Erik Møse, former president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, will be accompanied by Jasminka Dzumhur, a human rights ombudsman in Bosnia, and Pablo de Greiff, a Colombian political theorist who specializes in justice in the United Kingdom. The UN-backed Human Rights Council set up the commission earlier this month. The three members of the commission will lead a team with a one-year mandate to “prove the facts, the circumstances and the root causes” of any human rights abuses and violations in Ukraine that could ultimately contribute to international justice for the war.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: – Russia’s commitment to reduce Ukraine raises skepticism Poland to cut off Russian oil imports. Germany warns of gas – The UN agency reports that 4 million refugees have now fled Ukraine – UN Food Chief: Food war crisis in Ukraine is worse than World War II – Go to for more coverage
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: KIEV, Ukraine – Ukraine’s state emergency service says the death toll from a Russian attack on a regional administration building in the southern city of Mykolaiv has risen to 14. Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces blew up a hole in a nine-story government building in a strike on Tuesday morning. The governor accused that they were waiting for people to go to work before going on strike. Emergency services said Wednesday that rescuers had pulled another body from the rubble and another died of his injuries at a hospital, bringing the death toll to 14.
KYIV, Ukraine – An adviser to the Ukrainian president says the Russian military has redeployed some of its forces to the east of the country. The story goes on Oleksiy Arestovych said in television comments Wednesday that Russia had moved some of its troops from areas near Kyiv to the east in a bid to encircle Ukrainian forces there. He said Russia had left some of its forces near Kyiv to deploy Ukrainian troops there and prevent them from moving to other areas. Arestovich said Russia had not yet withdrawn any of its troops from the northern city of Chernihiv. Russian military officials have said they will focus their efforts on eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014. Russia also said after talks with Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul on Tuesday that it would reduce its activities. around Kyiv and Chernihiv help the talks succeed. Chernihiv Governor Viacheslav Chaus said Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure continued overnight despite Russian allegations.
MOSCOW – The Russian army has reported a new series of raids on Ukrainian arsenals and fuel depots. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday that the military had used long-range cruise missiles to target fuel depots in Starokostiantyniv and Khmelnytskyi in central Ukraine. Konashenkov said in a statement that Russian forces also hit the headquarters of the Ukrainian special forces in Bereznehuvate in the southern region of Mykolaiv. Konashenkov also said the Russian military had used mobile Iskander surface-to-air missile launchers to strike two ammunition depots in the eastern part of Donetsk. The Russian military says it has turned its attention to Ukraine’s eastern industrial heart, Donbass, where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
LVIV, Ukraine – A spokesman for the World Food Program says it welcomes talks on a possible withdrawal of Russian troops from parts of Ukraine, but the negotiation process for access to aid has not improved. “We expect faster clearance, faster access guarantees,” Tomson Phiri told the Associated Press on Wednesday. He spoke after a WFP escort arrived in the heavily affected city of Kharkiv with supplies for bakeries and portions of emergency food. “People stayed for days without finding food,” he said. “These are people who have never experienced hunger in their lives.” He says the WFP has already reached 1 million people with help. The goal is to reach 4 million in the coming months. “Mariupol is above the mind,” he said, as well as Sumi and other partially enclosed areas.
GENEVA – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 4 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded, a new milestone in Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Wednesday posted on a website monitoring refugee flows around the world that 4.01 million people have now fled Ukraine. Of these, 2.3 million have entered Poland. Humanitarian aid workers say the flow has eased in recent days as many people wait for developments in the war. An estimated 6.5 million people have also been displaced from their homes inside Ukraine.
WARSAW, Poland – Poland’s prime minister says his country will take steps to end Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday that Poland had already significantly reduced its dependence on Russian oil. Morawiecki told a news conference that Poland was launching the most radical plan among European nations to wean Russia’s energy sources. Poland announced on Tuesday that it was banning imports of Russian coal. Morawiecki said he expected coal imports to fall in May and called on other European countries to follow suit. Poland claims that money from oil and gas exports is fueling Russia’s war machine and that this must stop.
This figure was corrected to show that the Prime Minister of Poland expects the import of coal to end in May and not the import of gas.
BERLIN – The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is visiting a nuclear plant in southern Ukraine on a trip to help boost the safety of the country’s nuclear facilities. Rafael Mariano Grossi arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he wrote on Twitter that he was at the power plant in southern Ukraine to meet with officials and staff of the Ukrainian government and begin IAEA technical assistance. He said “it is vital that we be on the ground to provide effective support to (Ukraine) in these extremely difficult times” and that the IAEA presence “would help public health and the environment. “Ukraine and beyond.” The nearest large city to the factory is Mykolaiv. Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors at four plants – one of which, in Zaporizhia, is under Russian military control. It also houses the decommissioned Chernobyl plant, the site of 1986, which was occupied by the Russian army at the beginning of the war. As of Tuesday, eight reactors were in operation, including two in southern Ukraine, while the rest were shut down for regular maintenance.
ISTANBUL – Turkey says Ukrainian and Russian delegations have decided to return to their homeland for consultations after making progress in the negotiations. Talks held by Turkey on Tuesday outlined what could be the framework for ending the war. Talks were expected to resume on Wednesday, but Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoλουlu said the two sides were returning the proposals to their capitals. At the Istanbul conference, the Ukrainian delegation set a framework under which the country would declare neutrality and its security would be ensured by a number of other nations. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said Moscow would cut military activity in the direction of Kiev and Chernihiv in the meantime to “increase mutual trust and create the conditions for further negotiations.” The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that the negotiators would convey Ukraine’s proposals to Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which Moscow would respond, but did not say when. Tsavousoglu said he expects a meeting between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine indefinitely. He said another meeting between the two countries’ presidents was also on the agenda. Russia’s state-run Tass news agency reported that Moscow’s representatives had returned to Russia late Tuesday.
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain says Russia’s growing dependence on mercenaries to fight in Ukraine is a sign of the end of the war in Moscow. Western officials say up to 1,000 Wagner fighters have been sent to eastern Ukraine. Moscow is also trying to recruit Syrians to fight in the country. British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said: “It’s a worrying sign, but it also probably shows you how dependent they have become on other fighters because of the weakness and fragility of the professional forces.” He told Sky News that “the Russian war machine, which had a rather frightening reputation, was found to stumble and stumble, at least in the early stages of this campaign.” The UK Department of Defense says some Russian units have withdrawn from Ukraine to Russia and Belarus after suffering heavy casualties.
The governor of Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region says Russian attacks continued overnight, despite Moscow saying it would reduce military activity in the region. Vyacheslav Chaus said in a video message on social media that homes and infrastructure, including libraries and shopping malls, had been damaged in the cities of Chernihiv and Nizhny Novgorod. Chaos did not say if anyone was killed or injured. Commenting on Russia’s announcement that it would cut its military activity, he said: “Do we believe that? Of course not.” During talks in Istanbul on Tuesday, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said Moscow would cut off military activity in the direction of Kiev and Chernihiv to “increase mutual trust and create conditions for reconciliation.”
BERLIN – Germany …
