“Russia must be stopped, and the Court has a role to play in stopping it,” Ukraine’s representative Anton Korynevych told the IGC. Russia defected from the hearings of 7 and 8 March, arguing in a written document that the court “has no jurisdiction” because Kiev’s request falls outside the scope of the 1948 Genocide Convention on which its case is based. “The government of the Russian Federation respectfully requests the court to refrain from indicating interim measures and to remove the case from its list,” Moscow said, claiming she did not show up because she did not have enough time to prepare. Moscow justified its use of force in Ukraine by claiming that it “is acting in self-defense”. Today’s hearing comes as the number of refugees fleeing Ukraine has reached three million and Russian forces intensify attacks on residential buildings in Kiev. At the same time, both Ukraine and Russia say progress is being made in talks to end the fighting.
Kiev besieged, escape from Mariupol
The siege of Kiev is becoming more and more dramatic, and yesterday the Ukrainian authorities declared a new total curfew of 36 hours, until Thursday morning. The fear that the Russian troops are preparing the decisive assault, after days of slow approach of the columns of armored vehicles, is growing stronger. Also because bombs continue to rain on the capital. A raid on a five-story residential building resulted in at least 5 deaths in the western Sviatoshyn neighborhood, resulting in a massive fire. On the road to Irpin, northwest of Kiev, two other reporters were killed, Fox’s Irish cameraman Pierre Zakrewski and local producer Alexandra Kuvshinova, while British correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured.
To Russia the port town of Berdiansk
In the rest of Ukraine, the hottest front remains that of the southern belt between the Donbass and the Crimea, Moscow’s strategic objective to weld the territories already under its control. The Russians have claimed the conquest of the port town of Berdiansk, on the Sea of Azov, one hundred thousand inhabitants about eighty kilometers west of Mariupol which, also attacked by the sea, remains under a ferocious siege. After the first evacuations along the humanitarian corridors, yesterday over four thousand cars and 20,000 people managed to leave the city. But 350,000 people remain locked inside. Deputy Mayor Serghei Orlov reported at least one hundred bombs dropped in the past 24 hours and reported that in the regional intensive care hospital, which ended up in Russian hands, about 400 people, including patients and staff, are held hostage, along with some inhabitants of the area.
Journalists killed
Five journalists were killed and at least 35 wounded – announced the head of human rights of the Ukrainian parliament, Lyudmila Denisova, on Telegram – since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. “The occupiers are fighting against objective coverage of their war crimes: they are killing and shooting journalists,” she stressed. Three victims – recalls the UNIAN agency – are Viktor Dudar, shot during the fighting near Mykolayiv, the cameraman Yevhen Sakun killed in a missile attack in Kiev and the American Brent Reno, killed in Irpin, in the Kiev region. A Fox News cameraman was also killed: his name was Pierre Zakrzewski, the American broadcaster announced, explaining that he died in the same accident near Kiev that involved correspondent Benjamin Hall, who was injured. Ukrainian journalist Alexandra Kuvshinova also died following the Russian attack in northwestern Kiev in which Zakrzewski was killed, reports Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, adding that the third reporter, the British Ben Hall, who was with them in the car hit and was seriously injured, he would have undergone an operation for the amputation of a leg.
Kiev: four Russian generals killed
In the first 20 days of fighting, the defense forces of Ukraine killed ten members of the command of the Russian troops. Among them four generals died in combat (Magomed Tushayev, Vitaly Gerasimov, Andriy Kolesnikov and Andriy Sukhovetsky), three colonels and three lieutenant colonels. This was reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.