Chuyên mục: War – chiến tranh

Latvia removes Soviet-era monument in Riga

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In view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Latvia issued a decree that all objects glorifying totalitarian regimes must be destroyed by November 15. This included the Soviet victory monument erected in 1985.

DW.com

A controversial Soviet-era monument in the Latvian capital was brought down, despite protests from the Baltic state’s ethnic Russian minority to keep it.

Police officers and the press watch as the 80-meter high obelisk is torn down in Latvia’s capital Riga

A concrete obelisk topped with Soviet stars, which was the centerpiece of a monument commemorating the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany, was demolished in Latvia’s capital, Riga, on Thursday.

Two diggers with pneumatic hammers brought the 79-meter (261-foot) obelisk down to the applause of numerous onlookers. A number of large-scale bronze statues had already been removed from the monument in the preceding days.

In view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Latvia issued a decree that all objects glorifying totalitarian regimes must be destroyed by November 15. This included the Soviet victory monument erected in 1985.

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Civilians killed as Russia intensifies attacks across Ukraine

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Aljazeera.com

Russian forces fire missiles and shells across Ukraine after military announces it is stepping up its onslaught.

A girl and an elderly lady walk among the debris of a destroyed local market after a Russian missile strike in the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region on July 16, 2022
People walk by debris of a destroyed local market after a Russian missile attack in the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine [Anatolii Stepanov/AFP]

Published On 16 Jul 202216 Jul 2022

Russian forces have fired missiles and shells at cities and towns across Ukraine after Russia’s military announced it was stepping up its onslaught against its neighbour, with Ukrainian officials reporting that at least 17 more civilians had been killed.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu gave “instructions to further intensify the actions of units in all operational areas, in order to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime launching massive rocket and artillery attacks on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements in the Donbas and other regions,” his ministry said on Saturday.

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Sahel (Africa) violence could drive more refugees toward Europe

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FILE- In this April 15, 2022 file photo, malnourished children wait for treatment in the pediatric department of Boulmiougou hospital in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The U.N. is warning that 18 million people in Africa’s Sahel region face severe hunger in the next three months. Two U.N. agencies are citing the impacts of war in Ukraine, the coronavirus pandemic, climate-induced shocks and rising costs – and warning that people may try to migrate out of the affected areas. (AP Photo/Sophie Garcia, File)

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the U.N. refugee agency says “Europe should be much more worried” that more people from Africa’s Sahel region could seek to move north to escape violence, climate crises like droughts and floods and the impact of growing food shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, called for more efforts to build peace in the world as conflicts and crises like those in Ukraine, Venezuela, Myanmar, Syria and beyond have driven over 100 million people to leave their homes — both within their own countries and abroad.

UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, on Thursday issued its latest “Global Trends” report, which found over 89 million people had been displaced by conflict, climate change, violence and human rights abuses by 2021. The figure has since swelled after at least 12 million people fled their homes in Ukraine to other parts of the country or abroad following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.

This year, the world is also facing growing food insecurity — Ukraine is a key European breadbasket and the war has greatly hurt grain exports

The African Union, whose continent relies on imports of wheat and other food from Ukraine, has appealed for help to access grain that is blocked in Ukrainian silos and unable to leave Ukrainian ports amid a Russian naval blockade in the Black Sea.

Ukraine’s ‘Nuremberg Moment’ Amid Flood of Alleged Russian War Crimes

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So many crimes are being documented that they need a new court.

foreignpolicy.com

By Robbie Gramer, a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy, and Amy Mackinnon, a national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy. 

An aerial view of crosses, floral tributes, and photographs of the victims of the battles for Irpin and Bucha that mark the graves in a cemetery in Irpin, Ukraine, on May 16.
An aerial view of crosses, floral tributes, and photographs of the victims of the battles for Irpin and Bucha that mark the graves in a cemetery in Irpin, Ukraine, on May 16.

JUNE 10, 2022, 3:48 PM

As Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, top Biden administration officials are working behind the scenes with the Ukrainian government and European allies to document a tsunami of war crimes allegedly committed by Russian forces.

Putin’s War

How the world is dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But the sheer volume of the documented war crime cases could be too overwhelming for Ukraine’s justice system as well as for the International Criminal Court (ICC), raising questions of how many cases will be brought to trial and how many accused Russian war criminals could ultimately face justice.

