It comes after the US, UK and EU introduced a series of new sanctions targeting Russian banks and the country’s elites. The US measures include a ban on investment in Russia and sanctions on President Vladimir Putin’s adult daughters. EU sanctions include a ban on coal imports and restrictions on banks. “This package has an impressive appearance. “But that is not enough,” Zelensky said in his overnight speech. “If there is no really painful package of sanctions against Russia and there is no arms supply, it will be considered by Russia as a license. “An permission to attack,” he said, calling on the West to reject Russian oil and completely exclude the country’s banks from the international financial system. Zelensky also said, without providing evidence, that Russian troops are now trying to cover up the atrocities in Ukraine. The horrific images of dead civilians on the streets of Bukha this week have sparked international condemnation and calls for Russian forces to be tried for war crimes. The UN General Assembly will vote on Thursday on whether to exclude Russia from the UN’s top human rights body following the revelations. Russia has denied the allegations in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning Russia’s intelligence have been made more than once. However, satellite images show that corpses were found on the streets of Bukha for days before Russian troops left the city. “Russia’s participation in the Human Rights Council is a hoax,” US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said this week. In other developments:
The Pentagon says a “small number” of Ukrainian troops are being trained in the United States to operate the deadly Switchblade drones supplied by Washington to Kyiv. The troops were already in the United States before Russia invaded. Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby offered some optimism about the resistance in Ukraine. “It simply came to our notice then. “And if you look at what they have been able to do so far, Mr. Putin has achieved exactly zero of his strategic goals inside Ukraine.” NATO foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on Thursday for two days of talks on providing support for ending the war. US sanctions against two of Russia’s largest banks are “a direct blow to the Russian people” [and] ordinary citizens, “the Tass news agency quoted Russia’s ambassador to the United States as saying on Wednesday. Anatoly Antonov made his remarks after Washington’s attack on Sberbank and Alfabank.
In the wake of an expected Russian military strike in the coming days, Ukraine urged civilians to leave the east of the country “while the opportunity remains.” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said authorities “will not be able to help” residents left behind when large-scale fighting broke out. He said the governors of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions were urging people to move immediately to safer areas. “It must be done now, because later people will come under fire and face the threat of death. “They will not be able to do anything about it,” he told the Telegram. The Deputy Prime Minister stressed: “It is necessary to evacuate as long as this possibility exists. At the moment, it still exists. “ The Kremlin has said it intends to occupy the entire Donetsk region amid reports that Putin wants to declare victory in Ukraine in time for May 9, the annual commemoration of Hitler’s Soviet defeat in World War II. A Western official said Putin would like to have an “announced success” by then, which could create “some tension” with Russian commanders as exhausted forces are likely to be thrown into battle soon enough in a bid to win. ground to the east. The new focus on the east follows the humiliating failure of Putin’s original apparent plan to seize the capital, Kyiv, overthrow the Zelensky government and subjugate most of Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks. Instead, Russian troops advancing on Kyiv were forced to withdraw to Belarus after suffering casualties. The Kremlin has also withdrawn its forces from the Sumy region after its advance there was stalled. According to revised estimates, 29 of Russia’s regular battalion groups – the smallest operational unit of its forces – are now “effective in battle”, from an invading force estimated at about 125 battalions, which is about 75% of the total army of Russia. map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine NATO and Western analysts believe that Russia is now determined to consolidate its gains in the south and southeast, with the Kremlin “reshaping its narrative” so that it can redefine the idea of victory. It already controls a land corridor that stretches from Mariupol along the Sea of Azov to the southern province of Kherson and Crimea. Its next targets appear to be the strategic cities of Sloviansk, which were occupied by Russian forces and separatists in 2014, Kramatorsk and Sievierodonetsk. Any attack is likely to meet with great resistance from the Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian army, however, had so far failed to reinforce its own forces in Donbas, a Western official said, as they continued to try to secure areas recaptured by Russian troops and had to defend Kyiv against any surprise efforts. recapture of capital.
