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IN BRIEF: Ukraine and Russia – What you need to know right now

  • Local residents sit in a courtyard near a block of flats heavily damaged during the Ukraine-Russia conflict, in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine May 20, 2022.
  • Image Credits :
  • Ukraine residents in Maripol
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Kyiv revealed its worst military losses from a single attack of the Ukraine war on Monday, saying 87 people were killed last week when Russian forces struck a barracks housing troops at a training base in the north.

Fighting

* The training base toll was more than double the number killed in a similar attack on a Ukrainian training base in Yaraviv in the west in March.

* A Ukrainian court sentenced a young Russian soldier to life in prison for killing an unarmed civilian in the first war crimes trial arising from Russia’s February 24 invasion.

* Russia pounded dozens of targets in eastern Ukraine with airstrikes and artillery as ground forces attempted to encircle the Donbas city of Sievierodonetsk, the Russian Defence Ministry said.

Diplomacy

* Zelenskiy told a meeting of global business leaders at Davos that the world faced a turning point and had to ratchet up sanctions against Russia as a warning to other countries considering using brute force.

* A Russian diplomat at the country’s permanent mission at the United Nations in Geneva resigned citing his disagreement with the invasion, a rare political resignation over the war.

* Ukraine and Poland agreed to establish a joint border customs control and work on a shared railway company to ease the movement of people and increase Ukraine’s export potential.

Economy

* The Kremlin said the West triggered a global food crisis by imposing the severest sanctions in modern history on Russia.

* Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia and Estonia will call for the confiscation of Russian assets frozen by the European Union to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine, a joint letter by the four showed.

* Ukraine’s grain exports could reach 1.5 million tonnes in May compared with around 1 million tonnes in April, Roman Slaston, Director General of the Ukrainian Agrarian Business Club Association, said on Monday.

* Poland decided to terminate an intergovernmental agreement with Russia on the Yamal gas pipeline, Polish Climate Minister Anna Moskwa said.

* Starbucks Corp SBUX.O will exit the Russian market after nearly 15 years. Workers removed the trademark “Golden Arches” sign from a McDonald’s restaurant just north of Moscow.

* Russia would normally have its own “house” at the World Economic Forum in Davos as a showcase for business leaders and investors. This year the space on the dressed-up main street has been transformed by Ukrainian artists into a “Russian War Crimes House”. Russia has denied allegations of war crimes in the conflict.

Quote

* “History is at a turning point… This is really the moment when it is decided whether brute force will rule the world,” Ukrainian President Zelenskiy.

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