Freedom of Information

[DaffyVina]

20:05
Ukraine prepared to discuss adopting neutral status - Zelensky
More on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's 90-minute interview with independent Russian media now.

In the interview, Zelensky says that as part of a peace deal with Russia, Ukraine is prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status, but it would have to be guaranteed by third parties and put to a referendum, Reuters reports.

"Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it. This is the most important point," he says in the video call.

The Ukrainian leader - speaking in Russian throughout - adds Russia's invasion has caused the destruction of Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine.

The use of the Russian language in Ukraine is something that has been discussed during peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, Reuters reports Zelensky as saying. But he adds Ukraine has refused to discuss other Russian demands, such as the demilitarisation of Ukraine.



20:32
Ukraine urges Red Cross not to open Russian office
Refugees from Mariupol in a temporary accommodation centre in the Rostov region of Russia on 21 March
Copyright: EPA

Ukraine has asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) not to open a planned office in southern Russia, saying it would legitimise Moscow's "humanitarian corridors" and the alleged abduction and forced deportations of Ukrainians.

Earlier, Russian media reported the head of the Red Cross had asked Russia to facilitate the opening of a Red Cross office in Rostov-on-Don, where temporary accommodation camps have been erected by Russia for people transported from Ukraine.

Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine's top humanitarian official, who says Russia has created the sham safe corridors, says the Red Cross is being "used" by the Russians.

But the ICRC has told Reuters it has no "first-hand" information about reports of forced evacuations to Russia from Ukraine and it does not facilitate any such operations.



21:29
Parts of Ukraine see sharp rise in premature births
Lucy Williamson - BBC News, Lviv

Doctors have begun seeing a sharp rise in the number of premature births in some areas of Ukraine.

Prenatal clinics in both Lviv and Kharkiv tell the BBC the premature birth rate has doubled or tripled in recent weeks, as a result of stress and medical issues linked to the war.

In the besieged city of Kharkiv, Polina's fighting for her life. She’s only five days old and weighed less than 1.5 lb (just over 600g) when she was born.

“Infections, lack of medical help, bad nutrition - war creates a risk of premature birth”, says Iryna Kondratova, director at the clinic where Polina was born.

Early deliveries now account for 50% of all births at her clinic.

Not all hospitals across Ukraine are reporting a rise but at the maternity hospital in Lviv, which has seen a recent influx of mothers from conflict zones, premature deliveries have doubled from one in 10, to one in five.

The hospital has begun building a special underground bunker to house babies in intensive care in the event of air strikes.

In Kharkiv, already under heavy bombardment, staff have chosen not to go to the shelters, but to stay on the ward with the smallest babies and live through the bombing with them.
It says its priority "is to reach victims of armed conflict, wherever they are, in order to assist them".

[DaffyVina]

Russia transfers thousands of Mariupol civilians to its territory
By Laurence Peter -BBC News
Published9 hours ago

IMAGE SOURCE,EPA
Image caption, Dozens of refugees are now housed in a sports centre in Taganrog, Russia, east of Mariupol

Ukraine has accused Russia of forcibly relocating thousands of civilians from Mariupol, the strategic port city devastated by Russian shelling.

Russia is housing an estimated 5,000 at a temporary camp in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, seen in satellite images.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 40,000 had been moved from Ukraine to Russian-held territory without any coordination with Kyiv.

A Mariupol refugee, now in Russia, said: "All of us were taken forcibly".

Some Ukrainian officials describe Russia's actions as "deportations" to "filtration camps" - an echo of Russia's war in Chechnya, when thousands of Chechens were brutally interrogated in makeshift camps and many disappeared.

Photo: Russian refugee camp at Bezimenne
IMAGE SOURCE,SATELLITE IMAGE ©2022 MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES.
Image caption, Tents and a long line of cars at Russia's Bezimenne camp for Mariupol refugees on 22 March

It is an internationally-recognised abuse of human rights for a warring party to deport civilians to its territory.

While 140,000 civilians have managed to escape from besieged Mariupol, another 170,000 are still trapped there, the city council says. Relentless Russian shelling for more than three weeks has reduced the city to ruins, its terrified civilians hiding in cellars, desperately short of water, food and medicine.

The BBC is unable to independently verify the figures for civilians evacuated from Mariupol, or the number killed there.

Relatively few Mariupol civilians have fled via the humanitarian corridors agreed by both sides. Ukraine says Russian troops continued shelling the evacuation routes, which were supposed to be safe.

In parts of Mariupol captured by the Russians, reports suggest the civilians - hungry, thirsty and often sick - have little choice but to head out to Russian-controlled areas and Russia itself.

Matt Morris, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said the ICRC could only evacuate civilians and deliver aid if Russia and Ukraine provided safety guarantees, and that had not happened yet, though the ICRC was speaking to both sides.

"The sides have to be the guarantors and have an agreement to allow safe passage. They have to publicise the route and allow plenty of time for people to get out," he told the BBC.

International humanitarian law, he said, "requires that people should be allowed to leave, but should not be forced to leave". Warring sides should allow aid in and let people stay if they want to, he explained.

"It's a desperate situation in Mariupol - we've called on all sides to facilitate safe access in and out," he said, adding: "We don't have a team currently able to access."

Photo of burned out & wrecked bus in Mariupol, 24 Mar 22
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption, The unremitting Russian bombardment has devastated Mariupol

Irina, a Mariupol refugee and Red Cross volunteer, spoke to the BBC's Wyre Davies via Zoom from a relative's home in Russia.

She said she and others sheltering in a bunker had been told to leave by Russian soldiers, for their own safety. The building was on fire after being shelled.

