Russia Ukraine War Updates: US says will continue to support India with equipment it needs along LAC

Russian regulators said Friday that internet users will be blocked from accessing Instagram because it's being used to call for violence against Russian soldiers, in Moscow's latest move to tighten up access to foreign social platforms.

The communications and media regulator, Roskomnadzor, said in a statement that it's restricting national access to Instagram because the platform is spreading “calls to commit violent acts against Russian citizens, including military personnel.”

Facebook parent Meta Platforms, which also owns Instagram, didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.

Roskomnadzor specifically cited a Thursday tweet by Meta spokesman Andy Stone conveying a company statement saying it had “made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules on violent speech, such as ‘death to the Russian invaders’.”

Stone's statement followed a Reuters report that Meta was making a temporary change to its hate speech policy to allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion.

The statement stressed that the company “still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”

Russian has already blocked access to Facebook, limited access to Twitter and criminalized the intentional spreading of what Moscow deems to be “fake” reports, as part of President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on social media and news outlets like the BBC.

Big tech companies, meanwhile, have moved to restrict Russian state media from using their platforms to spread propaganda and misinformation, especially for European users.

Google has blocked European users from viewing YouTube channels operated by RT and Sputnik, which TikTok has disabled their European accounts. Meta has barred Russian state media from Instagram and Facebook.

The US will continue to support India with equipment and other things it needs along the Line of Actual Control with China, a top American admiral has told lawmakers, asserting that Washington and New Delhi share a "tremendous partnership".

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on ‘Military Posture in the Indo-Pacific Region’, Admiral John Aquilino, Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, said the military-to-military relationship between the two countries is probably at its highest point.

He was responding to a question from Senator Gary Peters. “My question for you, Admiral, is can you speak to the relationship you have with our Indian counterparts and what more can we do to strengthen our security relationship between our two countries?” Peters asked.

“Senator, to start, I have no concerns. Our partners in India are tremendous partners, and the military-to-military relationship is probably at its highest point. We continue to do more together,” Admiral Aquilino said in response.

“But when you talk about tremendous partnership, it's there. What more can we do? Continue the information sharing, continue to support them with the equipment they need upon the Line of Actual Control, and continue to partner and operate together throughout the region,” he said.

“The Malabar exercise with Japan, Australia, the United States, and India is critical. Increased mini lateral and multilateral engagements with the Indians, and ultimately continue to sell them equipment so we can be more interoperable and more effective together in the military sphere,” he said.

The Malabar exercise started in 1992 as a bilateral drill between the Indian Navy and the U. S. Navy in the Indian Ocean. Japan became a permanent member of the exercise in 2015. This annual exercise was conducted off the coast of Guam in 2018 and off the coast of Japan in 2019.

The exercise was hosted in two phases in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea in 2020.

There have been mounting global concerns over China’s growing military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region. India, the U.S., Australia, Japan and many other like-minded countries are working towards ensuring a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.

The United Nations human rights office has received “credible reports” that Russian forces are using cluster munitions in Ukraine, including in populated areas which is prohibited under international humanitarian law, the U.N. political chief said Friday.

Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo told a U.N. Security Council meeting that residential areas and civilian infrastructure are being shelled in Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv and “the utter devastation being visited on these cities is horrific.”

Most of the civilian casualties recorded by the U.N. human rights office — 564 killed and 982 injured as of Thursday — “have been caused by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” she said.

“Indiscriminate attacks, including those using cluster munitions, which are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction, are prohibited under international humanitarian law,” DiCarlo said. “Directing attacks against civilian and civilian objects, as well as so-called area bombardment in towns and villages, are also prohibited under international law and may amount to war crimes.”

As of Thursday the U.N. World Health Organization has verified 26 attacks on health facilities, health workers and ambulances, including the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital, which caused 12 deaths and 34 injuries, DiCarlo said.

All alleged violations of international humanitarian law must be investigated and those found responsible must be held accountable, she said.

DiCarlo stressed that “the need for negotiations to stop the war in Ukraine could not be more urgent.”

