Europe
EU rushes out $300 billion roadmap to ditch Russian energy
The European Union’s executive arm moved Wednesday to jump-start plans for the 27-nation bloc to abandon Russian energy amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, proposing a nearly 300 billion-euro ($315 billion) package that includes more efficient use of fuels and faster rollout of renewable power.
The European Commission’s investment initiative is meant to help the 27 EU countries start weaning themselves off Russian fossil fuels this year. The goal is to deprive Russia, the EU’s main supplier of oil, natural gas and coal, of tens of billions in revenue and strengthen EU climate policies.
“We are taking our ambition to yet another level to make sure that we become independent from Russian fossil fuels as quickly as possible,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Brussels when announcing the package, dubbed REPowerEU.
With no end in sight to Russia’s war in Ukraine and European energy security shaken, the EU is rushing to align its geopolitical and climate interests for the coming decades. It comes amid troubling signs that have raised concerns about energy supplies that the EU relies on and have no quick replacements for, including Russia cutting off member nations Poland and Bulgaria after they refused a demand to pay for natural gas in rubles.
The bloc’s dash to ditch Russian energy stems from a combination of voluntary and mandatory actions. Both reflect the political discomfort of helping fund Russia’s military campaign in a country that neighbors the EU and wants to join the bloc.
Also Read: Fall of Mariupol appears at hand; fighters leave steel plant
An EU ban on coal from Russia is due to start in August, and the bloc has pledged to try to reduce demand for Russian gas by two-thirds by year’s end. Meanwhile, a proposed EU oil embargo has hit a roadblock from Hungary and other landlocked countries that worry about the cost of switching to alternative sources.
In a bid to swing Hungary behind the oil phaseout, the REPowerEU package expects oil investment funding of around 2 billion euros for member nations highly dependent on Russian oil.
Energy savings and renewables form the cornerstones of the package, which would be funded mainly by an economic stimulus program put in place to help member countries overcome the slump triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The European Commission said the price tag for abandoning Russian fossil fuels completely by a 2027 target date is 210 billion euros. Its package includes 56 billion euros for energy efficiency and 86 billion euros for renewables.
Von der Leyen cited a total funding pot of 72 billion euros in grants and 225 billion euros for loans.
The European Commission also proposed ways to streamline the approval processes in EU countries for renewable projects, which can take up to a decade to get through red tape. The commission said approval times need to fall to as little as a year or less.
Also read:Russian neighbor Finland announces it wants to join NATO
It put forward a specific plan on solar energy, seeking to double photovoltaic capacity by 2025 and pushing for a phased-in obligation to install solar panels on new buildings.
Simone Tagliapietra, an energy expert at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, called REPowerEU a “jumbo package” whose success will ultimately depend on political will in the bloc’s national capitals.
“Most of the actions entailed in the plan require either national implementation or strong coordination among member states,” Tagliapietra said. “The extent to which countries really engage is going to be defining.”
The German energy think tank Agora Energiewende said the EU’s plan “gives too little attention to concrete initiatives that reduce fossil fuel demand in the short term and thereby misses the opportunity to simultaneously enhance Europe’s energy security and meet Europe’s climate objectives.”
The group’s research shows rapidly expanding solar, wind parks and use of heat pumps for low-temperature heat in industry and buildings could be done faster than constructing new liquefied natural gas terminals or gas infrastructure, said Matthias Buck, its director for Europe.
The European Commission’s recommendations on short-term national actions to cut demand for Russian energy coincide with deliberations underway in the bloc since last year on setting more ambitious EU energy-efficiency and renewable targets for 2030.
Those targets, being negotiated by the European Parliament and national governments, are part of the bloc’s commitments to a 55% cut in greenhouse gases by decade’s end, compared with 1990 emissions, and to climate neutrality by 2050.
Von der Leyen urged the European Parliament and national governments to deepen the commission’s July proposal for an energy efficiency target of 9% and renewable energy goal of 40% by 2030. She said those objectives should be 13% and 45%, respectively.
Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark plan to build North Sea wind farms to help cut carbon emissions.
Interrogation, uncertainty for surrendering Mariupol troops
Nearly 1,000 last-ditch Ukrainian fighters who had held out inside Mariupol’s pulverized steel plant have surrendered, Russian said Wednesday, as the battle that turned the city into a worldwide symbol of defiance and suffering drew toward a close.
Meanwhile, the first captured Russian soldier to be put on trial by Ukraine on war-crimes charges pleaded guilty to killing a civilian and could get life in prison. And Finland and Sweden applied to join
NATO, abandoning generations of neutrality for fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop with Ukraine.
The Ukrainian fighters trooping out of the ruined Azovstal steelworks that became the last stronghold of resistance in the city face an uncertain fate. Some were taken by the Russians to a former penal colony in territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.
Ukraine said it hopes to get the soldiers back in a prisoner swap, but Russia threatened to put some of them on trial for war crimes.
