Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Horror as fleeing civilians slain
Scott Morrison has called out China’s alliance with Russia and Ukraine’s First Lady made a desperate call amid a worrying report Vladimir Putin is recruiting foreign fighters. WARNING: GRAPHIC.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has slammed China’s “chilling silence” on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saying it is time for Beijing to stop having a “bet each way”.
Mr Morrison gave a major foreign policy address to the Lowy Institute on Monday, formally announcing his plan for a $10bn base to be built for the nuclear powered submarines Australia is set to acquire under the AUKUS agreement.
During his hour-long speech, Mr Morrison called out China’s alliance with Russia.
The Prime Minister said he believed it was an “instinctive and opportunistic relationship” rather than a strategic one.
“The world has heard China’s words about its commitment to global peace and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and playing a positive role in the international community for a very long time,” he said.
“So it’s now up to China’s and their leaders at this hinge point of history to demonstrate that these are more than just words.
“But I feel the early signs are not good.
“No country will have a bigger impact on concluding this terrible war in Ukraine than China.
“But so long as they have a bet each way on this, the bloodshed will continue.”
It comes as Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “deliberate murder” in Ukraine.
In an address on Facebook, the Ukraine President warned “we will punish everyone who committed atrocities.”
“Today is Forgiveness Sunday. But we cannot forgive the hundreds upon hundreds of victims. Nor the thousands upon thousands who have suffered,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
“And God will not forgive. Not today. Not tomorrow. Never. And instead of forgiveness, there will be judgment.”
He continued: “For tomorrow Russia has officially announced the shelling of our territory. Our enterprises of the defence complex. Most were built decades ago by the Soviet government, built in cities. And now they are in the middle of an ordinary urban environment. “Thousands of people work there. Hundreds of thousands live nearby.
“This is murder. Deliberate murder.”
Mr Zelenskyy’s wife, Olena, also appealed to the international media to share the “terrible truth” of how Russian forces are killing children.
“I appeal to all the unbiased media in the world! Tell this terrible truth: Russian invaders are killing Ukrainian children,” the First Lady posted on Instagram with photos of five children killed by Russian attacks.
“Tell it to Russian mothers — let them know what exactly their sons are doing here, in Ukraine,” the photo caption reads.
“Show these photos to Russian women — your husbands, brothers, compatriots are killing Ukrainian children! Let them know that they are personally responsible for the death of every Ukrainian child because they gave their tacit consent to these crimes.”
RUSSIA RECRUITING SYRIANS
Russia is recruiting Syrians to boost its troop force in Ukraine.
“The Russia deployment of foreign fighters from Syria into Ukraine internationalises the Ukraine war, and therefore could link the war in Ukraine to broader cross regional dynamics, particularly in the Middle East,” Jennifer Cafarella, national security fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, told The Wall Street Journal.
It comes as the number of foreign volunteers that have signed up to fight against Russian troops in Ukraine is “approaching 20,000,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said at a news conference on Sunday.
“Experienced veterans and volunteers from 52 countries of the world come to us. This is their desire,” Kubela said, local media reported.
International fighters have begun arriving in Ukraine. Most of the fighters have arrived in Lviv in Ukraine’s west, via the Polish border, including many British and Scottish troops kitted out in full combat gear.
They will be part of their own “foreign” brigade attached to the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Force (TDF), an Army Reserve style force.
For more, click here.
CIVILIANS UNDER ATTACK
A planned ceasefire to allow Ukrainian civilians in the embattled port city of Mariupol has failed for a second time as Russian artillery pounded the city and various points along the proposed evacuation route.
A second 11-hour ceasefire saw thousands emerge from the Mariupol rubble and bunkers but in heartbreak scenes, they were again told to return to their sanctuaries.
There is now little hope of ending the misery for the 200,000 people of that city trapped let alone civilians from other centres who were yesterday also indiscriminately shelled by Russian artillery.
Little hope either for many trapped in the city of Irpin which lies in the path of Russian forces advancing on capital Kyiv.
A defiant Russian President Vladimir Putin however on Monday said he would only now negotiate any form of a truce when “all known Russian demands are met”.
Those demands now include a full surrender by Ukrainian troops – who together with ordinary civilians – have humiliated Russian forces through their resistance despite immense suffering.
In Mariupol there is no heating, no electricity and no water and many are melting snow to drink and according to authorities some are dying in minus 4 temperatures where they lay.
Ukrainian authorities claim more than 2000 civilians nationally have so far being killed since Russia’s invasion of the country 11 days ago and twice that number maimed.
