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. 

The Ukranian government has claimed that 8 Russian generals have been sacked over the slow and unsuccessful invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Armed Forces.

Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s security council, says eight Russian commanders have been fired since the start of the conflict amid heavy losses on the battlefield.

Another report alleged that Putin is annoyed with leaders of the FSB security service for handing him intelligence suggesting that Ukraine was weak, riddled with neo-Nazi groups, and would give up easily if attacked.

Philip Ingram, a former senior British intelligence officer, told The Times that Putin is obviously ‘very angry’ and is 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 advice made the military to attack Ukraine less than optimally leading to Russia suffering much higher casualties than it expected in its attack – a war which has exceeded two weeks.

Danilov said Putin thought capital city Kyiv would fall within two to three days  which made him send in light forces to seize key targets during the opening days.

‘It hasn’t happened and never will,’ he said.

Danilov said ‘desperate’ Moscow has ‘now switched to a different tactic’ by changing leadership.

‘They had about 8 generals removed from their posts because they did not complete the task,’ he told state TV.

Also in the report, another theory is that the organisation did gather good intelligence but was simply too afraid to tell Putin the truth, instead doctoring their reports to appease him.

‘The problem is that it is too risky for superiors to tell Putin what he doesn’t want to hear, so they tailor their information,’ he said. 

They are now said to be making ‘apocalyptic’ forecasts about the weeks and months ahead as fighting grinds on and punitive sanctions isolate the country.

When asked how Russian politicians were reacting to the crisis, one source told Rustamova: ‘They’re carefully enunciating the word clusterf**k.

‘No one is rejoicing. Many understand that this is a mistake, but in the course of doing their duty they come up with explanations in order to somehow come to terms with it.’

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, over two million Ukrainian refugees have fled, as cities face shortages of food, water, heat, and medicine – with some having to resort to melting snow for water.

A third Russian general has allegedly been killed in Ukraine in just eight days in another devastating blow to Vladimir Putin’s savage invasion of Ukraine.

Major General Andrei Kolesnikov of the 29th Combined Arms Army became the latest high-profile casualty of the war today, Ukraine’s government announced.

Kolesnikov’s death comes four days after the killing of Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, 45, the first deputy commander of Russia’s 41st army.

The general took part in the second Chechen war, the Russian military operation in Syria, and the annexation of Crimea, winning medals from those campaigns. 

According to reports, there are believed to be 20 Russian generals taking part in the faltering invasion, which has also seen the loss of 173 tanks, 12 aircraft, and 345 troop carriers. 

Western officials said the multiple general casualties suggest they are having to move to the front because Russia’s troops are either unable to make their own decisions or are fearful of moving forward.

According to reports, Gerasimov was the son of Valery Gerasimov – the Chief of General Staff of Russia’s armed forces. 

Last week, Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, 47, deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Central Military District, was killed. Sukhovetsky died during a special operation in Ukraine, his comrade-in-arms Sergey Chipilev wrote on social media. 

He was shot and killed by a sniper near Mariupol, which has been under a brutal siege by Russian forces for days. 

Analysts have said Russian tank commanders allowed the Ukrainians to gun down their unit by driving down the middle of a main road leading into Kyiv – and straight into a death trap.

Rob Lee, a Senior Fellow and military expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, commented on the ambush, saying the Russian armoured force displayed ‘very poor tactics’.

India said on Friday March 11, it accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan this week because of a “technical malfunction” during routine maintenance, giving its version of events after longtime foe Pakistan warned the incident could have “unpleasant consequences.”

“On 9 March 2022, in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile,” India’s defense ministry said in a statement.

“It is learnt that the missile landed in an area of Pakistan. While the incident is deeply regrettable, it is also a matter of relief that there has been no loss of life due to the accident.”

The ministry said the government had “taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry” into the incident.

Earlier on Friday,  Pakistan’s foreign office said it had summoned India’s charge d’affaires in Islamabad to lodge a protest over what it called an unprovoked violation of its airspace.

Pakistan also called for an investigation into the incident, which it said could have endangered passenger flights and civilian lives.

Pakistan warned India “to be mindful of the unpleasant consequences of such negligence and take effective measures to avoid the recurrence off such violations in future”.

Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Babar Iftikhar said in a late evening news conference on Thursday that a “high-speed flying object” crashed near its eastern city of Mian Channu and that originated from the northern Indian city of Sirsa, in Haryana state near New Delhi.

“The flight path of this object endangered many national and international passenger flights both in Indian and Pakistani airspace as well as human life and property of ground,” he said.

Iftikhar in the news conference on Thursday also called on India to share the outcome of its investigation into the incident.

A Pakistan air force official said the object travelled at an altitude of 40,000 feet, at Mach 3, and flew 77 miles in Pakistani airspace before crashing.

Russian strongman, Vladimir Putin has called for foreign volunteers to help fight against Ukrainian forces.

Speaking at a Russian security council meeting on Friday, March 11, he said those who wanted to volunteer to fight with Russia-backed forces should be allowed to.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East ready to fight alongside Russia-backed forces and US officials believe they could include Syrians skilled in urban combat

“If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,” Putin told his defence minister.

