US sought to punish ‘disobedient’ Imran Khan, says Russia

 

MOSCOW, APR 5: Russia has lambasted “another attempt of shameless interference” by the United States in the internal affairs of Pakistan, adding that it sought to punish a “disobedient” Imran Khan.

In a statement, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Russia had noted that President Dr Arif Alvi dissolved the National Assembly on April 3 on the prime minister’s advice as well as the events preceding it. “Immediately after the announcement of the working visit of Imran Khan to Moscow on February 23-24 this year, the Americans and their Western associates began to exert rude pressure on the prime minister, demanding an ultimatum to cancel the trip,” she said.

“When he nevertheless came to us, [Lu] called the Pakistani ambassador in Washington and demanded that the visit be immediately interrupted, which was also rejected,” she stated.

“According to the Pakistani media, on March 7 this year, in a conversation with Pakistani Ambassador Asad Majid, a high-ranking American official (presumably the same Donald Lu) sharply condemned the balanced reaction of the Pakistani leadership to the events in Ukraine and made it clear that partnerships with the United States are possible only if Imran Khan is removed from power,” Zakharova said.

The Russian official said that further development of the situation left no doubt that the US “decided to punish the ‘disobedient’ Imran Khan”, noting how lawmakers from within the PTI switched sides to the opposition while the no-confidence vote was submitted to Parliament.

“This is another attempt of shameless US interference in the internal affairs of an independent state for its own selfish purposes. The above facts eloquently testify to this,” Zakharova said.

“The [Pakistan] prime minister himself has repeatedly stated that the conspiracy against him was inspired and financed from abroad. We hope that Pakistani voters will be informed about these circumstances when they come to the elections, which should be held within 90 days after the dissolution of the National Assembly,” she said.

The statement from Russia’s foreign ministry comes after PM Imran named US Assis­tant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia Donald Lu as the official who made “threatening remarks” about his regime in a letter, which the premier had brandished during a public rally in Islamabad last month.

Last month, the National Security Committee, which includes all services chiefs, had decided to issue a “strong demarche” over the letter, terming it “blatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan”.

Imran has alleged that the no-confidence motion against him is part of the “foreign conspiracy” to oust him from power.

However, the US State Department said claims of a US involvement in the no-trust move against Imran Khan were just allegations without any truth. In a recent interview, Donald Lu, the US diplomat who allegedly made the threat to Pakistan’s ambassador, evaded the question when asked about the regime change in Pakistan.

During the interview, on a question about his conversation with Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, the interviewer asked: “Imran Khan seems to suggest that you had a conversation with the Pakistani ambassador in the US and told him that if Imran Khan survives the no-confidence motion, Pakistan is in trouble and the US wont forgive Pakistan. Any response?”

Donald Lu avoided direct reply and said: “We are following developments in Pakistan, and we respect and support Pakistan’s constitutional process and the rule of law.”

Asked whether he had had such a conversation, the US official skipped the question again, simply saying: “That’s all I have for you on that question.”

On April 3, NA Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri had thrown out the no-trust motion against Imran, declaring that “circumstances show there is a nexus between the no-confidence motion, foreign intervention and the activities of the state’s representatives deputed to Pakistan”.

Imran had visited Moscow in February on a two-day trip which focused primarily on energy cooperation. However, his visit raised eyebrows as it coincided with Russia’s military onslaught of Ukraine.

At the time, the government said it had consulted all concerned quarters before going ahead with the trip, which had been scheduled months in advance.

During his trip, Imran had conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he regretted the situation developing between Russia and Ukraine, adding that Islamabad had hoped that military conflict could be averted through a diplomatic solution.

He had stressed that conflict was not in anyone’s interest and that developing countries were always hardest hit economically in case of conflict. “He underlined Pakistan’s belief that disputes should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy,” said a communiqué issued after a meeting between the two leaders.

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Courtesy Dawn News

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Joe Biden meets top Ukrainian ministers in Warsaw

 

Warsaw, MAR 26: Joe Biden on Saturday met in Warsaw with two Ukrainian ministers in the first face-to-face talks between the US president and top Kyiv officials since Russia’s invasion began.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov made a rare trip out of Ukraine in a possible sign of growing confidence in the fightback against Russian forces.

