Xinhua file photos of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (L) and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
The call on Friday was their first since May 13, reports Asian Lite News
In rare talks, US and Russian Defence Ministers spoke on the phone during which they discussed the Ukrainian war, according to official statements issued by Washington and Moscow.
The call on Friday was their first since May 13.
In his remarks, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin emphasized to his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu “the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid the ongoing war”, a statement by the Defence Department said.
According to a statement by the Russian Defence Ministry, the two top officials “touched upon pressing issues of international security, including the situation in Ukraine”.
After the call, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told the BBC that the US was “eager to keep lines of communication open”.
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) October 13, 2022
“It has been since May since the two gentlemen spoke, so Secretary Austin took today as an opportunity to connect with Minister Shoigu,” he said.
Also addressing the media in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to have a phone call with his US counterpart Joe Biden now that the two defence chiefs have held talks.
“No, it is not on the agenda,” Russia’s state-run TASS News Agency quoted Peskov as saying.
The last face-to-face meet between Putin and Biden in 2021h was heralded as a positive step towards a better relationship.
The two President also held several calls in the months before the Ukraine war, but progress stalled as tensions escalated over Moscow’s invasion.
There have been no talks between the leaders since Russia launched the war on February 24.
Russia and Ukraine repeatedly accuse each other of shelling the plant and plotting attacks on the site, raising fears of a potential nuclear disaster…reports Asian Lite News
Russian-installed officials reported fresh shelling near the occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
Critical safety and control systems were not damaged, said the Russian military administration late Saturday evening in the city of Enerhodar, where Europe’s largest nuclear power plant is located.
The NATO-supplied munitions were fired from the opposite bank of the Dnipro river and hit the site in the vicinity of an administration building, it said, adding that four projectiles were registered.
The information could not be independently verified.
Russia and Ukraine repeatedly accuse each other of shelling the plant and plotting attacks on the site, raising fears of a potential nuclear disaster.
Vladimir Rogov, a representative of the local Russian occupation authorities, accused Ukraine of “nuclear terrorism”. He said it had yet to be determined if there were any casualties from Saturday’s strikes.
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, with six reactors, was occupied by Russian troops starting in early March. It is strategically important for Ukraine’s electricity supply.
The leadership in Moscow and the occupation authorities in Zaporizhzhya have rejected international demands to return the nuclear plant to Ukrainian control.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky when they met at the UN headquarters last year. (File Photo: UN)
Guterres will first go to Moscow on April 25 and then to Ukraine on April 28, reports Arul Louis
As peace efforts to end the intensifying Ukraine war have stalled, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will ramp up his mediation efforts through direct meetings with the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, respectively, next week, according to the world body.
Guterres’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric announced on Friday that the UN chief will “be received by” Putin and Zelensky in their countries and will have working meetings with their Foreign Ministers.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Petersburg in 2019. (File Photo: UN)
Guterres will first go to Moscow on April 25 and then to Ukraine on April 28.
The announcement of the meetings with Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba did not say where the meetings will take place.
Powerless to act against the Russian invasion of Ukraine because of Moscow’s veto powers in the Security Council, the UN as an institution is facing one of its gravest crises.
The invasion ordered by Putin is also a personal betrayal of Guterres who had said till the conflict began on February 24 that a war was unlikely.
After the Moscow trip was announced on Friday morning, Guterres’s associate spokesperson Eri Kaneko told reporters: “He wants to discuss with the leadership, what steps can be taken right now in order to silence the guns in order to help the people and in order to allow the people who need to get out to get out and have safe passage.”
Guterres had written to both Russia and Ukraine asking to visit their countries in an effort to end the conflict after various diplomatic initiatives by international leaders proved unsuccessful.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed during phone calls with Putin and Zelensky to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Representatives of Russia and Ukraine have been holding talks in Belarus and Turkey and online but have failed to make headway.
Russian news service TASS quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Friday that there was “slow progress in the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations”.
Guterres cancelled a planned trip to Nigeria next week to visit Russia and Ukraine.
His visits to the two adversaries come as Russia has intensified its assault in the face of stiff resistance by Ukraine.
The UN chief’s call for an Easter ceasefire this weekend has been rejected by Moscow.
Some of the Orthodox Christian churches celebrate Easter on Sunday as they follow a separate calendar from the Western churches which observed the feast last Sunday.
In this regard, Kaneko said: “The Secretary-General is not so much disappointed that his own personal call was unheeded, but more that there has been no truce, that civilians cannot leave besieged areas and that the aid that the UN and our partners are ready to deliver to these besieged areas cannot go in.”
