Russia continues to use his arguments to justify the invasion of Ukraine and, despite the requests of the international community and the strong economic sanctions that seriously hurt it, it continues this Tuesday with its war on the neighboring country, while the number of refugees now reaches 677,000.
His position was defended in Geneva by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, who accused the Kiev government of being “neo-Nazi” and mistreating and violating the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine since 2014, when a citizen movement succeeded in bringing down the then president, Viktor Yanukovych, a close ally of Moscow.
From the European Union (EU) it is considered that Monday’s bombing by Russia against civilian infrastructure in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov violates the laws of war, but the bombs on this municipality continued and, in fact, a new bombing on This city located a few kilometers from Russia has left at least 10 dead and 35 injured on Tuesday afternoon.
What’s more, a column of more than 60 kilometers made up of Russian tanks remains in the vicinity of Kiev with the apparent objective of surrounding the capital and intensifying the attacks.
The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Joseph Borrell, said Monday’s shelling of civilian infrastructure in Kharkov “violates the laws of war.” The Spanish politician expressed himself in this sense after speaking with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmitro Kuleba.
Dozens of people were killed on Monday and hundreds were wounded in a Russian missile attack on residential neighborhoods in the Ukrainian city some 35 kilometers from the Russian border, Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, said.
Russia continues to threaten NATO
Russia insisted that the existence of nuclear weapons of United States in Europe is inadmissible and once again demanded security guarantees to NATO, in a video message from the Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, about the Russian offensive in Ukraine, at the UN Disarmament Conference, which is meeting in Geneva and to which he has not been able to attend in person because his plane was not can fly over several European countries due to sanctions.
He also criticized the decision of several Western countries to supply weapons to Ukraine and accused the government of Volodymyr Zelensky of having entered into “dangerous games and plans to acquire their own nuclear weapons” with technologies that supposedly remain from the period in which this country was part of of the Soviet Union. Russia’s goal with the “special operation” is to “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine,” he said.
Russia went to the largest international forum on human rights in Geneva to justify its war against Ukraine with an arsenal of arguments and turned a deaf ear to the requests of the international community to stop its military operation, while the European Union and the United States said Those responsible must be held accountable for their actions.
Dead in Kyiv
Five people have died and five others have been injured in the Russian bombardment this afternoon against the Kiev television towerreported the Ukrainian State Emergency Service on its Facebook page.
Before launching the attack, the Russian Defense Ministry warned that it was going to attack information and propaganda centers in Kiev and asked residents of nearby houses to leave.
BREAKING: Another angle of the explosion near the television tower of #kyiv. pic.twitter.com/jWnJCpFxKT
– Comrade Fibrik (@Fibrik_Oficial) March 1, 2022
A new Russian bombardment in Kharkov has left at least 10 dead and 35 wounded on Tuesday afternoonwhile a column of more than 60 kilometers made up of Russian tanks remains in the vicinity of Kiev with the apparent objective of surrounding the capital.
The target of the attack in Kharkov was the headquarters of the regional administration, denounced on Tuesday the adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, Anton Geraschenko.
More than 150,000 Ukrainians have fled the war-torn country in less than 24 hourswhich implies that the number of refugees who have entered some of the neighboring countries now reaches 677,000, said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.
More than half of all the refugees are in Poland, while 90,000 have arrived in Hungary, 60,000 in Moldova, 50,000 in Slovakia and 40,000 in Romania, Grandi said at a press conference presenting an urgent request for funds. of the UN to face this new crisis.
The worst is yet to come
The intelligence services of United States maintain a “fragile” optimism about the current situation in Ukraine and they believe that the invasion of the country ordered by the Russian president, Vladimir Putir, could intensify in the short term. US intelligence sources told CNN that the Ukrainian Army has so far managed to stall Russian ground forces some 30 kilometers north of the besieged capital, without reaching the center of Kiev.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg today insisted that the Atlantic Alliance’s mission is “defensive”, that its objective is to reinforce its eastern flank and that it will not send troops to Ukraine.
“In its 70 years of history, NATO has always been a defensive alliance,” said Johnson, from Estonia, accompanied by the Secretary General of the Alliance and the head of the government of the Baltic country, Kaja Kallas.
NATO will offer Ukraine “all necessary support”, In addition to protecting the borders on its eastern flank, Stoltenberg guaranteed for his part, after highlighting the “courageous resistance” that the Ukrainians are offering against the “brutal Russian aggression.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly announced on Tuesday that Canada will formally ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the Russian invasion of Ukraine for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Canada’s request comes just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of war crimes and “state terrorism” after a series of attacks in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest.
The President of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashenko, on Tuesday again rejected the possibility of the Belarusian Army participating in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but reported that it has reinforced the country’s western border with five additional battalions and put its security systems on alert. air defense.
Arrests in Russia and Belarus
The OSCE has criticized the detention of more than 7,000 people in Russia and Belarus, who demonstrated against the Russian Army’s invasion of Ukraine, as an act of intimidation and excessive use of force.
The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) calls for the release of all those still in prison and criticizes the arbitrariness of the arrests and the violation of essential principles such as the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
The finance ministers of the G7, which groups the seven most industrialized countries in the world, confirmed this Tuesday in a virtual meeting – with the Ukrainian Sergei Mashenko as a guest – that the sanctions on Russia for the aggression against Ukraine are already taking effect.
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“The mere announcement of sanctions, especially those affecting the Central Bank and Russian banks, is having an effect“said German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who chaired the meeting.
“The ruble is plummeting, Vladimir Putin’s war budget is taking heavy hits. We are making the sanctions have maximum impact on Russia and minimum impact on us,” he added.