The meeting took place at the Marriott Hotel in the city centre — opposite a Warsaw train station where there has been a constant flow of Ukrainian refugees since the conflict started.

Biden could be seen seated at a long white table between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, facing Kuleba and Reznikov, the reporter said.

There were Ukrainian and US flags in the background.

Biden last met Kuleba in Washington on February 22 — two days before Russia began its assault.

Since then, Kuleba has also met with Blinken in Poland next to the border with Ukraine on March 5.

Biden is on the second and final day of a visit to Poland after he met with European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leaders in Brussels earlier in the week.

On Friday, he met with US soldiers stationed in Poland near the Ukrainian border and with aid workers helping refugees fleeing the conflict.

He praised Ukrainians for showing “backbone” against the Russian invasion and compared their resistance to the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in China in 1989.

“This is Tiananmen Square squared,” he said.

He also referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a man who, quite frankly, I think is a war criminal”.

“And I think we’ll meet the legal definition of that as well,” he said.

Biden said he would have liked to see the devastation caused by the conflict “first-hand”.

“They won’t let me, understandably I guess, cross the border,” he said.

Speaking to the troops, he said: “You’re in the midst of a fight between democracies and autocrats. What you’re doing is consequential, really consequential.”

Later on Saturday, he is due to meet with Polish leaders, visit a reception centre for refugees and give a major speech on the conflict.

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Courtesy Dawn News

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Putin says Ukraine’s future in doubt as ceasefires collapse

 

MOSCOW, MAR 6: A promised ceasefire in the besieged port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror but a pro-Russian official said safe-passage corridors would open again for city residents on Sunday, while Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the ongoing resistance is putting Ukrainian statehood in jeopardy and likened the West’s sanctions on Russia to “declaring war”.

With the Kremlin’s rhetoric growing fiercer and a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities and the number of Ukrainians forced from their country grew to 1.4 million.

By nighttime on Saturday, Russian forces had intensified their shelling of Mariupol, while dropping powerful bombs on residential areas of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.

Bereft mothers mourned slain children, wounded soldiers were fitted with tourniquets and doctors worked by the light of their cellphones as bleakness and desperation pervaded. Crowds of men lined up in the capital to join the Ukrainian military.

The government has ordered men between the ages of 18 and 60 to stay and be available to fight. Some, like Volodymyr Onysko, have volunteered.

“We know why we are here. We know why we defend our country,” Onysko told Britain’s Sky News. “We know what we are doing, and that’s why we will win.”

Eduard Basurin, the head of the military in separatist-held Donetsk territory, said safe passage corridors for residents of two cities in the region — Mariupol and Volnovakha — would be open again on Sunday.

He did not give any details on how long the corridors would remain open, nor whether there would be a ceasefire to facilitate the evacuation of the two cities. He made the comments on Russian state television.

Russia’s defence ministry said the country had struck and disabled Ukraine’s Starokostiantyniv military airbase with long-range high-precision weapons.

“The Russia armed forces continue to strike the military infrastructure of Ukraine,” Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

“On the morning of March 6, strikes were carried out by high-precision long-range weapons. The Ukrainian air force base near Starokostiantyniv was disabled.”

He said a Ukrainian-controlled S-300 missile system had also been destroyed by Russian rocket forces. He said Russia had downed 10 Ukrainian planes and helicopters over the past 24 hours.

Putin continued to pin the blame for the war squarely on the Ukrainian leadership and slammed their resistance to the invasion.

“If they continue to do what they are doing, they are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood,” he said on Saturday. “And if this happens, it will be entirely on their conscience.”

He also hit out at Western sanctions that have crippled Russia’s economy and sent the value of its currency tumbling.

“These sanctions that are being imposed, they are akin to declaring war,” he said during a televised meeting with flight attendants from Russian airline Aeroflot. “But thank God, we haven’t got there yet.”

Escalating situation

Russia’s financial system suffered yet another blow as Mastercard and Visa announced they were suspending operations in the country.

