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Israel to maintain relations with Kyiv, Moscow
Israel’s prime minister says the country is managing its involvement with Ukraine and Russia “in a sensitive, generous and responsible way while balancing various and complex considerations” after Ukraine’s president called on Israel to take sides.
Naftali Bennett spoke on the tarmac at Israel’s main international airport as an aid delegation was set to depart for Ukraine to set up a field hospital for refugees near the Polish border.
Read:Zelenskyy evokes Holocaust as he appeals to Israel for aid
A day earlier Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rebuked Israel in a televised address to Israeli parliament members, saying Israel should provide arms and impose sanctions on Russia.
Israel has good relations with both Ukraine and Russia and has acted as an intermediary between the two sides since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. While Israel has condemned Russia’s invasion, it has also refrained from taking action that would anger Moscow out of concern of jeopardizing its military coordination in neighboring Syria.
Bennett said that “Israel has extended its hand in aid in the Ukraine crisis for several weeks, very much from the first moment, through different channels,” pointing to humanitarian aid shipments and taking in Ukrainian refugees and immigrants.
Ukraine rejects Russian demand for surrender in Mariupol
Ukrainian officials defiantly rejected a Russian demand that their forces in Mariupol lay down arms and raise white flags Monday in exchange for safe passage out of the besieged strategic port.
Russia has been barraging the encircled southern city on the Sea of Azov, hitting an art school sheltering some 400 people only hours before offering to open two corridors out of the city in return for the capitulation of its defenders, according to Ukrainian officials.
Fighting for Mariupol has continued to be intense, even as the Russian offensive in other areas has floundered to the point where Western governments and analysts see the broader conflict grinding into a war of attrition.
Ukrainian officials rejected the Russian proposal for safe passage out of Mariupol even before Moscow's 5 a.m. deadline for a response came and went.
“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda. "We have already informed the Russian side about this.”
Mariupol Mayor Piotr Andryushchenko also rejected the offer shortly after it was made, saying in a Facebook post he didn’t need to wait until the morning deadline to respond and cursing at the Russians, according to the news agency Interfax Ukraine.
Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev had offered two corridors — one heading east toward Russia and the other west to other parts of Ukraine. He did not say what Russia planned if the offer was rejected.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said authorities in Mariupol could face a military tribunal if they sided with what it described as “bandits,” the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Earlier attempts to evacuate civilian residents from Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities have failed or only partly succeeded, with bombardments continuing as civilians sought to flee.
Tearful evacuees from devastated Mariupol have described how “battles took place over every street.”
Ahead of the latest offer, a Russian airstrike hit the school where some 400 civilians had been taking shelter and it was not clear how many casualties there were, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address early Monday.
Read: 'No city anymore': Mariupol survivors take train to safety
“They are under the rubble, and we don’t know how many of them have survived,” he said.
The fall of Mariupol would allow Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine to unite. But Western military analysts say that even if the surrounded city is taken, the troops battling a block at a time for control there may be too depleted to help secure Russian breakthroughs on other fronts.
Ukrainians “have not greeted Russian soldiers with a bunch of flowers,” Zelenskyy told CNN, but with “weapons in their hands.”
U.S. President Joe Biden was expected to talk later Monday with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Britain to discuss the war, before heading later in the week to Brussels and then Poland for in-person talks.
Zelenskyy has been pleading with the U.S. for more aircraft and advanced air-defense systems, while NATO members on the alliance's eastern flank have also been looking for missile defense systems from the U.S. and Britain.
Three weeks into the invasion, the two sides now seem to be trying to wear down the other, experts say, with bogged-down Russian forces launching long-range missiles at cities and military bases as Ukrainian forces carry out hit-and-run attacks and seek to sever Russian supply lines.
“The block-by-block fighting in Mariupol itself is costing the Russian military time, initiative, and combat power,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a briefing.
US says Myanmar repression of Muslim Rohingya is genocide
Violent repression of the largely Muslim Rohingya population in Myanmar amounts to genocide, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday, a declaration intended to both generate international pressure and lay the groundwork for potential legal action.
Authorities made the determination based on confirmed accounts of mass atrocities on civilians by Myanmar's military in a widespread and systematic campaign against the ethnic minority, Blinken said in a speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
It is the eighth time since the Holocaust that the U.S. has concluded a genocide has occurred. The secretary of state noted the importance of calling attention to inhumanity even as horrific attacks occur elsewhere in the world, including Ukraine.
