Ukraine crisis
How dangerous was Russia’s nuclear plant strike?
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was hit by Russian shelling early Friday, sparking a fire and raising fears of a disaster that could affect all of central Europe for decades, like the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown.
Concerns faded after Ukrainian authorities announced that the fire had been extinguished, and while there was damage to the reactor compartment, the safety of the unit was not affected.
But even though the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is of a different design than Chernobyl and is protected from fire, nuclear safety experts and the International Atomic Energy Agency warn that waging war in and around such facilities presents extreme risks.
One major concern, raised by Ukraine’s state nuclear regulator, is that if fighting interrupts power supply to the nuclear plant, it would be forced to use less-reliable diesel generators to provide emergency power to operating cooling systems. A failure of those systems could lead to a disaster similar to that of Japan’s Fukushima plant, when a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed cooling systems, triggering meltdowns in three reactors.
The consequence of that, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would be widespread and dire.
“If there is an explosion, that’s the end for everyone. The end for Europe. The evacuation of Europe,” he said in an emotional speech in the middle of the night, calling on nations to pressure Russia’s leadership to end the fighting near the plant.
“Only urgent action by Europe can stop the Russian troops. Do not allow the death of Europe from a catastrophe at a nuclear power station.”
WHAT HAPPENED?
After taking the strategic port city of Kherson, Russian forces moved into the territory near Zaporizhzhia and attacked the nearby city of Enerhodar to open a route to the plant late Thursday.
It was not immediately clear how the power plant was hit, but Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov said a Russian military column had been seen heading toward the nuclear facility and that loud shots were heard in the city.
Later Friday, Ukrainian authorities said Russia had taken over the nuclear plant.
Plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television that early Friday morning, shells fell directly on the facility and set fire to one of its six reactors.
Read: Fire out at Ukraine's key nuclear plant amid Russian attacks
Initially, firefighters were not able to get near the flames because they were being shot at, Tuz said.
After speaking with Ukrainian authorities on Friday, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said a building next to the reactors was hit and not a reactor itself.
“All of the safety systems of the six reactors at the plant were not affected at all and there has been no release of radioactive material,” he said.
“However, as you can imagine, the operator and the regulator have been telling us that the situation naturally continues to be extremely tense and challenging.”
Earlier this week, Grossi already had warned that the IAEA was “gravely concerned” with Russian forces conducting military operations so close nearby.
“It is of critical importance that the armed conflict and activities on the ground around Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and any other of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities in no way interrupts or endangers the facilities or the people working at and around them,” he said.
WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?
The reactor that was hit was offline, but still contains highly radioactive nuclear fuel. Four of the other six reactors have now been taken offline, leaving only one in operation.
The reactors at the plant have thick concrete containment domes, which would have protected them from external fire from tanks and artillery, said Jon Wolfsthal, who served during the Obama administration as the senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council.
At the same time, a fire at a nuclear power plant is never a good thing, he said.
“We don’t want our nuclear power plants to come under assault, to be on fire, and to not have first responders be able to access them,” he said.
Another danger at nuclear facilities are the pools where spent fuel rods are kept to be cooled, which are more vulnerable to shelling and which could cause the release of radioactive material.
Read: Nuke plant attack: Johnson to seek UN Security Council meeting
Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is the plant’s power supply, said Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California who has studied both the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, raising a concern also voiced by Wolfsthal and others.
The loss of off-site power could force the plant to rely on emergency diesel generators, which are highly unreliable and could fail or run out of fuel, causing a station blackout that would stop the water circulation needed to cool the spent fuel pool, he said.
“That is my big — biggest concern,” he said.
David Fletcher, a University of Sydney professor in its School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who previously worked at UK Atomic Energy, noted that even shutting down the reactors would not help if the cooling system failed in such a way.
“The real concern is not a catastrophic explosion as happened at Chernobyl but damage to the cooling system which is required even when the reactor is shut down,” he said in a statement. “It was this type of damage that led to the Fukushima accident.”
WHAT CONCERNS REMAIN?
Ukraine is heavily reliant on nuclear energy, with 15 reactors at four stations that provide about half the country’s electricity.
In the wake of the attack on Zaporizhzhia, U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and others called for an immediate end to the fighting there.
