World
Schools in Indian capital reopened at full capacity after 2 years
Authorities in the Indian capital region Friday reopened schools fully in offline mode after a gap of two years.
It is for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that physical attendance was made no longer optional.
Schools in Delhi were first closed in March 2020 immediately after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent imposition of a countrywide lockdown. The classwork resumed after some time in online mode and students were asked to attend classes sitting at their homes while remaining connected to their school teachers via the Internet.
Although the schools reopened for in-person classes multiple times in the past two years, the online mode was never called off.
Last year, schools reopened briefly, however, the second wave of the pandemic, the grave air pollution levels in the capital city and then the Omicron wave forced them to shut down again.
The decision to phase out online classes was taken during the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) meeting in February this year, following which schools were permitted to fully switch to offline classes from April 1, with the onset of the new academic session.
READ: Govt primary schools to remain open till 20th Ramadan: Minister
"It's after two years that schools are reopening and students were excited to get back to school," a local news agency quoted Sudha Acharya, chairperson of the National Progressive Schools' Conference (NPSC) as having said.
Teachers say the return of in-person classes would allow students to learn properly. According to them, the closure of schools during the past two years has resulted in a significant learning gap.
Reports said many schools however stated they will resume classes only from Monday.
"Online classes will be completely suspended. Both students and teachers are happy since a return to the familiar routine is less stressful," said Jyoti Arora, principal of Mount Abu Public School, Rohini told a local newspaper.
Zelenskyy: Retreating Russians leave many mines behind
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned his people early Saturday that retreating Russian forces were creating “a complete disaster” outside the capital as they leave mines across “the whole territory,” even around homes and corpses.
He issued the warning as the humanitarian crisis in the encircled city of Mariupol deepened, with Russian forces blocking evacuation operations for the second day in a row, and the Kremlin accused the Ukrainians of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil.
Ukraine denied responsibility for the fiery blast, but if Moscow’s claim is confirmed, it would be the war’s first known attack in which Ukrainian aircraft penetrated Russian airspace.
“Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, five weeks after Moscow began sending upwards of 150,000 of its own troops across Ukraine’s border.
Russia continued withdrawing some of its ground forces from areas around Kyiv after saying earlier this week it would reduce military activity near the Ukrainian capital and the northern city of Chernihiv.
“They are mining the whole territory. They are mining homes, mining equipment, even the bodies of people who were killed,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. “There are a lot of trip wires, a lot of other dangers.”
Read: Russians leave Chernobyl; Ukraine braces for renewed attacks
He urged residents to wait to resume their normal lives until they are assured that the mines have been cleared and the danger of shelling has passed.
While the Russians kept up their bombardment around Kyiv and Chernihiv, Ukrainian troops exploited the pullback on the ground by mounting counterattacks and retaking a number of towns and villages.
Still, Ukraine and its allies warned that the Kremlin is not de-escalating to promote trust at the bargaining table, as it claimed, but instead resupplying and shifting its troops to the country’s east. Those movements appear to be preparation for an intensified assault on the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region in the country’s east, which includes Mariupol.
Zelenskyy warned of difficult battles ahead as the Russians redeploy troops. “We are preparing for an even more active defense,” he said.
He did not say anything about the latest round of talks, which took place Friday by video. At a round of talks earlier in the week, Ukraine said it would be willing to abandon a bid to join NATO and declare itself neutral — Moscow’s chief demand — in return for security guarantees from several other countries.
Read: War in Ukraine fuels fears among draft-age Russian youths
The invasion has left thousands dead and driven more than 4 million refugees from Ukraine.
Mariupol, the shattered and besieged southern port city, has seen some of the worst suffering of the war. Its capture would be a major prize for Russian President Vladimir Putin, giving his country an unbroken land bridge to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Mariupol’s fate could determine the course of the negotiations to end the war, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian think tank Penta.
“Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance,” Fesenko said, “and without its conquest, Putin cannot sit down at the negotiating table.” The fall of Mariupol, he said, “will open the way to a peace agreement.”
On Friday, the International Committee for the Red Cross said it was unable to carry out an operation to bring civilians out of Mariupol by bus. It said a team had been on its way but had to turn back.
City authorities said the Russians were blocking access to Mariupol.
“We do not see a real desire on the part of the Russians and their satellites to provide an opportunity for Mariupol residents to evacuate to territory controlled by Ukraine,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
He said Russian forces “are categorically not allowing any humanitarian cargo, even in small amounts, into the city.”
