Tag: Russia-Ukraine invasion

Kramatorsk death toll rises, and new call for Paris 2024 athlete ban

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Here’s the latest from Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine for Thursday 29 June 2023.

The death toll from Russian strikes that destroyed a restaurant in the Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk rose to twelve on Thursday morning, with around sixty people injured. 

In his daily address on Wednesday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the attack as “terrorist” and announced the arrest of an individual who had “coordinated” the Russian fire.

In Kramatorsk on Thursday morning, where the Russian strikes also hit homes, shops, a post office and other buildings, rescue workers removed another body, according to Ukraine’s interior minister, bringing the death toll to twelve. 

Figures differ on the number of people injured in the attack, with the interior ministry saying 65 people were wounded, and local emergency services say 60. 

Three children are among the twelve dead, and one was injured. Eleven people were rescued.

Ukrainian authorities say Russia fired two S-300 missiles – surface-to-air devices that it also uses for ground strikes – at Kramatorsk, which had a population of 150,000 before the war.

Russia bans critical news outlet

Russian authorities have declared a news outlet critical of the Kremlin an “undesirable” organisation, effectively banning it from operating in Russia as part of a continued crackdown on dissent.

Novaya Gazeta Europe was founded by former journalists of the prominent independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta that was stripped of its media license last year. It operates from outside Russia.

Prosecutor General’s office accused the outlet of “creating and disseminating materials to the detriment of the interests” of Russia – namely, “false information about alleged wide-spread violations of the rights and freedoms of citizens in Russia, accusations against our country of unleashing an aggressive war on Ukraine, of committing war crimes against civilian population, and of repressions.”

Labeling the publication “undesirable” outlaws its operation in Russia and exposes its journalists, others working with it and its donors to criminal charges.

In recent years, Russia has methodically targeted people and organizations critical of the Kremlin, branding many as “foreign agents” and declaring some “undesirable” under a 2015 law that made membership in “undesirable” organizations a criminal offense.

Last week, Russian authorities slapped the label on the World Wide Fund for Nature and prominent rights group Agora. Earlier this year, the environmental pressure group Greenpeace was forced to close its Russian division after Moscow declared it to be an undesirable organisation.

Belarusian leader approved forced transfers of Ukrainian children, says opposition

A Belarusian opposition activist says that he has provided the International Criminal Court with materials allegedly detailing President Alexander Lukashenko’s involvement in the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus, accusations angrily rejected by Minsk.

Lukashenko has been Moscow’s closest ally, allowing the Kremlin to use Belarusian territory to send troops and weapons into Ukraine, welcoming a continued Russian military presence in Belarus and the deployment of some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons there.

The authoritarian leader has also agreed to a “union state” project that has seen Moscow and Minsk tighten their economic, political and defense ties, while so far stopping short of a full merger.

Pavel Latushka, a former Belarusian culture minister, said Tuesday that the materials he has handed over to the ICC indicate that more than 2,100 Ukrainian children from at least 15 Russia-occupied Ukrainian cities have been forcibly taken to Belarus with Lukashenko’s approval.

Latushka voiced hope that the materials would prompt the ICC to issue a warrant for Lukashenko’s arrest, as it did with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The court’s prosecution office on Wednesday didn’t confirm receipt of the materials described by Latushka. It said in a written statement that it is “duty bound to protect the confidentiality of the information received. Therefore, we usually do not comment on such communications.”

In March, the ICC issued warrants for both Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. Judges in The Hague said they found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the two were responsible for the war crimes of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Moscow has angrily rejected the move.

Ukraine athlete wants Russians banned from Paris 2024 Olympics

Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh has said since the start of the war that all Russian and Belarusian athletes should be excluded from international events, including the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Speaking on Wednesday a short distance from International Olympic Committee headquarters, Mahuchikh did not understand why opinions changed there after it had been pro-exclusion last year.

“Thomas Bach said at the start of the war he supported us and stayed in a strong position,” Mahuchikh, speaking about the IOC president, told The Associated Press ahead of this week’s Diamond League meet in Lausanne. “But now it’s not changed in the situation in Ukraine. Why did they change?”

The IOC gave different advice this year as qualifying events for the Paris Olympics approached, and Bach criticised Ukraine’s government last week for helping to block athletes from competing in events that now allow Russians to take part.

The IOC said Wednesday it invited all track and field athletes competing at the Athletissima meet to visit its headquarters on Thursday — the day Mahuchikh competes — and talk with Bach.

Olympic sports bodies have been urged since March to allow neutral Russian athletes — those evaluated as not actively supporting the war, nor contracted to military or state security agencies — to compete in international events without their flag, anthem or national colors.

Excluding them on the basis of their passports alone was discrimination, the IOC has said, while also adding that sports where Russians and Belarusians competed have not had security incidents. Tennis fans with Russian flags threatened security staff and were removed at the Australian Open in January.

Defending Russian athletes while citing human rights is unacceptable to Mahuchikh, the Olympic bronze medalist from the Tokyo Games behind Russian rival Mariya Lasitskene and Australian jumper Nicola Olyslagers.

“It is very difficult to compete with people who destroyed your country. Really every day the Russians do missile attacks to all territories of Ukraine,” said the 21-year-old native of Dnipro who now lives and trains in Belgium. “I don’t know what (more) we should do because we talk about and showed what they do. But, of course, we have people who support us and who understand the whole situation that happened.

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Ukrainians concerned about corruption as donors pledge billions

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Ukrainian businesses listed corruption and a lack of control over public funds as their biggest concerns in the reconstruction of their country.

As an entrepreneur trying to run a small business in Ukraine during the war, things have not been easy. 

Kseniia Goldovska’s software development company has continued to operate, although with difficulties. 

New clients are hesitant about working with Ukrainian companies during the conflict whilst old clients are struggling with budget limitations.

Nevertheless, she is determined to keep attracting new investment from abroad and support the country by paying taxes in preparation for the reconstruction process that Ukraine will have to partially fund itself.

One of her biggest concerns though is corruption: “The main issue is the amount of investment that could be stolen,” she tells Euronews. 

Goldovska’s not alone with those worries.

Corruption is the number one fear for citizens and business owners when it comes to rebuilding Ukraine, according to a report from Transparency International, even more than the resumption of hostilities.

The survey found that 73% of the population and 80% of businesses listed the “restoration of corruption schemes” as the main fear, followed by the “lack of control and embezzlement of public funds” at 68% and 73%, respectively.

Ukraine’s reputation as one of Europe’s most corrupt countries has also concerned donors and allies, particularly the USA and EU that explicitly stated that Kyiv needs to execute reforms in order to receive new financial aid packages. 

Billions pledged in reconstruction funds

International leaders in politics and business met at the Ukraine Reconstruction Conference in London in June to discuss the monumental task of rebuilding Ukraine. 

Billions of euros were pledged, on top of the hundreds of billions already promised to the war-torn country — and whilst many Ukrainians are optimistic about the future, one thing weighs on their minds that could hinder redevelopment projects:  corruption.

Ukraine needs a huge amount of money to restore itself, with the World Bank estimating in April that Russia’s full-scale invasion has caused $411 billion (€376.6 billion) in damages and assessed that $14.1 billion (€12.92 billion) is needed this year alone for a “quick recovery”. 

June’s London conference confirmed that support is there but both donors and Ukrainian citizens are worried where the funding will end up.

In an effort to show that Ukraine is taking these warnings seriously, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal presented the DREAM system at the reconstruction conference, which he claims will collect, organise and publish open data for all reconstruction projects in real time.

“Anyone, anywhere, can monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of project delivery, and use these insights to mitigate risks, conduct accurate reporting and improve overall project performance,” the DREAM website states.

Transparency International found that 79% of citizens and 62% of businesses want all stages of the recovery process to be as open as possible as well as access to data on responsible individuals to ensure that money is not being misused. 

The DREAM initiative will quell some of those fears and work alongside the current ProZorro system, an online portal that allows the public free access to open data on all government procurement.

Ukraine Red Cross leading on transparency

“The more we provide visibility the more donations will come, the more we grow and more people will trust us,” explains Ihor Prokopenko, the head of the Kyiv office of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS).

The URCS has supported reconstruction efforts around the country, with Prokopenko overseeing projects in the Kyiv region. The charity relies on donations to fund infrastructure repairs and equipment for hospitals and homes that were impacted during the occupation of the Bucha region last year.

Prokopenko has ensured visibility at all levels, providing receipts, documents and signatures for everything the organisation buys. Although this was challenging in the first months of the full-scale invasion, when aid needed to be distributed rapidly, Prokopenko knows that in the long run transparency is key to gain trust and further donations.

“This is exactly why stakeholders donate to us, because we have provided visibility”, he adds. “This is our number one priority: to keep trust on all levels.”

Ukraine’s reforms to crack down on corruption

At face value, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is supportive of the anti-corruption measures, stressing the need to transform Ukraine in preparation for the reconstruction period. 

He approved a strategic plan to reform the law enforcement system last month and appointed a new prosecutor general in July 2022 amidst a cabinet reshuffle as both Brussels and Washington DC pinpointed Ukraine’s fledgling law and judicial system as a key issue.

Moreover, Zelenskyy fulfilled EU requirements by welcoming in a new head of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) in July 2022 as well as a new National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) director in March 2023.

Business owner Kseniia Goldovska is optimistic that the government is sincere in its intentions, particularly with EU membership on the horizon. 

NABU and SAPO have been busy targeting notorious oligarchs and uncovering large scale schemes, which Ukrainian media has catapulted to the front pages. In a major bust, the anti-corruption institutions detained Vzevolod Knyazev, the former head of Ukraine’s Supreme Court, for accepting bribes amounting to €2.47 million. 

“I hope that those institutions that fight against corruption will be controlled, not just by the government themselves but by the society as well,” Goldovska tells Euronews.

However, she also acknowledges that individuals will always find a way around the safeguarding systems put in place. Therefore, like many of Ukraine’s citizens, she insists on stricter consequences such as lengthy prison sentences for those caught, not only to ensure they don’t get back to systems of power but also to deter future crimes. 

“Scary punishments,” she says, “ is something that is necessary” and will make people think twice.

Ukraine has seen progress in the last ten years. It currently has 33 points in Transparency International’s corruption index, a far cry from the 25 points in 2013 when the country was in the grips of former-President Viktor Yanukoych who was ousted during the EuroMaidan revolution.

Goldovska maintains optimism that corruption will continue to improve in the post-war period and acknowledges a cultural shift in attitudes towards small-scale bribes. People are making a conscious effort to take the lawful long route rather than offering money to solve a problem quicker.

“As always you have to start with yourself and then fight with others,” she says.



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Ukraine war grinds on in the aftermath of Wagner’s attempted coup

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Catch up with the latest news from the Ukraine war here.

The fast-moving – and at times puzzling – apparent attempted coup in Russia this weekend did not have a noticeable affect on the Russian army posture along the 1,000 kilometre front line in eastern Ukraine, but it could give Ukraine the impetus it needs to intensify its counteroffensive, which military leaders have admitted is going slower than expected.

“In the short term, it distracted attention from the war and diverted some resources from the front,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Affairs. But in the longer term, he said, it shows lack of unity among Russia’s fighting forces. “It’s terrible for Russia’s morale. The officers and soldiers alike. It’s very good for Ukraine’s morale.”

On Russian Telegram channels, milbloggers urged Russian soldiers to stay focused on the war. “Brothers! Everyone who holds a weapon at the line of contact, remember, your enemy is across from you,” read one message.

Ukrainian soldier Andrii Kvasnytsia, 50, who was injured fighting in the eastern city of Bakhmut, where battles are nonstop along the southern flanks of the salt-mining town occupied by Russian troops, said “Everyone is excited.”

“My friend called me today and he said: ’Andrii, I haven’t been drinking for so many years, but today I have a good reason to drink,” he said. “It is all hard, not easy, but we will certainly win.” He spoke to The Associated Press in Kyiv, where he is recuperating.

As Wagner troops marched toward Moscow, Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, announced progress in several directions along the front line where fighting has been raging for weeks, and that Russian advances further north were thwarted. 

“The enemy’s weakness is always a window of opportunity, it allows us to take the advantage,” she told AP, adding that it was too early to assess how the political game playing out in Russia might give Ukraine the military upper hand.

