Removing millions of rotting fish from a river in the Australian outback will be a "logistical nightmare", according to police.
The fish started dying in the Darling River near the New South Wales town of Menindee, where temperatures have been reaching 40C, on Friday.
Experts say the die-off likely occurred because fish, mainly bony bream, cod and perch, need more oxygen in hot weather, but oxygen levels in the water dropped after recent floods receded.
Police Assistant Commissioner Brett Greentree said keeping the town's water supply pure was the main priority and removing the dead fish was the next most pressing issue.
Image:The hot weather and low oxygen rates have caused the deaths. Pic: ABC/AP
Trained contractors have been contacted about removing the fish with nets, but dates for the work have not been set yet.
Residents have expressed their anger at the delay in starting the clean-up operation and have been concerned about their water supply becoming contaminated.
"I'm certainly not making promises that all the millions of fish will be removed by contractors because that is really a logistical nightmare," Mr Greentree said.
"I understand and acknowledge the smell and sights on the river - nobody wants to see that," he added.
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Authorities were supplying drinking water to residents who rely on river water, which was continually being monitored for quality, Mr Greentree added.
Enormous fish kills also occurred on the river at Menindee during severe drought conditions in late 2018 and early 2019.
Joy Becker, a professor of aquatic animal health at the University of Sydney, said it would take a significant amount of time for the river's ecosystem to recover.
"It does mean that those populations [of fish] may not rebound as quickly or at the same magnitude," she said.
"Pest species can actually just take over that spot, which makes it even harder for native fish to recover."
It’s a useful coincidence that the 20th anniversary of George W Bush and Tony Blair’s illegal attack on Iraq falls only a matter of weeks after the anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s illegal attack on Ukraine. Neither war was authorised by the UN. Both are marked by massive destruction and huge loss of life.
The Bush/Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq, and its chaotic consequences, have taken the lives of more than a million Iraqi civilians, according to one survey. US forces committed innumerable war crimes, not least the torture of captured soldiers. At the Abu Ghraib detention centre near Baghdad, US officers humiliated Iraqi prisoners in violation of the Geneva conventions. The invasion provoked widespread resistance, but US counter-insurgency tactics involved raids on villages that led to massacres of unarmed civilians.
The world reacted to the Bush/Blair war with disapproval, but almost no action was taken against them. There were no state-imposed sanctions on the US or Britain. No investigators from the international criminal court took evidence to substantiate prosecutions for war crimes. A few individuals and some human rights organisations called for Blair to be indicted on the charge of committing the crime of aggression, but no government approached the UN with a resolution to open a criminal case against them.
Now consider the very different reaction to Vladimir Putin’s illegal war on Ukraine. Virtually every western government, following the US’s lead, has slapped sanctions on Russia’s exports. Russia’s financial holdings in US banks have been frozen. Putin’s friends have had their yachts and other property impounded – and then a few days ago the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes involving the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.
The contrast in the global reaction to the two wars is instructive. Nothing better illustrates the differential between Russia’s meagre international authority and that of the US. For Putin it is humiliating. He may like to think of his country as a superpower, but in reality, beyond holding a massive nuclear arsenal, Russia has little global clout and few foreign friends. Putin is widely criticised for trying to recreate an old-fashioned empire by seizing land and intimidating states on Russia’s western and southern borders.
The US, for its part, runs a new style of non-territorial empire with great success. It enjoys enormous political and economic influence on every continent, dominates the international financial system, and operates 750 military bases in more than 80 countries. Most of the world dare not oppose Washington’s writ.
Some analysts argue that if Russia is defeated in its current war on Ukraine, Europe will be able to enjoy a post-imperial system of peaceful relations and autonomy on the continent for the first time in history. They forget Nato. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization began in 1949 and still continues in part as an instrument for US hegemony in Europe. Allies may decline to participate in US military operations, as France and Germany boldly did over Iraq in 2003, but they do not publicly denounce them as illegal or call for sanctions.
Europeans and some Americans, including past and present senior officials, who argued against the expansion of Nato after the demise of the Soviet Union – or even advocated the alliance’s dissolution now that the enemy was gone – were never going to achieve their goals. The Baltic states and Poland craved the protection of the imperial American umbrella, which the US military-industrial complex was not going to give up in any case.
Equally unattainable was the proposal that Nato should invite the Russian Federation to join, thereby promoting post-cold war reconciliation. It was not to be. Even though Russian leaders, both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, were keen to end the division of Europe, Washington would not open the alliance to a new member who could match the US’s nuclear potential and might question its political priorities.
Now, 30 years after the demise of the Soviet Union, there are signs that the unipolar world of US dominance may be coming to an end. The main challenger is not Putin’s Russia, but an increasingly confident China. Leaders in the global south are also stirring. In the first flush of shock over Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in February last year, more than 140 UN states voted to condemn it. But only around 40 countries in total have joined the US in imposing sanctions on Russia. As the west floods Ukraine with military hardware, the notion that it is merely helping to defend Ukraine looks questionable to many Asian, African and Latin American states who suspect the end goal to be regime change in the Kremlin.
A survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) reveals a significant shift in public opinion in several key countries. People want to see a quick end to the war in Ukraine, even if it means Ukraine giving up western-supported aspirations to victory and accepting the temporary loss of some territory. It is not only citizens of authoritarian China who think this way. So do citizens in India and Turkey.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told the Munich Security Conference last month: “I see how powerful the Russian narrative is, its accusations of double standards.” France’s Emmanuel Macron said he was “shocked by how much credibility we are losing in the global south”.
Some fear a new cold war, this time between the west and China. Looking 10 years ahead, others expect to see a multipolar world in which states will not be pressured to align themselves with one side or the other. Either way, in spite of the resurgence of US power in Europe as a result of the war in Ukraine, the era of US supremacy in the rest of the world may soon be over.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is on his way to Moscow, on a “voyage of friendship”, “cooperation” and “peace”, weeks after Beijing unveiled a 12-point position paper calling for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war and days after it mediated a surprise rapprochement between longtime Middle East foes, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Xi’s three-day visit, which begins on Monday, will feature one-on-one talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man the Chinese leader has described as his “best friend” and who is now wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes accusations.
The summit in Moscow will be the 40th meeting between the two men.
The visit by Xi – who was recently reappointed as China’s leader for an unprecedented third term and who is seeking a greater role for Beijing on the world stage – has raised hopes in some quarters of a breakthrough in ending the war in Ukraine. The conflict, now in its second year, has claimed tens of thousands of lives, forced millions from their homes, and caused widespread economic pain, with inflation soaring across the globe and supplies of grain, fertiliser and energy in short supply.
The hopes have been kindled not only by Beijing’s mediation in the Saudi-Iran détente and its proposal for a truce and dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv but also by media reports that Xi intends to follow on his summit with Putin with a virtual meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
If it takes place, the conversation between Xi and Zelenskyy will be their first since Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine’s border in February of last year.
Global peacemaker?
Despite the surge in China’s global diplomacy, most observers say Xi’s state visit is more about cementing the “no limits” partnership that he announced with Putin last year than about brokering peace in Ukraine. That’s because, for starters, neither of the warring parties appears ready or willing to end the fighting.
“Unless and until Russia and Ukraine have exhausted their will to continue fighting and are looking for off-ramps for this conflict, it is not possible to end it,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “And I don’t think that China wants to get in the middle of it.”
China’s 12-point paper on Ukraine, Glaser said, was a summary of its positions and not a “peace plan”, especially as it did not outline any specific area where Beijing was willing to play a more active role.