Around 100,000 people are believed left in the city, down from a prewar 430,000, and weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting have caused severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
“We are running out of adjectives to describe the horrors that residents in Mariupol have suffered,” Red Cross spokesperson Ewan Watson said.
On Thursday, Russian forces blocked a 45-bus convoy attempting to evacuate people from Mariupol and seized 14 tons of food and medical supplies bound for the city, Ukrainian authorities said.
Zelenskyy said more than 3,000 people were able to leave Mariupol on Friday. He said he discussed the humanitarian disaster with French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone and with the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, during her visit to Kyiv.
“Europe doesn’t have the right to be silent about what is happening in our Mariupol,” Zelenskyy said. “The whole world should respond to this humanitarian catastrophe.”
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday from the Crimean Peninsula at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said. The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles were intended for critical infrastructure but did not hit their targets because of Ukraine’s air-defense forces. It was unclear where they hit. Marchenko said there were casualties, but he did not elaborate.
Odesa is Ukraine’s largest port and the headquarters of its navy.
As for the fuel depot explosion, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said two Ukrainian helicopter gunships flew in extremely low and attacked the civilian oil storage facility on the outskirts of the city of Belgorod, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the Ukraine border.
The regional governor said two workers at the depot were wounded, but the Rosneft state oil company denied anyone was hurt.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, said on Ukrainian television: “For some reason they say that we did it, but in fact this does not correspond with reality.”
Russia has reported cross-border shelling from Ukraine before, including an incident last week that killed a military chaplain, but not an incursion of its airspace.
Amid the Russian pullback on the ground and its continued bombardment, Ukraine’s military said it had retaken 29 settlements in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions.
Russian forces in the northeast also continued to shell Kharkiv, and in the southeast sought to seize the cities of Popasna and Rubizhne as well as Mariupol, the Ukrainian military said.
Meanwhile, Russia on Friday began its annual spring conscription, which aimed at rounding up 134,500 men for a one-year tour of military duty. Russian officials say new recruits won’t be sent to the front lines or “hot spots,” but many young Russians are skeptical and fear they will be drawn into the war.
On the outskirts of Kyiv, where Russian troops have withdrawn, damaged cars lined the streets of Irpin, a suburban area popular with young families, now in ruins. Emergency workers carried elderly people on stretchers over a wrecked bridge to safety.
Three wooden crosses next to a residential building that was damaged in a shelling marked the graves of a mother and son and an unknown man. A resident who gave her name only as Lila said she helped hurriedly bury them on March 5, just before Russian troops moved in.
“They were hit with artillery and they were burned alive,” she said.
An Irpin resident who gave his name only as Andriy said the Russians packed up their equipment and left on Tuesday. The next day, they shelled the town for close to an hour before Ukrainian soldiers retook it.
“I don’t think this is over,” Andriy said. “They will be back.”
Sri Lanka’s president declares emergency amid protests
Sri Lanka’s president declared a state of emergency in the island nation Friday, a day after angry protesters demonstrated near his home demanding he resign and as plans were were made for a nationwide protest over the country’s worst economic crisis in memory.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa invoked sections of the Public Security Ordinance, which gives him authority to make regulations in the interests of public security, preservation of public order, suppression of mutiny, riot or civil commotion or for the maintenance of essential supplies.
Under the emergency regulations the president can authorize detentions, taking possession of any property and the search any premises. He can also change or suspend any law.
Also read: Pakistan's parliament adjourns debate on embattled premier
The order came a day after dozens of people were arrested following protests near the president’s home. There are also calls for an island-wide public protest on Sunday.
Rajapaksa’s office blamed “organized extremists” within the thousands of protesters for violence during Thursday night’s demonstration, where police fired tear gas and a water cannon and arrested 54 people. Dozens of other people were also injured.
Nuwan Bopage, an attorney representing some of the suspects, said several of them were being taken for medical examinations for various injuries and were to appear in court Friday.
A police curfew that had been implemented in the suburbs of the capital, Colombo, was lifted Friday morning.
The protesters blame Rajapaksa for long power outages and shortages of essential goods.
Also read: Protest in India's capital on 2nd day of nationwide strike
Sri Lanka has huge debt obligations and dwindling foreign reserves, and its struggle to pay for imports has caused the shortages. People wait in long lines for fuel, and power is cut for several hours daily because there’s not enough fuel to operate generating plants and dry weather has sapped hydropower capacity.
On Thursday, the crowds demonstrating along the roads leading to Rajapaksa’s private residence on the outskirts of Colombo stoned two army buses that police were using to block the protesters. They set fire to one of the buses and turned back a fire truck that rushed to douse it.