Shoigu also proposed handing over captured Western anti-tank missile systems to Russian-backed rebel fighters in the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region.

“Please do this,”  Putin said.

Responding to Putin’s claims, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a video message, said “thugs from Syria” would be coming to kill people “in a foreign land”.

Meanwhile Ukraine has had an influx of foreign fighters coming to join in the fight against Russia.

 Zelensky said recently that 16,000 foreigners had volunteered for the cause, part of what he called an “international legion”.

Putin’s televised security council meeting came as Russian forces in Ukraine began attacking new targets in different areas of the country:

An airfield and jet engine factory were targeted in Lutsk, in the north-west
Explosions also hit airfields at Ivano-Frankivsk, in the south-west, according to Russian defence officials.

In Dnipro, a major stronghold in central eastern Ukraine, one person was reported dead in air strikes.

Refugees totaling 2.5 million have now left Ukraine since the war started according to the United Nations.

Russia has reportedly offered volunteers from Syria between $200 and $300 to fight in its ongoing military onslaught in Ukraine.

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

According to Syrian-based Deir Ezzor, Russia had offered money to volunteers “to go to Ukraine and operate as guards” for six months at a time.

“Deir Ezzor 24 received exclusive information that Russia had instructed to open the door for volunteering for a period of six months, to go to Ukraine and operate as guards, with salaries ranging between 200 and 300 USD, in addition to recruiting mercenaries with wide privileges,” the report said.

The Wall Street Journal cited four United States officials as saying Russia was recruiting fighters from Syria with the hope that their expertise in urban combat can help take the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

The number of Syrians recruited is uncertain as at the time of filing this report, though one official said some were already in Russia preparing.

The Journal report adds that Syrian recruitment by Russia points to a possible escalation of the war.

This development came as Ukraine appealed to foreigners who wanted to fight in its defence, with President Volodmyr Zelensky announcing the creation of the International Legion for anyone wanting to fight Russia in Ukraine.

“Anyone who wants to join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals,” the statement on the presidential website said.

Ukrainian officials had revealed that 3,000 Americans had applied to fight.

Western businesses leaving Russia due to the war may have their companies and production facilities confiscated by the Russian state, according to Moscow.

Businesses that leave the country are “basically abandoning their staff to their fate,” said former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday.

To prevent people ending up unemployed and on the streets, the Russian government is taking steps to bring about the insolvency and subsequent nationalisation of these companies, the deputy chief of the Russian Security Council said.

On the foundation of the assets left behind by “investors in panic,” new industry would have to be built. This approach is objective and fair,” said Medvedev.

Among the affected are companies from Germany, other EU countries, and the U.S.

There is no law in Russia to nationalise a company’s assets.

But calls are growing among Russian politicians for such a law in reaction to the EU sanctions and it is expected that the Russian parliament will decide on such a process soon.

Many Western companies had only reported that operations are being paused at first, without mentioning full closure or withdrawal.

“Whatever the reasons for moving away, foreign firms should understand that it will not be easy to come back to our markets,” Medvedev said.

Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, warned that a nationalisation of Western companies and seizure of their assets could have negative consequences for both sides, as Russsian companies abroad may also have their assets seized.

Proposals are also circulating for the assets of companies in Russia to be handled through fiduciary trusts.

Western officials have warned of their ‘serious concern’ that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use chemical weapons in Ukraine to commit further atrocities during the invasion.

The officials claim that an ‘utterly horrific’ attack could be launched on the capital of Kyiv to revive the Russian war effort amid logistical issues, mechanical failures, and a lack of fuel for their armoured vehicles.  

In a briefing with journalists, one Western official who spoke on on condition of anonymity said: ‘I think we’ve got good reason to be concerned about possible use of non-conventional weapons, partly because of what we’ve seen has happened in other theatres.

‘As I’ve mentioned before, for example, what we’ve seen in Syria, partly because we’ve seen a bit of setting the scene for that in the false flag claims that are coming out, and other indications as well.

‘So it’s a serious concern for us.’

UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that the UK has already handed Kyiv 3,615 anti-tank weapons, known as NLAWs, or new light-antitank weapons.

He said a ‘small consignment’ of Javelin anti-tank missiles will follow, while ministers consider whether to send Starstreak high-velocity anti-air missiles.

But a Polish proposal to hand its MiG-29 fighter jets to a US military base in Germany, with the expectation they would be handed to Ukrainian pilots, was dismissed in Washington.

The warnings came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared a Russian missile attack had landed a ‘direct strike’ on a maternity hospital in the southern port city of Mariupol.

The hospital was decimated, with women and children feared trapped underground in what Zelensky described as ‘an atrocity’. 

Ukraine’s Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba called it a ‘petrifying war crime’, as he pleaded for allies to supply Ukraine with aircraft.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there are ‘few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenceless, while Foreign Secretary Liz Truss described the hospital attack as ‘absolutely abhorrent’, but continued to reject Ukraine’s request for a no-fly zone to be imposed over its skies.