US to provide $670m in global food assistance amid crisis
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he has arrived in Ukraine following talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
- The European Commission has proposed a one-year suspension of import duties on all Ukrainian goods.
- The White House vows to press for the release of Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who is imprisoned in Russia on spying accusations.
- A number of rockets have hit the centre of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, producing a series of explosions, the RIA news agency said.
Here are all the latest updates:
Amal Clooney pushes for Ukraine war crimes justice at UN
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has urged countries at the United Nations to focus on international justice for war crimes in Ukraine so evidence does not sit in storage – as it has done for victims of Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.
“Ukraine is, today, a slaughterhouse. Right in the heart of Europe,” Clooney told an informal UN Security Council meeting on accountability in Ukraine, organised by France and Albania.
UK foreign minister warns China to play by ‘the rules’
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has warned China that failure to play by global “rules” would cut short its rise as a superpower.
China, which has taken a neutral public position on the war in Ukraine, has faced calls from European nations and the US to pressure Russia to end its invasion.
“They will not continue to rise if they do not play by the rules. China needs trade with the G7. We [the Group of Seven] represent around half of the global economy. And we have choices,” Truss said in a speech in London. “We have shown with Russia the kind of choices that we’re prepared to make when international rules are violated.”
US House of Representatives passes bill to help rebuild Ukraine
The US House of Representatives has passed a bipartisan bill that would encourage the use of sanctioned Russian assets to help build Ukraine.
The bill was introduced by representative Tom Malinowski from New Jersey and Joe Wilson from South Carolina.
“It’s hard to imagine giving Russia’s wealth back to Putin while Ukrainians are burying their dead,” Malinowski said in a tweet. “We must be prepared to use Russia’s frozen assets to rebuild the country they are destroying.”
🚨Tom’s Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act has PASSED the House!🚨
It’s hard to imagine giving Russia’s wealth back to Putin while Ukrainians are burying their dead. We must be prepared to use Russia’s frozen assets to rebuild the country they are destroying.— Rep. Tom Malinowski (@RepMalinowski) April 27, 2022
Russia coordinating cyberattacks with military strikes: Microsoft
A handful of hacker groups aligned with the Russian government have carried out hundreds of cyberattacks against Ukraine since Moscow invaded, US tech giant Microsoft said in a report.
“Starting just before the invasion, we have seen at least six separate Russia-aligned nation-state actors launch more than 237 operations against Ukraine,” Microsoft said, which is working with Ukrainian cybersecurity experts and private companies to counter such attacks.
It said the cyber-warfare included “destructive attacks that are ongoing and threaten civilian welfare.”
Canada lawmakers vote in favour of calling Russia’s acts ‘genocide’
Canadian lawmakers have voted unanimously to call Russia’s attacks in Ukraine a “genocide”, with members of parliament saying there was “ample evidence of systemic and massive war crimes against humanity” being committed by Moscow.
The Canadian House of Commons’ motion said war crimes by Russia include mass atrocities, systematic instances of willful killing of Ukrainian civilians, the desecration of corpses, forcible transfer of Ukrainian children, torture, physical harm, mental harm, and rape.
Ukraine fires three rockets at Kherson, a city held by Russia: RIA
Ukraine has fired three rockets at the centre of the southern city of Kherson but Russian occupying forces shot down two of them, RIA news agency cited a security source as saying.
A RIA correspondent on the ground had earlier reported a series of powerful explosions near the television centre.
Pentagon says Russian nuclear threats are ‘irresponsible’
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby has dismissed recent comments by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who earlier this week warned of a “serious, real” risk of nuclear war.
“The rhetoric that we keep hearing from Russian leaders – and just recently was Minister Lavrov, raising the spectre of nuclear confrontation – is irresponsible,” Kirby told reporters during a briefing.
“It’s certainly not what you would expect from a modern nuclear power, nor should anybody expect from a modern nuclear power,” he said.
US allocating $670m to international emergency food operations
The US Department of Agriculture and US Agency for International Development will together contribute nearly $700m to international food aid efforts in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the agencies have said.
The money will go to emergency food operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen. Of the announced sum, $282m will come from the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust (BEHT), which is co-managed by the agencies, while USDA said it would additionally provide $388m for transportation, shipping, and other costs.
The Ukraine war is leading to a “staggering global food crisis”, said USAID Administrator Samantha Power.
Ukraine plans to rename streets linked to Russia
A number of Ukrainian cities plan to rename streets and squares associated with Russia under a process of “de-Russification” following Moscow’s invasion.
Ihor Terekhov, mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, said that as soon as the war with Russia ends he would table a bill to his city council to rename places with Russian-affiliated names.
“Even without these names, there will be too many scars that will remind us for a long time about what kind of neighbour is beyond our eastern and northern borders,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
White House says supplemental Ukraine aid request could come Thursday
The White House has said that a supplemental budget request that includes aid for Ukraine could be sent to Congress as soon as Thursday.
The plan will cover military, humanitarian and economic assistance for Ukraine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.
White House vows to press for release of Paul Whelan
The White House has vowed to keep pressing for the unconditional release of former US Marine Paul Whelan, who is imprisoned in Russia and accused of spying.
A US-Russia prisoner swap that obtained the release of Trevor Reed, also a former US Marine, brought a spotlight on Whelan, who holds US, British, Canadian and Irish passports.
Whelan was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges in June 2020.
Welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Read all the updates from Wednesday, April 27 here.
