Ukraine war escalates as Russia fires more missiles, Mariupol turns apocalyptic

The Azov Battalion is made up of far-right ultranationalists with neo-Nazi links and formed in 2014 following the outbreak of an armed rebellion in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas regions by pro-Russian separatists, many of whom advocated sympathies with the old Soviet Union and its dictator Joseph Stalin.   

The Azov Battalion’s neo-Nazi affiliations, and alleged abuses against ethnic Russians, were part of Putin’s pretext for the invasion. The battalion made Mariupol its headquarters in the eight-year-long Donbas war. Russian sources – backed by interviews with evacuees – allege Azov soldiers were responsible for atrocities during the siege of Mariupol and stopping civilians from leaving the city.    

Peace talks resumed on Monday but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has remained defiant and is refusing to make concessions, most significantly recognizing Russian occupation of regions in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. On the issue of NATO membership, Zelenskyy’s government has both said it might consider becoming a NATO-neutral country but also repeatedly asked to become a member.    

“I'm ready for negotiations with [Russian President Vladimir Putin]. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations we cannot end this war,” he told CNN. “I think that we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, possibility of talking to Putin. But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third World War.”   

In another sign of Zelenskyy’s hard approach when it comes those in Ukraine who might want to make concessions to the Kremlin to end the conflict, his government banned 11 opposition parties, including the Opposition Platform for Life, which came in second in the most recent elections winning 44 seats in the 450-seat parliament. He accused the parties of having links to Russia. Communist parties had previously been banned.    

The Kremlin doesn’t appear ready for a ceasefire.   

“The degree of progress in the negotiations is probably not as desirable and not as required by the dynamics of the development of the situation for the Ukrainian side,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, on Monday, according to RIA Novosti, the Russian state news agency.   

Ukraine's military has proven to be a formidable force and military experts believe Putin underestimated its ability to resist. With a ceasefire looking unlikely any time soon, the fighting looks set to rage for many more days.   

NATO continues to funnel weapons into Ukraine as best it can with billions of dollars in aid. There are talks about increasing Western aid and support. Russia has said it will consider any foreign troops as “legitimate” targets.   

Europeans have welcomed more than 3.3 million Ukrainian refugees and are showing their support with protests, charity drives and the delivery of goods. A Dutch court granted early release from prison for two Ukrainian men imprisoned on human smuggling so they can return to fight against Russia, Euractiv, a news outlet, reported.     

For its part, Russia is reportedly moving more troops and weaponry to Ukraine and there are fears that Belarusian troops may move across the border and join the war by disrupting the flow of NATO weapon supplies passing through western Ukraine. Belarus is under sanctions and some of its banks were kicked out of the dollar-dominated international banking system, just as has happened to Russian banks. Russia reportedly is also bringing in the Wagner Group, a notorious private military organization. Ukrainian intelligence services claimed Wagner mercenaries were given the assignment to assassinate Zelenskyy, as reported by British newspapers.   

This week Western leaders are meeting and the European Union is considering to ban imports of Russian oil and natural gas. Such a step would be a major blow to Russia but it could cause severe economic pain in Europe and around the world by driving up the price of energy.   

The weekend saw some large demonstrations in Europe over the rise in fuel prices and European leaders are scrambling to tamp down discontent with government help. In Spain, tens of thousands of farmers descended on Madrid asking for help.   

U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to travel to Brussels and Poland this week to rally NATO allies and speak out against Putin's invasion.   

The Kremlin meanwhile is warning that Russia may break off diplomatic ties with Washington due to Biden's labeling Putin a “war criminal” and “dictator” last week. Putin’s mental stability has been questioned by many in the West too.

Russia’s also been accused of planning to use chemical weapons, forcing Ukrainian civilians into Russia against their will and placing them in concentration camps, targeting civilians, kidnapping city officials in cities they’ve captured, using indiscriminate cluster bombs and bombing civilian infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals and administration buildings.  

On Monday, Russian troops were accused of firing stun grenades and opening fire on people in the southern city of Kherson protesting against the occupation of their city, as seen in videos shared on social media. Kherson was the first city to fall under Russian control.     

The EU’s top foreign affairs representative, Josep Borrell, and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock declared on Monday that Russia is guilty of war crimes. 

“It's a destruction of people who are suffering incredibly,” Borrell said in calling the destruction of Mariupol a “massive war crime.” The “courts will have to decide, but for me these are clearly war crimes,” Baerbock said, according to Deutsche Welle, the German state broadcaster. 

The International Criminal Court at the Hague is compiling evidence of war crimes in Ukraine. For the U.S., calls for putting Putin and Russian generals on trial at court in the Hague is complicated by the fact that Washington is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty underpinning the court. The U.S. has stymied the court’s work to investigate possible war crimes committed by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan.    

Russia, too, accuses Ukraine of war crimes and there is evidence that Ukrainian forces have shelled civilians in eastern Ukraine, used civilian infrastructure to attack Russian forces, killed alleged traitors without trial, mistreated captured Russian prisoners and blocked civilians from leaving besieged cities.  

Ukrainian officials and activists have also been recorded on state television calling for violence against Russian civilians and a Ukrainian military doctor told Ukraine-24 that he gave an order to castrate Russian prisoners, according to news reports. The doctor, Gennadiy Druzenko, later retracted his statement.  

The huge divide opening up between the West and Russia is getting even bigger with a Moscow court on Monday deciding that Facebook should be banned in Russia for being an “extremist activity.” Moscow has already banned many foreign media outlets and it has begun targeting Russians who speak out against the war. Russia is looking at seizing the assets of foreign companies and closed off its airspace to Western airlines.   

The West, too, has banned Russian media outlets, seized the assets of Russian oligarchs, including mansions and yachts, frozen the foreign currency reserves of Russia's Central Bank and imposed an economic blockade on Russia.   

Despite the West's unprecedented actions against Russia, many countries around the world, including China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and much of Africa and Latin America, are maintaining economic ties with Russia.   

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.   

Follow @cainburdeau

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