Russo-Ukraine War - 03 March 2022
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The US and NATO are supporting the Ukrainian Air Force with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets as Ukraine fends off the Russian invasion. Washington provides Kiev with intelligence information about the combat situation in real time. As White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a regular briefing, the United States believes that the Ukrainian military uses this data in planning. The United States is not going to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine, it threatens a war with the Russian Federation, Washington wants to avoid exactly this, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) — chair of the House Armed Services Committee — said “we are providing some intelligence” to Ukraine, but we’re “not providing the kind of real-time targeting” the U.S. military has used in past conflicts. But Psaki said : “We’ve continued and consistently shared a significant amount of detailed, timely intelligence on Russia’s plans and activities with the Ukrainian government to help Ukrainians defend themselves. This includes information that should help them inform and develop their military response to Russia’s invasion. That’s what’s happening, or has been happening”.
The United States subjugated Europe, as Napoleon and Hitler once tried to do, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Russian and foreign media on the current international agenda. “You know, the following comparisons simply beg for me: at one time both Napoleon and Hitler set the task of subjugating Europe. Now the Americans have subdued it,” the Foreign Minister said. The EU has been put in its place."
The Russian Embassy in Tokyo stated that "in one incomplete century, Japan managed to support the Nazi regime twice." "Then it was Hitler's, and today it is Ukrainian," the diplomatic mission said in a publication.
Two former Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova, formally applied for European Union membership, after their ambitions were accelerated in the shadow of Russia's full-scale invasion of nearby Ukraine. The newfound initiative in the two countries -- where Russian troops are positioned in defiance of local and international opposition -- follows Ukraine's decision to press its demands for EU membership since tens of thousands of Russian troops crossed its borders from the east, south, and via Belarus from the north. The EU accession process usually takes years and requires meeting strict criteria that takes into account such factors as economic stability, the level of corruption, and respect for human rights. Unanimity among the 27-nation bloc is required to allow new members in.
Russian space agency Roscosmos said it would prioritize making satellites for military purposes. "Our space program, of course, will be adjusted. Firstly, priorities will be set," Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with Russian state TV. "The priority here is the creation of spacecraft in the interests of both Roscosmos and Russia's Defense Ministry," Rogozin said, adding that all future spacecraft will be of "dual-purpose." Roscosmos will also stop supplying the US with rocket engines, especially the RD-180 engines used on US Atlas launch vehicles and RD-181 used in the first stage of the Antares launch system, Rogozin said. "Let them fly to space on their broomsticks," he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Vladimir Putin that the Russian leader was "lying" to himself and making a "major mistake" in Ukraine that will cost Russia dearly in the long term, while Putin vowed that Russia will keep up its fight, according to separate accounts from Paris and Moscow of the leaders' long-distance conversation on March 3.
Putin suggested he could add to his demands if talks with Ukrainian officials don't go Moscow's way, according to the Kremlin account of the conversation. Putin suggested there were "attempts to buy time by dragging out the negotiations" and said such efforts "would only lead to additional demands on Kyiv in our negotiating position."
Zelensky said that he was counting on a solution to the issue of the supply of military aircraft from Poland, but this also depends on the United States. Zelensky appealed to the US and the EU with a call to set the deadline for closing the sky over Ukraine, or at least provide military aircraft. "If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes!" Zelensky said. "If we are no more then, God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next. Believe me." He said "If you can't close the sky now, then give a deadline when it will happen. If you can't do it now, tell me how many people have to explode,how many arms, legs, heads have to fly to reach you? Tell me how many. I'll go to count and wait for this moment."
Ukraine needs supplies of weapons from allies, including air defense systems that could provide defense without the participation of NATO aircraft. This opinion was expressed by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba. "We need more weapons to fight, especially when it comes to airspace," he said. According to him, if Ukraine "were equipped with surface-to-air air defense systems, it could protect its skies from its territory without the involvement of NATO planes and pilots."
Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada supported an appeal to international organizations, in which it demanded the immediate introduction of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. At the same time, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, said that the creation of a no-fly zone over Ukraine would threaten the United States with a war with Russia. According to him, maintaining such a zone would require "contact with Russian aircraft."
Sabotage and raids by mercenaries in Ukraine are carried out with the help of weapons supplied by the West, said the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov. According to the official representative of the military department, foreign mercenaries commit sabotage and raids on Russian convoys of equipment and material supplies, as well as aircraft covering them.
The German authorities intend to provide Ukraine with 2,700 Strela anti-aircraft missiles of Soviet manufacture, the DPA agency reported, citing sources in the Ministry of Economy. The weapons would come out of the depots once overseen by Soviet-controlled East Germany, which reunited with West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Spanish authorities will supply Ukraine with a batch of offensive weapons, including more than a thousand grenade launchers, machine guns and hundreds of thousands of rounds for small arms. Ukraine this week received several hundred Stinger man-portable air defense systems from the United States.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said on March 3 that an advance team had left The Hague for Ukraine to begin gathering evidence of possible war crimes. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said a day earlier that he had "a reasonable basis to believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Ukraine" and that 39 countries appealed for an investigation of events there.