Senior police spokesperson Ajith Rohana told media that 24 police personnel and several other civilians were injured in the unrest, and several vehicles belonging to the police and army were torched by protesters. Total damage was estimated to be around $132,000 and the suspects will be charged with damaging public property, Rohana said.
Reporters asked Rohana about accusations that police officers manhandled journalists covering the protests, including the arrest of at least one of them. Rohana said police followed the rules for riot control and took action only after the protest turned violent more than four hours after it started.
Sri Lanka’s economic woes are blamed on successive governments not diversifying exports and relying on traditional cash sources like tea, garments and tourism, and on a culture of consuming imported goods.
The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a heavy blow to Sri Lanka’s economy, with the government estimating a loss of $14 billion in the last two years.
Sri Lanka also has immense foreign debt after borrowing heavily on projects that don’t earn money. Its foreign debt repayment obligations are around $7 billion for this year alone.
According to the Central Bank, inflation rose to 17.5% in February from 16.8% a month earlier. Its expected to continue rising because the government has allowed the local currency to float freely.
Ramadan starts in Saudi Arabia Saturday
Following an official sighting of the new crescent moon Friday, Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, will start the holy month of Ramadan Saturday.
"Tomorrow, Saturday, is the first of the blessed month of Ramadan for the year 1443 AH," the Crescent Department of the Saudi Supreme Court said.
In the kingdom, this will be the first year since 2019 that Ramadan, the holiest month for the world's more than 1.5 billion Muslims, will be observed without Covid restrictions.
Read: Prices of essentials to stay tolerable during Ramadan: PM
Four other Gulf countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE – also announced the Saturday start of Ramadan 2022.
Usually, the crescent of Ramadan is first sighted in Saudi Arabia and then a day later in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and other countries.
The first day of the dawn-dusk fasting month of Ramadan, the ninth of the Islamic calendar, is determined by both lunar calculations and physical sightings of a new moon.
When it comes to Ramadan crescent moon sighting, many Muslim-majority countries used to align themselves with the Saudi announcement, but in recent years many used their own astronomic calculations.
The countries that follow the date set by Saudi Arabia include Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Romania, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and the UAE.
India calls for end to violence in Ukraine
India on Friday called for "cessation of violence" in Ukraine, as visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his office in Delhi this evening.
"PM Modi called for an end to violence as Lavrov briefed him on the situation in Ukraine, including pace negotiations," the Indian Prime Minister's Office said in a statement, after the hour-long meeting.
"Prime Minister reiterated his call for an early cessation of violence, and conveyed India's readiness to contribute in any way to the peace efforts," it added.
India's statement comes in the face of massive global pressure on New Delhi to take a stand against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier in the day, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met Lavrov in Delhi.
"Concluded talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Discussed bilateral cooperation and developments in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Indo-Pacific, ASEAN and the Indian sub-continent," he tweeted.
Read: Russia praises India’s neutral stand on Ukraine fighting
Later addressing the media, Lavrov said that they would welcome Modi's mediation in diffusing the Ukraine crisis.
"India is an important and serious country. If India plays that role that provides resolution, India as our common partner... we are for security guarantee of Ukraine... West has ignored its responsibility... India can support such process," he said.
Lavrov is in India at a time when US Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are also visiting the country.
In February, Modi urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to immediately halt military action against Ukraine, underscoring the need for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
This was after Ukraine's envoy in Delhi had sought Modi's intervention in ending the Russian offensive.
Russia praises India’s neutral stand on Ukraine fighting
Russia’s foreign minister lauded India for not judging in a “one-sided way” as he discussed Moscow’s military involvement in Ukraine with his Indian counterpart on Friday, after Washington urged New Delhi to use its leverage with Russia to end the war.
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said ties between the two countries have sustained them through difficult times in the past.
Jaishankar emphasized the importance of a cessation of violence but avoided condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Read: Ukraine strike on Russian territory reported as talks resume
“Differences and disputes should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy and by respect for international law, the U.N. Charter, sovereignty and territorial integrity of states,” he said.
Lavrov praised India for judging “the situation in its entirety, not just in a one-sided way.” He expressed hope that mutual respect in search of a balance in ties will prevail in the future.
Asked if Indian Prime Minister Narendra could mediate between Moscow and Kyiv, he replied, “I haven’t heard about such talk, frankly speaking.”
“Given India’s position of a just and rational approach toward international problems, it can support such a process. No one is against it, I think,” he told a group of Indian and Russian journalists.
