Russia-Ukraine War: Zelensky warns of third world war 3 if talks with Putin fail

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says at least 902 civilians have been killed & 1,459 injured; believes actual figures are considerably higher. As per Mariupol authorities, over 2,400 people were killed in the city alone: The Kyiv Independent

Ten million people -- more than a quarter of the population -- have now fled their homes in Ukraine due to Russia's "devastating" war, the United Nations refugees chief said Sunday, reported AFP.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that the Russian armed forces with Kalibr missiles destroyed workshops for the repair of damaged Ukrainian armored vehicles.

"In the evening of March 19 and in the morning of March 20, strikes were carried out with long-range precision weapons on Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities. From the waters of the Black Sea, Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles destroyed workshops for the repair of Ukrainian armoured vehicles damaged in combat operations," the statement says, RT reported.

At the same time, it is reported that Kalibr missiles from the waters of the Caspian Sea, as well as from the airspace over the Crimea, the Kinzhal complexes destroyed a large fuel and lubricants storage base near the village of Konstantinovka, Mykolaiv region.

The 3M-54 Kalibr, also referred to it as 3M54-1 Kalibr is a family of Russian cruise missiles developed by the Novator Design Bureau. There are ship-launched, submarine-launched and air-launched versions of the missile, and variants for anti-ship, anti-submarine and land attack use.

Earlier, the United States officially confirmed that Russia used Dagger hypersonic missiles during hostilities in Ukraine. It is reported that this is the first recorded case of the use of such missiles during hostilities, CNN reported.

It is known that the new rocket is capable of speeds up to 6,000 km per hour, which is five times faster than the speed of sound. Its features are low flight trajectory and manoeuverability. All these factors complicate the detection of hypersonic missiles by satellites and special radars, UNIAN reported.

Officials in Poland say that trucks headed for Belarus are backed up for 40 kilometers (25 miles) while they wait to reach the Koroszczyn border point as a group of protesters is blocking the road there. The protesters are calling for a ban on trade with Russia and its ally Belarus.

The protesters, Ukrainians and Poles, have been blocking access to the crossing – on and off – for some two weeks, to pressure Moscow into ending its war on Ukraine.

The latest round of the “NO Trade with Russia!” protest in eastern Poland began early Saturday.

Some 950 trucks were waiting to cross into Belarus early Sunday, according to spokesman for the local tax office, Michal Derus. The waiting time was 32 hours, he said.

The road leading to the border point has been closed and the police were separating the protesters from the trucks and the drivers, road infrastructure authorities said.

The pressure of truck traffic on the Koroszczyn border point increased after Poland’s largest crossing into Belarus, in Kuznica, was closed in November, following border guard clashes with Middle East migrants who were trying to illegally cross into Poland, European Union member.

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has called on the European Union to halt all land and sea trade with Russia.

The US' Indo-Pacific strategy is as "dangerous" as NATO's eastward expansion in Europe resulting in Russia's military offensive against Ukraine, a senior Chinese diplomat has said.

"With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) should have been consigned to history alongside the Warsaw Pact," China’s Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said while addressing the International Forum on Security and Strategy hosted by the Centre for International Security and Strategy of Tsinghua University on Saturday.

"However, rather than breaking up, NATO has kept strengthening and expanding. One could well anticipate the consequences going down this path. The crisis in Ukraine is a stern warning," he said.

Chinese officials say NATO’s plans to admit Kyiv heightened Russia’s insecurity resulting in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military action against Ukraine. Ever since Russia began military operations in Ukraine last month, China, a close ally of Moscow, has been treading a fine line, declining to condemn it as an invasion.

"All sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace," Le said.

"One should not seek its own absolute security,” said Le, the former Chinese Ambassador to India and widely tipped to succeed the present Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in this year’s leadership reshuffle.

"Since NATO made a promise back then, it should not renege on its word and keep pushing its boundary eastward. The pursuit of absolute security actually leads to absolute insecurity,” he said.

