Russian soldiers are reportedly shooting themselves in the legs to avoid fighting in Ukraine.

Troops look for Ukrainian ammunition to use so they can go to the hospital without it looking like a self-inflicted wound, local media claims.

It follows a collapse in morale among Putin’s forces after they were forced to kill peaceful civilians.

In one conversation between soldiers intercepted by Belarusian media source NEXTA, a Russian said: “They’ve been shooting at us for 14 days. We’re scared. We’re stealing food, breaking into houses. We’re killing civilians.

“Russian officers shoot themselves in the legs to go home. There are corpses everywhere.”

Another said troops are “looking for Ukrainian ammunition in order to shoot themselves in the legs and go to hospital”.

It comes after furious soldiers warned they will rise up against Vladimir Putin.

His troops branded one particular airstrike on a maternity hospital “the most perverse f***ing form of neo-Nazism”.

And soldiers have since warned their warmongering leader he “won’t hide this for long”, adding “we all will be judged”.

One reconnaissance officer, Vladimir, told an international media briefing this week: “I want to tell our commander-in-chief to stop terror acts in Ukraine because when we come back we’ll rise against him.”

Another officer at the same event told Putin: “You won’t hide this for long. There are many like us here. Sooner or later, we’ll come home.”

One Russian fighter pilot, Maxim, became emotional while speaking about the suffering civilians have had to endure since his country’s invasion.

He told CNN: “I don’t know, what can justify, f***, the tears of a child, or even worse, the deaths of innocent people, children.”

The soldiers laid the blame at the feet of Russian commanders for “horrifying” crimes against “peaceful Ukrainian civilians” – and warned “you cannot forgive such things”.

And CNN reported another soldier saying: “Russian President Vladimir Putin has given orders to commit crimes.

“It’s not just to demilitarize Ukraine or defeat the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but now cities of peaceful civilians are being destroyed.

“The crimes that we committed; we all will be judged.”

Russian President, Vladimir Putin has reportedly fired one of its top generals as the country’s invasion of Ukraine continues to suffer major losses. 

General Roman Gavrilov, 45, the deputy chief of Vladimir Putin’s Rosgvardia force – or National Guard – was detained amid claims he had ‘leaked information’ and ‘squandered’ much-needed fuel.

News of his arrest by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) was reported by three trusted sources, according to investigative news website Bellingcat. 

But the real reason for his alleged sacking remains unclear – while a Russian official has since denied he was let go. 

One source said he was fired over alleged leaks of military intel which ‘led to loss of life’, while two others said he was cuffed for ‘wasteful squandering of fuel.’   

Gavrilov became deputy chief of the National Guard last June, according to the unit’s website, after serving 10 years in the country’s Federal Guard Service.   But since entering Ukraine, his Rosgvardia force has suffered significant losses of life in the face of Ukrainian resolve. 

According to ura.ru, Russian State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein denied that Gavrilov was arrested, writing on Telegram: ‘Absolutely fake. I just talked to General Gavrilov myself.’ 

Last week Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s security council, said ‘around eight’ Russian commanders had been fired since the start of the conflict as Moscow scrambled to change strategy after its attempted ‘shock and awe’ blitz fell flat.

Putin was also said to be infuriated with commanders of the FSB security service – which he used to run – for handing him intelligence suggesting that Ukraine was weak, riddled with neo-Nazi groups, and would give up easily if attacked.

Philip Ingram, a security expert, and former senior British intelligence officer, told The Times that Putin was obviously ‘very angry’ and was blaming his intelligence agencies.

‘He blames them for seeding him the advice that led to the poor decision-making in Ukraine,’ he said.

That poor decision-making has led to Russia suffering much higher casualties than it expected in its attack.

In a move likely to escalate diplomatic tensions even further, the US President Joe Biden has labelled Russian leader Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” .

Biden delivered the off the script remark on Wednesday, March 16 in response to a reporter’s question at the White House, making it the first time he has used such language to condemn President Putin.

Russia has targeted civilian apartments, care homes and even hospitals during it’s three week war with Ukraine, inflicting deaths on the young, elderly and even new borns, leading many to allege he’s commited war crimes, but US officials have been wary of calling him a ‘war criminal’ yet.