They walked 4km (2.5 miles) to a Russian checkpoint, and from there were taken further east, to territory held by pro-Russian rebels of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic" (DPR) breakaway region.

"Once there, you were to decide whether you were going to stay in the DPR or go to Russia," she said.

"Some elderly people that I know and whom I met at the distribution point did not know where they were headed and what for. They thought they would be able to stay in Rostov [in Russia] for a couple of months… and then maybe come back to Mariupol.

"Instead, they were taken to Samara [north of Rostov, in southern Russia]. They said they had no idea what to do there, and the accommodation there is provided only for two weeks."

Centuries-old ties between Russia and Ukraine mean that many Ukrainians have relatives in Russia. But it is not clear how many Mariupol refugees have gone willingly to Russia, whose army destroyed their city.

Russia's government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported on 21 March that a long column of refugees' vehicles had taken more than two hours to reach Bezimenne, a coastal village 90km (56 miles) east of Mariupol. About 5,000 refugees are being housed there, in tents, a school and a club. The Russian emergencies ministry has sent aid and workers to the scene.

On the way, the civilians were stopped by DPR rebels at checkpoints, who took their fingerprints and photographed them.

"Their data is checked on a database of wanted criminals. One of the key problems is the shortage of sim cards and not everyone has a mobile phone," the newspaper reported.

Russia denies it is forcibly removing thousands of Ukrainians from their country.

Mariupol's deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC that in his city "some are dying from dehydration and lack of food; some are dying from lack of medicine, insulin". Many bodies have been left lying in the streets, as collecting them is so risky.

"Russian soldiers just open [enter] this shelter and tell them: 'look, you have five minutes to evacuate in this direction. Just go, walk five or three or seven kilometres and the buses will transfer you to temporarily controlled territory [by Russia]. If you don't go this house will be bombed in an hour'," he said.

Dozens of Mariupol refugees are staying in a sports centre in Taganrog, a Russian city between Mariupol and Rostov.

Russian media report that hundreds have also been sent by train more than 1,000km (600 miles) north to the Russian regions of Yaroslavl and Ryazan.

Ukraine's defence ministry says Russia is relocating Ukrainians from occupied areas en masse to distant parts of Russia, including Sakhalin in the far east.

"After passing the filtration camps Ukrainians are sent to economically depressive areas of the Russian Federation. A number of northern regions are called as a final destination, in particular - Sakhalin. Ukrainians are 'offered' official employment through employment centres. Those who agree receive documents banning leaving Russian regions for two years," the ministry said on Facebook.

Ukraine has urged the ICRC not to open an office in Rostov-on-Don - something reportedly under discussion with the Russian Red Cross. Ukraine says it could be used to legitimise deportations.

But the ICRC insisted it "does not want to open an office in southern Russia to 'filter' Ukrainians, as many reports are alleging". "This is not our role, we don't do this. We are not opening a refugee camp."

The ICRC says it "does not ever help organise or carry out forced evacuations", and has only helped in two evacuations so far - from Sumy, a besieged city in the north, to other Ukrainian-held territory.

"We would not support any operation that would go against people's will and our principles," the ICRC said.

[DaffyVina]

War in Ukraine: Anti-war Russians intimidated on their doorsteps
By Ben Tobias - BBC News
Published7 hours ago

Darya Kheikinen in front of her vandalised door
IMAGE SOURCE,DARYA KHEIKINEN
Image caption, Darya Kheikinen's apartment door was vandalised two nights in a row.

Russian activists and journalists speaking out against their country's so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine have had their homes vandalised by unknown pro-Kremlin figures.

Apartment doors have been daubed with threatening graffiti labelling the people inside a "traitor", with messages featuring the letter "Z" - a pro-Kremlin symbol of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Other examples are even more extreme. In one case, a leading Russian journalist discovered a pig's head wearing a wig on his doorstep with an anti-Semitic sticker stuck to his door.

Alexei Venediktov, the long-time editor of radio station Ekho of Moscow before it stopped broadcasting due to increased Russian censorship, posted photos of the vandalism, pointing out the irony of an anti-Semitic attack happening in the "country that defeated fascism".

Such vandalism is a sign of the increasingly intimidating atmosphere in Russia for those people who publicly express their opposition to the war in Ukraine.

Manure on the doorstep

When Darya Kheikinen looked through the peephole on the door of her St Petersburg apartment, she noticed it had been painted red on the outside.

She guessed straight away what had happened - there had been similar instances with other activists.

She opened the door to find the word "traitor" scrawled in large red letters across the outside, several pieces of paper with messages such as "a traitor to the motherland lives here" pinned to her home, and a pile of manure on the mat at her feet.

A pile of manure on Ms Kheikinen's doorstep
IMAGE SOURCE,DARYA KHEIKINEN
Image caption, Darya Kheikinen found a pile of manure on her doorstep two days in a row

"It probably happened because of my public anti-war statements and opposition views," Ms Kheikinen, a well-known political activist, told the BBC, adding that the same thing happened to three other St Petersburg activists at the same time.

It happened again the next morning - but only to her this time.

"The door was covered in green dye, and there was spray foam in the lock. There were signs reading 'we will not forgive Nazism' and 'a Finnish Nazi lives here'," she said, pointing out that her surname is Finnish.

The messages reflect the Kremlin's false claims that Ukraine's government is run by Nazis and its operation in Ukraine is necessary to "denazify" the country.

Ms Kheikinen doesn't know who was responsible for the attack, but said as far as she knows the only people who have her address are her parents and the police.