"Going against the trend to pursue the Indo-Pacific strategy, provoke trouble, put together closed and exclusive small circles or groups, and get the region off course toward fragmentation and bloc-based division is as dangerous as the NATO strategy of eastward expansion in Europe," Le said.

"If allowed to go on unchecked, it would bring unimaginable consequences, and ultimately push the Asia-Pacific over the edge of an abyss,” he said.

"We in Asia must keep the future firmly in our own hands, pursue independent, balanced and prudent foreign policies, and seek strength through unity in the process of Asia-Pacific regional integration," Le said, according to the excerpts of his address posted on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

As the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy gained traction, China has stepped up its attacks especially on the formation of Quad comprising the US, India, Japan, Australia, saying the grouping is akin to Asian NATO.

Early this month, Wang Yi in his annual press conference said Washington is seeking to create an Asian NATO to “suppress” Beijing.

"The real goal for the Indo-Pacific strategy is to establish an Indo-Pacific version of NATO,” Wang said.

Ukraine’s Armed Forces have said that according to Ukrainian intelligence, in the next several days, Belarus will join Russia in its invasion of Ukraine: The Kyiv Independent

Pope Francis has denounced Russia's “repugnant war” against Ukraine as “cruel and sacrilegious inhumanity.”

In some of his strongest words yet since Russia's invasion on February 24, Francis on Sunday told thousands of people in St. Peter's Square that every day brings more atrocities in what is a “senseless massacre.”

“There is no justification for this,'' Francis said, in an apparent reference to Russia, which sought to justify its invasion as vital for its own defense. But Francis again stopped short of naming Russia as the aggressor.

Pontiffs typically have decried wars and their devastating toll on civilians without citing warmongers by name.

Francis also called on “all actors in the international community” to work toward ending the war.

“Again this week, missiles, bombs, rained down on the elderly, children and pregnant mothers,'' the pope said.

His thoughts, he said, went to the millions who flee. “And I feel great pain for those who don't even have the chance to escape,'' Francis added.

The pope said that “above all, defenseless life should get respected and protected, not eliminated.”

That priority “comes before any strategy,'' Francis said, before leading those in the square in a moment of silent prayer. 

Ukrainian authorities said Sunday that Russia's military bombed an art school sheltering some 400 people in the embattled port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine's president said an unrelenting Russian siege would be remembered for centuries to come.

It was the second time in less than a week that city officials reported a public building where residents had taken shelter coming under attack. A bomb hit a Mariupol theatre with more than 1,300 believed to be inside on Wednesday, local officials said.

There was no immediate word on casualties from the reported strike on the art school, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theatre since Friday, when they said at least 130 had been rescued.

Mariupol, a strategic port on the Azov Sea, has been under bombardment for at least three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrors of the war in Ukraine.

At least 2,300 people have died, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves, and food, water and electricity have run low.

“To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation.

"The more Russia uses terror against Ukraine, the worse the consequences for it.”

In recent days, Russian forces have battled their way into the city, cutting it off from the Azov Sea and devastating a massive steel plant.

The fall of Mariupol would be an important but costly victory for the Russians, whose advance is largely stalled outside other major cities more than three weeks into the biggest land invasion in Europe since World War II.

In major cities across Ukraine, hundreds of men, women and children have been killed in Russian bombardments, while millions of civilians have raced to underground shelters or fled the country.

In the capital, Kyiv, at least 20 babies carried by Ukrainian surrogate mothers are stuck in a makeshift bomb shelter, waiting for parents to travel into the war zone to pick them up.

The infants — some just days old — are being cared for by nurses who cannot leave the shelter because of constant shelling by Russian troops who are trying to encircle the city.

In the hard-hit northeastern city of Sumy, authorities evacuated 71 orphaned babies through a humanitarian corridor, regional governor Dmytro Zhyvytskyy said Sunday.

He said the orphans, most of whom need constant medical attention, would be taken to an unspecified foreign country.