Also Read: NATO talks with Finland, Sweden falter but will continue
It was unclear how many fighters remained inside the plant’s labyrinth of tunnels and bunkers, where 2,000 were believed to be holed up at one point. The leader of a Russia-backed separatist government that claims Mariupol as part of its territory said no top commanders had emerged from the plant.
The steel plant was the only thing standing in the way of Russia declaring the full capture of Mariupol. Its fall would make Mariupol the biggest Ukrainian city to be taken the Russians, giving a boost to Putin in a war where many of his plans have gone awry.
Military analysts, though, said the city’s capture would hold more symbolic importance than anything else, since Mariupol is already effectively under Moscow’s control and many of the Russian forces that were tied down by the fighting have already been moved out.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said 959 Ukrainian troops have abandoned the stronghold since they started coming out Monday.
Video showed the fighters carrying out their wounded on stretchers and undergoing pat-down searches before being taken away on buses escorted by military vehicles bearing the pro-Kremlin “Z” sign.
NATO talks with Finland, Sweden falter but will continue
NATO envoys failed to reach a consensus on Wednesday about whether to start membership talks with Finland and Sweden, diplomats said, as Turkey renewed its objections to the two Nordic countries joining.
The envoys met at NATO headquarters in Brussels after Finland and Sweden’s ambassadors submitted written applications to join the military organization, in a move that marks one of the biggest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s war on Ukraine — and which could rewrite Europe’s security map.
The diplomats, who did not want to be named because of the sensitive nature of the proceedings, declined to say precisely who or what was holding up the procedure. They pointed to the messages from many of the 30 NATO allies welcoming Finland and Sweden’s request.
Lithuanian Ambassador Deividas Matulionis told Swedish and Finnish media that the envoys had exchanged views about their national security. “The discussion was about that, but it is up to Turkey to comment,” he said.
NATO officials also refused to provide details. They underlined remarks earlier Wednesday by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, that “we are determined to work through all issues and reach a rapid conclusion.” Meetings and diplomatic outreach aimed at resolving the problem will continue.
But Turkey is the only ally to have clearly voiced its opposition. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists that Finland and Sweden must show more respect for Turkish sensitivities about terrorism. He is refusing to budge over what he says is their alleged support for Kurdish militants.
Erdogan accuses the two countries of turning a blind eye to activities of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, even though the group is on the European Union’s anti-terror blacklist.
Also Read: Russian neighbor Finland announces it wants to join NATO
“You will not hand over terrorists to us, but you will ask us to allow you to join NATO. NATO is a security entity. It is a security agency. Therefore, we cannot say ‘yes’ to depriving this security organization of security,” he said Wednesday, in an address to ruling party lawmakers.
The day had started off on an upbeat note. Stoltenberg had said that the military alliance stands ready to seize a historic moment and move quickly on allowing Finland and Sweden to join its ranks, after the two countries submitted their membership requests.
The official applications set a security clock ticking. Russia, whose war on Ukraine spurred them to join the military organization, has warned that it wouldn’t welcome such a move, and could respond.
“I warmly welcome the requests by Finland and Sweden to join NATO. You are our closest partners,“ Stoltenberg said. “All allies agree on the importance of NATO enlargement. We all agree that we must stand together, and we all agree that this is an historic moment which we must seize.”
“This is a good day at a critical moment for our security,” a beaming Stoltenberg said, as he stood alongside the two envoys, with NATO, Finnish and Swedish flags at their backs.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that the alliance stop expanding toward Russia’s borders, and several NATO allies, led by the United States and Britain, have signaled that they stand ready to provide security support to Finland and Sweden should the Kremlin try to provoke or destabilize them during the time it takes to become full members.
The countries will only benefit from NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee — the part of the alliance’s founding treaty that pledges that any attack on one member would be considered an attack of them all — once the membership ratification process is concluded, probably in a few months.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed their applications in a tweet and said that “Putin’s appalling ambitions have transformed the geopolitical contours of our continent.” Germany, Italy, the Baltic states and the Czech Republic all spoke favorably about the candidates.
Russian soldier pleads guilty at Ukraine war crimes trial
A 21-year-old Russian soldier facing the first war crimes trial since Moscow invaded Ukraine pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing an unarmed civilian.
Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin could get life in prison for shooting a a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in the northeastern Sumy region on Feb. 28, four days into the invasion.
Shishimarin, a captured member of a Russian tank unit, was prosecuted under a section of the Ukrainian criminal code that addresses the laws and customs of war.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova previously said her office was readying war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offenses that included bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting.
It was not immediately clear how many of the suspects are in Ukrainian hands and how many would be tried in absentia.
Prosecutors plan to continue presenting evidence against Shishimarin following his guilty plea, although the trial is like to be shorter.
