UKRAINE WRAP | Panic as fighter jet flies over Ukraine's Kostiantynivka

May 08 2022 - 22:00

Canada's Trudeau announces new weapons for Ukraine in visit to Kyiv

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new weapons and equipment for Ukraine on Sunday after an unannounced visit to Kyiv, the capital.

Trudeau, addressing a news conference after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also said Canada was imposing new sanctions on Russian individuals and entities in connection with Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Canada, he said, was reopening its embassy in Kyiv.

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 21:00

U.S. imposes visa restrictions on Russian military officers, targets maritime sector

The US State Department on Sunday announced a raft of visa bans and a new policy of visa restrictions on more than 2,500 Russian military officials and Russian-backed forces in Ukraine, according to a department fact sheet.

The State Department also said it designated eight Russian maritime-related companies and added 69 vessels to a US Treasury Department sanctions list. 

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 20:00

US diplomats return to Kyiv embassy on first visit since invasion

The US top diplomat to Ukraine Kristina Kvien and her team arrived in Kyiv on Sunday, officials said, after Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised on a visit last month to reopen the US embassy in the Ukrainian capital soon.

The move is the latest step toward the resumption of a full US presence in Kyiv after diplomats began returning to the western city of Lviv last month, having left the country ahead of Russia's Feb. 24 invasion out of security concerns.

The trip, timed to commemorate Victory in Europe Day on Sunday, was a temporary visit and does not signal the reopening of the embassy, a senior State Department official said.

Russia celebrates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany on its Victory Day on Monday.

Blinken spoke to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday and informed Kuleba that a small group led by Charge d'Affaires Kvien "traveled to Kyiv to conduct diplomatic engagement in advance of the planned resumption of Embassy Kyiv operations," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.

The group was accompanied by State Department security, Price said.

Videos posted on social media on Sunday showed a motorcade rolling into the embassy compound.

The team is the first delegation from the Biden administration to visit Ukraine's capital since the invasion, aside from Blinken's visit alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Blinken and Austin did not visit the embassy.

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 19:30

Russia says it hits US-supplied weapons at railway station in Ukraine

Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday that its high-precision missiles had destroyed weapons and military equipment supplied to Ukrainian forces from the United States and unspecified Western countries at a railway station near the town of Soledar.The ministry also said that it had destroyed six depots storing missile and artillery weapons in the Luhansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions while its air defences shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 warplane.

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 19:00

G-7 Leaders Will Commit to Ban Russian Oil Imports, Draft Says

Leaders of the Group of Seven countries will pledge to ban the import of Russian oil in response to President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, according to a draft copy of the statement seen by Bloomberg.

The heads of the leading economies will make the commitment after a video call on Sunday. The statement is subject to change.'

Several of the G-7 countries have already pledged to diversify away from Russian supplies, with Germany, the European Union’s biggest economy, already backing an EU proposal to ban the oil imports by January.

The leaders will “commit to phase out our dependency on Russian energy, including by phasing out or banning the import of Russian oil,” the draft says.

“We will ensure that we do so in a timely and orderly fashion, and in ways that provide time for the world to secure alternative supplies.”

The G-7 leaders will also pledge to take measures to prohibit or otherwise prevent the provision of key services on which Russia depends.

“This will reinforce Russia’s isolation across all sectors of its economy,” according to the draft. 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

May 08 2022 - 18:30

WATCH | Panic as fighter jet flies over Ukraine's Kostiantynivka

May 08 2022 - 18:00

Zelenskyy, German parliament president discuss arms, Ukraine's EU membership bid

The president of the German parliament Baerbel Bas met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday to commemorate victims of World War Two, discuss arms and Ukraine's ambition to be considered for European Union (EU) membership.

In a video of a meeting with Bas, Zelenskyy said securing the Bundestag's approval of heavy arms deliveries to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks was one his country's "top priorities.

"He also asked Bas and the Bundestag to support Ukraine in its bid for European Union membership, which Kyiv's allies have said they want soon.

However, candidature would have to be agreed unanimously and accession usually takes years of complex negotiations.