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Cannes Film Festival Opens With Zelenskyy Video Address

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huffpost.com

“Zelenskyy quoted Chaplin’s final speech in “The Great Dictator,” which was released in 1940, in the early days of World War II: “The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.”

The 75th Cannes Film Festival kicked off Tuesday with a live satellite video address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

May. 17, 2022, 04:09 PM EDT

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears via remote during the opening ceremony of the 75th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Tuesday, May 17, 2022. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears via remote during the opening ceremony of the 75th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Tuesday, May 17, 2022. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

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Russians confirm they are hitting Ukrainian targets with banned cluster and phosphorus weapons 

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news.yahoo.com

VALENTYNA ROMANENKO — SUNDAY, 15 MAY 2022, 14: 22

The Russian invaders confirm that they are using phosphorus and cluster weapons in Ukraine, which are prohibited by international conventions.

Source: another intercept of the invaders’ conversation by the Security Service of Ukraine

Details: These are particularly dangerous and inhumane types of weapons.

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Five deadly weapons Russia is accused of using in Ukraine

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thehill.com

Five deadly weapons Russia is accused of using in Ukraine

BY JORDAN WILLIAMS AND LAURA KELLY – 04/18/22 6:20 PM ET
Russia has been accused of using everything from so-called vacuum bombs to chemical weapons as it fights to overtake Ukraine.

Some of the worst weapons that Moscow has allegedly used are indiscriminate in their nature, prompting concerns about their impact on civilian populations from Ukrainian officials, the West, and human rights groups monitoring the war.

“There is deliberate targeting of civilian populations and noncombatants, which is against international law,” said John Erath, senior policy adviser for the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. “And it really does not matter what type of weapon is being used. That is really bad.”

Here are five of the worst weapons Russia has been accused of using in its invasion. Tiếp tục đọc “Five deadly weapons Russia is accused of using in Ukraine” →

Ukraine: ‘Cycle of death, destruction’ must stop, UN chief tells Security Council

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UN.org

The principal of a school in Chernihiv, Ukraine, surveys the damage caused during an aerial bombardment.

© UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson VII Photo

The principal of a school in Chernihiv, Ukraine, surveys the damage caused during an aerial bombardment.

5 May 2022

Peace and Security

Briefing the Security Council on his shuttle diplomacy last week in Russia and Ukraine, Secretary-General António Guterres declared that he “did not mince words” during meetings with Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy, on the need to end the brutal conflict.

“I said the same thing in Moscow as I did in Kyiv…Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of its territorial integrity and of the Charter of the United Nations,” he told the Ambassadors.    

“It must end for the sake of the people of Ukraine, Russia, and the entire world…the cycle of death, destruction, dislocation and disruption must stop.” 

The UN chief said he had gone into an active war zone in Ukraine, after first travelling to Moscow, without much prospect of any ceasefire – as the east of the country continues to face “a full-scale ongoing attack”.

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Russian troops use rape as ‘an instrument of war’ in Ukraine, rights groups allege

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By Tara John, Oleksandra Ochman and Sandi Sidhu, CNN

Updated 0420 GMT (1220 HKT) April 22, 2022

Karina Yershova, right, is pictured with her grandmother in an undated photograph provided by the family.

Karina Yershova, right, is pictured with her grandmother in an undated photograph provided by the family.

Lviv, Ukraine (CNN)When Russian troops invaded Ukraine and began closing in on its capital, Kyiv, Andrii Dereko begged his 22-year-old stepdaughter Karina Yershova to leave the suburb where she lived.

But Yershova insisted she wanted to remain in Bucha, telling him: “Don’t talk nonsense, everything will be fine — there will be no war,” he said.

With her tattoos and long brown hair, Yershova stood out in a crowd, her stepfather said, adding that despite living with rheumatoid arthritis, she had a fiercely independent spirit: “She herself decided how to live.”

Yershova worked at a sushi restaurant in Bucha, and hoped to earn her university degree in the future, Dereko said: “She wanted to develop herself.”

Unclaimed and unidentified: Bucha empties its mass graves

Unclaimed and unidentified: Bucha empties its mass graves 03:24

As Russian soldiers surrounded Bucha in early March, Yershova hid in an apartment with two other friends. On one of the last occasions Dereko and his wife, Olena, heard from Yershova, she told them she had left the apartment to get food from a nearby supermarket.