Following a conversation with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, IAEA Director Grossi appealed to all parties to “refrain from actions” that could put Ukraine’s nuclear power plants in danger.
Shmyhal called on western nations to close the skies over the country’s nuclear plants.
“It is a question of the security of the whole world!” he said in a statement.
Ukraine is also home to the former Chernobyl nuclear plant, where radioactivity is still leaking, which was taken by Russian forces in the opening of the invasion after a fierce battle with the Ukrainian national guards protecting the decommissioned facility.
Read: Kyiv shrines, memorials with powerful symbolic value at risk
In an appeal to the IAEA for help earlier this week, Ukrainian officials said that Chernobyl staff have been held by the Russian military without rotation and are exhausted.
Grossi earlier this week appealed to Russia to let the Chernobyl staff “do their job safely and effectively.”
During fighting on the weekend, Russian fire also hit a radioactive waste disposal facility in Kyiv and a similar facility in Kharkiv.
Both contained low-level waste such as those produced through medical use, and no radioactive release has been reported, but Grossi said the incidents should serve as a warning.
“The two incidents highlight the risk that facilities with radioactive material may suffer damage during the armed conflict, with potentially severe consequences,” he said.
James Acton, the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the simple key to keeping the facilities safe was to immediately end any military operations around them.
“Under normal circumstances, the likelihood of a reactor losing power and of the emergency diesel generators being damaged and of not being repaired adequately quickly is very, very small,” Acton said.
“But in a war, all of these different failures that would have to happen for a reactor to become damaged and meltdown — the likelihood of all of those happening becomes much more likely than it does in peacetime.”
Mitsuru Fukuda, a professor at Nihon University in Tokyo and expert on crisis management and security, said the Zaporizhzhia attack raises broader questions for all countries.
“Many of us did not expect a respected country’s military would take such an outrageous step,” he said. ”Now that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has done it, not only Ukraine but the international community, including Japan, should reevaluate the risk of having nuclear plants as potential wartime targets.”
Kyiv shrines, memorials with powerful symbolic value at risk
Kyiv, bracing for a potentially catastrophic Russian attack, is the spiritual heart of Ukraine.
Among the sites at risk in the Ukrainian capital are the nation’s most sacred Orthodox shrines, dating back nearly 1,000 years to the dawn of Christianity in the region.
The sites, along with other landmark shrines in Kyiv, are religiously significant to both Ukrainian Orthodox and Russian Orthodox. They also stand as powerful symbols in the quarrel over whether the two groups are parts of a single people — as Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed — or are distinct but related Slavic nations.
The landmarks include the golden domed St. Sophia’s Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a sprawling underground and above-ground complex also known as the Monastery of the Caves. Others include the multi-towered St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery and St. Andrew’s Church.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said Russian forces damaged another monument — Ukraine’s main Holocaust memorial, Babi Yar — prompting international condemnation.
“What will be next if even Babi Yar (is hit)” asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday. “What other ‘military’ objects, ‘NATO bases’ are threatening Russia? St. Sophia’s Cathedral, Lavra, Andrew’s Church?”
There is no indication the Russians intentionally targeted Babi Yar. Nor is there any confirmation that the Russians plan to target any of the sacred sites in Kyiv. But civilian buildings have already been hit in other cities, and Kyiv’s major shrines sit in elevated locations that could leave them especially vulnerable.
Case in point: The Assumption Cathedral in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was damaged in the recent attacks, reportedly with stained-glass windows broken and other decorations damaged. The cathedral, which is under the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox church, was Kharkiv’s tallest building until sometime in the 21st century.
Read: Norway, Germany provide missiles to Ukraine
The risk is even greater in Kyiv.
“We’re talking about a very old city,” said Jacob Lassin, a postdoctoral research scholar at the Arizona State University’s Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies. “The center part is densely packed. Even if you’re trying to hit one thing, you could easily hit something else.”
The symbolic value of the shrines is powerful even to people who don’t share the religious faith they commemorate.
“The idea that the main symbol that stood in your city for 1,000 years could be at risk or could be destroyed is very frightening,” Lassin said.
The symbols matter not only to the Ukrainian people but to Putin, too. He justified the invasion with baseless claims he was countering “neo-Nazism” in Ukraine — this in a country with a Jewish president.
