President Emmanuel Macron met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday, and told Xi “I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason.”
The French president, who arrived on Wednesday for a three-day state visit, shook hands with Xi outside the Great Hall of the People, the heart of power in China’s capital.
Xi greeted his guest on a huge red carpet lined by Chinese and French flags as the countries’ national anthems played, an AFP journalist said.
Reuters quotes the French president saying:
The Russian aggression in Ukraine has dealt a blow to stability. I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table.
Macron has said during his trip that Beijing can play a “major role” in finding a path to peace in the conflict and welcomed China’s “willingness to commit to a resolution”.
He is accompanied on his visit by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, and said he wants to “be a voice that unites Europe” over Ukraine, and that coming to China with her serves to “underline the consistency of this approach”.
Bilateral relations between Sweden and Hungary are at a low point, prime minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás told a media briefing on Thursday, calling on Stockholm to take steps to boost confidence, Reuters reports.
Finland and its neighbour Sweden applied together last year to join Nato, but Sweden’s application has been held up by Nato members Turkey and Hungary. Hungary cites grievances over Swedish criticism of Orbán’s record on democracy and rule of law.
President Emmanuel Macron met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday, and told Xi “I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason.”
The French president, who arrived on Wednesday for a three-day state visit, shook hands with Xi outside the Great Hall of the People, the heart of power in China’s capital.
Xi greeted his guest on a huge red carpet lined by Chinese and French flags as the countries’ national anthems played, an AFP journalist said.
Reuters quotes the French president saying:
The Russian aggression in Ukraine has dealt a blow to stability. I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table.
Macron has said during his trip that Beijing can play a “major role” in finding a path to peace in the conflict and welcomed China’s “willingness to commit to a resolution”.
He is accompanied on his visit by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, and said he wants to “be a voice that unites Europe” over Ukraine, and that coming to China with her serves to “underline the consistency of this approach”.
Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the partly occupied regions which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has posted a status update to Telegram.
Pavlo Kyrylenko writes that in Bakhumt, “two civilians were killed and two wounded – the damage to a kindergarten, two private houses and three high-rise buildings was added to the total destruction in the city”.
He also reported that: “There was a massive shelling of Zvanivka in the Lysychansk direction – a school, a cultural centre, a shop and more than 20 private houses were damaged.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
It remains unclear who was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany which spewed gas into the Baltic last year, Sweden’s prosecution authority, which is investigating the incident, said on Thursday.
“We are working unconditionally and turning over every stone and leaving nothing to chance,” Reuters reports prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement.
“Our hope is to be able to confirm who has committed this crime, but it should be noted that it likely will be difficult given the circumstances.”
Swedish news site Aftonbladet reported that Ljungqvis also said that the incident had become a focus for political speculation, but that “these speculations are nothing that affects the preliminary investigation, which is based on the facts and information that emerged from analyses, crime scene investigations and cooperation with authorities in Sweden and in other countries”.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, includes this in its daily roundup of news on its official Telegram channel:
At night, Russian troops fired mortars at Bilopillya in Sumy oblast, people in the community were left without electricity.
As a result of Russian shelling yesterday in Donetsk region, five people were killed and nine others were injured. A man who was injured in yesterday’s shelling of Beryslav in the Kherson region died in the hospital.
Overnight news broke that the Russian girl sent to an orphanage after drawing an anti-war sketch at school has been taken from the facility by her mother.
Reuters is carrying quotes from Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova about the situation. It quotes her saying:
Masha did not want to go to her mother at first, and her opinion is legally required to be taken into account. Now her position has changed – she told me this herself on the phone.
Olga has already taken Masha from the social rehabilitation centre. Let’s hope that everything will work out for mum and daughter. I am glad about the beginning of the reunion of daughter and mother.
Lvova-Belova published a picture on her official Telegram which she claimed showed the reunited child and mother.
Associated Press reminds us that, in a case that drew international outrage, the father of 13-year-old Maria Moskalyova was convicted of discrediting the Russian military and handed a two-year prison term, and his daughter was sent to the orphanage.
The father, Alexei Moskalyov, fled house arrest just before his sentencing hearing last week in the town of Yefremov south of Moscow. He was detained in Belarus two days later. His whereabouts are unclear.
Russia introduced severe punishments for discrediting the armed forces after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, laws that have subsequently snared dissidents, journalists, actors, musicians and comedians.
The Hague-based international criminal court (ICC) last month issued an arrest warrant against Putin and Lvova-Belova, accusing them of illegally deporting children from Ukraine and the unlawful transfer of people to Russia from Ukraine.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has issued its daily intelligence briefing on the situation in Ukraine as it sees it. Today the focus has been the reported dismissal of Lt Gen Rustam Muradov. It writes:
As claimed on Russian social media, the Russian MoD has highly likely dismissed Colonel-General Rustam Muradov as commander of the Eastern Group of Forces (EGF) in Ukraine.