Ukraine stepped up attacks in several directions in the southeast earlier this month, a move that signaled its much-anticipated counteroffensive had begun. But progress has been “slower than desired,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged.

Experts have said the Ukrainians need to maintain flexibility and speed to exploit Russian vulnerabilities along the front line, and puncture lines of defense when the opportunity presents itself.

With modern NATO-standard weapons systems in their possession, morale is the necessary ingredient to summon the velocity Ukrainian troops need to change the dynamics on the ground, they say.

“This is going to give the Ukrainians a real boost,” said James Nixey, head of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia program. “If we’ve been saying that the Ukrainians do have a lot to fight for, they have been lacking a little bit in morale of late.”

Ukrainian commanders told their fighters the discord playing out in Russia was, indirectly, their doing. “The heroes of Bakhmut who held the city for 10 months and exhausted the enemy, they are the co-authors of this Russian epic fail,” said Cherevatiy.

More than 17,000 new Ukrainian soldiers trained by UK military

More than 17,000 new Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in one year in a programme run by the United Kingdom as part of its support for Kyiv in the face of Russia’s invasion, the British Ministry of Defence announced on Monday.

The programme, aimed at recruits with little or no military experience, provides at least five weeks’ training in weapons handling, first aid, the laws of war, patrol tactics and rural training.

It has been implemented by the UK and the armies of nine other countries: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and the Netherlands.

“The determination and resilience of Ukrainian recruits arriving on British soil, from all backgrounds, to train alongside our British and international forces is humbling,” said UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

“The UK and our partners will continue to provide this vital support, helping Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression, for as long as it takes,” he added in a statement.

An early supporter of Ukraine, the UK had initially offered to train 10,000 soldiers in basic British training. The programme has now been extended so that 30,000 recruits are to be trained by 2024.

The UK Ministry of Defence says intelligence has highlighted the “significant difference” in Ukraine’s combat effectiveness brought about by the programme, dubbed “Operation Interflex”.

In addition, London was the first of Kyiv’s allies to deliver heavy tanks to the Ukrainian army, before the United States, and was in favour of the delivery of combat aircraft ahead of the US giving the go-ahead for the supply of F-16 aircraft.

Ex-CIA boss warns Prigozhin: ‘Stay away from open windows’

A former CIA director warned the leader of a failed Russian revolt to “be very careful around open windows.”

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” retired US General David Petraeus seemingly was referencing the number of prominent Russians who have died in unclear circumstances, including in falls from windows, since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

As part of the deal for Yevgeny Prigozhin to stop the march on Moscow by his Wagner mercenaries, he agreed to go into exile in neighboring Belarus, whose leader is a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Prigozhin kept his life, but lost his Wagner Group,” Petraeus said. “And he should be very careful around open windows in his new surroundings in Belarus, where he’s going.”

Among those who have died in unclear circumstances was the chairman of the board of Russia’s largest private oil company, which criticised Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. He fell out of a hospital window in September of last year.

The Kremlin has methodically cracked down on critics of the war, so the quick pardon for Prigozhin appeared to show Putin’s weakness. But many of those who have opposed or betrayed Putin have met their deaths months or years later, some even after leaving Russia.

Prigozhin has harshly criticized how the Russian military has conducted the war and went further on Friday by calling Putin’s very justification for the invasion a lie. Prigozhin accused the military of misleading Putin and Russian society by falsely claiming that Ukraine and NATO were planning to attack Russia.

Volunteers from Japan join the fighting in Ukraine

Many of the foreign volunteers who have joined the Ukrainian forces since last year are battle-hardened former soldiers from their home countries.

But volunteers from Japan on the other hand, are rookies in this respect: the Japanese army, whose pacifist constitution confines it to an exclusively defensive role, has not taken part in a conflict since the end of the Second World War.

And Tokyo, like the authorities in other countries, has strongly advised its citizens not to travel to Ukraine since the outbreak of hostilities.

Despite these obstacles, Yuya Motomura, 45, immediately wanted to fight for Ukraine, impressed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s determination to resist at all costs from the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.

“I’ve always had the feeling that I’m more socially aware than other people think. By fighting for Ukraine, I’ll be able to prove it in more than just words”, he told AFP in April, shortly before leaving to sign up in Kyiv.

He first went there two months after the start of the Russian invasion, initially to deliver supplies to refugees and evacuees.

After several visits, he was accepted into the Georgian Legion, a unit of the International Legion for the Territorial Defence of Ukraine that brings together foreign volunteer fighters.

His integration was facilitated by another Japanese member of this unit, a former yakuza calling himself Haru-san.

The Georgian legion, which includes volunteers of 33 nationalities, currently has eight Japanese members, the unit’s commander, Mamouka Mamoulachvili, told AFP.

“They are highly motivated and disciplined, and they are easily integrated into the training they are currently undergoing”, commented this officer, interviewed by AFP.

Motomura said he had received personal support from many members of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces, the Japanese army, a former member of which died in combat in Ukraine last November, according to the Japanese government.

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Zelenskyy’s globetrotting diplomacy leaves Putin looking isolated

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After a whirlwind week of diplomatic visits that has taken in the Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Europe’s capitals and Japan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s world tour has left his Russian counterpart looking increasingly isolated.

While the world awaits Ukraine’s spring battlefield offensive, leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy has launched a diplomatic one. In the span of a week, he’s dashed to Italy, the Vatican, Germany, France and Britain to shore up support for defending his country. Later on Saturday, he’s due at the G7 conference in Japan.

On Friday, he was in Saudi Arabia to meet with Arab leaders, some of whom are allies with Moscow, tweeting about his visit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, was in the southern Russian city of Pyatigorsk, chairing a meeting with local officials, sitting at a large table at a distance from the other attendees.

He has faced unprecedented international isolation, with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant hanging over his head and clouding the prospects of travelling to many destinations, including those viewed as Moscow’s allies.

With his invasion of Ukraine, “Putin took a gamble and lost really, really big time,” said Theresa Fallon, director of the Brussels-based Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies. “He is an international pariah, really.”

It was only 10 years ago when Putin stood proudly among his peers at the time, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Shinzo Abe, at a Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland. 

Russia has since been kicked out of the group, made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the US,  for illegally annexing Crimea in 2014.

