Jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny has again called for protests against Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, saying the response of Russians to the war “will largely define Russia’s place in the history of the 21st century.” Navalny, the Kremlin critic who is currently serving a 2 1/2-year sentence on what his supporters and Western legal …
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Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine …
Russia did not show up to a key international court hearing aimed at putting a legal stop to fighting in Ukraine that is creating Europe’s biggest refugee crisis in years. At issue is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim of “genocide” to justify his invasion of Ukraine. The empty seats allocated to Russia’s legal team at …
Read more “Russia a No-show at Court Hearing on Ukraine Conflict “
Russia’s efforts to sway the opinions of people across the world about the righteousness of its invasion of Ukraine appears to be mirroring the effort of some of its forces on the ground – despite bringing lots of firepower, the Kremlin’s influence operations seem to be stalling, unable to penetrate key audiences. Much of Moscow’s …
Read more “Russia’s Vaunted Influence Operations Bogged Down with Ukraine”
Vulnerable children constitute a large proportion of the more than 1 million Ukrainians who have fled Russia’s invasion of their country and heavy bombardment of residential areas, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund. Half a million children, some unaccompanied, have crossed into Poland and other neighboring countries, according to UNICEF, which says refugee …
Read more “Half a Million Ukrainian Children Flee Russian Invasion”
The French army says it has killed one of the leaders of al-Qaida in Mali. The news comes as French forces are preparing to withdraw from the country. The French army said in a press release Monday that Algerian Yahia Djouadi, one of the leaders of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, was killed during the …
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet warns growing repression in Nicaragua is shutting down fundamental freedoms in the country and is creating a political, social and human rights crisis. Bachelet submitted her latest report on the situation in Nicaragua to the U.N. Human Rights Council Monday. Bachelet gave a blistering account of a …
Read more “UN: Growing Repression in Nicaragua Spurring Political, Social and Human Rights Crisis”
It took two days for Janet and some other Ghanaian students to reach Lviv from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Then they spent another 13 hours waiting to cross the border, the third-year engineering student explains. Even her mask couldn’t hide the agitation and fear she felt traveling across war-wracked Ukraine last week. Nor did it …
Read more “Ghanaian Students Say Flight from Ukraine Hampered by Discrimination”
A surreal soundtrack greets the sea of humanity fleeing Ukraine: a highly accomplished pianist has arrived at the Medyka border crossing into Poland. His music drifts across the organized chaos of this small village, now the frontline of Europe’s rapidly growing refugee crisis. German pianist Davide Martello has visited numerous conflict zones in recent years, …
Read more “Poland Embraces Fleeing Ukrainians, as Europe Faces Biggest Refugee Crisis Since 1945 “
More than one-and-a-half million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries since the Russian invasion, making it Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War Two. Henry Ridgwell reports from the town of Przemysl on the Polish-Ukraine border. …
France on Monday warned Russia not to resort to blackmail over efforts to revive a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, after Moscow demanded a U.S. guarantee that sanctions it faces over Ukraine would not hurt its trade with Tehran. Iran in turn said it would not allow others to impede its interests as, …
Read more “France Warns Russia Against Blackmail Over Iran Nuclear Talks “
MOSCOW, RUSSIA — Russia detained more than 5,000 people protesting President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine in dozens of cities Sunday — an unprecedented number as Moscow clamps down on anyone opposing the Kremlin’s military assault on the country. OVD-info, which monitors arrests during protests, said police had detained at least 5,016 people in 60 cities …
Read more “Russia Arrests Over 5,000 in Single Day for Protesting Ukraine War “
The message from Mariupol, Ukraine’s besieged port city on the Sea of Azov, was stark. “We’re still holding on,” a resident, Ihor, concluded his brief 34-word message …
SUCEAVA, ROMANIA — As Olga Okhrimenko walked into a bustling ballroom-turned-refugee shelter at a four-star Romanian hotel, her corgi, Knolly, strained at the leash anxiously seeking the warmth inside. It had taken them three days to flee Ukraine by car, bus and taxi in the bitter cold. The 34-year-old Ukrainian marketing manager could hardly contain …
Read more “At Romania Hotel, Ballroom Welcomes Refugees Fleeing Ukraine “
South Korea said Monday it will halt all transactions with Russia’s central bank in the latest series of punitive actions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine …
US lawmakers favor more support for Kyiv, but not a no-fly zone …
Israel has offered to mediate between Ukraine and Russia …
Ukraine remains under attack from Russian forces waging war on orders from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Steadily increasing Western sanctions have so far failed to deter Russia’s aggression, as evacuation efforts in Ukraine stall because of indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story. …
The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a country long known as the “breadbasket of Europe” because of the prodigious amounts of wheat, corn and other cereal grains that it produces — will extend far beyond Europe, wreaking havoc on global food supplies, experts from aid agencies say. Ukraine produces 16% of the world’s …
Read more “Crisis in Ukraine Drives Food Prices Higher Around World”
As international sanctions on Moscow have triggered a decrease in the ruble’s value, North Korean workers in Russia are struggling to meet the remittance quotas set by Pyongyang, according to multiple sources in Russia and official North Korean documents obtained by VOA’s Korean Service. North Korea is believed to use the hard currency to fund …
Read more “Sanctioning Russia Curtails North Korea’s Hard Currency Intake”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pledged Washington’s support to Moldova, a small, Western-leaning former Soviet republic that is contending with an influx of refugees from neighboring Ukraine. Moldova says that more than 230,000 refugees have crossed its border with Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24. At least 120,000 of them …
Read more “Blinken Pledges US Support to Moldova Amid Refugee Influx from Ukraine”
The International Organization for Migration or IOM is calling on governments to stop discriminating against third-country nationals trying to flee conflict in Ukraine to neighboring countries. Nearly 1.4 million Ukrainian refugees have so far reached Poland, Moldova, Hungary, and other European countries, this according to the latest figures from the U.N. Refugee Agency. Among them …
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi dismissed suggestions his country’s “neutral” stance in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is straining Islamabad’s relationship with the United States or the West at large, in an interview Sunday with VOA. The South Asian nuclear-armed Muslim country has resisted Western pressure to condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, instead advocating …
Read more “Pakistan Vows Neutrality in Ukraine Crisis, Insists Ties with US on Track”
Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita urged the United States on Sunday to provide more humanitarian support as the number of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine to the small European country hit 120,000. At the beginning of a meeting with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, she said her country of 2.6 million, one …
Read more “Moldova Asks US for More Support as Refugee Numbers Surge”