Russian shelling killed at least five civilians, including a 9-year-old boy, in Kharkiv, an eastern city that is Ukraine's second-largest.

The British Defense Ministry said Russia's failure to gain control of the skies over Ukraine “has significantly blunted their operational progress," forcing them to rely on stand-off weapons launched from the relative safety of Russian airspace.

The authorities in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol say that nearly 40,000 people have fled over the past week. That's nearly 10% of its 430,000 population.

The city council in the Azov Sea port city said Sunday that 39,426 residents have safely evacuated from Mariupol in their own vehicles. It said the evacuees used more than 8,000 vehicles to leave via a humanitarian corridor via Berdyansk to Zaporizhzhia.

The strategic city has been encircled by the Russian troops and faced a relentless Russian bombardment for three weeks, coming to symbolize the horror of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Local authorities have said the siege has cut off food, water and energy supplies, and killed at least 2,300 people, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that the siege of Mariupol would go down in history for what he said were war crimes committed by Russian troops.

 115 children killed in Ukraine since the start of Russian invasion. 140 more have been injured, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, reports The Kyiv Independent

Ships of the Russian navy have destroyed an armored vehicles repair plant of Ukrainian forces with Kalibr cruise missiles launched from the Black Sea, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday.According to the spokesman, the Russian armed forces carried out strikes on Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities with long-range precision weapons in the evening of March 19 and in the morning of March 20. "Workshops at the Nizhyn repair plant used for the repair of Ukrainian armored vehicles damaged in combat operations were destroyed with sea-based Kalibr cruise missiles launched from the waters of the Black Sea," Konashenkov said.He added that Kalibr missiles launched from the Caspian Sea and Kinzhal hypersonic missiles launched from the airspace over Crimea had also destroyed a huge Ukrainian base for storing fuel and lubricants located near the settlement of Kostyantynivka in the Mykolaiv region.Konashenkov noted that the base had been used for supplying fuel to Ukrainian armored vehicles in the combat areas in south of the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is trapped in a closed world of his own making, Western spies believe and that worries themd. For years they have sought to get inside Putin's mind, to better understand his intentions, the BBC said in a report. There has been speculation that Russia's leader was ill, but many analysts believe he has actually become isolated and closed off to any alternative views. His isolation has been evident in pictures of his meetings, such as when he met President Emmanuel Macron. The leaders were seated at far ends of a long table. It was also evident in Putin's meeting with his own national security team on the eve of the war. Putin's initial military plan looked like something devised by a KGB officer, one western intelligence official explains, the BBC reported. It had been created, they say, by a tight "conspiratorial cabal" with an emphasis on secrecy. But the result was chaos. Russian military commanders were not ready and some soldiers went over the border without knowing what they were doing. "The challenge of understanding the Kremlin's moves is that Putin is the single decision-maker in Moscow," explains John Sipher, who formerly ran the CIA's Russia operations. Putin, intelligence officials say, is isolated in a bubble of his own making, which very little outside information penetrates, particularly any which might challenge what he thinks. "He is a victim of his own propaganda in the sense that he only listens to a certain number of people and blocks out everything else. This gives him a strange view of the world," says Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology and co-author of a forthcoming book "The Psychology of Spies and Spying". The risk is what is called "group think" in which everyone reinforces his view. "If he's a victim of group think we need to know who the group is," the BBC quoted Prof Furnham as saying. The circle of those Putin talks to has never been large but when it came to the decision to invade Ukraine, it had narrowed to just a handful of people, Western intelligence officials believe, all of those "true believers" who share Putin's mindset and obsessions.