"I can't say that it has scared me," she said. "Actually, I find it amusing. Imagine some idiot dragging a bag of manure up the stairs to the 11th floor - and doing it two nights in a row!"

'Scum and traitors'
Since Russia's war in Ukraine began, life for those who oppose it has become increasingly difficult. The government passed a law threatening people who spread "fake" information about the war with 15 years in prison.

Vladimir Putin and other politicians have painted any opposition to the war as a betrayal of the country.

"Any people, and especially the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish the true patriots from the scum and the traitors, and just spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouth," the president said in a speech on 16 March.

He went on to claim that the West is trying to destroy Russia by using "fifth columnists" - meaning enemies within - to provoke civil confrontation.

Graffiti on Dmitry Ivanov's door reading 'don't betray the motherland, Dima'
IMAGE SOURCE,DMITRY IVANOV
Image caption, "Don't betray the motherland, Dima", warns a message on Dmitry Ivanov's door

Just a few hours after that speech, student activist Dmitry Ivanov, whose anti-war opinions are a major feature of his Telegram channel with nearly 10,000 followers, received a call from his mother asking if he had seen the graffiti all over the door to their landing.

"It said, 'don't betray the motherland, Dima'," he told the BBC. There were also three large "Z"s, making it clear the message related to Russia's actions in Ukraine.

"The neighbours probably weren't that surprised", he said, explaining that his political opinions are no secret because the police turn up at his door every now and then to warn him against attending protests.

The doors of three other activists and journalists in Moscow were also vandalised that evening.

But Mr Ivanov, whose activism began by reporting on a protest against a noisy fan-zone directly outside his university during the 2018 football World Cup in Russia, said the attack hasn't put him off.

"The actions of the police frighten me much more. They have the resources and power to ruin people's lives, but this - this is just minor hooliganism."

He decided not to report the vandalism to the police, because he didn't want to end up on the wrong side of them, he said.

Incidents like these might be minor, but they are the product of a political environment where you either support the war or are labelled a traitor.

The consequences for those who oppose Russia's actions in Ukraine are wide-ranging, and can include losing your job or even criminal prosecution.

But Mr Ivanov says that despite the danger, his opposition will continue.

"The threat of 15 years in jail worries me. But the war is much more scary. This completely destructive, senseless cruelty carried out by our country in our name - it is just a huge shock."

Sticker reading 'a traitor lives here'
IMAGE SOURCE,.
Image caption, A sticker attached to an apartment in Kaliningrad reads 'a traitor lives here', using an English 'Z' and 'V' - pro-Kremlin symbols of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

[DaffyVina]

Boris Nemtsov: Murdered Putin rival 'tailed' by agent linked to FSB hit squad
By BBC Eye Investigations -World Service
Published1 hour ago

Video
Media caption, Russian agent linked to political assassination team was tracking Boris Nemtsov, investigation finds

Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shadowed by an agent linked to a political assassination team for almost a year before he was shot dead, an investigation has found.

Nemtsov was a fierce adversary of President Vladimir Putin. His murder in 2015 is the highest-profile political killing since Putin came to power.

The authorities deny any involvement.

Bellingcat, The Insider and the BBC found evidence that Nemtsov was shadowed on 13 trips before his murder.

Boris Nemtsov rose to prominence in the 1990s, served as deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, and was widely tipped to be Yeltsin's successor.

Instead, Mr Putin came to power and Mr Nemtsov was pushed to the margins of Russian politics. He became an effective campaigner, exposing corruption and denouncing Russia's 2014 attack on eastern Ukraine.

On 27 February 2015, Mr Nemtsov was shot dead, just yards from the Kremlin, and just days before he was due to lead a protest against the war.

Five men of Chechen origin were quickly arrested and later jailed for his murder. But the official investigation left the most urgent questions unanswered: who ordered the killing and why?

Seven years later, the BBC - working with the investigative websites Bellingcat and The Insider - can reveal evidence that in the months running up to the killing, Nemtsov was being followed across Russia by a government agent linked to a secret assassination squad.

Using leaked train and flight reservation data, the investigation shows that Mr Nemtsov was followed on at least 13 journeys.

The last time the agent followed Mr Nemtsov was on 17 February 2015, just 10 days before the assassination.

Boris Nemtsov
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption, Boris Nemtsov attends a protest rally against alleged vote rigging in Russia's parliamentary elections on 10 December, 2011 in Moscow.

According to his documents, the agent's name is Valery Sukharev. All the evidence suggests that at the time, he served with the FSB, Russia's main security agency. One of the mandates of the FSB is to manage internal political threats on behalf of the Kremlin, including monitoring movements of people across the country.

All flight and train reservations are recorded in an FSB database called Magistral. But the database not only captures the movements of people Russian agents might want to track, it can also be used to reveal the movements of the agents themselves - people like Mr Sukharev.

This kind of information is often leaked on to the black market and ends up in the hands of journalists.

"In a corrupt society like Russia, [Magistral] is a double-edged sword," says Christo Grozev, executive director of Bellingcat.

"And it allows people like us to actually go and tail these same spies, these same FSB officers."

Some of the original data for this investigation was bought by Bellingcat through brokers inside Russia. Those brokers acquired the data from corrupt officials who have access to Magistral. The BBC also used data that was given to us, without payment, from sources who have access to copies of Magistral.

Bellingcat has previously used data from Magistral to investigate assassination attempts in Russia. Their investigations revealed evidence of the existence of a secret hit squad within the FSB, which has targeted opponents of the Kremlin. The Russian government has always denied these allegations.