We sincerely hope ongoing direct negotiations b/w Russia & Ukraine would lead to the cessation of hostilities. There's no other alternative except the path of diplomacy &dialogue. The dire humanitarian situation needs immediate&urgent attention. We once again call upon member states to adhere to the principles of the UN Charter and international law and respect the sovereignty and integrity of states:

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has opened an online portal to gather evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, as he renewed his call to combatants to abide by the laws of war.

Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a written statement Friday that he is “closely following the deeply troubling developments in hostilities.” There have been reports in recent days of Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukrainian towns and cities, including the deadly strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol earlier this week.

Khan notes in a written statement that “if attacks are intentionally directed against the civilian population: that is a crime. If attacks are intentionally directed against civilian objects: that is a crime. I strongly urge parties to the conflict to avoid the use of heavy explosive weapons in populated areas.” He says there is no legal justification or excuse “for attacks which are indiscriminate, or which are disproportionate in their effects on the civilian population.”

Khan also said that two more of the global court’s member states, Japan and North Macedonia, have formally requested him to investigate in Ukraine, bringing the number of so-called state party referrals to 41.

The information will bolster evidence gathered by an investigative team Khan sent to the region last week to begin gathering evidence.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine is an ICC member state, but Kyiv has recognized the court’s jurisdiction, allowing Khan to investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

It is my job to help Canadian companies start up, scale up and access new markets, and I can't think of a better market and opportunities than in India. PM Trudeau has given me a mandate to diversify our trade and build on things we have in common. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a threat to world peace. We condemn this invasion which is a challenge to the rules-based system. Canada stands against authoritarianism and with democratic Ukraine now and in the future.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested that the war in Ukraine could have been avoided had the world spoken out against Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

“Would we have faced such a picture if the West, the whole world, had raised their voices?” Erdogan asked. “Those who remained silent in the face of Crimea’s invasion are now saying some things.”

Erdogan spoke Friday at a diplomacy forum near the Turkish Mediterranean city of Antalya, where the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met a day earlier for talks facilitated by Turkey’s foreign minister.

Erdogan said Turkey would continue its efforts for peace.

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö spoke in a phone call Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine.

Niinistö's office said in a statement that he informed Putin that he, earlier in the day, had a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and that Zelenskyy was prepared to talk directly with Putin.

The statement said Niinistö called for an immediate ceasefire and the safe evacuation of civilians, but also spoke to Putin about the security of nuclear energy facilities in Ukraine.

Niinisto is one of the few Western leaders who has kept a regular dialogue with Putin ever since the Finnish leader took office in 2012.

Ukraine's president says his country's military forces have reached “a strategic turning point,” while Russia's president says there are “certain positive developments” in talks between the warring countries. Neither leader explained clearly what they meant, however.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday: “It's impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible to say that we will do it because ... we have reached a strategic turning point.” He didn't elaborate.

He said authorities are working on 12 humanitarian corridors and trying to ensure needy people receive food, medicine and basic goods.

He spoke on a video showing him outside the presidential administration in Kyiv, speaking in both Ukrainian and Russian about the 16th day of war.

Meanwhile, in Moscow Russian President Vladimir Putin said there have been positive developments in talks between the warring countries, but he didn't offer any details about what those developments were.

Putin hosted Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko for talks on Friday and told him that negotiations with Ukraine “are now being held almost on a daily basis.”

Russian officials, including minister Shoigu, announced hasty recruitment of 16,000 ex-ISIS fighters to be used against Ukrainian civilians. Hiring ISIS & Russian propaganda claims about chemical weapons testify to an attempt to implement the “Syrian scenario” in Ukraine

As per The Kyiv Independent, Russian airstrikes hit Dnipro, Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk early on March 11. Three airstrikes by Russian forces hit residential areas in Dnipro, killing one person, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

As per news agency AFP, Russian President Vladimir Putin is backing plans to send volunteer fighters to Ukraine.

Russian strikes hit near airports Friday in the western Ukrainian cities of Ivano-Frankiivsk and Lutsk, far from Russia's main offensive, possibly indicating a new direction in the war. The mayor of Ivano-Frankiivsk, Ruslan Martsinkiv, ordered residents in neighboring areas to head to shelters after an air raid alert. The mayor of Lutsk also announced an airstrike near the airport.