Now it appears to be Ukraine’s turn in the spotlight.

There were conflicting messages from Kyiv about whether Zelenskyy would attend the G7 in Japan on Sunday. The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said on national television the president would be there, but the council later walked back those remarks, saying Zelenskyy would join via video link. The president’s office would not confirm either way for security reasons.

But whether in person or via video, it would be of great symbolic and geopolitical significance.

“It conveys the fact that the G7 continues to strongly support Ukraine,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “It’s a visible marker of the continued commitment of the most highly industrialised and highly developed countries in the world.”

It also comes at a time when the optics are just not in the Kremlin’s favour.

There’s uncertainty over whether Putin can travel to South Africa in August for a summit of the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Moscow has long showcased the alliance as an alternative to the West’s global dominance, but this year it is already proving awkward for the Kremlin. South Africa, the host of the summit, is a signatory to the ICC and is obligated to comply with the arrest warrant on war crimes charges.

South Africa has not announced that Putin will definitely come to the summit but has been planning for his possible arrival. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed an inter-ministerial committee, led by Deputy President Paul Mashatile, to consider South Africa’s options with regard to its ICC commitment over Putin’s possible trip.

While it is highly unlikely the Russian president would be arrested there if he decides to go, the public debate about whether he can is in itself “an unwelcome development whose impact should not be underestimated,” according to Gould-Davies.

Then there are Moscow’s complicated relations with its own neighbours. Ten days ago, Putin projected the image of solidarity, with leaders of Armenia, Belarus and Central Asian states standing beside him at a Victory Day military parade on Red Square.

This week, however, the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan flocked to China and met with leader Xi Jinping at a summit that highlighted the erosion of Russia’s influence in the region as Beijing seeks to make economic inroads into Central Asia.

Xi is using the opportunity “of a weakened Russia, a distracted Russia, almost a pariah-state Russia to increase (China’s) influence in the region,” Fallon said.

Putin’s effort this month to shore up more friends in the South Caucasus by scrapping visa requirements for Georgian nationals and lifting a four-year ban on direct flights to the country also didn’t appear to go as smoothly as the Kremlin may have hoped.

The first flight that landed Friday in Georgia was met with protests, and the country’s pro-Western president has decried the move as a provocation.

Zelenskyy’s ongoing world tour can be seen as a success on many levels.

Invitations from other world leaders is a sign they think Ukraine is “going to come out of the war in good shape,” said Phillips P. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Otherwise, “it simply wouldn’t be happening,” he said. “No one would want to be around a leader they think is going to be defeated and a country that’s going to collapse.”

By contrast, the ICC warrant might make it harder for leaders even to visit Putin in Moscow because “it’s not a good look to visit an indicted war criminal,” Gould-Davies said.

European leaders promised him an arsenal of missiles, tanks and drones, and even though no commitment has been made on fighter jets – something Kyiv has wanted for months – a conversation about finding ways to do it has begun.

His appearance Friday at the Arab League summit in Jeddah, a Saudi Arabian port on the Red Sea, highlighted Kyiv’s effort to spread its plight for support far and wide, including in some countries whose sympathies are with Russia.

In addition to Zelenskyy, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also welcomed Syrian President Bashar Assad at the summit after a 12-year suspension – something analysts say aligns with Moscow’s interests.

Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who focuses on Russia’s policy in the Middle East, called it “another testament to the fact that Russia is not isolated globally for its invasion of Ukraine, that the Middle East is one part of the world where Russia is able to find avenues to avoid global isolation – both ideological isolation but also economic isolation.”

She added that Zelenskyy and his government deserve credit for “in recognizing that they need to reach out more to improve their diplomatic efforts in this part of the world and other parts of the world where the Russian narrative resonates.”

Kyiv could expect that “this is the beginning of a larger shift in perception that could eventually translate into potential support,” Borshchevskaya said.

Similarly, the Ukrainian president’s participation in the G7 summit is “a message to the rest of the world, to Russia and beyond, and the so-called Global South,” Gould-Davies believes.

There is a concern in the West over the extent to which some major developing economies – Brazil, South Africa and, to a degree, India – “are not criticising, not condemning Russia and indeed in various ways are helping to mitigate the impact of sanctions on Russia,” he said.

“Collectively, economically, they matter. So there is, I think, this need felt for a renewed diplomatic campaign to bring some of these most important states into the kind of the Western way of looking at these things,” Gould-Davies said.

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Ukraine war: All the important developments to know today

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Ukraine says it has “conquered the winter terror”, marked by intense Russian bombardments which plunged millions of people into the cold. 

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Wednesday that it was “cold and dark, but we were unbreakable.”

Kulebo said he also considered that Europe had “won” because “it did not freeze without Russian gas” targeted by sanctions. 

“Our partners have stood by our side and helped us,” Kouleba noted, adding, “There is still a long way to go until final victory. But we already know how to win.”

The Secretary of the Security and Defense Council, Oleksiï Danilov, for his part wished his fellow citizens a “happy first day of the Ukrainian spring”. “So, did they manage to freeze us?” he quipped.

Meanwhile Russia says it neutralised ten Ukrainian drones sent to attack targets in occupied Crimea. This is the second day in a row that Moscow has reported a drone attack. 

Ukraine forces may pull out of key eastern city

The Ukrainian military might decide to pull troops back from the key stronghold of Bakhmut, an adviser to Ukraine’s president said Wednesday as Russia pursued a bloody, months-long offensive to capture the city.

“Our military is obviously going to weigh all of the options. So far, they’ve held the city, but if need be, they will strategically pull back,” Alexander Rodnyansky, an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told CNN. 

“We’re not going to sacrifice all of our people just for nothing.”

The battle for Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance as defenders hold out against relentless shelling and Russian troops suffer heavy casualties in the campaign to take the city.

Rodnyansky noted that Russia was using the best troops of the Wagner Group to try to encircle the city. The private military company known for brutal tactics is led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a rogue millionaire with longtime links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin said Wednesday that he so far had seen no signs of a Ukrainian withdrawal from the city. He maintained that Kyiv has in fact been reinforcing its positions there.

“The Ukrainian army is deploying additional troops and is doing what it can to retain control of the city,” Prigozhin said. “Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are offering fierce resistance, and the fighting is getting increasingly bloody by day.”

