Russia-Ukraine Crisis: Russian President Vladimir Putin might undergo cancer surgery while temporarily handing over power to the secretary of the country’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, unverified media reports claimed. Putin has reportedly been told by doctors that he must undergo an operation. The European Union will hit Russia with more sanctions amid its war against Ukraine.
The bloc is preparing its sixth set of sanctions that is likely to include a phased ban on Russian oil, a major source of Moscow’s revenue. The war has claimed over 3,000 civilian lives so far, according to the latest tally of the United Nations. The latest casualties included a 14-year-old boy who was killed by a missile strike in the southern port of Odesa. The missile, which targetted a dormitory Monday, also wounded a 17-year-old girl.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, confirming the strike, asked, “How did these children and the dormitory threaten the Russian state?” Meanwhile, the first group of civilians was evacuated from Mariupol Monday, a city Russian force have brought to ruin in an effort to capture a strategic mill. According to The Associated Press, around 100,000 people are believed to be holed up at the plant, without food and other essential supplies, along with 2,000 Ukrainian defence personnel.
In other news, Russia’s Defence Ministry has said more than one million people, including 200,000 children, have been taken to Russia from Ukraine since the war began. Official Mikhail Mizintsev was quoted as saying that they “were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions” of Donetsk, Lugansk and other parts of Ukraine, “without the participation of the Ukrainian authorities”. Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has said its people have been “illegally” taken to Russia.