But she left open a window of optimism with two days to go: “We operate with the currency of hope.”
Ukraine war.(Credit: zelenskiy.official)
Guterres had appointed as his mediator Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths who has visited both Moscow and Kiev.
However, Griffiths tested positive for Covid-19 this week ahead of a scheduled trip to Turkey to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is hosting talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Kaneko said that Guterres hoped to further the discussions Griffiths and others have had.
The General Assembly has condemned the invasion and demanded that Moscow end the conflict.
But unlike the Council, the Assembly is powerless to implement its decisions.
The agreement will see the US provide the EU with at least 15 billion additional cubic metres of LNG by the end of the year….reports Asian Lite News
The US and the European Union (EU) have announced a major deal on liquified natural gas (LNG), in an attempt to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian energy, the BBC reported.
The deal was announced on Friday during US President Joe Biden’s three-day visit to Brussels.
The agreement will see the US provide the EU with at least 15 billion additional cubic metres of LNG by the end of the year.
The bloc has already said it will cut Russian gas use in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US and the EU are committed to reducing Europe's dependency on Russian energy.
The partnership will ensure stable demand and supply for at least 50 bcm of US LNG until 2030, replacing one third already of the Russian gas going to Europe today.
That will mean increasing imports and generating more renewable energy.
Russia is a major supplier Europe’s energy, and its war with Ukraine has helped push energy prices to record highs.
Energy prices were already rising before the invasion as economies started to recover from the Covid crisis, BBC reported.
The Ukraine invasion prompted the EU to pledge to cut Russian gas use by two-thirds this year by hiking imports from other countries and boosting renewable energy.
In John J. Mearsheimer’s view, the Ukraine crisis “is the most dangerous international conflict since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.”…reports Asian Lite News
“The West and especially America, is principally responsible” for the Ukraine crisis, John J. Mearsheimer, a US political scientist, wrote in a recent opinion piece published in The Economist.
American and European policymakers provoked the Ukraine crisis by trying to integrate Ukraine into the West and asserting that Russian President Vladimir Putin bears full responsibility for the crisis, Xinhua news agency reported citing Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago.
“But that story is wrong,” he added.
In his view, the Ukraine crisis “is the most dangerous international conflict since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.” The West is now increasing aid to Ukraine while imposing economic sanctions on Russia, a step that Putin sees as “akin to a declaration of war.”
John Mearsheimer Pic credits WIKIPEDIA
Understanding the root causes is essential to finding a way to bring the crisis to an end. The trouble over Ukraine started at NATO’s Bucharest summit in 2008 when George W. Bush’s administration pushed the alliance to announce that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members,” said the article.
In late 2021, the West ignored Russia’s security concerns, with intentions of including Ukraine into NATO, which led directly to the current war, Mearsheimer wrote.
Furthermore, Russian policymakers have said “hardly anything about conquering new territory to recreate the Soviet Union or build a greater Russia,” said the expert, adding that Russian leaders have repeatedly said that they view Ukraine joining NATO as “an existential threat that must be prevented.”
“As Mr Lavrov noted in January, ‘the key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward,'” Mearsheimer said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy President of Ukraine.(photo:Facebook)
The Ukrainian leader further said that if his country was a NATO member, there would have been no war….reports Asian Lite News
As Moscow has continued its invasion of Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he is ready for negotiations with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, but warned that if the talks fail, it “would mean that this is a third World War”.
“I’m ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations we cannot end this war,” Zelensky said while speaking to CNN on Sunday night.
“I think that we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, possibility of talking to Putin. But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third World War,” he added.
As the invasion was nearing a month, the President told CNN that “we have always insisted on negotiations. We have always offered dialogue, offered solutions for peace”.
“And I want everyone to hear me now, especially in Moscow. It’s time to meet. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine.”
Zelensky also listed his priorities for the talks, which are; “the end of the war, security guarantees, sovereignty, restoration of territorial integrity, real guarantees for our country, real protection for our country”.
The Ukrainian leader further said that if his country was a NATO member, there would have been no war.
“I’d like to receive security guarantees for my country, for my people. If NATO members are ready to see us in the alliance, then do it immediately. Because people are dying on a daily basis,” Zelensky said, while adding that he was grateful for the aid NATO has provided since the invasion began on February 24.
When asked about how he was faring since the last 26 days of war, the President said he was “doing just everything that everyone else in Ukraine is doing”.
“We have made up our team to defend our country, so it seems to me that the person does not need to turn into anyone else. That is important when you can be just yourself,” he told CNN. “So I am holding up quite well.”
Zelensky also admitted that his weakest point was losing people and children in these “huge numbers”.
