Number of refugees fleeing Ukraine reaches 1.5 million
Reuters | Posted: March 6, 2022 10:01 AM | Last Updated: March 7, 2022
Warning: This story includes a graphic image
The latest:
- About 8 civilians, including a family, killed by Russian shelling in town of Irpin, mayor says.
- Ukrainian refugee count rises to 1.5 million; UN agency warns 'many times more' could be displaced.
- Officials in port city of Mariupol say shelling has again prevented civilians from leaving.
- Bombs dropped on residential areas of Chernihiv, north of the capital, Ukrainian officials say.
- IMF to weigh Kyiv's request for $1.4B in emergency financing.
More than 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine have crossed into neighbouring countries in the space of 10 days, the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Sunday.
That number was announced as Kyiv pressed the West to toughen sanctions and deliver more weapons to repel Russia's attack, now in its 11th day.
In an interview on CBC's Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday, Grandi said escalations in the conflict could displace "many times more" than the current refugee count.
Moscow and Kyiv have traded blame over Saturday's failed ceasefire to allow civilians to flee Mariupol and Volnovakha, two southern cities besieged by Russian forces. Ukraine said more talks were set for Monday, but Russia was less definitive.
A second attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol failed on Sunday after local authorities said Russian forces continued shelling the port city.
"It is extremely dangerous to take people out under such conditions," the city council said in an online statement.
Capturing Mariupol could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
People who have been able to escape Ukraine have spilled into neighbouring Moldova, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.
WATCH | Fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since WW II, UN official says:
What else is reported happening on the ground
- Ukraine's national security service on Sunday said Russian forces in Kharkiv fired rockets at a physics institute that contains nuclear material and a reactor.
- Russian forces launched hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks across the country, including bombs dropped on residential areas of Chernihiv, north of the capital Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said. They said a column of Russian armoured vehicles threatening the capital remained stalled outside Kyiv.
- About eight civilians were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Irpin, on the northwest outskirts of Kyiv, according to Mayor Oleksander Markyshin. The dead included a family. Video footage showed a shell slamming into a city street, not far from a bridge used by people fleeing the fighting. A group of fighters could be seen trying to help the family.
- President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were holding key cities in the central and southeastern part of the country, while the Russians were trying to block and keep encircled Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Sumy.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency has said Russian forces are tightening their grip on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Ukraine's largest, that they seized last week. The director general of the agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said Sunday that Ukrainian staff members are now required to seek approval for any operation, even maintenance, from the Russians.
Zelenskyy vowed to fight on, urging his people in a weekend television address to take to the streets to "drive this evil out of our cities, from our land."
"Instead of humanitarian corridors, they can only make bloody ones," Zelenskyy later said Sunday, referring to an attempt to evacuate civilians that fell apart because of Russian bombing.
"Today a family was killed in Irpin. Man, woman and two children. Right on the road. As in a shooting gallery."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau departed for Europe on Sunday for expected talks with European leaders on ways to provide additional support for Ukraine.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Moldova, pledging support to the small Western-leaning former Soviet republic, which is also coping with an influx of refugees from neighbouring Ukraine.
And Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke on the phone with Ukraine's Zelensky on Sunday morning and with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the evening — a day after meeting him at the Kremlin — as part of his shuttle diplomacy to mediate between the two countries.
'Drive this evil out of our cities'
Meanwhile, Zelensky called on those in areas occupied by Russian troops to fight.
"We must go outside and drive this evil out of our cities," he said in an address on Saturday night.
WATCH | Ordinary Ukrainians learn to use rifles to join the fight against Russia:
In a televised address on Sunday, Zelensky said Russia was preparing to bombard another southern city, Odesa, on Ukraine's Black Sea coast.
He also renewed calls for foreign countries to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying that "the world is strong enough to close our skies."
NATO countries have ruled out policing a no-fly zone, which would bar all unauthorized aircraft from flying over Ukraine. Putin said on Saturday that Moscow would consider any third-party declaration of a no-fly zone over Ukraine as "participation in the armed conflict."
British military intelligence said on Sunday that Russian forces were targeting populated areas in Ukraine, comparing the tactics to those Russia used in Chechnya in 1999 and Syria in 2016. But it said Ukrainian resistance was slowing the advance.