Babi Yar, a ravine in Kyiv, is where more than 33,000 Jews were killed within 48 hours in 1941 when the city was under Nazi occupation. The killing was carried out by SS troops along with local collaborators. It was one of the largest mass killings at a single location during World War II, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
It is “at once an accursed and a sacred place,” American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris said. Just last year, Zelenskyy took part in the inaugural ceremony of a memorial there.
Whether Kyiv’s Orthodox shrines come under direct attack or receive collateral damage, such an action would be a “total refutation” of another of Putin’s claims — to be defending Orthodox Ukrainians loyal to Moscow’s patriarch, Lassin said.
“It would literally be destroying the main seat of Russian Orthodoxy according to his own rhetoric,” Lassin said.
Read: Russia-Ukraine War: What to know on Day 8 of Russian assault
The shrines’ oldest parts date back to the medieval Kievan Rus kingdom, soon after its adoption of Christianity under Prince Vladimir in the 10th century. Putin has claimed the kingdom is the common ancestor of today’s Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainians counter that theirs is a distinct nation now under fratricidal attack from its Slavic neighbor.
The cathedral and nearby monastic complex represent “a masterpiece of human creative genius in both its architectural conception and its remarkable decoration,” says a summary by UNESCO, which lists them as World Heritage Sites.
The cathedral, built under Prince Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th century, was modeled after the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the spiritual and architectural heart of medieval Orthodoxy. The Kyiv cathedral includes mosaics and frescoes as old as 1,000 years, and it was a model for later churches in the region, according to UNESCO.
“The huge pantheon of Christian saints depicted in the cathedral has an unrivaled multiplicity among Byzantine monuments of that time,” UNESCO says.
The Monastery of the Caves, including underground monastic cells, tombs of saints and above-ground churches built across nearly nine centuries, was hugely influential in spreading Orthodox Christianity, according to UNESCO.
Both complexes were endangered and at times damaged by centuries of warfare.
St. Sophia’s, sacred both to Ukraine’s two main rival Orthodox churches and to Catholics, is currently a museum and isn’t normally used for religious services.
Two of the landmarks are associated with opposing sides in the schism within Ukrainian Orthodoxy.
The monastic complex is overseen by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is affiliated with the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow, though it has broad autonomy. St. Michael’s is the base for the more nationalist Orthodox Church of Ukraine. But the Ukrainian leaders of both Orthodox groups have harshly criticized the Russian invasion.
If Kyiv’s landmarks are damaged or destroyed, “could it potentially damage morale? Yes,” Lassin said. “Could it potentially galvanize people to be more united? Absolutely. ... What I can say is the Ukrainian people are extremely resilient and are fighting back through all of this.”
Bangladesh abstains from a UN vote on Ukraine crisis
Four South Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan - are among 35 abstentions as the U.N. General Assembly voted at an emergency session Wednesday on Ukraine issue.
The vote on the “Aggression against Ukraine” resolution was 141-5, with 35 abstentions.
Read:UN Assembly votes to demand that Russia stop war in Ukraine
The abstentions included China, as expected, but also some surprises from usual Russian allies Cuba and Nicaragua, reports AP.
And the United Arab Emirates, which abstained on Friday’s similar Security Council resolution, this time voted “yes.”
Only Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea joined Russia in opposing the measure.
No hostage situation in Ukraine: India
New Delhi on Thursday refuted Russia's claim of stranded Indian students being held as "hostages" by Ukrainian forces in the war-torn country.
"We have not received reports of any hostage situation regarding any student," Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, adding that they were in touch with the students.
"We have requested support of the Ukrainian authorities in arranging special trains for taking out students from Kharkiv and neighbouring areas to the western part of the country," he said in a statement.
Read: Indian students in Ukraine in fear as Russian invasion grows
An estimated 8,000 Indians are still in Ukraine waiting to be evaluated.
On Wednesday, a Russian military spokesperson told the media that Ukrainian authorities "are forcibly keeping a large group of Indian students in Kharkiv who wish to leave Ukrainian territory".
Last evening only, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine asked all its nationals to leave the city of Kharkiv, where an Indian student was killed in Russian shelling a day before.
