Ukrainian refugee women and children are evacuating to Moldova
The NGO Team Humanity is bringing aid to Ukraine and evacuating women and children out of the country.
Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY
Russian military troops departed the heavily contaminated Chernobyl nuclear power plant early Friday, handing control back to Ukrainians.
Moscow took control of Chernobyl over a month ago. According to Ukrainian officials, Russian troops destroyed a new laboratory at the plant working to improve management of radioactive waste that had “highly active samples and samples of radionuclides” last week.
Other reports indicated over 100 workers at the plant were stuck there for more than 12 days in early March after Russian forces seized it.
Ukraine’s state power company, Energoatom, said the Russian pullout at Chernobyl was due to soldiers receiving “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches in the forest in the exclusion zone around the closed plant. But there has been no independent confirmation of that.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian withdrawals from the north and center of the country were only military tactics.
USA TODAY ON TELEGRAM: Join our new Russia-Ukraine war channel to receive updates straight to your phone.
Latest developments
►The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region claimed Ukraine flew helicopter gunships into Russia on Friday morning and struck an oil depot, according to a Telegram post. Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed the helicopter attack left two people injured and the facility in flames. The attack would be the first of its kind, if confirmed.
►Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree Thursday demanding payment for natural gas in rubles but appeared to temper the order by allowing dollar and euro payments through a designated bank
►Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that his country will be sending armored Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine to help in its war against Russia.
Russia and Ukraine will resume negotiations online Friday, a Ukrainian diplomat involved in the peace talks said Wednesday on Telegram.
The two countries held face-to-face talks Tuesday in Turkey as the United Nations pressed for a cease-fire in Russia’s brutal invasion. The talks took place in the Turkish presidential office in Istanbul and lasted more than three hours, Russia’s Tass agency reported.
Tuesday negotiations failed to produce a breakthrough, leading President Joe Biden to pledge an additional $500 million in aid to Ukraine earlier this week.
— Celina Tebor
China is accusing the United States of instigating the war in Ukraine and says NATO should have been disbanded following the break-up of the Soviet Union.
“As the culprit and leading instigator of the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. has led NATO to engage in five rounds of eastward expansion in the last two decades after 1999,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters at a daily briefing Friday.
“The number of NATO members increased from 16 to 30, and they have moved eastward more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to somewhere near the Russian border, pushing Russia to the wall step by step,” Zhao said.
While China says it is not taking sides in the conflict, it has declared a “no limits” partnership with Moscow, has refused to condemn the invasion, opposes sanctions on Russia and routinely amplifies Russian disinformation about the conflict, including not referring to it as an invasion or a war in keeping with Russian practice.
Zhao’s comments came as Chinese and European Union leaders were meeting virtually for a summit at which Ukraine was expected to dominate discussions. EU officials say they are looking for a commitment from China not to undermine sanctions and assist in efforts to halt the fighting.
— Associated Press
A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross hopes to enter Mariupol, Ukraine, on Friday to deliver emergency humanitarian aid and begin evacuating residents from the besieged, The New York Times reported.
According to Ukrainian officials, tens of thousands of people have made it out of Mariupol in recent weeks along humanitarian corridors, reducing the prewar population of 430,000 to about 100,000 by last week.
“There seems to be a glimmer of hope we might be able to go, so we need to be close,” said Crystal Wells, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Geneva, according to the Times.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said late Thursday that 12 Ukrainian trucks were able to deliver humanitarian supplies to Mariupol, but the supplies were seized by Russian troops. Vereshchuk added that about 45,000 Mariupol residents have been forcefully deported to Russia and areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
Contributing: The Associated Press
from WordPress https://ift.tt/bxnzcAt
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment