Page 78 - Ukraine

US Justice Dept stands with Ukraine in war crimes investigations: Official

The US Justice Department is cooperating with the International Criminal Court and supporting Ukrainian prosecutors carrying out war crime investigations, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Monday as he reaffirmed his department's aid more than a year after the Russian invasion. Congress recently allowed for new US flexibility in assisting the court with investigations into foreign nationals related to Ukraine, and the Justice Department will be a key part of the United States' cooperation, Garland said. We are not waiting for the hostilities to end before pursuing justice and accountability. We are working closely with our international partners to gather evidence and build cases so that we are ready when the time comes to hold the perpetrators accountable, he said in a speech to the American Bar Association in Denver. He appointed a prosecutor to serve at a centre opened last month in The Hague to support nations building cases against senior Russian leaders for the crime of

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Russia's oil to India in June the cheapest since Ukraine war began

The price for each barrel including freight costs was $68.17, down from $70.17 in May and $100.48 a year earlier, according to the latest figures from India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry

Amid disagreements over Ukraine, China bats for more dialogues with EU

Earlier in July this year, China cancelled European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy Josep Borrell's visit to Beijing, The Diplomat reported citing the EU

Ukraine proposed peace formula to restore int'l rules-based order: Zelensky

Zelenskyy posted a video message on Twitter, saying that a total of 42 countries are represented at the peace talks in Jeddah and everyone is united by the priority of international law

Russia promises retaliation after Ukrainian drones hit Russian tanker

Moscow promised retaliation on Saturday after Ukrainian drones hit a Russian tanker in the Black Sea near Crimea late on Friday, the second sea attack involving drones in one day. Ukraine struck a major Russian port earlier on Friday. Moscow strongly condemned what it sees as a Ukrainian "terrorist attack" on a civilian vessel in the Kerch Strait, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. "There can be no justification for such barbaric actions, they will not go unanswered and their authors and perpetrators will inevitably be punished," she wrote on the Telegram messaging app. As Kyiv's naval capabilities grow, the Black Sea is becoming an increasingly important battleground in the war. Three weeks ago, Moscow withdrew from a key export agreement that allowed Ukraine to ship millions of tons of grain across the Black Sea for sale on world markets. In the wake of that withdrawal, Russia carried out repeated strikes on Ukrainian ports, including Odesa. An official

NSA Ajit Doval in Jeddah for two-day conference on Ukraine crisis

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on Saturday joined his counterparts from several countries on the first day of a two-day conference in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah that is aimed at finding ways for a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict. The conference, hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, is being attended by top security officials of around 40 countries. However, Russia has not been invited to it, according to diplomatic sources. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and China's Special Envoy for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui are among those attending the deliberations. External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said on Thursday that India's participation in the meeting would be in consonance with its long-standing position that dialogue and diplomacy are the ways forward to resolve the Ukraine crisis. Doval arrived in Jeddah on Saturday morning. Ahead of the high-level conference, Saudi Arabia said it is aimed at Riyadh's attempt to contri

Ukrainian drones hit Russian tanker transporting fuel near Crimea

Ukrainian drones hit a Russian tanker in the Black Sea near Crimea, according to Russian officials. They said that the vessel's engine room sustained damage in the strike late Friday night in the Kerch Strait. The Sig tanker...suffered a hole in the engine room near the waterline on the starboard side, presumably as a result of a sea drone attack, Russia's Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport wrote on Telegram, adding that there were no casualties among the 11 crew members. Vladimir Rogov, a Kremlin-installed official in Ukraine's partially occupied southern Zaporizhzhia region, said several members of the ship's crew were wounded because of broken glass. An official with Ukraine's Security Service confirmed to The Associated Press that the service was behind the attack on the tanker, which was transporting fuel for Russian forces. A sea drone, filled with 450 kilograms (992 pounds) of TNT, was used for the attack, added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity ..