“Yes, we stand with the people of Ukraine," he said. "And we must also stand with people who are suffering atrocities in other places.”
The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, is already under multiple layers of U.S. sanctions since a military coup ousted the democratically elected government in February 2021. Thousands of civilians throughout the country have been killed and imprisoned as part of ongoing repression of anyone opposed to the ruling junta.
The determination that a genocide has occurred could lead other nations to increase pressure on the government, which is already facing accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
“As we lay the foundation for future accountability, we’re also working to stop the military’s ongoing atrocities, and support the people of Burma as they strive to put the country back on the path to democracy,” Blinken said.
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar to refugee camps in Bangladesh since August 2017, when Myanmar's military launched an operation aimed at clearing them from the country following attacks by a rebel group.
The status of the plight of the Rohingya had been under extended review by U.S. government legal experts since the Trump administration, given potential legal ramifications of such a finding. The delay in the determination had drawn criticism from both inside and outside the government, which has been accused through successive administrations of being too slow in making such decisions on this and in other cases, most notable in Sudan’s Darfur region in the early 2000s.
Read: Rohingya case: Bangladesh assures continued support for The Gambia
Human rights groups and members of Congress welcomed the announcement despite the delay in a determination that has already been made by other countries, including Canada, France and Turkey.
“The U.S. determination of the crime of genocide against us is a momentous moment and must lead to concrete action to hold the Burmese military accountable for their crimes,” said Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK.
Human Rights Watch said the U.S. and other governments should seek justice for crimes carried out by the military and impose stronger sanctions against its leadership.
“The U.S. government should couple its condemnations of Myanmar’s military with action,” said John Sifton, the group’s Asia advocacy director. “For too long, the U.S. and other countries have allowed Myanmar’s generals to commit atrocities with few real consequences.”
A 2018 State Department report documented instances of Myanmar's military razing villages and carrying out rapes, tortures and mass killings of civilians since at least 2016. Blinken said evidence showed the violence wasn't isolated, but part of a systematic program that amounts to crimes against humanity.
Read:Roving with Rohingyas: How feminine hearts can make a difference, from scare to care
“The evidence also points to a clear intent behind these mass atrocities, the intent to destroy Rohingya, in whole or in part, through killings, rape, and torture,” he said.
Previous determinations of genocide by the U.S. include campaigns against Uyghurs and other largely Muslim minorities in China as well as in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfur.
Gunfire at Arkansas car show leaves 1 dead, 27 wounded
One man was killed and 27 people were wounded when two people got into a gunfight during a car show that's part of an annual community event in a small southeast Arkansas town, authorities said Sunday.
A person who left the scene of the Saturday evening shooting has been arrested on unrelated charges and is being questioned about the shooting in Dumas, a city of about 4,000 located about 90 miles (144 kilometers) southeast of Little Rock, Arkansas State Police Col. Bill Bryant said.
“All we know at this time, there was two individuals that got in a gunfight,” Bryant said at a Sunday afternoon news conference.
Read:Car runs into Carnival revelers in Belgium, killing 6
He said several children were among the wounded, including two under the age of 2.
The car show is part of a community event held each spring called Hood-Nic, which is short for neighborhood picnic. The Hood-Nic Foundation says on its website that its mission is to “rebuild, reunite, and respond to the needs of the youth in our communities.”
The event, which helps raise funds for scholarships and school supplies, also included a bonfire, a basketball tournament, musical performances, a teen party and a balloon release.
“The purpose of Hood-Nic has always been to bring the community together,” the foundation said on its Facebook page. “This senseless violence needs to end.”
“It’s always been a family-friendly event with a message of non-violence,” said Kris Love-Keys, the foundation's chief development officer.
Cameron Shaffer, 23, of Jacksonville, Arkansas, was killed in the gunfire, Bryant said. He said authorities have no indication that he was involved in the gunfight.
Earlier in the day, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said on Twitter that one of the two suspects had been arrested and was being held on unrelated charges. But state police later would only say the person who was arrested was being questioned.
“As the investigation continues I will examine details to see if there are any steps that could have been taken to prevent this type of tragedy,” Hutchinson said.
