Two Russian soldiers sentenced for bombing residential areas
Two Russian soldiers captured in 2022 in Ukraine have been sentenced to 9 and 10 years in prison for participating in the bombardment of residential areas in eastern Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement on Monday. .
“Following the investigations, indisputable evidence of the guilt of two other militants who joined the ranks of the occupation groups of the aggressor country at the beginning of the large-scale invasion has been collected”, explains the press release relayed by the ‘Press Agency Archyde.com. Both “took an active part in the storming of Ukrainian towns on the Eastern Front”.
Russia pays great attention to China’s proposed peace talks
“Any attempt to come up with plans that would allow the conflict to evolve in a peaceful direction deserves attention. The plan of our Chinese friends also receives this great attention,” the Kremlin spokesman also said. Dmitry Peskov.
“In the meantime, there are currently no preconditions for negotiations on Ukraine, and the special operation is progressing towards its objectives,” he continued.
“Crimea cannot be returned to Ukraine, the peninsula is an integral part of Russia,” he added.
Russia denounces ‘absurd’ new EU sanctions
Moscow on Monday described as “absurd” the new sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russia a year following the start of its offensive in Ukraine, targeting 121 individuals and entities.
“All this is absurd. We can see that they place anyone under sanctions (…), just to make new lists,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the press, while ensuring that these measures were “not going to hinder” the people sanctioned.
One year to the day following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Brussels approved a tenth package of sanctions once morest Russia on Friday evening.
NATO: resumption of negotiations between Turkey, Sweden and Finland on March 9
Negotiations between Turkey, Sweden and Finland for NATO membership of the two Nordic countries will resume on March 9 and might take place in Brussels, where the Atlantic Alliance is headquartered, the Turkish minister announced on Monday. of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Cavusoglu.
Turkey put a halt to the negotiations at the end of January by postponing a tripartite meeting, initially scheduled for February, following several anti-Turkish and anti-Islam demonstrations in Stockholm.
While acknowledging certain progress in the negotiations, the head of Turkish diplomacy nevertheless estimated on Monday that “no satisfactory measure had been taken by Sweden”.
Turkey accuses Sweden, among other things, of harboring Kurdish militants and sympathizers whom it describes as “terrorists”, in particular those of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The war in Ukraine, “the most massive violation of human rights”
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered the most massive violation of human rights we know today,” said Antonio Guterres on Monday, saying the world is “backtracking” on human rights.
At his side for the opening of the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also denounced the return of the “old authoritarianism and “destructive wars of aggression, from a bygone era and with global consequences, as we have seen once more in Europe with Russia’s senseless invasion of Ukraine”.
Ukrainian ambassador Yevheniia Filipenko pleads for a “strengthening” of the resolution defining the mandate of the investigators, but it is not sure that the final text reflects this will because Kiev and its Western allies will have to convince certain countries hesitant to criticize Moscow for not to swell the ranks of abstainers.
‘Predators will devour a predator’: Zelensky reckons Putin will be murdered
Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned, in a Ukrainian documentary named Yearthe possibility of a Russian defeat, reported on Sunday The Times. According to the Ukrainian president, this hypothesis would mark the end of the regime of Vladimir Putin, in power since the beginning of the 2000s.
The Ukrainian president then predicts that the Russian leader will be eliminated by one of the members of his close entourage. “There will definitely come a time when the fragility of Putin’s regime will be felt inside the state. And then the predators will devour a predator. They will find a reason to kill a killer,” he said. .
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Russia in the crosshairs of the UN Human Rights Council
Never has the Human Rights Council (HRC) sat for so long. A session of this United Nations body opens this Monday in Geneva, Switzerland. It will end on Thursday.
Nearly 150 senior leaders, including the heads of French, American, Chinese, Iranian and Ukrainian diplomats, will speak, which is also a record.
Moscow is expected to send its Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Thursday. Despite calls from NGOs, it is not certain that the diplomats will leave the room at the time of his speech as they had done last year for his leader Sergei Lavrov, who intervened by videoconference.
Tension will also be high at the end of the session during the vote on the continuation of the work of the investigators on Ukraine, who will present their first written report on March 20 following having already reported war crimes in September.
Two dead in a Russian drone strike in the west of the country
Hello and welcome to this direct dedicated to the war in Ukraine, 368 days following the start of the Russian offensive.
Two people were killed and three injured in Khmelnytsky in western Ukraine, authorities said. One of the deceased was a rescue worker killed while on duty, Khmelnytsky Mayor Oleksandr Symchyshyn said on Telegram, citing “buildings damaged” by the strikes.
Shortly following, the governor of the Khmelnytsky region, Serguï Gamaliï, announced to him on Telegram the death of a second rescuer who succumbed to his injuries in hospital.
In total, Russia launched “14 Iranian-made Shahed combat drones” once morest Ukraine, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Monday morning, according to which 11 of these drones were shot down by anti-aircraft defense .