As the inaugural war-crimes case in Ukraine, Shishimarin’s prosecution was being watched closely. Investigators have been collecting evidence of possible war crimes to bring before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Also Read: Fall of Mariupol appears at hand; fighters leave steel plant
Venediktova’s office has said it was looking into more than 10,700 potential war crimes involving more than 600 suspects, including Russian soldiers and government officials.
With help from foreign experts, prosecutors are investigating allegations that Russian troops violated Ukrainian and international law by killing, torturing and abusing possibly thousands of Ukrainian civilians.
Shishimarin’s trial opened Friday, when he made a brief court appearance while lawyers and judges discussed prosecedural matters. After his plea on Wednesday, the proceedings were continued until Thursday, when the trial is expecgted to resume in a large courtroom to accomodate more journalists.
Ukrainian authorities posted a few details on social media last week from their investigation in his case.
Shishimarin was among a group of Russian troops that fled Ukrainian forces on Feb. 28, according to Venediktova’s Facebook account. The Russians allegedly fired at a private car and seized the vehicle, then drove to Chupakhivka, a village about 200 miles east of Kyiv.
On the way, the prosecutor-general alleged, the Russian soldiers saw a man walking on the sidewalk and talking on his phone. Shyshimarin was ordered to kill the man so he wouldn’t be able to report them to Ukrainian military authorities. Venediktova did not identify who gave the order.
Shyshimarin fired his Kalashnikov rifle through the open window and hit the victim in the head, Venediktova wrote.
“The man died on the spot just a few dozen meters from his house,” she said.
The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, posted a short video on May 4 of Shyshimarin speaking in front of camera and briefly describing how he shot the man. The SBU described the video as “one of the first confessions of the enemy invaders.”
“I was ordered to shoot,” Shyshimarin said. “I shot one (round) at him. He falls. And we kept on going.”
Russia is believed to be preparing war crime trials for Ukrainian soldiers.
Fall of Mariupol appears at hand; fighters leave steel plant
Mariupol appeared on the verge of falling to the Russians on Tuesday as Ukraine moved to abandon the steel plant where hundreds of its fighters had held out for months under relentless bombardment in the last bastion of resistance in the devastated city.
The capture of Mariupol would make it the biggest city to be taken by Moscow’s forces and would give the Kremlin a badly needed victory, though the landscape has largely been reduced to rubble.
More than 260 Ukrainian fighters — some of them seriously wounded and taken out on stretchers — left the ruins of the Azovstal plant on Monday and turned themselves over to the Russian side in a deal negotiated by the warring parties. An additional seven buses carrying an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers from the plant were seen arriving at a former penal colony Tuesday in the town of Olenivka, approximately 88 kilometers (55 miles) north of Mariupol.
While Russia called it a surrender, the Ukrainians avoided that word and instead said the plant’s garrison had successfully completed its mission to tie down Russian forces and was under new orders.
“To save their lives. Ukraine needs them. This is the main thing,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said.
The Ukrainians expressed hope that the fighters would be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war. But Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, said without evidence that there were “war criminals” among the defenders and that they should not be exchanged but tried.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the country’s military and intelligence officers are still working to extract its remaining troops from the sprawling steel mill. Officials have not said how many remain inside.
“The most influential international mediators are involved,” he said.
The operation to abandon the steel plant and its labyrinth of tunnels and bunkers signaled the beginning of the end of a nearly three-month siege that turned Mariupol into a worldwide symbol of both defiance and suffering.
The Russian bombardment killed over 20,000 civilians, according to Ukraine, and left the remaining inhabitants — perhaps one-quarter of the southern port city’s prewar population of 430,000 — with little food, water, heat or medicine.
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During the siege, Russian forces launched lethal airstrikes on a maternity hospital and a theater where civilians had taken shelter. Close to 600 people may have been killed at the theater.
Gaining full control of Mariupol would give Russia an unbroken land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of a vital port. It could also free up Russian forces to fight elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial heartland that the Kremlin is bent on capturing.
And it would give Russia a victory after repeated setbacks on the battlefield and the diplomatic front, beginning with the abortive attempt to storm Kyiv, the capital.
The Russian victory, though, is mostly a symbolic boost for Russian President Vladimir Putin than a military win, said retired French Vice Adm. Michel Olhagaray, a former head of France’s center for higher military studies. He said: “factually, Mariupol had already fallen.”
“Now Putin can claim a ‘victory’ in the Donbas,” Olhagaray said.
But because the Azovstal defenders’ “incredible resistance” tied down Russian troops, Ukraine can also claim that it came out on top.
“Both sides will be able take pride or boast about a victory — victories of different kinds,” he said.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak likened the Ukrainian defenders to the vastly outnumbered Spartans who held out against Persian forces in ancient Greece. “83 days of Mariupol defense will go down in history as the Thermopylae of the XXI century,” he tweeted.
