The Ukrainian side is ready for negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with CNN.
“I am ready to negotiate with him. I have been ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations we will not be able to end this war. I think that we should use any format, any chance, to be able to negotiate, an opportunity to talk to Putin. But if these attempts fail, it will mean that this is the third world war,” Zelensky said.
At the same time, he stressed that Ukraine under no circumstances can give up its territorial integrity.
“No compromises related to our territorial integrity and our sovereignty, and the Ukrainian people spoke about this, they did not meet Russian soldiers with a bouquet of flowers, they met them bravely, they met them with weapons in their hands,” Zelensky said.
“If we were a NATO member, a war wouldn’t have started. I’d like to receive security guarantees for my country, for my people. If NATO members are ready to see us in the alliance, then do it immediately because people are dying on a daily basis. But if you are not ready to preserve the lives of our people, if you just want to see us straddle two worlds, if you want to see us in this dubious position where we don’t understand whether you can accept us or not — you cannot place us in this situation, you cannot force us to be in this limbo,” the head of state said.
“I requested them personally to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO in a year or two or five, just say it directly and clearly, or just say no. And the response was very clear, you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open,” he said.
Indian and Japanese Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Fumio Kishida on Saturday called for peaceful resolution of the situation in Ukraine during a meeting in Delhi, Japan Times has reported.
The leaders urged an “immediate cessation of violence,” and noted that the only way to resolve the conflict is through dialogue and diplomacy.
Kishida and Modi also stressed the importance of ensuring the security of nuclear facilities in Ukraine and overcoming the humanitarian crisis that has developed in Eastern Europe due to the arrival of Ukrainian refugees there, Japan Times said.
In addition, the leaders discussed the strengthening of economic ties between the countries and the situation in the Indo-Pacific region.
Australia will provide Ukraine, at the request of the Ukrainian government, with at least 70,000 tonnes of thermal coal to strengthen energy security, according to the Facebook page of the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine.
“Australia is recognized internationally as a leading and reliable supplier of energy resources. We thank our Australian partners for helping Ukraine at this difficult time, when our state is resisting an illegal and brutal military invasion by Russia,” Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko said.
As noted in the message, the Australian government has worked with enterprises of the country’s coal industry to accumulate coal volumes, which will be the country’s contribution to providing Ukrainian consumers with reliable electricity. The cost of coal and its delivery will be covered by the Australian government.
Australia’s Whitehaven Coal will arrange the appropriate shipment. Now, along the government line, together with the Ukrainian side, the issue of prompt delivery is being worked out, the Ministry of Energy said.
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.