The US has officially confirmed that Russia used 'Dagger' nuclear-capable hypersonic aeroballistic air-to-ground missile during the hostilities in Ukraine, CNN reported. According to the CNN report, this was the first recorded case of the use of such missiles during Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, also known as 'Dagger', has a claimed range of more than 2,000 km, Mach 10 speed, and an ability to perform evasive manoeuvers at every stage of its flight. It can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads and can be launched from Tu-22M3 bombers or MIG 31 K interceptors. It entered service in December 2017 and is one of the six new Russian strategic weapons unveiled by President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. On Saturday, Russia's Ministry of Defence had announced the use of the Dagger missiles to strike an underground warehouse in Ukraine's Ivano-Frankivsk region. The US Department of Defence was able to track missile launches in real time. Weapons were used to fire on military personnel in the region's Delyatyn village. The UK's Ministry of Defence believes that the offensive of the Russian forces in Ukraine has slowed down due to the inability to take control of the airspace. "Russia has failed to gain control of the air and relies mainly on short-range weapons, which fire from the relative security zone in Russian airspace to hit targets within Ukraine," it said. At the same time, it is noted that gaining control of the airspace in Ukraine was one of the main goals in the first days of the conflict and the constant inability of the Russians to achieve this "significantly blunted their operational progress", the Ministry added.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday said "time will prove that China's position is on the right side of history" over the ongoing Ukraine war, CNN reported. "China will continue to make independent judgments based on the merits of the matter and in an objective and fair attitude. We will never accept any external coercion and pressure, and we also oppose any groundless accusations and suspicions against China," a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry in Beijing quoted Wang as saying. The Minister said "the long-term solution is to abandon the Cold War mentality, refrain from engaging in group confrontation, and truly form a balanced, effective and sustainable regional security architecture", CNN reported. "Only in this way can long-term stability on the European continent be achieved," he added. While China has not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine outright, it has also not offered explicit support. Experts believe Beijing is navigating a complex position as the crisis in Ukraine intensifies, attempting to balance its strategic partnership with Moscow while maintaining economic ties with the West. The US has watched warily as Chinese President Xi Jinping cultivates a close partnership with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, believing the alliance of authoritarian leaders is positioning itself to oppose Washington militarily and economically, said the CNN report. During high-profile talks in Beijing last month, Xi and Putin sealed their affiliation, declaring in a lengthy statement the relationship was limitless, it added.

Turkey, which is trying hard to bring Moscow and Kiev to the negotiating table in an effort to end the ongoing war, has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is still not willing to meet his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. Speaking to local media outlets, Ibrahim Kalin, a government spokesman in Ankara, said that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed a meeting between the leaders of the two warring nations in Turkey in an effort to end the ongoing war, reports Ukrayinska Pravda. "Zelensky is ready to do this. Putin, by contrast, believes that the parties have not yet reached a common vision sufficient to conduct negotiations at the head-of-state level," Kalin was quoted as saying. According to the spokesman, in Erdogan's proposed meeting, the main point of focus will be on a possible compromise between Ukraine and Russia, after which detailed negotiations on the agreement will continue. Kalin said that Putin, during a conversation with Erdogan, put forward six main points, which were Ukraine's neutrality and refusal to join NATO in future; 'demilitarisation' and mutual provision of security guarantees according to the Austrian security model; de-nazification; removal of "obstacles" to the widespread use of the Russian language; status recognition of the "Donetsk People's Republic", "Luhansk People's Republic"; and recognition of Russia's annexation of Crimea. According to the spokesman, the Ukrainian delegation apparently discussed the first four points with the Russians, but is not prepared even to discuss the fifth and sixth, Ukrayinska Pravda reported. Therefore, Turkey is hoping to organise the meeting between Putin and Zelensky after which further progress can be made in the negotiations. Kalin further said that neither Ukraine nor the world community is likely to easily agree to the recognition of Russia's occupation of Crimea and the Donbas region, which comprised Luhansk and Donetsk, as "this is a flagrant violation of international law". He added that Russia was trying to negotiate from a position of strength, but "it should not be forgotten that the continuation of the war will primarily hit the Russian army and economy". On March 10, under Turkey's initiative, a tripartite meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Moscow, Kiev and Ankara took place in Antalya. However, no progress was achieved on a truce. Russian authorities on March 16 announced their readiness to continue negotiations with Ukraine in the tripartite format. Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had assured that Russia was not against personal talks between Zelensky and Putin.

