Ukraine: As Russia’s invasion in Ukraine enters the 17th day, several cities have been taken under siege. India at the UN hoped diplomacy and dialogue between Russia & Ukraine would bring an end to hostilities. TS Tirumurti, India’s permanent representative to the UN said: “We sincerely hope ongoing direct negotiations between Russia & Ukraine will lead to cessation of hostilities. There’s no other alternative except a path of diplomacy and dialogue. The dire humanitarian situation needs immediate and urgent attention.” Meanwhile, the talks between Ukraine and Russia’s foreign ministers on Thursday are still at an impasse.
US President Joe Biden said that his country would not fight in Ukraine, and confrontation between NATO and Russia would result in World War II Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said on Saturday that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the internal displacement of as many as 1.9 million people. “Most of them are in the west and north-west with about 500,000 displaced people in Zakarpatska, 387,000 in Lvivska and about 170,000 in Volynska,” Dujarric said.
The UN estimates that more than 2.5 million women, children and men have been forced to take shelter in Ukraine’s neighbouring countries. The Ukrainian Defence Ministry has issued a statement claiming that Russian forces bombed a mosque in the port city of Mariupol where as many as 80 civilians were taking shelter. Mariupol has been under siege for nearly a fortnight, resulting in the death of over 1,300 people, as per Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. Earlier this week, Russian shelling had caused severe damage to a maternity hospital in Mariupol.
While Russia claimed that the hospital was “being used” by far-right Ukrainian outfits, such claims have been categorically debunked by multiple news outlets. A day after the top EU leaders met in Versailles and doused Kyiv’s bid for a fast-track membership to the EU, Slovak diplomat Michal imeka along with other delegation members representing the bloc came to the western city of Lviv to show their support for Ukraine. According to a Ukrainian official, 79 children have died and almost 100 have been injured since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24th.