Read:Car crash kills 7 in southern Myanmar
Six people under the age of 18 who were wounded by gunfire were taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, according to a spokeswoman. Most had been released as of Sunday afternoon.
Wallace McGehee, the car show's organizer, told KARK that that when the bullets started flying, he began “running, ducking, getting down, trying to get kids out of the way.”
Candace McKinzie, who helped organize the event, told The New York Times that the gunfire seemed to come out of nowhere.
“You went from laughing and talking and eating and everything to random firing,” she said.
McKinzie said people started running and tripping over one another and older people were falling.
Those who were shot include McKinzie’s cousin and sister. She said both were expected to recover.
Chris Jones, a Democrat running for Arkansas governor, tweeted that he was at the event earlier Saturday, registering voters and enjoying “a positive family atmosphere.”
“I am deeply saddened (and honestly angered) by this tragedy,” Jones said in a statement.
Fishing boat sinks in New Zealand storm, 4 dead, 1 missing
Rescuers on Monday were continuing to search for one person still missing a day after a chartered fishing boat carrying 10 people sank in a storm off the New Zealand coast. A helicopter rescued five people from the sea, and four bodies have been recovered.
The 17-meter (56-foot) boat got into trouble and its emergency beacon was activated at 8 p.m. Sunday off North Cape on the northern coast. A helicopter became the first search and rescue vehicle to reach the remote location at 11:40 p.m., said Nick Burt, spokesman for Maritime NZ’s Rescue Coordination Center.
Read:Shot 9 times at New Zealand mosque, survivor walks for peace
“The weather really hampered the response from the aircraft. There was thunderstorms, dangerous flying conditions, so that was the earliest we could get to the scene," Burt said.
The boat was confirmed sunk at 2:30 a.m., he said. Weather conditions were more favorable for the search Monday, with a navy patrol boat coordinating, helicopters in the air and ground crews scouring the shoreline, Burt said.
Two bodies in the water were recovered by helicopter on Monday morning, and another two were recovered by search vessels, police said.
The five people rescued by helicopter were admitted to Kaitaia Hospital and later discharged.
Luis Fernandes, a meteorologist with New Zealand’s weather agency MetService, said gale-force winds had whipped up rough seas around North Cape at the time the alarm was raised.
But conditions eased in the area later in the night as the search began and the storm system moved south, he said.
The fishing boat had left the northern port of Mangonui on Thursday, the Stuff news website reported.
Read: New Zealand to end quarantine stays and reopen its borders
On board were the captain, a crew member and eight passengers from Auckland, New Zealand’s most populous city, Stuff said.
The captain was among with survivors, the website said. No one else has been identified.
Zelenskyy evokes Holocaust as he appeals to Israel for aid
Ukraine’s president on Sunday called on Israel to take a stronger stand against Russia, delivering an emotional appeal that compared Russia’s invasion of his country to the actions of Nazi Germany.
In a speech to Israeli lawmakers over Zoom, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was time for Israel, which has emerged as a key mediator between Ukraine and Russia, to finally take sides. He said Israel should follow its Western allies by imposing sanctions and providing arms to Ukraine.
“One can ask for a long time why we can’t accept weapons from you or why Israel didn’t impose sanctions against Russia, why you are not putting pressure on Russian business,” he said. “It is your choice, dear brothers and sisters.”
Read:Ukraine war is backdrop in US push for hypersonic weapons
Zelenskyy, who has carefully catered a series of similar parliamentary speeches to his audiences, made frequent references to the Holocaust as he tried to rally support. The comparisons drew an angry condemnation from Israel's national Holocaust memorial, which said Zelenskyy was trivializing the Holocaust.
Zelenskyy accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to carry out a “final solution” against Ukraine -- using the Nazi term for its planned genocide of 6 million Jews during World War II.
“You remember it and will never forget it for sure,” he said. “But you should hear what is coming from Moscow now. They are saying the same words now: 'final solution.' But this time it's about us, about the Ukrainian question."
Zelenskyy, who himself is Jewish, also noted that a Russian missile slammed into Babi Yar -- the spot of a notorious Nazi massacre in 1941 that now hosts Ukraine's main Holocaust memorial.
“The people of Israel, you saw how Russian rockets hit Babi Yar. You know what this place means, where the victims of the Holocaust are buried,” he said.