Recent drone footage shows the scale of devastation in the city, while Zelenskyy has described it as “destroyed.”

Russia keeps door open on future talks about nuclear pact

Russia may continue to exchange information with the United States on issues related to their nuclear forces even after Moscow suspended its participation in the last remaining arms control pact between the two countries, a senior Russian diplomat said Wednesday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia has given the US Embassy formal notice about the New START treaty’s suspension after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the decision into law on Tuesday.

Ryabkov noted that Russia and the US had confidential discussions on matters related to the pact in recent days. He said Moscow could remain open to such exchanges in the future.

“We will communicate and exchange information when necessary,” Ryabkov said in comments carried by Russian news agencies.

The Russian diplomat emphasised that Russia will not end the suspension “at least until our American counterparts show readiness to abandon their hostile policy toward Russia, primarily concerning the developments in Ukraine.”

Putin announced the halt in Moscow’s participation in New START in his state-of-the-nation address last week. He argued that Moscow can’t accept US inspections of Russian nuclear sites envisaged by the pact when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Russia’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal.

China, Belarus presidents call for Ukraine cease-fire, talks

The presidents of China and Belarus joined Wednesday in urging a cease-fire and negotiations to bring about a political settlement to the Ukraine conflict.

The joint call came in a meeting in Beijing between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

That amounted to an endorsement of a Chinese 12-point peace proposal issued Friday that calls for the territorial integrity of all countries to be respected. The proposal does not say what would happen to the regions Russia has occupied since the invasion or give details on how the peace process should proceed, and has failed to gain much support.

“The core of China’s stance is to call for peace and encourage talks … and for the legitimate security concerns of all countries to be respected,” Xi was quoted as saying by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

In a clear reference to the US and its allies, he added, “Relevant countries should stop politicising and using the world economy as their tool, and take measures that truly advance a cease-fire and stop to war and resolve the crisis peacefully.”

Belarus “fully agrees with and supports China’s position and proposals on a political solution to the Ukraine crisis, which is of great significance to resolving the crisis,” CCTV quoted Lukashenko as saying.

China has long had a close relationship with Lukashenko, and following their talks, the two leaders oversaw the signing of a raft of cooperation agreements in areas ranging from agriculture to customs enforcement and sports.

Slovakia basks under NATO umbrella, sends Ukraine old arms

Former Soviet satellite Slovakia has been a NATO member since 2004, but the reality of belonging to the world’s biggest military alliance really kicked in after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago.

The small central European country now hosts thousands of NATO troops while allied aircraft patrol its skies, allowing Bratislava to consider becoming the first nation to send fighter jets to neighboring Ukraine — getting rid of its unwieldy Soviet-era planes at the same time.

Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad is grateful.

“I would say that the Slovak Republic is a more secure country in a less secure world,” Nad told the AP in an interview in Bratislava.

“We remember well what it was like to have occupiers on our territory,” he added, referring to the 1968 Soviet-led military invasion of former Czechoslovakia — from which Slovakia split peacefully in 1993, four years after the communist regime fell.

The country of 5.4 million hosts a battlegroup with troops from the United States, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, as NATO moved to reassure members on its eastern flank worried about a potential Russian threat.

“The message behind deploying all of those units is simple,” Czech Colonel Karel Navratil, the battlegroup commander, told the Associated Press. “Our task is deterrence … to deter a potential aggressor from spreading its aggression to NATO member states.”

Similar units have been created in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. They complement another four deployed in 2017 in the three Baltic states and Poland, to expand NATO’s presence from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

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Five takeways from the historic EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv

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The European Union promised more help and support for Ukraine at a historic summit in Kyiv on Friday — but its demands fell short of the country’s key demands.

President Zelenskyy’s call for a fast-track path to EU membership was heard sympathetically but as expected has not been granted.

The EU has pledged a tenth round of sanctions against Moscow to coincide with the first anniversary of Russia’s war.

1. Historic event displays EU support for Ukraine

The high-profile visit to Kyiv saw 15 European Commissioners meeting with their Ukrainian counterparts in a historic show of support, the first time such an event took place in a war zone.

It came on the approach to the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Kyiv seeking to boost political and military support from Europe.

“It’s the first time the EU is all holding a summit in a country at war. And the fact that the most of the Commission travelled to Kyiv for this event is, is is in itself a testimony to the commitment of the European Union to Ukraine,” Camille Grand, former senior official with NATO and now policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Euronews.

“So that’s something that is valuable and I think that the Ukrainians themselves appreciate. And let’s remember then this whole a lot of this conversation started back in 2014 when the Ukrainian population signalled its European aspirations on Maidan Square. So this is, I think, something that is in itself a very positive signal.”

2. No ‘fast-track’ path to EU membership for Ukraine

As expected, the outcome of the summit fell short of Kyiv’s demands for a fast-track process towards joining the EU. But EU leaders praised Ukraine’s commitment and progress so far. 

That did not prevent Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy from throwing down the gauntlet to the EU, saying formal accession negotiations to join the bloc should start “this year.” 

Earlier, in his nightly address on Thursday he said that Ukraine “deserves” to reach such a stage already.

European Council President Charles Michel tweeted upon his arrival in Kyiv on Friday that EU leaders would “support you every step of the way on your journey to the EU.”

Ukraine was granted full-candidate status last year, and Kyiv said recently that it hoped to become a full EU member by 2026. 

The EU, however, has not committed to any dates, instead underlining the need for Ukraine to step up its fight against endemic corruption, reform the judiciary to free it from political meddling, and strengthen its economy.

Meanwhile talks focused on improving access for Ukrainian products to the EU market

EU member states have disagreed over the message to be sent to Kyiv, with Poland and the Baltic states wanting the accession process sped up. But President Macron of France has warned that the accession process can take “decades” and a senior EU official warned that the bloc would not deviate from its methodology.

The joint statement published at the end of the summit said that the EU acknowledged Ukraine’s “considerable efforts” over meeting its objectives, welcomed its reform efforts in “difficult times”, and offered encouragement over its membership application.

“I think that’s going to be the debate over the coming months, of how fast can it go. The Ukrainians are sending a lot of very useful and positive signals, including on on sensitive issues such as the fight on corruption. But still, that debate is likely to continue as there are a member states that are reluctant to grant membership sort of as very substantial reforms in the economy,” Camille Grand of the ECFR told Euronews.

3. EU promises more sanctions against Russia

Ursula von der Leyen pledged a tenth round of sanctions marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war. The Commission president said the EU and the G7 were negotiating the final details of a plan to impose a price cap on the maritime trade of refined petroleum products made in Russia. A similar initiative limited the price of Russian seaborne crude.

The EU is also examining ways to confiscate Russian-owned assets frozen across nine packages of sanctions, including billions of foreign reserves held by the Russian Central Bank.

“We are making Putin pay for his atrocious war,” von der Leyen said on Thursday. 

The extra funds raised through confiscation are meant to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction, which the European Commission estimates to be worth at least €600 billion.

President Zelenskyy had called for more punitive measures against Russia by the European Union. 

“It’s not surprising that he would always want to see more. There’s certain pressure coming from other quarters as well, including Washington, to do more,” Ian Lesser, Vice President of the German Marshall Fund, told Euronews. 

“I think actually a lot has been done. I mean, it is pretty extraordinary, actually, how fast and how far Europe has gone on this question. It’s about sanctions, but it’s also especially in a transatlantic context about export controls, which are extremely important. And there’s been very close cooperation with the EU on that.”

4. EU pledges more aid for Ukraine

The EU has announced a doubling of the number of Ukrainian troops to be trained by the EU to 30,000 this year and promised €25 million for demining areas recaptured by Ukraine.

The bloc has already earmarked almost €60 billion in aid to Ukraine, including nearly €12 billion of military support and €18 billion to help run the country this year.

Much of the focus has been on military support. The European Council has approved an extra €500 million as part of a seventh package.

“Together with the military support provided by EU Member States, the overall EU military support to Ukraine is estimated at close to €12 billion,” said the joint statement at the end of the summit.

“I think it’s pretty clear to all sides that Europe is doing a lot and the European military assistance is really extraordinary in a sense,” said Ian Lesser. 

“There is now a very substantial training mission, for example, that’s been put in place. And this becomes extremely important because Europe is giving more and heavier equipment, including main battle tanks, to Ukraine. People have to be trained on those systems. So this is extremely important.”

The military contribution from EU states overall is far behind that of the United States, but the picture is different when taking into account other financial and humanitarian aid from Europe.

According to Germany’s Kiel Institute on the World Economy, by early December Europe had surpassed the US in the value of total aid committed to Ukraine. Its next update is due on 15 February.

5. Europe must be ready for the long haul

Europe cannot compete with the United States over military aid, but it is impacted more closely on an economic and humanitarian level by Russia’s war in Ukraine, and looks like being so for years to come.

Ian Lesser  of the German Marshall Fund says an important conversation is beginning about the future reconstruction of Ukraine, in which Europe will play a big role.

“Some call it a Marshall Plan for Ukraine, but whatever vocabulary you want to use, it’s going to require a great deal of money and it’s going to be money that’s difficult for Europe to find,” he told Euronews. 

“There is a lot of destruction. There’s a lot of the human cost, the uncertainty, the insecurity that’s likely really to do to characterise, you know, Ukraine’s geopolitical setting for years to come. Whatever the outcome of this immediate conflict is very, very substantial. So, you know, this is really in some ways at the core of the conversation that’s going on in Kyiv this week,” he added.

“I don’t think Europe, in a sense, has an alternative, because as much as this is a battle for Ukraine is also, in some ways a battle for Europe security. Europe has already made a tremendous commitment to that. The costs are there. The costs of abandoning Ukraine at some point in the future would be enormous.”



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Moscow creeps towards Bakhmut and other developments

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Moscow creeps towards Bakhmut amid gritty fighting

Russia claimed on Tuesday it had captured the village of Blagodatne, just north of Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine. 

Ukraine and Russia have waged a vicious battle for several weeks to control the city, which Moscow frames as key to seizing the prized Donbas region. 

In its daily briefing, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed “Blagodatne had been liberated” after an offensive by “volunteer assault units”, who were supported by planes and artillery.

Russia uses the term volunteer as a byword for paramilitary forces, such as Wagner Group, operating in Ukraine. 

Evguéni Prigojine, boss of the infamous mercenary force, claimed his men had captured the village on Saturday, though this was denied by Kyiv. 

The Russian army and Wagner have tried to take Bakhmout, a city of 70,000 inhabitants before the conflict, since summer — so far without success. 

For several weeks, Moscow’s soldiers have intensified their offensive to encircle the city, taking the town of Soledar in January. 

But the fighting has come at a heavy price, with both sides suffering heavy losses. 

Lithuania blasts Russian embassies as ‘propaganda institutions’

Lithuania’s foreign minister on Tuesday urged EU countries not to host Russian ambassadors, amid heightened diplomatic tensions between the Baltic states and Moscow.

“There is no point in having… an ambassador from Russia in a European capital,” Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters in Riga. 

“In most cases, it is no longer a diplomatic institution, it is a propaganda institution, covering up war crimes and generally promoting a genocidal agenda,” he insisted.

Lithuania expelled its Russian ambassador in April 2022, following the discovery of mass civilian graves in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

Ukraine’s western allies have described these discoveries as evidence of war crimes, though Russia denies this. 

Last week, fellow Baltic state Estonia expelled its Russian ambassador, after the Kremlin declared their Estonian ambassador persona non grata.

“We respect the principle of reciprocity in relations with Russia,” the Estonian Foreign Ministry said at the time, adding that the Russian ambassador should leave before 7 February. 

Latvia, the third Baltic state, announced soon after it was also expelling its Russian representative in solidarity with Estonia. 

US accuses Russia of violating nuclear treaty

Washington accused Russia of not respecting a nuclear disarmament agreement, known as New Start, on Tuesday. 

American diplomats criticised Moscow for having suspended nuclear inspections and cancelling talks planned under the agreement. 

But they did not accuse their Russian counterparts of building up nuclear arsenals beyond the agreed limits.

With their new majority in the House of Representatives, the US Republicans had asked the country’s top diplomat if Russia was violating the disarmament treaty.

“Russia is not respecting its obligations under the New Start to facilitate inspection activities on its territory,” said a spokesman for the State Department.