Indeed, the paper – unveiled on the anniversary of the war – reflects China’s ambiguous stance on the conflict. While the document supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and calls for the war’s swift resolution, it lays blames for the crisis on what it calls a “Cold War mentality”, that is NATO’s expansion eastwards and the West’s disregard for Russia’s security concerns. It also condemns the West’s “unilateral sanctions” against Russia, despite Beijing mostly having adhered to the measures over the past year.
“The paper contains a whole paragraph on the need for humanitarian assistance, but where is China providing this aid? So, it’s not a peace plan and China is not playing the role of peacemaker,” Glaser said.
She went on to add that the Saudi-Iran agreement – which ended seven years of estrangement and challenged the US’s longstanding role as the main power broker in the Middle East – did not mean that China was now going to emerge as a major mediator for global disputes.
“The lesson of the Saudi-Iran deal is that China is very well attuned to opportunity,” she said. “It became increasingly clear that Saudi Arabia and Iran were looking for a way to begun to improve their relationship. And China seized that opportunity to help bring that across the finish line.”
And for the Russia-Ukraine war, that “moment has not yet arrived”, she added.
Still, the conflict is likely to feature high on Xi’s agenda.
Writing in the Russian newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a daily published by the Russian government, Xi on Monday called for a “rational way” out of the Ukraine conflict and said China’s position paper “serves as a constructive factor in neutralising the consequences of the crisis and promoting a political settlement”.
Despite the deep scepticism in the West about China’s ability to be an honest broker in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it appears in a better position than most countries to play mediator.
China is Russia’s most important ally, after all.
And while it has adhered to Western sanctions and refrained from coming to Moscow’s military aid, it has kept up normal trade ties, replacing Germany as the largest importer of Russian oil last year. Bilateral trade in non-sanctioned sectors has also ballooned, reaching a record-breaking $190bn last year.
The two neighbours – who share a long border – have also kept up the pace of their joint military exercises, holding large-scale naval drills in the East China Sea in late December. They also held joint drills with South Africa in February and Iran earlier this month.
Responsible, great power
China’s leverage over Russia, as well as its desire to be perceived as a responsible third force in global politics, could push Xi, some analysts said, to press Putin for “mini-steps” in the direction of a truce and dialogue in Ukraine.
“China wants to be perceived as a responsible great power,” said Moritz Rudolf, fellow and research scholar in law at the Paul Tsai China Center of the Yale Law School. “It is remarkable that China is presenting its own position at all, when it’s actually about a war in Europe. This is a true new quality of the China’s engagement at the international level and I think it is here to stay.”
Rudolf said although China’s position paper lacked substance, Beijing has positioned itself as the “only country that is potentially able to, or at least, be one of the countries that will need to be part of a peaceful solution” in Ukraine. This, he said, is in line with China’s ambitions to reshape a global order that it perceives as skewed unfairly to the West and one where the US and its allies set the rules to their advantage.
Whether Xi is seeking an active role in the Ukraine crisis will probably become clearer after his Moscow trip, Rudolf said.
If the Chinese leader were to visit other European capitals after his trip to Russia – as reported by the Wall Street Journal – and if he were to speak to Zelenskyy soon after his summit with Putin, it would show if Xi was indeed trying to play a serious role, he added.
With expectations of a breakthrough on Ukraine low, Xi and Putin’s discussions of substance will probably focus on expanding and deepening their economic and military ties.
“All in all, it is an important visit signifying the importance of Russia-China strategic partnership for each other,” said Anna Kireeva, associate professor in the Department of Asian and African Studies at Moscow’s MGIMO University.
“New economic agreements can be expected, especially in energy … Russia urgently needs to find alternative destinations for its exports, and China is more than willing to buy Russian energy resources and raw materials at discounted prices,” she said.
This could translate into a deal on a new pipeline, Power-of-Siberia 2, to deliver gas to China via Mongolia, she said.
Xi and Putin will also use their summit to signal the stability of the relations between their two countries, despite the turbulence in world politics, thereby presenting a united front against the US and increasing Moscow’s global standing, Kireeva said.