For this investigation, we got hold of the train and flight reservations made by Mr Sukharev - and when we compared them to the known movements of Boris Nemtsov, an unmistakable pattern emerged.

Video
Media caption, A visualisation of the trips taken by a secret agent and opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in the year before he was murdered

Most of Mr Nemtsov's trips took him from Moscow, where he lived, to Yaroslavl - 272km (169 miles) north-east of the capital - where he sat in the regional parliament.

It appears that Mr Sukharev knew Mr Nemtsov's plans in advance, because he often arrived in the same city just minutes or hours ahead of Mr Nemtsov.

One trip in particular reveals just how closely Mr Nemtsov was being tracked. In the summer of 2014 he travelled to Siberia. Mr Nemtsov booked his flight online on 2 July just after midnight. Exactly 10 minutes later, Mr Sukharev bought a ticket to the same destination, Novosibirsk, arriving on the same day as Mr Nemtsov.

An FSB agent could use Magistral to track a target with this degree of precision, according to Mr Grozev.

"If you're an FSB officer, you would just be able to log into that database and see, for a particular person, all of the tickets that they're purchasing, have purchased, or are buying at this very moment," he told the BBC.

The poison squad
It is not unusual in Russia for security agencies to keep tabs on prominent opposition leaders.

But Mr Sukharev was not just a low-ranking FSB recruit on routine business. Bellingcat, in a previous investigation, linked him to two apparent assassination attempts, both aimed at prominent critics of Mr Putin.

The first target was Mr Nemtsov's friend and protege Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition politician who, in the weeks after the shooting, was already pointing the finger of blame at the Kremlin.

In May 2015, Sukharev was part of a team that went to Kazan, a city in Eastern Russia, at the same time as Mr Kara-Murza. Two days after Mr Kara-Murza returned to Moscow he collapsed unable to breathe. He fell into a coma and suffered multiple organ failure but recovered.

He was poisoned for a second time in 2017, and once again survived. The Russian government rejects the allegation that their operatives were involved in the poisonings.

Photo: Russian agent Valery Sukharev
Image caption, Russian agent Valery Sukharev

The second target was Alexei Navalny, the now-jailed opposition leader whose anti-corruption videos have reached millions of Russians.

In 2020, Mr Navalny was poisoned using Novichok, a nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union and banned under international law. Bellingcat established that an FSB team tracked Mr Navalny to the eastern city of Tomsk immediately before the poisoning.

It found that Mr Sukharev was not part of the ground team that physically followed Mr Navalny. But phone logs reveal that, in the months immediately before the poisoning, Mr Sukharev exchanged 145 phone calls or texts with at least four members of that team, as well as with an FSB officer further up the chain of command.

Four of these men were among the seven FSB agents later sanctioned by the US and UK governments for their involvement in the attempted assassination.

The Russian government has always denied any involvement in the poisoning of Mr Navalny.

The BBC asked the Russian government and the FSB to comment on the evidence that Mr Nemtsov was being shadowed by an agent linked to an assassination squad.

The Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: "All of this has nothing to do with the Russian government. It looks like another fabrication." The FSB did not respond.

[DaffyVina]

23:32 27 Mar
World needs to act immediately to help Mariupol, says French FM
The scale of the disaster in Ukraine's south-eastern city Mariupol demands immediate action, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said at the Doha Forum, a meeting of policy makers.

"You can very well see that Mariupol is a second Aleppo with, I hope, a collective guilt if we don't do anything," he said, referring to a Syrian city that saw some of the worst fighting of the country's brutal civil war.

"Mariupol is a siege war that Russia's been in for a month now. Maybe it wasn't envisaged as a siege war but today we're in siege warfare, and Mariupol is one of the most striking examples.

"Military sieges are horrible wars because civil populations are massacred, annihilated. The suffering is terrible."

A local resident cries standing near her destroyed apartment in the besieged city of Mariupol
Copyright: Reuters



0:11
UK appoints war crimes lawyer to advise Ukraine

The UK Government's top legal adviser has appointed a war crimes lawyer to advise Ukraine over the Russian invasion.

Attorney General Suella Braveman says Sir Howard Morrison QC will act as an independent adviser to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

Sir Howard has served as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court (ICC) for more than 12 years, including overseeing cases involving figures such as Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic.

Earlier this month Braverman signed a joint statement of support with Venediktova, pledging support to gather evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Ukraine by Putin's regime.

She told the House of Commons on Thursday "all options are on the table" when it comes to seeking to prosecute Putin's regime for war crimes but has insisted the UK's preferred approach is to hold those responsible to account through the ICC.



0:37
Zelensky to insist on sovereignty at peace negotiations

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says his priorities will be sovereignty and territorial integrity at the next round of negotiations with Russia.

Peace talks are due to take place in Turkey this week.

"Effective guarantees of security are a must," he said.

"Obviously our goal is peace and return to normal life in our country as soon as possible", he says.

He earlier said that he was willing to discuss adopting a neutral status, a major point of contention with Russia.



2:15
Global protests in support of Ukraine
Demonstrations took place across the world on Sunday, with protesters calling for an end to war in Ukraine.

