Can we have a round-up of the situation?
Lyse Doucet, on the ground for the BBC, had this update this morning.
“from Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent, in Kyiv
It’s day eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Just past midnight in Kyiv, the air raid siren blared yet again. The quiet in the dead of night was shattered by several large explosions.
This is the soundtrack of this city now. In a capital where many can’t sleep, images were posted on social media of a huge orange fireball lighting the sky.
The day dawned very cold, grey. It’s another morning where residents of Kyiv hear that Moscow’s mammoth armoured convoy on the edge of the city is still stalled.
“The column has made little discernible progress in over three days,” Ukraine’s defence ministry said in a statement.
Reports speak of possible shortages of food and fuel, of wheels stuck in the mud, of restive Russian forces, and Ukrainian resistance.
On the rim of a beleaguered city, there are reports of heavy fighting and roads are strewn with burnt and blackened carcasses of military vehicles.
Across Ukraine, mayors send updates of their cities’ desperate plight.
Mayor Igor Kolykhaiev, who once presided over the southern port city of Kherson, posted a message on Facebook informing residents that the Ukrainian flag still flies over their city, but there were no Ukrainian forces.
He told invading troops, who now control the first major city, “not to shoot people”.
Mayor Vadym Boychenko of Mariupol, now under intense shelling and a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, reported that Russian attacks were being repelled “with dignity”.
More than a million Ukrainians have fled; many more keep fighting as Russia advances and attacks with devastating force in the north, east, and south of the country.”
Can we unpick some of that information?
Kyiv: why isn’t that column of tanks and vehicles moving?
Apart from the fact that there appears to be a level of reluctance among some Russian soldiers to actually engage face to face, analysts have looked at videos and photographs of stalled Russian tanks, and come up with the following.
Firstly, it’s the “Rasputitsa,” a Russian term for two seasons of the year, spring and autumn, when travel on unpaved roads or across the country becomes difficult, owing to muddy conditions from rain or melting snow. “Rasputitsa” also refers to road conditions during both periods. The term is applied to muddy road conditions in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, which are caused by the poor drainage of underlying clay-laden soils found in the region. Roads are subject to weight limitations and closures during the period in certain districts.. The phenomenon was a hindrance in the early 20th century in the Soviet Union since 40% of rural villages were not served by paved roads.
Rasputitsa seasons are well known as a great defensive advantage in wartime. Common nicknames include General Mud and Marshal Mud. Historically, they have bogged down many an army, and it seems they are bogging down tanks now, especially in the north: in the south, it’s apparently drier, which is why the advances in the south appear to be greater.
Secondly, some analysts are of the opinion that as well as the army not being well supplied, the army vehicles have not been well looked after while not being used, which is why so many of them seem to be having tyre problems.
How’s it going for Russia?
Badly. The UN resolution last night condemned its invasion of Kyiv:
The United Nations has voted overwhelmingly for a resolution deploring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for the immediate withdrawal of its forces, in a global expression of outrage that highlighted Russia’s increasing isolation.
In an emergency session of the UN’s general assembly, 141 of the 193 member states voted for the resolution, 35 abstained, and five voted against. The only countries to vote no in support of Moscow were Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. Longstanding allies Cuba and Nicaragua joined China in abstaining.
The resolution said the UN “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”. It demanded that “the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine” and “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces”.
The resolution is not legally binding, but is an expression of the views of the UN membership, aimed at increasing pressure on Moscow and its ally, Belarus.
“It isn’t going to stop Russian forces in their stride, but it’s a pretty enormous diplomatic win for the Ukrainians and the US, and everyone who has got behind them,” Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group, said.
Speaking before the vote, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, compared the Russian invasion to the Nazi conquest of Europe.
“A few of the eldest Ukrainians and Russians might recall a moment like this, a moment when one aggressive European nation invaded another without provocation to claim the territory of its neighbour, a moment when a European dictator declared he would return his empire to its former glory and invasion that caused a war so horrific, that it spurred this organisation into existence,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
The Ukrainian permanent representative, Sergiy Kyslytsya, appealed to countries considering an abstention on the grounds that “it is not my war”.