The soldiers who left the plant were searched by Russian troops, loaded onto buses accompanied by Russian military vehicles, and taken to two towns controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. More than 50 of the fighters were seriously wounded, according to both sides.
It was impossible to confirm the total number of fighters brought to Olenivka or their legal status. While both Mariupol and Olenivka are officially part of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Olenivka has been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014 and forms part of the unrecognized “Donetsk People’s Republic.” Prior to the rebel takeover, penal colony No. 120 had been a high-security facility designed to hold those sentenced for serious crimes.
Footage shot by The Associated Press shows the convoy was escorted by military vehicles bearing the pro-Kremlin “Z” sign, as Soviet flags fluttered from poles along the road. About two dozen Ukrainian fighters were seen in one of the buses.
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Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman said the Russian military was holding more than 3,000 civilians from Mariupol at another former penal colony near Olenivka. Ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova said most civilians are held for a month, but those considered “particularly unreliable,” including former soldiers and police, are held for two months. The detainees include about 30 volunteers who delivered humanitarian supplies to Mariupol while it was under siege, she said.
Russia’s main federal investigative body said it intends to interrogate the troops to “identify the nationalists” and determine whether they were involved in crimes against civilians. Also, Russia’s top prosecutor asked the country’s Supreme Court to designate Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, whose members have been holding out at Azovstal, a terrorist organization. The regiment has links to the far right.
Russian state news agencies said the Russian parliament would take up a resolution Wednesday to prevent the exchange of Azov Regiment fighters.
A negotiated withdrawal could save lives on the Russian side, too, sparing its troops from what almost certainly would be a bloody battle to finish off the defenders inside the plant, which sprawls over 11 square kilometers (4 square miles).
The withdrawal could also work to Moscow’s advantage by taking the world’s attention off the suffering in Mariupol.
Russian and Ukrainian officials said peace talks were on hold.
Elsewhere across the Donbas, eight civilians were killed Tuesday in Russian attacks on 45 settlements in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said. Donetsk regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said a Russian airstrike ignited a fire at a building materials plant. In the Luhansk region, Russian soldiers fired rockets on an evacuation bus carrying 36 civilians, but no one was hurt, Gov. Serhii Haidai said.
Zelenskyy said Russian forces also fired missiles at the western Lviv region and the Sumy and Chernihiv regions in the northeast, and carried out airstrikes in the eastern Luhansk region. He said the border regions of Ukraine saw Russian “sabotage activity.”
He said the assaults were “a test of our strength” and “kind of an attempt to compensate the Russian army for a series of failures in the east and south of our country.”
Ukrainian guerrilla fighters also killed several high-ranking Russian officers in the southern city of Melitopol, the regional administration said on Telegram. Russian forces have occupied the city since early in the war.
The report could not immediately be confirmed. Throughout the war, Ukraine has claimed to have killed many Russian generals and other officers. A few of the deaths have been confirmed by Russia.
Russian officials in Belgorod and Kursk — two regions bordering Ukraine — accused Kyiv of shelling villages and civilian infrastructure along the frontier, the latest in a series of similar accusations over the recent weeks.
In other developments, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, said he sent a team of 42 investigators, forensic experts and support personnel to Ukraine to look into suspected war crimes. Ukraine has accused Russian forces of torturing and killing civilians.
In Buffalo, Biden condemns racism, mourns new victims
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden paid their respects Tuesday at a makeshift memorial to the 10 people killed in the white supremacist attack in Buffalo, confronting again the forces of hatred he once said called him back to seek the White House.
Just off Air Force One, the first couple laid a bouquet of white flowers at the memorial of blossoms, candles and messages of condolence outside the Tops supermarket, where on Saturday a young man armed with an assault rifle targeted Black people in the deadliest racist attack in the U.S. since Biden took office.
The Bidens were meeting privately with families of the victims, first responders and local officials before the president was to deliver public remarks, in which he planned to call for stricter gun laws and urge Americans to reject racism and embrace the nation’s diversity, the White House said.
It’s a message that Biden has delivered several times since he became the first president to specifically address white supremacy in an inaugural speech, calling it “domestic terrorism that we must confront.” However, such beliefs remain an entrenched threat at a time when his administration has been focused on addressing the pandemic, inflation and the war in Ukraine.
The White House said the president and the first lady will “grieve with the community that lost 10 lives in a senseless and horrific mass shooting.” Three more people were wounded. Nearly all the victims were Black, including all of those who died.
On Monday, Biden paid particular tribute to one of the victims, retired police officer Aaron Salter, who was working as a security guard at the store. He said Salter “gave his life trying to save others” by opening fire at the gunman, only to be killed himself.
Also Read: White ‘replacement theory’ fuels racist attacks
Upon arrival in Buffalo, The president and New York’s two senators were greeted by Gov. Kathy Hochul, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and local police and fire officials.