The exchange in Washington happened Wednesday when a reporter asked the US president: “Mr President, after everything we have seen, are you ready to call Putin a war criminal?”

Biden replied “no” before being challenged, and then changed his reply: “Did you ask me whether I would tell ….? Oh, I think he is a war criminal.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki later said the president had been speaking from his heart after seeing “barbaric” images of the violence in Ukraine, rather than making any official declaration.

She noted that there was a separate legal process, run by the State Department, to determine war crimes – and that was ongoing separately.

The president’s official Twitter account posted: “Putin is inflicting appalling devastation and horror on Ukraine – bombing apartment buildings and maternity wards… these are atrocities. It is an outrage to the world.”

Responding to Biden’s statement, thr Kremlin, said it was “unforgiveable rhetoric”.

“We believe such rhetoric to be unacceptable and unforgivable on the part of the head of a state, whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state news agency Tass.

Also on Wednesday, Putin gave a televised speech laced with rhetoric against the West.

He accused the West of trying to divide Russia with lies, and railed against those he called “traitors” inside of Russia.

“Of course they will try to bet on the so-called fifth column, on traitors – on those who earn their money here, but live over there. Live, not in the geographical sense, but in the sense of their thoughts, their slavish thinking,” Putin said.

The term “fifth column” is used for a group that try to undermine a nation or organisation from the inside.

“Any people, and especially the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish the true patriots from the scum and the traitors, and just to spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths,” he said.

Putin then accused the West of trying to provoke civil conflict with the goal of “the destruction of Russia”.

The United Nations’ highest court called on Russia to immediately halt its invasion of Ukraine, in a preliminary decision that is binding but may be difficult to enforce.

The preliminary decision read by Joan Donoghue, President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), was unambiguous.

“The Russian Federation shall immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on February 24, 2022, in the territory of Ukraine.” she said

She also addressed the widening humanitarian fallout of the war.

“The Court is acutely aware of the extent of the human tragedy that is taking place in Ukraine and is deeply concerned about the continuing loss of life and human suffering. The Court is profoundly concerned about the use of force by the Russian Federation in Ukraine, which raises very serious issues of international law,” Donoghue said.

The ICJ judges voted 13-2 in favor of the ruling. The two opposing judges hail from Russia and China.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the ICJ’s decision in a tweet, saying it amounted to what he called a “complete victory” for Ukraine in its case against Russia. He warned that ignoring the court’s order would isolate Russia even further.

Kyiv filed its case to the ICJ days after Russia’s invasion last month, challenging Russia’s claim they aimed to halt a genocide of pro-Russian separatists there.

Russian representatives did not attend the court’s opening hearing last week. But Moscow argued the ICJ should not impose any measures and had no jurisdiction.

The ICJ’s own ruling on both its jurisdiction and the merits of the case  itself could take months, or years

The mayor of Ukraine’s southern city of Melitopol has been released, days after Kyiv said he was abducted by invading Russian forces.

In a phone call shared by the Ukrainian government, Ivan Fedorov thanked the president for not ‘abandoning’ him and said he will be ready to serve again after ‘one or two days to recover’. 

Before his release, Fedorov was seen in chilling CCTV footage with a plastic bag placed over his head as he was escorted out of a building and across Melitopol’s Victory Square by 10 armed men on last Friday.

Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky called for help from Germany and France to secure Fedorov’s release and the kidnap was also condemned by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in a post on Twitter. 

According to the Ukrainian president and parliament, mayor Ivan Fedorov was abducted because he ‘refused to cooperate with the enemy’.

On Wednesday a video posted on Telegram showed President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking to him on the phone and telling him he was ‘happy to hear the voice of a man alive’.

President Volodymyr Zelensky phones freed mayor of Melitopol. 

Fedorov replies he is ‘much better’.

‘Thank you for not abandoning me. I will need one or two days to recover and then I will be at your disposal to contribute to our victory,’ he says.

In response, President Zelensky reportedly said: ‘We don’t abandon our own.’ 