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 17:00

Ukrainian fighters at besieged Azovstal plant vow to fight till the end

Ukrainian fighters at the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the southeastern port of Mariupol, who are the last holdout against Russian forces in the city, vowed on Sunday to continue their stand as long as they are alive.

"We will continue to fight as long as we are alive to repel the Russian occupiers," Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of Ukraine's Azov Regiment, told an online news conference.

"We don't have much time, we are coming under intense shelling," he said, pleading with the international community to help to evacuate wounded soldiers from the plant.

Illia Samoilenko, a fighter with the Azov Regiment who also took part in the virtual conference, said they still had weapons, munitions and water, and were prepared to fight as long as they must.

"We can die at any moment... Our message is don't waste our efforts," Samoilenko said, calling on the Ukrainian government to rely more on continuing fighting against Russian forces than hopes that Moscow can be pacified by negotiations.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a late night address on Saturday that more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the Azovstal plant.

He said authorities would now focus on evacuating the wounded and medics, and helping residents elsewhere in Mariupol and surrounding settlements to safety.

Palamar said he could not confirm that all civilians had been evacuated from the plant as Ukrainian fighters are not able to check and clear all the bombed areas.

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 16:30

WATCH | Ukraine military shows Snake Island aircraft explosion

May 08 2022 - 16:05

US first lady Jill Biden makes unannounced visit to Ukraine

US first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced trip to Ukraine on Sunday to show support for its people amid Russia's invasion, visiting a school that is serving as a temporary shelter and meeting Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, according to a pool report.

"I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine,” Biden said.

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 16:00

Russian Deputy PM visits ruined Ukrainian city of Mariupol

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin has visited Mariupol, the country's most senior government official yet to set foot in the Ukrainian southern port city after weeks of Russian bombardment.

Russia, which sent thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a special military operation, claimed taking control of the city on the Sea of Azov on April 21 after nearly two months of siege.

However, some Ukrainian fighters are still holed up in the city's vast Soviet-era Azovstal steelworks - the last holdout against Russian forces there. Ukrainian military said on Sunday Russia continued intensive shelling of the plant.

Khusnullin, who in the Russian government is in charge of construction and urban development, said on Telegram he had visited Mariupol and eastern Ukrainian town of Volnovakha among other territories "liberated" by Russian forces.

"Restoration of peaceful life begins in the regions. There's a lot of work to be done. We will help, in particular ... with providing humanitarian aid," he wrote in a Telegram post.

Khusnullin visited the commercial port of Mariupol he said should be used to bring in building materials to restore the city, according to Russian defence ministry's TV channel Zvezda.

The port, which lies between the Crimea Peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014 and parts of eastern Ukraine taken by Russian-backed separatists the same year, is key to linking up the two Russian-held territories and blocking Ukrainian exports.

The port will ship off the first cargo from Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in May, its head Denis Pushilin, who accompanied Khusnullin, said on Telegram.

Moscow says its actions in Ukraine are aimed to disarm Ukraine and rid it of what it calls anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West.

Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war and have accused Russian forces of land grab and war crimes. Moscow denies the allegations and says it targets only military or strategic sites, not civilians.

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 15:25

Sixty feared dead in Ukraine school bombed by Russia, governor says

As many as 60 people were feared to have been killed in the Russian bombing of a village school in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, the regional governor said on Sunday.

Governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russian forces dropped a bomb on Saturday afternoon on the school in Bilohorivka where about 90 people were sheltering, causing a fire that engulfed the building for four hours.

“Thirty people were evacuated from the rubble, seven of whom were injured. Sixty people were likely to have died under the rubble of buildings,” Gaidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app, adding that two dead bodies had been found.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russian forces of targeting civilians in the war, which Moscow denies.

May 08 2022 - 15:00

OPINION | SA’s foreign policy in a nutshell: it’s about who stood with us, rather than what we stand for

At a function in Pretoria this week to celebrate Poland’s national day, social development minister Lindiwe Zulu, representing the government, spoke about everything under the sun except the elephant in the room — the war in Ukraine. She merely referred to it in passing simply because, before her, the Polish ambassador had spoken about it in caustic terms.