The EGF under Muradov has suffered exceptionally heavy casualties in recent months as its poorly conceived assaults repeatedly failed to capture the Donetsk Oblast town of Vuhledar.
The operations attracted intense public criticism from across the spectrum of Russian commentators - including Muradov’s own troops.
Muradov took over the EGF after its disastrous attempt to assault Kyiv from the north-west during the initial full-scale invasion.
He is the most senior Russian military dismissal of 2023 so far, but more are likely as Russia continues to fail to achieve its objectives in the Donbas.
My colleague Pjotr Sauer reported on Monday 27 March:
In a further sign that Moscow was unhappy with the state of the fighting, Russian media on Sunday reported the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, had sacked the commander of its eastern military district, Lt Gen Rustam Muradov.
His dismissal represents the latest reshuffle of top brass amid a string of battlefield setbacks. Pro-war bloggers close to the Kremlin linked Muradov’s dismissal with his unsuccessful attempts to capture the town of Vuhledar in Donetsk.
Under Muradov’s command, Russia is believed to have lost more than 100 tanks and armoured personnel carriers in a three-week battle in Vuhledar last month.
You may have seen that we are testing a new feature across some of the Guardian’s live blogs, including the Ukraine live blog, which allows you to contact us directly. This is for people who want to message us, and they are not public comments.
If you have something you’ve seen that you think we’ve missed, or you have questions or comments about the war or our coverage, or if you have spotted one of my regular typos, please do drop me a line.
You should find a button labelled “Send us a message” under our bylines on desktop or mobile web. The feature hasn’t been rolled out to the Guardian app while we are still testing it.
I can’t promise to answer them all, but I will try to read them all, and if possible, either answer directly or on the blog.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports on its official Telegram channel that “during the past day, 5 April, the Russian military shelled civilian infrastructure in the area of 15 settlements of the Zaporizhzhia region”.
The claims have not been independently verified.
The resilience of Russia’s economy over the past year has surprised many observers as Moscow adjusts to unprecedented western sanctions over its assault on Ukraine, AFP reports.
But late last month in a rare public admission, Putin warned of possible economic troubles ahead and urged the government to act quickly.
“The sanctions imposed against the Russian economy in the medium term could really have a negative impact,” Putin said at a televised meeting.
It was a major change of tone after Putin earlier said the worst was over, praising the benefits of “economic sovereignty” and insisting that the west’s sanctions strategy had backfired.
“Mr Putin’s observation is quite simply realistic,” said Arnaud Dubien, director of the Franco-Russian Observatory thinktank in Moscow.
Dubien, a veteran Russia expert, said Putin was seeking to further mobilise companies and government officials as Russia cut ties with the west.
“The situation is better than expected, but do not relax, continue to find alternatives,” he said, describing the Kremlin chief’s logic.
Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official, suggested that Putin’s message primarily targeted companies that have been hit hard by sanctions.
“It’s a message to businesses,” said Prokopenko, who worked at the central bank between 2017 and 2022 and quit after the start of Moscow’s assault on Ukraine.
“You’re only safe in Russia under my charge, there’s no way back,” she said, referring to his possible thinking.
Ukraine has made what the Financial Times calls its “most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations” since cutting off peace talks last year in April, saying that it is willing to discuss the future of Crimea.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskiy’s office, said: “If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue.” “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army.”
The FT report continues:
Sybiha’s remarks may relieve western officials who are sceptical about Ukraine’s ability to reclaim the peninsula and worry that any attempt to do so militarily could lead Vladimir Putin to escalate his war, possibly with nuclear weapons. To date, Zelenskiy has ruled out peace talks until Russian forces leave all of Ukraine, including Crimea. Sybiha is a veteran diplomat who focuses on foreign policy in the president’s office and has been at Zelenskiy’s side at key moments in the war. He said the president and his aides were now talking specifically about Crimea, as Ukraine’s army gets closer to launching its counteroffensive to regain territory.
Zelenskiy says Poland may help form a coalition of western powers to supply warplanes to Kyiv.
During a visit to Warsaw on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said Poland had been instrumental in getting western allies to send battle tanks to Ukraine and he believed it could play the same role in a “planes coalition”.
The Polish government said it would send 10 more MiG fighter jets on top of four provided earlier, but so far there has been no agreement from the US or Ukraine’s other major military backers to send the F-16 fighters Kyiv has requested.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, are to make Europe’s case for bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine at meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing.
The French and European leaders will be greeted in the late afternoon by the Chinese president at the Great Hall of the People, the heart of power in the capital.
Western pressure is mounting on China to take a more active role in the peace process in Ukraine. Though Beijing is officially neutral, Xi has never condemned the Russian invasion.
