KIEV, Ukraine – A prominent Ukrainian photojournalist who went missing last month in a battle zone near the capital has been found dead.
The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine said in a statement on Saturday that Max Levin had been killed by two gunshots, allegedly by Russian soldiers. Levin’s body was found in the village of Huta Mezhyhirska on Friday.
Levin, 40, has worked as a photojournalist and videographer for many Ukrainian and international publications.
Levin has been missing since March 13, when he contacted his friend from Vishorod near Kyiv to report fighting in the area.
An investigation has been launched into his death.
——
LVIV, Ukraine – A series of explosions hit the Ukrainian city of Enerkhodar, near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s state nuclear service reported Saturday’s attacks on its official Telegram channel.
Both the city and the plant, which generates more than a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity and is one of the largest nuclear power plants in Europe, have been under Russian control since March 4, according to Interfax Ukraine.
A video accompanying the Telegram post by Energoatom of Ukraine appeared to show loud explosions and flying debris.
A second post on the state-run channel claimed that explosions and mortar shells were heard in the area of the Sovremennik cultural center, where residents rallied in favor of Ukraine.
“As the protesters began to disperse, the intruders arrived in police vehicles and began to put locals inside,” the post read. “A few minutes later, the city was shaken by huge explosions and bombings.”
The agency reported that four people were injured and received medical assistance.
Energoatom also claimed that Russian forces had begun blocking telephone and internet communications throughout Enerhodar. The agency’s allegations could not be verified immediately.
——–
HELSINKI – Finland’s prime minister says her country will have to decide on NATO membership “during this spring” after the government and lawmakers carefully assessed the pros and cons of joining the military alliance. – a topical issue in the Nordic nation after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Saturday that “both NATO and non-NATO membership are choices that have consequences. We must assess both the short-term and long-term effects. At the same time, we must keep in mind our goal: security of Finland and the Finns in all situations “.
Marin said Finland’s relationship with neighboring Russia has changed irreversibly since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last month and “it takes a lot of time and work to restore trust.”
Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, the largest of any member of the European Union.
——–
WARSAW, Poland – The Polish government says it has issued more than 625,000 national identification numbers to Ukrainian refugees since Russia launched its invasion.
The ID number, something that all Polish citizens have, gives people the right to access health care, school or other government services. Poland, the country that has received the largest number of Ukrainian refugees, recently decided to extend these rights to Ukrainians fleeing the war.
More than 4 million Ukrainians have fled and more than 2.4 of them have crossed into Poland. Others have taken refuge in Romania, Moldova, Slovakia and Hungary.
It is not clear, however, exactly how many of them live in the countries they first arrived in and how many move to other places, such as Germany, Italy and Spain.
Pawel Szefernaker, the deputy interior minister who was appointed on Saturday as a special plenipotentiary to handle Ukrainian war refugees, told a news conference that 625,000 Ukrainian refugees had received the Polish ID number, known as PESEL.
This is an indication that at least as many intend to remain in Poland, at least until the end of the war. The number is probably higher as people continue to apply and people continue to leave the war.
——–
ROME – Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, who is visiting Azerbaijan, described his talks there as the basis for even stronger energy co-operation, as Italy seeks to quickly reduce its heavy dependence on Russian gas.
Commenting on reporters in Baku on Saturday, Di Maio described Azerbaijan, Italy’s largest oil supplier and the third largest gas supplier, as a “priority partner” in Italy ‘s efforts to diversify its energy sources.
Di Maio arrived in the South Caucasus on Friday, following previous missions focusing on energy in Algeria, Qatar, Angola and Congo. Italy is considering increasing gas supplies from Azerbaijan via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP, which carried its first gas pipeline in 2020.
——–
GENEVA – Former Attorney General of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has demanded that an international arrest warrant be issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin is a war criminal,” Carla del Ponte told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps in an interview published on Saturday.
In interviews with Swiss media about the release of her latest book, the Swiss lawyer overseeing the ICC’s war crimes investigations in Rwanda, Syria and the former Yugoslavia said that clear war crimes had been committed in Ukraine.
She said she was particularly shocked by the use of mass graves, reminiscent of the worst wars in the former Yugoslavia.
“I hoped not to see mass graves again,” he told Blick. “These dead people have loved ones who do not even know what happened. This is unacceptable”.
Other war crimes he identified in Ukraine included attacks on civilians, the destruction of civilian buildings, and even entire cities.
——
BERLIN – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says a nine-member team is trying to retake the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol after being forced to abandon an earlier attempt when ground conditions made it impossible for it to continue.
The aid team said the three-vehicle team was on its way to facilitate the safe passage of civilians on Saturday after a failed attempt on Friday.
The group said in a statement late Friday that it would try to escort an escort of civilians from Mariupol to another Ukrainian city.
He said that “our presence will put a humanitarian mark on this planned movement of people, giving the escort extra protection and reminding all sides of the political, humanitarian character of the operation.”
Mariupol, which was besieged by Russian forces a month ago, has been the scene of some of the worst attacks of the war, including a maternity hospital and a civilian theater. About 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, out of a pre-war population of 430,000, and are facing severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
City officials said about 2,000 arrived from Mariupol on Friday, some by bus and others in their own vehicles.
——
LVIB, Ukraine – At least 33 people were killed and 34 wounded in a Russian rocket attack on a regional government building in the southern Ukrainian port of Mykolaiv. Ukrainian officials gave the final death toll in a statement on Saturday, announcing the numbers of the deadly attack that hit Mykolaiv on Tuesday.
Rescuers sent by the State Emergency Service have been searching for wreckage for survivors since Russian forces struck the building, which housed the office of Regional Governor Vitaly Kim. The governor, who was not at the facility at the time of the attack, later posted pictures on social media showing an open hole in the nine-story building.
The confirmed death toll is rising steadily as the search and rescue operation continues.
Mykolaiv, a city of strategic importance on the way to Ukraine’s largest port, Odessa, has withstood weeks of bombing by Russian forces.
—–
MOSCOW – Russia’s top space official says the future of the International Space Station hangs when the United States, the European Union and Canadian space agencies missed a deadline to meet Russian requirements for lifting sanctions on Russian companies and equipment.
The head of Russia’s state service, Roscosmos, told reporters Saturday morning that the agency was preparing a report on the prospects of international co-operation at the station, which would be presented to the federal authorities “after Roscosmos completes its analysis”.
Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin has hinted on Russian state television that Western sanctions, some of which precede Russia’s military action in Ukraine, could disrupt the operation of Russian spacecraft serving the ISS.
He stressed that the Western partners need the ISS and “can not manage without Russia, because no one but us can deliver fuel to the station.”
Rogozin added that “only the engines of our cargo ship are able to correct the trajectory of the ISS, keeping it safe from space debris.”
Later Saturday, Rogozin wrote on his Telegram channel that he had received responses from his Western counterparts who pledged to promote “further cooperation on the ISS and its operations.”
He reiterated his view that “the restoration of normal relations between ISS partners and other joint (space) projects is possible only with the complete and unconditional lifting of sanctions”, which he described as illegal.
Responding to Western sanctions on the Telegram last month, Rogozin then warned that without Russia’s help, the ISS could “fall into the sea or land” and claimed that the crash site was unlikely to be in Russia.
Space is one of the last areas of cooperation between Moscow and …