Yesterday precision missiles destroyed two airports, one a regional civilian air strip, in central Ukraine while ground forces and multi — rocket launchers struck at Kharkiv and other towns nearby.
It is these that cannot be guided and have destroyed whole suburban homes and in the case of Mariupol, more than half the city. In Irpin a bus with fleeing civilians was fired upon killing eight and in another assault outside that city a bridge was hit by a mortar killing another five people including two children, one of whom was about eight years old.
Ukrainian soldiers rushed back to help the family but the kids and their mother lay dead among the burst suitcases and backpacks they were carrying, a dog in a carrier they were holding at the time was still barking. The father was dragged away but is believed to have also died.
The whole scene was captured by an American news outlet but many media refused to run the series of images simply because they were beyond distressing.
Also killed, caught out in the open, crossing a bridge already destroyed but used by civilians to flee was a well known Ukrainian actor Pavlo Lee who was a volunteer soldier.
Irpin city was last night ablaze. The city is on the outskirts of capital Kyiv and lies in the path of advancing Russian troops. It has also been the city through which civilians from the capital have been escaping. Many had been leaving via train but the railway line was cut by Russian troops forcing the population to risk going on foot. But like Kyiv, Irpin remains besieged.
The desperation to now escape in car or on foot from many of these cities is seeing the devastating civilian death toll rise.
There appears to be no end to the misery in Ukraine and EU leaders have warned it is only likely to get worse with Putin becoming ever more desperate.
Russia had also downed 10 Ukrainian planes and helicopters over the past 24 hours.
Already 1.5 million Ukrainians have left the country with twice that number displaced internally, many being taken in by strangers from Lviv in Ukraine’s west which remains relatively unscathed from Russian aggression.
Pope Francis on Sunday deplored the “rivers of blood and tears” flowing in Ukraine, as Washington cited “very credible reports” that Russia committed war crimes by deliberately attacking civilians.
TRUMP JOKES ABOUT BOMBING RUSSIA, FRAMING CHINA
Donald Trump jokingly suggested America “put the Chinese flag” on its F-22 fighter jets and “bomb the sh-t” out of Russia to frame China.
“We say China did it. And then they start fighting with each other, and we sit back and watch,” the former US President told Republican Party donors at an event on Saturday night, US time, according to a recording which The Washington Post reports it has obtained.
But, on a serious note, Mr Trump took aim at US President Joe Biden and NATO for not doing more to help the people of Ukraine.
“Are all of these nations going to stand by and watch perhaps millions of people be slaughtered as the onslaught continues?” Mr Trump said.
“At what point do countries say, ‘No, we can’t take this massive crime against humanity. We can’t let it happen. We can’t let it continue to happen.’”
AMERICAN EXPRESS EXITS RUSSIA
US credit card and payments giant American Express is suspending its operations in Russia and Belarus over Moscow’s “unjustified” attack on Ukraine, the latest financial services blow to Russia over its invasion.
“In light of Russia’s ongoing, unjustified attack on the people of Ukraine, American Express is suspending all operations in Russia,” the company said in a statement on Sunday, noting that American Express cards will no longer work at merchants or ATM money machines in Russia.
“We are also terminating all business operations in Belarus,” it added.
In addition to blocking usage of globally issued Amex cards in Russia, “cards issued locally in Russia by Russian banks will no longer work outside of the country on the American Express global network,” the company said.
The move follows card payment titans Visa and MasterCard, which had announced Saturday they will suspend operations in Russia.
For more, click here.
FEARS FOR US NBA STAR
Fears are growing that Vladimir Putin will use American basketball star Brittney Griner as a “high profile hostage” after her arrest in Moscow.
The 31-year-old Griner, was detained last month after the Russian Federal Customs Service allegedly found vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in her luggage at the Sheremetyevo airport.
The seven-time WNBA All-Star centre for the Phoenix Mercury and twice Olympic gold medallist with the US had flown in to play for her Russian basketball team during the WNBA off-season, reports The Sun.
There are fears Russia will use Griner as leverage with US-Russian relations deteriorating rapidly due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
For more, click here.
ANGRY UKRAINIAN SOLDIER SAYS US ‘NATION OF F--KING LIARS’
An angry Ukrainian soldier has slammed the United States as a “nation of liars” for not doing more to fight the Russian invaders.
The national guard troop particularly took aim at NATO’S failure to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“You are afraid to clear our skies because you are afraid of Russia,” the soldier told Fox News in Kyiv.
“You are a nation of f**king liars. We give our nuclear power and our nuclear weapons for your guarantees – your guarantees is nothing.”