While he recently went to Moscow to reaffirm his alliance with Putin – framed as an anti-western front – Xi has not even spoken on the phone with Zelenskiy.
On Wednesday, Macron said Beijing had a “major role” to play in finding a path to peace in Ukraine, welcoming what China called its “willingness to commit to a resolution” to the conflict.
Von der Leyen took a sterner tack last week in Brussels, saying: “How China continues to interact with Putin’s war will be a determining factor for EU-China relations.”
In a Thursday morning meeting at the Great Hall of the People with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, Macron stressed the importance of dialogue between China and France “in these troubled times”.
“The ability to share a common analysis and build a common path is essential,” he said.
Macron is set to meet the head of China’s top legislative body, Zhao Leji, before a one-on-one meeting with Xi in the afternoon.
The pair will give statements to the press before by a three-way meeting with Von der Leyen and, finally, a state dinner.
The exiled mayor of Melitopol, a Russian-occupied city in the Zaporizhzhia region, says that several explosions had been heard overnight.
“Several powerful explosions have just been recorded in the city,” Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram. That’s as much as we know so far, but we’ll bring you more news as it breaks.
Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.
Coming up today: French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen make Europe’s case for bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine in a Beijing meeting with Xi Jinping.
The French and European leaders will be greeted late afternoon by the Chinese president at the Great Hall of the People, the heart of power in the capital.
And early this morning, explosions were heard in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia region, the Mayor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
Here are the other key recent developments:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, were welcomed to Poland with military honours, tributes and praise on Monday. They were greeted in Warsaw by President Andrzej Duda, who awarded Zelenskiy Poland’s oldest and highest civilian distinction, The Order of the White Eagle.
Poland will send 14 MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, Duda said at a joint news conference with Zelenskiy. Zelenskiy thanked the Polish leader, government and people for standing “shoulder to shoulder” with Ukraine and giving fleeing Ukrainians shelter. Poland has led the way in mobilising western military and political support for Kyiv since the start of Russia’s full-fledged invasion 13 months ago.
France’s president Emmanuel Macron warned that anyone helping “aggressor” Russia in the Ukraine conflict would become an “accomplice”. The French leader arrived in Beijing for a three-day state visit during which he hopes to dissuade Xi Jinping from supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while also developing European trade ties with Beijing.
A Ukrainian drone crashed near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Russia’s RIA news agency said, citing a Russian officer. It comes as the chief of the UN’s nuclear watchdog was expected in Russia for talks on the plant’s security.
The United States, Britain, Albania and Malta walked out on Russia’s envoy for children’s rights – whom the international criminal court wants to arrest on war crimes charges – as she spoke by video to UN security council members.
Zelenskiy has said Ukrainian troops face a difficult situation in the eastern city of Bakhmut, but that Kyiv will take the “corresponding” decisions to protect them if they risk being encircled by Russian forces. The Ukrainian president, at a news conference in Poland on Wednesday, said Kyiv’s troops in Bakhmut sometimes advanced a little only to be pushed back by Russian forces, but that they remained inside the city.
The president of Belarus and close ally of Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko, arrived in Moscow for a meeting with the Russian leader, Belarus’s state-run Belta news agency reported. Lukashenko and Putin will hold a meeting on Wednesday evening, where the pair will “discuss a broad range of matters concerning Belarusian-Russian relations”, it said.
The United States is working through a formal process to determine whether a Wall Street Journal reporter’s detention by Russia is “wrongful”, secretary of state Antony Blinken said.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus demonstrated that a Russia-China joint statement amounted to just “empty promises”. The Nato chief noted that Russia was becoming more and more dependent on China, partly as a result of international sanctions imposed on Moscow over its war in Ukraine.
Any Chinese supply of lethal aid to Russia for the war in Ukraine would be a “historic mistake with profound implications”, Stoltenberg also said.
The six Leopard 2A4 tanks Spain has promised to send to Ukraine will leave the country in the second half of April, defence minister Margarita Robles told state broadcaster TVE on Wednesday, pushing back the estimated shipment date. The German-made battle tanks have not been used since the 1990s and had been mothballed in reserve, requiring refitting and battle readiness tests after initial doubts as to whether they could go into combat again.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMikgFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVndWFyZGlhbi5jb20vd29ybGQvbGl2ZS8yMDIzL2Fwci8wNi9ydXNzaWEtdWtyYWluZS13YXItbGl2ZS1wb3dlcmZ1bC1ibGFzdHMtaW4tb2NjdXBpZWQtbWVsaXRvcG9sLXZvbi1kZXItbGV5ZW4tYW5kLW1hY3Jvbi1pbi1jaGluYdIBAA?oc=5
2023-04-06 04:41:00Z
1831880054
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar