YIV, Ukraine - Ukraine's interior minister said Friday that it will take years to defuse unexploded ordnances after the Russian invasion.
Speaking to The Associated Press in the besieged Ukrainian capital, Denys Monastyrsky said that the country will need Western assistance to cope with the massive task once the war is over.
“A huge number of shells and mines have been fired at Ukraine and a large part haven't exploded, they remain under the rubble and pose a real threat,” Monastyrsky said. “It will take years, not months, to defuse them.”
In addition to the unexploded Russian ordnances, the Ukrainian troops also have planted land mines at bridges, airports and other key infrastructure to prevent Russians from using them.
“We won't be able to remove the mines from all that territory, so I asked our international partners and colleagues from the European Union and the United States to prepare groups of experts to demine the areas of combat and facilities that came under shelling,” Monastyrsky told the AP.
He noted that another top challenge is dealing with fires caused by the relentless Russian barrages. He said there's a desperate shortage of personnel and equipment to deal with the fires amid the constant shelling.
UNITED NATIONS - Russia's first deputy UN ambassador says Twitter has blocked his account, accusing him of “abuse and harassment,” due to a tweet about the maternity hospital in the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
“This is very deplorable,” Dmitry Polyansky told reporters after a UN Security Council meeting Friday, “and this clearly illustrates how much alternative view and free press, and free information is valued by Twitter and in this country.”
Polyansky, who had more than 22,000 followers and was a prolific Twitter user, said he received a message earlier Friday from Twitter's cloud service saying he was violating Twitter's rules and was “engaged in abuse and harassment.”
He said Twitter referred to his warning in a tweet on March 7 “that the hospital in Mariupol had been turned into a military object by radicals. Very disturbing that UN spreads disinformation without verification.”
Associated Press journalists, who have been reporting from inside blockaded Mariupol since early in the war, documented the March 10 attack on the maternity hospital and saw the victims and damage firsthand. They shot video and photos of several bloodstained, pregnant mothers fleeing the blown-out maternity ward as medical workers shouted and children cried.
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PARIS -- French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to lift the siege of Mariupol, allow humanitarian access and order an immediate cease-fire, Macron's office said.
Macron spoke with the Russian leader on the phone for 70 minutes. Earlier in the day, Putin had a conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who also pressed for an immediate cease-fire.
Macron, who has spoken numerous times with Putin, revisited complaints over repeated attacks on civilians and Russia's failure to respect human rights in Ukraine, the presidential Elysee Palace said.
It said that Putin, in turn, laid the blame for the war on Ukraine.
Macron, who is campaigning to renew his mandate in April elections, said during a town hall-style meeting shortly before the call that he talks to Putin because he believes there is a way toward peace, between the Ukrainian resistance, tough Western sanctions and diplomatic pressure. "We must do everything to find it," he said.
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KYIV, Ukraine -- A Ukrainian officer in charge of defending the region around the country's capital says his forces are well positioned to defend the city.
Maj. Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk said in an interview with The Associated Press that "the enemy is halted," adding that "we are improving this system of defensive lines" to make Kyiv "inapproachable for the enemy."
Despite three weeks of Russian bombardment, Ukraine has kept up a stiff defense of its cities. Fighting continued in Kyiv's suburbs, depriving thousands of heat and clean water.
"From time to time, the enemy tests our defenses," said Pavlyuk, a battle-hardened officer who earned his rank by leading Ukrainian troops in the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine that erupted in 2014. "But our boys are strong in their positions and also play an active role in preventing the enemy to fulfill their plans."
Pavlyuk, who has been put in charge of Kyiv's defences earlier this week, said that the Russians are using the same tactics as they used in the east to target civilian structures to try to break Ukraine's resistance.
"That's why now that war has been transformed into killing civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, to frighten our people to the maximum," he said. "But we will never give up. We will fight until the end. To the last breath and to the last bullet."
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UNITED NATIONS -- Six Western nations have accused Russia of using the UN Security Council to launder disinformation, spread propaganda, and justify its unprovoked attack on Ukraine. And the U.S. is again warning that Moscow's claim that the U.S. has biological warfare laboratories in Ukraine "is really a potential false flag effort in action."
Friday's council meeting was supposed to be for a vote on Russia's draft resolution on humanitarian relief for Ukraine which has been widely criticized for making no mention of Moscow's invasion of its neighbor. Russia instead raised allegations again of U.S. involvement in biological warfare activities, which have been repeatedly denied by both the United States and Ukraine.
