Russia Ukraine Conflict Highlights: As India continues Operation Ganga with several hundred flights scheduled for the neighboring nations of Ukraine, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia tweeted on Sunday that India has successfully evacuated over 15,920 students via 76 flights through Ukraine’s neighbouring countries.
Also, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine has issued a latest note for the stranded citizens in the war zone. A Google sheet has been tweeted by the official account of the Indian Embassy and the students have been instructed to submit the details on ‘urgent basis’. The form has basic details such as name, age, phone number, current address etc. India has been trying to evacuate its citizens since the full-scale invasion began on February 24. Till March 10, several hundred flights of six private airlines will fly as part of Operation Ganga. The Indian Air Force has also been part of the mission.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not softening his stance, not anytime soon. As the Russia-Ukraine conflict enters day 11, Putin has blamed the leadership in Kyiv for pushing Ukraine into this terrible chaos. He has said that if this continues, it will put the very statehood of Ukraine in ‘jeopardy’. Analysts are reading this as a most stringent warning that Putin has issued so far since the so-called ‘special military operations’ began on February 24. The statement came amid reports of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met US Senators and Congress leaders virtually to urge for more definite support. While the NATO has still not said anything about the ‘no-fly zone’, Moscow has made it clear that it will consider such a move as an ‘act of war.’ Meanwhile, the fragile ceasefire ended before it even began. Fresh bombardments have been reported from major Ukrainian cities with Irpin under fresh attacks.
Meanwhile, the UK defence ministry’s Sunday briefing says that Russia’s consistent bombing of major metros is part of the plan that the world has seen both in Syria and Chechnya. London officials say that the Moscow strategy is to break the confidence of the resistance. Similar scenes had played out in Syria in 2016 and before that in Chechnya in 1999. At both these instance, Russia resorted to intense shelling that included both military and civilian targets.
Here are the latest updates from Russia-Ukraine War:
A team from the Embassy of India is stationed in Poltava City to coordinate the safe passage of Indian students stranded in Sumy to Western borders via Poltava: Indian Embassy in Ukraine (ANI)
Russian President Vladimir Putin tells French President Emmanuel Macron that Russia is not seeking to attack Ukraine nuclear plants, reports AFP news agency quoting Elysee Palace
In the telephonic conversation, Vladimir Putin informed on the progress of the special military operation to defend Donbas and outlined the main goals and objectives of the operation: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia (Russian News Agency TASS)
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia’s military operation in Ukraine can be suspended only if Kiev ceases military actions and fulfills Moscow’s demands in a phone conversation with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Russian News Agency TASS
In a telephone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Putin blamed Kyiv for failed civilian evacuations from the key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol which is surrounded by Russian troops: AFP reports quoting Kremlin
French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold new telephone talks lasting 1 hour 45 minutes, reports AFP news agency quoting Elysee Palace
Harjot Singh, who was shot during the war in Kyiv and lost his passport in the chaos, will return to India on Monday, tweets Minister of State General (retd.) VK Singh.
“Successfully evacuated over 15,920 students via 76 flights,” tweets Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya M Scindia.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian rockets had completely destroyed the civilian airport of the central-western region capital of Vinnytsia: Reuters
Efforts are underway to evacuate Indian students from Sumy, Ukraine, arrangements are being done: Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri (ANI)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office says he has called for urgent ceasefire in Ukraine in telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (AP)
Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy pushes call for foreign countries to impose no-fly zone over Ukraine. (AP)
Israeli PM Naftali Bennett vows to continue efforts to find diplomatic solution to Ukraine crisis. (AP)
India has excellent diplomatic service, they know what to do, says German envoy Lindner on Russia-Ukraine crisis (ANI)
Pope Francis on Sunday rejected Russia's assertion that it is carrying out a “a special military operation” in Ukraine, saying the country was being battered by a war. Reuters
The current Ukraine crisis triggered after the Russian military operation has given rise to “disturbing” reports of racism against students of several nations, including India, who have been attempting to flee the war-torn country, the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) here said on Saturday.