“As long as Moscow and Beijing retain their strategic partnership, it means they cannot be fully geopolitically encircled,” she added.
Arrest warrant issued for Vladimir Putin over ‘war crimes’ in Ukraine
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Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the occupied city of Mariupol on Sunday morning -a day after making a surprise visit to Crimea.
The city in Donetsk was captured by Russian forces after a gruesome battle in May last year and has remained under the control of Moscow’s fighters since.
The Russian president reached Mariupol and was seen driving a car around the city as he visited several districts of the city. Mr Putin also met with the top brass leading his military operation in Ukraine, state media reported.
The leader, facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes, also met with chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov who is in charge of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
It comes ahead of a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow on Monday. The two leaders will discuss a “comprehensive partnership and strategic co-operation”, the Kremlin said.
Putin meets top command of Russia's military operation in Ukraine
Russian president Vladimir Putin has met with the top brass leading his military operation in Ukraine, state media said today.
The leader, facing an arrest warrant for war crimes, also met with chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov who is in charge of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The meeting took place at the Rostov-on-Don command post in southern Russia, reported TASS news agency.
Black Sea drones show US involvement in conflict against Russia - Kremlin
US drone flights over the Baltic Sea are a sign of direct US involvement in conflict with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Last week, a US drone crashed into the sea after being intercepted by Russian Su-27 fighter planes in the first known direct military encounter between the two sides since Russia launched its war in Ukraine last year.
"It is quite obvious what these drones are doing, and their mission is not at all a peaceful mission to ensure the safety of shipping in international waters," Interfax news agency quoted Mr Peskov as saying in a TV interview.
"And in fact, we are talking about the direct involvement of the operators of these drones in the conflict, and against us."
US said the Russian planes harassed the drone in Tuesday’s incident and sprayed fuel on it before one of them clipped its propeller and caused it to crash while on a reconnaissance mission in international airspace.
South Africa aware of legal obligations regarding Putin visit
South Africa is aware of its legal obligation, a spokesperson for President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday, referring to a proposed visit by Vladimir Putin after an international court issued an arrest warrant against the Russian leader.
Russian President Putin was expected to visit South Africa in August to attend a BRICS summit.
"We are, as the government, cognisant of our legal obligation. However, between now and the summit we will remain engaged with various relevant stakeholders," spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said.
While there has been no official confirmation of Putin’s visit, he has been expected to attend the 15th BRICS summit, as he did in 2013.
But such a visit would place Ramaphosa’s government, which has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a precarious position after the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday.
"We note the report on the warrant of arrest that the ICC has issued," Magwenya said.
"It remains South Africa’s commitment and very strong desire that the conflict in Ukraine is resolved peacefully through negotiations."
South Africa Ramaphosa State Of The Nation
(Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
ICYMI: Russia, Ukraine extend grain deal to aid world's poor
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian officials say an unprecedented wartime deal that allows grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat and high food prices are pushing more people into poverty has been extended.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian officials say an unprecedented wartime deal that allows grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat and high food prices are pushing more people into poverty has been extended
* Xi Jinping walks a diplomatic tightrope as he heads to Moscow on Monday, seeking to present China as a global peacemaker while strengthening ties with Putin, his closest ally, who is increasingly isolated by the West.
* Russia, China and Iran have completed three-way naval exercises in the Arabian Sea that included artillery fire at targets on the sea and in the air, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday.
* Three senior U.S. security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss military aid to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said.
* Ukrainian forces outside the battered eastern city of Bakhmut are managing to keep Russian units at bay so ammunition, food, equipment and medicines can be delivered to defenders, the army said on Saturday.
* Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to recruit approximately 30,000 new fighters by the middle of May, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday.
* A deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain was renewed for at least 60 days - half the intended period - after Russia warned any further extension beyond mid-May would depend on the removal of some Western sanctions.