Ukraine and its allies to woo the Global South at Saudi Arabia meeting

Zelenskiy would like the Jeddah meeting to pave the way for a summit of leaders backing the 10-point "peace formula" he released last year

Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking Black Sea navy base, Crimea with drones

Russia accused Ukraine early Friday of attacking its Black Sea navy base in the port of Novorossiysk with sea drones. Novorossiysk is just across the water from Crimea, where Russia's Ministry of Defense said it thwarted another attack by Ukraine overnight, taking down 13 drones. Russia's Ministry of Defence said Russian ships patrolling the perimeter of the naval base destroyed two Ukrainian sea drones. Footage published on Russian social media channels appeared to show a ship firing into the sea and a burning object exploding. Ukrainian agencies carried footage from social media channels they suggested showed a Russian ship listing to one side after the attack. The Associated Press could not verify the videos. Ukrainian officials have not commented on the attack, in keeping with the country's security policy. Minutes after confirming the attack on the Black Sea port, Russia's Ministry of Defence said it had also repelled another attack by Ukraine on Moscow-annexed Crimea. The ..

Russian shelling hits a landmark church in the Ukrainian city of Kherson

Russian shelling on Thursday damaged a landmark church in the city of Kherson that once held the remains of the renowned 18th-century commander who exerted Russian control through the southeast parts of modern Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine's emergency service said that four of its workers were wounded in a second round of shelling as they fought the fire at St. Catherine's Cathedral. Four other people were wounded in the first shelling attack, which also hit a trolleybus, the general prosecutor's office said. The shelling followed the severe damage sustained by a beloved Orthodox cathedral in a missile strike last week in Odesa and underlined the war's risk to the country's cultural monuments. The Kherson church, dating from 1781, is one of the city's most notable buildings. It once was the burial spot for Prince Grigory Potemkin, a favoirite of Russian Empress Catherine the Great. The remains were removed last year while the city was still under Russian ...

Halted Ukraine grain deal, funding shortages rattle UN food aid programmes

A halted landmark grain deal that allowed Ukrainian grain to flow to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, along with donor's fatigue, is rattling the operations of the United Nations food agency, its deputy executive director said Tuesday. What we have to do now is to look elsewhere (for grain) of course, Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program told The Associated Press. We don't know exactly where the market will land, but there might well be an increase in food prices." The WFP on Tuesday started reducing monthly cash aid for 120,000 Syrian refugees living in two camps in Jordan citing budget cuts, a decision that upset both refugees and Jordanian officials. The agency has said it would gradually cut off 50,000 refugees in Jordan from its assistance altogether. The program had initially covered 465,000 refugees. Syrian refugees in Jordan expressed frustration at the news, as they continue to struggle with finding work and high inflation rates. Th

Drone Attacks on Russia

Russian authorities say three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure of one of four airports around the Russian capital.

$3.9 bn UN humanitarian appeal for Ukraine is only 30% funded: UN official

The USD 3.9 billion humanitarian appeal for war-torn Ukraine is less than 30 per cent funded as the country starts preparing for a second winter with more residential buildings damaged and destroyed and thousands of people homeless following the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, the country's U.N. humanitarian coordinator said Monday. Denise Brown told a virtual news conference from Kyiv that 17 million Ukrainians need aid and the U.N. is targeting between 11 million and 12 million but funding is becoming a serious issue. A report last week from the U.N. humanitarian office said lack of funding is hampering operations, adding to the challenges imposed by insecurity and other obstacles. By the end of June, it said, the U.N. and its humanitarian partners reached 7.3 million people but in some parts of Ukraine's south, east and north, more than 25% of targeted people couldn't be reached due to a combination of funding shortages and other operational challenges. Brown stressed that winter

EU prez warns Europe won't tolerate aggression in Ukraine or Indo-Pacific

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned Monday that Europe would not tolerate aggression in Ukraine or the Indo-Pacific, as she renewed in a speech the EU's recognition of a 2016 arbitration decision that invalidated China's expansive claims in the disputed South China Sea. Von der Leyen spoke in a joint news conference with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. after holding talks in Manila that aimed to bolster trade, economic and security relations. The leaders announced the 27-nation bloc would resume negotiations with the Philippines for a free-trade agreement that stalled in 2017 under Marcos's predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. She underscored the need for security cooperation citing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which showed how authoritarian leaders are willing to act on their threats." "Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine shakes the foundation of the international order. It is in violation of the UN charter and the fundamental principles of ...

