Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, March 16: The Russian forces is alleged to have shot dead 10 civilians standing in a queue to purchase bread in Chernihiv, the US embassy in Kyiv claimed on Wednesday, even as the United States and Russia held their first “high-level talks” on Ukraine.
“Such horrific attacks must stop. We are considering all available options to ensure accountability for any atrocity crimes in Ukraine,” the US embassy on the alleged Chernihiv incident said on Twitter but did not provide any evidence to authenticate its charges.
The United States and Russia on Wednesday held their first ‘high-level’ talks since the war in Ukraine began, the White House said, adding that US National Security Advisor (NSA) Jake Sullivan held a discussion with General Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council.
“If Russia is serious about diplomacy, then it should stop attacking Ukrainian cities and towns,” a White House statement quoted Sullivan as saying. The statement further noted that Sullivan also laid out Washington’s commitment to continue imposing sanctions against President Vladimir Putin and members of his regime, as well as Russian oligarchs, and to support Ukraine in its defence against the ongoing military offensive.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who received a standing ovation from the US lawmakers as he appeared on the video screen for his first virtual address, said, “Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death for thousands of people.”
Zelensky cited Pearl Harbour and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, as he appealed to the US Congress to do more to help Ukraine’s fight against Russia, but acknowledged the no-fly zone he has sought to “close the sky” over his country may not happen. Zelensky said the US must sanction Russian lawmakers and block imports, and he showed a packed auditorium of lawmakers an emotional video of the destruction and devastation his country has suffered in the war. “We need you right now,” Zelensky said, adding, “I call on you to do more.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said some formulations for agreements with Ukraine were close to being agreed, with neutral status for Kyiv under “serious” consideration. Ukraine too has said it sees possible room for compromise in talks with Russia despite new assaults on Mariupol. The fast-moving developments on the diplomatic front and on the ground came on the 20th day of Russia’s invasion. Putin has said Russia was ready to discuss neutral status for Ukraine, three weeks into a war that has killed thousands of people and forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes.
The US – Russia and Russia –Ukraine talks were held in the backdrop of series of Russian strikes hitting a residential neighbourhood of Ukraine’s capital on Tuesday, igniting a huge fire and frantic rescue effort in a 15-story Kyiv apartment building.
Russian forces also targeted the southern Ukraine city of Zaporizhzhia, where thousands of refugees are taking shelter after escaping the besieged port city of Mariupol, regional officials said. “Civilian objects have been bombed for the first time in Zaporizhzhia,” the regional governor Alexander Starukh wrote on the social media platform Telegram. “The rockets landed in the area of the Zaporozhye-2 railway station,” he added, specifying that there were no casualties.
The city of Zaporizhzhia is the first safe port of call for those fleeing Mariupol. Many then head to the country’s west, to Poland or other bordering countries.
Clearly laying out the US commitment to continue imposing costs on Russia,” Sullivan said the US had told Russia that it would continue to support Ukraine’s defence and reinforce NATO’s eastern flank, “in full coordination with our Allies and partners.” The US and NATO have for days now voiced fears that Russia could launch a chemical or biological attack in Ukraine, and Sullivan “warned General Patrushev about the consequences and implications of any possible Russian decision” to do so.
The statement came shortly after Zelensky made the powerful address to the US Congress in which he invoked the horror of the war and urged Washington to reconsider his plea for a no-fly zone. Biden has so far bluntly ruled out any no-fly zone, warning that it could lead NATO into to “World War III” with nuclear-armed Russia. Instead he has imposed crippling sanctions on Russia and poured money and aid into Ukraine.
Even as he Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would achieve its goals in Ukraine and would not submit to what he called a “Western attempt to achieve global dominance and dismember Russia,” a former economic adviser to the Russian government now in exile claimed that Putin had “miscalculated” the Ukraine war and the invasion had put the Russian economy back by decades.
Sergei Guriev, the former Kremlin and Russian government adviser, called the assault on Ukraine a “great miscalculation” by Putin. The Russian leader gambled that a rapid military operation could shore up his domestic popularity, but within a matter of weeks, Putin has “destroyed” the Russian economy and precipitated a crisis unprecedented since the fall of the Soviet Union, he said.
“The last eight years were not great for Russia — it was eight years of stagnation. What we have now is a return to 20, 30 years back in terms of income levels and the structure of the economy,” he said. “Putin has managed to destroy the Russian economy within a matter of weeks.”
Putin, however, had earlier claimed that his military campaign in Ukraine was “a success” and that he would not allow the country to become a “springboard” used to threaten Russia. “The operation is developing successfully and in strict accordance with plans,” Putin said at a televised government meeting, adding Russia had no choice but to send in troops. “We will not allow Ukraine to serve as a springboard for aggressive actions against Russia.”
Putin compared the avalanche of Western sanctions on Russia imposed over the Ukraine conflict to anti-Semitic violence by fascists. “The West dropped its mask of civility and began to act belligerently. It begs a comparison to the anti-Semitic pogroms” of Nazis, Putin said at a government meeting broadcast on national television.
Meanwhile, the Council of Europe on Wednesday expelled Russia from the continent’s foremost human rights body in an unprecedented move over Moscow’s invasion and war in Ukraine. The 47-nation organization’s committee of ministers said in statement that “the Russian Federation ceases to be a member of the Council of Europe as from today, after 26 years of membership.”