Today at 12:20 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 8:50 a.m. EDT
Today at 12:20 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 8:50 a.m. EDT
Thousands of people fled eastern Ukraine, bracing for an intensified Russian assault, as the country’s political leaders appealed to NATO for more firepower.
The killings of civilians in Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital, are intensifying pressure on the military alliance as its foreign ministers met for a second day, European diplomats weighed a ban on Russian coal, and the United Nations General Assembly will take a vote Thursday on expelling Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Germany’s foreign intelligence service claims to have intercepted radio communications in which Russian soldiers discuss indiscriminate killings in Ukraine. In two separate communications, Russian soldiers described how they question soldiers as well as civilians, and proceed to shoot them, according to an intelligence official familiar with the findings who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The findings, confirmed to The Washington Post by three people briefed on the information, undermine claims by Russia that atrocities — including in Bucha — are being carried out only after its soldiers leave occupied areas. The Washington Post saw beheaded and mutilated corpses in Bucha, bringing the scope of devastation into grim focus.
Here’s what to know
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of a looming onslaught in eastern Ukraine, where Russia refocused its troops after withdrawing from Kyiv’s suburbs and the northern Chernihiv region. He urged European countries to impose an embargo on Russian oil.
- The Biden administration announced new sanctions on Russia, including against two of its biggest banks. Here’s why the U.S. is sanctioning Putin’s daughters over his war in Ukraine.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister flew to Brussels to address a meeting of his counterparts from the NATO alliance. He said his agenda was: “weapons, weapons, weapons.”
- The Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel for updates.
UNDERSTANDING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT
Facebook cracks down on covert influence networks targeting Ukraine
Facebook said Thursday it has disrupted several covert influence operations targeting Ukrainians as the company intensifies its fight against campaigns seeking to influence public opinion about the war.
Facebook disclosed the campaigns in a 27-page report, which cited efforts to falsely report Ukrainian users as breaking the rules and attempts to hack into the accounts of Ukrainian military personnel.
“We continue to see operations from Belarus and Russia-linked actors target platforms across the Internet,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head os security policy, said during a call with reporters. “We know that determined adversaries like this will keep trying to come back.”
Russia says Kyiv’s new draft peace deal deviates from prior proposals
By Mary Ilyushina8:48 a.m.
Ukraine has presented a new draft of an agreement with Russia, which Russia views as a deviation from an understanding reached last week in Istanbul, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.
“Ukraine has submitted its draft of an agreement with Russia to the negotiating group, which obviously deviates from key provisions recorded at the meeting in Istanbul on March 29. What is more, they have been recorded in a document signed by Ukrainian delegation head [David] Arakhamia,” Lavrov told reporters.
Ukraine’s new proposals suggest the possibility of holding military exercises on its territory with the participation of foreign contingents, with the consent of the majority of countries that guarantee its security, Lavrov said. Russia is not mentioned in this context, he added.
“The document signed by Arakhamia explicitly states that in the context of Ukraine’s neutral, nonaligned, nonnuclear status, any military exercises involving foreign contingents are held only with the consent of all guarantor states, including Russia,” Lavrov said.
According to the foreign minister, “in the draft treaty received yesterday, this unambiguous provision has also been replaced.”
“Now we are talking about the possibility of conducting exercises with the consent of the majority of guarantor states without any mention of Russia,” Lavrov said.
“Such nonnegotiability once again characterizes the true intentions of Kyiv, its line of delaying and even undermining negotiations through a departure from the understandings reached,” the minister said.
According to the diplomat, the West is trying to push the Ukrainian side to continue hostilities. “We see this as a manifestation of the fact that the Kyiv regime is controlled by Washington and its allies, who are pushing President [Volodymyr] Zelensky to continue hostilities,” Lavrov said.
“Despite all the provocations, the Russian delegation will continue the negotiating process and will be promoting our draft of the agreement, which clearly and fully presents all of our initial fundamental positions and demands,” he added.
Russian influencers destroy Chanel bags after company boycott
Russian influencers are cutting up their Chanel handbags on social media in angry protest over sanctions imposed by the luxury French fashion label that mean they can no longer buy its products.
