UKRAINE WRAP | Zelenskyy tells Russia to hold peace talks now or suffer for generations
Image: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
March 19 2022 - 16:30
Putin says Russia will prevail in Ukraine in rare public speech but glitch hinders TV
Russia's President Putin held a political rally in the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on Friday, but there's no election on the horizon.
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March 19 2022 - 16:00
Ukrainians flee across the border to Romania
Ukrainians continue to flee to the north-eastern Romanian border checkpoint of Siret, after Russia launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine.
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March 19 2022 - 15:58
Ukraine's Zelenskyy tells Russia to hold peace talks now or suffer for generations
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Saturday for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow to stop its invasion of Ukraine, saying it would otherwise take Russia "several generations" to recover from its losses in the war.
Russian forces have taken heavy losses and their advance has largely stalled since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the assault on Feb. 24, with long columns of troops that bore down on Kyiv halted in its suburbs.
However, they have laid siege to cities, blasting urban areas to rubble, and in recent days have intensified missile attacks on scattered targets in western Ukraine, away from the main battlefields in the north and east of the country.
On Saturday, Russia said its hypersonic missiles had destroyed a large underground depot for missiles and aircraft ammunition in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region. Hypersonic weapons can travel faster than five times the speed of sound and the Interfax agency said it was the first time Russia had used them in Ukraine.
A spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force Command confirmed the attack, but said the Ukrainian side had no information on the type of missiles used.
Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday they have not seen any significant shifts over the past 24 hours in front line areas, noting cities of Mariupol, Mykolaiv and Kherson in the south, and Izyum in the east continued to see the heaviest fighting.
More than 3.3-million refugees have already fled Ukraine through its western border, with around two more million displaced inside the country.
Reuters
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March 19 2022 - 15:00
War could halt crop exports from Ukraine, says presidential adviser
Ukraine may not produce enough crops to export if this year's sowing campaigns are disrupted by Russia's invasion, presidential adviser Oleh Ustenko said in a televised interview on Saturday.
"Ukraine has enough grain and food reserves to survive for a year, but if the war continues ... (Ukraine) will not be able to export grain to the world, and there will be problems," he said, adding that Ukraine is the world's fifth-largest wheat exporter. Reuters
March 19 2022 - 14:21
Seven killed in mortar attack near Ukrainian capital, police say
A Russian mortar attack on Ukrainian town of Makariv in the Kyiv region killed seven people and hospitalised five on Friday, local police said in a statement on Saturday.
"As a result of enemy shelling of Makariv, seven civilians were killed," the statement said. Russia denies targeting civilians.
Reuters
March 19 2022 - 14:08
Putin 'in better shape than ever', Belarus leader says
Russian President Vladimir Putin is healthy, sane and "in better shape than ever", his close ally Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has said in an interview with the Japanese television channel TBS.
"He and I haven't only met as heads of state, we're on friendly terms," Lukashenko said in a recording of the interview shared by state news agency BelTA.
"I'm absolutely privy to all his details, as far as possible, both state and personal.
"Russia used Belarusian territory as a staging post for its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Western leaders have suggested Putin made a costly miscalculation by launching the military assault on Ukraine, where Russian forces have taken heavy losses and their advance has largely stalled despite their apparent superiority.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has suggested Putin is being "irrational" and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has described him as "totally paranoid".
But Lukashenko dismissed the notion that Putin, who is 69, was not at the height of his powers.
"The West, and you, should get this stupidity, this fiction out of your heads," he told the interviewer.
"Putin is absolutely fit, he's in better shape than ever ... This is a completely sane, healthy person, physically healthy - he's an athlete."
"As they say here - he'll catch a cold at all our funerals.
"Lukashenko also bemoaned the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. The theme is one Putin has frequently discussed, not least when he suggested in speeches before the invasion that Ukraine was an artificial construct and an "inalienable part" of Russian history and culture.
"The collapse of the Soviet Union is a tragedy," Lukashenko said. "If the Soviet Union had survived to this day, we could have avoided all sorts of conflicts in the world..."While the USSR existed, the world was multipolar and one pole balanced the other," he said. "Now the reason for what's happening in the world is unipolarity - the monopolisation of our planet by the United States of America."
Reuters
March 19 2022 - 13:01
Ramaphosa and Chinese President Xi Jinping discuss humanitarian aid for Ukraine
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday evening confirmed he had discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping the need for humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukraine.
“Thank you to President Xi Jinping for a productive call earlier today, where we exchanged views on several issues of global importance. We expressed our concern about the conflict in Ukraine and the need to end hostilities and find a lasting peace,” Ramaphosa said in a tweet.
Xi Jinping joins a number of world leaders that Ramaphosa has been in contact with in a bid to explain SA’s neutral position on the ongoing conflict.
March 19 2022 - 12:10
Zelensky says talks are Russia’s ‘only chance’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said peace talks are Russia’s “only chance” given the growing number of countries imposing sanctions against it, urging Moscow to engage in negotiations.
US President Joe Biden warned his Chinese counterpart of “implications and consequences” if Beijing provides material support to Russia. Xi Jinping told Biden that China regrets the war, but criticised American sanctions. That’s according to official accounts of a two-hour conversation between the leaders on Friday, their first since the invasion of Ukraine last month.
March 19 2022 - 11:45
US to provide Stryker army company to NATO battlegroup in Bulgaria -PM
The United States has agreed to provide a Stryker mechanized infantry company for Bulgaria's battlegroup under NATO's drive to bolster its eastern flank after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov said on Saturday.
"The USA agreed to provide a Stryker company," he told a press conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. "This is a strong sign to all of our allies in NATO.
"Bulgaria is establishing a battlegroup of up to 1,000 troops under the operational command of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe. The battlegroup is expected to host troops from other allied countries as well.
Reuters
March 19 2022 - 11:20
Shelling kills nine in outskirts of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia -deputy mayor
Nine people were killed and 17 wounded in shelling of the suburbs of the city of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine on Friday, deputy mayor Anatoliy Kurtiev said on Saturday.
The military has since declared a 38-hour curfew in Zaporizhzhia, which was being attacked by Russian forces with mortars, tanks, helicopters and rocket systems, Kurtiev said in an online post.
Reuters
March 19 2022 - 09:43
Ukraine hopes ten humanitarian corridors will operate on Saturday
Ukraine hopes to evacuate civilians on Saturday via ten humanitarian corridors from cities and towns on the front line of fighting with Russian forces, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
She said a corridor had been agreed for the besieged city of Mariupol, although the authorities' previous efforts to evacuate civilians there under a temporary ceasefire have mostly failed, with both sides trading blame.
Reuters
March 19 2022 - 09:30
World Food Programme warns of Ukraine supply chains collapse
A World Food Programme official said that food supply chains in Ukraine were collapsing, with key infrastructure such as bridges and trains destroyed by bombs and many grocery stores and warehouses empty.
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March 19 2022 - 09:15
War in Ukraine threatens Italy's livestock
Hundreds of cows risk being slaughtered in Italy due to the conflict in Ukraine, which is a major global supplier of animal feed — stocks of which are falling fast across import-reliant southern Europe.
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March 19 2022 - 09:00
Ukrainian mayor on his abduction by Russian troops
Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol, tells CNN’s Anderson Cooper what happened when he was kidnapped by Russian troops and held for six days.
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