By The Associated Press
WARSAW, Poland – Poland’s government has issued a guide that instructs the public how to prepare for a crisis like war and what to do during attacks with weapons ranging from conventional to chemical and nuclear.
Posted on the Government Security Center’s website this week, the “Be Ready – Guide for Times of Crisis and War” gives detailed instructions in written form and videos.
European Union and NATO member Poland supports neighboring Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s military invasion and is calling for European imports of Russian energy sources to stop. The tough stance has raised concerns among some ordinary Poles.
The guide describes public warning systems in the event of shelling, advises people to stock up on water, food, medication, batteries and flashlights in case of power cuts. It also includes advice on preparing for an evacuation, seeking protection during shelling or shooting, and what to do during a chemical or nuclear attack.
The center says it is obliged to prepare the public for various difficult scenarios and the guide is not necessarily due to the war in Ukraine. Previous guides addressed situations like floods and harsh winter weather.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— Burned, piled bodies among latest horrors in Bucha, Ukraine
— Russia’s setback in Kyiv was memorable military failure
— At UN, Ukraine President Zelenskyy accuses Russian military of war crimes
— Russian media campaign falsely claims Bucha deaths are fakes
— China calls for probe into Bucha killings, assigns no blame
— US official: US, allies, to ban new investments in Russia
— Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger says he will join EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to travel to the Ukrainian capital to meet with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy later this week.
Heger said on Wednesday, “Tomorrow in the evening, I will travel to Kyiv.” He declined to give further details about the trip.
Von der Leyen has planned to travel to Kyiv with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
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BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he expects more images to emerge like the ones of dead civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha and is assailing Russian assertions that they were staged.
Scholz told Germany’s parliament on Wednesday, “Russian soldiers carried out a massacre of Ukrainian civilians before their withdrawal” from Bucha.
He added: “The cynical assertion spread by Russia that this … is staged falls back on those who spread these lies. The killing of civilians is a war crime.”
Scholz said the perpetrators and the superiors who gave them orders must be held to account. He said: “We must not forget: we have to expect that we will see more such pictures.”
The chancellor said that “the killing by the Russian military is continuing undiminished.” He renewed a call for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “end this destructive and self-destructive war immediately” and withdraw his troops from Ukraine.
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GENEVA — The top ally and chief strategist of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is welcoming reports that the U.S. might impose sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s daughters and says Putin’s “most important confidante” should be sanctioned, too.
Leonid Volkov said Wednesday it isn’t clear what, if any, properties Putin’s daughters might own that could be seized. But he says including them on the next sanctions list would send an important message as part of the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Tuesday that the Russian leader’s closest family members could be targeted by the next round of sanctions against Russia.
Speaking at the independent Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, Volkov said Navalny’s anti-corruption movement also wants Western countries to sanction Alina Kabayeva, who won Olympic gold in rhythmic gymnastics in 2004. SHe is reported to be romantically linked to Putin.
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BERLIN — A German spokesman says the government has information which indicates that bodies found after Ukraine retook Bucha last week had been lying there since at least March 10, when Russian troops were in control of the town.
Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that the information was based on non-commercial satellite images taken March 10-18 of Yablonska Street in Bucha.
“Credible information shows that from March 7 to March 30 Russian soldiers and security forces were deployed in this area,” he said. “They were also tasked with the interrogation of prisoners who were subsequently executed.”
Hebestreit said that “targeted killings by units of the Russian military and security forces are therefore proof that the Russian President and supreme commander has at least approvingly accepted human rights abuses and war crimes to achieve his goals.”
“The assertions made by the Russian side that these are staged scenes or they aren’t responsible for the murders are therefore not tenable,” he added.
Asked about the source of this information, Hebestreit said that images reviewed by Germany “were not commercial satellite images.” He declined to elaborate.
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HELSINKI — The Finnish Customs agency says three consignments seized on the border with Russia contain artworks and artifacts on loan to Finland from several Russian art museums with a total insurance value of around 42 million euros ($46 million).
The seizure at the Vaalimaa border point in southeastern Finland on April 2 and April 3 came as the cargo fell under the European Union sanctions imposed on Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, Finland Customs said on Wednesday.