PUTIN AND ARREST WARRANT
* Putin may not see the inside of a cell anytime soon, but his war crimes arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court could hurt his ability to travel freely and meet other world leaders, who may feel less inclined to speak to a wanted man.
* The ICC issued the warrant on Friday, accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Moscow denies committing atrocities in the conflict and dismissed the warrant as outrageous, but meaningless for Russia.
Countries supplying Russia with weapons are ‘marginals in free world’ - Zelenksy
Countries that are supplying Russia with weapons can only be “marginals in the free world”, Volodymyr Zelenksy has said.
The Ukraine president made the comments in a video shared overnight on Twitter as fighting continued on the front line.
“All those who produce weapons for terror against Ukraine, who help Russia incite aggression, in particular by supplying Shahed drones, who support Russia’s destruction of international law, can only be marginals for the world”, he said.
ICYMI: ‘My life was in danger’- rail enthusiast flees Russia after photographing Putin’s armoured train
Trainspotter Mikhail Korotkov’s blog was his passion – but shutting up shop and leaving home felt like the only option after pictures he posted of his favourite target attracted some unwanted attention, finds Robyn Dixon.
Germany will arrest Putin if he enters country, says minister
Germany will have to arrest Russian president Vladimir Putin if he enters its territory and the International Criminal Court requires the contracting nation for enforcement, the country’s justice minister Marco Buschmann said today.
An arrest warrant for Mr Putin has been issued by the ICC in The Hague, which accuses him of war crimes by taking hundreds of Ukrainian children from orphanages.
The court accuses Mr Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, of “unlawful deportation” of children “from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
In an incendiary all-caps post, Trump took aim at a “corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorney’s office”, and called for protests to “take our nation back”.
Charges are expected to be brought against Trump over a hush money payment made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels before his election to office in 2016.
Among those to react to the news were novelist Stephen King, and filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner.
“Donald Trump is a sociopath and a criminal,” wrote King. “To let him near the nuclear codes again would be insane.”
“When Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for president in 2016, I joined Twitter. I wanted to speak out against a man I knew to be a Pathologically Lying Misogynistic Racist who was and is an existential danger to our Democracy,” wrote Reiner.
“The elimination of this scourge is upon US.”
Star Trek star George Takei wrote: “ Seeking justice for crimes that Trump committed is not political vengeance. No one is above the law.
“If powerful people committed criminal acts, they should answer for them like anyone else. Do you disagree?”
A spokesperson for Mr Trump, meanwhile, stated: “There has been no notification, other than illegal leaks from the Justice Dept. and the DA’s office, to NBC and other fake news carriers, that the George Soros-funded Radical Left Democrat prosecutor in Manhattan has decided to take his Witch-Hunt to the next level.
“President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponisation of our injustice system. He will be in Texas next weekend for a giant rally. Make America Great Again!”
Arrest warrant issued for Vladimir Putin over ‘war crimes’ in Ukraine
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Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the occupied city of Mariupol in Ukraine controlled by Moscow’s forces today, a day after making a surprise visit to Crimea, officials said.
The city in Donetsk was captured by Russian forces after a gruesome battle in May last year and has remained under the control of Moscow’s fighters since.
The Russian president reached Mariupol and was seen driving a car around the city as he visited several districts of the city.
Mr Putin also met with the top brass leading his military operation in Ukraine, state media reported.
The leader, facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes, also met with chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov who is in charge of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The court specifically accused him of bearing personal responsibility for the abduction of children from Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country, which started almost 13 months ago.
Putin meets top command of Russia's military operation in Ukraine
Russian president Vladimir Putin has met with the top brass leading his military operation in Ukraine, state media said today.
The leader, facing an arrest warrant for war crimes, also met with chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov who is in charge of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The meeting took place at the Rostov-on-Don command post in southern Russia, reported TASS news agency.
Putin reaches Ukraine in a first since war: What do we know
Vladimir Putin visited the Russia-occupied city of Mariupol in Ukraine on Sunday, reported news agency TASS.