Ten days after Russian forces invaded, the struggle to enforce the temporary ceasefires in Mariupol and Volnovakha showed the fragility of efforts to stop the fighting across Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials said Russian artillery fire and airstrikes had prevented residents from leaving before the agreed-to evacuations got underway. Putin accused Ukraine of sabotaging the effort.

A third round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place on Monday, according to Davyd Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian delegation. He gave no additional details, including where they would take place.

Previous meetings were held in Belarus and led to the failed ceasefire agreement to create humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of children, women and older people from besieged cities, where pharmacies have run bare, hundreds of thousands face food and water shortages, and the injured have been succumbing to their wounds.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said thousands of residents had gathered for safe passage out of the city of 430,000 when the shelling began and the evacuation was stopped. Later in the day, he said the attack had escalated further.

“The city is in a very, very difficult state of siege,” Boychenko told Ukrainian TV. “Relentless shelling of residential blocks is ongoing, airplanes have been dropping bombs on residential areas. The Russian occupants are using heavy artillery, including Grad multiple rocket launchers.”

Russia has made significant advances in the south, seeking to cut off Ukraine’s access to the sea. Capturing Mariupol could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Meanwhile, the head of the Chernihiv region said Russia has dropped powerful bombs on residential areas of the city of the same name, which has a population of 290,000. Vyacheslav Chaus posted a photo online of what he said was an undetonated FAB-500, a 500-kilogramme bomb.

“Usually this weapon is used against military-industrial facilities and fortified structures,” Chaus said.

In a speech to Ukrainians, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed to “the 500kg bombs that were dropped on the houses of Ukrainians. Look at Borodyanka, at the destroyed schools, at the blown-up kindergartens. At the damaged Kharkiv Assumption Cathedral. Look what Russia has done.”

The West has broadly backed Ukraine, offering aid and weapons and slapping Russia with vast sanctions. But the fight itself has been left to Ukrainians, who have expressed a mixture of courageous resolve and despondency.

“Ukraine is bleeding,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a video released on Saturday, “but Ukraine has not fallen.”

Russian troops advanced on a third nuclear power plant, having already taken control of one of the four operating in the country and the closed plant in Chernobyl, Zelenskyy told US lawmakers.

Zelenskyy pleaded with the lawmakers for additional help, specifically fighter planes to help secure the skies over Ukraine, even as he insisted Russia was being defeated.

“We’re inflicting losses on the occupants they could not see in their worst nightmare,” Zelenskyy said.

Russian troops took control of the southern port city of Kherson this week. Although they have encircled Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, Ukrainian forces have managed to keep control of key cities in central and southeastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.

Frenetic meetings

US President Joe Biden called Zelenskyy early on Sunday, Kyiv time, to discuss Russia sanctions and speeding US assistance to Ukraine.

The White House said the conversation also covered talks between Russia and Ukraine but did not give details.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Poland to meet with the prime minister and foreign minister, a day after attending a Nato meeting in Brussels in which the alliance pledged to step up support for eastern flank members.

Blinken also spoke by phone with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who said Beijing opposes any moves that “add fuel to the flames” in Ukraine, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Blinken said the world is watching to see which nations stand up for freedom and sovereignty, the State Department said.

In Moscow, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Putin at the Kremlin. Israel maintains good relations with both Russia and Ukraine, and Bennett has offered to act as an intermediary in the conflict, but no details of the meeting emerged immediately.

Bennett’s office said he spoke twice with Zelenskyy afterwards.

In the wake of Western sanctions, Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship state-owned airline, announced plans to halt all international flights except to Belarus starting on Tuesday.

The death toll of the conflict was difficult to measure. The UN human rights office said at least 351 civilians have been confirmed killed since the February 24 invasion, but the true number is probably much higher.

Ukraine’s military is vastly outmatched by Russia’s, but its professional and volunteer forces have fought back with fierce tenacity. Even in cities that have fallen, there were signs of resistance.

Onlookers in Chernihiv cheered as they watched a Russian military plane fall from the sky and crash, according to video released by the Ukrainian government. In Kherson, hundreds of protesters waved blue and yellow Ukrainian flags and shouted, “Go home.”