Finland’s Foreign Ministry says the Russian artworks, including valuable paintings and statues, are classified as luxury items subject to EU sanctions on Russia, and that Finnish Customs had no other option than to temporarily confiscate them.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Teemu Sepponen told public broadcaster YLE that Russian museums will maintain legal ownership or the artworks that “have been temporarily taken over” and are stored in a secure place in Finland.
According to Russian media, the artworks were en route to Russia after having been loan in exhibitions in several museums in Italy, including the Palazzo Reale museum in Milan and the Gallerie d’Italia museum.
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s defense ministry says authorities have detected a third naval mine drifting in the Black Sea, and military teams have been dispatched to deactivate it.
The explosive device was detected on Wednesday off the coast of northwestern Kocaeli province, and the area has been “secured,” the ministry said.
It was the third mine spotted in Turkish waters since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including one that forced authorities to close Istanbul’s Bosporus Strait to traffic.
Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations about the naval mines that have been threatening shipping in the Black Sea.
The Russian military has alleged that the Ukrainian military has used old naval mines to protect the coast against a Russian landing and some of them have been ripped off their anchors by a storm and left adrift. Ukraine has accused Russia of using Ukrainian mines it seized after the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and setting them adrift to discredit Ukraine.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Norway is following other European nations and expelling Russian diplomats.
Norway’s Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said Wednesday that three Russian diplomats had carried out activities incompatible with their status.
The timing for the expulsions “was not accidental” and comes “at a time when the whole world is shaken by reports of Russian forces abusing civilians, especially in the city of Bucha,” Huitfeldt said in a statement.
In recent days, numerous European countries have expelled Russian diplomats and staff at Russian diplomatic missions.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says negotiations with Ukraine are continuing despite allegations of war crimes against civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
Peskov said Wednesday the talks continued with Ukraine but that the Bucha revelations — which he referred to as a “staging” — had hampered talks and there was “a fairly long road ahead.”
“The working process continues, but it is going much more tough than we would like. Of course, we would like to see more dynamism from the Ukrainian side, but the process has not been broken off and is continuing,” Peskov said.
Russia retreated from areas around Kyiv and the northern cities of Chernihiv and Sumy after talks with Ukraine in Turkey last week. Ukrainian troops entering the areas found evidence of widespread killings of civilians. Russia denies any war crimes and has alleged Ukraine has faked the incidents.
Since the talks in Turkey, Russia and Ukraine’s delegations have continued talks via video link.
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GENEVA — The International Committee of the Red Cross says one of its teams in Ukraine has led some 500 people who fled Mariupol in a humanitarian convoy of buses and private cars to a safer location in the embattled country.
The ICRC says its team that has been trying to enter Mariupol since last Friday got within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the besieged city, but security conditions made it impossible to enter. The convoy escorted the civilians from coastal Berdyansk to Zaporizhzhia, to the north.
“This convoy’s arrival to Zaporizhzhia is a huge relief for hundreds of people who have suffered immensely and are now in a safer location,” said Pascal Hundt, ICRC’s head of delegation in Ukraine. “It’s clear, though, that thousands more civilians trapped inside Mariupol need safe passage out and aid to come in.”
He said the Geneva-based organization remains available as “a neutral intermediary” to help escort civilians out of Mariupol “once concrete agreements and security conditions allow it.”
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BERLIN — The aid group Doctors without Borders says its staff members have witnessed an attack on a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.
The group, known by its French acronym MSF, said Wednesday that a four-member team had just entered the city’s cancer hospital when the area came under fire.
It quoted team leader Michel-Olivier Lacharite saying Monday’s attack lasted about 10 minutes. Upon leaving the hospital the team saw several injured people and dead bodies.
Lacharite was quoted as saying the bombardment of the hospital, located in a residential area, was likely to have caused civilian casualties and called on medical facilities not to be targeted.
The group didn’t provide information on which side in the war might have carried out the attack. Under international law, attacks on medical facilities and workers are deemed war crimes.
