KYIV/LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – Japan and Australia on Friday announced new sanctions against Russian entities in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which the West says has been slowed by fierce resistance but continues to wreak havoc among civilians.
Western sources and Ukrainian officials say Russia’s onslaught has waned since the invasion began on Feb. 24, dampening Moscow’s hopes of a quick victory and removal of the government and President Volodimir Zelensky.
Russia is using missiles and bombing to pressure Ukrainian forces to surrender, but has yet to capture any of the country’s ten major cities.
At least three explosions were heard in the western Lviv on Friday, Ukraine 24 TV channel reported, which broadcast a short video in which a plume of smoke was visible in the distance.
Despite setbacks on the battlefield and punitive sanctions imposed by the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin does not seem ready to back down.
His government says it counts on China to help Russia weather the blows to its economy.
The United States, which announced this week the release of an additional 800 million dollars (722 million euros) to provide military aid to Kyiv, fears that Beijing “would consider directly helping Russia by providing it with military equipment for use in Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
US President Joe Biden, who has called Vladimir Putin a “murderous dictator”, will make clear to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Friday that Beijing “will have to take responsibility for any initiative on its part to support Russia’s aggression”. said Antony Blinken.
The two leaders are due to meet at 9 a.m. US time (1300 GMT), the White House said.
China has refused to condemn the Russian offensive or call it an invasion. While saying she recognizes Ukraine’s sovereignty, she also considers that Russia has legitimate security concerns that need to be heard.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry official met with Russia’s ambassador to Beijing this week, with whom he discussed cooperation between the two countries on counter-terrorism and security issues, according to a statement issued by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ministry.
DISTINCT PARTS
Tokyo and Canberra announced separate measures sanctioning Russian individuals and organizations, including two Russian oligarchs with ties to Australia’s mining industry.
So far, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has recorded 2,032 civilian casualties in the conflict in Ukraine, including 780 dead and 1,252 injured.
Some 3.2 million civilians have now fled the conflict to neighboring countries, the UN said.
Talks between Moscow and Kyiv began on Monday via video link and were due to resume on Thursday for the fourth consecutive day.
IN SEARCH OF SURVIVORS
In Mariupol, a besieged port in the south-east, rescuers were trying to find survivors trapped under the rubble of a theater that housed many civilians, the target, according to the Ukrainian authorities, of a Russian air strike, which Moscow denies.
Mariupol has suffered the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the conflict, with hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in basements without food, water or electricity. City officials said they did not know the number of casualties after the theater attack.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that claiming the Russian military bombed a theater in Mariupol was a lie.
Kyiv’s northeastern and northwestern suburbs have suffered heavy damage, but the capital is holding its own as a curfew has been imposed and the city is subjected to deadly rocket attacks every night.
In Kyiv, a building suffered heavy damage in the Darnitsky district, due according to local authorities to the debris of a missile shot down in the early hours of Thursday.
As residents bustled about cleaning up the mess, a kneeling man cried next to a woman’s body covered in a bloody sheet.
In northern Ukraine, in Chernihiv, the city’s governor, Vyacheslav Tchaus, said 53 civilians had been killed in the past 24 hours during intense shelling, an unverifiable report from an independent source.
(Reuters editorials, written by Rami Ayyub and Lincoln Feast; French version Camille Raynaud)