Dasha Zarivna, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian presidency, said on Ukrainian television late Wednesday that Federov was swapped for nine captured Russian soldiers, aged 20 and 21.

‘These are basically children, conscripts, who according to the Russian defence ministry are not present in Ukraine,’ Zarivna said.

‘But the whole world sees again that they are there.’

The parliament said the mayor was seized while at the city’s crisis centre dealing with supply issues.

CIA paramilitary units reportedly trained Ukrainian counterparts to use anti-tank missiles, evade digital tracking, and use covert communication tools in a program near eastern frontlines – despite previously denying they existed, Yahoo News reports.

Former intelligence officials claim the mission, launched in 2015, was aimed at preparing Ukrainian special forces to withstand Russian military pressure and assessing their “backbone” for fighting.

White House officials are allegedly worried any operatives found by Russian forces will effectively blow open their secret mission

Russia has officially informed the Council of Europe of its withdrawal from the organization. As Deputy Speaker of the Russian Duma Pyotr Tolstoy announced on Tuesday, a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov has been handed over to the Secretary General of the organization.

“All responsibility for breaking off the dialogue with the Council of Europe lies with the NATO countries, which all this time have been using the topic of human rights for fulfilling their own geopolitical interests and for attacks on our country,” Tolstoy said.

He added that “due to the unprecedented sanctions and political pressure,” Russia is not going to pay the annual fee to the Council of Europe.

Stressing that Russia is leaving the organization “of its own free will,” Tolstoy explained that this “balanced and considered decision” had been taken “in the midst of yet another anti-Russian discussion in PACE,” which, in his words, might result in “another deceitful Russophobic resolution based on the peculations which have nothing to do with reality.”

Head of the Duma’s Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky, in his turn, made it clear that, leaving the Council of Europe, Russia will “be forced to denounce the European Convention on Human Rights.

Writing on Telegram, Slutsky said that the human rights in the Russian Federation would be guaranteed “by all means and unconditionally.”

The same idea has been reiterated by Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to its statement, human rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Russian Constitution are not inferior to the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Implementation of the judgements by the European Court of Human Rights, which had been adopted in the past, will continue, the foreign ministry stressed, unless they contradict the country’s constitution. Russia also remains a signatory of the key international human rights treaties.

Russia announced its intention to leave the Council of Europe on March 10, following its suspension from the organization over the military offensive in Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry said back then that Moscow would not tolerate “the subversive actions of the collective West,” allegedly seeking “to substitute international law, which the US and its satellites have trampled on, with a ‘rules-based order.”

Ukrainian authorities have said that a fourth Russian general has been killed by the country’s forces. 

47-year-old Major-General Oleg Mityaev is said to have died in the storming of Mariupol, along with seven members of an elite SWAT team. 

A picture of the corpse of the decorated military officer, a father-of-two, was released by Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko.

The commander of the 150th motorised rifle division is the fourth Russian General to die in the war, according to Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had reported the death of another Russian general in his nightly address but did not name him.

Photos released in Russia also showed six elite “maroon beret” special forces fighters from the Vityaz Special Purpose Centre of the Dzerzhinsky Division. 

The unit is named after feared secret police founder of the Soviet Union’s secret police, Felix Dzerzhinsky.

Mityaev’s death comes after that of a spy captain during a “top-secret” operation in Ukraine meaning Vladimir Putin has now lost a total of 13 commanders in the invasion.

An American volunteer fighter in Ukraine has told other volunteer fighters not to come to the country because of mistreatment by Ukrainian forces.

In a video which was exclusively obtained by NewsBand, the volunteer fighter was heard describing the situation in Ukraine as a trap.

He said, “It’s a trap, they’re cutting up our passports and sending us to the front”.

See video:

Ukrainian actor, Pasha Lee reportedly gave his bulletproof vest to a child in a heroic gesture right before his death.

The 33-year-old actor had been helping children flee a house during an evacuation in the town of Irpin when he was killed by Russian shelling, it was reported. 

Lee, known for his acting, presenting, and voice dubbing work, was killed near Kiev, Ukraine as the area surrounding the city was occupied on March 6.