Demonstrators with Ukrainian flags gather outside London's Houses of Parliament
Copyright: Reuters
Image caption: This was the scene outside the Houses of Parliament in London

Ukrainians who live in Lebanon hold a huge flag during a demonstration in the capital Beirut
Copyright: EPA
In Lebanon demonstrators held a huge flag in BeirutImage caption: In Lebanon demonstrators held a huge flag in Beirut

Protesters against the Ukraine war gather outside the Russian Embassy in Chisinau, Moldova
Copyright: EPA
Image caption: 'A month of war already maybe is enough?' reads a placard held in front of the Russian Embassy in Chisinau, Moldova

Demonstrators hold signs in support of Ukraine at the National Mall in Washington
Copyright: Reuters
Image caption: US protesters rallied on the National Mall in Washington

Demonstrators hold sunflowers and flags in support of Ukraine in Chile
Copyright: EPA
In Santiago, Chile, protesters held sunflowers, Ukraine's national flower

[DaffyVina]

2:44
A dire situation for civilians trapped in embattled Chernihiv

Photo: Ruined Hotel Ukraine in Chernihiv
Copyright: Reuters
Image caption: The ruins of a hotel in Chernihiv that was hit by a Russian airstrike

Tens of thousands of civilians are trapped in the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, where they've been left without gas, running water, or electricity after a month of heavy fighting.

Chernihiv, located on the banks of the Desna River, was among the first Ukrainian cities to be attacked by Russian troops who crossed over from Belarus in an effort to reach Kyiv.
A month on, the city has yet to fall - but is effectively cut off from the rest of the country.

"There is no safe way out," Chernihiv state governor Vladyslav Chaus told the BBC.



3:09
Ukraine claims Russia withdrawing troops from Kyiv region after heavy losses

Photo: Destroyed Russian armoured vehicles
Copyright: Getty Images
Destroyed Russian vehicles near Kyiv on 25 MarchImage caption: Destroyed Russian vehicles near Kyiv on 25 March

Russia has been forced to withdraw forces from the Kyiv region after suffering heavy losses, the General Staff of Ukraine's military says.

In an update on the fighting, the General Staff said that two battalion tactical groups of the Russian army were withdrawn into Belarus, which it said is typical of units that have suffered "significant losses".
Additionally, the update noted that there is a "significant decrease in the intensity" of units moving from Russia into Ukraine.

In another recent assessment, the UK's Ministry of Defence said Russia had effectively cut off Ukraine from international maritime trade through a naval blockade of the Black Sea coast.

Last week Russia said it planned to refocus its invasion on the east, although since then reports of strikes in major cities have continued.



4:01
Damage to Ukraine's infrastructure estimated at $63 billion

The war in Ukraine has caused more than $63 billion (£47.8bn) in damage to infrastructure, according to a new estimate from the Kyiv School of Economics.

According to the estimate - which calculated the economic impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine through 24 March - at least 4,431 residential buildings have been damaged, destroyed, or seized, along with 92 factories and warehouses and 378 schools.

Additionally, 12 airports have been destroyed, damaged, or captured, as well as seven thermal or hydroelectric powerplants.

The estimate notes that since the school's previous estimate was published on 17 March, a total of $3.5bn worth of damage has been sustained.



4:25
Russian troops have left Chernobyl town: Mayor
Russian forces have reportedly left a town they seized just outside the nuclear plant Chernobyl after protests from residents.

According to a Reuters report, Mayor Yuri Fomichev said in an online video post on Monday that troops had completed the work "they had set out to do" and had left the town of Slavutych.

Russian forces had on Saturday took control of Slavutych and briefly detained the mayor.

But their occupation was protested by hundreds of local Ukrainians who took to the streets bearing flags, and he was later released.

Slavutych is home mainly to the workers needed to maintain the now-offline Chernobyl nuclear plant - site of the 1986 nuclear disaster.


4:50
'Irresponsible' Russian actions at Chernobyl putting millions at risk - Ukraine

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has accused Russia of committing "irresponsible" and potentially dangerous acts around the occupied Chernobyl power station.

The site - the scene of the world's worst nuclear accident - was taken soon after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.

Vereshchuk accused Russia of "militarising" the site and transporting old and poorly maintained weapons near it, which she said could damage a containment vessel around its destroyed fourth reactor.

She also accused Russian troops of preventing firefighters from combating a number of fires in the area.

"In the context of nuclear safety, the irresponsible and unprofessional actions of Russian servicemen present a very serious threat not only to Ukraine but to hundreds of millions of Europeans," she said.

The BBC was not able to independently verify these claims.


6:40
Russian forces disposition unchanged: UK Defence
In its latest update on the situation in Ukraine, the UK's Ministry of Defence says that there has been "no significant change to Russian forces' dispositions in the country" over the last 24 hours.

They also say that "ongoing logistical shortages have been compounded by a continued lack of momentum and morale against the Russian military, and aggressive fighting by the Ukrainians".

They add Russia has gained most ground in the south near the city of Mariupol where heavy fighting continues as Russia attempts to capture the port.


7:18
Red Cross still unable to reach Mariupol

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said it is still unable to get any aid into besieged Mariupol, as it requires Russia and Ukraine to guarantee safe passage.

"The sides have to be the guarantors and have an agreement to allow safe passage. They have to publicise the route and allow plenty of time for people to get out," ICRC spokesman Matt Morris told the BBC. "We don't have a team currently able to access," he said.

International humanitarian law, he said, "requires that people should be allowed to leave, but should not be forced to leave". Many Mariupol residents have been sheltering in cellars for weeks, short of food, water and medicines.

Ukraine accuses Russia of forcibly moving thousands of civilians from the devastated city to Russian-controlled areas. Russia has denied any coercion, but has reported evacuations under Russian escort.

The ICRC says it never assists any forced evacuations and has denied any plan to help Russia "filter" Ukrainian refugees from Mariupol.


7:36
Russia's aim is slow and methodical capture of towns - military expert
Dr Jack Watling, research fellow for land warfare at the London-based defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute, gives his latest assessment of Russia's movements inside Ukraine.