The shooter’s hateful writings echoed those of the white supremacists who marched with torches in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, a scene that Biden said inspired his decision to run against President Donald Trump in 2020 and that drove him to join what he calls the “battle for the soul of America.”
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are in Buffalo, New York to honor victims of the supermarket shooting.
“It’s important for him to show up for the families and the community and express his condolences,” said Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP. “But we’re more concerned with preventing this from happening in the future.”
It’s unclear how Biden will try to do that. Proposals for new gun restrictions have routinely been blocked by Republicans, and racist rhetoric espoused on the fringes of the nation’s politics has only grown louder.
Payton Gendron, 18, was arrested at the supermarket and charged with murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
Before the shooting, Gendron is reported to have posted online a screed overflowing with racism and antisemitism. The writer of the document described himself as a supporter of Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, and Brenton Tarrant, who targeted mosques in New Zealand in 2019.
Investigators are looking at Gendron’s connection to what’s known as the “great replacement” theory, which baselessly claims white people are being intentionally overrun by other races through immigration or higher birth rates.
The claims are often interwoven with antisemitism, with Jews identified as the culprits. During the 2017 “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, the white supremacists chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
“Many of those dark voices still exist today,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “And the president is determined as he was back then. to make sure we fight back against those forces of hate and evil and violence.”
In the years since Charlottesville, replacement theory has moved from the online fringe to mainstream right-wing politics. A third of U.S. adults believe there is “a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views,” according to a poll conducted in December by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Tucker Carlson, the prominent Fox News host, accuses Democrats of orchestrating mass migration to consolidate their power.
Ukraine says mission at Mariupol steel mill is complete
The regiment that doggedly defended a steel mill as Ukraine's last stronghold in the port city of Mariupol completed its mission Monday after more than 260 fighters, including some badly wounded, were evacuated and taken to areas under Russia’s control, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the evacuation to separatist-controlled territory was done to save the lives of the fighters who endured weeks of Russian assaults in the maze of underground passages below the hulking Azovstal steelworks. He said the “heavily wounded” were getting medical help.
“Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle,” he said. An unknown number of fighters stayed behind to await other rescue efforts.
The steel mill’s defenders got out as Moscow suffered another diplomatic setback in the war, with Sweden joining Finland in deciding to seek NATO membership. And Ukraine made a symbolic gain when its forces reportedly pushed Russian troops back to the Russian border in the Kharkiv region.
Still, Russian forces pounded targets in the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine known as the Donbas, and the death toll, already many thousands, kept climbing with the war set to enter its 12th week on Wednesday.
Also read: In Ukraine and internationally, scenario darkens for Russia
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said 53 seriously wounded fighters were taken from the Azovstal plant to a hospital in Novoazovsk, east of Mariupol. An additional 211 fighters were evacuated to Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor. She said an exchange would be worked out for their return home.
“Mariupol’s defenders have fully accomplished all missions assigned by the command," she said.
Officials also planned to keep trying to save the fighters who remained inside. Military experts generally put the number of fighters at the plant at anywhere from a few hundred to 1,000.
“The work to bring the guys home continues, and it requires delicacy and time," Zelenskyy said.
Before Monday's evacuations from the steelworks began, the Russian Defense Ministry announced an agreement for the wounded to leave the mill for treatment in a town held by pro-Moscow separatists. There was no immediate word on whether the wounded would be considered prisoners of war.
After nightfall Monday, several buses pulled away from the steel mill accompanied by Russian military vehicles. Maliar later confirmed that the evacuation had taken place.
“Thanks to the defenders of Mariupol, Ukraine gained critically important time to form reserves and regroup forces and receive help from partners,” she said. “And they fulfilled all their tasks. But it is impossible to unblock Azovstal by military means.”
The Ukrainian General Staff also said on Facebook that the Mariupol garrison has completed its mission. The commander of the Azov Regiment, which led the defense of the plant, said in a prerecorded video message released Monday that the regiment’s mission had concluded, with as many lives saved as possible.
Also read: Small wins buoy Ukraine; West says Russians losing momentum
“Absolutely safe plans and operations don’t exist during war," Lt. Col. Denis Prokopenko said, adding that all risks were considered.
Elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern city of Sievierdonetsk came under heavy shelling that killed at least 10 people, said Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region. In the Donetsk region, Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Facebook that nine civilians were killed in shelling.
The western Ukrainian city of Lviv was rocked by loud explosions early Tuesday. Witnesses counted at least eight blasts accompanied by distant booms, and the smell of burning was apparent some time later. An Associated Press team in Lviv, which was under an overnight curfew, said the sky west of the city was lit up by an orange glow.
The chairman of the Lviv Regional Military Administration said the Russians fired on military infrastructure in the Yavoriv district. The city of Yavoriv is less than 10 miles (15 kilometers) from the Polish border.
Ukrainian troops also advanced as Russian forces pulled back from around the northeastern city of Kharkiv in recent days. Zelenskyy thanked the soldiers who reportedly pushed them all the way to the Russian border in the Kharkiv region.