India on Friday expressed its gratitude to Ukraine, Russia and the Red Cross for helping it evacuate its citizens from various Ukrainian cities in the midst of the ongoing war. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, in a post on Twitter, specifically mentioned that the evacuation of Indian students from the northeastern city of Sumy was "particularly challenging".

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will convene on Friday to discuss the United States' alleged military biological research in Ukraine at Russia's request. Dmitry Polyanskiy, first deputy permanent representative of Russia to the UN, tweeted this request on Thursday.
Russia has been holding that there is a network of Biolabs in Ukraine working on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense and forming part of its biological weapons program.

Turkish Pegasus Airlines decided to cancel all its flights to and from Russia from March 13 for two weeks amid financial sanctions imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.

The situation in Mariupol is critical, with the city being bombed every half hour. The Russian aviation is firing shells mostly at residential areas. Mayor Boychenko told that the occupiers use banned weapons.

Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán on Friday said that it will not impose sanctions in Russia pertaining to the oil and gas sectors.

Meta, the parent company of social networks Facebook and Instagram, is planning to allow the publication of calls for violence against Russians in response to the invasion of Ukraine, media reports said on Friday. "As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.' We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement.

More than 1 million children have now fled Ukraine as war continues to ravage the country, UNICEF said on Thursday. Most have fled with their families to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania. "The number of children on the move is staggering, an indication of how desperate the situation for children and families in Ukraine has become," said UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia Afshan Khan. "Children are leaving everything they know behind in search of safety. This is heart-breaking."

CIA Director William J. Burns hinted at a potentially tenuous China-Russia relationship in the wake of Moscow's increasingly brutal tactics against Ukraine, with Burns telling the Senate Intelligence Committee that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is "unsettled". "The Chinese leadership, first, has invested a lot in partnership with Russia, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon," Burns said during the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual worldwide threats hearing. 

Ukraine-Russia War: All contacts with the Chernobyl staff have been lost, officials told the UN nuclear observer. Nexta TV

As per reports, US President Joe Biden will propose to end normal trade relations with Russia, and will increase tariffs on Russian imports.

The UN Security Council will meet on Friday at Russia's request to discuss what Moscow claims are "the military biological activities of the US on the territory of Ukraine." The Russian request, announced in a tweet on Thursday afternoon from its first deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, follows the Biden administration's rejection of Russian accusations that Ukraine is running chemical and biological labs with US support.

China is wrapping up the annual session of its rubber-stamp legislature against the backdrop of Beijing's controversial position on the war in Ukraine and a COVID-19 surge. Almost all legislative work is handled not by the 3,000-member National People's Congress but by its much smaller Standing Committee.

As per CNN, the stalled 64-km-long Russian convoy near Kyiv has been largely dispersed. Satellite images taken on March 10 show the Russian military convoy northwest of Kyiv has “largely dispersed and redeployed,” Maxar Technologies says.

China is supporting Russia's conspiracy theory saying US funding biological weapons labs in Ukraine

The International Monetary Fund no longer considers a Russian default to be an "unlikely event". World Bank Executive Director said that the longer Russian war against Ukraine lasts, the longer sanctions regime will last and more significant impact on Russian economy will be.(NEXTA)

An Air India flight from Poland's Rzeszow carrying students evacuated from northeastern Ukrainian city Sumy, landed in Delhi on Friday morning, officials said. The flight had taken off from Rzeszow around 11.30 pm (IST) on Thursday and landed in Delhi at 5.45 am on Friday, they said. India has sent three flights to Poland to bring back 600 students evacuated from Sumy.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin said in a video published on state media that he backs plans to introduce external management and the transfer of these enterprises to those who want to work.

Russia has bombed the Kharkiv institute, home to an experimental nuclear reactor. The State Inspectorate for Nuclear Regulation of Ukraine announced that the facility was struck, damaging the exterior and possibly numerous labs throughout the building.(The Kyiv Independent)

UN Secretary-General António Guterres at UNGA said, "War in Ukraine calls for international cooperation & solidarity to support everyone affected, and to overcome clear violation of international law".

Quoting the Kyiv Independent, Ukraine’s Minister of Education and Science Serhiy Shkarlet on Friday said that Russian forces had destroyed 280 educational institutions through bombing and shelling.