Top Russian diplomat warns Ukraine against provoking WWIII
Kyiv(AP): Russia's top diplomat warned Ukraine against provoking World War III and said the threat of a nuclear conflict should not be underestimated as his country unleashed attacks against rail and fuel installations far from the front lines of Moscow's new eastern offensive.
Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Russian forces had taken the Ukrainian city of Kreminna in the Lukansk region after days of street-to-street fighting.
The city of Kreminna has reportedly fallen and heavy fighting is reported south of Izium as Russian forces attempt to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east, the British military said in a tweet. It did not say how it knew the city, 575 kilometers (355 miles) southeast of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, had fallen.
The Ukrainian government did not immediately comment.
Ukraine's General Staff said Russian forces were shelling Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, as they fought to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which comprise the Donbas in Ukraine's industrial heartland, and establish a land corridor to Crimea.
In the area of Velyka Oleksandrivka, a village in the Kherson region largely controlled by Russians, Ukrainian forces destroyed an ammunition depot and eliminated" more than 70 Russian troops, the General Staff said.
The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said on the messaging app Telegram that the Russians had shelled civilians 17 times over the previous 24 hours, with the cities of Popasna, Lysychansk and Girske suffering the most.
Four people died and nine more were wounded on Monday in the Russian shelling of the Donetsk region, its governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. He said a 9-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy were among those killed.
The US has been rushing more weaponry to Ukraine and said the assistance from Western allies is making a difference in the 2-month-old war.
Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared Monday after he and the US secretary of defense made a bold visit to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Blinken said Washington approved a USD 165 million sale of ammunition non-US ammo, mainly if not entirely for Ukraine's Soviet-era weapons and will also provide more than USD 300 million in financing to buy more supplies.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin went further, saying the US wants to see Ukraine remain a sovereign, democratic country, but also wants "to see Russia weakened to the point where it can't do things like invade Ukraine.
Austin's remarks appeared to represent a shift in US strategic goals since earlier Washington said the goal of American military aid was to help Ukraine win and to defend Ukraine's NATO neighbours against Russian threats.
In an apparent response to Austin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia has a feeling that the West wants Ukraine to continue to fight and, as it seems to them, wear out, exhaust the Russian army and the Russian military industrial war complex. This is an illusion.
Weapons supplied by Western countries will be a legitimate target," said Lavrov, who accused Ukrainian leaders of provoking Russia by asking NATO to become involved in the conflict.
NATO forces are pouring oil on the fire, Lavrov said, according to a transcript on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website. Everyone is reciting incantations that in no case can we allow World War III, he said in a Russian television interview.
Lavrov said he would not want to see risks of a nuclear confrontation artificially inflated now, when the risks are rather significant.
The danger is serious," he said.
"It is real. It should not be underestimated.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter that Lavrov's comments underscore Ukraine's need for Western help: Russia loses last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine. Thus the talk of a real' danger of WWIII. This only means Moscow senses defeat in Ukraine."
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, its apparent goal was to seize Kyiv, the capital. But the Ukrainians, helped by Western weapons, forced President Vladimir Putin's troops to retreat.
Moscow now says its goal is to take the Donbas, the mostly Russian-speaking industrial region in eastern Ukraine, where residents are struggling to survive without many of the basics, collecting rainwater for cleaning and washing up and fervently hoping for an end to the fighting.
When you open a plastic bottle and it makes a crackling sound, you are worried at once (thinking that it's an explosion) because of all those blasts. Anything that is happening, any noise, if our neighbours bang the door, a metal door, you are startled," said Andriy Cheromushkin, a resident of Toretsk, a small city south of Kramatorsk.
It's bad. Very bad. Hopeless," he said.
You feel so helpless that you don't know what you should do or shouldn't do. Because if you want to do something, you need some money; and there is no money now.
On Monday, Russia was focusing its firepower beyond the Donbas, with missiles and warplanes striking far behind the front lines to try to thwart Ukrainian supply efforts.
Five railroad stations in central and western Ukraine were hit, and one worker was killed, said Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of Ukraine's state railway. Missiles struck Lviv, the western city near the Polish border jammed by Ukrainians fleeing their home.
Ukrainian authorities said at least five people were killed by Russian strikes in the central Vynnytsia region.
Russia also destroyed an oil refinery and fuel depots in Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said. In all, Russian warplanes destroyed 56 Ukrainian targets, he said.
The strikes on fuel depots are meant to deplete vital Ukrainian war resources. Strikes against rail targets, both disrupt supply lines and intimidate people trying to use the railways to flee the fighting, said Philip Breedlove, a retired US general who was NATO's top commander from 2013- 2016.
An estimated 2,000 Ukrainian troops holed up in a steel plant in the strategic southern port city of Mariupol are tying down Russian forces, apparently preventing them from joining the offensive elsewhere in the Donbas.
Over the weekend, Russian forces launched new airstrikes on the Azovstal plant to try to dislodge the holdouts.
Some 1,000 civilians were also said to be taking shelter at the steelworks.