Mariupol in Donetsk region was captured by Russian forces after a bloody battle in May last year and has remained under the control of Moscow’s fighters since.
The Russian president was seen driving a car around the city as he visited several districts.
He also made stops along the way and spoke to the residents, reported TASS news agency.
Putin and Xi might have a bromance but it’s clear who holds the power
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have met around 40 times since China’s leader assumed the presidency in 2012. In many ways, the camaraderie between the pair has come to define the diplomatic relations between Moscow and Beijing across the last decade (Chris Stevenson writes).
Xi made Moscow his first overseas visit as president in 2013 and this latest visit comes next week in the wake of him being handed an unprecedented third term as president. During that time, the greetings between Xi and Putin have evolved from “dear president” to “dear friend” and later to “my old friend”. Last year, just a few weeks before Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine the leaders met and announced a “no limits” partnership between their two nations.
Historically, relations between China and Russia have been fraught with distrust and confrontation, particularly at the height of their Cold War schism in the late 1960s, but Putin and Xi have changed the dynamic. On his last visit to Moscow, in 2019, Xi spoke of his “deep personal friendship” with his Russian counterpart. “In the past six years, we have met nearly 30 times. Russia is the country that I have visited the most times, and President Putin is my best friend and colleague,” Xi said. Both leaders share an objective of altering the world order, and they will continue to pursue that.
The Body in the Woods: Watch now on Independent TV
Bel Trew, The Independent’s foreign correspondent, has spent the past year covering the war in Ukraine on the ground.
One month into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, after Russian forces had withdrawn from around Kyiv, Ms Trew and her team stumbled on a body by an abandoned Russian camp.
His hands were tied. He had been burned and shot in the back. Soldiers said he was a teenager.
As she tried to find out who he was and what had happened, she uncovered a nightmare world: a nation struggling to find thousands of its missing and to identify its dead.
The Body in the Woods by Bel Trew is streaming now on Independent TV and on your smart TV.
It was a month into Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces had withdrawn from around Kyiv and in their wake Bel Trew and her team stumbled on a body by an abandoned Russian camp. His hands were tied. He had been burned and shot in the back. Soldiers said he was a teenager. As Bel tried to find out who he was and what had happened, she uncovered a nightmare world: a nation struggling to find thousands of its missing and to identify its dead. The Body in the Woods by Bel Trew is streaming now on Independent TV and on your smart TV.
Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate
Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk‘s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.
The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill.
They spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America’s support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.
Regularly spewing anti-US propaganda, the accounts show how easily authoritarian states and Americans willing to spread their propaganda can exploit social media platforms like Twitter in an effort to steer domestic discourse.
Vladimir Putin visits Crimea to mark nine years since annexation as Ukraine grain deal extended
Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Crimea on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine.
In Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city, Mr Putin met Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev, with whom he visited an art school and a children’s centre that are part of a project to develop a historical park on the site of an ancient Greek colony, Russian state news agencies said.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in a move most of the world denounced as illegal and which soured relations between Moscow and the West. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said any peace settlement would involve Russia withdrawing from the peninsula as well as the regions it has occupied since last year.
Mr Putin has shown no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin’s gains. Instead, he stressed on Friday the importance of holding Crimea.
Ukraine still resupplying troops in battered Bakhmut despite Russian assault
Ukrainian forces outside the eastern city of Bakhmut are managing to keep Russian troops at bay so ammunition, food, equipment and medicines can be delivered to defenders, the army said on Saturday.
Kyiv said its troops had killed 193 Russians and injured 199 others during the course of fighting on Friday.
Russia has made the capture of Bakhmut a priority in its bid to take control of the country’s eastern Donbas region. The city has been largely destroyed in months of fighting, with Russia launching repeated assaults.
“We are managing to deliver the necessary munitions, food, gear and medicines to Bakhmut. We are also managing to take our wounded out of the city,” military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty told the ICTV television channel.
