Ukraine warns of possible Belarusian invasion plan
Explosions are seen during shelling in a residential district in Mariupol, Ukraine on Thursday. Picture: AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
Ukraine's state Centre for Strategic Communications said it could not rule that Belarus would launch an invasion of Ukraine on Friday after a meeting in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
"According to preliminary data, Belarusian troops may be drawn into an invasion on March 11 at 21:00 (1900 GMT)," the centre, which was established under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, said in a statement.
Ukraine's armed forces said Russian aircraft fired at a Belarusian settlement near the border with Ukraine from Ukrainian air space on Friday to try to drag Belarus into Moscow's war on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian air force said at 2.30pm local time (12.30pm in Ireland) the state border service received information that Russian aircraft had taken off from an airfield in Belarus, crossed into Ukrainian air space and then fired at the village of Kopani.
"This is a PROVOCATION! The goal is to involve the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus in the war with Ukraine!," Ukraine's Air Force Command said in an online statement.
The Ukrainian military said two other Belarusian settlements were also targeted in the same operation.
"We officially declare: the Ukrainian military has not planned and does not plan to take any aggressive action against the Republic of Belarus," the security service said in a statement.
- The UN Security Council will meet on Friday at Russia’s request to discuss what Moscow claims are “the military biological activities of the US on the territory of Ukraine”.
- New satellite photos appeared to show that a massive convoy outside the Ukrainian capital has split up and fanned out into towns and forests near Kyiv, with artillery pieces raised into firing position in a potentially ominous movement of the Russian military.
- The UK has sanctioned 386 members of the Russian Duma for their support for the Ukrainian breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
- Britain has warned Vladimir Putin of a “dramatic increased response” from the West if he uses chemical weapons in Ukraine, amid warnings over a possible attack on Chernobyl. .
- Hanna Hordynska spent ten days escaping war-torn Ukraine, travelling by car and walking for several hours before she eventually boarded a plane to Dublin. .
Ukraine’s president says his country’s military forces have reached “a strategic turning point,” while Russia’s president says there are “certain positive developments” in talks between the warring countries.
Neither leader explained clearly what they meant, however. It comes as airstrikes hit three Ukrainian cities far to the west from the main Russian offensive.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday: “It’s impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible to say that we will do it because ... we have reached a strategic turning point.” He didn’t elaborate.
He said authorities are working on 12 humanitarian corridors and trying to ensure needy people receive food, medicine and basic goods.
He spoke on a video showing him outside the presidential administration in Kyiv, speaking in both Ukrainian and Russian about the 16th day of war.
Meanwhile, in Moscow Russian President Vladimir Putin said there have been positive developments in talks between the warring countries, but he didn’t offer any details about what those developments were.
Putin hosted Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko for talks on Friday and told him that negotiations with Ukraine “are now being held almost on a daily basis.”
Local authorities say Russian strikes hit near airports in the western Ukrainian cities of Ivano-Frankiivsk and Lutsk, far from Russia’s main attack targets elsewhere in Ukraine.
It comes as the UN human rights office said it has documented 549 civilian deaths and 957 injuries so far following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying the toll and “general human suffering” are rising.
The mayor of Ivano-Frankiivsk, Ruslan Martsinkiv, ordered residents in the neighbouring areas to head to shelters after an air raid alert. The mayor of Lutsk also announced an airstrike near the airport.
The strikes were far to the west from the main Russian offensive and could indicate a new direction of the war.
Three Russian airstrikes also hit the eastern industrial city of Dnipro on Friday, killing at least one person, according to Interior Ministry adviser Anton Heraschenko.
It comes as Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Friday that Russian forces invading Ukraine have killed more Ukrainian civilians than soldiers.
"I want this to be heard not only in Kyiv but all over the world," Reznikov said.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Friday it has verified 29 attacks on health care facilities, workers and ambulances in the hostilities, including a high-profile one on a maternity hospital in southeastern Mariupol on Wednesday. In those, 12 people have been killed and 34 injured, WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris said in an email.
The figures from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which run through the February 24 start of the fighting to midnight Wednesday, focus on civilians in general. It uses a strict methodology and counts only confirmed casualties. It acknowledges that its tally is likely to underestimate the real toll.
“Civilians are being killed and maimed in what appear to be indiscriminate attacks, with Russian forces using explosive weapons with wide area effects in or near populated areas,” spokeswoman Liz Throssell told a UN briefing.
New satellite photos appeared to show a massive convoy outside the Ukrainian capital has fanned out into towns and forests near Kyiv, with artillery pieces raised into firing position in a potentially ominous movement of the Russian military.
The photos emerged amid more international efforts to isolate and sanction Russia, particularly after a deadly airstrike on a maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol that Western and Ukrainian officials decried as a war crime.
The International Organisation for Migration says 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded more than two weeks ago.
IOM spokesman Paul Dillon said in a text message that the figures, taken from national governments, were up to date through Friday morning.
He said that more than 1.5 million refugees have gone to neighbouring Poland and that some 116,000 of the refugees are “third-country nationals,” not Ukrainians.
The UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, also gave the 2.5 million total for refugees and said his agency estimates that about two million people are displaced inside Ukraine as well.
The US and other nations were poised Friday to announce the revocation of Russia’s “most favored nation” trade status, which would allow higher tariffs to be imposed on some Russian imports.
Unbowed by the sanctions, Russia kept up its bombardment of the besieged southern seaport of Mariupol while Kyiv braced for an onslaught, its mayor boasting that the capital had become practically a fortress protected by armed civilians.
Meanwhile, Russian forces were pushing toward Kyiv from the northwest and east but were repulsed from Chernihiv as Ukrainian fighters regained control of Baklanova Muraviika, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities announced plans for several evacuation and humanitarian aid delivery routes Friday, with the support of the Red Cross.
The top priority remained freeing people from the besieged city of Mariupol and getting aid to its hungry, thirsty, freezing and terrified population.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a video message that Ukrainian authorities are trying yet again Friday to send aid into Mariupol and bring evacuees out to the city of Zaporizhzhia. Repeated previous attempts have failed, as aid and rescue convoys were targeted by Russian shelling.
Vereshchuk said buses would be sent Friday to multiple Kyiv suburbs to bring people to the capital, and to bring aid to those staying behind.
She also announced efforts to create new humanitarian corridors to bring aid to people in areas occupied or under Russian attack around the cities of Kherson in the south, Chernihiv in the north and Kharkiv in the east.
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