All updates in Central European Time (CET).
13:51 | Ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine, warns UN
Ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine due to Russia’s “devastating” war, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Sunday.
“The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million people have fled, either as internally displaced persons or as refugees abroad,” the UNHCR chief said on his Twitter account. Before the conflict, the population of Ukraine was 37 million in the regions under government control.
11:38 | Boris Johnson calls on China to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday called on China, a strategic ally of Russia, and other countries that have not spoken out, to join Western countries in condemning the Russian invasion.
“As time goes on and the number of Russian atrocities increases, I think it becomes more and more difficult and politically uncomfortable for people, actively or passively, to tolerate Putin’s invasion,” the British leader said in an interview with the Newspaper Sunday Times.
10:20 | Ukraine and Russia agree on 4 out of 6 issues, according to Turkey
“There is a convergence in the positions of both sides on important and critical issues. In particular, we see that they almost agree on the first four points. Some issues need to be decided at the leadership level,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt said. Çavusoglu, in an interview published this Sunday by the Hürriyet newspaper.
“If the parties do not deviate from their current positions, we can say that we are hopeful of a ceasefire. There are open channels between the leaders. This is already known,” he said. “If there is peace, if there is an agreement, they (Putin and Zelensky) will definitely meet. They do not rule out this possibility. They do not have a negative attitude towards meeting,” he added.
09:24 | Ukraine denounces the bombing of a school that served as a refuge
The municipality of Mariúpol (southeastern Ukraine) denounced the bombing by Russian forces of an art school that served as a refuge for 400 people, including women, the elderly and children.
In a statement published on Telegram, it is ensured that there are still people in the rubble and no data is given on the number of dead and injured. The statement accuses the Russians of committing war crimes, as President Volodomir Zelensky had already done in his late-night address.
09:03 | Russia says it used hypersonic missiles in Ukraine once more
Russia said on Sunday that it used hypersonic missiles in Ukraine for the second day in a row, this time to destroy a Ukrainian army fuel stockpile in the south of the country.
“A large stockpile of fuel was destroyed by Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea, as well as by hypersonic ballistic missiles launched by the Kinjal aeronautical system from Crimean airspace,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement, without specifying. the date of the attack.
06:25 | Damaged in Ukraine one of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe
Mariupol’s Azovstal steel and metallurgical factory, one of the largest in Europe, was badly damaged by Russian strikes, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.
“One of the most important metallurgical industries in Europe is destroyed. The economic losses for Ukraine are immense,” said MP Lesia Vasylenko, who posted a video on her Twitter showing thick plumes of smoke above the industrial complex.
Another parliamentarian, Sergei Taruta, wrote on his Facebook page that the Russian forces besieging Mariupol “have practically destroyed the factory.”
04:33 | Australia bans alumina and bauxite exports to Russia
Australia on Sunday extended its sanctions once morest Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, immediately banning exports of alumina and bauxite, and promised more arms and humanitarian aid for kyiv. The export ban is intended to impact aluminum production in Russia, which relies 20% on alumina from Australia, the government said.
Days earlier, the Australian government had sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has a stake in Queensland Alumina Limited, a joint venture between Russia’s Rusal and mining giant Rio Tinto.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government is working with allies to “put maximum cost, maximum pressure on the Putin regime to withdraw from Ukraine.” According to the leader, Australia has imposed 476 sanctions once morest Russian individuals or institutions since the beginning of the invasion on February 24.
03:59 | kyiv suspends activities of parties linked to Russia
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenski, announced this Sunday that during the martial law in force the activity of several political parties is suspended, given the large-scale war waged by the Russian Federation and the ties of some of them with this country.
In a video released this morning on the website of the Ukrainian presidency, Zelenzki reported that the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine decided to suspend the activity of “Opposition Platform – For Life”, “Sharia Party”, “Our” , “Opposition Bloc”, “Left Opposition”, “Union of Left Forces”, “State”, “Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine”. “Socialist Party”, “Socialists” and “Block of Vladimir Saldo”, among others.
“I want to remind all politicians in any field: wartime shows very well the scarcity of personal ambitions of those who try to put their own ambitions, their own party or career above the interests of the state, the interests of the people” said the Ukrainian ruler. Any activity by politicians “aimed at splitting or collaborating will not succeed. But it will get a difficult response,” he warned.
02:57 | Mariupol says Russia forcibly deported thousands of its inhabitants
Mariupol’s city council accused Russian forces of forcibly deporting several thousand people from the Ukrainian city besieged by Russian bombardment, following Russia spoke of “refugees” arriving from the strategic port.
“During the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported to Russian territory,” the City Council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.
“The occupants illegally took people from the Livoberezhniy district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant shelling,” the authorities said.
01:46 | Japanese cities cancel exchanges with twinned Russian towns
Several Japanese cities have canceled exchange activities with the Russian towns with which they are twinned as a result of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. One of the last to do so is the town of Hiroshima, which planned to celebrate this year the 50th anniversary of relations with the municipality of Volgograd, in southern Russia.
“The invasion by Russia and the messages suggesting that the country might use nuclear weapons trample on the feelings of the people of Hiroshima, who suffered a nuclear attack,” a city official told the Kyodo news agency on Tuesday.
A total of 43 municipalities in Japan are twinned with Russian towns, although at the moment none of them has announced that they are definitively breaking the twinning.
jc (efe, afp, reuters)