Few options left for Ukraine farmers looking to export grain after attacks

The summer winds carried the smell of burned grain across the southern Ukrainian steppe and away from the shards of three Russian cruise missiles that struck the unassuming metal hangars. The agricultural company Ivushka applied for accreditation to export grain this year, but the strike in mid-July destroyed a large portion of the stock, days after Russia abandoned the grain deal that would have allowed the shipments across the Black Sea without fear of attack. Men shirtless and barefoot, with blackened soles from ash, swept unburnt grain into piles and awaited the loader, whose driver deftly steered around twisted metal shrapnel, bits of missile and craters despite his shattered windshield. They hoped to beat the next rain to rescue what was left of the crop. According to the Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office, Russia struck the facility July 21 with three Kalibr- and Onyx-class cruise missiles. We don't have a clue why they did it, explained Olha Romanova, the head of Ivushka. .

Wagner mercenaries in Belarus move closer to Polish border: Poland PM

Over 100 mercenaries belonging to the Russian-linked Wagner group in Belarus have moved close to the border with Poland, the Polish prime minister said Saturday. Mateusz Morawiecki said at a news conference that the mercenaries had moved close to the Suwalki Gap, a strategic stretch of Polish territory situated between Belarus and Kaliningrad, a Russian territory separated from the mainland. Poland is a member of both the European Union and NATO, and it has worried about its security with Russian ally Belarus and Ukraine on its eastern border. Those fears have grown since Wagner group mercenaries arrived in Belarus since the group's short-lived rebellion earlier this summer. The Poland-Belarus border has already been a tense place for a couple of years, ever since large numbers of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa began arriving, seeking to enter the EU by crossing into Poland, as well as Lithuania. Poland's government accuses Russia and Belarus of using the migrants to .

G7 nations' position on war in Ukraine will remain same, says Japan

Japan on Friday said the position of the G7 nations on the war in Ukraine will remain same and it is up to the Indian presidency of the G20 to build consensus on the text to refer to the crisis in the leaders' declaration to be adopted at the upcoming summit of the grouping. India, the current president of the G20, is facing the uphill task of building consensus on the issue in view of sharp differences between the West and Russia-China. Yukiko Okano, the deputy press secretary in Japan's foreign ministry, told reporters in Delhi that the Ukraine crisis figured in the talks between Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar on Thursday evening. Okano, who is accompanying Hayashi in his two-day visit to India, said at a media briefing that the G7's position on Ukraine will not change. "I think our position will remain the same as G7 countries, whichever forum we would voice out our concerns and our objection relating to Ukraine," she said. "

Biden thanks far-right Italian Premier Meloni for her support of Ukraine

President Joe Biden on Thursday thanked far-right Premier Giorgia Meloni for Italy's steady backing of Ukraine, offering a warm welcome to the White House to a leader that his administration saw with some trepidation when she rose to power last year as the head of Italy's first far-right-led government since the end of World War II. Biden administration concerns about her ideology have been eased by her support for Ukraine and her seeming openness to pull back from Italy's participation in China's infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative. Her visit came as Italy prepares to take up the presidency next year of the Group of Seven industrialized nations. Italy and the United States are also standing strong with Ukraine, and I compliment you on your very strong support in defending against Russian atrocities, and that's what they are," Biden told Meloni at the start of their Oval Office meeting. And I thank the Italian people. I want to thank them for supporting you and supportin

Kyiv said to have launched major push against Russian forces in southeast

Kyiv has launched a major push to dislodge Russian forces from southeastern Ukraine as part of its weeks-long counteroffensive, committing thousands of troops to the battle in the country's southeast, according to Western and Ukrainian officials and analysts. The surge in troops and firepower has been centreed on the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, a Western official said late Wednesday. The official was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. Fighting has intensified in recent weeks at multiple points along the 1,500-kilometre (930-mile) front line as Ukraine deploys Western-supplied advanced weapons and Western-trained troops against the deeply entrenched Russian forces who invaded 17 months ago. Ukrainian officials have been mostly silent about battlefield developments since they began early counteroffensive operations, though Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said troops are advancing toward the city of Melitopol in Zaporizhizh