Earlier in the day, Moscow's envoy in Delhi said that they would investigate the death of Naveen Shekarappa Gyanagoudar, the 21-year-old Indian medical student.
"Russia will do everything it possibly can to ensure the safety of Indian citizens in the areas of intense conflict... and a proper investigation of this unfortunate incident," Russian Ambassador-designate Denis Alipov told the local media on Delhi.
On Monday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered four of his senior Ministers to rush to Ukraine's neighbouring countries to help evacuate not only Indians but also foreign nationals stranded in that country.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry had said, "The Prime Minister pointed out that the visit of four senior ministers as his Special Envoys to various nations will energise the evacuation efforts. It is reflective of the priority the government attaches to this matter."
Read:OSCE member dies during Kharkiv shelling
"Guided by India's motto of the world being one family, the prime minister also stated that India will help people from neighbouring countries and developing countries who are stranded in Ukraine and may seek assistance."
Last week, Prime Minister Modi urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to immediately halt military action against Ukraine, underscoring the need for a diplomatic solution to the standoff.
This was after Ukraine's envoy in Delhi sought Modi's intervention in ending the Russian offensive.
China says it won't join in financial sanctions on Russia
China won’t join the United States and European governments in imposing financial sanctions on Russia, the country’s bank regulator said Wednesday.
China is a major buyer of Russian oil and gas and the only major government that has refrained from criticizing Moscow's attack on Ukraine.
Read: China issues report on U.S. human rights violations
Beijing opposes the sanctions, said Guo Shuqing, the chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
“We will not join such sanctions, and we will keep normal economic, trade and financial exchanges with all the relevant parties,” Guo said at a news conference. “We disapprove of the financial sanctions, particularly those launched unilaterally, because they don’t have much legal basis and will not have good effects."
India asks its nationals in Ukraine to leave Kharkiv
A day after an Indian student was killed in shelling in Ukraine's Kharkiv, New Delhi on Wednesday urged all its nationals to leave the city immediately even as Russia vowed to ensure the safety of Indians in the 'war-torn' country.
The Indian Embassy in Ukraine tweeted to say that all its nationals must leave Kharkiv "for their safety and security" and "reach Pesochin, Babaye or Bezlyudovka latest by 6 pm local time, on foot if need be".
Read:One Indian student dead in shelling in Ukraine, says govt
Earlier in the day, Moscow's envoy in Delhi said that they would investigate the death of Naveen Shekarappa Gyanagoudar, the 21-year-old Indian medical student who was killed in Russian shelling when he had stepped out to buy food in Kharkiv.
"We want to express our sympathy to the family of Naveen Shekarappa Gyanagoudar and to the entire Indian nation over the tragedy," Russian Ambassador-designate Denis Alipov told the local media on Delhi.
"Russia will do everything it possibly can to ensure the safety of Indian citizens in the areas of intense conflict... and a proper investigation of this unfortunate incident," he added.
On Monday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered four of his senior Ministers to rush to Ukraine's neighbouring countries to help evacuate not only Indians but also foreign nationals stranded in that country.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry had said, "The Prime Minister pointed out that the visit of four senior ministers as his Special Envoys to various nations will energise the evacuation efforts. It is reflective of the priority the government attaches to this matter."
"Guided by India's motto of the world being one family, the prime minister also stated that India will help people from neighbouring countries and developing countries who are stranded in Ukraine and may seek assistance."
Last week, Prime Minister Modi urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to immediately halt military action against Ukraine, underscoring the need for a diplomatic solution to the standoff.
This was after Ukraine's envoy in Delhi sought Modi's intervention in ending the Russian offensive.
Read: Leave Kyiv immediately, India tells its nationals
"Modi ji is one of the most powerful, respected world leaders. You have a privileged, strategic relation with Russia. If Modiji speaks to Putin we are hopeful he'll respond," Ukraine's Ambassador Igor Polikha told the local media on Thursday.
An estimated 15,000 Indians are said to be currently in Ukraine.
Russia takes aim at urban areas; Biden vows Putin will 'pay'
Ukraine’s leader decried Russia's escalation of attacks on crowded cities as a blatant terror campaign, while U.S. President Joe Biden warned that if the Russian leader didn't “pay a price” for the invasion, the aggression wouldn’t stop with one country.