The two sides were expected to discuss the uninterrupted supply of spare parts for Russian-made military equipment in India’s arsenal, trade, and oil payments in rubles, as demanded by Moscow.
India was Moscow’s ally during the Cold War but has since sought to maintain ties with both Russia and Western nations.
On Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the U.S. expects India to use its relations with Russia to help end the war in Ukraine.
“Different countries are going to have their own relationship with the Russian Federation. It’s a fact of history, it’s a fact of geography. That is not something that we are seeking to change,“ Price told reporters in Washington.
He said the U.S. is looking for its friends and allies to speak in unison and loudly against the “unjustified, unprovoked, premeditated Russian aggression.”
Read: White House: Intel shows Putin misled by advisers on Ukraine
Experts say up to 60% of Indian defense equipment was acquired from Russia. New Delhi finds itself in a bind at a time when it is facing a 2-year-old standoff with China along their disputed border, with tens of thousands of soldiers within shooting distance. Twenty Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers died in a clash in 2020.
In the early 1990s, about 70% of Indian army weapons, 80% of its air force systems and 85% of its navy platforms were of Soviet origin. India is now reducing its dependency on Russian arms and diversifying its defense procurement, buying more from the United States, Israel, France and Italy.
But Indian energy dependency on Russia remains a factor in relations.
Last month, state-run Indian Oil Corp. bought 3 million barrels of crude from Russia to secure its needs, resisting Western pressure to avoid such purchases.
Jaishankar, who met British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Thursday, defended India’s decision and decried “what looks almost like a campaign on this issue.”
He said March figures show that Europe bought 15% more oil and gas from Russia than it did in February.
“We get the bulk of our supply from the Middle East. In the past, India bought less than 1% from Russia. When the oil prices go up it is natural for countries to go out to the market and look up for good deals that are good for people,” he said at a meeting of the India-U.K. Strategic Futures Forum.
“I am quite sure that if we wait for two-three months and look at who are the big buyers, I suspect the list will not be vastly different. I suspect we will not be in top 10 on that list.“
Read: Pentagon may need more budget funding to help Ukraine
The United States, Britain and other Western countries are urging India to avoid buying Russian oil and gas. Indian media reports said Russia was offering a discount on oil purchases of 20% below global benchmark prices.
Ukraine strike on Russian territory reported as talks resume
Talks to stop the fighting in Ukraine resumed Friday, as another attempt to rescue civilians from the besieged port city of Mariupol broke down and Russia accused the Ukrainians of launching a cross-border helicopter attack on an oil depot.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said the alleged airstrike by a pair of helicopter gunships caused multiple fires and injured two people. A Kremlin spokesman said the incident on Russia’s territory could undermine the negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian representatives.
“Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied when asked if the strike could be viewed as an escalation of the war in Ukraine.
It was not immediately possible to verify the claim that Ukrainian helicopters targeted the oil depot or several nearby businesses in Belgorod also reported hit. Russia has reported shelling from Ukraine before, including an incident last week that killed a military chaplain, but not an incursion of its airspace.
Asked if Ukraine had fired on the depot, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in Warsaw that he could “neither confirm nor nor reject the claim that Ukraine was involved in this simply because I do not possess all the military information.”
Read: Russians leave Chernobyl; Ukraine braces for renewed attacks
The latest negotiations, taking place by video link, follow a meeting in Turkey on Tuesday where Ukraine reiterated its willingness to abandon a bid to join NATO and offered proposals to have its neutral military status guaranteed by a range of foreign countries.
The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, wrote on social media that Moscow’s positions on retaining control of the Crimean Peninsula and expanding the territory in eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed separatists “are unchanged.”
The International Committee for the Red Cross said complex logistics were still being worked out for the operation to get emergency aid into Mariupol and civilians out of the city, which has suffered weeks of heavy fighting with dwindling water, food and medical supplies.
“We are running out of adjectives to describe the horrors that residents in Mariupol have suffered,” ICRC spokesperson Ewan Watson said Friday during a U.N. briefing in Geneva. “The situation is horrendous and deteriorating, and it’s now a humanitarian imperative that people be allowed to leave and aid supplies be allowed in.”
He said the group had sent three vehicles toward Mariupol and a frontline between Ukrainian and Russian forces but two trucks carrying supplies for the city were not accompanying them. Dozens of buses organized by Ukrainian authorities to take people out also had not started approaching the dividing line, Watson said.
City authorities said a little while later that the Russians were blocking access to Mariupol and it was too dangerous for people to leave it on their own.