He says the Russians have committed most of the forces they've built up and that most of these forces are inside Ukraine; they are not able to redeploy forces around the country.

"So what determines where they make progress now is where they are making the main effort in terms of resources and logistics. The main effort at the moment is the south, where they attempt to finish the battle for Mariupol, and then wrap around the flank of Ukrainian military units in the Donbas, to try and cut them off, so pushing north from a southern axis."

They've gone static between Kherson and Mykolaiv, and it's very unlikely that they will be able to make progress on that front, he adds.

It's more about pushing north from Crimea along the Dnieper river to try and encircle the joint forces operations area which is where many of Ukraine's best units are.

Quote Message: Because the Russian morale is low, because they don't have the numbers to take these cities by storm, they are surrounding them and then starving people out, and just flattening the city progressively with artillery.
Because the Russian morale is low, because they don't have the numbers to take these cities by storm, they are surrounding them and then starving people out, and just flattening the city progressively with artillery.

The Russians advanced along more axes than they could sustain in the first part of the conflict, and are now in a position where they can only resource one axis at a time. At the moment, their priority seems to be to defeat Ukrainian forces in the Donbas if they can. Once they finish in Mariupol, they're likely to reinforce the axis against Kharkiv to the north of the Donbas.

And so the intent is very much a slow and methodical capture of towns one by one, he concludes.


8:16
Erdogan stresses ceasefire in phone call with Putin
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a conversation on Sunday called on his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for a ceasefire and better humanitarian conditions for civilians following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Erdogan noted the importance of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, the implementation of peace and the improvement of humanitarian conditions in the region," his office said, as reported by Reuters.

"President Erdogan stated that Turkey would continue to lend every kind of support regarding the process," the office of the Turkish president tweeted on Sunday.

It added that Putin and Erdogan agreed on holding the next round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul.

[DaffyVina]

Newspaper: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 45120.html
Aine Fo
3 hours ago
Russian soldiers raping women in Ukraine, MP says
Ukrainian MP Maria Mezentseva says country ‘will not be silent’ about ‘horrors’


Russian soldiers have been raping Ukraine’s women as they wage war on the country, an MP has said, with one victim allegedly repeatedly attacked in front of her child after her partner was shot dead.

Ukraine will “not be silent” about the “horror” of rapes being committed against women during the Russian invasion, Maria Mezentseva said.

The Ukrainian MP said while one particularly shocking case had been publicly talked about, there are “many more victims” who will need support in the future.

She referred to a case which Ukraine’s prosecutor is investigating, where a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted in front of her child.

Ms Mezentseva, who is head of the permanent delegation of Ukraine to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said details of incidents must be recorded as they happen because “justice has to prevail”.

She told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “There is one case which was very widely discussed recently because it’s been recorded and proceeded with (by) the prosecutor’s office, and we’re not going into details, but it’s quite a scary scene when a civilian was shot dead in his house in a small town next to Kyiv.

“His wife was – I’m sorry but I have to say it – raped several times in front of her underage child.”

Ms Mezentseva, who was speaking to Sky from western Ukraine, said the country could benefit from the experience of other countries, such as the UK, in how to help victims in the aftermath of war.

She said: “There are many more victims rather than just this one case which has been made public by the prosecutor general.

“And of course, we are expecting many more of them, which will be public once victims will be ready to talk about that.”

She insisted: “We will definitely not be silent.”

She described war as “violence”, but added that this particular incident is “horror”, questioning how a child will cope after seeing something so distressing.

The MP added: “That’s why you know, when we’ve been talking to Boris Johnson, when we will be talking to your Home Office, when we’ve been talking to MPs of UK, we’ve also raised this issue that this aftermath, which we are dealing with right now, the aftermath of war, has to be taken very cautiously, very seriously, and to take into account the UK experience and experience of other countries, which can help us in dealing with psychologists, and how to help these people to actually live over these cases, to keep going afterwards, to keep living.”

She added: “Of course justice has to prevail, that’s why these cases are taken very seriously.”

Ms Mezentseva said there had also been two incidents reported in the past week where Russian soldiers are accused of shooting at civilians queuing for humanitarian aid.

She said: “This is just an absolute fact of a war crime against (the) Ukrainian civilian population.

“This is definitely not soldiers against soldiers. This is something which is going beyond the normal understanding of war conduct.”

[DaffyVina]

Guardian Newspaper - Guardian.com
Diane Taylor
Mon 28 Mar 2022 06.00 BST

‘Scandal in plain sight’: charities call for help for Ukrainian seasonal workers
Farm workers in UK at risk of destitution and abuse, and should be on family scheme visas, say campaigners

Photo: Farm workers pick vegetablea in Taplow, Buckinghamshire
Ukrainians made up by far the largest proportion of workers in the UK on seasonal farm worker visas in 2021.
Photograph: Maureen McLean/Rex/Shutterstock

Lawyers and campaigners have called on the government to take urgent action to help thousands of Ukrainian seasonal farm workers who were in the UK when the war started and have been left at risk of destitution, abuse and exploitation here.

Ukrainians made up by far the largest proportion of workers in the UK on seasonal worker visas in 2021. Of the 29,631 visas issued under the T5 seasonal work scheme, 19,920 – 67% – were given to Ukrainians. The Scottish Refugee Council estimates that there are up to 6,000 in the UK.

While the government has announced two schemes to allow Ukrainians to come to the UK – the family visa scheme and the community sponsorship scheme – Ukrainian farm workers who are here on six-month visas do not qualify for either.