The use of such sensitive language was a clear attempt by Zelenskyy to connect with his audience. Israel was founded in 1948 as a refugee for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust. The country is home to tens of thousands of elderly survivors, and many of its leaders are children of survivors.
Putin has also has sought to paint his enemies in Ukraine as neo-Nazis as he tries to legitimize his war in Ukraine. But historians, noting that Ukraine is a democracy led by a Jewish president, have condemned his use of such terminology as disinformation and a cynical ploy to further the Russian leader’s aims.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, whose late father was a Holocaust survivor, thanked Zelenskyy for the speech.
“We will continue to assist the Ukrainian people as much as we can and we will never turn our backs to the plight of people who know the horrors of war,” Lapid said.
But Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, which had previously condemned Putin's Nazi references, also harshly criticized Zelenskyy, without naming him.
“Propagandist discourse accompanying the current hostilities is saturated with irresponsible statements and completely inaccurate comparisons with Nazi ideology and actions before and during the Holocaust,” it said. "Yad Vashem condemns this trivialization and distortion of the historical facts of the Holocaust.”
Read:Shelter bombed in Ukraine city; war seen entering new phase
The Israeli public has been largely supportive of Ukraine since Russia invaded its western neighbor on Feb. 24. Several thousand people, many holding Ukrainian flags, gathered in a central Tel Aviv square to watch his speech on a large screen.
But Israel’s government has been much more cautious as it carves out a role as a mediator in the war. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett paid a surprise visit to Moscow to meet with Putin on March 5. Since then, he has spoken to the Russian leader at least twice and to Zelenskyy at least six times, according to his office.
While Israel’s foreign minister has strongly condemned the invasion, Bennett has used more tepid language to maintain an air of neutrality.
With large Jewish populations in both Ukraine and Russia, Israel is wary of antagonizing either side. Israel also has good working relations with the Russian military in neighboring Syria -- where both sides’ maintain a special hotline to make sure their air forces do not come into conflict.
Israel has delivered tons of humanitarian aid to Ukraine and is set to open a special field hospital in western Ukraine later this week. But it has rejected pleas to provide arms or impose sanctions against Russia or its oligarchs, some of whom are Jewish and have strong ties to Israel.
Zelenskyy said it was time for this to change.
“Everyone in Israel knows that your missile defense is the best. Everyone knows that your weapons are strong, everyone knows that you are great and you know how to defend your national interests, interests of your people and you can definitely help defend ours,” he said.
'No city anymore': Mariupol survivors take train to safety
The heat on the train was as thick as the anxiety. Ukrainian survivors of one of the most brutal sieges in modern history were in the final minutes of their ride to relative safety.
Some carried only what they had at hand when they seized the chance to escape the port of Mariupol amid relentless Russian bombardment. Some fled so quickly that relatives who were still in the starving, freezing Ukrainian city on the Sea of Azov aren't aware that they have gone.
“There is no city anymore,” Marina Galla said. She wept in the doorway of a crowded train compartment that was pulling into the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
Read:Ukraine war is backdrop in US push for hypersonic weapons
The relief of being free from weeks of threats and deprivation, of seeing bodies in the streets and drinking melted snow because there was no water, was crushed by sadness as she thought of family members left behind.
“I don’t know anything about them,” she said. “My mother, grandmother, grandfather and father. They don’t even know that we have left."
Seeing her tears, her 13-year-old son kissed her over and over, offering comfort.
Mariupol authorities say nearly 10% of the city's population of 430,000 have fled over the past week, risking their lives in convoys out.
For Galla, the memories are too fresh.
For three weeks, she and her son lived in the basement of Mariupol’s Palace of Culture to hide from the constant Russian shelling, moving underground after the horizon turned black with smoke.
“We had no water, no light, no gas, absolutely no communications,” she said. They cooked meals outside with wood in the yard, even while under fire.
Even as they finally fled Mariupol, aiming to reach trains heading west to safety, Russian soldiers at checkpoints made a chilling suggestion: It would be better to go to the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol or the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula instead.
It's a suggestion that residents found ludicrous after the Russians on Wednesday bombed a Mariupol theater where children and others were sheltering, and after authorities on Sunday said an art school holding hundreds of people in Mariupol had been bombed.
For hours on Sunday’s train journey, survivors shared their experiences with fellow passengers. Even residents of other Ukrainian cities that have been battered or occupied by the Russians see Mariupol as a horror apart.