“We do not see a real desire on the part of the Russians and their satellites to provide an opportunity for Mariupol residents to evacuate to territory controlled by Ukraine,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
He said Russian forces “are categorically not allowing any humanitarian cargo, even in small amounts, into the city”
On Thursday, Russian forces blocked a 45-bus convoy attempting to evacuate people from Mariupol after the Russian military agreed to a limited cease-fire in the area, and only 631 people were able to leave in private cars, the Ukrainian government said.
Russian forces also seized 14 tons of food and medical supplies trying to make it to Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
The city has been the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war. Tens of thousands of residents managed to leave in the past few weeks through humanitarian corridors, reducing the population from a prewar 430,000 to an estimated 100,000 by last week. But continued Russian attacks have repeatedly thwarted aid and evacuation missions.
Read: War in Ukraine fuels fears among draft-age Russian youths
In the past few days, the Kremlin, in a seeming shift in its war aims, said that its “main goal” now is gaining complete control of the Donbas, where Mariupol is located. The Donbas is the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial region of eastern Ukraine where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014 and have declared two areas as independent republics.
Western officials said there were growing indications Russia was using its talk of de-escalation in Ukraine as cover to regroup, resupply and redeploy its forces for a stepped-up offensive in the east.
Russian forces have subjected both Chernihiv, a besieged city in northern Ukraine, and the capital of Kyiv to continued air and ground-launched missile strikes despite Moscow saying Tuesday it planned to reduce military activity in those areas.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces have retaken the villages of Sloboda and Lukashivka, south of Chernihiv and along one of the main supply routes between the city and Kyiv, according to Britain’s Defense Ministry.
Ukraine has also continued to make successful but limited counterattacks to the east and northeast of Kyiv, the ministry said.
Hours later, Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram early Friday that the fire at the oil depot “occurred as a result of an airstrike from two helicopters of the armed forces of Ukraine, which entered the territory of Russia at a low altitude.”
The depot run by Russian energy giant Rosneft is located about 35 kilometers (21 miles) north of the Ukraine-Russia border.
Read: Heavy fighting rages near Kyiv as Russia appears to regroup
Separately, Ukraine’s state power company, Energoatom, said Russian troops pulled out of the heavily contaminated Chernobyl nuclear site in northern Ukraine early Friday after receiving “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches in the exclusion zone around the closed plant.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said it could not independently confirm the exposure claim. Energoatom gave no details on the condition of the soldiers and did not say how many were affected. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.
The agency, which is the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said it had been informed by Ukraine that Russian forces at Chernobyl had transferred control of the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster to the Ukrainians in writing.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi wrote on Twitter that he would visit the decommissioned plant as soon as possible and his agency’s “assistance and support” mission to Chernobyl “will be the first in a series of such nuclear safety and security missions to Ukraine.”
Grossi was in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Friday for talks with senior officials about nuclear issues in Ukraine. Nine of Ukraine’s 15 operational reactors are currently in use, including two at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya facility, the agency said.
Russian forces seized the Chernobyl site soon after invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, raising fears they would cause damage or disruption that could spread radiation. The workforce there oversees the safe storage of spent fuel rods and the concrete-entombed ruins of the reactor that exploded in 1986.
Five weeks and one day into a conflict that has left thousands dead and driven more than 4 million refugees from Ukraine, there seemed little faith that the two sides would find agreement on their respective demands any time soon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said conditions weren’t yet “ripe” for a cease-fire and he wasn’t ready for a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy until the negotiators do more work, Italian Premier Mario Draghi said after a Thursday telephone conversation with the Russian leader.
In his nightly video address late Thursday, Zelenskyy doubted Moscow’s willingness to end the conflict. He warned that Russian withdrawals in the country’s north and center were just a military tactic to build up strength for new attacks in the southeast.
“We know their intentions,” Zelenskyy said. “We know that they are moving away from those areas where we hit them in order to focus on other, very important ones where it may be difficult for us.”
War in Ukraine fuels fears among draft-age Russian youths
As Moscow’s forces bog down in Ukraine, many young Russians of draft age are increasingly jittery about the prospect of being sent into combat. Making those fears particularly acute is an annual spring conscription that begins Friday and aims to round up 134,500 men for a one-year tour of military duty.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu pledged at a meeting of the military brass this week that the new recruits won’t be sent to front lines or “hot spots.”
But the statement was met with skepticism by many in Russia who remember the separatist wars in the southern republic of Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s, when thousands of poorly trained young men were killed.
Read:Russians leave Chernobyl; Ukraine braces for renewed attacks
“I don’t trust them when they say they won’t send conscripts into combat. They lie all the time,” said Vladislav, a 22-year-old who is completing his studies and fears he could face the draft immediately after graduation. He asked that his last name not be used, fearing reprisals.
All Russian men aged 18-27 must serve one year in the military, but a large share avoid the draft for health reasons or deferments granted to university students. The share of men who avoid the draft is particularly big in Moscow and other major cities.
Even as President Vladimir Putin and his officials say that conscripts aren’t involved in what Russian authorities call “the special military operation in Ukraine,” many appeared to have been taken prisoner during its initial days. Videos emerged from Ukraine of captured Russians, some being shown calling their parents, and were put on social media.
The mother of one of the prisoners said she recognized her 20-year-old draftee son in a video even though he was shown blindfolded.
“I recognized him by his lips, by his chin. You know, I would have recognized him by his fingers,” said the woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Lyubov, for security reasons. “I breastfed him. I raised him.”
The Defense Ministry was forced to walk back its statements and acknowledge that some conscripts were sent to Ukraine “by mistake” and were taken prisoner while serving with a supply unit away from the front.
There have been allegations that before the invasion, some conscripts were forced to sign military contracts that allowed them to be sent into combat — duty that is normally reserved only for volunteers in the army. Some of the captured soldiers said they were told by their commanding officers that they were going to a military exercise but suddenly found themselves fighting in Ukraine.
Lyudmila Narusova, a member of the upper house of the Russian parliament, spoke in early March about an entire company of 100 men who were forced to sign such contracts and were sent into the combat zone — and only four survived. Military officials did not comment on her allegation.
Svetlana Agapitova, the human rights commissioner in St. Petersburg, said Wednesday that relatives of seven soldiers had written to her to complain the men had been forced to sign the contract and sent to Ukraine against their will. She said two of them already had been brought back to Russia.
In recent years, the Kremlin has emphasized increasing the share of volunteer contract soldiers as it sought to modernize the army and improve its readiness. The force of 1 million now has over 400,000 contract soldiers, including 147,000 in the infantry. If the war drags on, those numbers could be insufficient to sustain the operations.
The Kremlin could eventually face a choice: Keep fighting with a limited number of troops and see the offensive stall, or try to replenish the ranks with a broader draft and risk public outrage that could fuel anti-draft sentiment and destabilize the political situation. Such a scenario occurred during the fighting in Chechnya.
Dmitry, a 25-year-old IT expert, has a deferment that should keep him out of the draft for medical reasons. But he’s still nervous like many others, fearing authorities could abruptly waive some deferments to bolster the military.
Read:Russians leave Chernobyl site as fighting rages elsewhere
“I hate the war. I think it’s a total disaster,” said Dmitry, who also asked that he not be identified by has last name, fearing reprisals. “I fear that the government could change the rules and I could face the draft. They also were saying for months that they wouldn’t attack Ukraine, so why should I trust what they say about the draft now?”
Proposed legislation would facilitate the draft by allowing military recruiters to call up conscripts more easily, but the bill has been put on hold for now.
Still, it added to the public’s anxiety.
Alexei Tabalov, a lawyer who advises conscripts, said medical panels at recruitment offices often admit youths who should be exempt from service because of illness. Now, he added, their attitudes could grow even tougher.
“It’s quite probable that doctors may shut their eyes to conscripts’ illnesses and declare them fit for military duty,” Tabalov said.
In addition to lowering the medical standard for draftees, there are fears that the government could try to impose some sort of martial law that would ban Russian men from leaving the country and, like Ukraine, force them to fight.
“We have received a lot of calls from people fearing mobilization,” Tabalov said. “People now are afraid of everything in this situation. No one even thought before about the need to analyze the law on mobilization.”
The Kremlin has strongly denied any such plans, and military officials insist the army has enough contract soldiers to serve in Ukraine. Still, many Russians remain skeptical of the officials’ denials, given their track record.
“What kind of trust could there be if Putin says one day that conscripts will not be sent there ... and then the Defense Ministry recognizes that they were there?” Tabalov asked.
An existing law allows for a 21-month alternative civil service in hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities for those who view military duty as incompatible with their beliefs, but military conscription offices often broadly ignore requests for such service.
After the war began, Tabalov said his group saw a large increase in inquiries about the alternative service law, which is vaguely phrased and allows military officials to easily turn down applications.
“We are worried that in the current militarist mood, military conscription offices can take a tougher attitude and reject appeals for the alternative civil service,” he said.
