KYIV, Ukraine –– A civilian boat sinks in the port of the besieged city of Mariupol after Russian forces fired on it, Ukraine says.
The ship was hit during a “(Russian) attack from the sea” that caused a fire in the engine room, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said in a statement. The crew was rescued, including a sailor who was injured, he added.
According to the authorities, who published a photograph of the merchant ship, the ship had a Dominican Republic flag. They did not specify how many people were on board or their nationalities.
Russian forces have been shelling Mariupol for weeks in an attempt to tighten control of the country’s southeastern coast.
Here’s the latest on the war
BERLIN — Moldova, a poor eastern European nation, needs a lot of international help to cope with the influx of refugees fleeing neighboring Ukraine, its prime minister says.
Speaking at a donor conference in Berlin on Tuesday, Natalia Gavrilita said her country hosts some 100,000 refugees, about a quarter of those who have entered the country since the end of February.
Moldova, with a population of 2.5 million inhabitants, has tried to offer them decent conditions thanks to an “unprecedented mobilization” of the public and private sectors, Gavrilita pointed out.
But “dealing with this flow is one of the biggest challenges that any Moldovan government has faced in the last three decades,” he added.
In addition to financial support, Moldova needs help to build electrical interconnectors with Romania. Gavrilita asked the European Union to open its market to agricultural imports from his country while moving away from the Russian orbit.
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BRUSSELS — The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will travel to kyiv this week to meet with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Her spokesman, Eric Mamer, said Tuesday that the president will travel to the Ukrainian capital ahead of a special donor meeting in Warsaw this weekend. It is the second visit of a senior EU official to the country after that of the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, last week.
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GENEVA — A team from the International Red Cross puts aside his hopes of entering the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol after being held by police overnight in a town about 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the east.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been trying to enter the city with a small team since Friday as part of efforts to evacuate civilians and bring in aid, said people held by police in Manhush were freed for the night. He did not identify the nationality of the agents involved.
The organization explained in a statement that its focus is now on the evacuation operation and that “yesterday’s incident shows how volatile and complex the operation has been to facilitate safe passage around Mariupol for our team.”
ICRC spokesman Jason Straziuso said the team “does not plan to try to enter Mariupol today. The humanitarian efforts of our team today are focused on helping evacuation efforts in nearby areas.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Danish Foreign Ministry says the country will expel 15 Russian intelligence agents who worked at the country’s embassy in Copenhagen.
The Russian ambassador was informed of the decision on Tuesday, the ministry explained, adding that Denmark strongly condemns “Russia’s brutality against Ukrainian civilians in Bucha” and that “deliberate attacks on civilians are war crimes.”
Agents have two weeks to leave the country. According to Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod, “they pose a danger to our national security that we cannot ignore.”
France and Germany announced the day before the expulsion of dozens of Russians with diplomatic status.
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MADRID – For the European Union it is “very complicated” to take measures against Russia’s natural gas sector because some of the bloc’s countries depend on it for their energy supply and the strength of the EU depends on its unity, said the Spanish minister of Ecological Transition.
Teresa Ribera pointed out that “it is very difficult to explain to European public opinion and to Ukrainian society that we continue to import fuels from Russia that continue to finance that war”, and pointed out that these operations create “obvious moral tension”.
The EU receives around 40% of its natural gas from Russia.
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BRUSSELS — France’s finance minister says there is “total determination” among the 27 European Union partners to tighten sanctions against Russia after evidence emerged of the deliberate killing of Ukrainian civilians.
Bruno Le Maire, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, spoke ahead of a meeting with his EU counterparts where new measures could be discussed.
Le Maire emphasized that the French President Emmanuel Macron has made it clear that it is open to expanding sanctions on coal and oil. “We will see what the position of the other member states will be, but I think there is a possibility of union of the 27 member states in these new sanctions.”
The sanctions imposed by Brussels on Moscow after the start of the invasion on February 24 have affected many sectors of the country’s economy, but for the moment they do not threaten to affect its Russian energy supply.
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LEOPOLIS, Ukraine — Seven humanitarian corridors will open on Tuesday, including one from the besieged port city of Mariupol and another from Russian-controlled Berdyansk, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on the Telegram messaging app.
According to Vereshchuk’s message, residents of Mariupol and Berdyansk will be able to leave for Zaporizhia in their own vehicles. Corridors will also be opened from Tokmak, in the Zaporizhia region, and from the cities of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna and Hirske, in Luhansk.
In the same post, Vereshchuk explained that Russian troops “will not allow anyone to enter Mariupol” and that Moscow “blocked representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross” in the Manhush settlement, just west of Mariupol.
Following negotiations, the Red Cross members “were released in the evening and sent to Zaporizhia,” Vereshchuk added.
It was not immediately clear from the leader’s message whether Russia agreed to suspend the fighting in the designated corridors. Some Ukrainian efforts to evacuate the civilian population through these routes failed as the attacks continued despite agreements with Moscow.
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LONDON — Ukrainian forces are retaking more territory as Russian troops continue their retreat into northern Ukraine, British defense officials say.
According to the British Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian forces “have retaken key territories” after forcing Russian units to withdraw north of kyiv and around the northern city of Chernihiv. “Low-key fighting is likely to continue in some parts of the newly conquered regions, but will slow down significantly this week as the rest of the Russian forces withdraw,” he added.
In an intelligence update posted online, Britain said many of the Russian units “are likely to require considerable re-equipment and refitting before they are available to redeploy to operations in eastern Ukraine.”
Ukrainian and Western officials say Moscow is refocusing its offensive on the Donbas region in the east of the country.
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BERLIN — Germany’s president admits mistakes in Russia policy in his previous role as foreign minister.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier served twice as foreign affairs officer with former Chancellor Angela Merkel — most recently between 2013 and 2017 — and chief of staff to former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. At that time, Germany sought dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin and cultivated close energy ties.
Speaking to ZDF television on Tuesday, Steinmeier said “we have failed on many points,” including efforts to steer Russia toward democracy and respect for human rights.
The president acknowledged that “there were different assessments” of Russia among European nations. “It is true that we should have taken the warnings of our Eastern European partners more seriously, especially regarding the time after 2014” and the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, he added.
Holding on to that project was a mistake that cost Germany “a lot of credit and credibility” in Eastern Europe, he said. Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz suspended the pipeline the week Russia invaded Ukraine.
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LEOPOLIS, Ukraine — Ukraine’s General Staff says Russia is regrouping its troops and preparing an offensive in Donbas.
“The goal is to establish full control over the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” the body explained in an update posted Tuesday on its website. Facebook.
In Donetsk and Luhansk, the Russian army is focusing its efforts on taking control of the cities of Popasna and Rubizhne, in addition to completely controlling Mariupol, the General Staff said. Other towns and settlements in the two regions are subject to continuous shelling.