The six Western nations -- U.S., U.K., France, Albania, Ireland and Norway -- delivered a joint statement just before the council session, saying: "This meeting and these lies are designed for one purpose, to deflect responsibility for Russia's war of choice and the humanitarian catastrophe it has caused."
They stressed that Russia has long maintained a biological weapons program in violation of international law and has a well-documented history of using chemical weapons -- not Ukraine.
"There are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories -- not near Russia's border, not anywhere," U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.
Reiterating the Biden administration's serious concern of a potential false flag effort, the U.S. envoy said, "We continue to believe it is possible that Russia may be planning to use chemical or biological agents against the Ukrainian people."
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MOSCOW -- The head of the Russian delegation in talks with Ukrainian officials says the parties have come closer to an agreement on a neutral status for Ukraine.
Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian negotiators in several rounds of talks with Ukraine, including this week, said Friday that the sides have narrowed their differences on the issue of Ukraine dropping its bid to join NATO and adopting a neutral status.
"The issue of neutral status and no NATO membership for Ukraine is one of the key issues in talks, and that is the issue where the parties have made their positions maximally close," Medinsky said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.
He added that the sides are now "half-way" on issues regarding the demilitarization of Ukraine. Medinsky noted that while Kyiv insists that Russia-backed separatist regions in Ukraine's east must be brought back into the fold, Russia believes that people of the regions must be allowed to determine their fate themselves.
Russia recognized the separatist regions' independence and used their call for military support as a pretext to launch an attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Medinsky noted that a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is possible after the negotiators finalize a draft treaty to end the hostilities and it receives a preliminary approval by the countries' governments.
Medinsky also bristled at a recent statement by Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky, who called for disrupting railway links to supply Russian troops in Ukraine, saying it could undermine the talks.
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LVIV, Ukraine -- The president of Belarus, who has allowed Russia to use his country's territory to invade Ukraine, says he has no intention to host Russian nuclear weapons.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has beefed up military ties with Moscow after Western sanctions over his crackdown on protests after his reelection to a sixth term in an August 2020 vote that the opposition and the West rejected as rigged. He has
Lukashenko had previously offered to host Russian nuclear weapons, but in an interview with Japanese broadcaster TBS released by his office on Friday, he said he has no such plans.
"I'm not planning to deploy nuclear weapons here, produce nuclear weapons here, create and use nuclear weapons against anyone," he said, dismissing the allegations of such plans as an "invention by the West."
Lukashenko said that he had made an earlier statement about a possible deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus in response to the talk in the West about a possible redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Germany to Poland.
The Belarusian leader noted that the constitutional amendments approved in a vote last month that shed Belarus' neutral status has no relation to nuclear weapons.
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GENEVA -- The UN migration agency estimates that nearly 6.5 million people have now been displaced inside Ukraine, on top of the 3.2 million refugees who have already fled the country.
The estimates from the International Organization for Migration suggests Ukraine is fast on a course in just three weeks toward the levels of displacement from Syria's devastating war -- which has driven about 13 million people from their homes both in the country and abroad.
The findings come in a paper issued Friday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It cited the IOM figures as "a good representation of the scale of internal displacement in Ukraine -- calculated to stand at 6.48 million internally displaced persons in Ukraine as of March 16."
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WASHINGTON -- There have been no indications that Russia is moving troops out of Syria to bolster its forces in Ukraine, or that any more than a few Syrian fighters have been recruited to join the war, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East said Friday.
Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie told reporters that he has seen little change in Russian military activities in Syria. And he added that the U.S. military still has and uses a deconfliction phone line with the Russians in Syria, in contrast to the mixed success the U.S. has had in maintaining such contact in connection with the Ukraine war.
"We can always contact them if we have a problem. They'll always pick up the phone, and we feel that we respond in kind to them," said McKenzie about the Russians, whose forces in Syria support the regime of President Bashar Assad. "That relationship has been very, very professional."
McKenzie, who is retiring after three years at the head of U.S. Central Command, said he also has seen no indication that Russia is moving any troops or assets from Syria or central Asian countries such as Tajikistan, to Ukraine. And he said he also has seen no evidence that "the temperature is rising" between Russia and the U.S. in Syria as a result of the Ukraine war.
