The Washington Post

2022-05-24 00:08:30 Ukraine issues stamp commemorating sinking of Russian warship

Ukrainians lined up by the hundreds at post offices across the country on Monday after the postal service released stamps commemorating the sinking of a Russian warship in the Black Sea and a group of Ukrainian border guards who insulted Russian forces and were subsequently captured.

The stamps were first issued last month to honor the soldiers of Snake Island, who were hailed as heroes in Ukraine after they insulted Russian forces who were about to attack them in an exchange that went viral. Proceeds from sales of the stamp went to the Ukrainian war effort.

Now, the stamps have been reissued — with a twist. The previous set of six stamps featured a Ukrainian service member making a rude hand gesture at a Russian warship from the shore; the latest set of stamps includes three of those same stamps — and three modified stamps showing the service member still standing, but not the ship.

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2022-05-23 23:00:37 Here is the latest from Ukraine.

- A Kyiv court found a Russian soldier who killed an unarmed civilian guilty in the first war crimes trial since the invasion.

- President Biden, visiting Japan for economic and security talks with regional leaders, said in a joint statement with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine represents the “greatest immediate challenge” to the established world order.

- The United Nations said 6.5 million Ukrainians have now fled Ukraine, pushing the number of people forcibly displaced by conflicts around the world over 100 million for the first time.

- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will host a second meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group, made up of international defense chiefs.

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2022-05-23 21:51:24 Authorities investigating over 13,000 reports of war crimes, official says

Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said Monday that her country has opened more than 13,000 investigations into suspected war crimes committed by the Russian government and military.

In a live conversation with The Washington Post, Venediktova said the reports include allegations of rape, killings and torture all across Ukraine, in areas under attack or under occupation of Russian troops. Every day, authorities receive up to 300 additional reports of war crimes, she said.

Venediktova said the verdict Monday of Ukraine’s first war crimes trial that found Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin guilty of killing an unarmed civilian, should serve as an example for Russians that Ukrainian authorities will prosecute all those responsible for committing atrocities in Ukraine.

“If they decide to do such atrocities, to kill, to rape, to loot, to torture, we will find everyone …,” she said.

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2022-05-23 20:43:42 A grasp at diplomacy as fighting grinds on in Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the path to ending the war with Russia would require diplomacy and an international agreement with security guarantees from other countries after any military win.

“Victory will be bloody,” he said in a Ukrainian television interview broadcast Saturday, and “the end will certainly be in diplomacy.”

But he and other leaders stressed that Russia shouldn’t keep control of territory it has seized during hostilities. Although Russian forces failed to take the capital, Kyiv, and the northeastern city of Kharkiv, they have captured the cities of Kherson and Mariupol in southern and southeastern Ukraine.

Bloody fighting continues in eastern Ukraine, which the United States believes is part of Moscow’s strategy to annex broad swaths of the country and install leaders loyal to Russia in a move echoing the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

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2022-05-23 19:02:25 Russian diplomat resigns protesting Putin’s ‘aggressive war’
A diplomat at Russia’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva has resigned over the war in Ukraine, writing that he has never been “so ashamed” of his country, in a rare public rebuke of the war from within the Russian government.

In a letter circulated to colleagues in Geneva and posted on a LinkedIn account in his name, Boris Bondarev, counsellor at the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, said he had left the civil service Monday.

“For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year,” he wrote, referring to the date the invasion was launched.

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2022-05-23 16:07:01 Why Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine is key to Russia’s war

The battle for Severodonetsk — one of the last big cities under Ukrainian control in a key eastern province — is emerging as a focal point in Russia’s war.

The head of the Luhansk region said Russian troops, bombarding the area constantly, are using “scorched earth” tactics in Severodonetsk. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that fighting in the east is becoming increasingly bloody, with up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers killed each day.

Russia is seeking to encircle Severodonetsk, which had a prewar population of about 100,000, now that a protracted battle for the port city of Mariupol has ended. Russia is attempting to gain control of Donbas, which includes the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russian forces are “throwing everything that they have at it,” said Matthew Schmidt, associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven in Connecticut.

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2022-05-23 14:33:01 ‘Russia House’ in Davos becomes war crimes exhibit ahead of Zelensky address

In the Swiss ski town of Davos, the “Russia House” was a standard fixture of Russian soft power at the annual World Economic Forum, a gathering of top business and government leaders.

But in a physical manifestation of the global community’s rebuke of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, the house has been transformed into an exhibition of possible Russian war crimes as the forum gathers on Monday.

The Russia House had in the past “proven its effectiveness as a platform for promoting Russian initiatives among representatives of international business and official circles,” according to its website, which is hosted by a Russian lobbying organization.

The site where fancy cocktail parties and schmoozing between Russian and international officials once took place now greets passersby with a window sign reading: “This used to be the Russian House in Davos. Now it’s the Russian War Crimes House in Davos.”

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2022-05-23 13:08:45 Russian soldier found guilty in first war crimes trial of Ukraine invasion

A 21-year-old Russian soldier was found guilty Monday of killing an unarmed civilian in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial since Russia’s invasion. He was sentenced to life in prison.

A court in Kyiv handed down the verdict after Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty last week to killing a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the northeastern Sumy province but said he was following orders.

Shishimarin pleaded guilty to killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov, who was pushing his bicycle near the village of Chupakhivka, near the Russian border, during the early days of the invasion in late February.

Shelipov “died on the spot just a few meters from his home,” according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova.

Shishimarin’s charge, “violation of the rules and customs of war," is punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment.

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2022-05-23 11:03:49 Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- The battle for Severodonetsk is becoming a focal point in the war as Russia seeks to capture one of the last major cities in a key eastern province still in Ukrainian control after its seizure of southeastern port city Mariupol.

- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to dominate the agenda this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with Zelensky due to virtually address the gathering Monday. Ukrainian artists have turned a venue in the Swiss resort town that usually showcases Russian business leaders — formerly known as “Russia House” — into an exhibition of possible Russian war crimes.

- The first war crimes trial to be conducted since the Feb. 24 invasion reconvenes Monday in Kyiv. The judge is likely to hand down a verdict after Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old Russian tank commander, last week pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian in late February.

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2022-05-23 08:30:22 Here's the latest on key battlegrounds in Ukraine:

Severodonetsk: Russian forces continued their ground assaults around this key city in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, but they did not make any confirmed advances, according to Ukraine’s military. The head of the Luhansk region said Russian troops are bombarding the city constantly, using “scorched earth” tactics.

Mykolaiv: Nine people have been wounded by Russian airstrikes in this city near the Black Sea in southern Ukraine, the regional council said Sunday. Residential buildings were destroyed in three communities over the weekend, they added. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its rockets hit a Bukovel mobile antidrone system near Hannivka, about 60 miles northeast of Mykolaiv.

Enerhodar: The Russian-appointed mayor of this southeastern Ukrainian town — captured by Russia in March — was in intensive care after an explosion on Sunday, according to the town’s Ukrainian mayor. Russian state news agency Tass said that he had a minor wound.

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