The Home Office has extended the seasonal farm worker visas until the end of 2024 but workers are tied to their employer, cannot seek alternative work outside the farming sector and have no recourse to public funds. They do not have the right to bring family members to the UK from Ukraine.

Graham O’Neill, the policy manager at the Scottish Refugee Council, is calling for this group of temporary workers to be immediately moved on to the Ukraine family scheme, which has more rights attached to it.

“We regard the UK government’s lack of action … at this traumatic time as a scandal in plain sight,” he said.

Focus On Labour Exploitation (Flex) and other organisations have written to the home secretary, Priti Patel, and the immigration minister Kevin Foster raising concerns about the plight of Ukrainian farm workers and calling on government to make policy concessions in order to safeguard them.

Lucila Granada, the chief executive of Flex, said: “We want to see the safety and wellbeing of this group of Ukrainian workers prioritised. They should be given permission to work outside the agricultural sector and they should be given recourse to public funds.”

Jennifer Blair, a barrister and co-founder of the Ukraine Advice Project, said that about 1,000 Ukrainians had sought legal advice from them, including many farm workers. She said this group had been “particularly badly impacted”.

James Seddon, a Lancashire leek farmer, said he had four Ukrainians working for him – couples who were desperate to bring their children to the UK but were unable to do so.

“We will do anything we possibly can to try to help,” he said. “For Ukrainians currently here on farm worker visas the amount of work they have access to depends on the kind of farm they are working on. Those where farms cannot supply them continuous work because of the kind of crops grown are particularly struggling.”

Poor working conditions and exploitation among seasonal farm workers is well documented. Earlier this month, the Work Rights Centre published a report about exploitation of farm workers in the UK on seasonal work visas. Many of the workers facing exploitation on farms are Ukrainian.

One of the Ukrainian farm workers they are supporting, Oksana (no her real name), an IT worker in Ukraine, obtained a visa to come to the UK in August 2021 for a few months to earn some money, with her partner, a medical student.

They were given work on a berry farm but were exploited and given work only intermittently. They complained about the exploitation but nothing was done so they left the farm and are living undocumented, working without permission in cleaning and construction respectively. The Home Office does not allow applications to the family or community sponsor visa schemes from within the UK so the couple are stuck.

Oksana said she was “lost and torn” between staying undocumented in the UK or returning to Ukraine to help fight.

The Home Office declined to comment on the visa situation for Ukrainian workers. A government spokesperson said: “We are moving as quickly as possible to ensure that those fleeing horrific persecution in Ukraine can find safety in the UK, setting up both the Ukraine family scheme and now the homes for Ukraine scheme, which allows those without family connections to come here.”

[DaffyVina]

Guardian Newspaper Guardian.com
Shaun Walker in Kyiv
Mon 28 Mar 2022 06.00 BST

Escape from Irpin: frail residents helped to safety after month of hell
Some of the last people to leave the town near Kyiv describe constant noise, near misses and unbearable conditions

An injured woman evacuated from Irpin lies on a stretcher in an ambulance on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Photograph: Vadim Ghirdă/AP

Every few minutes, an ambulance or an unmarked white van arrives at a dusty courtyard on the western outskirts of Kyiv and an elderly, frail person is helped – or sometimes stretchered – from the back.

These are some of the last residents of Irpin, a commuter town a few miles from Kyiv. They are those who were too old, too frail or too sick to leave earlier. Instead they have endured a month of hell as Russian forces pushed into the surrounding area during the first days of the war. The town has seen heavy fighting and has come under intense Russian bombardment.

Volunteers hand out tea and sandwiches to the new arrivals, and those who are fit to travel arrange rides to relatives in the city or further afield. Others are stretchered into a makeshift medical tent and then transferred to hospitals or care homes.

Not everyone makes it. On Friday a woman arrived with an open leg wound, apparently caused by a mortar attack. She died the next day in hospital.

On Saturday afternoon a tiny woman who appeared to be well into her 90s sat shivering on a chair, wrapped in a green blanket and staring into the distance, shocked, confused and unable to speak.

Tamara Osypchuk, 72, was a more lively evacuee, crying with joy as she was able to get through by phone to her daughter, who lives in Britain, for the first time in a week and inform her she was safe.

“I live on the ninth floor and I have problems walking. Today is the first time I’ve been outside in three years,” she said, cloaked in a floor-length fur coat. While most remaining Irpin residents now sleep in basements, she had spent the past month in her apartment, wondering if each explosion would be her last.

Tamara Osypchuk, evacuated from Irpin on Saturday.
Photograph: Shaun Walker/Guardian

“The noise outside was incredible. All the time: bam, bam, bam,” she said, shouting at the top of her voice to indicate the noise. The opposite corner of her apartment building was blown off, but her flat somehow remained unscathed. She said frequent prayer had stopped her from panicking.

“You have to look death in the eyes and not be scared. You should live as a human being, and leave this earth as a human being, with dignity. I wasn’t going to sit in any basement,” she said.

Irpin was one of a number of towns west of Kyiv the Russians pushed towards after landing forces at the nearby Hostomel airbase in the first few days of the invasion. However, Russia’s plans to encircle or seize Kyiv quickly became bogged down in fighting. Ukrainian forces now claim to control 80% of the territory of Irpin, and to be close to encircling Russian troops in the wider area. Heavy fighting continues.

Since early March there has been no gas, water or electricity in Irpin, and almost no medicine.

Ukrainian forces blew up the bridge linking Irpin to Kyiv early in the war, to halt the Russian advance on the capital, meaning residents could only leave by crossing on foot across the ruins, which are strewn with abandoned, destroyed vehicles and still come under frequent Russian fire.

