Russian strikes on Ukraine continued on Wednesday, March 16, twenty-one days after the start of the Russian invasion. Several strong explosions sounded at dawn in the west of Kyiv, after which thick columns of black smoke rose in the sky of the capital, and a curfew is in effect until Thursday morning.
Theater with “hundreds of civilians” fired at in Mariupol
A theater housing “hundreds of civilians” was badly damaged by a Russian airstrike in the besieged port of Mariupol, the mayor’s office of the city in southeastern Ukraine said on Wednesday. “The plane dropped a bomb on a building where hundreds of civilians were hiding. It is impossible to immediately determine the number of dead, as the shelling of residential premises continues, ”the mayor’s office wrote on Telegram, posting a photo of the theater, the central part was destroyed. “The entrance to the shelter is littered with garbage. Information about the victims is being specified,” she added. The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, denied it, blaming the Ukrainian nationalist battalion Azov for this strike.
According to emergency services, in Kharkiv, three more people died in the market as a result of a fire caused by shelling. Russian strikes also hit a railway station in Zaporozhye, a hitherto spared town in the country’s south that serves as a safe haven for Mariupol residents fleeing along a humanitarian corridor. According to the Ukrainian military, Russian forces fired multiple rocket launchers at civilians fleeing the besieged port, killing an unspecified number of people.
The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said ten people queuing for bread were also killed in a shelling by Russian troops in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine. According to rescuers, in the same city, at least five people, including three children, were killed as a result of a strike on an apartment building.
Biden called Putin a “war criminal”
This is the first time he uses these terms. US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a “war criminal”. The leader made his statement to a reporter who asked him a question as he left the White House event. “The President spoke from the heart and from what you saw on television, which is the barbaric actions of a brutal dictator,” his press secretary, Jen Psaki, responded shortly after. She said that “the judicial procedure is still ongoing in the State Department” on the legal qualification of “war crimes” committed by Russia in Ukraine.
So far, no US official has publicly used the terms “war criminal” or “war crimes”, unlike other states or international organizations. The Kremlin reacted quickly, citing “unacceptable and unforgivable” remarks.
$1 billion in additional military aid
Joe Biden also confirmed on Wednesday that additional $800 million in military aid has been sent to Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion, an “unprecedented” amount of $1 billion in one week. “On behalf of” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “we are helping Ukraine equip itself with air defense systems,” Joe Biden said during a short speech. Not surprisingly, he did not grant the Ukrainian head of state’s request for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader spoke via videoconference to the US Congress on Wednesday, where he received a standing ovation. “There are pages in your great history that allow you to understand the Ukrainians,” he told selected US officials. “Remember Pearl Harbor, that terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was darkened by the planes attacking you,” “remember September 11, that terrible day in 2001,” he added to this speech. “Europe has not experienced such terror for 80 years.” “Isn’t it too much to ask, to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine, to save people?” Volodymyr Zelensky then asked.
The Kremlin Claims “Success”
Vladimir Putin assured on Wednesday that his military operation in Ukraine was “successful”, saying that Moscow would not allow the country to become a “springboard” for “aggressive actions” against Russia.
During a televised government meeting, the Russian president also compared the avalanche of Western sanctions and condemnations that hit Russia to “anti-Semitic pogroms.” He assured that Russia is overcoming the economic “blitzkrieg” of the West, promising to help individuals and legal entities.
Moscow demands neutrality of Ukraine, Kyiv refuses
Russian-Ukrainian talks continued on Wednesday on the Russian proposal for a neutral status for Ukraine along the lines of the Swedish or Austrian model.
The Ukrainian chief negotiator quickly abandoned the “Swedish or Austrian model.” “Ukraine is now in a state of direct war with Russia. Therefore, the model can only be “Ukrainian,” one of the Ukrainian negotiators at the talks with Moscow, Mikhail Podolyak, said in a commentary published by the presidium. He said he wanted “absolute security guarantees” against Russia, with signatories committing to intervene on Ukraine’s side in the event of aggression.
Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe
The Council of Europe, the guarantor of the rule of law on the continent, formally ruled out Russia on Wednesday over its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has taken the lead by officially announcing that it is slamming the door on the Council, a Strasbourg-based organization that the country joined in 1996.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s highest court, also ordered Russia on Wednesday to immediately suspend its military operations in Ukraine. Decisions of the International Court of Justice are binding and cannot be appealed, but the court does not have the means to enforce them.