The Belarusian embassy has been evacuated from Ukraine, Belarusian Ambassador in Kyiv Igor Sokol said.
“All financial accounts were blocked by the Ukrainian side, intolerable conditions were created, and there were threats of physical violence all the time. We were actually under siege, so the leadership, the Foreign Ministry of the country decided to evacuate the embassy,” Sokol said on the STV television channel.
“It was the last group of 11 employees and two family members to leave by seven cars via the corridor that was provided by the Ukrainian side, because they failed to provide security in the direction of the Republic of Belarus. We had to leave for the Republic of Moldova,” the ambassador said.
Losses among civilians from February 24, 2022, when Russia started the war against Ukraine, to 00:00 on March 18, 2022 amounted to 2,246 civilians (in the report a day earlier some 2,149), including 847 killed (816), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Saturday.
“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, especially in Government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.” it said in the document.
According to the office, this applies, for example, to Mariupol and Volnovakha (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), Severodonetsk and Rubizhne (Luhansk region), Trostianets (Sumy region), where there are reports of numerous civilian casualties. They are subject to further verification and are not included in the above statistics.
“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” the office said.
According to confirmed UN data, some 155 men, some 119 women, some 21 boys and seven girls killed, while the gender of 36 children and 509 adults is yet unknown.
Among the 1,399 wounded, some 18 girls and nine boys, as well as 51 children, whose gender is yet unknown.
Compared to the previous day, five children were killed and four others were wounded, according to the UN.
OHCHR said that in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as of midnight on March 19, there were 187 (172) killed and 547 (503) wounded in government-controlled territory, and 53 (50) killed and 181 (178) wounded in territory controlled by self-proclaimed “republics.”
In other regions of Ukraine under government control (in Kyiv, as well as in Zhytomyr, Zaporizhia, Kyiv, Sumy, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Chernihiv regions), the UN recorded 607 (594) killed and 671 (652) wounded.
The U.S. oil field service company Halliburton Co. has announced an immediate suspension of future business in Russia in a statement published on the company website.
“The Company complies with sanctions that prohibit transactions and work, including for certain state-owned Russian customers. Halliburton will prioritize safety and reliability as we wind down our remaining operations in Russia,” the statement said.
Halliburton said it has no active joint ventures in Russia, while all shipments of specific sanctioned parts and products to Russia were halted several weeks ago.
“The war in Ukraine deeply saddens us. We have employees in both Ukraine and Russia, and the conflict greatly impacts our people, their families, and loved ones throughout the region. Since the start of this conflict, we prioritized employee safety and compliance with all relevant sanctions,” the statement quoted Halliburton Chairman, President and CEO Jeff Miller as saying.
Halliburton is the world’s second largest oil field service company and the largest U.S. supplier of oil industry equipment, which was cooperating with all major mineral developers of Russia, including Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Rosneft and Lukoil.
The Government of Ukraine has abolished the maximum level of the supply and marketing allowance and the trade margin of 10% for such products of significant social importance as buckwheat, granulated sugar, domestic pasta and butter with a fat content of 72.5%, while retaining the requirement to declare the change of prices.
The corresponding resolution No. 311 of March 18, was published, on the Cabinet of Ministers website on Saturday.
According to it, a 10% margin limit remains for such goods as wheat flour of the highest grade, pasteurized milk with a fat content of 2.5% (in a film), rye-wheat bread and a long loaf, chicken eggs of category C1, poultry (chicken carcass, a quarter of a chicken carcass) and refined sunflower oil. It will be valid until the end of April.
The Decree also clarified that the specified list of products of social importance concerns refined sunflower oil, and not sunflower oil in general, but at the same time, the concept of “poultry” was extended to “a quarter of a chicken carcass”, whereas previously it meant only “chicken carcass”.
In addition, the government has established that these products of significant social importance include domestically produced goods, except for goods labeled as organic products.
Another relief was the option for chains that set uniform prices for products in their stores to declare price changes once for all stores, and not in each one individually.
Smog over Kyiv on Saturday morning is the result of a burning landfill near Novi Petrivtsi and calm weather, Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs, has said.
“Smog over Kyiv. Why did it appear: 1. The landfill near Novi Petrivtsi is burning down. 2. Windless weather. As soon as the wind appears, the smog will dissipate from the operation of thermal power plants and smoke from fires in the vicinity of Kyiv,” he wrote on Facebook.
Denysenko noted that in the Chornobyl zone, from the point of view of the fire situation, everything is calm.
In turn, Kyiv City State Administration noted that “there is a slight smoke in the capital.”
“This is due to changes in weather conditions, in particular the wind direction. According to experts, the air quality is in line with the standards. But please do not open windows and do not leave the house unnecessarily,” according to a message on the Telegram channel.
Former British Prime Minister David Cameron is carrying donations to Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
“I’m currently driving to Poland with two Chippy Larder [British non-profit food project] colleagues to make our delivery to the Red Cross. It’s going to be a long drive, but I’ll keep you updated along the way,” Cameron wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
