War Ukraine Russia, last minute live: Attack on Mariupol and Putin’s advance towards Kiev and NATO’s reaction

About 2.3 million people have left Ukraine to escape the escalation of violence stemming from the Russian military offensive, according to a new balance sheet from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which examines a constantly growing figure. . In fact, the United Nations already considers this emergency the fastest displacement crisis since World War II and anticipates that it will continue to increase. UNHCR even warned after the start of the Russian invasion that there could be some four million refugees.

Marga and Iván thought of sending help as soon as the war broke out. The result is a convoy of seven vehicles that left this Tuesday from Titulcia in the direction of Ukraine. Follow laSexta.com the day to day in videos and photos of this humanitarian caravan that will also return with refugees.

Ukrainian authorities said Thursday that their forces have captured “between 250 and 300” Russian recruits since the start of the offensive against the country on February 24, after stating that more than 12,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the framework of hostilities. “I can say how many are in captivity. They are at least between 250 and 300, only recruits,” said Aleksei Arestovich, one of the advisers to the Presidency of Ukraine, before recalling that some of them appeared before the press on Wednesday.

The Foreign Ministers of Ukraine, Dmitro Kuleba, and Russia, Sergey Lavrov, are meeting in Turkey in what will be the highest-level meeting since the war began with the aim of negotiating a solution to the conflict. The meeting, in which both ministers have seen each other in person for the first time since the war began, is taking place in the province of Antalya, in Turkey. However, expectations are limited as both governments continue to take strong positions on the war. Ukrainian Minister Dmitro Kuleba has already announced that he has “limited” expectations.

It is one of the images that has occupied international covers. A woman, her two children and a church volunteer lie limp on the ground. They are Tetiana Perebyinis (43 years old), Mykyta (18), Alisa (9) and Anatoly Berezhnyi, a 26-year-old volunteer. A massacre of civilians in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Serhiy Perebyinis, the father and only survivor of the family, learned of the murder of his family by seeing the images on networks. He now tells his story in The New York Times. Lynsey Addario, the same photographer who captured the horror of this family with her camera, is photographing her now. A man with an empty look. He no longer has “nothing to lose,” Perebyinis explains to the newspaper. This is his story.

The UK Ministry of Defense has reported via Twitter that “the Russian Ministry of Defense has confirmed the use of the TOS-1A weapon system in Ukraine”: “The TOS-1A uses thermobaric rockets, creating incendiary and explosive effects “, he explained, providing a video in which you can see how this weapon works.

France wants to agree among the Twenty-seven on a date to close the tap on Russian gas imports and objectives to reduce this dependency from this year, an issue that will be at the center of the discussions at the summit of heads of state and government that begins this Thursday in Versailles. “We have to stop buying Russian gas, we have to set a date and start this year,” French Secretary of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune stressed in an interview with France Inter radio station. Beaune affirmed that this issue will be on the table at Versailles, and insisted that “we Europeans have to decide together so that there is an impact on Russia.”

The United States House of Representatives has approved this Thursday a financing bill that includes 13,600 million dollars (12,305 million euros) to provide humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine due to the invasion that Russia began two weeks ago. The measure has passed in two separate votes and still needs to be authorized by the Senate. The US Congress is working against the clock to legitimize the project before the government funds expire on Friday, as reported by the US chain CNN.

Russia, meanwhile, accuses Ukrainian forces of attacking the power grid supplying the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and has claimed it was Russian experts who moved immediately to switch to standby diesel generators. Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister, Nikolai Pankóv, responded in a press conference to the accusations of Ukrainian officials, who said that the plant had been left without electricity due to the Russian occupation. “I must note with great regret that the Ukrainian nationalists committed another provocation, an extremely dangerous provocation. They attacked the substation and power lines feeding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Russian experts took immediate action to switch to generator power sources backup diesel,” Pankóv said, according to the Russian agency Sputnik.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has denounced the cut in remote data transmission of its surveillance systems at the Chernobyl and Zaporozhie plants, both controlled by Russian military forces. In a statement, the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, was “concerned about the sudden interruption of these data flows to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna.” In both facilities there are large amounts of nuclear material in the form of spent nuclear fuel or fresh, in addition to other types of atomic material. According to the agency, the reason for the interruption is not clear. The IAEA continues to receive such data from other nuclear facilities in Ukraine, including three nuclear power plants located in the western part of the country , where so far there have been hardly any attacks by the Russian army.

The director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, will travel to Turkey on Thursday for the meeting there between the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia, the UN nuclear agency in Vienna reported on Wednesday. The goal of the director general is to move towards an agreement that guarantees the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities during the Russian invasion of the country. “In the meetings held there, I hope to make progress on the urgent issue of ensuring the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities. We have to act now,” the Argentine said in a statement issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Grossi was invited to Antalya by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu, host of tomorrow’s meeting between ministers Dmytro Kuleba (Ukraine) and Sergey Lavrov (Russia).

The Ukrainian authorities have warned this Thursday that the situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, taken over by Russian forces and disconnected from the electricity grid, “is very dangerous” and has stated that it poses “a threat to all of Europe and to the Russia itself. “Due to the actions of the occupiers, the stable supply of energy to the facilities has been suspended, although it cannot be left without electricity,” argued the adviser to the Ukrainian Presidency, Mijailo Podoliak, as reported by the Ukrainian news portal. Ukrinform.

The Russian government announced this Thursday that it will stop participating in the Council of Europe and has denounced that the countries of the European Union (EU) and NATO are working to undermine the body and the common space on the continent. The Russian Foreign Ministry has indicated that the EU and NATO maintain an “unfriendly” position and has stressed that they maintain “a line of destruction of the Council of Europe of the common space at the humanitarian and legal level in Europe”.

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky believes that the Russian bombing of a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol is “the final proof of the genocide” that is being committed against the Ukrainians. In a video message published tonight collected by the Interfax-Ukraine agency, the Ukrainian president also called on the partners of the European Union to strengthen sanctions against Russia to end the war. “The Russian bombs fell on a hospital and a maternity hospital in Mariupol. The children’s hospital. The maternity hospital that was in operation! The buildings are destroyed,” Zelensky said, describing the bombing of that health center ordered yesterday by the Russians. “So far, 17 people are injured. Rubble is being cleared. People took shelter when air-raid sirens sounded. Russian invaders are dropping bombs on our Ukrainian cities,” the Ukrainian leader added. Zelensky wonders what harm or what kind of threat a hospital poses to Russia: What kind of country is this? Russia, which is afraid of hospitals, is afraid of maternity hospitals and destroys them? “, He insists.

The Italian oil group Eni announced today that it is suspending contracts for the purchase of crude oil from Russia, a week after revealing that it was going to sell its stake in the gas pipeline that connects Russia with Turkey, due to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Army. . “Eni has suspended the stipulation of new contracts for the supply of crude oil or oil products from Russia,” a spokesman for the hydrocarbons group was quoted by Italian media as saying. “In any case, Eni will operate in full compliance with what is established by the European and national institutions,” he added.

The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, has assured early this Thursday that almost 35,000 people have been rescued through the humanitarian corridors in Ukraine and has stressed that the authorities are preparing six new routes to facilitate the safe exit of the population. . “In total, some 35,000 people have been rescued. We will continue tomorrow,” Zelensky stressed in a message to the nation. Thus, he explained that today they have managed to “organize the work of three humanitarian corridors. From the city of Sumy, from the cities and towns of the Kiev region and from Energodar”, he said.