Russian strikes continued in Ukraine on Wednesday March 16, twenty-one days after the start of the Russian invasion. Several strong explosions sounded at dawn in the west of kyiv, followed by thick columns of black smoke in the sky of the capital, under curfew until Thursday morning.
A theater housing “hundreds of civilians” targeted in Mariupol
A theater with “hundreds of civilians” was heavily damaged by a Russian airstrike in the besieged port of Mariupol, the town hall of this city in southeastern Ukraine announced on Wednesday. “The plane dropped a bomb on the building where hundreds of civilians were sheltering. It is impossible to establish the toll immediately because the bombardments of the living quarters continue”wrote the town hall on Telegram, posting a photo of the theater whose central part is destroyed. “The entrance to the shelter is blocked by debris. Information about the victims is being verified”, she added. The Russian Ministry of Defense for its part denied, accusing the Ukrainian nationalist battalion Azov of this strike.
In Kharkiv, three other people lost their lives in a market in a fire caused by a bombardment, according to the emergency services. Russian strikes also hit a train station in Zaporozhye, a city in the south of the country hitherto spared, which serves as a refuge for residents of Mariupol fleeing via a humanitarian corridor. According to the Ukrainian army, Russian forces fired multiple rocket launchers at civilians fleeing the besieged port, killing an unspecified number of people.
Ten people queuing to buy bread were also killed by Russian fire in Cherniguiv, northern Ukraine, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said. In this same city, a strike on an apartment building killed at least five people, including three children, according to the rescuers.
Biden calls Putin ‘a war criminal’
He uses these terms for the first time. US President Joe Biden called his counterpart Russian Vladimir Putin “war criminal” Wednesday. The leader made his remarks in front of a journalist, who questioned him as he left an event at the White House. “The president was speaking from his heart and from what you saw on TV, which is the barbaric actions of a brutal dictator“, reacted his spokeswoman Jen Psaki shortly after. She specified that a “legal procedure (was) still ongoing at the State Department” on a legal qualification of “war crimes” committed by Russia in Ukraine.
No U.S. official had previously used the terms publicly. “war criminal” Where “war crimes”, unlike other States or international organizations. The Kremlin reacted quickly, citing remarks “unacceptable and unforgivable”.
$1 billion in additional military aid
Joe Biden also confirmed on Wednesday the sending of $800 million in additional military aid to Ukraine, a total envelope “unprecedented” a billion dollars in a week in response to the Russian invasion. “On demand” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “we are helping Ukraine to equip itself with anti-aircraft defense systems”, clarified Joe Biden during a short speech. Unsurprisingly, he did not accede to the request of the Ukrainian head of state to set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader spoke on Wednesday by videoconference before the American Congress, which gave him a standing ovation. “In your great History, you have pages that allow you to understand Ukrainians”he launched to the American elected officials. “Remember Pearl Harbor, that terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was darkened by the planes attacking you”, “remember September 11, that terrible day of 2001”he added in this speech. “This terror, Europe has not experienced it for 80 years.” “Is it too much to ask, to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine, to save people?”, Volodymyr Zelensky then asked.
The Kremlin claims a “success”
Vladimir Putin assured Wednesday that his military operation in Ukraine was a “success”saying that Moscow would not let this country become a “head of the bridge” for some “aggressive actions” against Russia.
During a government meeting broadcast on television, the Russian president also compared the avalanche of Western sanctions and condemnations hitting Russia to the “anti-Semitic pogroms”. He assured that Russia was overcoming the Western economic “blitzkrieg”, promising aid to individuals and businesses.
Moscow demands Ukraine’s neutrality, kyiv refuses
The Russian-Ukrainian talks continued on Wednesday, with the Russian proposal for a neutral status for Ukraine, on the Swedish or Austrian model.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator quickly refused “a Swedish or Austrian model”. “Ukraine is now in a state of direct war with Russia. Therefore, the model can only be ‘Ukrainian'”, said one of the Ukrainian negotiators in the negotiations with Moscow, Mykhailo Podoliak, in comments published by the presidency. He said he wanted “absolute security guarantees” against Russia, whose signatories would undertake to intervene on Ukraine’s side in the event of aggression.
Russia expelled from the Council of Europe
The Council of Europe, guarantor of respect for the rule of law on the continent, officially excluded Russia on Wednesday because of the invasion of Ukraine. Moscow had taken the lead in officially announcing that it was slamming the door of the Council, an organization based in Strasbourg, to which the country had joined in 1996.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest UN court, also ordered Russia on Wednesday to immediately suspend its military operations in Ukraine. The judgments of the ICJ are binding and cannot be appealed, but the court has no means of enforcing them.