapped have ranged from 200,000 to 400,000.
Mr. Andryushchenko said 2,000 vehicles had managed to escape Mariupol on Tuesday and that another 2,000 were packed and ready to leave. Officials told civilians to “delete all messages and photos from phones” in case Russian soldiers searched them for signs of support for Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers carrying a man injured during a shelling attack into Hospital Number 3 in Mariupol on Tuesday.Credit…Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
The perils of reporting accurate information from Ukraine’s combat zones were further underscored Tuesday with news that a Fox News cameraman and a Ukrainian colleague had been killed in an attack on Monday outside Kyiv — raising to at least three the number of journalist fatalities in Ukraine in the past few days.
In Kherson, a southern city under Russian occupation, the mayor said that members of Russia’s national guard were rounding up activists who opposed Russia’s presence, possibly trying to recruit them through coercion.
“They’re all in the city, in the jail,” the mayor, Igor Kolykhaev, wrote in several text messages, referring to the activists. Russian troops, he said, “collect them, hold them, work them over and release them.”
Kherson was the first major city to fall to Russian forces after the Feb. 24 start of the invasion. Although Kremlin officials had predicted that the Ukrainian people would welcome their “liberation” by Russian troops, residents of Kherson have been defiant, regularly gathering in the central square to protest the Russian presence, even when Russian troops fire into the air to disperse them.
Russia claimed to have captured the entire Kherson region, potentially strengthening its ability to push west toward the strategic port cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa. A senior Ukrainian military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Russian forces were in control of much of the Kherson region, but said Ukrainian forces were attacking their positions and inflicting losses.
Negotiations via video link between Russia and Ukraine continued for a second day on Tuesday, though Mr. Putin doused prospects of any imminent breakthrough. In a phone call with the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, Mr. Putin complained that “Kyiv is not demonstrating a serious attitude toward finding mutually acceptable solutions,” according to the Kremlin.
The Ukrainian commander of a guided anti-tank missile unit holds her Stugna-P guided missile launcher, which she transports in her car, after carrying out an ambush against Russian forces in Brovary, near Kyiv.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Mr. Putin also continued to struggle in the information battle with Ukraine. On Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron of France said his country could offer diplomatic “protection” to a Russian state television employee who was detained and fined over an on-air antiwar protest on Monday.
The employee, Marina Ovsyannikova, burst onto the live broadcast of Russia’s most-watched news program on Monday evening, yelling, “Stop the war!” and holding a sign that read, “They’re lying to you here.”
Russia also faced further isolation from Britain, which imposed sanctions on more than 370 people it labeled oligarchs, political allies of, or propagandists for Mr. Putin. Among those blacklisted: Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former president of Russia; Mikhail Mishustin, the current prime minister; and Mikhail Fridman, the billionaire founder of Alfa Bank, one of the country’s largest private banks.
Ukrainian volunteers cooking for security forces and the needy in Kyiv at an outdoor kitchen that provides up to 5,000 meals per day.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Russia, for its part, said it had sanctioned 13 Americans including Mr. Biden, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in response to American sanctions against Mr. Putin and other officials. Also on its list was Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state, and Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Mr. Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, shrugged off the news, suggesting in jest that the Kremlin’s announcement might have missed its intended mark. The president, Ms. Psaki said, is a “junior, so they might have sanctioned his dad by mistake.”
Mark Landler reported from London, and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels. Reporting was contributed by Carlotta Gall and Lynsey Addario from Kyiv, Ukraine; Michael Schwirtz from Odessa, Ukraine; Anton Troianovski from Istanbul; Andrew Higgins from Warsaw; Ian Austen from Ottawa; Steven Erlanger from Brussels; David E. Sanger, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Glenn Thrush from Washington; and Michael M. Grynbaum from New York.
Putin says pro-Western Russians are ‘scum and traitors’ who need to be removed from society
Catherine Garcia, Night editor – March 16, 2022, 9:55
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered an unsettling warning to any Russians who might be supportive of the United States and other Western countries.
“Any people, and particularly the Russian people, will always be able to tell apart the patriots from the scum and traitors and spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths,” Putin said during a televised address on Wednesday. “I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion, and readiness to meet any challenge.”
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, anti-war protesters have been demonstrating in the streets, leading to thousands of arrests. Earlier this week, Marina Ovsyannikova, a producer at the state-run Channel One television station, held up an anti-war sign during a news broadcast.
Putin mentioned in his speech the sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries, and said these “steps are aimed at worsening the lives of millions of people.” Despite foreign countries withdrawing their business from Russia and Moscow’s stock market remaining closed, Putin said having to deal with the repercussions is worth it because “the struggle we are waging is a struggle for our sovereignty, for the future of our country and our children.” Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, he declared, “fully justified themselves.”
Putin’s speech was “in part, an informal and indirect sanctioning of mass repression,” Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the political analysis firm R. Politik, told The New York Times. She said the Russian president was making it clear to law enforcement authorities that “all spheres of society that show any sympathy to the Western way of life” should be targeted, and that “was scary — very scary.”
Biden said privately he has no idea why Sen. Sinema is trying to stop his legislative agenda, book says
Tom Porter – March 16, 2022
President Joe Biden in a group with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) at the White House on June 24, 2021.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
President Joe Biden is baffled by Sen. Sinema’s hostility to his agenda, a new book says.
An aide compared describing her motives to trying to explain TikTok to Biden, per an extract in Axios.
Sinema has blocked Biden’s attempt to reform the filibuster to pass election reform.
President Joe Biden privately expressed perplexity at why Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona helped block key parts of his legislative agenda, according to extracts from a new book published by Axios.
The book, “This Will Not Pass,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, is the first major account of the first year of the Biden administration.
It details the obstacles the president has encountered in getting key parts of his legislative agenda through Congress, where the Democrats hold a razor-thin Senate majority.
The extract details a number of times Sinema opposed Biden, including one occasion when she asked why she should wear a COVID mask in his presence.
“She became the first-ever lawmaker to argue with White House aides when they asked her to wear a face mask in the company of the president, repeatedly asking why that was necessary when she had been vaccinated,” the book said.
Opposition to mask rules has been one of the rallying points of Republicans hostile to Biden’s COVID policies.
Per the book, she also discouraged the president from visiting Arizona after signing his COVID relief bill in 2021.
It also said she attended a GOP fundraiser where she mocked Biden and praised Rep. Andy Briggs, an Arizona GOP lawmaker who has defended Donald Trump’s election-fraud conspiracy theories and spread disinformation about the Jan 6 riot.
The extract says that Biden has struggled to grasp the reasons for Sinema’s behavior.
“One person close to the president likened Biden’s perplexity at Sinema to his difficulty grasping his grandchildren’s use of … TikTok. He wanted to relate, but he just didn’t quite get it,” the authors write.
Biden has faced opposition from another Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, in seeking to pass one of the other central planks of his domestic legislative agenda — his $2.7 trillion Build Back Better spending bill.
With many Democrats fearing Republican gains in the mid-terms, Biden in his first State of the Union speech in March indicated he was seeking to achieve more limited legislative priorities.