Children fleeing the war in Ukraine are at heightened risk of human trafficking and exploitation, warns the Unicef. "Traffickers often seek to exploit the chaos of large-scale population movements, and with more than 1.5 million children having fled Ukraine as refugees since February 24, and countless others displaced by violence inside the country, the threat facing children is real and growing," the UN agency said on Saturday. According to a recent analysis conducted by Uniced and the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking (ICAT), 28 per cent of identified victims of trafficking globally are children. In the context of Ukraine, Unicef child protection experts believe that children would likely account for an even higher proportion of potential trafficking victims given that children and women represent nearly all of the refugees who have fled the country so far. "The war in Ukraine is leading to massive displacement and refugee flows- conditions that could lead to a significant spike in human trafficking and an acute child protection crisis," said Afshan Khan, Unicef's Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia. "Displaced children are extremely vulnerable to being separated from their families, exploited, and trafficked. They need governments in the region to step up and put measures in place to keep them safe." More than 500 unaccompanied children were identified crossing from Ukraine into Romania from February 24 to March 17m the Unicef said, adding that the true number of separated children who have fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries is likely much higher. "Children fleeing the war in Ukraine need to be screened for their vulnerability as they cross into a neighbouring country," said Khan. "Every effort should be made to strengthen screening processes at refugee border crossings." Unicef is urging the governments of neighbouring nations and other countries of destination to strengthen child protection screenings at border crossings, especially those with Ukraine, to better identify at-risk children. Additional screening for protection risks should be implemented in shelters, large urban train stations, and other locations where refugees are gathering or passing through, it added.

As the war between Russia and Ukraine continues, China is quietly distancing itself from Moscow as its economy is being slammed with sanctions from the US and its allies.Last month, both countries proclaimed that their friendship had "no limits." That was before Russia launched its war in Ukraine.Beijing has refused to condemn Russia's attack on Ukraine but wants to avoid being impacted by the sanctions it has repeatedly denounced as an ineffective way of resolving the crisis, CNN reported.Fears that Chinese companies could face US sanctions over ties with Russia had contributed to an epic sell-off in Chinese stocks in recent days. That slump was reversed on Wednesday when Beijing promised it would pursue policies to boost its sputtering economy and keep financial markets stable.US officials told CNN that they have information suggesting China has expressed some openness to providing Russia with requested military and financial assistance. China dismissed that as "disinformation."Citing analysts, CNN reported that China is attempting to strike "a delicate balance" between supporting Russia rhetorically but without further antagonizing the United States.Chinese banks cannot afford to lose access to US dollars, and many Chinese industries cannot afford to be deprived of US technology.

The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) has stopped the activity of a number of political parties, including the Opposition Platform - For Life, for the period of martial law in the country, Volodymyr Zelensky said."The NSDC decided, given the full-scale war and the ties of some political structures with this state, to suspend any activity of a number of political parties for the period of martial law. Namely: 'Opposition Platform - For life'; 'Party of Shariy'; 'Nashi'; 'Opposition Bloc'; the left opposition party; 'Union of Leftists'; 'Derzhava'; 'Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine'; 'Socialist Party of Ukraine'; the Socialists; the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc," Zelenskyy said as quoted by the UNIAN Ukrainian news agency.The Ukrainian justice ministry was instructed to take measures to immediately stop the activities of these political forces, according to UNIAN. Earlier this month, a Ukrainian court allowed the arrest of Viktor Medvedchuk, the chairman of the political council of the Opposition Platform - For Life party.On Tuesday, Ukrainian media reported that the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, had approved the extension of martial law in the country until late April (for 30 days starting from March 26).In the early hours of February 24, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine after the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) appealed for help in defending themselves against the Kyiv forces. Russia said that the aim of its special operation is to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine and that only military infrastructure is being targeted - the civilian population is not in danger. Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.

