CLOSE DOWN UN OR REFORM AND ACT: ZELENSKY TELLS UNSC

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine entered its 41st day on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reached out to the UN Security Council and accused Moscow of gruesome atrocities in his country, urging that those responsible should immediately be brought up on war crimes charges in front of a tribunal like the one set up at Nuremberg after World War II.

Comparing Russian war crimes in Ukraine to that of the Islamic State (Daesh), and demanding full accountability through a tribunal on the lines of Nuremberg,  Zelensky, in a virtual address to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), said that UN should either close down and dissolve itself or undertake drastic reforms and throw out Russia from the Council if it wants to do more than talk and fulfil its mandate to maintain international peace and security.

Zelensky, who ended his speech with a video which showed bodies littered on streets, dead children, and mass graves in different Ukrainian cities, including Bucha, also said that “punishing Russia” was essential to preventing future war-time crimes and said that Moscow has turned its veto in the Council into the “right to die”.

Zelenskyy told the security council there was “not a single crime” that Russian troops hadn’t committed in Bucha, and he likened their actions to those of the Islamic State.

Russia rejected the allegations, alleged that Ukraine was being run by Nazis, accused Ukrainian forces of killing people and staging videos, and said it was determined to “cut out the malignant Nazi tumour” in Ukraine. Its permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, also claimed that Russia was not shooting against civilian targets, and warned Ukraine that it was being used as a pawn by western powers.

But it was Zelensky’s graphic speech that was the highlight of the Council’s deliberations on Ukraine. It came soon after the discovery of civilian killings and mass graves in Bucha, soon after Russia withdrew troops from near Kyiv, that have sparked global outrage and led to calls for war crimes investigation.

“I returned from the city of Bucha yesterday, liberated from Russian troops. There is not a single crime they have not committed,” claimed Zelensky. He then listed out a set of accusations against Russian forces - searching for and killing anyone who served Ukraine; killing women, adults and children; torturing and killing civilians; slashing their throats; rapes, mass graves, among others - and said these were no different from crimes committed by Daesh. “Here it is being done by a member of the UNSC.”

Meanwhile, India too condemned the killing of civilians at Bucha and backed the call for an independent investigation into the incident, the first time New Delhi has publicly censured actions blamed on Russian forces. Speaking at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council that was also addressed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, TS Tirumurti, the Indian representative to the UN, described reports of civilian killings in Bucha as “deeply disturbing”.

EUROPE PROPOSES RUSSIAN COAL BAN IN NEW SANCTIONS, MULLS OIL CURBS

Brussels : The European Union’s executive branch proposed on Tuesday a ban on coal imports from Russia in what would be the first EU sanctions targeting the country’s lucrative energy industry over its war in Ukraine.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU needed to increase the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin after what she described as “heinous crimes” carried out around Kyiv, with evidence that Russian troops may have deliberately killed Ukrainian civilians.

Von der Leyen said the ban on coal imports is worth €4 billion ($4. 4 billion) per year and that the EU has already started working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports. She didn’t mention natural gas, with consensus among the 27 EU countries on targeting the fuel used to generate electricity and heat homes difficult to secure amid opposition from gas-dependent members like Germany, the bloc’s largest economy.

Until now, Europe had not been willing to target Russian energy over fears that it would plunge the European economy into recession.

Meanwhile, The New Zealand government said it was introducing a 35% tariff on all imports from Russia and would extend the existing export prohibitions to industrial products closely connected to strategic Russian industries.

US BLOCKS RUSSIA’S ACCESS TO DOLLARS FOR BOND PAYMENTS

The US has started blocking Russia from making debt payments using dollars held in US banks, a move designed to deplete its international currency reserves and potentially push Russia toward its first foreign currency debt default in a century. A treasury department official said the action was taken on Monday. It was the same day that over half a billion dollars in Russian sovereign debt payments came due. The action is intended to force Russia to choose between draining the remaining dollar reserves it has in Russia or using new revenue to make bond payments.

US ANNOUNCES $100 MILLION IN ADDITIONAL MILITARY AID TO UKRAINE

The US will provide $100 million in additional military aid to Ukraine, announced Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, as reported by AFP.

"I have authorized... security assistance valued at up to $100 million to meet Ukraine’s urgent need for additional anti-armor systems," said Blinken.