Five days ago Lee posted a photo of himself in military gear, with the caption ‘LET’S UNITE’.

He also took to Instagram to share resources for helping Ukrainian refugees across the world.

His last photo, tagged in Irpen two days ago, was captioned: ‘For the last 48 hours, there is an opportunity to sit down and take a picture of how we are being bombed, and we are smiling, because we will manage.’

Sergiy Tomilenko, Chairman at the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, shared a tribute to the late actor on his Facebook page.

It read: ‘(Pasha Lee) went to fight for Ukraine from the first days of the war and died in Irpen, where there are still fierce battles with Russian occupants. 

‘The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine expresses its sincere condolences to (Pasha’s) family and friends.

‘Our words of support to all the staff of the DOM channel, which embodies the noble mission of broadcasting for the deoccupation of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and Crimea.’ 

The corpse of a Russian model has been found stashed in a suitcase more than a year after she went missing.

Gretta Vedler, 23, was killed one month after she posted on social media calling President Vladimir Putin a “psychopath” and forecasting his drive to “enhance the integrity of Russia” would end in tears.

Her “jealous” ex-boyfriend Dmitry Korovin, 23, has confessed more than a year later to strangling her to death after a row over money in Moscow. 

Dmitry told interrogators that he slept in a hotel room for three nights with her corpse which he put in a newly-bought suitcase. Then he drove her body 300 miles to the Lipetsk region and left it in the boot of a car for more than a year.

He kept posting pictures and messages on the model’s social media, to make friends believe she was still alive, he told detectives. 

A male friend called Evgeniy Foster, a blogger in Kharkiv, the Ukrainian city blitzed by Russian forces, became suspicious and found a friend in Moscow to file a missing person case, triggering a search which eventually located her body.

Back in January 2021, a month before she was murdered, the model blasted Putin over his crackdown on protests and what she saw as a desire to forge a bigger Russia.

“Given the fact that Putin went through a lot of humiliation in childhood, he could not stand up for himself due to his [slight] physical form, it is not surprising that he left after law school and joined the KGB,” she wrote.

“Such people are timid and fearful from childhood, afraid of noise and darkness, strangers, so traits such as caution, restraint, and lack of communication are developed early in their character.

“I can only assume, in my opinion, a clear psychopathy or sociopathy is seen in him.”

She told her followers: “For psychopaths, it is important to constantly experience a sense of fullness and sharpness of life, so they love risk, intense experiences, intense communication, intense activity – an intense and dynamic life.

“Maybe he really wants to enhance the integrity of Russia and sincerely wishes the good for the Russians.

“But can he really do anything?”

She made clear she had grave doubts. 

“I think you know the answer to this question yourself,” she posted.

The White House has insisted that China will face ‘significant consequences’ if it sends military to aid to Russia after National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday held an ‘intense’ seven-hour meeting with Beijing’s top diplomat.

However, Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to lay out President Joe Biden’s red lines on what would trigger action, or describe what those consequences might be during the daily briefing.

‘I think what we have conveyed and what was conveyed by our national security adviser in this meeting, is that should they provide military or other assistance that of course violates sanctions or, or supports the war efforts, that there will be significant consequences,’ she said.

‘But in terms of what the specifics look like, we would coordinate with our partners and allies to make that determination.’

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s politburo, at a Rome hotel on Monday morning.

It came after reports at the weekend that Russia had approached China for help in resupplying its armed forces. But a senior administration official characterized it as a ‘frank exchange’ of views and said the meeting was long-planned.  

‘What I would say in general is that we do have deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia at this time,’ said the official, ‘and the national security adviser was direct about those concerns and the potential implications and consequences of certain actions.’

The official said it had not been set up to discuss concerns that Russia had asked China for military help.

A Russian drone flew over Poland before entering Ukrainian air space where it was shot down, Ukraine’s military claimed in a statement. 

The drone is claimed to have first circled over the Ukrainian city of Yavoriv before flying over Poland where it was in breach of Nato territory.

In a statement the Ukrainian air force command said that the drone flew into Nato airspace, accusing Moscow of a “provocation”.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces said the drone appeared to be assessing damage caused to the Yavoriv military base near Lviv over the weekend after missile strikes killed at least 35 people, 24 TV reports.