Russians leave Chernobyl; Ukraine braces for renewed attacks
Russian troops left the heavily contaminated Chernobyl nuclear site early Friday after returning control to the Ukrainians, authorities said, as residents in parts of eastern Ukraine braced for renewed attacks and awaited blocked supplies of food and other humanitarian relief.
Ukraine’s state power company, Energoatom, said the pullout at Chernobyl came after soldiers received “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches in the forest in the exclusion zone around the closed plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it could not independently confirm the exposure claim.
In what would be the first attack of its kind, if confirmed, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region accused Ukraine of flying helicopter gunships across the border on Friday morning and striking an oil depot.
The depot run by Russian energy giant Rosneft is located about 35 kilometers (21 miles) north of the Ukraine-Russia border. The helicopter attack set the facility ablaze, and two people were injured, according to a Telegram post by Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
“The fire at the oil depot occurred as a result of an airstrike from two helicopters of the armed forces of Ukraine, which entered the territory of Russia at a low altitude,” the governor wrote on the messaging app.
Read:War in Ukraine fuels fears among draft-age Russian youths
It was not immediately possible to verify the claim or images that were circulating on social media of the alleged attack. Russia has reported shelling from Ukraine before, including an incident last week that killed a military chaplain, but not an incursion of its airspace.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces have retaken the villages of Sloboda and Lukashivka, which are south of the besieged northern city of Chernihiv and located along one of the main supply routes between the city and Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, according to Britain’s Defense Ministry.
Ukraine has also continued to make successful but limited counterattacks to the east and northeast of Kyiv, the ministry said.
Russian forces have subjected both Chernihiv and Kyiv to continued air and ground-launched missile strikes despite Moscow officials saying Tuesday they planned to reduce military activity in those areas.
Western officials said there were growing indications Russia was using its talk of de-escalation in Ukraine as cover to regroup, resupply its forces and redeploy them for a stepped-up offensive in the eastern part of the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russian withdrawals from the north and center of the country were just a military tactic to build up strength for new attacks in the southeast.
“We know their intentions,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. “We know that they are moving away from those areas where we hit them in order to focus on other, very important ones where it may be difficult for us.”
“There will be battles ahead,” he added.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators planned to resume talks via video on Friday, five weeks into a conflict that has left thousands dead and driven more than 4 million refugees from Ukraine. There seemed little faith that the two sides would find agreement on their respective demands any time soon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said conditions weren’t yet “ripe” for a cease-fire and he wasn’t ready for a meeting with Zelenskyy until the negotiators do more work, Italian Premier Mario Draghi said after a Thursday telephone conversation with the Russian leader.
Following a plea from Zelenskyy when he addressed Australian Parliament on Thursday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that his country would send mine-resistant armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.
He said Friday the four-wheel drive Bushmaster vehicles, specifically requested by Zelenskyy, would be flown to Europe but did not say how many would be delivered or when.
“We’re not just sending our prayers, we are sending our guns, we’re sending our munitions, we’re sending our humanitarian aid, we’re sending all of this, our body armor, all of these things, and we’re going to be sending our armored vehicles, our Bushmasters, as well,” Morrison said.
In the encircled strategic port city of Mariupol, Russian forces on Thursday blocked a convoy of 45 buses attempting to evacuate people after the Russian military agreed to a limited cease-fire in the area. Only 631 people were able to get out of the city in private cars, according to the Ukrainian government.
Russian forces also seized 14 tons of food and medical supplies in a dozen buses that were trying to make it to Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
The city has been the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war. Tens of thousands of residents managed to get out in the past few weeks by way of humanitarian corridors, reducing the population from a prewar 430,000 to an estimated 100,000 by last week. But continued Russian attacks have repeatedly thwarted aid and evacuation convoys.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said it had been informed by Ukraine that the Russians forces at Chernobyl had transferred control of the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster to the Ukrainians in writing. The last Russian troops left Chernobyl early Friday, the Ukrainian government agency responsible for the exclusion zone said.
Energoatom gave no details on the condition of the soldiers it said were exposed to radiation and did not say how many were affected. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin, and the IAEA said it was seeking more information.
Read:Heavy fighting rages near Kyiv as Russia appears to regroup
Russian forces seized the Chernobyl site in the opening stages of the Feb. 24 invasion, raising fears that they would cause damage or disruption that could spread radiation. The workforce at the site oversees the safe storage of spent fuel rods and the concrete-entombed ruins of the reactor that exploded in 1986.
Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert with the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said it “seems unlikely” a large number of troops would develop severe radiation illness, but it was impossible to know for sure without more details.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi was in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on Friday for talks with senior officials there about nuclear issues in Ukraine.
