Ukrainian forces number 9,000 Russian soldiers killed and report more than 2,000 civilian victims
the devastating invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces initiated a week ago has already caused some 900,000 refugees and thousands of deathsfour adults and two children tonight, as the West expands its sanctions on Russia to try to stop attacks ordered by the government of Vladimir Putin.
Eight people, two of them children, were killed tonight by a shelling in the city of Izium, in the Kharkov region, according to the city’s deputy mayor, Volodymyr Matsokin. The attack began at 11:59 p.m. local time (9:59 p.m. GMT on Wednesday) and hit a multi-storey apartment building. Eight people died in one of the houses, two of them children, explained the municipal official. The regional capital, Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, has been under Russian attack since early yesterday morning, after airborne troops landed with missiles hitting several state buildings and a university. The bombardment caused four deaths and nine injuries, according to Kiev, which has put more than 2,000 civilians dead in Russian attacks since the beginning of the invasion a week ago.
“During the seven days of the war, Russia has destroyed hundreds of transport infrastructure, homes, hospitals and nurseries. In this time, more than 2,000 Ukrainians have died, not counting our defenders,” said the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in your Facebook page. The Russian Army advanced on Tuesday with intense attacks in southern Ukraine, where took control of the city of Jersón, of almost 300,000 inhabitants, and where it practically already blocks Mariúpolas well as in the east, where it claims to have largely seized the coast of the Sea of Azov.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, in a new video message tonight, stated that “nearly 9,000 Russian soldiers have died in a week.” The Russian Ministry of Defense admitted on Wednesday the death of 498 Russian soldiers, in addition to 1,597 wounded soldiers. Russian defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement that casualties among Ukrainian forces are considerably higher, amounting to 2,870 dead and about 3,700 wounded.
However, the US Department of Defense reported, for its part, that the advance of a Russian military convoy towards Kiev has been stalled between the last 24 and 36 hours because of the Ukrainian resistance and because the Russians would be regrouping and evaluating the situation. “We have some indications, nothing that we can 100% independently verify, but there are some indications that the Ukrainians have actually tried to slow down that convoy,” US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told a news conference. press. The US official added that another reason for the stagnation of the convoy, which is advancing from the north towards the Ukrainian capital, are “logistical and maintenance challenges”, which the Russians had not anticipated.
Nearly a million refugees
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has raised 874,000 the number of Ukrainians who have fled the war which began a week ago, after the invasion and attacks launched by Russia from various fronts. This update corresponds to data collected until Tuesday in neighboring countries of Ukraine, the entity specified. Another 96,000 people have crossed from the eastern regions of Lugask and Donestk -under the control of armed separatist groups since 2014- towards Russia. More than half of the refugees have gone to Poland and some thousands have already arrived in third countries, such as the Czech Republic, where there is a significant Ukrainian community.
The fierce Russian invasion was forcefully rejected by the UN General Assembly, which on Wednesday demanded that Russia immediately withdraw its troops from Ukraine. Of the 193 member states of the United Nations, 141 supported the text, while only five voted against: Russia itself, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea. Meanwhile, 35 countries opted for abstention, including China, Iran, India and South Africa, and several Latin American nations such as Cuba, Bolivia, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The resolution, which is not binding, “deplores” the Russian aggression against Ukraine and “demands” Moscow to put an end to it and immediately and unconditionally withdraw its troops from the neighboring country.
In addition, a request from 39 countries, including Spain, has allowed the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open today a investigation in Ukraine for war crimes and crimes against humanity. “I have notified the ICC Presidency a few moments ago of my decision to immediately proceed with active investigations,” ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement. The British jurist announced on February 28 his intention to open an investigation for crimes “committed by any of the parties throughout the territory of Ukraine & rdquor ;.
Among the new decisions and sanctions adopted this Wednesday against Russia, the one announced by the World Bank (WB) stood out, which decided to suspend with “immediate effect” all its programs in Russia and Belarus. “As a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and hostilities against the people of Ukraine, the World Bank has stopped all its programs in Russia and Belarus with immediate effect,” the bank said in a statement.
The US government continued its pressure campaign against Putin, which already includes sanctions on 80% of the assets of Russian banks, according to the Treasury Department. The restrictions imposed on Wednesday target 22 entities related to the Russian defense sector, including companies that manufacture aircraft and combat vehicles, electronic systems, missiles and drones for the Russian military, the White House said. In addition, the Department of Commerce ordered to restrict those exports of technology that could favor “Russian capacity to refine (petroleum) in the long term.”
The military crisis has also unleashed another economic, which has led the European Commission to confirm that it is studying the possibility of applying exceptional market intervention measures to deal with the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the agricultural sector. “The European Commission is working on the implementation of exceptional market measures that must be finalized, built, to be ready as quickly as possible & rdquor ;, declared the French Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU).
In addition, the European Union is considering adopting measures to prevent cryptocurrencies from being used to circumvent economic sanctions imposed on Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, as well as to mitigate the impact of the increase in energy prices for community companies. “We have decided to work on supplementary measures to further strengthen the effectiveness of these sanctions and prevent any circumvention. In particular, we will take provisions on cryptocurrencies, which must not be used to circumvent the financial sanctions decided by the EU,” announced the French minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, without giving details of the actions contemplated by the Twenty-seven.
As the West tightens its sanctions against Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said US President Joe Biden knows the only alternative to sanctions against Russia is World War III and that it would be “a devastating nuclear war.” , in statements to Qatari television Al Jazeera. However, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, María Zajárova, affirmed that her country under no circumstances intends to press “the red nuclear button”after the recent order of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to put in “special service regime” the Russian nuclear forces.
A necessary active supply broker
The World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated the “urgent need” to establish a safe corridor to facilitate the arrival of medical supplies in Ukraine and expressed concern about the humanitarian crisis that arose as a result of the war with Russia. The director general of this organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, pointed out that the first shipment of medical supplies, transported from Dubai, will arrive in Poland tomorrow with specialized medical supplies that could cover the needs of around 150,000 people.
Oil and its prices, affected by the war
The OPEC+ alliance, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia and responsible for nearly 40% of the world’s oil supply, confirmed this Wednesday that it does not change its plan to only moderately increase the supply of crude oil despite the large escalation in ‘petroprices’. ‘ in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With the markets convulsed by this war as a backdrop, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its 10 allied independent producers gave the green light to increase their collective pumping, of 400,000 barrels per day, which had already been planned in July of 2021.
Suspended the activities of Sputnik and Russia Today
The EU suspended from today the broadcasting activities of the pro-Kremlin media Sputnik and Russia Today “until the aggression against Ukraine is stopped and until the Russian Federation and its associated media stop carrying out disinformation actions” the Council said in a statement. Meanwhile, the director of the Russian opposition television channel ‘Dozhd’, Tíkhon Dzyadkó, reported on Wednesday that he is leaving Russia along with some employees of the outlet after being blocked for coverage of the Russian campaign in Ukraine.
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France and the Venice Biennale, against the war
France has decided to suspend the celebration in the country of any new cultural event that is linked to official Russian institutions or Russian artists who are in favor of Russian intervention in Ukraine, Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot announced on Wednesday. The Venice Biennale, considered one of the most important artistic events in the world, announced that it will not accept the participation of official delegations, institutions or personalities linked to the Russian government due to the invasion of Ukraine. Also on the cultural level, Netflix announced that it will paralyze all its content production and acquisition activity in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. The company had four original Russian-language projects in the works, including the long-awaited ‘Anna K’ series, based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel ‘Anna Karenina’, and ‘Zato’, a production set in the fall of the Soviet Union.