Instead, Zulu, who arrived almost an hour late, spoke glowingly about the black children from an orphanage in Johannesburg who danced and performed songs in Polish, and the value of learning a second language. She told her esteemed audience she had spent six years in the Soviet Union, where she had done all her studies in Russian.

Oh, and Miss SA Lalela Mswane was gracing the occasion. “How could I have forgotten about you!” Zulu exclaimed as she returned to the podium to wish her luck for her participation in a beauty contest which, incidentally, will be held in Poland.

The bloodshed in Ukraine, far from our shores, remains an unwelcome distraction for the government.

May 08 2022 - 14:30

Russian oil worth R3.5bn heads to SA as sanctions squeeze Putin

A tanker loaded with 2-million barrels of Russian oil is steaming towards an SA storage facility amid mounting international pressure to boycott Russian exports.

The ship is due to arrive next Sunday in Saldanha, home to a huge Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) store built 40 years ago to prop up the apartheid regime.

Another tanker of Russian oil, also scheduled to call at Saldanha, changed course this week and continued around Cape Agulhas, heading east. 

The two ships and many others bearing Russian oil are being closely monitored as Moscow's economy takes strain after its invasion of Ukraine.

May 08 2022 - 14:10

Moscow's mood ahead of Victory Day mixes anxiety and resilience

Moscow residents appeared anxious but resilient as the country prepared on Sunday for its annual commemoration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany with an economy reeling from the West's most stringent economic sanctions in modern times.

As Russia's military operation in Ukraine grinds towards the end of its third month, President Vladimir Putin will underscore the enormous sacrifices made by the Soviet Union to defeat Adolf Hitler in World War 2 in a Victory Day speech in Red Square on Monday.

The sanctions imposed by Western nations since Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 have tipped Russia towards its worst economic crisis since the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, though the Kremlin says it will build up its own production while seeking new markets in Asia.

Some Russians said they were anxious and emotional given the close family ties between the two biggest eastern Slav populations now divided by conflict.

May 08 2022 - 14:00

German parliament president arrives in Kyiv

The president of the German parliament Baerbel Bas arrived in Kyiv on Sunday to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine with the prime minister and to commemorate victims of World War Two, a German parliament official said on Twitter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier gave an emotional address for Victory Day, when Europe remembers the formal surrender of Germany to the Allies in World War Two, saying that "evil has returned" to Ukraine, but it wouldn't be able to escape responsibility.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected to take part in a G7 virtual discussion later on Sunday on the war in Ukraine that will be attended by Zelenskyy.

Ahead of the G7 meeting Enrico Brissa, Bundestag's chief of protocol, posted on Twitter pictures of Bas arriving by train to meet Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

Germany has agreed to supply Kyiv with heavy weapons, including self-propelled howitzers, in a reversal of a longtime policy not to send heavy weapons to war zones due to the country's Nazi past.

Moscow calls its actions since Feb. 24 a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine and rid it of what it calls "Nazis" and anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West.

In Russia, Victory Day on May 9 is one of the country's most important national events - a remembrance of the enormous sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany. 

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 08:26

Bombing of school in Ukrainian town kills two, 60 more under debris - governor

Two people have been killed in the Russian bombing of a school in the Ukrainian village of Bilohorivka and 60 who remained under debris are feared dead, Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said on Sunday.

Gaidai said Russia dropped a bomb on Saturday afternoon on the school where about 90 people were sheltering. Thirty people have been rescued.

"Seven of them were injured," Gaidai wrote on wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app. "Sixty people were likely to have died under the rubble of buildings."

-Reuters

May 08 2022 - 06:20

Russia says operation to evacuate civilians from Azovstal plant is over

Russia's defence ministry on Saturday announced completion of an operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

In an online posting, the ministry said a total of 51 people had been rescued since the three-day operation started on Thursday, including one person on Saturday. The 51 comprised 18 men, 22 women and 11 children, it added.

-Reuters