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LONDON -- Britain's defence intelligence chief says Russia is shifting to a "strategy of attrition" after failing to reach its goals in the invasion of Ukraine.
Chief of Defence Intelligence Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull says Russian forces have changed their approach after failing to take major Ukrainian cities during the three-week invasion.
He said Friday that the battle of attrition "will involve the reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower. This will result in increased civilian casualties, destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and intensify the humanitarian crisis."
Western officials say Russian forces have enough artillery ammunition to keep up the bombardments for weeks or even longer.
Despite the fact that there have been thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties, Russia denies targeting civilians during what it calls a special military operation in Ukraine.
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ROME -- For the second time this week, Italy's financial police have carried out measures to freeze luxurious assets of Russian magnates being sanctioned by the European Union for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The latest action on Friday involved the seaside villa, valued at some 105 million euros (US$116 million) and located in the Sardinian town of Portisco, belonging to Alexei Mordaschov, a steel baron, Italian media said.
Just a few days earlier, a sprawling real estate complex on Sardinia's coast belonging to Petr Aven, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sequestered. A yacht moored off the Italian Riviera and belonging to Mordaschov was sequestered earlier this month by Italian authorities. That vessel is valued at 27 million euros ($30 million).
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ATLANTA -- NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Friday played down recent comments by the head of Russia's space agency that the United States would have to use broomsticks to fly to space after Russia said it would stop supplying rocket engines to U.S. companies.
"That's just Dmitry Rogozin. He spouts off every now and then. But at the end of the day, he's worked with us," Nelson told The Associated Press. "The other people that work in the Russian civilian space program, they're professional. They don't miss a beat with us, American astronauts and American mission control."
The war has resulted in cancelled spacecraft launches and broken contracts, and many worry Rogozin is putting decades of a peaceful off-planet partnership at risk, most notably at the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei is due to leave the International Space Station with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a touchdown in Kazakhstan on March 30.
NASA has said Vande Hei's homecoming plans remain unchanged.
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WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping spoke Friday for nearly two hours via a video call as the White House looks to deter Beijing from providing military or economic assistance for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
China's Foreign Ministry was the first to issue a readout of the conversation, deploring "conflict and confrontation" as "not in anyone's interest," without assigning any blame to Russia.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying in a Twitter message called the U.S. position "overbearing."
Ahead of the call, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would question Xi about Beijing's "rhetorical support" of Putin and an "absence of denunciation" of Russia's invasion.
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LVIV, Ukraine -- Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show the Russian strike on the Lviv airport Friday destroyed the repair hangar just to the west of the north end of its runway. Firetrucks stood parked amid the rubble.
A row of fighter jets near the hangar appeared intact, though an apparent impact crater sat right in front of them. Two other buildings nearby the hangar also appear to have taken direct hits in the strike, with debris littered around them.
The early morning attack on Lviv's edge was the closest strike yet to the centre of the city, which has become a crossroads for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine and for others entering to deliver aid or fight. The war has swelled Lviv's population by some 200,000.
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BERLIN -- Switzerland is adopting the latest round of European Union sanctions against Russia targeting luxury goods and banning rating agencies from working with Russian clients.
The Swiss government said Friday that it will echo the EU's fourth package of sanctions imposed on Russia following its attack on Ukraine.
It said that "the ban on the export of luxury goods contained in the new sanctions affects only a small portion of Switzerland's global exports of such goods."
However, it said that "specific companies could be seriously affected," without naming them.
Unlike the EU and the United States, Switzerland has not yet decided whether to remove Russia from its list of "most favoured" trading partners.
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MARIUPOL, Ukraine - Officials say 130 people have been rescued from the ruins of a theatre that served as a shelter when it was blasted by a Russian airstrike Wednesday in the besieged southern city of Mariupol.
Ludmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament's human rights commissioner, said Friday that 130 people had survived the theatre bombing.
“As of now, we know that 130 people have been evacuated, but according to our data, there are still more than 1,300 people in these basements, in this bomb shelter,” Denisova told Ukrainian television. “We pray that they will all be alive, but so far there is no information about them.”
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ATHENS, Greece - Greece's prime minister is offering to rebuild the maternity hospital in Mariupol that was bombed by Russian forces last week.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted Friday that “Greece is ready to rebuild the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the center of the Greek minority in Ukraine.”
Some 100,000 people of Greek origin were living in the besieged city before the Russian invasion.