“Nobody will forgive. Nobody will forget,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed after Tuesday's bloodshed on the central square in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, and the deadly bombing of a TV tower in the capital. He called the attack on the square “frank, undisguised terror” and a war crime.
The assault on Kharkiv continued Wednesday, even as Russia said it would be ready to resume talks with the Ukrainian side in the evening. A Russian strike on the regional police and intelligence headquarters, according to the Ukrainian state emergency service. It said three people were wounded.
The strike blew off the roof of the police building and set the top floor on fire, and pieces of the five-story building were strewn across adjacent streets, according to videos and photos released by the emergency service.
In Wednesday's strikes, four people died, nine were wounded and rescuers pulled 10 people out of the rubble, according to the service.
Read: Russia, Ukraine ready for new talks on war
Biden used his first State of the Union address to highlight the resolve of a reinvigorated Western alliance that has worked to rearm the Ukrainian military and adopt tough sanctions, which he said have left Russian President Vladimir Putin ”isolated in the world more than he has ever been.”
“Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson — when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos,” Biden said. “They keep moving. And the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising.”
As Biden spoke, a 40-mile (64-kilometer) convoy of hundreds of Russian tanks and other vehicles advanced slowly on Kyiv, the capital city of nearly 3 million people, in what the West feared was a bid by Putin to topple the government and install a Kremlin-friendly regime.
The invading forces also pressed their assault on other towns and cities, including the strategic ports of Odesa and Mariupol in the south.
As the seventh day of the war dawned Wednesday, Russia found itself increasingly isolated, beset by the sanctions that have thrown its economy into turmoil and left the country practically friendless, apart from a few nations like China, Belarus and North Korea. Leading Russian bank Sberbank announced Wednesday that it is pulling out of European markets amid the tightening Western sanctions.
As fighting raged, the humanitarian situation worsened. Roughly 660,000 people have fled Ukraine, and countless others have taken shelter underground.
The death toll was less clear, with neither Russia nor Ukraine releasing the number of troops lost. The U.N. human rights office said it has recorded 136 civilian deaths, though the actual toll is surely far higher.
One senior Western intelligence official estimated that 5,000 Russian soldiers had been captured or killed in the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II.
Many military experts worry that Russia may be shifting tactics. Moscow’s strategy in Chechnya and Syria was to use artillery and air bombardments to pulverize cities and crush fighters’ resolve.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said it had seen an increase in Russian air and artillery strikes on populated urban areas over the past two days. It also said Kharkiv and Mariupol were encircled by Russian forces and that troops had reportedly moved into the center of a third city, Kherson. Russia's Defense Ministry said it had seized Kherson, though the claim could not be confirmed.
Ukrainian authorities said five people were killed in the attack on the TV tower near central Kyiv. A TV control room and power substation were hit, and at least some Ukrainian channels briefly stopped broadcasting, officials said.
Zelenskyy’s office reported that the site of the Babi Yar Holocaust memorial, which is adjacent to the TV tower, was also hit. A spokesman for the memorial said a Jewish cemetery at the site, where Nazi occupiers killed more than 33,000 Jews over two days in 1941, was damaged, but the extent would not be clear until daylight.
Zelenskyy expressed outrage Wednesday at the attack on Babi Yar and concern that other historically significant and religious sites, such as St. Sophia’s Cathedral, could be targeted.
“This is beyond humanity. Such missile strike means that for many Russians our Kyiv is absolutely foreign," Zelenskyy said in a speech posted on Facebook. “They have orders to erase our history, our country and all of us.”
Russia previously told people living near transmission facilities used by Ukraine’s intelligence agency to leave their homes. But Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed Wednesday that the airstrike on the TV tower did not hit any residential buildings. He did not address the reported deaths or the damage to Babi Yar.
In Kharkiv, with a population of about 1.5 million, at least six people were killed when the region's administrative building on Freedom Square was hit with what was believed to be a missile. The Slovenian Foreign Ministry said its consulate in Kharkiv, located in another large building on the square, was destroyed.
Read:Economic dangers from Russia’s invasion ripple across globe
The attack on the square — the nucleus of public life in the city — was seen by many Ukrainians as brazen evidence that the Russian invasion wasn’t just about hitting military targets but also about breaking their spirit.
