“Massive war crime.” It is the diagnosis of the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, about what is happening in Ukraine, specifically in the city of Mariúpol with the Russian bombing: “Russia is committing many war crimes. We have to say, what is happening in Mariupol is a massive war crime, destroying everything, bombing and killing indiscriminately. It is a horrible thing that we have to condemn in the strongest terms. It is a massive war crime. The city will be completely destroyed and the people will die.”
The High Representative of the EU for Security and Cooperation spoke at the entrance of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Council held in Brussels, in which the 27 address the situation in Ukraine, with the possibility of discussing more sanctions, as well as approving the extra 500 million for the shipment of weapons, which were announced by Borrell 10 days ago in Versailles.
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The 27 will also address the strategic compass designed by Borrell, which provides for a European military force of 5,000 troops.
“We will continue to support Ukraine with all our resources”, said Borrell: “We will continue to talk about what kind of sanctions we can adopt, especially related to energy. And we will see with the Ukrainian defense minister how we can continue to support them.”
According to the head of European diplomacy, “Russia is using all its military capabilities, and the problem with using military capabilities against civilians is that it is not a war, it is a massive destruction of a country without any consideration for the Right of war. Because war also has Law, and it is very important to say it legally. The International Court has already condemned this invasion. Morally, they have lost everything, because what they are doing is completely outside of any kind of law that governs war. It is not a war. Russia and Putin deserve the strongest condemnation in the civilized world.”
Russia leaves Mariupol without humanitarian corridors
Ukraine refuses to hand over the weapons of its army and leave the city of Mariupol, in the southeast of the country, on Monday, as required by Russia’s ultimatum. The deputy prime minister and head of the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, told the newspaper ‘Ukrayinska Pravda’ this morning that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation sent an eight-page letter to kyiv “which is a return to history and a delirium”.
He has insisted that they cannot “talk about handing over weapons.” “We have already informed the Russian side about it,” he said, adding that Moscow was told that “instead of spending time on 8 pages of letter, just open the humanitarian corridor” so that civilians can leave. The deputy minister has indicated that they have informed the UN and the ICRC, and that they await the reaction of the international community.
Some 400,000 people have been trapped in Mariupol for more than two weeks amid heavy shelling that has cut off central supplies of electricity, heat and water. The Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, has described this Sunday the siege of Mariúpol as “an act of terror that will be remembered for centuries to come”. The deputy minister has also accused the Russian army of trying to send 350 children “by force to Russia without allowing us to take them away”, which she has described as “terrorism”.
Russia gave an ultimatum on Sunday to the Ukrainian forces to leave the city of Mariupol before noon on Monday. “The organized departure from the city will take place as follows: from 10 to 12 o’clock all Ukrainian armed units and foreign mercenaries without weapons and ammunition (will be able to leave the town) along a route agreed with Ukraine.” From that time they said that humanitarian convoys could enter the city both from kyiv and from territories in the east of the country, which are not under their control.