A Ukrainian police officer in Mariupol has warned that the besieged port city has been "wiped off the face of the earth" and pleaded with the presidents of the United States and France to provide his country with a modern air defense system. In a video post from a rubble-strewn street, Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin told President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron that they had promised assistance, "but what we have received is not quite it", and urged them to save the civilian population. "Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it has been wiped off the face of the earth,” he said speaking in Russian in the video filmed Friday that was authenticated by The Associated Press. In it, flames can be seen coming from several buildings while others were decimated. Apparent explosions could also be heard. "You have promised that there will be help, give us that help. Biden, Macron, you are great leaders. Be them to the end," he said. Vershnin said the city is facing the fate of the Syrian city of Aleppo that was destroyed in 2016 in a Russian-backed siege during Syria's revolution-turned-civil war. Russia helped Syrian President Bashar Assad's government with a ruthless strategy by locking sieges around opposition-held areas, bombarding and starving them until the population's ability to hold out collapsed. 

A bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers visiting Poland said Saturday that the most urgent need in Ukraine's fight against a Russian invasion is to equip and support the country in every way that will help it defend its independence. The seven-member delegation led by Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has visited reception centers for refugees from Ukraine in eastern Poland. They noted Poland's openness in accepting refugees from Ukraine, including in private homes. More than 2 million people fleeing war have come to Poland since Feb 24, when Russia's troops invaded Ukraine. “We are here to reassure and support the people of Ukraine. We are here to thank the people of Poland for the unbelievable generosity they have shown to the refugees,” said Lynch, who is chairman of the subcommittee on National Security in the Committee on Oversight and Reform. During an online meeting with the media Saturday, the American lawmakers stressed the need to urgently assist Ukraine's military in their fight against Russian forces. They said there is no room for peace talks as long as there is a “hot war.” “The most urgent action that we can take is to make sure that the Ukrainian fighters- those valiant patriots who are fighting for their freedom- have every bit of equipment, every bit of supply, every bit of support that we can possibly deliver to them,” Lynch said. Answering a question about a potential peace mission in Ukraine, he said “there will be time for discussion, hopefully there will be time for diplomacy, but right now I think that the Ukrainian military is stepping up in a very heroic fashion against a much larger enemy." U.S. President Joe Biden will attend an extraordinary NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday that is focused on the war in Ukraine and European security.

Australia is allocating an additional USD 15.5 million in military aid to Kyiv and will also provide Ukraine with USD 22 million in emergency humanitarian assistance, the Australian government said on Sunday."Following discussions between the Prime Minister [Scott Morrison] and the Minister for Defence [Peter Dutton] and their Ukrainian counterparts, it is clear that Ukraine's need for military assistance remains urgent and ongoing. In response, Defence has developed an additional USD 21 million [about 15.5 USD] support package of defensive military assistance for Ukrainian Armed Forces, which will bring Australia's total military assistance so far to USD 91 million," the Australian government said in a statement, released by the country's foreign ministry.According to the release, the military aid will include "additional material from Australian Defence Force stocks."Australia is also providing Kyiv with additional humanitarian aid, the Australian government said."Today, the Morrison Government commits to an additional AUD 30 million [22.2 USD] in emergency humanitarian assistance. This contribution will focus on protecting women, children, the elderly and the disabled, and takes the total we have so far committed to AUD 65 million," the government statement says.Australia is also allocating funds through non-government organisations under the Australian Humanitarian Partnership, as well as the United Nations Population Fund and the World Food Programme, to support civilians in Ukraine.In the early hours of February 24, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine after the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) appealed for help in defending themselves against the Kyiv forces. Russia said that the aim of its special operation is to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine and that only military infrastructure is being targeted - the civilian population is not in danger. Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.