The bombardment blew out windows and walls of buildings that ring the square, which was piled high with debris and dust. Inside one building, chunks of plaster were scattered, and doors lay across hallways.
Another Russian airstrike hit a residential area in the city of Zhytomyr. Ukraine’s emergency services said Tuesday's strike killed at least two people, burned three homes and broke the windows in a nearby hospital. About 85 miles (140 kilometers) west of Kyiv, Zhytomyr is the home of the elite 95th Air Assault Brigade, which may have been the intended target.
In the southern port city of Mariupol, the mayor said the attacks were relentless.
“They have been flattening us non-stop for 12 hours now,” Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. “We cannot even take the wounded from the streets, from houses and apartments today, since the shelling does not stop.”
Boychenko referred to Russia's actions as a “genocide” — using the same word that Putin has used to justify the invasion.
Zelenskyy has mocked Russia’s claim that it is going after only military targets, noting that 16 children were killed on Monday.
“Where are the children? What kind of military factories do they work at?" Zelenskyy said.
Human Rights Watch said it documented a cluster bomb attack outside a hospital in Ukraine’s east in recent days. Residents also reported the use of such weapons in Kharkiv and Kiyanka village. The Kremlin denied using cluster bombs.
Cluster bombs shoot smaller “bomblets” over a large area, many of which fail to explode until long after they’ve been dropped. If their use is confirmed, that would represent a new level of brutality in the war.
As the fighting raged, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a Russian would be ready to resume talks Wednesday evening with Ukrainian officials, a day after Zelenskyy said Russia should stop bombing first.
The first talks between Russia and Ukraine since the invasion were held Monday, but ended with only an agreement to talk again.
Moscow made new threats of escalation Tuesday, days after raising the specter of nuclear war. A top Kremlin official warned that the West's “economic war” against Russia could turn into a “real one.”
Inside Russia, a top radio station critical of the Kremlin was taken off the air after authorities threatened to shut it down over its coverage of the invasion. Among other things, the Kremlin is not allowing the fighting to be referred to as an “invasion” or “war.”
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said it had evidence that Belarus, a Russian ally, is preparing to send troops into Ukraine. A ministry statement posted early Wednesday on Facebook said the Belarusian troops have been brought into combat readiness and are concentrated close to Ukraine’s northern border. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said his country has no plans to join the fight.
A senior U.S. defense official said that Russia's military progress — including by the massive convoy — has slowed, plagued by logistical and supply problems. Some Russian military columns have run out of gas and food, the official said, and morale has suffered as a result.
Overall, the Russian military has been stalled by fierce resistance on the ground and a surprising inability to completely dominate Ukraine’s airspace.
The immense convoy, with vehicles packed together along narrow roads, would seemingly be “a big fat target” for Ukrainian forces, the senior Western intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. But it also showed Russia was comfortable that they wouldn't come attack by air, rocket or missile, the official said.
One Indian student dead in shelling in Ukraine, says govt
One Indian student has died in shelling in war-torn Ukraine, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
"With profound sorrow we confirm that an Indian student lost his life in shelling in Kharkiv this morning," Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi tweeted.
"The Ministry is in touch with his family. We convey our deepest condolences to the family," he wrote.
The deceased student was identified as Naveen, who hailed from the southern Indian state of Karnataka's Haveri district.
Quoting sources, local TV channels reported that Naveen was killed when he had stepped out for buying food this morning in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city.
Read:Leave Kyiv immediately, India tells its nationals
Earlier in the day, India asked all its nationals to immediately leave the Ukrainian capital "by any means available", with Russian tanks being caught on camera entering Kyiv.
"All Indian nationals, including students, are advised to leave Kyiv urgently today. Preferably by available trains or through any other means available," the Indian Embassy in Ukraine tweeted.
On Monday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered four of his senior Ministers to rush to Ukraine's neighbouring countries to help evacuate not only Indians but also foreign nationals stranded in that country.
"Evacuation efforts on… situation on ground continues to be complex and fluid, some of them quite concerning, but we’ve been able to accelerate our evacuation process," Bagchi told the media on Monday night.
"About 8,000 Indian nationals have left Ukraine since we issued advisories, not since the conflict began."