Braithwaite & Co Ltd is betting big on domestic demand for wagons after the Russia-Ukraine crisis has derailed its export negotiations for shipping out over 5,000 railway freight vehicles worth more than Rs 1,000 crore to war-torn Ukraine, an official said on Sunday. – PTI
The Madhya Pradesh government on Sunday said that 421 of the total 454 people hailing from the state stranded in war-hit Ukraine have safely returned so far. The Madhya Pradesh government on Sunday said that 421 of the total 454 people hailing from the state stranded in war-hit Ukraine have safely returned so far. – PTI
Mastercard and Visa are suspending their operations in Russia, the companies said Saturday, in the latest blow to the country's financial system after its invasion of Ukraine. Mastercard said cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by its network and any Mastercard issued outside the country will not work at Russian stores or ATMs. – AP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk for giving Ukraine access to his company's satellite-internet system, called Starlink. Several large Ukrainian cities remained without internet or phone connection after being shelled by Russian troops. AP
Congress MP Digvijaya Singh has demanded that the Centre admit students who returned from war-hit Ukraine to various government and private medical colleges in India. The families of these students have already spent a lot of money on their admission in Ukraine-based medical colleges, Singh said in a letter written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, and also demanded that the government pay the fees of such students. – PTI
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday attributed the success of Operation Ganga to evacuate citizens stranded in war-torn Ukraine to India's growing influence in the global arena. 'We are evacuating thousands of Indians safely from war zone through Operation Ganga,' Modi said after inaugurating the golden jubilee celebration of Symbiosis University in Pune. – PTI
Russia struck and disabled Ukraine's Starokostiantyniv military air base with long-range high-precision weapons, Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday. Reuters
The city council of Ukraine's Mariupol said an evacuation of some of 400,000
residents trapped by encircling Russian forces would start at 12:00 p.m. local time (1000 GMT) on Sunday under a temporary ceasefire that will last till 9:00 p.m..A similar plan had to be abandoned on Saturday after the ceasefire was not fully observed, with both sides trading blame. – Reuters
The big hike in oil prices is negatively affecting Egypt, its petroleum minister Tarek El Molla was reported as saying by Sky News Arabia on Sunday.”The whole world is harmed by the current oil prices, we hope these prices will not last for a long period … We hope gas exports compensate for part of the cost of importing oil and petroleum products,” he was quoted as saying by the TV channel. – Reuters
More than 11,000 Russian troops have been killed since Moscow launched an invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the Ukrainian armed forces' general staff said on
Sunday. A day earlier, it put Russian casualties at over 10,000. It did not report Ukrainian casualties. – Reuters
The World Health Organization has confirmed “several” attacks on health care centres in Ukraine and is investigating others, the agency's chief said on Sunday.The attacks caused multiple deaths and injuries, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus added in a Twitter message.”Attacks on healthcare facilities or workers breach medical neutrality and are violations of international humanitarian law,” he said.In his brief post, Tedros did not mention Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. – Reuters
News reports from Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities under unrelenting bombardment by the Russian Army have been triggering painful memories among the survivors of the 1990s siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. And yet, many have been spending hours on end glued to their TV screens since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine late last month. 'Not so long ago, we were them,' said Amra Muftic who survived the 1992-95 siege, watching news reports showing civilians taking refuge from Russian rocket attacks, shelling and gunfire in basements and metro stations. – AP
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday visited a welcome center set up by Polish authorities in what once was a shopping mall in Korczowa, close to the border with Ukraine, where roughly 3,000 refugees are taking shelter after the Russian invasion of their homeland. While at the border later, Blinken stepped briefly onto Ukrainian soil to meet Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba, who predicted Russia would be defeated but appealed for more military assistance to lower the cost in lives that he said victory will require. – AP
In a private call with U.S. lawmakers, Zelenskyy asked the United States to help get more warplanes to his military. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement that Zelenskyy made a 'desperate plea' and wants the US to facilitate the transfer of planes from Eastern European allies. Schumer said he will do all he can.
BJP MP Varun Gandhi on Sunday said that medical students returning from Ukraine should be structurally integrated into Indian institutions by relaxing rules, while suggesting that the NRI quota of medical colleges be utilised for them. Underlining that the war in Ukraine has mentally broken the students, Gandhi said, “We have to accommodate these students in Indian institutions by relaxing rules.” – PTI
With ports blocked and roads made treacherous by bombings, charities currently can't send humanitarian aid into Ukraine through normal channels, though both countries agreed Thursday to create corridors to allow those donations to be delivered. The International Committee of the Red Cross has expressed worry that Russian attacks being carried out in densely populated areas are imperiling children, the sick and the elderly. Yet the complexities of the conflict haven't stopped aid from reaching Ukrainians. The United Nations says much of the humanitarian effort are now based in neighboring countries to support roughly 1.2 million Ukrainians who have fled the country, mostly to Poland, Hungary and Romania. But charities are also working to send aid to Ukraine itself. The scale of need is enormous. On Tuesday, the United Nations issued an appeal for USD 1.7 billion to help with aid efforts, estimating that 12 million people in Ukraine and 4 million refugees could be in need of relief and protection in the coming months. Filippo Grandi, chief of the U.N. refugee agency, said his agency had already received more than USD 40 million in private donations from individuals and companies. (AP)
