Almost 100,000 people are trapped by Russian bombardment and facing starvation in the ruins of Mariupol, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, as Moscow accused Washington of undermining peace talks.
Tens of thousands of residents have already fled the besieged southern port city, bringing harrowing testimony of a “freezing hellscape riddled with dead bodies and destroyed buildings,” Human Rights Watch said.
As the UN demanded Russia end its “absurd” and “unwinnable” war, Zelenskiy yesterday delivered a message of defiance to the Japanese and French parliaments.
Photo: AFP
Nearly a month since Russia invaded Ukraine, stop-start peace talks have agreed on daily humanitarian corridors for refugees, and Ukraine says it is willing to countenance some Russian demands subject to a national referendum.
However, it has refused to bow to Russian pressure to disarm and renounce all Western alliances, and Zelenskiy is today due to address a NATO summit in Brussels, joined by US President Joe Biden.
“The talks are tough, the Ukrainian side constantly changes its position,” Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov said yesterday.
“It’s hard to avoid the impression that our American colleagues are holding their hand,” he said, adding that Washington “apparently wants to keep us in a state of military action as long as possible.”
Russia refuses to rule out using nuclear weapons if it were facing an “existential threat,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN.
For Ukrainians besieged in Mariupol and other cities, Russian talk of peace rings hollow as they come under indiscriminate shelling that Western countries say amounts to a war crime.
“Failing in their war against the Ukrainian people, the enemy is executing the total destruction of critical infrastructure,” Ukraine’s armed forces command said on Facebook.
In his latest video address, Zelenskiy said more than 7,000 people had escaped Mariupol in the past 24 hours, but one group traveling along an agreed humanitarian route west of the city were “simply captured by the occupiers.”
“Today, the city still has nearly 100,000 people in inhumane conditions. In a total siege. Without food, water, medication, under constant shelling and under constant bombing,” he said.
Satellite images of Mariupol released by private company Maxar showed a charred landscape, with several buildings ablaze and smoke billowing from the city.
Ukrainian forces also reported “heavy” ground fighting, with Russian “infantry storming the city” after they rejected a Monday ultimatum to surrender.
UN relief agencies estimate there have been about 20,000 civilian casualties in Mariupol, and perhaps 3,000 killed, but the actual figure remains unknown.
“Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
“This war is unwinnable. Sooner or later, it will have to move from the battlefield to the peace table. That is inevitable,” he said.
The International Industrial Talents Education Special (INTENSE) Program to attract foreigners to study and work in Taiwan will provide scholarships and a living allowance of up to NT$440,000 per person for two years beginning in August, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) told a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee yesterday. Pan was giving an update on the program’s implementation, a review of universities’ efforts to recruit international students and promotion of the Taiwan Huayu Bilingual Exchanges of Selected Talent (BEST) program. Each INTENSE Program student would be awarded a scholarship of up to NT$100,000 per year for up to
Singapore yesterday swore in Lawrence Wong (黃循財) as the city-state’s new prime minister in a ceremony broadcast live on television after Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) stepped down following two decades in office. Wong, formerly deputy prime minister, was inaugurated at the Istana government office shortly after 8pm to become the second person outside the Lee family to lead the nation. “I ... do solemnly swear that I will at all times faithfully discharge my duties as prime minister according to law, and to the best of my knowledge and ability, without fear or favor, affection or ill-will. So help me God,” the
BASIC OPERATIONS: About half a dozen navy ships from both countries took part in the days-long exercise based on the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea An unpublicized joint military exercise between Taiwan and the US in the Pacific Ocean last month was carried out in accordance with an international code, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday. According to a Reuters report citing four unnamed sources, the two nations’ navies last month conducted joint drills in the Western Pacific. The drills were not made public at the time, but “about half-a-dozen navy ships from both sides, including frigates and supply and support vessels, participated in the days-long exercises,” Reuters reported, citing the sources. The drills were designed to practice “basic” operations such as communications, refueling and resupplies,
‘MONEY PIT’: The KMT’s more than NT$2 trillion infrastructure project proposals for eastern Taiwan lack professional input and financial transparency, the DPP said The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday said it would ask the Executive Yuan to raise a motion to oppose the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ infrastructure proposals and prepare to file for a constitutional interpretation if the KMT-dominated legislature forces their passage. The DPP caucus described the three infrastructure plans for transportation links to eastern Taiwan proposed by the KMT as “three money pit projects” that would cost more than NT$2 trillion (US$61.72 billion). It would ask the Executive Yuan to oppose public projects that would drain state financial resources, DPP caucus secretary-general Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said. It would also file for