Month: February 2022

Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.  UN chief appeals to Putin to cease war on Ukraine  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made multiple appeals to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to stop his military invasion of Ukraine. On Thursday, Guterres said, “I repeat my appeal from last night to President Putin: Stop the military operation; bring the troops back to Russia.” The U.N. chief has been especially outspoken in recent days, raising Moscow’s ire.  Ukraine’s foreign minister appeals to UN …

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Hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war in a pre-dawn Thursday televised address, social media users living in countries near Ukraine began setting up online networks to support refugees. By Friday evening, at least 100,000 people had signed up to various groups on Facebook and other platforms, offering their homes, money and carpools to Ukrainians escaping the Russian invasion. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians, mostly women and children, crossed into Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia as of Friday as Russian missiles pounded the capital of Kyiv and men of fighting age were told to remain. Malgorzata Krentowska was one …

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U.N. aid agencies are increasing humanitarian operations to help Ukrainians whose lives have been upended since Russia invaded the country. The Russian offensive has thrown the country into turmoil. Aid agencies are scrambling to assess the dangers and priority needs and to help millions of people in an environment of extreme insecurity. Preliminary figures of casualties are daunting. As of February 24, the U.N. human rights office says it has received reports of at least 127 civilian casualties, including 25 killed and 102 injured. Most of those casualties were reported in government-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine’s separatist regions of Donetsk …

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South Korean officials reiterated Friday that they willl implement U.S. and European sanctions on Russian exports but that Seoul will not impose its own. The sanctions were imposed this week in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “As a responsible member of the international community, the Korean government will support and join [its] efforts, including economic sanctions, to curb [Russia’s] armed invasion and resolve the situation peacefully,” the foreign affairs ministry said Friday in a Twitter post. That echoed remarks made a day earlier by President Moon Jae-in, who argued for a resolution through dialogue and negotiation, not war. Semiconductors, …

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Hundreds of Australians of Ukrainian descent joined those with Russian heritage to demonstrate against the Russian invasion of Ukraine in downtown Sydney on Friday. It was an act of solidarity many thousands of kilometers away from the conflict in Ukraine. Protesters held signs urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the killing. The Australian government has joined the international condemnation of the Russian attack. Prime Minister Scott Morrison also condemned China for undermining Western sanctions against Russia. In early February, China’s president, Xi Jinping, and Putin agreed to boost trade ties. Australia insists the agreement was aimed at undermining the …

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International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan on Friday expressed his concern over the Russian invasion of Ukraine and said his court may investigate possible war crimes in the country. “I have been closely following recent developments in and around Ukraine with increasing concern,” Khan said in a statement. “I remind all sides conducting hostilities on the territory of Ukraine that my office may exercise its jurisdiction and investigate any act of genocide, crime against humanity or war crime committed within Ukraine.” Following the Russian annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the subsequent fighting in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian …

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European Union leaders have announced what they called “massive” sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine during an emergency summit in Brussels that spilled into the early hours of Friday. The measures come amid reports of Russian troops moving ever closer to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. This is the European Union’s second set of sanctions against Moscow in less than a week, along with those imposed by the United States and other Western powers. EU leaders say they will hit Russia in five areas: the financial, energy and transport sectors, as well as through export controls and visa policy. Ursula von der …

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