In addition to concerns about Chernobyl, nine of Ukraine’s 15 operational reactors are currently in use, including two at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya facility, the IAEA said.
Early this week, the Russians said they would significantly scale back military operations in areas around Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv to increase trust between the two sides and help negotiations along.
But in the Kyiv suburbs, regional governor Oleksandr Palviuk said on social media Thursday that Russian forces shelled Irpin and Makariv and that there were battles around Hostomel. Pavliuk said there were Ukrainian counterattacks and some Russian withdrawals around the suburb of Brovary to the east.
At a Ukrainian military checkpoint outside Kyiv, soldiers and officers said they don’t believe Russian forces have given up on the capital.
“What does it mean, significantly scaling down combat actions in the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas?” asked Brig. Gen. Valeriy Embakov. “Does it mean there will be 100 missiles instead of 200 missiles launched on Kyiv or something else?”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said intelligence indicates Russia is not scaling back its military operations in Ukraine but is instead trying to regroup, resupply its forces and reinforce its offensive in the Donbas.
“Russia has repeatedly lied about its intentions,” Stoltenberg said. At the same time, he said, pressure is being kept up on Kyiv and other cities, and “we can expect additional offensive actions bringing even more suffering.”
The Donbas is the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial region where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014. In the past few days, the Kremlin, in a seeming shift in its war aims, said that its “main goal” now is gaining control of the Donbas, which consists of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, including Mariupol.
Protests demand Sri Lanka leader resign over economic crisis
Police fired tear gas and a water cannon at thousands of protesters outside the home of Sri Lanka's president Thursday, demanding he resign over the nation's worst economic crisis.
Police later enforced a curfew in suburbs of the capital because the protests wouldn't subside. The protesters blamed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for long power outages and shortages of essentials and shouted, “Go home, Gota go home.”
The crowds demonstrating along the roads leading to his private residence at Mirihana, on the outskirts of Colombo, stoned two army buses that police were using to block the protesters from entering the road leading to Rajapaksa’s residence. They set fire to one of buses and turned back a fire truck that rushed to douse it.
At least one person was severely injured in the leg when police fired tear gas cannisters directly at protesters to stop their attack on the bus.
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Armed soldiers with assault rifles were stationed near the protest. Angry protesters also gathered around the Mirihana police station accusing the police of trying to protect the corrupt. Police there deployed tear gas.
Sri Lanka has huge debt obligations and dwindling foreign reserves, and its struggle to pay for imports has caused the shortages. People wait in long lines for fuel, and power is cut for several hours daily because there's not enough fuel to operate generating plants and dry weather that has sapped hydropower capacity.
Lamenting the power cuts that are up to 13 hours a day, protester Dulaj Madhushan, 30, asked: “How can people earn a living?”
“This is not a political one, but a protest led by people. They took people for granted. Now you can see peoples' power,” he said.
The protesters appeared voluntary and without a leader. Residents of a middle-class neighborhood including many women who would normally not participate in street protests were seen telling police that they were fighting for them, too.
Protester Asanka Dharmasinghe, 37, said he has been running a carpentry shed, employing four people and paying them each about $12 a day, but he is unable to cover the costs because he only has two hours of electricity to work.
“My daughter is sitting for exams, but there is no paper,” he said.
The curfew imposed in parts of Colombo and suburbs after the protests ended will last until further notice, police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa said.
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He asked people in the areas where the curfew was imposed to remain at home, warning that violations will be dealt with strictly according to the law. He also said motorists will not be allowed to travel through those areas.
Sri Lanka’s economic woes are blamed on successive governments not diversifying exports and relying on traditional cash sources like tea, garments and tourism, and on a culture of consuming imported goods.
The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a heavy blow to Sri Lanka’s economy, with the government estimating a loss of $14 billion in the last two years.
Sri Lanka also has immense foreign debt after borrowing heavily on projects that don’t earn money. Its foreign debt repayment obligations are around $7 billion for this year alone.
According to the Central Bank, inflation rose to 17.5% in February from 16.8% a month earlier. Its expected to continue rising because the government has allowed the local currency to float freely.
Separately on Thursday, the country's Catholic bishops called for unity among politicians, warning that the island is fast becoming a failed state.
All governments to date are responsible in varying degree for the crisis, the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Sri Lanka said in a statement, adding that the government and the opposition must adopt a conciliatory approach without blaming each other.
The bishops called on Catholic institutions and individuals to provide assistance to the most affected groups.