Last year, Moscow announced it was postponing a meeting scheduled for late November between Russia and the US on nuclear inspections, accusing Washington of “hostility” and “toxicity”.

Relations between the two nuclear powers are at their lowest point in recent history, sparked by the outbreak of fighting in Ukraine. 

Immediately after his election in January 2021, US President Joe Biden extended New Start until 2026.

Signed in 2010, it limits the nuclear stockpiles of the pair to a maximum of 1,550 warheads, a reduction of nearly 30% compared to past limits set in 2002. It also sets the maximum number of launchers and heavy bombers at 800.

Kyiv berates Croatian president over Crimea comments

Ukraine’s foreign ministry criticised Croatian President Zoran Milanovic on Tuesday for saying Crimea would never return to Ukrainian control, describing his comment as “unacceptable.”

Russia seized the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and Kyiv has said it will not abandon efforts to regain control of the region.

In remarks on Monday detailing his objection to Zagreb providing military aid to Kyiv, Milanovic said it was “clear that Crimea will never again be part of Ukraine”.

“We consider as unacceptable the statements of the president of Croatia, who effectively cast doubt on the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Facebook.

In the same statement, Nikolenko thanked the Croatian government and people for backing Ukraine’s since Russia’s invasion in February last year. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has openly voiced support for Ukraine.

“We highly appreciate and thank the government of Croatia and the Croatian people for their steadfast support of Ukrainians in the fight against Russian aggression,” Nikolenko wrote.

Ukraine pushes for Western fighter jets

Kyiv won support from Baltic nations and Poland in its quest to obtain Western fighter jets on Tuesday, though there are no signs larger nations like the US and UK  will change their stance and provide Ukraine with warplanes. 

“Ukraine needs fighter jets … missiles, tanks. We need to act,” Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said in the Latvian capital of Riga at a news conference with his Baltic and Polish colleagues. 

These countries, which lie on NATO’s eastern flank, feel particularly threatened by Russia and have advocated strongly for providing military aid.

Several Western leaders have expressed concern that providing warplanes could escalate the nearly year-long conflict and draw them deeper into the war.

Such fighter jets could offer Ukraine a major boost, but countering Russia’s massive air force would still be a major challenge.

Kyiv officials have repeatedly urged allies to send jets, saying they are essential to challenge Russia’s air superiority and to ensure the success of future counteroffensives spearheaded by the Western battle tanks.

Asked on Tuesday about the supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated the Kremlin’s view that “NATO long has been directly involved in a hybrid war against Russia.”

The Russian military will “take all the necessary measures to derail the fulfilment of Western plans,” he added. 

Both Ukraine and Russia are believed to be building up their arsenals for an expected offensive in the coming months. The war has been largely deadlocked on the battlefield during the winter.

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Ukraine war: Investigators probe 58,000 possible Russian war crimes

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Ten months into Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, overwhelming evidence shows the Kremlin’s troops have waged total war, with disregard for international laws governing the treatment of civilians and conduct on the battlefield.

Ukraine is investigating more than 58,000 potential Russian war crimes — killings, kidnappings, indiscriminate bombings and sexual assaults. Reporting by The Associated Press and US television channel PBS, recorded in a public database, has independently verified more than 600 incidents that appear to violate the laws of war. Some of those attacks were massacres that killed dozens or hundreds of civilians and as a totality it could account for thousands of individual war crimes.

As Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, told the AP, “Ukraine is a crime scene.”

That extensive documentation has run smack into a hard reality, however. While authorities have amassed a staggering amount of evidence — the conflict is among the most documented in human history — they are unlikely to arrest most of those who pulled the trigger or gave the beatings anytime soon, let alone the commanders who gave the orders and political leaders who sanctioned the attacks.

The reasons are manifold, experts say. Ukrainian authorities face serious challenges in gathering air-tight evidence in a war zone. And the vast majority of alleged war criminals have evaded capture and are safely behind Russian lines.

Even in successful prosecutions, the limits of justice so far are glaring. Take the case of Vadim Shishimarin, a baby-faced 21-year-old tank commander who was the first Russian tried on war crimes charges. He surrendered in March and pleaded guilty in a Kyiv courtroom in May to shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian civilian in the head.

The desire for some combination of justice and vengeance was palpable in that courtroom. “Do you consider yourself a murderer?” a woman shouted at the Russian as he stood bent forward with his head resting against the glass of the cage he was locked in.

“What about the man in the coffin?” came another, sharper voice. A third demanded the defense lawyer explain how he could fight for the Russian’s freedom.

The young soldier was first sentenced to life in prison, which was reduced to 15 years on appeal. Critics said the initial penalty was unduly harsh, given that he confessed to the crime, said he was following orders and expressed remorse.

Ukrainian prosecutors, however, have not yet been able to charge Shishimarin’s commanders or those who oversaw him. Since March, Ukraine has named more than 600 Russians, many of them high-ranking political and military officials, as suspects, including Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu. But, so far, the most powerful have not fallen into Ukrainian custody.

“It would be terrible to find a scenario in which, in the end, you convict a few people of war crimes and crimes against humanity who are low-grade or mid-grade military types or paramilitary types, but the top table gets off scot-free,” said Philippe Sands, a prominent British human rights lawyer.

Throughout the war Russian leaders have denied accusations of brutality.

Moscow’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said no civilians were tortured and killed in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha despite the meticulous documentation of the atrocities by AP, other journalists, and war crimes investigators there.

“Not a single local person has suffered from any violent action,” he said, calling the photos and video of bodies in the streets “a crude forgery” staged by the Ukrainians.

Such statements have been easily rebutted by Ukrainian and international authorities, human rights groups and journalists who have meticulously documented Russian barbarity since the Kremlin ordered the unprovoked invasion in February.

Part of that effort, the AP and PBS Frontline database called War Crimes Watch Ukraine, offers a contemporaneous catalog of the horrors of war. It is not a comprehensive accounting. AP and Frontline only included incidents that could be verified by photos, videos or firsthand witness accounts. There are hundreds of reported incidents of potential war crimes for which there was not enough publicly available evidence to independently confirm what happened.