“I go to sleep with this information about children who were killed and we are continuing to pray in order to prevent new losses of people, but so far we haven’t attained these results,” he said, adding that “we are trying to defend our sovereignty, defend our country.”
The most important foreign policy priority in the ongoing conflict for India has been the safe and secure evacuation of Indians, both students and other residents alike, to India….reports Asian Lite News
To have evacuated safely more than an estimated 18,000 Indian nationals from Ukraine amidst the ongoing conflict, is truly a commendable task. Also, to have done it without much fanfare speaks volumes of the coordination put it by the government of India to ensure swift and speedy evacuation. That is the hallmark of ‘Operation Ganga’, initiated to evacuate all Indian nationals living in Ukraine, but stranded due to ongoing military operations on Ukrainian territory by the Russia.
The most important foreign policy priority in the ongoing conflict for India has been the safe and secure evacuation of Indians, both students and other residents alike, to India. Operation Ganga is a combined civil and military effort to ensure all Indian nationals return home safely.
India brought back its nationals from Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova after they had crossed over to these countries from Ukraine via land border transit points. This process began on February 22. By March 10, more than 80 flights had been operated to rescue stranded Indians.
Initially, India used its fleet available with the civil airlines, but by March 1 the Indian Air Force (IAF) was called in to help; this was the day when an Indian student was killed in Kharkiv. The first flight carrying Indians landed in Mumbai on February 26 and was received by Piyush Goyal, Minister for Commerce and Industry.
Once the IAF got into action, it became possible to increase the effort as the C-17 Globemaster has a capacity to carry 400 passengers. Notably, the C-17 Globemaster not only brought back stranded Indians but also helped to deliver humanitarian aid to Ukraine, which is experiencing a shortage of food, fuel, medical supplies, and other essentials. Just last year, the IAF C-17 helped in evacuating citizens and officials from Kabul when the Taliban captured Afghanistan. Not only has India ensured safety for its citizens but is also helping its neighbours. In a recent video, a student from Pakistan can be seen thanking the Indian embassy in Kiev and Prime Minister Modi.
This is not the first time that India has evacuated its citizens from conflict zones.
Students who were evacuated from Ukraine, arrival by Indian Air Force Plane at Hindon Air Force Station in Ghaziabad on Thursday, March 03, 2022 (Photo: Wasim Sarvar/IANS)
In 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, India evacuated nearly 200,000 Indians stranded there over a period of two months. In 2015, India undertook Operation Raahat to rescue thousands of Indians and hundreds of people from other countries at the height of the conflict between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels. Then in 2021, India launched Operation Devi Shakti to evacuate its nationals from Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in August that year.
In the case of Ukraine, the government has operated some 80 flights under Operation Ganga to safely bring about 18,000 Indians back home. Of these, private airlines operated 46 as on March 9. Notably, the government decided not to charge anything from those being evacuated. This means that the Centre will have to pay approximately Rs 66-70 crore per flight for a two-way operation.
Of the 46 evacuation flights, 29 were operated to Bucharest in Romania, 10 to Budapest in Hungary, six to Rzeszow in Poland, and one to Kocise in Slovakia.
With Prime Minister Modi leading from the top, the Ministry of External Affairs established 24×7 control centres to provide the impetus for the necessary flow of information out of Ukraine. This ensured that the Centre was able to match records of Indian nationals with available databases. This process was further helped by friendly countries in Eastern Europe, like Poland who waived documentation requirements for Indians to enter and then fly home. A key part of this exercise was the constant conversations that the government had at the highest levels, with heads of state. This ensured smoother facilitation of the evacuation process.
Coordination for the operation came right from the top and despatch of senior ministers of the government to the countries mentioned above provided the necessary coordination and direction on the ground to ensure smooth completion of all formalities. That the Prime Minister himself held daily meetings to supervise this mission demonstrated India’s seriousness. Modi sent four Ministers, namely Jyotiraditya Scindia, Hardeep Singh Puri, Kiren Rijiju, and V.K. Singh to Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Poland, respectively, to oversee the evacuation of Indians.
The real challenge of evacuating those Indians stuck in eastern Ukraine was of moving people amidst the raging conflict. This is why India proposed the creation of humanitarian passages to both Russia and Ukraine, so that the evacuation would be less hazardous. India deployed one team also in the Russian city of Belgorod, close to the border with Ukraine, in case the possibility of evacuation from the Russian side arose. This did not happen given the intensity of conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The closure of the Ukrainian air space further complicated matters as India could not extricate its nationals from Kiev or any other Ukrainian city. This is what created the necessity of moving most people by road or rail to friendly countries across the Ukrainian border for eventual evacuation by air to India.
