Month: March 2022

Ballet Greats Unite For London Ukraine Benefit Gala

World-famous ballet dancers from Russia and Ukraine, Argentina, Cuba, France and Japan come together Saturday for a gala to raise funds for Ukraine and send a message of peace. “We as artists have talent and we need to use this talent to say what we believe in,” Ukraine’s Ivan Putrov, co-organizer of the event to be held at the English National Opera’s London Coliseum, told AFP. “Art has a voice and is the voice that we use,” said Putrov, who was a principal dancer with London’s prestigious Royal Ballet from 2002-10. Putrov and Romanian ballerina Alina Cojocaru both trained in …

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Kyiv Nurse Cares for Others’ Children as War Keeps Her from Her Own

Ukrainian nurse Oksana Martynenko and her colleagues have 21 babies to look after at a makeshift clinic in a residential basement on the outskirts of Kyiv – all of them surrogates whose parents cannot come to collect them because of the war. All the while she has her own family to worry about. Her children are in the region around Sumy, a city some 320 kilometers east of the capital which has been bombarded by Russian forces. It is too dangerous for Martynenko to try to reach them, so they are living with their grandmother. “We haven’t been able to …

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Pope Calls Ukraine War ‘Perverse Abuse of Power’ for Partisan Interests

Pope Francis, ramping up his implicit criticism of Russia, on Friday called the war in Ukraine a “perverse abuse of power” waged for partisan interests which has condemned defenseless people to violence. The pope has not actually named Russia in his condemnations, but he has used phrases such as “unacceptable armed aggression” to get his point across and on Friday spoke of “people defending their land” and escaping bombardments. “The tragedy of the war taking place in the heart of Europe has left us stunned,” he said, adding that few people would have imagined scenes similar to the two world …

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Civilians Survive Ukrainian Theater Bombing; Search for Others Continues 

Ukrainian officials said Friday that they had yet to find any casualties in the ruins of a theater hit by a Russian airstrike this week in the southern city of Mariupol, as Russian forces continued to fire on Ukrainian cities and as negotiators from both countries sought common ground. So far, 130 people have been rescued from the theater’s basement, Ukrainian officials said, as the search continued for more than 1,000 people who could be trapped in the makeshift bomb shelter that was hit Wednesday. Mariupol’s city council said on Telegram that “according to initial information, there are no dead. …

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Man Who Grew Up With War in Iraq Now in Kyiv Using His Business to Help

When Iraqi-born American entrepreneur Emad Ballack watched footage of war breaking out in Ukraine from his office in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, he decided he had to act. As civilians started to pour out of the country, Ballack, who is an ethnic Kurd, began a four-day trip to Kyiv, a city he has called home for the last eight years. “I was not scared but more worried about how I would manage to get into the country,” he said. During his journey by plane and train, the 45-year-old started to think about how he could use his businesses, including restaurants …

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Russia Says YouTube Users Spreading ‘Terrorist’ Threats

Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor has accused Google’s YouTube of “spreading threats against citizens of the Russian Federation” in a statement released Friday. “Earlier it became known that YouTube video hosting users are broadcasting commercials with calls to disable the railway communications of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus,” the statement added. “The actions of the YouTube administration are of a terrorist nature and threaten the life and health of Russian citizens.” Roskomnadzor did not identify the users broadcasting the alleged threats. While the statement did not mention blocking YouTube in Russia, an unnamed official told Russian state media …

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