Still, the resulting database details 10 months of attacks that appear to violate the laws of war, including 93 attacks on schools, 36 where children were killed, and more than 200 direct attacks on civilians, including torture, the kidnapping and killing of civilians, and the desecration of dead bodies. Among Russia’s targets: churches, cultural centers, hospitals, food facilities and electrical infrastructure. The database catalogs how Russia utilized cluster bombs and other indiscriminate weapons in residential neighborhoods and to attack buildings housing civilians.

An AP investigation revealed that Russia’s bombing of a theatre in Mariupol, which was being used as a civilian shelter, likely killed more than 600 people. Another showed that in the first 30 days after the invasion, Russian forces struck and damaged 34 medical facilities, suggesting a pattern and intent.

“That’s a crime against the laws of war,’ said Stephen Rapp, a former US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes. “Once somebody’s injured, they’re entitled to medical care. You can’t attack a hospital. That’s the oldest rule we have in international law.”

Experts say Russia under President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly ignored the rules established by the Geneva Conventions, a series of treaties that dictate how warring countries should treat each other’s citizens, and the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court and defined specific war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“These abuses are not the acts of rogue units; rather, they are part of a deeply disturbing pattern of abuse consistent with what we have seen from Russia’s prior military engagements — in Chechnya, Syria, and Georgia,” said Beth Van Schaack, the US Ambassador at Large for Global Criminal Justice, speaking earlier this month at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Short of a regime-toppling revolution in Moscow, however, it is unlikely Putin and other high-ranking Russians end up in court, whether in Ukraine or the Hague, experts say.

And even as a chorus of global leaders have joined Ukrainians in calling for legal action against the architects of this war, there is disagreement about the best way to do it.

The International Criminal Court has been investigating potential war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. But it cannot prosecute the most basic offense, the crime of aggression — the unjust use of military force against another nation — because the Russian Federation, like the United States, never gave it authority to do so.

Efforts to plug that loophole by creating a special international tribunal for the crime of aggression in Ukraine have been gaining momentum. Last month, the European Union threw its support behind the idea.

Some human rights advocates say a special tribunal would be the smartest way to proceed. Sands, the British human rights lawyer, said prosecuting Russia before such a tribunal would be a “slam dunk.”

“You’d need to prove that that war is manifestly in violation of international law,” he added. “That’s pretty straightforward because Mr Putin has set out the reasons for that war, and it’s blindingly obvious that they don’t meet the requirements of international law.”

But Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has opposed the creation of a special tribunal, calling it a “vanity project.”

”We are an international court,” Khan told AP and Frontline in July. “We’ve been accepted, of course, by the Security Councilors as legitimate. They’ve used this court in terms of referrals. And I think we should focus on using this court effectively.”

Whatever happens on the international stage, the vast majority of cases will be heard within Ukraine itself.

The daunting task of turning Ukraine’s beleaguered prosecutorial service into a bureaucracy capable of building sophisticated war crimes cases falls on Yurii Bielousov.

When he was offered the job of leading the war crimes department in the prosecutor general’s office, Bielousov knew it would be tough. Just how tough became clear after Russians pulled out of Bucha last spring, leaving behind a crime scene strewn with the decomposing bodies of more than 450 men, women and children.

Bucha was the first complex case picked up by Bielousov’s prosecutors, and it quickly became one of the most important. No one in Ukraine had ever dealt with something of that scale before.

“The system was not in collapse, but the system was shocked,” Bielousov said. “OK, OK, let’s go everyone, and just try to do our best.”

Ukraine has five different investigative agencies, each assigned legal responsibility for different kinds of crimes. The crimes in Bucha cut across all those categories, tangling the bureaucracy. That has only made building tough cases even harder.

Despite the setbacks and hurdles, Bielousov says his prosecutors remain focused on gathering evidence that will stand up in domestic and international courts. He says he is also focused on another goal — compiling an incontrovertible record of Russia’s savagery that the world cannot ignore.

Yulia Truba wants the same thing. Her husband was one of the first men Russian soldiers tortured and killed in Bucha. She said she wants to establish a single, shared truth about what happened to her husband

“Russia won’t recognise this as a crime,” Truba said. “I just want as many people as possible to recognize it was a real murder and he was tortured. For me, this would be justice.”



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Ukraine war: Putin slams the West as ‘dangerous, bloody and dirty’

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Russian President Vladimir Putin said the West is trying to dictate the actions of other nations, in a “dangerous, bloody and dirty” game. 

Putin made the comments during a lengthy speech at a conference near Moscow on Thursday, where he also denied having any intention of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. 

He said it was pointless for Russia to strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons, saying “there is no point in that, neither political nor military.” 

The Russian president claimed an earlier warning of his readiness to use “all means available to protect Russia” didn’t amount to nuclear saber-rattling but was merely a response to Western statements about their possible use of nuclear weapons.

He particularly mentioned former British Prime Minister Liz Truss saying in August that she would be ready to use nuclear weapons if she became Britain’s prime minister, a remark which Putin said worried the Kremlin.

“What were we supposed to think?” Putin said. “We saw that as a coordinated position, an attempt to blackmail us.”

Putin, who sent his troops into Ukraine on 24 February, has cast Western support for Ukraine as part of broad efforts to enforce their will upon others through a rules-based world order. 

He argued that the world has reached a turning point, when “the West is no longer able to dictate its will to humankind but still tries to do it, and the majority of nations no longer want to tolerate it.”

The Russian leader claimed that the Western policies will foment more chaos, adding that “he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind.”

Putin claimed that “humankind now faces a choice: accumulate a load of problems that will inevitably crush us all or try to find solutions that may not be ideal but could work and could make the world more stable and secure.”

Without offering evidence, the Russian leader repeated Moscow’s unproven allegation that Ukraine was plotting a false flag attack involving a radioactive dirty bomb it would try to pin on Russia.

Ukraine has strongly rejected the claim, and its Western allies have dismissed it as “transparently false.” Ukraine argued Russia might be making the unfounded allegation to serve as a cover for its own possible plot to detonate a dirty bomb.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Thursday that the U.S. has still not seen anything to indicate that Putin has decided to use a dirty bomb.

Putin said he personally ordered Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to call his foreign counterparts to tell them about the purported plot. He maintained that Russia knows the Ukrainian facilities working on the project.



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