According to OVD-Info, a nongovernmental organization that monitors political repression, more than 7,600 people have been detained for anti-war protests since the February 24 invasion. More than 800 people were detained for anti-war activities in 36 cities on March 3.
On March 3, a key Russian parliamentary committee approved a draft law that would impose prison terms of up to 15 years for disseminating "fake" information about Russian military operations. The same day, the board of directors of the legendary Ekho Moskvy radio station voted to liquidate the channel and its website under intense pressure from the Russian government over its coverage of the invasion of Ukraine. The station was taken off the air and its site blocked on March 1, as was the liberal television station Dozhd.
The special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine is proceeding strictly according to the schedule, according to the plan, all the assigned tasks are being solved, Putin said. The course of hostilities in Ukraine shows that the Russian Federation is fighting precisely with neo-Nazis, Putin said. He said he still considers Russians and Ukrainians to be one people.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops were in the center of the city of Kherson after conflicting claims over whether Russian soldiers had captured a major urban center for the first time in its eight-day invasion. Kherson Mayor Igor Kolykhayev said that Russian troops were in the streets and had entered the council building.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he believes the war in Ukraine could last an extended amount of time. Steinmeier said that he sees "no signs that the war will be over soon," as Russia's assault on Ukraine has lasted eight days so far. "It will probably be long and we will be patient," the German president told reporters. He described the war as a "violation of international law" and said, "No one in the course of history will be able to justify what is happening in Ukraine now." French officials said the phone call between President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, left the French leader believing that "the worst is yet to come."
A UK intelligence update on Ukraine said that while some Russian forces had entered Kherson, the military situation was unclear. The UK intelligence report echoed other sources in saying a huge military column extending tens of kilometers north of the capital had made little apparent progress over the past three days. British intelligence concluded that Kharkiv and the cities of Chernihiv and Mariupol remained in Ukrainian hands. But it said Mariupol, a large port city on the Azov Sea, appeared to be encircled by Russian forces, echoing a Russian Defense Ministry claim.
The head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov said that the Chechen security forces captured the largest military base in Ukraine and defeated the battalion. "Chechen special forces under the leadership of commander Hussein Mezhidov continue to develop successes in offensive operations against Bandera. Hussein says that a whole battalion of nationalists was defeated, over 2,500 Bandera escaped without resistance. Our fighters captured the largest military base in Ukraine".
The US has evidence of Russian use of cluster bombs in Ukraine. This statement was made by US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland in an interview with Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy radio station. "We have evidence that cluster bombs were used [in Ukraine]," Nuland said.
Zelenskyy called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to participate in face-to-face talks. "Sit down with me to negotiate, just not at 30 meters," Zelenskyy said during a press conference, a reference to a long table Putin used for recent meetings with foreign leaders. Zelenskyy said in a message to Putin: "I don't bite. What are you afraid of?" “I ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to urgently launch active, purposeful work on all international platforms to organize effective influence on the Kyiv regime <...> To ensure the creation of humanitarian corridors for the withdrawal through them to safe areas of all citizens who have expressed <...> a desire," Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Center for Defense Control of the Russian Federation, said during a meeting of the interdepartmental coordination headquarters for humanitarian response.
The second round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine began in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The Ukrainian delegation arrived at the place of negotiations with Russia by helicopter. A member of the Ukrainian delegation called the "minimum program" at the talks the issue of humanitarian corridors. A Ukrainian negotiator said there was no breakthrough in a second round of talks with Russia on a cease-fire but the sides agreed on joint efforts to establish humanitarian corridors. Ukraine and Russia have agreed to create humanitarian corridors in areas of Ukraine where fighting is worst, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said after negotiations between the two sides on March 3.
Since February 24, 249 civilians have died in Ukraine, 553 have been injured, the UN reports.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have lost more than 500 people killed and wounded in the areas where the People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic is conducting an operation to liberate its territory, said Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the People's Militia Department of the DPR. The posting by the Ukrainian authorities on social networks of photos and videos of allegedly killed and captured Russian servicemen can be considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Trains traveling from east to west of Ukraine have been declared evacuation trains, the sale of tickets for them is closed, the railway operator Ukrzheldoroga said. The press service has published a list of more than 30 trains that passengers can use for free.
The number of residents of Ukraine who left for neighboring countries over the past seven days amounted to 1 million, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi announced. More than 600,000 refugees have arrived in Poland from Ukraine since February 24. Over 132,000 Ukrainian citizens have crossed the border with Moldova since the beginning of Russia's special military operation. Of these, 74,000 then left the republic for Romania,
More than 2 million people have been forced to leave their homes due to the conflict in Ukraine over the past seven days, including 1 million 40 thousand seeking asylum in neighboring countries. This was stated by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, speaking in Geneva at a special meeting on the situation in Ukraine at the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
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