Mitsotakis called Mariupol “a city dear to our hearts and symbol of the barbarity of the war.”
Associated Press journalists documented the attack and saw the victims and damage firsthand. They shot video and photos of several bloodstained, pregnant mothers fleeing the blown-out maternity ward as medical workers shouted and children cried.
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HELSINKI - The Finnish government has begun posting information in Russian about the invasion of Ukraine.
“We ... want to provide Russian speakers with fact-based information from the authorities,” the Finnish government tweeted Friday.
The move comes in the face of a Russian propaganda and disinformation campaign that aims to strengthen domestic support for the invasion and undermine the resolve of Ukrainians.
The website of the Finnish government is available in Finnish and Swedish - the Nordic country's two official languages - and in English.
President Vladimir Putin appeared at a huge patriotic rally Friday at a Moscow stadium on the eighth anniversary of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
Putin, speaking to a crowd of tens of thousands of people waving Russian flags at the Luzhniki Stadium, praised the Russian military for its actions in Ukraine.
“Shoulder to shoulder, they help and support each other,” Putin said in a rare public appearance. “We have not had unity like this for a long time,” he added to cheers from the crowd.
Before Putin spoke, bands played patriotic Soviet songs about national identity and speakers praised Putin as fighting “Nazism” in Ukraine, a claim flatly rejected by leaders across the globe.
Some people, including presenters at the event, wore T-shirts or jackets with a “Z” - a symbol seen on Russian tanks and military vehicles in Ukraine and embraced by supporters of the war.
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ROME - Pope Francis has denounced the “perverse abuse of power” on display in Russia's war in Ukraine. He is calling for aid to Ukrainians who he said had been attacked in their “identity, history and tradition” and were “defending their land.”
Francis' comments, in a message Friday to a gathering of European Catholic representatives, marked some of his strongest yet in asserting Ukraine's right to exist as a sovereign state and to defend itself against Russia's invasion.
It came just days after Francis told the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, that the concept of a “just war” was obsolete since wars are never justifiable and that pastors must preach peace, not politics.
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WARSAW, Poland - Poland's border agency says that the 2 million mark for the number of Ukrainian refugees who have fled to Poland was reached Friday morning.
A European Union nation of some 38 million people, Poland has become the main destination for people fleeing war in neighboring, non-EU Ukraine, with which Poland shares almost 540 kilometers (335 miles) of border.
The first refugees came Feb. 24, when Russian troops invaded Ukraine. They are chiefly women and children, because men aged 18-60 have been banned from leaving Ukraine to be available to fight in the country's defense.
The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said Friday that more than 3.27 million people have fled Ukraine, a nation of some 44 million, since Russia's attack.
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GENEVA -- The UN refugee agency says it's noticing a slowdown in the number of people fleeing the fighting in Ukraine, though its estimate of internally displaced people has soared in the wake of evacuations from embattled cities like Mariupol and Sumy.
Speaking by video conference from Poland, UNHCR spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said the number of refugee arrivals, "particularly here in Poland, has been falling in recent days." Some of those fleeing the violence may have been "recuperating" in the western city of Lviv and "waiting to see whether they should cross the border or not."
Saltmarsh said UNHCR's latest estimate of people internally displaced in Ukraine was now above 2 million. He said it was not possible to estimate how many of those might travel abroad. UNHCR has previously projected that 4 million people, or more, could flee Ukraine.
In Poland, which has taken about two-thirds of the some 3.2 million refugees from Ukraine, those arriving in recent days appear "more traumatized" and "in shock," Saltmarsh said, and often come without a plan for where to go.
More than 93,000 people fled Ukraine on Thursday, according to UNCHR, the lowest single-day figure since fighting began on Feb. 24. That was down from peaks of more than 200,000 daily on two consecutive days in early March.
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VILNIUS, Lithuania -- Three Baltic countries have ordered the expulsion of Russian embassy staff members in a co-ordinated action taken in solidarity with Ukraine.
Lithuania's foreign ministry said on Friday that four Russian embassy staff are no longer welcome in the country, while in neighbouring Latvia, three Russian staff were declared persona non grata.
Russia's ambassador to Lithuania, Aleksei Isakov, was informed that their activities were incompatible with the status of a diplomat, according to the official statement of the Lithuanian foreign ministry.
