BackPope Francis reiterates call to end war in Ukraine
According to the United Nations refugee agency, over 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the war began between Russia and UkraineUkraine-Russia conflict: At least 2.5 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
PremiumPope Francis reiterated his call to end the war in Ukraine, expressing concern for children. In a tweet, the sovereign of Vatican City wrote, “Never war! Think first about the children, about those who are deprived of the hope for a dignified life: dead or wounded children, orphans, children who play with the remnants of war".
Francis added, "In the name of God, stop!"
According to the United Nations refugee agency, over 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the war began between Russia and Ukraine last month.
The United Nations human rights office said it had verified 1,335 civilian casualties so far in Ukraine, including 474 killed and 861 injured, but the true toll was likely to be higher. Besides, at least 2.5 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
Yesterday, Russian forces pounded the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. Fighting also raged in the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, as Russia kept up its bombardment of other cities throughout the country.
Mariupol has endured some of Ukraine’s worst punishment since Russia invaded. More than 1,500 people have died in Mariupol during the siege, according to the mayor's office, and the shelling has even interrupted efforts to bury the dead in mass graves.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of employing “a new stage of terror" with the alleged detention of a mayor from a city west of Mariupol.
Ukraine’s military said Russian forces captured Mariupol’s eastern outskirts, tightening their siege of the strategic port. Taking Mariupol and other ports on the Azov Sea could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Zelenskyy again deplored NATO’s refusal to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine and said Ukraine has sought ways to procure air defense assets, though he didn't elaborate. U.S. President Joe Biden announced another $200 million in aid to Ukraine, with an additional $13 billion included in a bill that has passed the House and should pass the Senate within days. NATO has said that imposing a no-fly zone could lead to a wider war with Russia.
The Ukrainian president also accused Russia of detaining the mayor of Melitopol, a city 192 kilometers (119 miles) west of Mariupol.
French and German leaders spoke Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a failed attempt to reach a cease-fire. According to the Kremlin, Putin laid out terms for ending the war. For ending hostilities, Moscow has demanded that Ukraine drop its bid to join NATO and adopt a neutral status; acknowledge the Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014; recognize the independence of separatist regions in the country’s east; and agree to demilitarize.
Zelenskyy told Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Saturday that he would be open to meeting Putin in Jerusalem to discuss an end to the war, but that there would first have to be a cease-fire. Bennett recently met in Moscow with Putin, who has ignored previous offers of talks from Zelenskyy.
Russian forces have hit at least two dozen hospitals and medical facilities, according to the World Health Organization.
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