It was then said to have flown over Poland before returning to Ukrainian airspace where it was shot down by the country’s air defence.

A spokesperson for the Ukrainian forces said: “As we can see, the occupiers continue to carry out their provocative actions without hesitation, flying into the airspace of Nato member states.”

Putin’s forces launched missile strikes just 12 miles from the Polish border with Ukraine in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The airstrike, which blasted the Yavoriv military base near Lviv, killed at least 35 people and injured another 134.

Russian forces fired more than 30 cruise missiles at the base, prompting authorities to warn Vladimir Putin could start “provoking” Nato countries.

Poland belongs to the 30-strong defensive military alliance which also includes the UK, US, France, and Germany.

On Monday,  Britain’s health secretary Sajid Javid vowed Britain will go to war against Russia if Putin attacks a Nato country.

Mr. Javid said: “We’ve been very clear from the start, with our Nato allies, that if there is any kind of attack on Nato territory then it will be war with Nato and there will be a severe response.

A woman holding an anti-war sign ran on to the set of a Russian evening news programme on the state-controlled Channel 1, to interrupt the show with a ‘no to war’ sign.

Russian TV news is tightly controlled by the Kremlin and reflects only the Russian version of events in Ukraine but on Monday evening, March 14, a brave woman named as Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at the channel 1, controlled by the government held a clearly visible sign behind the presenter, which read: “No war, stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.”

The woman is now in police custody according to Reuters

Her voice could be heard during the broadcast saying, “No to war! Stop the war!” before the programme director cut early to a recorded news report.

Before the protest, which happened live on the nightly news programme, she recorded a video in which she called events in Ukraine a “crime” and said she was ashamed to work for what she called Kremlin propaganda.

“I’m ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies,” she explained.

She called on the Russian people to protest against the war, saying that only they could “stop the madness”.

From the moment Ms Ovsyannikova’s identity became known, she has received dozens of comments on her Facebook page in Ukrainian, Russian and English, thanking her for her actions.

New laws introduced since the invasion of Ukraine have made the media industry in Russia more harsh towards independent bias reporting.

The Legislation passed earlier this month made it illegal to call the military action an “invasion” or to disseminate “fake” news about it.

State-controlled Russian media refer to the war as a “special military operation” and paint Ukraine as the aggressor, with a government described as neo-Nazi.

Lots of social media sites have also been blocked, further restricting the number and diversity of news sources available to people inside Russia.

Facebook and Twitter have been restricted for several days, while Instagram – which is particularly popular in Russia – was blocked on Monday, although many Russians have now use VPNs to access the sites.

Watch the video below…

#REPOST @withukraine 10 minutes ago on the Channel 1 of the state Russian TV show, an activist jumped out from behind the TV presenter with a poster “No to war! Stop the war! Don’t trust this propaganda! Everyone is lying to you here!” #IStandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/Rve45OEcj3

— Ligia Becerra Pombo M.D. (@PomboLigia) March 15, 2022

A Ukrainian couple who first met during the 2015 war in the country have decided to get married before they take on Russian troops in the outskirts of Kyiv. 

The couple, who met for the first time during the war in Donbas seven years ago, were pictured at the ceremony held in a hospital in Brovary earlier today.

The soldiers began their relationship in 2022 when they met by chance during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

‘There is a hard time ahead of us, so we decided to do it now’, said the bride as military chaplain and medic Yevgeny lead the ceremony for the couple.

The chaplain also held services for other military and medical personnel as well as for civilians. 

This is the second frontline wedding to take place in Ukraine in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, Kyiv’s mayor paid a visit to a newlywed couple who got married on the frontlines, donned in military uniform, and serenaded by soldiers.

Instagram was inaccessible in Russia on March 14 after Moscow accused its parent company Meta of allowing calls for violence against Russians, including the military, on its platforms.
AFP

Instagram was inaccessible in Russia on Monday after Moscow accused its parent company Meta of allowing calls for violence against Russians, including the military, on its platforms.

