Putin says Ukraine's future in doubt as cease-fires collapse
Lviv (Ukraine) (AP): Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Ukrainian statehood is in jeopardy and likened the West's sanctions on Russia to declaring war, while a promised cease-fire in the besieged port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror.
With the Kremlin's rhetoric growing fiercer and a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities and the number of Ukrainians forced from their country grew to 1.4 million.
By Saturday night Russian forces had intensified their shelling of Mariupol, while dropping powerful bombs on residential areas of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.
Bereft mothers mourned slain children, wounded soldiers were fitted with tourniquets and doctors worked by the light of their cellphones as bleakness and desperation pervaded. Putin continued to pin the blame for all of it squarely on the Ukrainian leadership and slammed their resistance to the invasion.
If they continue to do what they are doing, they are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood, he said. And if this happens, it will be entirely on their conscience.
He also hit out at Western sanctions that have crippled Russia's economy and sent the value of its currency tumbling.
These sanctions that are being imposed, they are akin to declaring war, he said during a televised meeting with flight attendants from Russian airline Aeroflot. But thank God, we haven't got there yet.
Russia's financial system suffered yet another blow as Mastercard and Visa announced they were suspending operations in the country.
Ten days after Russian forces invaded, the struggle to enforce the temporary cease-fires in Mariupol and the eastern city of Volnovakha showed the fragility of efforts to stop the fighting across Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said Russian artillery fire and airstrikes had prevented residents from leaving before the agreed-to evacuations got underway. Putin accused Ukraine of sabotaging the effort.
A third round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place Monday, according to Davyd Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian delegation. He gave no additional details, including where they would take place.
Previous meetings were held in Belarus and led to the failed cease-fire agreement to create humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of children, women, and older people from besieged cities, where pharmacies have run bare, hundreds of thousands face food and water shortages, and the injured have been succumbing to their wounds.
Russia has made significant advances in the south, seeking to cut off Ukraine's access to the sea. Capturing Mariupol could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
The West has broadly backed Ukraine, offering aid and weapons and slapping Russia with vast sanctions. But the fight itself has been left to Ukrainians, who have expressed a mixture of courageous resolve and despondency.
Ukraine is bleeding, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a video released Saturday, but Ukraine has not fallen.
Russian troops advanced on a third nuclear power plant, having already taken control of one of the four operating in the country and the closed plant in Chernobyl, Zelenskyy told U.S. lawmakers.
Zelenskyy pleaded with the lawmakers for additional help, specifically fighter planes to help secure the skies over Ukraine, even as he insisted Russia was being defeated.
We're inflicting losses on the occupants they could not see in their worst nightmare, Zelenskyy said.
Russian troops took control of the southern port city of Kherson this week. Although they have encircled Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, Ukrainian forces have managed to keep control of key cities in central and southeastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.
Diplomatic efforts continued as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Poland to meet with the prime minister and foreign minister, a day after attending a NATO meeting in Brussels in which the alliance pledged to step up support for eastern flank members.
In Moscow, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Putin at the Kremlin. Israel maintains good relations with both Russia and Ukraine, and Bennett has offered to act as an intermediary in the conflict, but no details of the meeting emerged immediately.
However, Bennett's office said he spoke twice with Zelenskyy afterward. Bennett also had a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron.
In the wake of Western sanctions, Aeroflot, Russia's flagship state-owned airline, announced that it plans to halt all international flights except to Belarus, starting Tuesday.
The death toll of the conflict was difficult to measure. The UN human rights office said at least 351 civilians have been confirmed killed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, but the true number is probably much higher. The Russian military, which doesn't offer regular updates on casualties, said Wednesday that 498 of its troops had been killed.
Ukraine's military is vastly outmatched by Russia's, but its professional and volunteer forces have fought back with fierce tenacity. Even in cities that have fallen, there were signs of resistance. (AP)
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Karnataka PUC II exams from Feb 28; over 7.1 lakh students to appear
Bengaluru: The Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB) will commence the Pre-University Course (PUC) II examinations from February 28. The first exams will be Kannada and Arabic papers.
The Class 12 examinations will continue till March 17. These exams will be conducted at 1,217 centres across the state. A total of 7,10,363 students from 5,174 PU colleges have registered for the examinations this year and of them, 2,92,645 students are from the science stream, 2,11,174 from commerce and 1,42,982 from arts.
The board has reduced the minimum qualifying marks for PU II from 35 per cent to 30 per cent, as reported by The Indian Express. Authorities reaffirmed that strict guidelines to ensure smooth conduct of the examinations amid concerns over fake question papers being circulated on social media. KSEAB president Prakash Nittali said the question paper currently circulating online is fake and added that a complaint will be lodged with the cyber police.
The School Education and Literacy Department has announced that social media platforms will be closely monitored during both the PU and SSLC examinations to prevent misinformation and malpractice.
To facilitate students, the state government has arranged free bus travel in KSRTC and BMTC buses for those appearing for Class 10 and Class 12 examinations upon production of hall tickets. Similar arrangements will be made in private buses operating in the coastal and Malnad regions.
The Karnataka SSLC examinations are scheduled to begin on March 18 starting with the first language paper. A total of 9,02,889 students are expected to appear for the SSLC exams this year, with 8,12,855 fresh candidates, 62,845 repeaters and 27,189 private candidates.