A vast Russian armoured column threatening Ukraine’s capital remained stalled outside Kyiv.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said in the afternoon that the military situation was quieter overall and Russian forces hadn’t “taken active actions since the morning”.

The US Congress is considering a request for $10 billion in emergency funding for humanitarian aid and security needs.

The UN said it would increase its humanitarian operations both inside and outside Ukraine, and the Security Council scheduled a meeting for Monday on the worsening situation.

The UN World Food Programme has warned of an impending hunger crisis in Ukraine, a major global wheat supplier, saying millions will need food aid “immediately”.

Kyiv’s central train station remained crowded with people desperate to flee. “People just want to live,” one woman, Ksenia, said.

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Russia declares partial ceasefire to allow humanitarian corridors in Ukraine

 

MOSCOW, MAR 5: Russia declared a partial ceasefire on Saturday to allow humanitarian corridors out of the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, Russia's defence ministry said.

“From 10am Moscow time (0700 GMT), the Russian side declares a ceasefire and the opening of humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave Mariupol and Volnovakha,” Russian news agencies quoted the Russian defence ministry as saying.

Mariupol, a southern city of about 450,000 people on the Azov Sea, will begin evacuations at 0900 GMT, city hall announced on social media in a message that added, “it will be possible to leave the city by private transport.”

“A huge request to all drivers leaving the city, to contribute as much as possible to the evacuation of the civilian population — take people with you, fill vehicles as much as possible,” the statement said.

The announcement said the evacuation would last over several days to allow the entirety of the civilian population to exit the city.

In the statement, city officials told residents leaving in private vehicles that it was “strictly prohibited” to go off course from the evacuation routes.

Municipal buses were also departing from three locations in the city to help people leave, the message said.

Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on social media that some 200,000 people were expected to be extracted from the city.

She wrote that a further 15,000 people would be brought from Volnovakha, a town of around 20,000 people some 60 kilometres from separatist-controlled Donetsk, a regional centre.

“This is not an easy decision, but, as I have always said, Mariupol is not its streets or houses. Mariupol is its population, it is you and me,” mayor Vadim Boychenko was quoted as saying in the statement.

With Russian troops surrounding the city, he said, “there is no other option but to allow residents — that is, you and me — to leave Mariupol safely,” he said.

Russia blocks Facebook, other sites

Meanwhile, Russia blocked Facebook and some other websites and passed a law that gave Moscow much stronger powers to crack down on journalism, prompting the BBC, Bloomberg and other foreign media to suspend reporting in the country.

War raged in Ukraine for a 10th day on Saturday as Russian troops besieged and bombarded cities.

The fighting has created over one million refugees, a barrage of sanctions that are increasingly isolating Moscow and fears in the West of a wider global conflict that has been unthought-of for decades.

Moscow says its invasion is a “special operation” to capture individuals it regards as dangerous nationalists, and has denied targeting civilians.

Ukraine's state service of special communications and protection of information says Russian forces have focussed efforts on encircling Kyiv and Kharkiv, the second-biggest city, while aiming to establish a land bridge to Crimea.

Kyiv, in the path of a Russian armoured column that has been stalled outside the Ukrainian capital for days, came under renewed assault, with explosions audible from the city centre.

Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne cited authorities in Sumy, about 300 kilometres east of Kyiv, as saying that there is a risk of fighting in the city's streets, urging residents to stay in shelters.

Russian forces also have encircled and shelled the southeastern port city of Mariupol — a key prize. There is no water, heat or electricity and food is running out, according to Mayor Vadym Boychenko.

“We are simply being destroyed,” he said.

President Vladimir Putin's actions have drawn almost universal condemnation, and many countries have imposed heavy sanctions as the West balances punishment with avoiding a widening of the conflict.

Fighting back in the information war, Russia's parliament passed a law on Friday imposing a prison term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military.

“This law will force punishment — and very tough punishment — on those who lied and made statements which discredited our armed forces,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.

Russia is blocking Facebook for restricting state-backed channels and the websites of the BBC, Deutsche Welle and Voice of America.

CNN and CBS News said they would stop broadcasting in Russia, and other outlets removed Russian-based journalists' bylines as they assessed the situation.