The move comes after Facebook and Twitter were blocked in early March as part of sweeping efforts by Moscow to control information available to Russians about its military operation in Ukraine.

Instagram appeared Monday on a list of “restricted” online resources on a list published by Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor.

Instagram’s app was not refreshing without a VPN, AFP journalists said.

Facebook and Instagram are widely used in Russia, the latter being the most popular social media platform among young Russians.

For many small Russian businesses, Instagram was a key platform for advertising, processing sales and communicating with clients.

An airstrike on a residential building in Ukraine’s capital killed at least one person Monday, the country’s emergency service said, as Moscow maintained its devastating assault ahead of a fresh round of talks.

The strike, which injured at least a dozen people, came as Russian troops edged closer to the city and kept up their siege of the southern port city of Mariupol, where officials said nearly 2,200 people have been killed.

#UkraineRussianWar #StopPutinNow #ClosetheSkyoverUkraine https://t.co/gkEkH4rBo5

— Ukrainian Media_Truth about war in Ukraine (@truth_about_war) March 13, 2022

“As of 7:40 am (0540 GMT) the body of one person was found dead in a nine-storey apartment building” in the capital’s Obolon district, the emergency service said in a statement, revising an earlier toll.

Ukrainian and Russian representatives were set to meet via videoconference Monday, a Ukrainian presidential adviser and a Kremlin spokesman both said before the latest strike.

According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, the talks would begin at 0820 GMT.

“And our goal is that in this struggle, in this difficult negotiating work, Ukraine will get the necessary result… for peace and for security,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday, adding that both sides speak every day.

He said the aim was “to do everything to ensure a meeting of presidents. A meeting that I am sure people are waiting for.”

“We see significant progress,” Leonid Slutsky, a senior member of Russia’s negotiating team, told state-run television network RT Sunday.

Talks between Kyiv and Moscow have yet to yield a ceasefire and Russian forces have shown no sign of easing their onslaught.

hold, have threatened foreign companies hoping to withdraw from the country with arrests and asset seizures, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

letters and in-person visits — including to Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, IBM and Yum Brands, the parent company of KFC and Pizza Hut, according to the business daily, citing sources familiar with the matter.

They have threatened to arrest officials who have criticized the government or to seize assets, including intellectual property. “The warnings have prompted at least one of the targeted companies to limit communications between its Russian business and the rest of the company, out of concern that emails or text messages among colleagues may be intercepted, some of the people (familiar with the matter) said,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Russia has faced unprecedented sanctions imposed by Western governments after the invasion of Ukraine, with a growing list of companies announcing their withdrawals from the country or their plans to suspend activities there.

Russian authorities have boosted efforts to prevent money from leaving its borders and to support the ruble, which has already seen a precipitous drop in value against the dollar.

Without using the word “nationalization,” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is in favor of appointing “external” administrators to head such foreign companies in Russia “in order to transfer them to those who want to make work.

The prosecutor’s office on Friday meanwhile ordered “strict control” of companies that had announced a suspension of their activities in Russia, warning especially of increased monitoring of labor legislation compliance, under penalty of prosecution. Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble and Yum Brands did not respond to requests for comments by AFP Sunday.

Russia has asked China for military and economic aid for its war in Ukraine, hours after United States warned Beijing would face severe “consequences” if it helps Moscow evade sanctions.

United States officials told media on Sunday that Russia had requested military equipment and support from its key ally.

Moscow also asked Beijing for economic assistance against the crippling sanctions imposed against it by most of the Western world, the New York Times said, again citing anonymous officials.

The officials declined to explain exactly what Russia had requested, or whether China had responded, according to the reports.

Recalls that Russia military operation invaded Ukraine on Thursday February 24.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told multiple outlets “I’ve never heard of that” when asked about the alleged requests.

The reports came just a few hours after the White House announced a high-level US delegation would meet with a top Chinese official in Rome Monday.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Communist Party’s chief diplomat, “will discuss ongoing efforts to manage the competition between our two countries and discuss the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine on regional and global security,” National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said Sunday in a statement.

Beijing has declined to directly condemn Moscow for launching its invasion, and has repeatedly blamed NATO’s “eastward expansion” for worsening tensions between Russia and Ukraine, echoing the Kremlin’s prime security grievance.