"Lithuania has made such a decision in solidarity with Ukraine, which is experiencing unprecedented Russian military aggression" the statement reads.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that the expulsion of the embassy staff was a co-ordinated action of the Baltic States, which include former Soviet republics Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Estonia also announced on Friday that it was ordering three staff of the Russian Embassy in the capital Tallinn to leave the country.
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BUCHAREST, Romania -- A 35-year-old Romanian soldier died in an accident Friday during a tank driving exercise at the country's western Smardan military facility, Romania's ministry of defense said.
"The soldier coordinated manoeuvres in order to start moving a tank," the ministry's statement reads, "at which point he was caught between the moving tank."
Emergency services were called to the scene but the soldier, who was married and had been employed by the Romanian military since 2008, died of his injuries.
Romania's Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca sent condolences to the deceased soldier's family, writing online that "a routine training activity turned into a tragedy" and that a "young man lost his life in the line of duty."
The Smardan military base in Galati County has been used for NATO training exercises as recently as March 8, after the alliance bolstered forces in response to Russian aggression in neighbouring Ukraine.
County police are conducting on-the-spot investigations and military prosecutors have been informed about the fatal accident.
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SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Bulgaria says it has declared 10 Russian diplomats "persona non grata" and demanded their expulsion.
In a statement on Friday, Bulgaria's foreign ministry said that Bulgaria's prime minister Kiril Petkov had been consulted on the expulsions.
An official note was handed to Russia's ambassador in the capital Sofia requiring that the diplomats leave Bulgaria within 72 hours over their alleged involvement in "activities incompatible with their diplomatic status," the statement said.
European Union and NATO member Bulgaria, which was one of Moscow's closest allies in the Soviet bloc, has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It has expelled 10 other Russian diplomats suspected of espionage since October 2019.
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WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says that Poland will formally submit a proposal for a peacekeeping and humanitarian mission on Ukraine's territory at next week's extraordinary NATO summit.
Morawiecki stressed Friday that Poland had already made the proposal during a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels on Wednesday. Denmark has expressed readiness to join such a mission.
The idea for a NATO or wider international peacekeeping mission under military protection was launched by Poland's Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski during a visit to Kyiv on Tuesday by the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
Kaczynski, who is Poland's ruling party leader and the country's key politician, stressed in Kyiv that the mission would be in line with international law and would not constitute any form of hostile action.
NATO leaders have been opposed to the alliance's presence in Ukraine over concerns it could escalate the conflict.
Danish Defence Minister Morten Bodskov said Wednesday that "if it comes to that, Denmark is ready to contribute. We have decades of experience in this field of work, and I definitely think that Denmark can contribute to this and make a difference."
U.S. President Joe Biden is to attend the NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday that will focus on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and European security.
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VILNIUS, Lithuania -- Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said Friday that NATO's entire defence of its eastern flank "must be rewritten strategically," and that few had thought Russia "had aggressive intentions at the level we see now."
Landsbergis said that NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg had already announced a review of the military alliance's security strategy in the east in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Lithuania, a Baltic nation which is a member of NATO, shares land borders with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, and with Belarus, a Moscow ally.
Landsbergis said that Russia "has proven that it is a country willing to cross all borders." He added that before the invasion, "many of us were sure that deterrence was enough."
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BERLIN -- German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has indicated that her country should consider imposing an oil embargo on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
In a security policy speech Friday, she said it was important to take a stance and not remain silent due to economic or energy dependency.
"Even if it's difficult, including on questions now with regard to oil or other embargoes," said Baerbock.
Germany receives about a third of its oil from Russia and half of its coal and natural gas.
Baerbock also warned against China's growing influence over energy infrastructure in Africa and Asia, saying Germany will soon propose a new strategy on dealing with Beijing.
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BERLIN -- A spokesman for Olaf Scholz says the German chancellor spoke Friday by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged him to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine.
During the hour-long call, Scholz also called for an improvement to the humanitarian situation and progress in efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store wants an extra allocation of 3.5 billion kroner (US$400 million) for 2022 to strengthen NATO member Norway's Armed Forces and civil preparedness.
Gahr Store told Norway's parliament that the money will be used to "strengthen our ability to prevent, deter and deal with digital attacks."
"These are necessary measures because we are facing a more unpredictable and aggressive Russian regime," Gahr Store said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin "has raised the alert of his nuclear weapons forces. It contributes to more uncertainty in an already tense situation."