India has now considerable experience of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, both within the country and overseas. It has also functioned as a first responder to countries in its neighbourhood, like it did in Nepal during the 2015 earthquake. The lessons from Operation Ganga will definitely be internalised and adopted to meet such contingencies in the future. The reality is that Indians are spread and settled all over the world and many of them are resident in potential conflict zones. The case of Ukraine is a telling example of how a perfectly quiet situation can turn into a ‘hot’ zone in a short time. The way forward is for India to further refine its capabilities of evacuation, while monitoring the presence of Indians in potentially hazardous zones.
Overall, though it must be said “job well done”, when looking back at Ukraine.
“We are preparing to open six corridors. We pray that people will be evacuated out of Mariupol, Izyum, Volnovakha… We plan to take them to safe cities of our free Ukraine,” Zelenksy said…reports Asian Lite News
As the war in Ukraine continued for the 15th day, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country is preparing to open six more humanitarian corridors for the safe evacuation of people stuck in cities under attack by Russian forces.
In his latest video address, the President claimed that on Wednesday, “we managed to organise the work of three humanitarian corridors” from the cities of Sumy, Kiev and Energodar, which led to the evacuation of more than 35,000 people, reports the online Ukrayinska Pravda newspaper
“We are preparing to open six corridors. We pray that people will be evacuated out of Mariupol, Izyum, Volnovakha… We plan to take them to safe cities of our free Ukraine,” he added.
According to authorities, about 5,000 people were evacuated from Sumy that has been under heavy Russian bombardment, the BBC reported.
They added that the three humanitarian corridors in the city are expected to open from 9 a.m. (about 12 p.m. IST) on Thursday.
Also on Wednesday, more than 40,000 women and children were evacuated from towns of Irpin and Vorzel.
The National Police Service also claimed that several thousand people were also evacuated from Kiev’s Bucha region.
On the outskirts of Kiev, where an emergency camp was set up, those evacuated were provided warm food and tea, reports Ukrayinska Pravda citing authorities as saying.
Medical assistance, as well as further relocation directions, were provided.
Evacuations were however, deemed problematic from Mariupol, Kiev and Kharkiv amid continued Russian assault.
ISIS have now made its position clear by hoping for complete destruction on both sides which will unleash global chaos and bring down the West…reports Asian Lite News
The Islamic State have praised the Ukraine war as a “divine punishment” for the West which it hopes will destroy the “enemies of Islam”, Daily Mail reported.
The terror group labelled Russia’s invasion of its neighbour as “crusaders against crusaders” in a full-page article in its al-Naba newsletter.
It said Muslims should not take sides in the war and predicted that there would be “major consequences” regardless of the result.
The editorial said: “What is happening today, the direct bloody war between the Orthodox crusaders – Russia and Ukraine – is but one example of God’s punishment for them, as described in the Qu’ran.
“Whether long or short, this Russian-Ukrainian war is but the beginning of the next wars between the Crusader countries, and the images of destruction and death we see are but a small scene of the situation in which the great wars begin.”
The IS added the invasion was “not surprising”, saying it was “the state of the escalating competition between America and Russia to control the countries of Eastern Europe, especially after the policy of ‘support and containment’ that America pursued,” Daily Mail reported.
Islamic extremists have been debating which side to take in the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin formed an alliance with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad against ISIS in the Syrian civil war and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and Ukraine is a member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
ISIS have now made its position clear by hoping for complete destruction on both sides which will unleash global chaos and bring down the West, Daily Mail reported.
The terrorists said the invasion was an “amusing punishment… upon them for their disbelief in God Almighty”.
The move to ban imports from Russia is seen as a support to war-torn Ukraine….reports Asian Lite News
The US on Tuesday banned all oil and gas imports from Russia, President Joe Biden said in a Twitter post.
“Today, I’m announcing that the United States is targeting a main artery of Russia’s economy. We are banning all imports of Russian oil and gas,” he tweeted.
The move to ban imports from Russia is seen as a support to war-torn Ukraine.
In another tweet, Biden said that Americans have rallied to support the people of Ukraine and made it clear that the country will not be part of subsidising Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.
“This decision today is not without costs here at home. Putin’s war is already hurting American families at the pump — and this will drive up costs further. So, I will take every step we can to minimise Putin’s price hike here at home,” Biden said.
Separately, the US has already announced a collective release of 60 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserves of the US and its partners. Half of the strategic reserves will come from the US.
“We’re taking steps to ensure a reliable supply of global energy. And we’re going to keep working with every tool at our disposal to protect American families and businesses,” Biden said.