One resident of Melitopol, Yelena Sovchyuk, shared a train compartment with a Mariupol family. She bought them food, she said. They had nothing, only a small bag.
Read:Shelter bombed in Ukraine city; war seen entering new phase
“Everyone from there is in deep shock,” Sovchyuk said.
She recalled seeing convoys from the besieged city on the road. “There’s a way to tell a Mariupol car,” she said. “They have no glass in their windows.”
With deep disdain, Sovchyuk said Russian soldiers amid such devastation were still encouraging Ukrainians to come to Russia, claiming it would be for their safety.
The Mariupol City Council has asserted that several thousand residents were taken into Russia against their will over the past week. On Sunday, the Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said 2,973 people had been “evacuated” from Mariupol since March 5, including 541 over the last 24 hours.
The train of survivors on Sunday afternoon approached the central station of Lviv, the city near Poland that has absorbed an estimated 200,000 people fleeing other areas of Ukraine. As they climbed off one by one into the arms of family and friends after weeks of fearing for their lives, some Mariupol survivors wept.
A mother embraced a red-faced, teary teenage boy at the foot of the steps. An elderly woman in a kerchief, helped off the train, walked away in silence. Another stood motionless among her bags, blinking behind thick glasses. Her neighbor, who fled with her, described cars in their convoy coming under fire.
Her hair askew, clutched by family, Olga Nikitina cried on the platform.
“They began to destroy our city, completely, house after house,” the young woman said. “Battles took place over every street. Every house became a target.”
Gunshots blew out the windows. When the temperatures in her apartment dropped below freezing. Nikitina moved in with her godmother, who has cancer and takes care of her elderly father. Ukrainian soldiers later came and warned them that their house would come under fire.
“Either hide or move out,” the soldiers said.
Nikitina left. The others were too fragile to flee. Now, like so many Mariupol survivors who escaped, she doesn’t know the fate of those left behind.
Russia demands Mariupol lay down arms but Ukraine says no
As it continued its barrage of the besieged city of Mariupol, Russia demanded that Ukrainians put down their arms and raise white flags on Monday in exchange for safe passage out of town.
Ukraine angrily rejected the offer, which came hours after officials said Russian forces had bombed an art school that was sheltering some 400 people.
While the fight for control of the strategically important city remained intense, Western governments and analysts see the broader conflict shifting to a war of attrition.
Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said it would allow two corridors out of Mariupol, heading either east toward Russia or west to other parts of Ukraine.
Mariupol residents were given until 5 a.m. Monday to respond to the offer. Russia didn't say what action it would take if it was rejected.
But Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said no.
“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this,” she told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda. “I wrote: `Instead of wasting time on eight pages of letters, just open the corridor.’”
Mariupol Mayor Piotr Andryushchenko also rejected the offer, saying in a Facebook post he didn’t need to wait until morning to respond and cursing at the Russians, according to the news agency Interfax Ukraine.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said authorities in Mariupol could face a military tribunal if they sided with what it described as “bandits,” the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Previous bids to allow residents to evacuate Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities have failed or have been only partially successful, with bombardments continuing as civilians sought to flee.
Speaking in a video address early Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 400 civilians were taking shelter at the art school when it was struck by a Russian bomb.
“They are under the rubble, and we don’t know how many of them have survived,” he said. “But we know that we will certainly shoot down the pilot who dropped that bomb, like about 100 other such mass murderers whom we already have downed.”
Read:Ukraine war is backdrop in US push for hypersonic weapons
Tearful evacuees from the devastated Azov Sea port city have described how “battles took place over every street."
The fall of Mariupol would allow Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine to link up. But Western military analysts say that even if the surrounded city is taken, the troops battling a block at a time for control there may be too depleted to help secure Russian breakthroughs on other fronts.
Three weeks into the invasion, Western governments and analysts see the conflict shifting to a war of attrition, with bogged down Russian forces launching long-range missiles at cities and military bases as Ukrainian forces carry out hit-and-run attacks and seek to sever their supply lines.
Ukrainians “have not greeted Russian soldiers with a bunch of flowers,” Zelenskyy told CNN, but with “weapons in their hands.”
Moscow cannot hope to rule the country, he added, given Ukrainians' enmity toward the Russian forces.
