LAST UPDATE | 20 Mar 2022
HERE ARE THE major developments on the 25th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Good morning, Lauren Boland here. It has been 25 days since Russia first invaded Ukraine.
We’ll be bringing you all the latest updates here today – let’s start with a quick look at the current situation:
Thousands of people have been evacuated from besieged cities but Russian shelling is blocking efforts to deliver humanitarian supplies, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his latest address.
Aid agencies have warned they are struggling to reach hundreds of thousands of people trapped by Russianforces.
6,623 people were evacuated along humanitarian corridors yesterday, including 4,000 from the port city of Mariupol.
Zelenskyy said the siege of the city will go down as a war crime: “To do such a thing to a peaceful city, what the occupiers have done, this is a terror that will be remembered even in the next century.”
Overnight, air raid sirens rang out across Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports.
In Rubizhne, three people were killed in Russian attacks, while 24 hourses and apartment buildings were destroyed in Rubizhne and Severodonetsk over the past 24 hours.
Russia’s defence ministry said it has fired its newest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles in Ukraine again, destroying a fuel storage site in the country’s south.
It killed more than 100 members of Ukrainian special forces and “foreign mercenaries” when it targeted a training centre in the town of Ovruch in northern Ukraine with sea-based missiles, the ministry said.
The Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missiles were fired from airspace over Russian-controlled Crimea while Kalibr cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea also targeted the depot.
The Ukrainian armed forces confirmed to AFP on Saturday that the depot had been targeted but said they had “no information of the type of missile.”
The Russian defence ministry said that it also used long-range precision weapons against other facilities in Ukraine on yesterday evening and early today.
Ukraine’s defence ministry says that Ukraine has taken out 14,700 Russian troops, 476 tanks and 1,487 armoured personnel vehicles since the start of the invasion.
Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian forces of bombing a school in Mariupol where 400 people, including women and children were sheltering.
On messaging app Telegram, Mariupol’s city council wrote that: “Yesterday, the Russian occupiers dropped bombs on an art school No 12.”
In a statement, the council said the building was destroyed and that some Mariupol residents are being forcibly taken to Russia and their Ukrainian passports are being taken from them.
“People who are being forcibly taken to Russia are being stripped of their Ukrainian passports and given a piece of paper that carries no legal weight and is not recognised by the entire civilised world,” the city council said.
Head of the Donetsk regional administration Pavlo Kyrylenko said that Russian forces have already deported more than a thousand Mariupol residents.
He said that “the occupiers are sending the residents of Mariupol to filtration camps, checking their phones and seizing [their] Ukrainian documents”.
“I appeal to the international community: put pressure on Russia and its madman of a leader,” he said.
Separately, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor said residents were taken to the Russian cities of Tomsk, Vladimir and Yaroslavl.
In Ireland, the Irish Cancer Society is calling for significant support for cancer patients from Ukraine to be integrated into the Irish healthcare system.
Dr Vitaliy Mykytiv, a Consultant Haematologist at Cork University Hospital, is working on the emergency response effort among Ukrainian medical professionals, charities and NGOs.
“We are expecting more Ukrainian patients to arrive in the coming weeks and months who will require significant extra support in accessing treatment in Ireland,” Dr Mykytiv said today.
This will be complicated by a number of issues including access to translated medical records from Ukraine where the war still rages, as well as necessary translation services in Ireland.
These patients will have had their access to treatment severely disrupted as they leave their homes, and there is also a significant existing variation in treatment regimes between the two countries.
He said that the Covid-19 vaccination rate in Ukraine is lower than Ireland’s and patients “will need adequate protection from the current upsurge in cases here”.
“This may further complicate access to treatment.
“Everyone involved in the emergency response must come together to ensure that these patients can benefit from prompt access to care, and that there is sufficient capacity to cope with this influx of people who will need additional supports.”
In Kyiv, at least 20 babies born to surrogate mothers are in a makeshift basement bomb shelter as they wait to leave the country.
Many of the surrogacy centre’s nurses are also staying in the shelter because it is too dangerous to travel to and from their homes.
Lyudmilia Yashchenko, a 51-year-old nurse, told the Associated Press: “Now we are staying here to preserve our and the babies’ lives. We are hiding here from the bombing and this horrible misery.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to address Israel’s parliament today via video conference. Zelenskyy’s speech is scheduled for 6pm (4pm Irish time).
The meeting is notable as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government has tried to maintain neutrality on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, due to Israel’s warm ties with both countries and the need to preserve security coordination with Russian troops operating in Syria.
But there have been several demonstrations in Israel condemning the invasion, and Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai announced the municipality will screen Zelenskyy’s speech live in the heart of the city.