“It is a mistake. The evil will never stop. It requires more and more space to conquer. If tolerated it advances further and further,” Kyslytsya said. “The draft resolution is one of the building blocks to build a wall to stop it in Ukraine and not to let it go further.”
The Russian permanent representative, Vasily Nebenzya, repeated Moscow claims that its forces were not targeting civilian areas. He attributed the lopsided nature of the vote to behind-the-scenes coercion on member states from Ukraine’s allies.
“We know about the unprecedented pressure that our western partners are exerting on a large number of countries urging them to vote as they [the west] see fit,” Nebenzya said. “This is not something even we can call pressure. It was an open and cynical threat.”
On Friday, Russia was the sole vote against a similar resolution in the security council, but because Russia is one of the five powers with a veto, the resolution was not upheld. So Ukraine’s allies referred the matter to the general assembly.
It is the first time in 40 years the security council has referred a crisis to the assembly and only the 11th time an emergency session of the UN general assembly has been called since 1950.
It was summoned under a “uniting for peace” resolution, in which global threats are referred to the body “if the security council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility to act as required to maintain international peace and security”.
In a reflection of the worldwide outrage at the Russian attack on Ukraine, six of Moscow’s allies who stuck by Russia in 2014, in a similar vote after the annexation of Crimea, abstained on this occasion: Armenia, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Another supporter from 2014, Venezuela, did not vote on Wednesday. Its voting rights had been suspended as a result of unpaid UN membership dues.
Hungary and Serbia, European countries with the closest ties to Moscow, voted for the resolution condemning the Russian invasion.
“The Republic of Serbia is committed to observing principles of territorial integrity and political independence of states as one of the basic principles of international law,” the country’s permanent representative, Nemanja Stevanović, told the assembly.
Nebenzya shrugged off the significance of the vote, making clear that Russia would press on with its offensive.
“This document will not allow us to end military activities,” Nebenzya said, blaming the fighting on “radicals and nationalists” in the Kyiv government.
What about in Russia? How do Russian feel?
Russia is unhappy with the protests against the war, particularly when it appears that elderly survivors of the WWII siege of Leningrad are joining them. There are some reports that Putin thinks of introducing martial law today: watch this space.
As outrage in Russia grows, media outlets other than Russian state outlets have focused on the fact that a group of Russian children who laid flowers outside the Ukrainian embassy were detained overnight with their parents, and their parents were threatened that they would be taken away from them. Apparently – again, this needs further confirmation – sources are stating that Russian schools have been directed to teach the Russian government’s version of events to children to counter the “misinformation” spread by social media: you can’t keep a good Tik-Tokker down it would seem.
Meanwhile some enterprising people are doing their best to keep information flowing into Russia as it tries to crack down: the BBC World service – always the worthiest arm of the BBC, as I can attest from my time working with it in the Gulf War of 1990 – is doing its best to keep radio links open. And some even more enterprising people are using Trip Advisor – no, I am not kidding – to access Russian tourist sites and leave reviews (5 star, of course) that explain what is happening. Truly the world of global information is a wonderful thing. Sometimes.
China abstained in the UN resolution? Does that indicate condemnation?
China is a bit hacked off . . .
On March 1 Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. He told Kuleba that China has always advocated respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries but added that “regional security cannot be achieved by expanding military blocs,” a reference to Russia’s objections to Ukraine joining NATO.
However, as Reuters reports, Russia is destroying what China is trying to build. Having refused to condemn President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and suppressed domestic criticism of Russia, Beijing is alienating many eastern European countries where it is constructing trade, investment and technology relationships under its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
Ukraine is strategically positioned across rail, road and energy pipelines linking Russia to the rest of Europe. Since it joined President Xi Jinping’s signature infrastructure policy in 2017, Chinese companies have been upgrading the country’s ports and subways. And in 2020 Kyiv signed a memorandum of understanding with telecoms giant Huawei Technologies, which the United States has been trying to drive out of worldwide networks. With a population of 44 million, Ukraine provides an attractive market for companies such as smartphone maker Xiaomi, and it is an important source of agricultural produce. China bought 30% of its corn imports from Ukraine in 2021.