Chanel confirmed to the BBC this week that it was halting sales of its clothes, perfume, accessories and other highbrow items to Russian customers abroad as a response to President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Chanel has already shut its stores in Russia, as have countless other brands.
In a statement, Chanel said it has “rolled out a process to ask clients” shopping abroad or “for whom we do not know the main residency” to confirm that the products they are buying “will not be used in Russia.”
Furious owners of the brand’s handbags — including a model, DJ and television presenter — accused Chanel of fueling hatred toward Russians, which they deemed “Russophobia.”
“Bye-bye, Chanel,” said Russian DJ Katya Guseva, as she sliced into her black and gold handbag with a pair of scissors. Guseva uploaded the moment to her Instagram account, a platform on which she has more than half a million followers.
She told followers she had long dreamed of owning a Chanel handbag but would not tolerate the brand’s new policy. “Not a single bag, not a single thing is worth my love for my Motherland,” she said.
Chanel did not immediately respond to a Washington Post request for comment.
Russian model Victoria Bonya, who has more than 9 million Instagram followers, also uploaded a video of herself destroying a Chanel bag. “Never seen any brand acting so disrespectful toward their clients,” she wrote.
Ukraine says Mariupol defense is ‘holding on,’ despite Russian claims
Ukrainian and Russian officials gave conflicting statements Thursday about the status of Mariupol, the hard-hit port city in southeastern Ukraine that has been under a Russian siege for weeks.
Alexei Arestovich, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, said in a news briefing that while Russia has “renewed its offensive against Mariupol,” Ukrainian forces “are holding on, however difficult it is for them there.”
Meanwhile, Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for the self-declared, pro-Moscow Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed that Ukrainian forces have been cleared out of the center of the city. He said the fighting there is mostly over but that pockets of resistance remain in and around Mariupol.
Basurin told Russian television that about 3,000 Ukrainian troops remain near the Azovstal steel plant, according to the Russian state-backed news outlet RIA Novosti, and that Ukrainian fighters can move around Mariupol via underground passages.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said early Wednesday that “heavy fighting and Russian airstrikes have continued in the encircled city of Mariupol.” It said 160,000 residents remain mostly without “light, communication, medicine, heat or water.”
Conditions on the ground have made it impossible to independently verify how many people remain in Mariupol. Mayor Vadym Boychenko said Thursday that more than 100,000 people need to be evacuated from the city. Efforts to evacuate civilians have stalled: The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday it failed for five days to reach Mariupol to escort evacuation vehicles.
The Mariupol City Council alleged Thursday that pro-Russian forces “forcibly deported” staff members and patients from a Mariupol hospital to territory controlled by the Donetsk People’s Republic. Ukraine has previously accused Russia of forcibly relocating thousands of Mariupol residents.
Spotify Russia says it will shut down in days
Spotify Russia notified users Thursday that it would shut down its operations on Monday, joining a long list of global companies that have pulled out of Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
The streaming giant had announced its exit from the Russian market on March 25, attributing its decision to a new law that criminalized certain types of statements about the actions of Russian armed forces in Ukraine — including independent reporting that uses the word “invasion” for what Moscow considers a “special military operation.”
At the time, Spotify said that while it had sought to keep operating in Russia “to provide trusted, independent news and information from the region … recently enacted legislation further restricting access to information, eliminating free expression, and criminalizing certain types of news puts the safety of Spotify’s employees and the possibility of even our listeners at risk.”
In its statement Thursday, Spotify Russia directed users to an information page on its website, which states that “Spotify services will not be available in Russia.” It does not say when the services might become available again.
In Bucha, the scope of Russian barbarity is coming into focus
This story contains graphic photos, including images of bodies.
BUCHA, Ukraine — The name of this city is already synonymous with the month-long carnage that Russian soldiers perpetrated here.
But the scale of the killings and the depravity with which they were committed is only just becoming apparent as police, local officials and regular citizens start the grim task of clearing Bucha of the hundreds of corpses decomposing on streets and in parks, apartment buildings and other locations.
As a team from the district prosecutor’s office moved slowly through Bucha on Wednesday, investigators uncovered evidence of torture before death, beheading and dismemberment, and the intentional burning of corpses.