Video showed Ukrainian soldiers carrying a post that resembled a Ukrainian blue-and-yellow-striped border marker. Then they placed it on the ground while a dozen of the soldiers posed next to it, including one with belts of bullets draped over a shoulder.
“I’m very grateful to you, on behalf of all Ukrainians, on my behalf and on behalf of my family," Zelenskyy said in a video message. "I’m very grateful to all the fighters like you.”
The Ukrainian border service said the video showing the soldiers was from the border “in the Kharkiv region,” but would not elaborate, citing security reasons. It was not immediately possible to verify the exact location.
Ukrainian border guards said they also stopped a Russian attempt to send sabotage and reconnaissance troops into the Sumy region, some 90 miles (146 kilometers) northwest of Kharkiv.
Russia has been plagued by setbacks in the war, most glaringly in its failure early on to take the capital of Kyiv. Much of the fighting has shifted to the Donbas but also has turned into a slog, with both sides fighting village-by-village.
Howitzers from the U.S. and other countries have helped Kyiv hold off or gain ground against Russia, a senior U.S. defense official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. military assessment, said Ukraine has pushed Russian forces to within a half-mile to 2.5 miles (1 to 4 kilometers) of Russia’s border but could not confirm if it was all the way to the frontier.
Away from the battlefield, Sweden's decision to seek NATO membership followed a similar decision by neighboring Finland in a historic shift for the counties, which were nonaligned for generations.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said her country would be in a “vulnerable position” during the application period and urged her fellow citizens to brace themselves.
“Russia has said that that it will take countermeasures if we join NATO,” she said. “We cannot rule out that Sweden will be exposed to, for instance, disinformation and attempts to intimidate and divide us.”
But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a NATO member, ratcheted up his objection to their joining. He accused the countries of failing to take a “clear” stance against Kurdish militants and other groups that Ankara considers terrorists, and of imposing military sanctions on Turkey.
He said Swedish and Finnish officials who are expected in Turkey next week should not bother to come if they intend to try to convince Turkey of dropping its objection.
“How can we trust them?” Erdogan asked at a joint news conference with the visiting Algerian president.
All 30 current NATO members must agree to let the Nordic neighbors join.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow “does not have a problem” with Sweden or Finland as they apply for NATO membership, but that “the expansion of military infrastructure onto this territory will of course give rise to our reaction in response.”
Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24 in what he said was an effort to check NATO’s expansion but has seen that strategy backfire. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said the membership process for both could be quick.
In Ukraine and internationally, scenario darkens for Russia
Europe pushed Monday to toughen its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Sweden following Finland in deciding to seek NATO membership and European Union officials working to rescue proposed sanctions that would target Russian oil exports helping to finance the war.
On the ground, Ukrainian troops resisted attempted Russian advances and even rolled back front lines. In a small but symbolic boost for Ukrainian morale, a patrol of soldiers recorded triumphant video of their push to the Russian border in the region of Kharkiv. Ukrainian forces have already driven Russian troops back from the region’s capital, reducing their ability to hit the battered city with artillery.
As fighting raged, international efforts to respond to Russia’s aggression continued to pick up pace. Swedish officials announced their intention to seek NATO membership — following a similar decision from its neighbor Finland. Those are seismic developments for the Nordic countries that have traditionally positioned themselves as militarily “nonaligned.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has looked grimly upon the alliance’s post-Cold War expansion in Eastern Europe, seeing it as a threat. But if the invasion was meant as a check on NATO, it appears to have backfired — by driving Sweden and Finland into NATO’s arms and pushing members of the alliance to send massive shipments of weapons to Ukraine.
Yet the Russian leader on Monday seemed to brush off that setback, saying “there is no direct threat to Russia created by the expansion involving these countries.”
Also Read: Russian neighbor Finland announces it wants to join NATO
“But the expansion of military infrastructure onto this territory will of course give rise to our reaction in response,” he said.
NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said the membership process for both Finland and Sweden could be very quick — though member Turkey has cast some doubt over the move.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said Monday that joining the 30-member military alliance was her country’s best defense in the face of Russian behavior.
“Unfortunately, we have no reason to believe that the trend (of Russia’s actions) will reverse in the foreseeable future,” she said.
In addition to sending military aid to Ukraine, Europe is also working to choke off funding for the Kremlin’s war, by reducing the billions of dollars it spends on imports of Russian energy.
But a proposed EU embargo on imports of Russian oil faces opposition from a small group of countries led by Hungary, which is one of a number of landlocked countries that are highly dependent on the imports, along with the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Bulgaria also has reservations.
“We will do our best in order to deblock the situation,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. “I cannot ensure that it is going to happen because positions are quite strong.”
Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia have helped the outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces slow the Russian advance — and even turn it back in places.