Bennett has held regular mediation-style phone calls with Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a three-hour meeting with Putin at the Kremlin on March 5.
Israel has provided humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, but so far ruled out sending military hardware to the embattled country. It also hasn’t joined Western sanctions against Russia.
10 million people have now fled their homes in Ukraine due to Russia’s “devastating” war, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.
In a tweet, he said today: “The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million have fled either displaced inside the country, or as refugees abroad.”
Of those 10 million, more than 1.5 million are children who have fled abroad.
Around 90% are women and children; Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are eligible for military call-up and are not allowed to leave Ukraine.
UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, is warning that the risks children are facing of human trafficking and exploitation are “real, and growing”.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration Olha Stefanishyna has said she believes genocide is being committed against Ukrainian people.
Speaking to Sky News, she referred to the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which has urged Russia to “immediately suspend the military operations”.
“We know that the words of the ruling, the orders, mean nothing to the Russian Federation, but it’s not something I presume or anybody else presumes, this is the reality,” she said.
“Putin and the Kremlin are the worst criminals.”
“They commit the worst crimes and they’re doing a targeted attempt on the Ukrainian population,” she said.
“It’s not a question, it’s simply the reality we are all facing in the 21st century.”
Here’s the moment a 74-year-old woman who escaped from Ukraine to Poland calls her daughter to let her know she’s safe.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has said any agreement with Moscow needs to be on Ukraine’s terms.
He pledged the UK will “maintain the significant pressure that we are bringing to bear” on Russian President Vladimir Putin following the invasion.
Speaking on Sky News, he said it is enouraging that discussions are taking place but that other countries must have “some degree of scepticism” towards Russia.
“I think the most important thing is that any talk of a settlement must be on Ukraine’s terms.
And the best thing we can do is just maintain the significant pressure that we are bringing to bear on Putin, but also providing support to the Ukrainians in the meantime – that’s the best we can do and the Ukrainians will take the lead.”
Pope Francis has sent a tweet in both English and Ukrainian condemning Russia’s invasion.
“The violent aggression against Ukraine does not stop, a senseless massacre where every day there is a repetition of slaughter and atrocities,” the pope said.
“There is no justification for this! I plead with the international community to truly commit to ending this abhorrent war. #Peace.”
France has seized around €850 million of Russian oligarchs’ assets.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that France has “immobilised” €150 million in individual’s accounts, credit lines in France and in French establishments, as well as €539 million of real estate.
It has also sequestered two yachts worth €150 million.
The seizure means the owners are unable to sell on or monetise their assets, but they “are not seized in the sense that the state becomes the owner and could then sell them on”.
“For there to be seizure there has to be a penal offence,” Le Maire said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spoken to Israeli lawmakers this afternoon, and has urged Israel to abandon its effort to maintain neutrality following Russia’s invasion.
Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, told them that the time had come for the Jewish state to firmly back his country.
In remarks that at several points compared Russian aggression to the Holocaust, he said that “Ukraine made the choice to save Jews 80 years ago.”
“Now it’s time for Israel to make its choice.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has walked a careful diplomatic line since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.
While Ukrainian officials have voiced appreciation for Bennett’s mediation efforts, Zelenskyy implied today that this too had proven to be a misstep.
“We can mediate between states but not between good and evil,” he said.
Nestlé has insisted that it is not making any profits in Russia, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Swiss food giant of doing business as usual.
In a speech live-streamed outside the Swiss parliament in Bern yesterday, Zelenskyy urged Swiss companies to stop doing business in Russia and condemned firms that carried on regardless despite the siege of Mariupol.
He singled out Nestlé, saying: “Business works in Russia even though our children are dying and our cities are being destroyed”.
But a Nestle spokeswoman told AFP: “We have greatly reduced our activities in Russia. We have suspended all imports and exports, except for vital products. We have stopped all our investments there and have ceased all our advertising activities.”
“We do not make any profit from our remaining operations in Russia.”
“The fact that we provide essential foodstuffs to the population, like other companies in the food sector, does not mean that we simply continue our activities as before.”
Nestle announced the suspension of the delivery of certain products to Russia, including Nespresso, on March 11, but certain necessities such as baby food and cereals were exempt.
The spokeswoman said they “are doing everything possible in Ukraine and neighbouring countries to help alleviate this humanitarian catastrophe”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spoken to CNN, telling them about how he has been coping with the invasion, and about the toll it is taking on him personally.
He said that his children “know for sure what’s happening”, and he doesn’t know if it’s good or bad. He said they are proud of Ukraine and they have a sincere hope in the country’s victory.
Additional reporting by AFP and Press Association
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