For Oleksiy Ignatenkov, a 41-year-old businessman who coordinates a group of volunteers helping with evacuations from Irpin, the refusal of some residents to leave is infuriating.

“We sometimes go to the same places again and again and beg them, but they won’t go,” he said, looking harried and exhausted.

Evacuations have to be coordinated so that volunteers or soldiers in Irpin bring the residents to the bridge, carry them across, and are then met by more volunteers on the other side, who drive them a few minutes to the outskirts of Kyiv, where the booms in the distance are a constant reminder of what is happening in Irpin.

A Ukrainian police officer is overwhelmed by emotion after comforting people evacuated from Irpin on Saturday.
Photograph: Vadim Ghirdă/AP

“The evacuation route comes under mortar fire two or three times a day. It’s like playing Russian roulette every time,” said Ignatenkov.

On Thursday two volunteers died during an evacuation attempt, he said, showing on his phone a video of the car after the attack, scarlet pools of blood in the front seats. He asked not to name the victims.

Alexander Kolomiets, a 27-year-old trainee paediatrician who performs standup comedy in his spare time, was one of the few young people to remain in Irpin after the first week of fighting. He described a month of close shaves and near misses.

“One morning I was getting water from the well and suddenly I heard noises, and I just jumped into the well and grabbed on to the sides with my arms and legs, like Spider-Man. I don’t know how I did it but it saved my life as there was shrapnel flying everywhere,” he said.

He tried to feed as many pets as he could. “I was dashing into abandoned apartments where pets remained when there were gaps in the shelling, to quickly feed them,” he said. One house was hit half an hour after he left; another building took a direct hit just before he arrived. In one location he left the attic to look for a cat downstairs, and seconds later a shell hit the roof, destroying the upper floor.

It is not just the shelling that kills, it is also the nervous tension. “I saw old people fighting over bread. Everyone was so on edge. Humour is important in these situations. I stayed to try to cheer people up, I tried to joke with people, and calm them down,” Kolomiets said.

But late one night he heard the terrified screams of an elderly woman. When dawn broke he discovered it had been the grandmother of his childhood friend: her husband had dropped dead from a heart attack, apparently unable to cope with the misery all around.

“We buried him in the courtyard that morning. Can you imagine that? Burying, with your own hands, in your own courtyard, someone you’ve known all your life,” he said.

Another of the weekend’s evacuees from Irpin with enough energy to speak about the ordeal was 45-year-old Svitlana Rohutska, who runs an online construction business and also breeds Schnauzer puppies. She remained in Irpin because she did not want to abandon her dogs.

Svitlana Rohutska with some of her dogs.
Photograph: Shaun Walker/Guardian

“I couldn’t leave the puppies. There are big dogs left behind, and they’re all starving and forming packs. They would have eaten my babies,” she said.

She had spent the past month in a basement together with six other people. They had plenty of food but the constant shelling and the poor sanitary conditions became unbearable.

“We were becoming hysterical. Everyone was screaming at each other. Yesterday one of the others died; he either had a blood clot or it was coronavirus, we don’t know. He just died right there. I realised I had to get out. I need to wash, I need a doctor, I need to see a psychologist,” she said.

She crossed the bridge carrying four of her dogs and a cat, and with seven puppies stuffed into a suitcase.

Russian soldiers in Irpin on 12 March.
Photograph: supplied

While underground, Rohutska heard Russian soldiers passing on the street above, apparently on the hunt for food and supplies, she said. Another Irpin resident shared photographs taken in the town on 12 March, appearing to show Russian soldiers entering private property, and claimed they had been looting local houses. “Those orcs were taking anything they could get their hands on,” she said.

While most people who have left Irpin are relieved to have reached the relative safety of Kyiv, Kolomiets said he planned to return on Monday in an attempt to persuade more people to leave.

“The people who are left now are the people who really can’t walk: drug addicts, alcoholics and the really old pensioners. These are the people we have to take the most care of,” he said.

[DaffyVina]

9:14
Mayor calls for complete evacuation of Mariupol

Buildings shelled by Russian forces in Mariupol
Copyright: BBC
Image caption: Shelling by Russian forces has prevented civilians from being able to evacuate the besieged port city

The key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe and must be completely evacuated, its mayor has said.

Around 160,000 civilians were trapped in the city without power on Monday, mayor Vadym Boichenko said.

He added that 26 buses were waiting to evacuate civilians but Russian forces had not agreed to give them safe passaage.

"The Russian Federation is playing with us," he said.

Russian forces have encircled the city, leaving civilians desperately short of water, food and medicine.

Earlier, we reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it is still unable to get any aid into besieged Mariupol, as it requires Russia and Ukraine to guarantee safe passage.

Russia has denied targeting civilians and blames Ukraine for the repeated failure to agree on safe corridors for trapped civilians.


9:40
No plans for Ukraine civilian evacuations on Monday
Photo: Ukrainian citizens fleeing the war
Copyright: EPA
Image caption: A humanitarian crisis is growing, with many cities under intense bombardment

Ukraine has no plans to open any humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from cities under siege on Monday, the Deputy Prime Minister has said.

Iryna Vereshchuk said the decision was taken because of intelligence reports warning of possible Russian "provocations" along the routes.

Safe corridors have been set up from Mariupol, Sumy and towns and villages outside the capital Kyiv which are currently surrounded or almost surrounded by Russian forces.

However, Russian shelling previously prevented the evacuation of civilians from besieged cities, throwing attempted evacuations into chaos.

Infographic on Number of Ukrainian civilians fleeing to other countries - "More than 3.8m people have fled Ukraine"