Photos: Thousands stage ‘die-in’ protest outside German legislature
Thousands of people staged a “die-in” demonstration near the Reichstag building in Berlin on Wednesday, protesting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Some protesters posed as if their hands were bound behind their backs, according to German media, in an apparent reference to how some corpses in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha were found.
Some yelled out for German officials to stop importing Russian gas and oil. Berlin relies on Moscow for about 55 percent of its natural gas and 35 percent of its oil.
Ukrainian officials say east is under fire as thousands flee
Ukrainian officials reported intensified Russian attacks Thursday on cities and towns in eastern Ukraine as thousands fled parts of a region bracing for a major Russian offensive.
Russian troops appeared to have shifted their operations to that swath of Ukraine near the border with Russia after retreating from areas around the capital, Kyiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv.
The governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Synyehubov, said on Telegram that artillery and mortar fire hit houses and infrastructure and that at least 15,000 people have fled towns in the region. He called on residents to leave two areas near territory under the control of pro-Russian separatists. The governor said earlier that “at the moment … no centralized evacuations” have been organized from the Kharkiv region, home to Ukraine’s second-largest city, but that his administration would inform residents if this changes.
In an appeal for more firepower and European Union sanctions against the Kremlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that a new onslaught could be looming in eastern Ukraine.
Reuters quoted Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Thursday as saying Moscow’s goal may be to expand two enclaves that separatists have held in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The news agency also reported that an adviser to Zelensky’s office said fierce battles are raging in the southwest of Luhansk, near disputed territories in separatist hands.
David L. Stern contributed to this report.
Austria is latest European nation to expel Russian diplomats
Austria on Thursday became the latest European nation to announce the expulsion of Russian diplomats as part of a coordinated response to allegations that Russian armed forces committed war crimes in Ukraine.
The Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs said it would revoke the diplomatic status of four staff members of the Russian Embassy in Vienna and the Russian Consulate General in Salzburg because “their activities have not been in accordance with their diplomatic status” under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Other European countries have explicitly accused Russian diplomats of being intelligence officers for the Kremlin. Poland expelled 45 Russians it accused of being “spies pretending to be diplomats.”
The Kremlin has promised to retaliate against any country that expels Russian diplomats. Russian Ambassador to Austria Dmitry Lyubinsky said Austria had provided no evidence that Moscow’s diplomats violated the Vienna convention, according to state-backed news outlet RIA Novosti.
More than 400 Russian diplomats from about two dozen countries, nearly all of them in Europe, have been asked to leave their posts since the start of the war in Ukraine. Emerging evidence indicating that Russian troops killed and tortured civilians in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, has sparked a wave of expulsions of Russian diplomats in European countries since the weekend — as well as calls for an independent investigation.
Boston Marathon bans runners from Russia, Belarus weeks before race
Runners living in Russia and Belarus are barred from participating in this year’s Boston Marathon — even after they qualified for the elite race, organizers announced Wednesday.
“Like so many around the world, we are horrified and outraged by what we have seen and learned from the reporting in Ukraine,” Tom Grilk, president and chief executive of the Boston Athletic Association, said in a news release. “We believe that running is a global sport, and as such, we must do what we can to show our support to the people of Ukraine.”
The announcement was made less than two weeks before the April 18 marathon, which attracts runners and spectators from across the globe each year. Organizers did not specify how many athletes from Russia and Belarus had qualified for the marathon. Last year, 35 runners from Russia entered the Oct. 11 race, which was delayed by the pandemic. No Belarusian runners were listed in that race, which included about 18,000 participants.
U.K. confirms Russian pivot east, is reportedly ready to send Ukraine more arms
A British Defense Ministry intelligence assessment added to a body of evidence from journalists on the ground and other Western intelligence agencies that Russian troops are refocusing their efforts on the east of Ukraine, as London reportedly prepares to send armored vehicles to Kyiv under the assumption that the war could be won or lost in the next three weeks.
Thursday’s intelligence update states that Russian troops are mainly focused on their “progressing offensive operations in eastern Ukraine,” particularly in the Donbas region, where pro-Russian separatists are active. A Ukrainian presidential adviser, Alexei Arestovich, said Thursday that the fiercest fighting is now happening in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, which is within the Donbas area.