Small wins buoy Ukraine; West says Russians losing momentum
Almost three months after Russia shocked the world by invading Ukraine, its military faces a bogged-down war, the prospect of a bigger NATO, and an opponent buoyed Sunday by wins on and off the battlefield.
Top diplomats from NATO met in Berlin with the alliance's chief, who declared that the war "is not going as Moscow had planned.”
“Ukraine can win this war,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, adding that the alliance must continue to offer military support to Kyiv. He spoke by video link to the meeting as he recovers from a COVID-19 infection.
Also read:Russian neighbor Finland announces it wants to join NATO
On the diplomatic front, both Finland and Sweden took steps bringing them closer to NATO membership despite Russian objections. Finland announced Sunday that it was seeking to join NATO, saying the invasion had changed Europe's security landscape. Several hours later, Sweden's governing party endorsed the country's own bid for membership, which could lead to an application in days.
If the two nonaligned Nordic nations become part of the alliance, it would represent an affront to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has called NATO’s post-Cold War expansion in Eastern Europe as a threat to Russia. NATO says it is a purely defensive alliance.
While Moscow lost ground on the diplomatic front, Russian forces also failed to make territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine said it held off Russian offensives in the east, and Western military officials said the campaign Moscow launched there after its forces failed to seize the capital, Kyiv, has slowed to a snail's pace.
Ukraine, meanwhile, celebrated a morale-boosting victory in the Eurovision Song Contest. The folk-rap ensemble Kalush Orchestra won the glitzy pan-European competition with its song “Stefania,” which has become a anthem among Ukrainians during the war.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that his nation would claim the customary winner's honor of hosting the next annual competition.
“Step by step, we are forcing the occupiers to leave the Ukrainian land,” Zelenskyy said.
The band's frontman, Oleh Psiuk, said at a news conference Sunday that the musicians were “ready to fight” when they return home. Ukraine’s government prohibits men between 18 and 60 from leaving the country, but the all-male band's six members received special permission to go to Italy to represent Ukraine in the contest.
They will return to a country still fighting for survival.
Russian and Ukrainian fighters are engaged in a grinding battle for Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland, the Donbas. Ukraine’s most experienced and best-equipped soldiers have fought Moscow-backed separatists there for eight years.
Even with its setbacks, Russia continues to inflict death and destruction across Ukraine. Over the weekend, its forces hit a chemical plant and 11 high-rise buildings in Siverodonetsk, in the Donbas, the regional governor said. Gov. Serhii Haidaii said two people were killed in the shelling and warned residents still in the city to stay in underground shelters.
Russian missiles destroyed “military infrastructure facilities” in the Yavoriv district of western Ukraine, near the border with Poland, the governor of the Lviv region said. Lviv is a major gateway for the Western-supplied weapons Ukraine has acquired during the war.
The Ukrainian military said it held off a renewed Russian offensive in the Donetsk area of the Donbas. Russian troops also tried to advance near the eastern city of Izyum, but Ukrainian forces stopped them, the governor of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Oleh Sinegubov, reported.
And Ukraine blew up two railway bridges that had been seized by Russian forces in the eastern region of Luhansk, Ukraine’s Special Operations Command said Sunday. It posted a video of exploding bridges on Facebook. The command also said it destroyed Russian communication lines in the area to prevent Russia from bringing in more troops to attack the towns of Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, it said.
The Ukrainian claims could not be independently verified, but Western officials also painted a somber picture for Russia.
Also read:Ukraine: Russians withdraw from around Kharkiv, batter east
Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update that the Russian army had lost up to one-third of the combat strength it committed to Ukraine in late February and was failing to gain any substantial territory.
“Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days,” the ministry said on Twitter.
The assessments of Russia’s war performance came as Russian troops retreated from around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which was a key military objective earlier in the war and was bombarded for weeks. The regional governor said there had been no shelling in the city for several days, though Russia continued to strike the wider Kharkiv region.
One Ukrainian battalion that had been fighting in the region reached the border with Russia on Sunday and made a victorious video there addressed to Zelenskyy.
In the video posted on Facebook by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, a dozen fighters stood around a blue-and-yellow post, Ukraine’s colors.
One explained that the unit went "to the dividing line with the Russian Federation, the occupying country. Mr. President, we have reached it. We are here.”
Other fighters made victory signs and raised their fists.
Despite the continuing threat of missile attacks, many people were returning home to Kharkiv and other cities around Ukraine, said Anna Malyar, deputy head of the Ministry of Defense, on Sunday. Refugees were returning not just because of optimism that the war might ebb.
"Living somewhere just like that, not working, paying for housing, eating ... they are forced to return for financial reasons,” she said in remarks carried by the RBK-Ukraine news agency.
In the southern Donbas, the Azov Sea port of Mariupol is now largely under Russian control, except for several hundred Ukrainian troops who have refused to surrender and remain holed up in the Azovstal steel factory.