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Neutral Finland, Sweden warm to idea of Nato membership in wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

 

Kyiv, MAR 3: Through the Cold War and the decades since, nothing could persuade Finns and Swedes that they would be better off joining Nato — until now.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has profoundly changed Europe’s security outlook, including for Nordic neutrals Finland and Sweden, where support for joining Nato has surged to record levels.

A poll commissioned by Finnish broadcaster YLE this week showed that, for the first time, more than 50 per cent of Finns support joining the Western military alliance. In neighbouring Sweden, a similar poll showed those in favour of Nato membership outnumber those against it.

“The unthinkable might start to become thinkable,” tweeted former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, a proponent of Nato membership.

Neither country is going to join the alliance overnight. Support for Nato membership rises and falls, and there’s no clear majority for joining in their parliaments.

But the signs of change since Russia began its invasion last week are unmistakable.

The attack on Ukraine prompted both Finland and Sweden to break with their policy of not providing arms to countries at war by sending assault rifles and anti-tank weapons to Kyiv. For Sweden, it’s the first time offering military aid since 1939, when it assisted Finland against the Soviet Union.

Apparently sensing a shift among its Nordic neighbours, the Russian Foreign Ministry last week voiced concern about what it described as efforts by the United States and some of its allies to “drag” Finland and Sweden into Nato and warned that Moscow would be forced to take retaliatory measures if they joined the alliance.

The governments of Sweden and Finland retorted that they won’t let Moscow dictate their security policy.

“I want to be extremely clear: It is Sweden that itself and independently decides on our security policy line,” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said.

Finland has a conflict-ridden history with Russia, with which it shares a 1,340-kilometre border. Finns have taken part in dozens of wars against their eastern neighbour, for centuries as part of the Swedish Kingdom, and as an independent nation during the world wars, including two fought with the Soviet Union from 1939-40 and 1941-44.

In the postwar period, however, Finland pursued pragmatic political and economic ties with Moscow, remaining militarily nonaligned and a neutral buffer between East and West.

Sweden has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, choosing a path of peace after centuries of warfare with its neighbours.

Both countries put an end to traditional neutrality by joining the European Union in 1995 and deepening cooperation with Nato. However, a majority of people in both countries remained firmly against full membership in the alliance — until Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

The YLE poll showed 53pc were in favour of Finland joining Nato, with only 28pc against. The poll had an error margin of 2.5 percentage points and included 1,382 respondents interviewed from February 23 to 25. Russia’s invasion began on Feb 24.

“It’s a very significant shift,” said senior researcher Matti Pesu from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. “We’ve had a situation in the past 25-30 years where Finns’ opinions on Nato have been very stable. It seems to now to have changed completely.”

While noting that it’s not possible to draw conclusions from a single poll, Pesu said no similar shift in public opinion occurred after Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia and the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, “so this is an exception”.

In Sweden, a late February poll commissioned by the Swedish public broadcaster SVT found 41pc of Swedes supported Nato membership and 35pc opposed it, marking the first time that those in favour exceeded those against.

The Nordic duo, important partners for Nato in the Baltic Sea area where Russia has substantially increased its military manoeuvres in the past decade, has strongly stressed that it is up to them alone to decide whether to join the military alliance.

In his New Year’s speech, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto pointedly said that “Finland’s room to manoeuvre and freedom of choice also include the possibility of military alignment and of applying for Nato membership, should we ourselves so decide.”

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg noted last week that for Helsinki and Stockholm “this is a question of self-determination and the sovereign right to choose your own path and then potentially in the future, also to apply for Nato.”

There are no set criteria for joining Nato, but aspiring candidates must meet certain political and other considerations. Many observers believe Finland and Sweden would qualify for fast-track entry into Nato without lengthy negotiations and membership could be a reality within months.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said this week that her Social Democratic Party would discuss possible Nato membership with other parties but didn’t set a time frame. She said everyone agrees that the events of the past weeks have been a game-changer.

“Together we see that the security situation has changed remarkably since Russia attacked Ukraine. It is a fact that we have to acknowledge,” Marin said.

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