With profound sorrow we confirm that an Indian student lost his life in shelling in Kharkiv this morning. The Ministry is in touch with his family.We convey our deepest condolences to the family.
— Arindam Bagchi (@MEAIndia) March 1, 2022
In a related statement, the Foreign Ministry had said, "The Prime Minister pointed out that the visit of four senior ministers as his Special Envoys to various nations will energise the evacuation efforts. It is reflective of the priority the government attaches to this matter."
"Guided by India's motto of the world being one family, the prime minister also stated that India will help people from neighbouring countries and developing countries who are stranded in Ukraine and may seek assistance."
Last week, Prime Minister Modi urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to immediately halt military action against Ukraine, underscoring the need for a diplomatic solution to the standoff.
Read:Official: Artillery kills 70 Ukraine soldiers
This was after Ukraine's envoy in Delhi sought Modi's intervention in ending the Russian offensive.
"Modi ji is one of the most powerful, respected world leaders. You have a privileged, strategic relation with Russia. If Modiji speaks to Putin we are hopeful he'll respond," Ukraine's Ambassador Igor Polikha told the local media on Thursday.
An estimated 15,000 Indians are said to be currently in Ukraine.
At rare UN session, Russia is pressed to stop war in Ukraine
Ambassadors from dozens of countries on Monday backed a proposal demanding that Russia halt its attack on Ukraine, as the U.N. General Assembly held a rare emergency session during a day of frenzied and sometimes fractious diplomacy surrounding the five-day-old war.
“If Ukraine does not survive ... international peace will not survive,” Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said at the assembly’s first emergency meeting since 1997. “Have no illusions. If Ukraine does not survive, we cannot be surprised if democracy fails next.”
Reflecting escalating global alarm, both of the U.N.’s major bodies — the 193-nation assembly and the smaller, more powerful Security Council — took the unusual step of holding simultaneous, hastily scheduled meetings on the war. In Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Council voted to hold its own urgent session.
Read: Russian forces shell Ukraine's No. 2 city and menace Kyiv
Tension permeated the diplomatic discourse: The Security Council meeting opened with the news that the United States was kicking out 12 Russian U.N. diplomats whom Washington accused of spying.
Meanwhile, Russian and Ukrainian officials held talks on the Belarus border, agreeing only to keep talking.
“The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the assembly. “We need peace now.”
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia reiterated his country’s assertions that what it calls a “special military operation” in defense of two breakaway areas in eastern Ukraine was being misrepresented.
“Russian actions are being distorted and thwarted,” he complained. Russia has repeatedly sought to blame Ukraine for what Moscow claims are abuses of Russian speakers in the eastern enclaves.
“The Russian Federation did not begin these hostilities that were unleashed by Ukraine against its own residents,” he said. “Russia is seeking to end this war.”
The assembly session came three days after an attempt to condemn and stop Russia’s attack ran into a Russian veto in the Security Council.
The assembly will give all U.N. members an opportunity to speak about the war. More than 110 signed up to do so, with speeches to continue Tuesday. The assembly, which allows no vetoes, is expected to vote later in the week on a resolution coordinated by European Union envoys, working with Ukraine.
Read: ICC prosecutor to open probe into war crimes in Ukraine
The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, demands that Russia immediately stop using force against Ukraine and withdraw all troops. It urges an “immediate peaceful resolution” through dialogue and negotiations, and it deplores what it calls Russia’s “aggression” and the “involvement” of Belarus, which is siding with Moscow.
Assembly President Abdulla Shahid opened Monday’s session by asking all envoys to stand for a moment of silence. In hours of speeches afterward, dozens exhorted their colleagues to vote yes.
“With the Security Council having failed to deliver against its responsibilities, we, the General Assembly, must now stand up to play our part,” said New Zealand’s ambassador, Carolyn Schwalger.
Austrian Ambassador Alexander Marschik appealed to those who have good relations with Russia, saying that “a good friend, an honest friend, will speak up and say what needs to be said and what needs to be done when a friend commits an illegal and evil act.”
But Russian ally Syria accused the West of a “politics of hypocrisy,” noting that various other conflicts over the years haven’t gotten such special attention.