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Indonesia’s finance minister says palm oil export ban will hurt other countries, but necessary

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By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal

A palm oil plantation is pictured next to a burnt forest near Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan province, Indonesia
People shop for cooking oil made from oil palms at a supermarket in Jakart

People shop for cooking oil made from oil palms at a supermarket in Jakarta, Indonesia, March 27, 2022. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan

reuter.com

WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s new palm oil export ban will hurt other countries but is necessary to try to bring down the soaring domestic price of cooking oil driven up by Russia’s war in Ukraine, Indonesia’s finance minister told Reuters on Friday.

Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that with demand exceeding supplies, the ban announced earlier on Friday is “among the harshest moves” the government could take after previous measures failed to stabilize domestic prices. read more

“We know that this is not going to be the best result,” for global supplies, she said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings. “If we are not going to export, that’s definitely going to hit the other countries.”

China and India are among big importers of palm oil from Indonesia, the world’s largest producer accounting for more than half the world’s supply. Palm oil is used in products from cooking oils to processed foods, cosmetics and biofuels.

Indrawati said previous measures requiring producers to reserve stocks for domestic use did not result in “the level of prices that we want. It’s still too expensive for the ordinary household to buy those cooking oils.”

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Russia-Ukraine: What do young Russians think about the war?

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aljazeera.com

Young Russians tell us about a war few wanted and how the sanctions are affecting their lives.

People walk past a currency exchange office screen displaying the exchange rates of U.S. Dollar and Euro to Russian Rubles in Moscow's downtown
Sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine have targeted banks, oil refineries and key members of the Russian regime and oligarchs close to the Kremlin, but have also led caused the value of the rouble to plummet and inflation to soar, impacting the daily lives of Russian citizens [Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo]

By Delaney Nolan

Published On 18 Mar 202218 Mar 2022

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, an outcry has arisen around the world. On March 2, the UN voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution demanding the end of the invasion, with only five countries opposing – Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, and Syria. As the war rages on, thousands have been killed according to Ukrainian authorities and many more injured.

In response, the US, EU, UK and other countries have levelled sanctions, both general and targeted, and doors have closed to Russians around the world, from research institutions to sporting events, in protest at Russia’s invasion.

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Collective action to release oil stocks in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: IEA confirms member country contributions

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IEA.org

7 April 2022

Following an agreement on 1 April by IEA member countries for a new emergency release of oil stocks, the IEA Governing Board confirmed today that the total amount committed to date stands at 120 million barrels, making it the largest stock release in IEA history.

The unanimous agreement among IEA member countries on 1 April for a second collective action this year came in response to the significant strains in oil markets resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the days since the decision, each IEA member country has been considering how much it could contribute to the announced response plan, given its domestic circumstances.

The commitments submitted by members reached 120 million barrels to be released over a six month period, demonstrating strong unity. The United States will contribute about 60 million barrels, which are part of the larger drawdown from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that was announced on 31 March.

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War gives Poland, Ukraine chance to bury troubled past

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By Alexandra Brzozowski | EURACTIV.com

 15 Apr 2022

Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Culture Piotr Glinski, 13 October 2021. [EPA-EFE/Jonas Ekströmer]

Poland has shown immense support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion started. What is less known is that the two countries share a history of oppression and bloodshed, but according to Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Gliński, the war has given them a chance to achieve full reconciliation.

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Russia’s Brutality in Ukraine Has Roots in Earlier Conflicts

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Its experience in a string of wars led to the conclusion that attacking civilian populations was not only acceptable but militarily sound.

nytimes.com

Ukrainian emergency workers at a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol last week.
Ukrainian emergency workers at a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol last week.Credit…Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
Max Fisher

By Max Fisher

Published March 18, 2022Updated March 22, 2022

As Russian artillery and rockets land on Ukrainian hospitals and apartment blocks, devastating residential districts with no military value, the world is watching with horror what is, for Russia, an increasingly standard practice.

Its forces conducted similar attacks in Syria, bombing hospitals and other civilian structures as part of Russia’s intervention to prop up that country’s government.

Moscow went even further in Chechnya, a border region that had sought independence in the Soviet Union’s 1991 breakup. During two formative wars there, Russia’s artillery and air forces turned city blocks to rubble and its ground troops massacred civilians in what was widely seen as a deliberate campaign to terrorize the population into submission.

Now, Vladimir V. Putin, whose rise to Russia’s presidency paralleled and was in some ways cemented by the Chechen wars, appears to be deploying a similar playbook in Ukraine, albeit so far only by increments.

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