Austrian chancellor meets Putin in Russia amid warnings of new attack on Ukraine | Ukraine

It is scheduled to meet the Chancellor of Austria Russian President Vladimir Putin On Monday, it was the Russian president’s first face-to-face meeting with an EU leader since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, amid warnings of a new offensive and bombing in the east.

Karl Nehamer said the meeting will take place in Moscow and that Austria has a “clear position on Russia’s war of aggression,” calling for the establishment of humanitarian corridors, a ceasefire and a full investigation of war crimes.

The British Ministry of Defense warned, on Monday morning, that Russian forces may resort to the use of phosphorous weapons in Mariupol as the fighting for the city intensifies. She noted the earlier use of munitions by Russian soldiers in Donetsk.

On the ground, Russian forces bombed targets in the east Ukraine With missiles and artillery on Sunday, Ramzan Kadyrov, the powerful leader of the Russian republic of Chechnya, said there would be an attack not only on the besieged southern port of Mariupol but also on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. “Luhansk and Donetsk – we will completely liberate in the first place … Then we will take Kyiv and all other cities,” Kadyrov said in a video posted on his Telegram channel.

The United States warned that the appointment of a The new general in command of the Russian military campaign It is likely to lead to a new round of “crimes and atrocities” against civilians. Alexander Dvornikov, 60, emerged at the head of Russian forces in Syria in 2015-2016, when there was a particularly brutal bombing of rebel-held areas, including the civilian population, in Aleppo.

“This particular general has a resume of brutality against civilians in other theaters — in Syria — and we can expect more of the same” in Ukraine, said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser in Washington.

Nehamer met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Saturday – the same day as the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson promised to give Ukraine 120 armored vehicles and anti-ship missile systems. Washington also pledged to give Ukraine “the weapons it needs” to defend itself against a new Russian offensive.

Russia failed to capture any major cities, but Ukraine says it massed its forces in the east for a major offensive and urged people to flee.

Russian forces fired missiles at Ukraine’s Luhansk and Dnipropetrovsk regions on Sunday, officials said. Valentin Reznichenko, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said that missiles completely destroyed the airport in the city of Dnipro.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that high-precision missiles destroyed the headquarters of the Ukrainian Dnipro battalion in the town of Zvonetsky. Reuters could not immediately confirm these reports.

In other developments:

• Ukrainian officials said on Sunday that the death toll from A missile strike on a train station And it had risen, Friday, in the city of Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, to 57, while 109 were injured. The station was full of people trying to flee the region. Russia denied responsibility, saying the missiles used in the attack were used only by the Ukrainian military.

• Joe Biden is scheduled to hold a virtual meeting with India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on Monday, where the US president is expected to pressure India not to increase its imports of Russian crude. Biden has previously accused India of being the only “fairly shaken” country in the Quartet – which also includes Japan and Australia – with respect to Ukraine. It has not yet imposed any sanctions on Russia.

• The World Bank expected this Ukraine’s GDP will shrink by about 45% This year as the Russian invasion and the impact of a “deep humanitarian crisis” took their toll. She said that Russia will also fall into a recession and that many countries surrounding Ukraine will experience severe difficulties

• Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Irina Vereshuk, said 2,824 people were evacuated on Sunday via humanitarian corridors, including 213 from Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks.

Since the Russian invasion, Zelensky has appealed to Western powers for more defense assistance, punishing Moscow with harsher sanctions, including a ban on Russian energy exports.

In an interview that aired on CBS 60 Minutes, Zelensky said he trusted his armed forces but “unfortunately I don’t have confidence that we will get everything we need” from the United States.

“They should arm Ukraine as if they were defending themselves and their people,” Zelensky added. “They need to understand this. If they don’t hurry, it will be difficult for us to withstand this pressure.”

“We will provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defeat the Russians to prevent them from taking more cities and towns,” Sullivan told ABC News.

Zelensky said earlier on Twitter that he had spoken by phone to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about additional sanctions, as well as more defense and financial support for his country, and welcomed Germany’s more positive attitude toward Ukraine.

The European Union on Friday banned imports of Russian coal, among other products, but it did not yet touch upon imports of oil and gas from Russia.

Mounting civilian casualties led to widespread international condemnation and the imposition of new sanctions.

Taras Dedic, head of the Dmitrievka community that includes the village, said a grave with at least two civilian bodies was found in the village of Buzova near Kyiv, in the latest discovery reported since Russian forces withdrew from areas north of the capital.

Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in what it called a “special operation” to disarm and “disarm” its southern neighbor. Ukraine and Western countries rejected this, calling it a baseless excuse for war.

The Russian invasion forced about a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes, reduced cities to rubble and killed or injured thousands.

Some cities in eastern Ukraine are under heavy bombardment, with tens of thousands unable to evacuate.

with Reuters