"The scale and strength of Ukrainian resistance continue to surprise Russia," British military intelligence said.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilian areas.
"Attacks on health-care facilities or workers breach medical neutrality and are violations of international humanitarian law," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on Twitter, saying WHO had confirmed attacks on "several" health-care centres, causing multiple deaths and injuries.
He made no mention of Russia in his tweet.
Putin likens sanctions to 'declaration of war'
Putin continued to blame Ukraine for the war, telling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday that Kyiv needed to stop all hostilities and fulfil "the well-known demands of Russia."
Putin has called the invasion a "special military operation" and said that he wanted a neutral Ukraine that had been "demilitarized" and "de-Nazified." He has likened Western sanctions "to a declaration of war."
"This is not only a military operation but a war, which is leading to death, destruction and misery," Pope Francis said in his weekly address to crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square.
WATCH |Adrienne Arsenault, host of The National, reports on an old bunker Ukrainians plan to use if attacked:
Ukraine and Western countries have decried Putin's reasons as a baseless pretext for the invasion and have imposed sweeping sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow and crippling its economy.
Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba, after meeting the U.S. secretary of state at the Ukraine-Poland border on Saturday, said he expected new sanctions and weapons for Ukraine in the coming days.
The United States has promised to send more weapons and has said it could escalate sanctions. President Joe Biden has sought $10 billion US in emergency funding to respond to the crisis.
Washington is working with Poland as Warsaw considers whether to provide fighter jets to Ukraine, the White House said.
WATCH | Ukrainian president pleads to U.S. senators for planes, drones to fight Russia:
Zelensky asked for help securing aircraft from European allies in a video call with U.S. lawmakers on Saturday. He again called for more lethal aid, a ban on Russian oil, a no-fly zone and an end to Visa and MasterCard privileges in Russia.
Corporate pullbacks
Visa and MasterCard later said they would suspend credit card operations in Russia, joining a dramatic series of corporate pullbacks over the invasion.
One of the latest is American Express, which on Sunday also said it was suspending all operations there "[in] light of Russia's ongoing, unjustified attack on the people of Ukraine."
In a statement on its website, the company also said it is terminating all business operations in Belarus, Russia's neighbour and ally.
A few hours later, TikTok said it was suspending Russian users from being able to post new videos or see videos shared from elsewhere in the world. The company said it needed to "review the safety implications" of Moscow's new "fake news" law, which makes it illegal, among other things, to describe the fighting as an invasion.
Facebook and Twitter have already been blocked in Russia, along with access to the websites of a number of major international media outlets. TikTok is part of the Chinese tech company ByteDance.
Meanwhile, Netflix said it's suspending its service in Russia, with a statement from the company citing "circumstances on the ground" for its decision. It didn't offer any additional details.
Russia claims Ukraine working on nuclear weapon
Russian media cited an unidentified source on Sunday as saying Ukraine was close to building a plutonium-based "dirty bomb" nuclear weapon, although the source cited no evidence.
Shortly before the invasion, Putin had said Ukraine was using Soviet know-how to create its own nuclear weapons, and that this was tantamount to preparation for an attack on Russia.
Ukraine's government has said it had no plans to rejoin the nuclear club, after giving up its nuclear arms in 1994 following the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The International Monetary Fund warned that the conflict would have a "severe impact" on the global economy, driving up energy and grain prices. It said it would weigh Kyiv's request for $1.4 billion in emergency financing as early as this week.
Ukraine's military said more than 11,000 Russian troops had been killed so far and 88 Russian aircraft shot down. Reuters could not corroborate the claim.
Hundreds of civilian deaths so far
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said it was rushing more emergency supplies to Ukraine as hospitals faced shortages.
More than 350 civilians have been killed, according to the UN rights office, with hundreds more injured.
Anti-war protests took place around the world including in Russia itself, where police detained more than 4,600 people, an independent protest monitoring group said. The Interior Ministry said 3,500 demonstrators had been held, included 1,700 people in Moscow and 750 in St Petersburg.
Demonstrations also took place in Western capitals as well as in India and Kazakhstan, after jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny called for worldwide protests against the war.
Protests were held in Chile, Paris and Israel on Saturday.