The latest developments on the Russia-Ukraine war.
By The Associated Press The latest developments on the Russia-Ukraine war: LVIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military says it has repelled a Russian attempt to take control of the strategic port of Mariupol. The Ukrainian military’s General Staff said in a statement that Russian forces retreated after suffering losses. The Russian military has besieged the Azov Sea port city of 430,000 for a week and a half, leaving its residents desperate for power, water and food. More than 2,500 residents of Mariupol have been killed by the Russian shelling. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in televised remarks that Russian shelling on Monday thwarted another attempt to deliver food and medicines to the city. A humanitarian convoy of 160 civilian cars left Mariupol after repeated failures to evacuate civilians because of Russian shelling. ___ The fate of hundreds of planes leased by Russian airlines from foreign companies grew murkier Monday after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law letting the airlines register those planes and continue flying them. Russian state media said the law will let Russian airlines keep their fleets and operate foreign planes on routes within Russia. Many of the planes used by Russian airlines are leased from foreign companies, including several in Ireland, a member of the European Union. Last month, the EU banned the sale or leasing of planes to Russia as part of sanctions to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. It gave leasing companies until March 28 to end current contracts in Russia. Last week, Russia’s air-transport agency advised airlines with foreign-registered planes not to take them out of the country because of the risk they could be repossessed. Various estimates place the number of foreign-owned planes operated by Russian airlines at around 500 or more, and the vast majority of them were inside Russia when the war started Feb.24. Aviation consulting firm Ishka estimates that the foreign-owned planes are worth $12 billion, nearly half of that by Irish-based lessors. ___ BRUSSELS — The European Union announced late Monday that the 27-nation bloc has approved a fourth set of sanctions to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. France, which holds the EU presidency, said in a statement that the bloc approved a package targeting “individuals and entities involved in the aggression against Ukraine,” along with sectors of the Russian economy. The exact details of the latest package will be revealed in the EU’s official journal. Since the war started last month, the EU has adopted tough measures targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s financial system and the country’s oligarchs. Last week, the bloc agreed to slap further sanctions on 160 individuals and added new restrictions on the export of maritime navigation and radio communication technology. ___ MADRID — Spain’s prime minister says that authorities in the northeastern city of Barcelona have “immobilized” an 85-meter (279-foot) superyacht valued at 140 million euros ($153 million) while links to a prominent Russian armament tycoon are investigated. The boat, named Valerie, has been moored at an exclusive shipyard in the port. The yacht is connected through an intricate network of shell companies to Sergei Chemezov, the head of the Rostec state defense conglomerate, according to a consortium of journalists that last year investigated the so-called Pandora Papers involving the murky financial deals of the world’s richest people. Chemezov is a former KGB agent who has long been close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The European Union last week included him in a list of sanctioned individuals over Moscow’s war on Ukraine. “Today we have temporarily immobilized a yacht of one of Russia’s most prominent oligarchs, and there will be more to come,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said late Monday during an interview in LaSexta television. ___ Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall was injured while reporting outside of Kyiv on Monday and was hospitalized, the network said. Hall is a Washington-based correspondent who covers the U.S. State Department for Fox News, where he has worked since 2015. “We have a minimal level of details right now, but Ben is hospitalized and our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information as the situation quickly unfolds,” Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said in a message to Fox employees. Fox’s John Roberts read Scott’s statement about Hall on the air at Fox. ___ NEW YORK — The live main evening news program on Russia’s state television was briefly interrupted Monday by a person who walked into the studio holding a poster against the war in Ukraine. The OVD-Info website that monitors political arrests identified the woman who interrupted the broadcast on Channel 1 as Marina Ovsyannikova. The website said Ovsyannikova was detained and taken into police custody. OVD-Info posted a video in which Ovsyannikova identified herself as an employee of Channel 1 and spoke against the war. “What is going on now is a crime,” she said. “Russia is an aggressor country and Vladimir Putin is solely responsible for that aggression.” ___ NEW YORK — Russia’s war against Ukraine is threatening the global food supply and putting developing countries, especially the world’s poorest, at risk, the United Nations chief and the head of the U.N. food agency warned on Monday. More than 40 African and least-developed countries import at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia, and 18 of them import at least 50%, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters. These countries include Egypt, Congo, Burkina Faso, Leban, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, he said. “All of this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe,” the secretary-general warned. David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, told The Associated Press during a visit to the Ukrainian city of Lviv that 50% of the grain the program buys to feed “the 125 million people we reach on any given day, week or month” comes from Ukraine, as does 20% of the world’s supply of corn. “So (the war) is going to have a dynamic global catastrophic impact,” Beasley said. Guterres announced an additional $40 million from the U.N.’s emergency fund to get critical supplies of food, water and medicine into Ukraine, where at least 1.9 million people are displaced. ___ JERUSALEM — Israel plans to set up a field hospital to provide medical treatment for refugees in western Ukraine, officials said Monday. The project is spearheaded by the country’s foreign and health ministries, according to a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office. The hospital should be operational by next week, the foreign ministry said. “It’s an initiative that not many countries can take upon themselves, and Israel has this ability and we are going forward,” Bennett said. The Foreign Ministry said the hospital will operate for month, providing refugees with an emergency room, a delivery room, and other services. It has dubbed the operation Kochav Meir — Hebrew for “Shining Star” — after the country’s first female prime minister, Golda Meir, who was born in Ukraine and founded the Foreign Ministry’s international development unit. Israel has good relations with both Ukraine and Russia and has worked as an intermediary between the two countries since Russia invaded on Feb.24. In recent days, however, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has become increasingly outspoken in his condemnations of Russia’s invasion of its western neighbor. ___ MOSCOW — The Kremlin says that President Vladimir Putin has had another call with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to talk about Ukraine. Bennett told Putin about his contacts with other heads of states, and Putin shared his assessments of talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives via video calls, the Kremlin said in a statement. A senior Israeli official said Bennett’s conversation with Putin lasted 90 minutes, with discussions focusing on cease-fire talks and humanitarian issues. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic matters.