With Russian army convoys advancing toward Kyiv, Beijing is stuck watching missiles wreck a country once receptive to its overtures. The attacks are galvanising pan-European sentiment against China, which refuses to call Russia’s move an invasion. As the West and Moscow make it harder for private companies to transact, the flow of goods along the “Iron Silk Road,” a rail system across which $75 billion of Chinese products travelled to Europe in 2021, is likely to slow.
Is Ukraine maintaining its defence?
Ukraine is able to launch counter-attacks against invading Russian forces even as it defends itself, a military adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday.
“Help to us is increasing every minute and the strength of the enemy is decreasing every minute. We’re not only defending but also counter-attacking,” he said in a televised briefing.
What about reports that the Russians have taken ground near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power complex?
The Russian occupiers who surrounded Enerhodar and the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) are trying to persuade city authorities to allow them on the site of the nuclear power plant to take pictures, after which they promise to leave.
Energoatom head Petro Kotin has said: “Russian invaders are coming out and trying to negotiate with Enerhodar’s city leaders. They say they have a task from their leadership to occupy the city of Enerhodar and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
They even say that they just need to enter the city, take a photo of themselves against the backdrop of the ZNPP and send a report to their leadership in the Russian army, to the Ministry [of Defence], for propaganda that they control the city and nuclear power plant.
After that, they’ll apparently leave our facilities”.
Energoatom stated that it had officially asked International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to establish a “control zone” with a 30-kilometer radius around the ZNPP so that Russian occupiers would not have the right to operate in this area.
Kotin said that the fighting and missile strikes by the Russian occupiers near the ZNPP pose an extremely high risk to residents’ health and the environment.
According to Kotin, right now, about 22,000 residents of Enerhodar are blocking the Russian occupiers’ passage at checkpoints set up at Enerhodar’s entrances. Large trucks were also posted at the checkpoints.
Background: On 2 March, Enerhodar Mayor Dmitro Orlov called on residents of the city to block passage into Enerhodar and ZNPP to the Russian occupiers’ military equipment. People with Ukrainian flags are standing on the roads and blocking passage for the occupiers’ military equipment.
Any news from Moscow on what we’re all afraid of?
According to Reuters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday he believed some foreign leaders were preparing for war against Russia and that Moscow would press on with its military operation in Ukraine until “the end”.
Lavrov also said Russia had no thoughts of nuclear war.
Offering no evidence to back up his remarks in an interview with state television, a week after Russian invaded Ukraine, he also accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an ethnic Jew, of presiding over “a society where Nazism is flourishing”.
He said he had no doubt that a solution to the crisis in Ukraine would be found, and a new round of talks were about to start between Ukrainian and Russian officials.
But he said Russia’s dialogue with the West must be based on mutual respect, accused NATO of seeking to maintain supremacy and said that while Russia had a lot of goodwill, it could not let anyone undermine its interests.
Moscow would not let Ukraine keep infrastructure that threatened Russia, he said.
Moscow could also not tolerate what he said was a military threat from Ukraine, he said, adding that he was convinced that Russia was right over Ukraine.
“The thought of nuclear is constantly spinning in the heads of Western politicians but not in the heads of Russians,” he said. “I assure you that we will not allow any kind of provocation to unbalance us.”
Russia did not feel politically isolated, and the question of how Ukraine lives should be defined by its people, he said.
Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of hitting civilian areas but Lavrov said Russian troops had strict orders to use high-precision weapons to destroy military infrastructure.
Offering no evidence, Lavrov said Russia had information that the United States was worried about the prospect of losing control over what he described as chemical and biological laboratories in Ukraine and accused Britain of building military bases there.
Latest news?
A Ukrainian delegation is on its way to talks with Russia by helicopter and negotiations will kick off in a couple of hours, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an online post on Thursday.
Earlier, Belarusian state news agency Belta quoted chief Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky as saying the second round of talks would start in Belarus at 1200 GMT.