Russian forces have taken control of a psychiatric hospital in the town of Borodyanka in Ukraine's Kyiv region, with 670 people inside, the regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba told local media on Saturday. “Today we do not understand how to evacuate these people, how to help them,” Kuleba said. “They are running out of water and medicines,” he said. “These are people with certain special needs, they need constant help … many of them have been bedridden for years.” (Reuters)
Ukrainian websites have been under nonstop attack from Russian hackers since the Kremlin launched an invasion of the country last month, Kyiv's cyber watchdog agency said on Saturday. In a post to Twitter, Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection said that “Russian hackers keep on attacking Ukrainian information resources nonstop”. The agency said that sites belonging to the presidency, parliament, the cabinet, the ministry of defense and the ministry of internal affairs were among those hit by distributed denials of service (DDoS) which work by directing a firehose of traffic towards targeted servers in a bid to knock them offline. The agency said the sites were so far weathering the storm. “We will endure! On the battlefields and in the cyberspace!” it said. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday visited a welcome center set up by Polish authorities in what once was a shopping mall in Korczowa, close to the border with Ukraine, where roughly 3,000 refugees are taking shelter after the Russian invasion of their homeland. America's top diplomat heard harrowing tales from mothers and their children who described long and perilous journeys — and the shock of the sudden disruption and the fear for their lives — after fleeing the devastation of the war. “Near our home we heard bombs,” said Venera Ahmadi, 12, who said she came with her brother and sister, six dogs and seven cats from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, more than 600 kilometers (372 miles) away. “We walked to the border, I don't know how many hours. We crossed the border on foot.” Her 16-year-old sister, Jasmine, said: “I was scared I would die.” Natalia Kadygrob, 48, reached the center with her four adopted children from Kropyvnytskyi, almost 800 kilometers (about 500 miles) by bus on their way to her brother's home in Germany. Her husband stayed behind. (AP)
Russia's foreign ministry vowed on Thursday to impose tough, but proportionate measures against British interests in Russia over what it called “sanctions hysteria” in London during the conflict in Ukraine. It said that Britain had clearly chosen to move towards an open confrontation with Russia, leaving Moscow with no choice but to take as-yet-unspecified measures in response, which “will undoubtedly undermine British interests in Russia”. (Reuters)
The United States has approved a flight chartered by the Russian government to fly out Russian diplomats at the United Nations who were expelled for abuse of their privileges of residence, a State Department spokesperson said on Saturday. “This special exception was done in accordance with federal regulations to ensure Russian mission personnel and their families departed by the date we had instructed,” the spokesperson said. (Reuters)
At least 351 civilians are confirmed to have been killed in Ukraine since Russian troops invaded on Feb. 24, and another 707 wounded, although the true numbers are probably “considerably higher”, a U.N. monitoring mission said on Saturday. Most of the civilian casualties were caused by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and from missile and air strikes, monitors from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said. “OHCHR believes that the real figures are considerably higher, especially in Government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, as the receipt of information from some locations where intensive hostilities have been going on was delayed and many reports were still pending corroboration,” it said. (Reuters)
The special task force of Andhra Pradesh said here on Saturday that 429 out of 770 students from the State have returned from war-hit Ukraine. Chairman of the task force M T Krishna Babu told reporters that effort was being made to repatriate the students. “We are continuously sharing the master data of all students and other residents hailing from AP with the Ministry of External Affairs to ensure necessary and timely help is extended. Within the state, our officials have visited the houses of 586 students to assure them of the government's efforts,” Krishna Babu said. (PTI)
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Moscow would consider any third-party declaration of a no-fly zone over Ukraine as “participation in the armed conflict.” Speaking at a meeting with female pilots on Saturday, Putin said Russia would view “any move in this direction” as an intervention that “will pose a threat to our service members.” “That very second, we will view them as participants of the military conflict, and it would not matter what members they are,” the Russian president said. (AP)
Russia has provided 100s of buses and is waiting to take Indians out. A group of diplomats has been sent to Belgorod* from the Indian embassy to deal with this issue on the spot and coordinate actions with the Russian side: Russian envoy to media (ANI)
Ukraine-Russia Crisis will have consequences for whole world including Russia-India ties, to what extent, it'll be reflected, can't say now. There may be an impact in terms of transactions, possibility of financial cooperation in connection with sanctions: Russian envoy to media (ANI)
PM Modi to chair a high-level meeting on the Ukraine issue shortly. (ANI)
The Russian government is in talks with aircraft leasing companies to resolve potential issues linked to Western sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday. Earlier, Russia's state aviation authority recommended Russian airlines with foreign-leased aircraft to suspend flights of passengers and cargo abroad from Russia from March 6 and from foreign countries to Russia starting on March 8 to prevent their possible seizure. (Reuters)
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it understood that evacuations of civilians from Mariupol and Volnovakha in Ukraine would not start on Saturday because of the conflict following Russia's invasion. “We remain in dialogue with the parties about the safe passage of civilians from different cities affected by the conflict,” the ICRC said in a statement. “The scenes in Mariupol and in other cities today are heart-breaking. Any initiative from the parties that gives civilians a respite from the violence and allows them to voluntarily leave for safer areas is welcome.” (Reuters)