“This historic emergency session on the situation in Ukraine completes the anti-Russian campaign that finds its origins in the provocative and hostile rhetoric towards Russia, propagated by the West to stoke tensions in Ukraine” and compromise Russia’s security, Syrian Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh said.
China, another Russian ally, called for respecting all countries’ sovereignty and internationally recognized borders but didn’t directly address the resolution.
Instead, Ambassador Zhang Jun encouraged fostering a conducive atmosphere for Russian-Ukrainian talks and frowned on “any approach that may exacerbate tensions.”
Read: Macron talks to Putin, calls for ceasefire in Ukraine
“Nothing can be gained from stirring up a new Cold War, but everyone will stand to lose,” he said.
The Security Council meeting later Monday was focused on the humanitarian impact of Russia’s invasion, but the session began with a prickly exchange about the Russian diplomats’ expulsion from the U.S.
Nebenzia bristled to the council that the expulsions were “yet another hostile step” by Washington. U.S. Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills said the dozen diplomats were engaged in undiplomatic activities.
Olivia Dalton, a spokesperson for the United States’ U.N. mission, later said in a statement that the 12 were “intelligence operatives” who were “engaging in espionage activities that are adverse to our national security.” Nebenzia, in remarks to The Associated Press, dismissed the assertion as a pretext.
With the U.N. saying the war is creating an already alarming and potentially massive humanitarian and refugee crisis, France and Mexico planned to propose a humanitarian-focused Security Council resolution. French Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said Sunday it would “demand the end of hostilities, protection of civilians, and safe and unhindered humanitarian access to meet the urgent needs of the population.”
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said there has been “alarming” scale of civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure in the war’s early days, pointing to aerial attacks and fighting in urban areas disrupting essential services, including health, electricity, water and sanitation.
U.N. refugee chief Filippo Grandi said 520,000 refugees from Ukraine are in neighboring countries and the number keeps rising. The U.N. is planning for up to 4 million refugees in the coming weeks if the conflict doesn’t end, he said.
“We know that we are not even scratching the surface to meet the needs of Ukrainians,” Grandi said.
ICC prosecutor to open probe into war crimes in Ukraine
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday he plans to open an investigation “as rapidly as possible” into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement that the investigation will look at alleged crimes committed before the Russian invasion, but added that “given the expansion of the conflict in recent days, it is my intention that this investigation will also encompass any new alleged crimes falling within the jurisdiction of my office that are committed by any party to the conflict on any part of the territory of Ukraine.”
Read: 520,000+ refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia waged war
The court already has conducted a preliminary probe into crimes linked to the violent suppression of pro-European protests in Kyiv in 2013-2014 by a pro-Russian Ukrainian administration and allegations of crimes in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and eastern Ukraine, where Russia has backed rebels since 2014.
In December 2020, then-ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the probe uncovered indications that “a broad range of conduct constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity within the jurisdiction of the Court have been committed” in Ukraine. However, the court’s prosecutors had not yet sought permission from judges to open a full-scale investigation.
Khan says he now wants to open the investigation envisaged by his predecessor and broaden it to include crimes committed in fighting since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last week.
Khan said he would continue to monitor developments in Ukraine, where there have been reports of civilian casualties, and he called for “restraint and strict adherence to the applicable rules of international humanitarian law.”
U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet says her office has confirmed that 102 civilians, including seven children, have been killed in the Russian invasion and 304 others wounded in Ukraine since Thursday. She cautioned that the tally was likely a vast undercount.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine is among the court’s 123 member states, but Ukraine has accepted the court’s jurisdiction, which empowers Khan to investigate.
Read: Man kills 3 children, 1 other, himself at California church
Khan has told his team to explore how to preserve evidence of crimes and said that the next step is to seek authorization from the court’s judges to open an investigation. However, he added that the process would be speeded up if a member nation of the court were to ask for an investigation in what is known as a referral.
That “would allow us to actively and immediately proceed with the (prosecution) Office’s independent and objective investigations,” Khan said.
He said he also would seek support from the court’s member states and the international community to fund the investigation.
“I will be calling for additional budgetary support, for voluntary contributions to support all our situations, and for the loan of gratis personnel,” he said. “The importance and urgency of our mission is too serious to be held hostage to lack of means.”