It comes as widespread Russian attacks continued in Ukraine following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.
Widespread Russian attacks have continued in Ukraine following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights
Apart from the ICC, several former leaders have been tried by other international courts.
Among the notable cases is that of Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia who became the first former head of state to appear before an international tribunal since World War Two when he was tried at a UN court for alleged crimes during the 1990s Balkan wars. He died in custody in 2006 before a verdict was reached.
Liberian former leader Charles Taylor was jailed for 50 years in 2012 after he was found guilty of war crimes by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. He was the first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes by an international court since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders after World War Two.
Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, one of Milosevic’s adversaries in the 1990s Balkan wars, left office after being indicted for war crimes by the Kosovo war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He denies all the charges and is due to go on trial next month.
Kosovar former president Hashim Thaci will go on trial for alleged war crimes later this year
Has the ICC issued arrests warrants for other heads of states?
Sudan’s former president Omar al-Bashir and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi are the only other leaders to have been indicted by the ICC while serving as head of state. Charges against Gaddafi were terminated after he was overthrown and killed in 2011.
Bashir, who was indicted in 2009 for genocide in Darfur, remained in office for another decade until he was toppled in a coup. He has since been prosecuted in Sudan for other crimes but has not been handed to the ICC.
While in office, he travelled to a number of Arab and African countries, including ICC member states Chad, Djibouti, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and Uganda, which declined to detain him. The court rebuked those countries or referred them to the UN Security Council for non-compliance.
The ICC has tried one former head of state after he left office: former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, who was acquitted of all charges in 2019 after a three-year trial.
The ICC previously issued an arrest warrant for Muammar Gadaffi
Can Putin be detained abroad over ICC arrest warrant?
The ICC’s 123 member states are obliged to detain and transfer Putin if he sets foot on their territory. Russia is not a member and neither are China, the United States or India, which is hosting a summit later this year of leaders of the G20 group of big economies, which includes Russia.
The world’s permanent war crimes court was created by the Rome Statute, a treaty ratified by all the EU states, as well as Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland, 33 African countries and 19 nations in the South Pacific.
Russia signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but withdrew its backing in 2016 after the ICC classified Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula as an armed conflict.
“Putin is not stupid. He’s not going to travel abroad to a country where he might be arrested,” said assistant professor of history at the Utrecht University Iva Vukusic.
“He is not going to be able to travel pretty much anywhere else beyond the countries that are either clearly allies or at least somewhat aligned (with) Russia,” Vukusic said.
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Donald Trump has claimed that he will be arrested on Tuesday and called for protests to “take our nation back”.
In a furious all-caps post on his Truth Social page, the former president railed against “a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorney’s office” which is likely to bring charges against Mr Trump over a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
“NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” Mr Trump posted on Truth Social.
The twice-impeached former president’s claim that he will be taken into police custody early next week comes less than a day after reports that law enforcement authorities in New York have been quietly preparing for the possibility that Mr Trump will stoke civil unrest if he is subject to any form of legal accountability whatsoever.
The ex-president’s call for “protest” to “take our nation back” on the day he says he’ll be arrested are a clear echo to his call for supporters to descend on Washington DC in the run-up to the final certification of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
At the time, Mr Trump had called for a “wild” protest on January 6 2021, the day Congress was set to carry out that certification in a joint session presided over by then-vice president Mike Pence.
After the then-president delivered an incendiary speech near the White House in which he called on his supporters to “fight like hell,” a riotous mob led by violent extremists began assaulting police officers and stormed the Capitol in hopes of stopping the certification of his 2020 election defeat.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has not yet indicated that Mr Trump has actually been charged in the hush-money case — or any other matter. But the New York-based investigation is just one of several potential areas of criminal jeopardy for the ex-president.
Mr Trump also faces the possibility of charges from prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, and from two separate federal investigations now led by a Department of Justice special counsel, Jack Smith.