IMRAN KHAN PAYING PRICE FOR ‘DISOBEYING’ US & VISITING MOSCOW, SAYS RUSSIA

Russia has launched an all-out attack on the United States over the political turmoil in Pakistan, saying that prime minister Imran Khan was paying the price for his disobedience to Washington and was being punished for visiting Moscow earlier this year.

“Immediately after the announcement of the working visit of Imran Khan to Moscow on February 23-24 this year, the Americans and their Western associates began to exert rude pressure on the Prime Minister, demanding an ultimatum to cancel the trip," news agency PTI quoted Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

“This is another attempt of shameless interference by the US in the internal affairs of an independent state for its own selfish purposes. The above facts eloquently testify to this,” Zakharova said, while accusing Washington of interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan.

Imran Khan met Russian president Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow on February 25, the day when Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Khan became the second Pakistani prime minister to visit Russia in the last 23 years, the last being Nawaz Sharif in April 1999.  Imran Khan had alleged that the foreign power was upset over his visit to Russia, but it was backing ally India which is importing oil from Russia.

The 69-year-old Pakistani prime minister has alleged a foreign conspiracy was behind the attempts to topple his government, the same reason cited for the dismissal of no-confidence motion by the national assembly deputy speaker Qasim Suri on Sunday.

At a meeting in Islamabad, the PTI chief had named US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu as the one involved in the alleged foreign conspiracy. According to Khan, Lu had warned Pakistan ambassador to US Asad Majeed that there would be implications if the prime minister survived the trust vote.

Slapped with sringent sanctions due to the Ukraine invasion, Russia said that the sequence of events left no doubt that Washington had “decided to punish a disobedient Imran Khan,” which also explained why a number of members from Khan’s ruling coalition decided to switch sides before the no-trust vote.

SRI LANKAN PRESIDENT GOTABAYA RAJAPAKSA REVOKES STATE OF EMERGENCY

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa late Tuesday night revoked the state of emergency he had declared on April 1 with immediate effect in his island nation.

In a gazette notification no 2274/10 issued on Tuesday night, the president said he has withdrawn the emergency rule ordinance which gave security forces sweeping powers to curb any disturbance in the country.

President Rajapaksa has declared a public emergency on April 1 amid a spate of protests over the worst economic crisis in the country. The emergency was imposed because of the mass scale protests planned for April 3 against the current economic hardships faced by the people.

Later, the government imposed an island-wide curfew. Protests continued despite curfew and the state of emergency with senior ruling party figures having their homes surrounded by angry protesters who urged the government for solutions to the economic crisis.

Several people were injured and vehicles were set on fire as the agitation turned violent. Police fired tear gas and water cannons at the protesters after they pulled down a steel barricade placed near the president's residence.

A foreign exchange crunch in Sri Lanka has led to a shortage of essential goods such as fuel and cooking gas. Power cuts that last up to 13 hours a day. The revocation of the gazette assumes significance as the ruling coalition appeared to have lost its majority in the 225 member Parliament with over 40 MPs declaring independence from the ruling coalition.

The emergency approval needs to be ratified in the assembly after 2 weeks of it coming into effect. The Opposition demanded in Parliament on Monday to debate the emergency for its approval.

The second largest group within the ruling Sri Lanka People's Party (SLPP) coalition had officially conveyed to Rajapaksa that their 14 members would not back the motion. If those who declared independence did not vote with the government there was a chance that emergency regulations could not be passed in the assembly.

India recently announced to extend a USD 1 billion line of credit to Sri Lanka as part of its financial assistance to the country to deal with the economic crisis following a previous USD 500 billion line of credit in February to help it purchase petroleum products.

UK, US AND OZ AGREE TO WORK ON HYPERSONIC WEAPONS

London : Britain, the US and Australia on Tuesday agreed to cooperate on hypersonic weapons and electronic warfare capabilities, UK PM Boris Johnson’s office said, following a call between leaders of the new defence alliance.

The new AUKUS alliance, launched last September, prompted Australia to cancel acontract for a conventional French submarine in favour of a nuclear submarine program supported by the US and UK, damaging ties with French President Emmanuel Macron. In a joint statement, AUKUS leaders Johnson, US President Joe Biden and Australian PM Scott Morrison said they were pleased with the progress of the programme for conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines for Australia and that the allies would cooperate in other areas too.

Asked about the deal between UK, the US and Australia, China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun on Tuesday warned against measures that could fuel a crisis like the Ukraine conflict in other parts of the world.