NATO has said a no-fly zone, which would bar all unauthorised aircraft from flying over Ukraine, could provoke widespread war in Europe with nuclear-armed Russia.
Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall said the soldier’s comments were “very much the sentiment over here”.
The soldier replied: “The West is helping, yes, they’re grateful for everything the US is doing, but more needs to be done,” he said.
“There’s a lot of anger over here.”
PUTIN’S MISTRESS, CHILDREN IN SWITZERLAND CHALET
Vladimir Putin’s mistress is reportedly hiding in Switzerland with their four children.
“While Putin carries out his assault on Ukraine, attacking innocent citizens and causing a refugee crisis, his family is holed up in a very private and very secure chalet somewhere in Switzerland – for now, at least,” a source told the New York Post.
Alina Kabaeva, 36, an Olympic gymnast tat has won gold, is said to have four children with Mr Putin although it has never been officially confirmed.
“Alina has two young boys and twin girls with Putin who were born in Switzerland,” a source told Page Six.
“The kids all have Swiss passports, and I imagine she does also.”
For more, click here.
PUTIN ‘BLAMES KYIV’
In a telephone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Mr Putin blamed Kyiv for not keeping to “agreements reached on this acute humanitarian issue,” the Kremlin said.
But the governor of the eastern region Donetsk, Pavlo Kirilenko, said “the column to evacuate the population could not leave Mariupol … because the Russians regrouped their forces and started to bombard the city.”
“It is extremely dangerous to get people out in these conditions,” he said, adding that humanitarian aid from Zaporozhzhia also could not reach the people.
Very few refugees from the port city made it out on Saturday, but one family – who did not give their names – arrived in the central city of Dnipro and recounted their harrowing experience.
“We stayed in the basement for seven days with no heating, electricity or internet and ran out of food and water. We think we might be the only people to get out,” one said.
“On the road, we saw there were bodies everywhere, Russians and Ukrainians. There was so much damage to the city. We saw that people had been buried in their basements.”
Elsewhere, Russian forces have been inching closer to the capital Kyiv in an assault that has become evermore indiscriminate – and deadly.
At Bilogordoka on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukrainian troops have planted explosives on what they say is the last intact bridge standing in the way of Russian forces advancing down the western flank of the capital.
“This is the last bridge, we’re defending it and not letting them break through to Kyiv,” said a fighter who gave his name as “Casper”.
The former paratrooper who joined Ukraine’s volunteer territorial defence said his team will blow up the bridge if the Russians advance and “make sure to sink as many enemy tanks as we can while we do it.”
Dozens of civilians have been killed in Chernihiv. Those remaining live in craters or among ruins.
“There were corpses all over the ground,” a man who gave his name only as Sergei told media, as air raid sirens wailed.
“They were queuing here for the pharmacy that’s just there, and they’re all dead.”
Reporters on the ground saw scenes of devastation – despite Moscow’s insistence it is not targeting civilian areas.
Rejecting Moscow’s denials, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN that “we’ve seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would constitute a war crime”.
AIRPORT DESTROYED
Mr Zelenskyy warned that the Russians were turning their eyes to the west to the historic port city of Odessa, which has so far been largely spared from shelling.
“Russians have always come to Odessa. They have always felt only warmth in Odessa. Only sincerity. And now what? Bombs against Odessa? Artillery against Odessa? Missiles against Odessa?” raged Mr Zelenskyy.
“This is going to be a military crime. This is going to be a historical crime.”
Kyiv has urged the West to boost its military assistance, with Mr Zelenskyy pleading for Eastern European neighbours to provide Russian-made planes that his pilots are trained to fly.
A barrage of Russian missiles destroyed an airport in central Ukraine’s Vinnytsia, said Zelensky, underscoring his appeal for help.
Frantic diplomatic talks continued, with Mr Zelenskyy saying on Sunday local time he spoke by telephone with US President Joe Biden to discuss further financial support and sanctions against Russia.
Mr Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the latest to speak with Mr Putin in separate phone calls on Sunday.
Mr Erdogan urged his Russian counterpart to agree to “an urgent general ceasefire”.
A day earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett visited the Kremlin for three hours of talks.
Kyiv had asked Israel – which has strong relations with both Russia and Ukraine – to launch a dialogue with Moscow.
“Even if the chance is not great – as soon as there is even a small opening, and we have access to all sides and the capability – I see this as our moral obligation to make every effort,” Mr Bennett said on Sunday.
US ‘WORKING’ TO SEND JETS TO UKRAINE
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has revealed that the United States was “working actively” on a deal with Poland to supply Ukraine with jets to fight invading Russians.