The strike on the art school was the second time in less than a week that officials reported an attack on a public building where Mariupol residents had taken shelter. On Wednesday, a bomb hit a theater where more than 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering.
There was no immediate word on casualties in the school attack, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 people had been rescued and another 1,300 were trapped by rubble.
City officials and aid groups say food, water and electricity have run low in Mariupol and fighting has kept out humanitarian convoys. Communications are severed.
The city has been under bombardment for over three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrors of the war. City officials said at least 2,300 people have died, with some buried in mass graves.
Some who were able to flee Mariupol tearfully hugged relatives as they arrived by train Sunday in Lviv, about 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the west.
“Battles took place over every street. Every house became a target,” said Olga Nikitina, who was embraced by her brother as she got off the train. "Gunfire blew out the windows. The apartment was below freezing.”
Maryna Galla narrowly escaped with her 13-year-old son. She said she huddled in the basement of a cultural center along with about 250 people for three weeks without water, electricity or gas.
“We left (home) because shells hit the houses across the road. There was no roof. There were people injured,” Galla said, adding that her mother, father and grandparents stayed behind and "don’t even know that we have left."
Unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance has dashed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hopes for a quick victory after he ordered the Feb. 24 invasion of his neighbor. In recent days, Russian forces have entered Mariupol. But taking the city could prove costly.
“The block-by-block fighting in Mariupol itself is costing the Russian military time, initiative, and combat power,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a briefing.
In a blunt assessment, the think tank concluded Russia failed in its initial campaign to take the capital of Kyiv and other major cities quickly, and its stalled invasion.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukrainian resistance means Putin’s “forces on the ground are essentially stalled.”
“It’s had the effect of him moving his forces into a woodchipper,” Austin told CBS on Sunday.
In Ukraine's major cities, hundreds of men, women and children have been killed in Russian attacks.
In Kyiv, emergency services reported four people killed by shelling not far from the center of the capital Sunday. Loud explosions were heard as a shopping center and cars in a parking lot caught fire, they said.
In a video address to the Israeli parliament on Sunday, Zelenskyy urged the lawmakers to take stronger action against Russia. accusing Putin of trying to carry out a “final solution” against Ukraine. The term was used by Nazi Germany for its genocide of some 6 million Jews during World War II.
Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, also noted that a Russian missile struck Babi Yar -- the spot in Kyiv where over 30,000 Jews were slaughtered in 1941 by the Nazis — and is now Ukraine’s main Holocaust memorial.
Read:Shelter bombed in Ukraine city; war seen entering new phase
Zelenskyy later thanked Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett for trying to help find a negotiation track with Russia "so that we sooner or later start talking with Russia, possibly in Jerusalem.”
“It would be the right place to find peace if possible,” Zelenskyy said.
He also said he'd had a call Sunday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss support for Ukraine during this week's summit of the Group of Seven and NATO.
The U.N. has confirmed 902 civilian deaths in the war but concedes the actual toll is likely much higher. It says nearly 3.4 million people have fled Ukraine.
Estimates of Russian deaths vary, but even conservative figures are in the low thousands.
Some Russians also have fled their country amid a widespread crackdown on dissent. Russia has arrested thousands of antiwar protesters, muzzled independent media and cut access to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Car runs into Carnival revelers in Belgium, killing 6
A car slammed at high speed into Carnival revelers in a small town in southern Belgium early Sunday, killing six people and leaving 10 more with life-threatening injuries, authorities said, adding many others were lightly injured.
“What should have been a great party turned into a tragedy,” said Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden.
Read:Ukraine war is backdrop in US push for hypersonic weapons
The prosecutor's office, which gave the death toll, also said two local people in their thirties were arrested at the scene in Strépy-Bracquegnies, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Brussels. Prosecutors said, in the early stages of their investigation, there were no elements to suspect a terror motive.
In an age-old tradition, Carnival revelers had gathered at dawn, intending to pick up others at their homes along the way, to finally hold their famous festivity again after it was banned for the past two years to counter the spread of COVID-19. Some dressed in colorful garb with bells attached, walking behind the beat of drums. It was supposed to be a day of deliverance.
Instead, said mayor Jacques Gobert, “what happened turned it into a national catastrophe.”
