Ukraine on Friday ordered its last troops holed up in Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal steelworks to lay down their arms after nearly three months of desperate resistance against a ferocious Russian assault.
Russia’s flattening of the strategic port city has drawn multiple accusations of war crimes, including a deadly attack on a maternity ward, and Ukraine has begun a reckoning for captured Russian troops.
The first post-invasion trial of a Russian soldier for war crimes neared its climax in Kyiv, after 21-year-old sergeant Vadim Shishimarin admitted to killing an unarmed civilian early in the offensive. The verdict is due on Monday.
The fighting is fiercest in the eastern region of Donbas, a Russian-speaking area that has been partially controlled by pro-Kremlin separatists since 2014. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the assaults had turned the Donbas into “hell”.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said his forces’ campaign in Lugansk was “nearing completion”.
The US Congress approved a $40-billion aid package, including funds to enhance Ukraine’s armoured vehicle fleet and air defence system. And meeting in Germany, G7 industrialised nations pledged $19.8 billion to shore up Ukraine’s shattered public finances.
In other developments, Russia will cut off natural gas to Finland on Saturday, the Finnish state energy company said, just days after Finland applied to join Nato. Finland had refused Moscow’s demand that it pay for gas in rubles.
The cutoff is not expected to have any major immediate effect. Natural gas accounted for just 6% of Finland’s total energy consumption in 2020, Finnish broadcaster YLE said.
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Biden arrives in South Korea on first Asia trip as president
President Joe Biden landed in South Korea on Friday for his first trip to Asia as US leader, aiming to cement ties with regional security allies as concern over a North Korean nuclear test grows. Biden’s visit comes as the allies face a growing threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programme.
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Thousands queue for petrol, gas in Sri Lanka amid warnings of food shortages
Thousands of people queued for cooking gas and petrol in Sri Lanka’s commercial capital on Friday and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe warned of a food shortage as the island nation battles a devastating economic crisis. “Only about 200 cylinders were delivered, even though there were about 500 people,” said Mohammad Shazly, a part-time chauffeur in a queue for the third day in the hope of procuring cooking gas forShazly’ss family of five.
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‘Tornado’ in western Germany injures 30: Police
More than 30 people were injured, including 10 seriously, on Friday in a “tornado” which hit the western German city of Paderborn, a police spokesman told AFP. The tornado also caused significant damage in the city in the North Rhine-Westphalia state and followed abnormally high temperatures for the time of year.
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Myanmar’s military leader begins peace talks with ethnic militia groups
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Canada bans luxury goods trade with Russia, punishes more oligarchs
Canada announced Friday a ban on trade in luxury goods with Russia, and added 14 more Russian oligarchs and other associates of President Vladimir Putin to its sanctions list imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. The ban aligns with similar measures imposed by allies such as the United States and the European Union, and “will help to mitigate the potential for Russian oligarchs to circumvent restrictions in other luxury goods markets,” the government said.