The Times of London reported Thursday that Britain’s defense establishment is drawing up plans to send armored reconnaissance or patrol vehicles to Ukraine “in the belief that the next three weeks will be critical in determining the outcome of the war.”
The Defense Ministry did not immediately reply to an email from The Post seeking confirmation.
In its intelligence update, the ministry said that as “Russian artillery and air strikes continue along the Donbas line of control,” Russian troops are facing ongoing “morale issues and shortages of supplies and personnel.”
It also said that “Russian strikes against infrastructure targets within the Ukrainian interior are likely intended to degrade the ability of the Ukrainian military to resupply and increase pressure on the Ukrainian government.”
Canada summons Russian envoy over Bucha massacres
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said Wednesday that her ministry would summon the Russian ambassador in Ottawa and show him images from the suburbs of Kyiv, where hundreds of civilian corpses have been found.
Joly made the remarks as she met with fellow NATO foreign ministers in Brussels to discuss expanding assistance to Ukraine. The West and its partners are enacting new sanctions against Russia after last week’s discovery of gruesome scenes in the Kyiv area that suggested Moscow’s forces could have committed war crimes.
“I instructed my deputy minister to summon the Russian ambassador in Ottawa to make sure that he is presented with the images of what happened in Irpin and Bucha,” Joly said.
The Kremlin targeted Kyiv from the earliest days of its invasion, but Western officials say Russian forces have recently pulled out of the area.
Separately, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Thursday that he summoned Russia’s ambassador to France to complain about the “indecency and provocation” of the embassy’s statements about Bucha.
The Russian Embassy in France has posted material on social media claiming that the scenes of dead civilians lying on the ground, some with their hands tied or bearing signs of having been tortured, were staged to whip up outrage against Russian soldiers.
Annabelle Timsit contributed to this report.
Germany intercepts Russian conversations on indiscriminate killings in Ukraine
BERLIN — Germany’s foreign intelligence service claims to have intercepted radio communications in which Russian soldiers discuss carrying out indiscriminate killings in Ukraine.
In two separate communications, Russian soldiers described how they question soldiers as well as civilians, and then proceed to shoot them, according to an intelligence official familiar with the findings who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The findings, first reported by the German magazine Der Spiegel and confirmed by three people briefed on the information, further undermine claims by Russia that atrocities — including in Bucha — are being carried out only after its soldiers leave occupied areas.
Scenes from Bucha, a suburb near the Ukrainian capital, have become a symbol of the war’s atrocities and galvanized calls for probes into possible war crimes. One person said the radio messages are likely to provide greater insight into suspected atrocities in other towns north of Kyiv that had been held by Russian soldiers. The foreign intelligence agency, known as the BND, may be able to match signals intelligence with videos and satellite images to make connections to specific killings, two people said.
These people also said the radio traffic suggests that members of the Wagner Group, a private military unit with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies, played a role in the attacks on civilians while Russian forces were in control of the town. Another person briefed on the intelligence said the involvement could have been by the Wagner Group or another private contractor.
‘They need help’: War is traumatizing Ukrainian children, UNICEF says
Ukrainian children will need support to deal with the psychological trauma of living through a war, said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s director of emergency programs, as more evidence emerges of violence and destruction in areas around the capital that had been occupied by Russian forces.
Many children “have been killed, many have been injured and even more actually been displaced” since the Feb. 24 invasion, Fontaine told Euronews on Wednesday. “When there’s a war like that, the children are caught in the middle.”
According to the United Nations, more than 4.2 million people have fled Ukraine — about half of them children. UNICEF estimates the number of internally displaced children at more than 2.5 million.
Fontaine said he visited the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia and met children and families arriving from places Russia has hit hard, such as Mariupol. “People are exhausted,” he said. “They need help … and [to] start to receive the kind of first psychological aid that’s going to be so important.”
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said Wednesday that preliminary estimates suggest about 210 children have died in the city since Russian forces began attacking it over a month ago. The Washington Post could not independently confirm that figure. The United Nations says it has recorded the deaths of more than 120 children in Ukraine and that it believes “the actual figures are considerably higher” due to the difficulty of receiving information from areas experiencing fierce fighting, including Mariupol.