Ukraine War Live: Russia accused of kidnapping 400,000 civilians as Biden sounds chemical weapons warning

The Australian government on Friday imposed sanctions on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and members of his family, according to the Foreign Office.

The Pacific nation also imposed sanctions on 22 Russian media workers.

“The Australian government has also imposed new sanctions on 22 Russian propagandists and purveyors of disinformation, including editors of Russia Today, the Strategic Culture Foundation, Inforos and NewsFront,” the statement said.

Ukraine has accused Moscow of “forcibly deporting” more than 400,000 civilians from devastated Ukrainian towns to Russia to pressure kyiv into acknowledging defeat.

Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian mediator, said 402,000 civilians, including 84,000 children, had been taken against their will to Russia, where some could be used as “hostages”.

“We have information that the Russian occupiers are forcibly deporting our citizens from Mariupol, Volnovakha, Stanytsia Luhanska to the Russian Federation,” she said.

Russian forces fired two missiles Thursday night at a Ukrainian military unit on the outskirts of Dnipro, the country’s fourth-largest city.

According to regional emergency services, the strikes destroyed buildings and started two fires. Victims, if any, are still being established.

Dnipro is located west of regions along the Russian border that have been controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014.

The United States said Thursday that Ukraine likely carried out a successful attack on Russian ships in the port of Berdyansk on the Sea of ​​Azov.

A defense official told CNN it was unclear what type of weapon was used to carry out the attack.

Earlier in the day, Ukraine said it had destroyed the Orsk, a landing ship docked at the port of Berdyansk capable of carrying 20 tanks.

Workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were at risk due to continued Russian shelling of checkpoints in the town of Slavutych, Ukrainian officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Several people working at the now defunct factory live in the town outside the exclusion zone established following the 1986 nuclear disaster.

The IAEA, in a statement on Thursday, said the bombing endangered “the homes and families of operational personnel who provide nuclear and radiation safety” at the plant.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday evening that the country “must move towards peace” as it marked one month since the start of the Russian invasion. “It is already dark. But we are working,” he said.

“The country must move towards peace, move forward. With each day of our defense, we are getting closer to the peace we so desperately need. We are getting closer to victory. We can’t stop even for a minute. Because every minute determines our destiny, our future, if we will live,” he added.

He reported on his conversations that day with the leaders of NATO and European Union countries meeting in Brussels, and their promises of even more sanctions against Russia.

“We must seek peace,” he said. “Russia must also seek peace.”

US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that up to 100,000 Ukrainians feeling war were welcome to seek refuge in his country.

“We are focused on reuniting families and providing refuge for those who are in danger,” he said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made it a strategic burden for China, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday.

“I think to some extent what Putin has done in Ukraine makes Russia a much bigger strategic burden for Beijing than it was six weeks or six months ago,” the undersecretary of defense said. Colin Kahl politics.

In February, China and Russia declared a “limitless” partnership, backing each other in clashes with Ukraine and Taiwan with the promise of more collaboration against the West.

The US ambassador to Mexico addressed the lower house of Mexico’s Congress on Thursday, urging that country’s politicians to join the US in supporting kyiv against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

It comes a day after Ken Salazar’s Russian counterpart encouraged Mexico to challenge ‘Uncle Sam’.

“The Russian ambassador was here yesterday making a lot of noise about how close Mexico and Russia are. That, sorry, can never happen. That can never happen,” Salazar said.

“We must stand in solidarity with Ukraine and against Russia.”

“I remember very well that during World War II there was no distance between Mexico and the United States, the two were united against what Hitler was doing,” he added.

In May 1942, the Mexican Congress approved a formal resolution for war against the Axis powers, about six months after the United States declared war on Germany.

Salazar’s comments came after Russia’s ambassador to Mexico, Viktor Koronelli, addressed lawmakers on Wednesday at a new “Mexico-Russia friendship committee.”

“On Uncle Sam’s orders, Mexico will never answer ‘Yes, sir,'” Koronelli said, drawing applause from some lawmakers.

During his appearance, the Russian ambassador repeated his government’s position that it is carrying out a “special military operation” to “denazify” Ukraine, whose president is Jewish.

“Russia didn’t start this war, it ends it,” Koronelli said.

Ukraine and its Western allies call it a baseless pretext for a war of choice that has raised fears of a wider conflict in Europe.

ICYMI: A total of 75 civilians have died in kyiv since the start of the war, the city’s mayor said.

Vitali Klitschko added that 307 other people had been injured in the capital over the past four weeks.