Three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday wearing Yellow and blue outfits, giving rise to speculations that the troika was expressing their solidarity with Ukraine, CNN reported.The head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, posted pictures of media coverage speculating the cosmonauts were supporting Ukraine, and said, "Here some bandit cowards and their Anglo-Saxon sponsors don't know what else to come up with in their information war against Russia."He added that the crew were not representing Ukraine but wearing colours from their alma mater: Bauman Moscow State Technical University, the report said."Sometimes the colour yellow is just the colour yellow. The flight suits of the new crew were designed to match the colours of the emblem of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, from where all three cosmonauts graduated. The design of the uniforms was coordinated long before the current events. Seeing the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is just a clinic [in propaganda]," another Roscosmos official wrote in his Telegram channel 'Closed Space'. When the three cosmonauts arrived at the space station Friday, they spoke to callers on the phone, one of whom asked about the yellow colour, Commander Oleg Artemyev, responded jokingly, "We actually had a lot of yellow material, so we had to use it. So that's why we had to wear yellow."The three astronauts named, Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov will spend the next six-and-a-half months aboard the space station.Russia had started a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24 in response to calls from the Ukrainian breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics for protection against intensifying attacks by Ukrainian troops.The Russian Defence Ministry said the special operation was only targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure and the civilian population was not in danger. Moscow has repeatedly said it has no plans to occupy Ukraine and only seeks to "demilitarize" and "denazify" the country.Western nations have imposed severe sanctions on Russia following the invasion and have raised an outcry over Russian "war crimes" and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

Amid escalating fight between Russia and Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday said that Moscow's cooperation with Beijing will "get stronger" in the face of western sanctions. During a media event, he said, "At a time when the west is blatantly undermining all the foundations on which the international system is based, we- as two great powers- need to think how to carry on in this world," reported CNN. The view was echoed at a separate event in Beijing on Saturday. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said Western sanctions against Russia were getting "more and more outrageous," according to UK-based media.Although China has expressed concern about the war in Ukraine, Beijing has fallen short of condemning the Russian invasion. Chinese President Xi Jinping told US President Joe Biden during a video call Friday, "the Ukraine crisis is something we don't want to see."The Western countries have strongly condemned Russia's attack on Ukraine calling it an invasion and imposed harsh sanctions on Russia. Lavrov also said that Russia hopes its military operation in Ukraine will end with a "comprehensive agreement" on security issues and Ukraine agreeing to neutral status, reported CNN.Lavrov said Moscow is "ready" to look for guarantees of security and "to coordinate them for Ukraine, for the Europeans and, of course, for ourselves beyond the expansion of the North-Atlantic Treaty." 

Russia remains open to cooperation with Western countries, but will not initiate an improvement in the relations with them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday. "Let's see how they will get out of the impasse they have driven themselves into. Their values, the principles of the free market, the inviolability of private property, and the presumption of innocence are all trampled on by themselves," he was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. According to Lavrov, the US is sending diplomats to many countries to ask them to withdraw from cooperation with Russia. "It looks like our American colleagues have lost the feeling of reality or are swelling with the super-superiority complex," he said.

Switzerland is ready to become a mediator in resolving the Ukraine conflict and could organize talks between Kyiv and Moscow, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis said."Switzerland combines neutrality with a humanitarian tradition," Cassis said at a Saturday rally in Bern, as quoted by the Swiss RTS broadcaster. "It's a small country with a strong commitment to freedom. It is ready to play the role of a mediator behind the scenes or host negotiations," the Swiss president added. According to RTS, Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Bern crowd via video link from Kyiv and thanked Switzerland for its solidarity with Ukraine. However, Zelenskyy critiqued the fact that Swiss businesses, such as Nestle, continue to operate in Russia.In the early hours of February 24, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine after the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) appealed for help in defending themselves against the Kyiv forces. Russia said that the aim of its special operation is to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine and that only military infrastructure is being targeted - the civilian population is not in danger. Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.In response to Russia's operation, Western countries have rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Moscow, which includes airspace closures and restrictive measures targeting numerous Russian officials and entities, media, and financial institutions.