He said Norway "is NATO's eyes in the north."
In a speech to the Scandinavian country's parliament about Ukraine, Gahr Store said Norway was gearing up "to handle an extraordinary situation with up to 100,000 refugees."
"We do not know how long the war will last, or how many will come here. But in any case, it will put us to a historical test," he said.
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LVIV, Ukraine -- Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said Friday on Telegram that several missiles hit a facility used to repair military aircraft and damaged a bus repair facility, though no casualties were immediately reported.
The plant had suspended work ahead of the attack, the mayor said.
The missiles that hit Lviv were launched from the Black Sea, but two of the six that were launched were shot down, Ukrainian air force's western command said on Facebook.
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NEW DELHI -- An Indian official says the state-run Indian Oil Corp. bought 3 million barrels of crude oil from Russia earlier this week to secure its energy needs, resisting Western pressure to avoid such purchases.
The official said India will be looking to purchase more oil from Russia despite calls not to from the U.S. and other countries due to the invasion of Ukraine. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with a reporter, said India has no such sanctions.
Imports make up nearly 85% of India's oil needs. Its demand is projected to jump 8.2% this year to 5.15 million barrels per day as the economy recovers from the devastation caused by the pandemic.
Associated Press writer Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this report.
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LVIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was thankful to U.S. President Joe Biden for the additional military aid but said he would not say specifically what the new package included because he didn't want to tip off Russia.
"This is our defense," he said in his nighttime video address to the nation. "When the enemy doesn't know what to expect from us. As they didn't know what awaited them after Feb. 24," the day Russia invaded. "They didn't know what we had for defence or how we prepared to meet the blow."
Zelensky said Russia expected to find Ukraine much as it did in 2014, when it seized Crimea without a fight and backed separatists as they took control of the eastern Donbas region. But Ukraine is now a different country, with much stronger defences, he said.
He said it also was not the time to reveal Ukraine's tactics in the ongoing negotiations with Russia. "Working more in silence than on television, radio or on Facebook," Zelensky said. "I consider it the right way."
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UNITED NATIONS -- Russia's UN ambassador says he is not asking for a vote Friday on its resolution on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, which has been sharply criticized by Western countries for making no mention of Russia's responsibility for the war against its smaller neighbour.
Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council Thursday that Russia decided at this stage not to seek a vote because of pressure from the United States and Albania on UN members to oppose it, but he stressed that Moscow is not withdrawing the resolution.
Nebenzia said Russia plans to go ahead with a council meeting Friday to discuss again its allegations of U.S. "biological laboratories" in Ukraine, claiming new documents. His initial charge was made without any evidence and repeatedly denied by U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield responded to Nebenzia's announcement by saying "their farcical humanitarian resolution was doomed to fail."
"We know if Russia really cared about humanitarian crises, the one that it created, it could simply stop its attacks on the people of Ukraine," she said. "But instead, they want to call for another Security Council meeting to use this council as a venue for its disinformation and for promoting its propaganda."
At last Friday's council meeting on Russia's initial allegations of U.S. "biological activities," Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia of using the Security Council for "lying and spreading disinformation" as part of a potential false-flag operation by Moscow for the use of chemical or biological agents in Ukraine.
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UNITED NATIONS -- The UN health chief decried the devastating consequences of war on the Ukrainian people who are facing severe disruption to services and medication and stressed that "the life-saving medicine we need right now is peace."
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN Security Council Thursday that WHO has verified 43 attacks on hospitals and health facilities with 12 people killed and 34 injured.
In a virtual briefing, Tedros said "the disruption to services and supplies is posing an extreme risk to people with cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, HIV and TB, which are among the leading causes of mortality in Ukraine."
The WHO chief said displacement and overcrowding caused by people fleeing fighting are likely to increase the risks of diseases such as COVID-19, measles, pneumonia and polio.
In addition, more than 35,000 mental health patients in Ukrainian psychiatric hospitals and long-term care facilities face severe shortages of medicine, food, health and blankets, he said.
So far, WHO has sent about 100 metric tons (110 tons) of medical supplies -- enough for 4,500 trauma patients and 450,000 primary health care patients for a month -- to Ukraine along with other equipment. Tedros said the agency is preparing a further 108 metric tons (119 tons) for delivery.
Tedros urged donors to support the immense and escalating humanitarian needs in Ukraine and fully fund the UN's US$1.1 billion humanitarian appeal.
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