More than 150 people of all ages had gathered around 5 a.m. and were standing in a thick crowd along a long, straight road. Suddenly, “a car drove from the back at high speed. And we have a few dozen injured and unfortunately several people who are killed,” Gobert said.
The driver and a second person were arrested when their car came to a halt a few hundred meters (yards) further on.
Since Belgium was hit with twin terror attacks in Brussels and Zaventem that killed 32 civilians six years ago, thoughts of a terror motive are never far away.
But prosecutor Damien Verheyen said “there is no element in the investigation at this time that allows me to consider that the motivations of the two could have been terror related.”
The prosecutor's office also denied media reports that the crash may have been caused by a car that was being chased by police.
Read:Top Australian scientists to tackle plastic waste
King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo were expected to visit Strépy-Bracquegnies later Sunday to express support for the families of the dead and those injured.
Carnival is extremely popular in the area. Carnival festivities in nearby Binche have even been declared a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Ukraine war is backdrop in US push for hypersonic weapons
Lagging behind Russia in developing hypersonic weapons, the U.S. Navy is rushing to field its first, with installation on a warship starting as soon as late next year.
The United States is in a race with Russia and China to develop these weapons, which travel at speeds akin to ballistic missiles but are difficult to shoot down because of their maneuverability.
The Russian military says it already deployed hypersonic missiles and claimed Saturday to have used one for the first time in combat against a target in Ukraine. The Pentagon couldn’t confirm a hypersonic weapon was used in the attack.
Read:American lost in Ukraine flew into war to help sick partner
The American military is accelerating development to catch up.
The U.S. weapon would launch like a ballistic missile and would release a hypersonic glide vehicle that would reach speeds seven to eight times faster than the speed of sound before hitting the target.
In Maine, General Dynamics subsidiary Bath Iron Works has begun engineering and design work on changes necessary to install the weapon system on three Zumwalt-class destroyers.
The work would begin at a yet-to-be-named shipyard sometime in fiscal year that begins in October 2023, the Navy said.
Hypersonic weapons are defined as anything traveling beyond Mach 5, or five times faster than the speed of sound. That's about 3,800 mph (6,100 kph). Intercontinental ballistic missiles far exceed that threshold but travel in a predictable path, making it possible to intercept them.
The new weapons are maneuverable.
Existing missile defense systems, including the Navy’s Aegis system, would have trouble intercepting such objects because maneuverability makes their movement unpredictable and speed leaves little time to react.
Russia says it has ballistic missiles that can deploy hypersonic glide vehicles as well as a hypersonic cruise missile.
The U.S. is “straining just to catch up” because it failed to invest in the new technology, with only a fraction of the 10,000 people who were working on the program in the 1980s, said U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who's chair of a subcommittee that monitors the program.
“If we want to pursue parity, we will need to back this effort with more money, time, and talent than we are now,” he said.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine serves as a backdrop as the Pentagon releases its budget proposal that lays out its goals for hypersonics and other weapon systems later this month.
The three stealthy Zumwalt-class destroyers to be equipped with the new weapons have plenty of space to accommodate them — thanks to a design failure that works to the Navy’s advantage in this instance.
The ships were built around a gun system that was supposed to use GPS-guided, rocket-boosted projectiles to pound targets 90 miles (145 kilometers) away. But those projectiles proved to be too expensive, and the Navy canceled the system, leaving each of the ships with a useless loading system and a pair of 155-mm guns hidden in angular turrets.
The retrofit of all three ships will likely cost more than $1 billion but will give a new capability to the tech-laden, electric-drive ships that already cost the Navy $23.5 billion to design and build, said Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.
“The engineering is not that hard. It’ll just take time and money to make it happen,” Clark said.
The Navy intends to field the weapons on the destroyers in the 2025 fiscal year and on Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines in the 2028 fiscal year, the Navy said.
The destroyers would be based in the Pacific Ocean, where they would be a deterrent to China, should it become emboldened by Russia's attack on Ukraine and consider attacking Taiwan, Clark said.
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The U.S. focus on hypersonic weapons represents a pivot after hesitating in the past because of technological hurdles. Adversaries, meanwhile, continued research and development.
Russia fired off a salvo of Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles in late December, heralding the completion of weapon testing.
But Russia may be exaggerating the capability of such super weapons to compensate for weakness in other areas, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute.
For the time being, Russia doesn't have many of the weapons, and it's unclear how effective they are, he said.