The deal, according to reports, could involve Poland handing over its existing MIG-29s, a Soviet/Russian-made jet fighter Ukrainian pilots are familiar with, and the US would then provide its F-16 fighters to Poland as replacements.
US officials, including Mr Blinken, had downplayed the possibility of any NATO country supplying besieged Ukraine since the beginning of this week.
But speaking in Moldova on Sunday, Mr Blinken confirmed it was under active discussion.
“Can’t speak to a timeline, but I can just say we’re looking at it very, very actively,” he told reporters.
“We are looking actively now at the question of aeroplanes that Poland may provide to Ukraine and looking at how we might be able to backfill should Poland decide to supply those planes.”
The comments came one day after Mr Blinken met Ukraine’s foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the Poland-Ukraine border and Mr Kuleba pressed him for the aircraft.
After 11 days of a brutal war, Mr Kuleba said: “The highest demand that we have is in fighter jets, attack aircraft, and air-defence systems.”
“If we lose the skies, there will be much more blood on the ground,” he said after the meeting, with Mr Blinken standing beside him.
While a significant part of Ukraine’s air force remains intact since the war began on February 24, both Ukraine and Russia have sustained significant losses and neither controls the airspace over the country.
But Russia has a massive air force that if fully mobilised could decimate Ukraine.
Mr Putin has raged that Western sanctions against his regime are like a “declaration of war”.
And he also warned that anyone who attempts to enforce a no fly-zone over Ukraine will be considered to have entered the conflict.
Russia also issued a direct threat to the West saying it “will not forget” support for Ukraine and warned of “tough retaliation”.
CAPTURED RUSSIAN PILOTS ‘FOLLOWING ORDERS’
Russian pilots have been filmed pleading they were “following orders” after they were captured after nine aircraft were shot down in one day over Ukraine.
According to a report in The Sun, pictures showed the burning wrecks of Russian aircraft and the terrified faces of Mr Putin’s pilots as they were detained by soldiers and civilians after ejecting from their planes.
Footage shared online showed the airmen tied up with their hands behind their backs – some bloody after their desperate escapes.
It came as Ukraine on Sunday local time claimed it has now killed 11,000 Russian troops since Putin invaded the country two weeks ago.
Video taken of two airmen in the back of a truck shows them being interrogated, with their captors saying: “You are killing our people, you b*****d”.
The pilot pleads he was just “ordered to fly” – and claims he was on a rescue mission.
And another video shows a Russian pilot with blood on his shirt saying he was “not told anything” about his mission.
“Were you blind?” one man rages, with the troops claiming they had maps from his plane showing bombing runs.
His captors then say to him “you were going to bomb civilians” and question him “how many bombing flights did you perform?”.
Russia’s invasion met with staunch resistance and also has been blighted by embarrassing logistic failures and supply problems.
And despite having one of the largest air forces in the world, Putin’s planes seem incapable of securing air superiority over Ukraine.
Ukraine claims to have shot down 44 planes and 48 helicopters – as well as blowing up 285 tanks, 985 armoured cars and 60 fuel tankers.
Saturday saw one of the most striking videos of the war released as a Russian “Hind” helicopter was blasted out of the sky by a stinger missile.
Investigative journalism group Bellingcat geolocated the footage to Kozarovychi in the Kyiv Oblast – around 40km – from the capital.
Users on social media suggest the helicopter could be a Mil Mi-24 Hind gunship, which was in use by Soviet forces from 1972 and dubbed the “flying tank”.
It was the beginning of a flurry of losses for the Russians – with reports of five warplanes and choppers being shot down.
Two MI-8 and two MI-35 helicopters are believed to have been downed, along with warplanes including two Su-34s, two Su-25s and one Su-30SM.
Separate clips show Ukrainians cheering and applauding as they appear to shoot down two Russian aircraft in the Chernihiv and Mykolaiv oblasts.
The clip from Chernihiv, in northern Ukraine, shows two pilots parachuting out.
One died, while the other survived, it’s claimed.
The surviving soldier is seen in a bloodstained T-shirt with a bandage wrapped around his head.
The soldiers get their captive to say “glory to Ukraine” before asking: “Why are you bombing people?”
It’s believed his aircraft was a Sukhoi Su-34 – a fighter-bomber which had also been used in Syria.
In a separate film, a captured pilot in an orange jumpsuit is seen bloodied and on his knees as he’s questioned by Ukrainian fighters in Mykolaiv.
Originally published as Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Horror as fleeing civilians slain
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