The United States does not allow Ukraine to agree to the conditions put forward by Russia in the negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed on Saturday. According to Lavrov, the dialogues have improved, but the United States can "hold the hand" of the Ukrainian delegation. At the same time, the minister expressed hope that the military operation would end with a comprehensive agreement on the neutral status of Ukraine with security guarantees for it, RT reported. Commenting on the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Lavrov noted that these events were the culmination of the course that the West has pursued against Russia since the early 1990s. Lavrov also noted that statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he does not support neo-Nazis are at odds with his real actions. "To my great regret and shame, President Zelensky declares that how can he be a Nazi when he is of Jewish origin, and he says this exactly on the days when Ukraine defiantly withdraws from the agreement on the protection of monuments of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War - such an agreement within the framework of the CIS existed," Lavrov said. The minister added that when Zelensky patronises such trends, it becomes "difficult to take the policies of the Ukrainian leadership seriously".

Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Russia has many reliable partners in the post-Soviet space- in China, Southeast Asia and Africa. There are many more countries in the world than those that are part of the West, he said. "You can proclaim yourself a 'golden billion' as much as you like, but the population on the globe is many times larger, and metals are much more expensive than gold. By the way, we also get them. And who is isolating whom now is a big question. "Russia has many reliable partners, not only in the post-Soviet space, but also in China, Southeast Asia and African countries. This is a huge, promising market, which is not torn apart by such contradictions as in Europe. The fruits of this partnership and cooperation are more than obvious," Medvedev said, RT reported. He added that the Russian government has already taken operational decisions to support the country's population and economy. Medvedev also said that there would be no collapse of the Russian economy due to sanctions. "The government has already made operational decisions to support our people and the economy: Social payments, additional financing of high-tech industries, agriculture, the banking sector - in general, there will be no collapse in the economy," Medvedev said.

Thousands of Mariupol residents who managed to escape from Russian bombs are starving to death in occupied Manhushi and Melekin.The Head of Donetsk Military-Civil Administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko claimed on Sunday said that the Russian occupying forces are refusing to provide food, water and safe passage."Head of Donetsk Military-Civil Administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said thousands of Mariupol residents who managed to escape from Russian bombs are starving to death in occupied Manhushi and Melekin. Russian occupying forces refuse to provide food, water and safe passage," tweeted The Kyiv Independent.The besieged city of Mariupol is under almost constant bombardment, according to a major in Ukraine's army, and residents are rationing food and water as bodies are left in the streets.There are also conflicting reports over the status of one of Ukraine's key industrial facilities, the Azov steel plant, in Mariupol.New satellite imagery shows the destruction of the city's bombed theatre, with the word "children" clearly visible on the outside of the building, reported CNN.Meanwhile, the Mariupol City Council claimed that residents of Mariupol, Ukraine, are being taken to Russian territory against their will by Russian forces."Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents have been taken to Russian territory. The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing," read a statement from the Mariupol City Council.Captured Mariupol residents were taken to camps where Russian forces checked their phones and documents, the city council said, and then were redirected to remote Russian cities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed on Saturday "the unacceptable nature of the military-biological activities of the United States in Ukraine" in a phone conversation with Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, the Kremlin said in a statement. Such activities pose a huge danger to both Russia and the whole Europe, Putin was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. The two leaders discussed Russia's military operation in Ukraine, and Putin noted the missile attacks by the Ukrainian security forces on cities in Donbass, said the statement. Bettel said that "we must put an end to" the conflict, and "no one stands to gain from these clashes; not Russia, not Europe and certainly not Ukraine," according to a statement on the official website of the Luxembourg government. Bettel briefed Putin on contacts with leaders of Ukraine and other countries, and Putin outlined his assessments of the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, the statement added. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday asked Washington to provide all information on the activities of the alleged US-linked biological laboratories in Ukraine. Last week, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Ukraine, admitting "Ukraine has biological research facilities."