Many of their wives called on the global community to secure the release of “the entire garrison,” during an online news conference. The women said the troops suffered severe food, water and medicine shortages; untreated injuries were sometimes leading to sepsis.
The Ukrainian prosecutor-general’s office said regional prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into Moscow’s alleged use of restricted incendiary bombs at the steelworks. International law allows certain use of incendiary munitions but bars their use to directly target enemy personnel or civilians.
Turkey’s presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said the country had offered to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers and civilians by ship from Azovstal, according to official state broadcaster TRT.
The invasion of Ukraine has other countries along Russia’s flank worried they could be next, including Finland, which shares both a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) land border and the Gulf of Finland with Russia. Putin told Finnish President Sauli Niinisto in a Saturday phone call that joining NATO would be an “error.”
In Sweden, after the ruling Social Democratic Party on Sunday backed plans to join NATO, the plan was to be discussed Monday in parliament, with an announcement by the Cabinet to follow.
However, NATO operates by consensus, and the Nordic nations’ potential bids were thrown into question over concerns from Turkey. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he had discussed Turkey's concerns at the NATO meeting, especially Sweden and Finland's alleged support for Kurdish rebel groups and their restrictions on weapons sales to Turkey.
But during a Sunday visit to Sweden, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Finland and Sweden would be “important additions” to NATO and that the U.S. should swiftly ratify their membership. McConnell is leading a delegation of GOP senators to the region. They made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday in a show of support.
Russian neighbor Finland announces it wants to join NATO
Finland declared Sunday that it wants to join NATO, as a senior official with the western military alliance expressed hope that — with Russia's military advance appearing to falter — Ukraine can win the war.
President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin made the announcement that Finland would seek membership of NATO during a joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki. The previously neutral Nordic country shares a long border with Russia.
“This is a historic day. A new era begins,” Niinisto said.
The Finnish Parliament is expected to endorse the decision in coming days. A formal membership application will then be submitted to NATO headquarters in Brussels, most likely at some point next week.
Also read: Why Finland, Sweden joining NATO will be big deal
The announcement came as top diplomats from the 30 NATO member states met in Berlin to discuss providing further support to Ukraine and moves by Finland, Sweden and others to join NATO in the face of threats from Russia.
“The brutal invasion (by) Russia is losing momentum,” NATO Deputy-Secretary General Mircea Geoana told reporters early Sunday.
“We know that with the bravery of the Ukrainian people and army, and with our help, Ukraine can win this war,” he said.
Geoana, who was chairing the meeting while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recovers from a COVID-19 infection, said Ukraine's supporters were “united, we are strong, will continue to help Ukraine in winning this war.”
Sweden has also already taken steps toward joining the alliance, while Georgia's bid is again being discussed despite dire warnings from Moscow about the consequences if its neighbor becomes part of NATO.
“Finland and Sweden are already the closest partners of NATO,” Geoana said, adding that he expected allies to view their applications positively.
Nordic NATO member Norway said it strongly welcomed Finland’s decision to seek membership. Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt described Helsinki’s move as “a turning point” for the Nordic region's defense and security policies.
“Finnish membership in NATO will be good for Finland, good for the Nordic region, and good for NATO. Finland has Norway’s full support," Huitfeldt said in comments emailed to The Associated Press.
Huitfeldt said the Norwegian government would facilitate “a swift consent to ratification by the Norwegian Parliament” for Finland's accession into NATO.
“We are now seeing unprecedented unity in NATO. With the Finnish membership, we will further strengthen the Nordic flank of the military alliance,” Huitfeldt said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said her country and others made clear during a dinner late Saturday that they would be willing to fast-track the national ratification process for both Finland and Sweden.
Also read: Finland's leaders advocate NATO membership 'without delay'
“If these two countries are deciding to join, they can join very quickly,” she said.
Denmark's foreign minister dismissed suggestions that objections from Russian President Vladimir Putin could hinder the alliance from letting in new members.
“Each and every European country has a fundamental right to choose their own security arrangement," Jeppe Kofod told reporters.
“We see now a world where the enemy of democracy number one is Putin and the thinking that he represents,” he said, adding that NATO would also stand with other countries, such as Georgia, which he said were being “instrumentalized” by Russia.
On the sidelines of the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met earlier Sunday with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to discuss the impact of the war and how to get Ukraine’s grain to international markets.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Blinken “underscored the United States’ enduring commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s unprovoked war.”
Britain's top diplomat said NATO members would also discuss security issues beyond Europe during their meeting Sunday — a reference to growing unease among democratic nations about the rise of China.
"As well as protecting Euro-Atlantic security, we also need to watch out for Indo-Pacific security,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.
The meeting follows a gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven leading economies on Germany's Baltic Sea coast this week. Officials there expressed strong support for Ukraine and warned that Russia's blockade of grain exports from Ukrainian ports risks stoking a global food crisis.