LVIV, Ukraine/BERLIN: U.S. President JoeBiden said on Tuesday that the crisis in Ukraine was a globalissue which heightened the importance of maintaininginternational order, territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Biden’s comments delivered at the opening of the “Quad”meeting of Indo-Pacific leaders in Tokyo come a day after hebroke with convention and volunteered U.S. military support forTaiwan, the self-governed island claimed by China.
“This is more than just a European issue. It’s a globalissue,” Biden said of the crisis in Ukraine at the Quad meetingof the United States, Japan, India and Australia.
Biden stressed Washington would stand with its allies andpush for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
“International law, human rights must always be defendedregardless of where they’re violated in the world,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told global businessleaders in Davos on Monday that the world must increasesanctions against Russia to deter other countries from using“brute force” to achieve their aims.
The European Union (EU) will likely agree on an embargo onRussian oil imports “within days”, its biggest member Germanyhas said, as Moscow said its economic ties with China would growamid its isolation by the West over the Ukraine conflict.
Many of the EU’s 27 member states are heavily reliant onRussian energy, prompting criticism from Kyiv that the bloc hasnot moved quickly enough to halt supplies.
Hungary is demanding energy investment before it agrees toan embargo, clashing with EU states pushing for swift approval.The EU has offered up to 2 billion euros ($2.14 billion) tocentral and eastern nations lacking non-Russian supply.
“We will reach a breakthrough within days,” Germany’seconomy minister, Robert Habeck, told broadcaster ZDF.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlinwould focus on developing ties with China as economic links withthe United States and Europe were cut.
“If they (the West) want to offer something in terms ofresuming relations, then we will seriously consider whether wewill need it or not,” he said in a speech, according to atranscript on the foreign ministry’s website.
“Now that the West has taken a ‘dictator’s position’, oureconomic ties with China will grow even faster.”
Russia’s three-month long invasion, the biggest attack on aEuropean state since 1945, has seen over 6.5 million people fleeabroad, turned entire cities into rubble, and prompted theunprecedented imposition of Western sanctions on Russia.
Zelenskiy on Monday called on Ukraine’s allies to pressureMoscow into a prisoner exchange.
“The exchange of people - this is a humanitarian mattertoday and a very political decision that depends on the supportof many states,” Zelenskiy said in a question-and-answer videolink with audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“We do not need the Russian servicemen, we only need ours,”Zelenskiy said. “We are ready for an exchange even tomorrow.”
DONBAS FIGHTING
Russia sent thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 forwhat it calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise itsneighbour and root out dangerous nationalists - claims dismissed by Kyiv and Western countries as false pretexts for a land grab.
Having captured the port city of Mariupol in southeasternUkraine last week after a months-long siege, Russian forces nowcontrol a largely unbroken swathe of the east and south.
They are trying to encircle Ukrainian forces and fullycapture the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the eastern Donbas region, where Moscow backs separatist forces.
A total of 12,500 Russians were trying to seize Luhansk, theregion’s governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said on Telegram. The town of Sievierodonetsk is being destroyed, but Ukraine has forced Russian troops out of Toshkivka to its south, Gaidai added.
Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told localtelevision that shelling was occurring along the front line,with the coal mining town of Avdiivka being hit round the clock.
Russian forces fired on 38 communities in Donetsk andLuhansk on Monday, killing seven and injuring six, Ukraine’sJoint Forces Task Force military command said.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the information.
Zelenskiy revealed Ukraine’s worst military losses from asingle attack of the war on Monday, saying 87 people had beenkilled last week when Russian forces struck a barracks at atraining base in the north.
Denmark’s pledge to send Harpoon anti-ship missiles and alauncher to Ukraine, announced by the United States on Monday,is the first sign since the Russian invasion that Kyiv willreceive U.S.-made weapons that significantly extend its strikingrange.
The Harpoons, made by Boeing, could be used to pushthe Russian navy away from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, allowingexports of grain and other agricultural products to resume.
In the first of what could be many war crimes trials arisingfrom the invasion, a court in Kyiv sentenced a young Russiantank commander to life in prison for killing an unarmedcivilian.
Ukraine is investigating over 13,000 alleged Russian warcrimes, according to the website of its prosecutor general.
Russia has denied targeting civilians or involvement in warcrimes.
At a cemetery outside Mariupol, treading through long rowsof fresh graves and makeshift wooden crosses, Natalya Voloshina,who lost her 28-year-old son in the fight for the city, saidmany of Mariupol’s dead had no one left to honour their memory.
“Who will bury them? Who will put up a plaque?” she asked.
“They have no family.”($1 = 0.9363 euros)
