International Writing, March 22 (EFE).- The twenty-seventh day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine begins with the Russian positions apparently stalled, while the Ukrainian government stresses that its army is managing to stop the Russian offensive, also conditioned by the lack of supplies and fuel .
According to the latest war report of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry issued at the beginning of the twenty-seventh day of the invasion, “no significant changes in the position and nature of the actions of the defense forces have been noted during the last day.”
Even, says the part, “the Russian occupation forces operating in Ukraine have reserves of ammunition and food for no more than three days. The situation is similar with fuel, which is replenished with tanker trucks.”
What has been observed, according to Ukraine, are “more active actions by enemy planes in the last 24 hours”, but also acts of civil disobedience because “a large part of the population does not support the policy of the occupiers and has no desire to take up arms.”
These are the latest events at the beginning of the twenty-seventh day of invasion:
Ukraine continues to “repel” Russia’s attempts to occupy the city of Mariupol: the latest military intelligence report released Tuesday by the UK Ministry of Defense states that “despite heavy fighting, Ukrainian forces continue to repel Russian attempts to occupy the south of the city of Mariupol”. It also indicates that “Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine have endured another day of limited progress with most of their forces stalled.”
Ukraine accuses Russia of genocide in the city of Mariupol: The Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, accused Russia of committing a “genuine act of genocide against the Ukrainian city of Mariupol”, after meeting in London with his British counterpart, Ben Wallace. During a joint press conference, Reznikov declared that for three weeks “400,000 citizens have been surrounded without water, food and almost without connections.”
The politician pointed out that, during 25 days of fighting, the Russian Army killed “150 Ukrainian children and destroyed more than 400 schools and nurseries”, as well as 110 hospitals, and annihilated “thousands and thousands of civilians”.
Fears of cyber attacks: US President Joe Biden has warned that Russia is “exploring options” to launch possible cyber attacks against the United States, and called on the country’s private sector to act urgently to strengthen its defenses.
The United States has long feared that Russia could respond with cyberattacks to the sanctions it has imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, and on Monday it assured that it has detected “preparatory activity” in this regard.
“We have evolving intelligence indicating that Russia is exploring options for potential cyberattacks,” Biden said in a statement.
War crimes: The Pentagon reported Monday that it is helping to collect evidence of war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, in the face of possible future prosecutions to hold perpetrators accountable to justice.
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The spokesman for the US Department of Defense, John Kirby, stressed that the Pentagon is verifying “indiscriminate attacks against Ukrainian civilians” by Russia and stressed that “in many cases” they are intentional.
First staff rotation at Chernobyl: Ukraine has completed the first staff rotation at the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant since the start of the Russian invasion almost a month ago, confirmed the IAEA, the UN nuclear agency.
In this way, almost two hundred technicians and security personnel at the plant were able to return home to rest, said the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi.
According to Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory authority, half of the outgoing shift of technical staff left the site of the 1986 nuclear accident on Sunday and the rest left today.
The EU explores more sanctions: The foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) gave their political agreement on Monday to finance with another 500 million euros weapons for Ukraine to defend itself from the Russian invader, and decided to continue exploring new sanctions against Moscow that could affect energy exports, specifically oil or coal.
Asked about the possibility of the EU adopting new sanctions against Russia, beyond the four rounds of restrictive measures that have hit its economy and power circles hard, the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, He stated that “some Member States have raised issues related to energy”, but stressed that “today was not a day for decisions”.
“It is not that one, two or three are for or against, it is about achieving an effective response that does not mean an unaffordable cost for the Member States”, he commented. Several countries alluded today to the possibility of vetoing trade in Russian oil or coal, while gas is a more delicate issue due to the great dependence that different Member States have on that fuel.
Oil rises again: The price of a barrel of Brent oil for delivery in May ended this Monday in the London futures market at $115.62, 7.41% more than at the end of the previous session.
North Sea crude, a benchmark in Europe, ended the day on the International Exchange Futures with an increase of 7.98 dollars compared to the last trade, when it closed at 107.64 dollars.
Brent soared on the prospect of the European Union sanctioning the Russian oil sector over the Ukraine invasion, which would increase pressure on global crude supplies.
The consequences of the war reach the Kuriles: The Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, considered “extremely irrational and totally unacceptable” the decision announced by Russia to suspend the negotiations of a peace treaty as a result of the sanctions imposed by Tokyo after the invasion of Ukraine.
Both dispute the sovereignty of the South Kuriles (called Northern Territories in Japan), a group of four islands in the North Pacific that Japan administered and that the Soviet Union invaded just after World War II.
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After years of rapprochement, Tokyo and Moscow committed in 2018 to sign the peace treaty, although an amendment to the Russian Constitution would later be approved in 2020 that prevents the transfer of any part of its territory.
(c) EFE Agency