Leading democracies yesterday pledged unwavering support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and the EU promised to hike military support for Kyiv by more than US$500 million, while Moscow faces mounting accusations of war crimes.
At a meeting of the world’s most powerful democracies, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell promised Ukraine an extra 500 million euros (US$519.28 million), bringing the bloc’s total military aid to 2 billion euros.
“The recipe is clear — more of the same,” Borrell said. “More pressure on Russia, with economic sanctions.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
On day two of a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Germany, French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves le Drian said the nations were “very strongly united” in their will to “continue in the long term to support Ukraine’s fight for its sovereignty until Ukraine’s victory.”
They were joined yesterday by Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba, who praised their resolve to help Kyiv, but urged them to go further.
“Today I asked G7 countries to adopt legislation and put in place all necessary procedures needed to seize Russian sovereign assets and give them to Ukraine to use this money to rebuild our country,” he said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
He also urged the EU to ensure that an embargo is placed on Russian oil, warning that an omission of the ban on the bloc’s next package would mean its unity was “broken.”
More than 6 million people have fled Ukraine, more than half of them going to neighboring Poland, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Thursday, adding that women and children make up 90 percent of the refugees.
CNN and the BBC on Thursday released what they said was security camera footage showing Russian soldiers with rifles shooting two Ukrainian civilians in the back.
The men appeared unarmed — the footage showed the soldiers frisking them before allowing them to walk away at a business premises on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv.
One man died on the spot, the other shortly after, the outlets said.
The killings took place on March 16 and are being investigated as a war crime, CNN said.
Separately, investigators and witnesses on Thursday said that Russian forces on March 27 shelled a residential home in the village of Stepanki outside Kharkiv, killing three civilians.
Local resident Denys, 40, said he saw the barrel of a tank turn toward him.
“Someone said: ‘Let’s go hide inside the house,’” Denys said. “I entered last and as soon as I entered, the tank fired. Everything collapsed, I couldn’t see anything”
The UN Human Rights Council voted 33-2 on Thursday to investigate alleged atrocities by Russian troops in Ukraine.
Ukrainian prosecutors say they have received reports of more than 10,000 alleged crimes.
The US on Thursday said that Russia was forcibly taking tens of thousands of Ukrainians to “filtration camps” in Russia or Russian-controlled territory where they are subjected to “brutal interrogations.”
“These actions amount to war crimes,” US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Michael Carpenter said.
“We must not allow this evil to stand,” he added.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
RSS