The six-week invasion of Moscow forced more than 4 million people to flee abroad, killed or injured thousands, turned cities into ruins and led to sweeping sanctions on Russian leaders and companies. In a symbolic move, the UN General Assembly suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, expressing “grave concern about the ongoing crisis over human rights and the humanitarian crisis.” Russia then withdrew from the council. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Moscow had previously acknowledged that its attack did not proceed as quickly as it would have liked, but on Thursday Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov expressed regret over the rising death toll. “We have significant troop losses,” he told Sky News. “It’s a huge tragedy for us.” Russia is facing its most difficult economic situation in three decades due to unprecedented Western sanctions, said Prime Minister Mikhail Misoustin. The US Congress has taken away the commercial status of the “most favored nation” in a further blow. Russia says it has launched what it calls a “special military operation” on February 24 to demilitarize and “demilitarize” Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject it as a false pretext. Following new restrictions following the killing of civilians in the city of Bukha, widely condemned by the West as war crimes, Ukraine has called on its allies to stop buying Russian oil and gas amid divisions in Europe and to strengthen it militarily. “Ukraine needs weapons that will give it the means to win on the battlefield and that will be the strongest possible sanction against Russia,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video late Thursday. He also said that the situation in Borodyanka – another city northwest of Kiev recaptured by Russian forces – was “significantly worse” than in Bucha, without giving any details. Video from Borodyanka showed search and rescue teams using heavy equipment to dig into the rubble of a collapsed building. Hundreds of people feared being buried. Moscow has denied that it targeted civilians and says the images of corpses in Bukhara were directed to justify further sanctions against Moscow and to derail peace talks. read more EU ambassadors agreed on a fifth package of sanctions on Russia with a carbon embargo that included a 120-day period to give Member States time to find alternative suppliers, following pressure from Germany to delay the measure. read more Ukraine has accused Hungary of undermining EU unity after Budapest said it was ready to pay rubles for Russian gas, a Kremlin demand most people in the West had resisted. On the battlefield, Ukraine says, after withdrawing from the outskirts of Kiev, Russia is regrouping to try to gain full control of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are partly occupied by separatists backed by Russia since 2014. The besieged southern port of Mariupol, where the mayor said more than 100,000 people were still trapped, was also targeted. “Evacuate! The chances of saving yourself and your family from the death of the Russians are diminishing every day,” said Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai. Authorities in Dnipro, a city in central eastern Ukraine, also urged women, children and the elderly to leave. read more COMMERCIAL CATEGORIES Both sides continued to exchange accusations, with Moscow launching a criminal investigation into allegations that a Russian soldier was beaten and threatened with death while being held in Ukraine as a prisoner of war. read more Separately, a social media video verified by Reuters and geographically located in an area west of Kiev appears to show Ukrainian forces shooting and killing a captured and severely wounded Russian soldier. read more NATO members agreed to step up support for Ukraine on Thursday. Ukraine has received about 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons systems from the United States and its allies, the top US official said, and Washington is considering what new support it could send. In a video posted on YouTube, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov called for heavier, more modern weapons as Russia gathers its forces for a strong offensive. Russia has “drawn conclusions and changed tactics” and is now focusing on long-term air strikes. As a result, Ukraine needs air defense systems, long-range artillery, tanks and anti-ship missiles, Reznikov said. The Zelensky government says the starvation of Moscow’s war machine is the only way to reach a solution in the peace talks. On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a draft peace agreement from Kyiv contained “unacceptable” elements and deviated from previously agreed proposals. read more Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters that Lavrov had not been directly involved in the talks and that his statements were “purely propagandistic” in order to divert attention from the Bucha killings. Since Russian troops withdrew last week, Ukrainian officials have said hundreds of civilians have been found dead. The mayor of Bukha said dozens were the victims of extrajudicial killings by Russian troops. Reuters could not independently verify this information. Testimonies of at least a dozen residents of an apartment complex in Bucha painted a picture of violence and intimidation by Russian soldiers. The mutilated bodies of a resident of the complex and another local were found in a stairwell. read more Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report from Reuters’s offices. Written by Costas Pita and Lincoln Fest. Editing: Daniel Wallis and Michael Perry Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