Sullivan made a round of Sunday talk shows to say the White House was “watching closely” to see whether China provides material or economic support to Russia to help it evade the punishing impact of sanctions.

“It is a concern of ours, and we have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” show.

Sullivan said that while he did not wish to “brandish threats” against major economic rival China, “we are communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions-evasion efforts.”

Beijing said this past week that its friendship with Russia remains “rock solid” despite international condemnation of Moscow, and has expressed an openness to help mediate an end to the war.

Ukrainian officials on Saturday accused Russia of planning a fake referendum on creating a pro-Moscow “people’s republic” in the southern Black Sea city of Kherson.

Russian forces seized the port city, which has a population of 290,000 people, on March 3 following a three-day siege. It was the first major city to fall following Moscow’s invasion.

“Russians now desperately try to organize a sham ‘referendum’ for a fake ‘people’s republic’ in Kherson,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.

Due to “zero popular support”, such a referendum “will be fully staged”, he added.

“Severe sanctions against Russia must follow if they proceed. Kherson is & will always be Ukraine,” the minister added.

Kuleba drew a parallel with Russia’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in 2014 when it held a referendum on joining Russia after deploying troops there.

The Kherson plan was following a “2014 playbook”, Kuleba said.

Ukraine’s ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova wrote on Telegram that Russian occupying forces were phoning lawmakers from the local legislature, asking them to vote for the plan.

Denisova said such a referendum would be illegal on the occupied territory since under Ukrainian law any issues over territory can only be resolved by a nationwide referendum.

AFP

Moscow’s actions in Ukraine will be met with such a strong international response that the Russians may end up needing humanitarian corridors themselves, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

“The Ukrainian military ensured there was a ceasefire so that humanitarian corridors would work. If the occupiers [Russia] start shooting again and disrupt the rescue of our people, in the end, they will receive such an answer from the world that they themselves will need humanitarian corridors,” Zelensky warned in a video address released on Friday.

The warning is coming as Russian forces have continued to advance to some of the key cities in Ukraine.

Though, the Ukrainian president Zelensky has vowed never to surrender to President Vladimir Putin forces after a three week fierce battle between the warring nation.

Anonymous has hacked into Russia’s media censorship agency and released 340,000 files in the latest attack to undermine Vladimir Putin President Putin’s war propaganda campaign.

According to Mail Online, the hacktivists broke into the Roskomnadzor federal agency to steal the classified documents which they then passed on to transparency organisation Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), who published them online.

The trove of 820 gigabytes of emails and attachments, some of which are dated as late as March 5, show how the Kremlin is censoring anything referring to their brutal invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow is instead calling a ‘special military operation’.

The Anonymous hacker said they ‘urgently felt the Russian people should have access to information about their government’, DDoSecrets said.  

The files relate to the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, one of the largest in the federation with a population of four million.

Roskomnadzor, which oversees mass media in Russia, restricted access to Facebook and Twitter before blocking them and also threatened to cut off access to Wikipedia, due to its article on the invasion.

On February 24, the agency ordered all media outlets to only use official, state-sanctioned information sources or face severe punishment for spreading ‘fake news’. 

The words ‘war, ‘invasion’ and ‘attack’ were all banned from use when describing Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. 

Earlier this week, Anonymous claimed to have hacked into Russian state TV to air footage of the war in Ukraine.

The hacking collective said it targeted Russia 24, Channel One, and Moscow 24 to show the realities of the savage invasion.

The hackers said they are taking part in the ‘biggest Anonymous op ever seen’ in their take-down of Russia. 

Part of the footage aired on Russian TV included the message: ‘ordinary Russians are against the war’ and urged them to oppose the invasion.

And last week, the hackers claimed to have shut down Russia’s space agency so Putin ‘no longer has control over spy satellites’. 

It comes after reports that Chinese telecoms giant Huawei ‘rushed to Russia’s aid’ to fend off Western cyberattacks.   

Reports in China say the tech giant, which has several offices in the UK, has been helping Putin’s efforts to stabilise Russia’s internet network.