The city council and mayor of Mariupol said a new mass grave was identified about 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the city. Mayor Vadym Boychenko said authorities were trying to estimate the number of victims. It was at least the third new mass grave discovered in Russian-controlled areas near Mariupol in the last week.
Mariupol has been gutted by bombardment and fierce street fighting over the past two months. Russia's capture of the city would deprive Ukraine of a vital port and give Moscow a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was maintaining its resistance to make the occupiers' stay in our land even more intolerable, while Russia drains its resources.
Britain said it believes 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said 25 per cent of the Russian combat units sent to Ukraine have been rendered not combat effective."
Ukrainian officials have said about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed as of mid-April.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Tension grips Bangladesh after unrest over uprising leader’s death; vandalism at several places
Dhaka (PTI): Bangladesh interim government on Friday urged citizens to resist violence by “a few fringe elements” as the body of a prominent July Uprising leader, who died in Singapore six days after he was shot, reached the capital.
Various parts of the country were rocked Thursday night by attacks and vandalism, including stone-hurling at the Assistant Indian High Commissioner's residence in Chattogram, after Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus confirmed Sharif Osman Hadi's death in a televised address to the nation.
There were, however, no reports of fresh violence since Friday morning.
Hadi, one of the leaders who had taken part in the student-led protests last year – termed as July Uprising - and a candidate for the scheduled February 12 general elections, died while undergoing treatment at a Singapore hospital six days after he was shot by unidentified men.
Body of Hadi, who was the spokesperson of the Inqilab Mancha, arrived at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) at around 6 pm on a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight, amid tight security and widespread public mourning, state-run news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) said quoting Biman General Manager (Public Relations) Boshra Islam.
Members of the Bangladesh Army, Armed Forces Battalion (AFB) and police were deployed in large numbers to maintain security when Hadi's body was taken out of the airport, it added.
Hadi's passing away at the Singapore General Hospital triggered widespread mourning across political circles, activists of Inqilab Mancha and the general public, BSS said.
Yunus has declared a one-day state mourning on Saturday following Hadi's death.
Earlier on Thursday, soon after Yunus' announcement, protesters took to the streets and attacked offices of leading newspapers, vandalised 32 Dhanmandi with hammers, and also demolished an office of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's disbanded Awami League party in Rajshahi city.
Regarded as the centre point of Bangladesh’s pre-independence struggle for autonomy for decades, 32 Dhanmandi was largely demolished with excavators on February 5 this year. It was also set on fire soon after the August 5, 2024 fall of the then Awami League government and Hasina fleeing to India.
Protesters also hurled bricks and stones at the residence of the Assistant Indian High Commissioner in Chattogram at 1:30 am, but failed to cause any damage.
Police responded with tear gas and baton charges, dispersing the crowd and detaining 12 protesters. A few injuries were also reported.
Senior officials assured the assistant high commissioner of enhanced security.
In Dhaka, protesters attacked the office of a leading cultural group, Chhayanaut, and brought out the furniture, setting it on fire.
Sporadic violence was also reported from other parts of the country overnight.
Meanwhile, after the flight from Singapore landed in Dhaka, local media reports and videos shared on social media showed Hadi's followers lining up on both sides of the road from the airport to Shahbagh to receive him before his coffin was brought to the Dhaka University Central Mosque for a public meeting.
In a Facebook post, Inqilab Mancha announced that a janaza will be held in Bangladesh on Saturday after Zuhr prayers (afternoon) at Manik Mia Avenue in the capital.
Hadi was shot in the head last week by masked gunmen as he initiated his election campaign at central Dhaka’s Bijoynagar area. He died while undergoing treatment at a Singapore hospital after fighting for his life for six days.
On Thursday night, the National Citizen Party (NCP), a large offshoot of Students Against Discrimination (SAD) that led the July Uprising, which ousted the Hasina-led government, joined a mourning procession on the Dhaka University campus.
Supporters of the group chanted anti-India slogans alleging that Hadi’s assailants fled to India after committing the murder. They called upon the interim government to close the Indian high commission until they were returned.
“The interim government, until India returns assassins of Hadi Bhai, the Indian High Commission to Bangladesh will remain closed. Now or Never. We are in a war!” said Sarjis Alm, a key leader of NCP.
Starting Thursday through night, a group of people, believed to be part of the protesters, also attacked the offices of Bangla newspaper Prothom Alo’s office and the nearby Daily Star at the capital's Karwan Bazar, near the Shahbagh intersection.
Reports said they vandalised several floors while journalists and staff of the newspaper were trapped inside, and the mob ignited a fire in front of the building.
Critically ill former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) strongly condemned the vandalism and said that the Yunus-led interim government will have to shoulder its responsibility.
In his address on Thursday, Yunus vowed to bring those involved in Hadi's brutal murder to justice quickly, saying, “No leniency will be shown” to the killers.
“I sincerely call upon all citizens – keep your patience and restraint,” he said.
“No one can stop the democratic progress of this country through threat, terrorist activities or bloodshed,” he said, adding that the responsibility of realising Hadi's dream lies on the shoulders of the entire.