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ROME — Italian firefighters have put out a fire at a villa on Lake Como reportedly owned by the pro-Putin Russian television personality Vladimir Soloyvev, who has been hit with European Union sanctions.
An official at the Como fire station confirmed that firefighters extinguished the early morning blaze Wednesday at the villa in Menaggio, one of the picturesque towns that dot the lake in northern Italy.
He said police were investigating the fire as a suspected act of protest. The villa was under renovation and the blaze involved tires at the site, said the official who declined to be identified by name, citing official policy.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera and news agency LaPresse said the villa was owned by Solovyev, a presenter on state run Channel One.
According to the EU list of sanctions, Solovyev is “known for his extremely hostile attitude towards Ukraine and praise of the Russian government.” The EU says he was targeted because of his support for “actions or policies which undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”
Italian carabinieri are investigating.
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LONDON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of using hunger as a weapon of war by deliberately targeting Ukraine’s essential food supplies.
In an address to Irish lawmakers Wednesday, Zelenskyy said Russian forces “are destroying things that are sustaining livelihoods” including food storage depots, blocking ports so Ukraine could not export food and “putting mines into the fields.”
“For them hunger is also a weapon, a weapon against us ordinary people,” he said, accusing Russia of “deliberately provoking a food crisis” in Ukraine, a major global producer of staples including wheat and sunflower oil.
He said it would have international ramifications, because “there will be a shortage of food and the prices will go up, and this is reality for the millions of people who are hungry, and it will be more difficult for them to feed their families.”
Zelenskyy spoke by video to a joint session of Ireland’s two houses of parliament, the latest in a string of international addresses he has used to rally support for Ukraine.
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BRUSSELS — A senior European Union official says the bloc’s member countries should think about ways of offering asylum to Russian soldiers willing to desert Ukraine battlefields.
European Council president Charles Michel on Wednesday expressed his “outrage at crimes against humanity, against innocent civilians in Bucha and in many other cities.”
He called on Russian soldiers to disobey orders.
“If you want no part in killing your Ukrainian brothers and sisters, if you don’t want to be a criminal, drop your weapons, stop fighting, leave the battlefield,” Michel, who represents the bloc’s governments, said in a speech to the European Parliament
Endorsing an idea previously circulated by some EU lawmakers, Michel added that granting asylum to Russian deserters is “a valuable idea that should be pursued.”
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ATHENS, Greece — Greece has joined a list of European countries expelling Russian diplomats, with the foreign ministry announcing on Wednesday it had declared 12 diplomats unwelcome.
The ministry said it had declared 12 members of Russian diplomatic and consular missions accredited to Greece as “personae non gratae,” and that the Russian ambassador had been informed.
It did not specify which diplomats were being expelled or state a reason, beyond citing that the move was carried out in accordance with international treaties.
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BERLIN — Germany’s foreign minister has accused Russia of spreading disinformation to justify its war in Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Wednesday that “as Russian tanks destroy Ukrainian cities, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine is censoring news, restricting social media, spreading disinformation and punishing those who dare to speak the truth.”
She said the aim was “both clear and cynical: to demoralize the courageous people of Ukraine while keeping Russians in the dark.”
Baerbock spoke in a video message to a conference on disinformation organized by her ministry at which participants also cited examples of Russian efforts to stoke resentment in Europe against refugees from Ukraine.
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LONDON — Intel says it is suspending all its business operations in Russia, becoming the latest foreign company to leave because of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
“Effective immediately, we have suspended all business operations in Russia,” the U.S. chipmaker said late Wednesday.
The company had already suspended shipments to customers in Russia and neighboring ally Belarus after the war broke out.
Intel said it’s working to support its 1,200 employees in Russia and has put in place “business continuity measures” to reduce disruption to its global operations, though it didn’t provide details.
“Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace,” it said in a statement.
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BEIJING — China says the reports and images of civilian deaths in the Ukrainian town of Bucha are “deeply disturbing” and it is calling for an investigation.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Wednesday that China supports all initiatives and measures “conducive to alleviating the humanitarian crisis” in the country and is “ready to continue to work together with the international community to prevent any harm to civilians.”
The killings in Bucha may serve to put further pressure on Beijing over its largely pro-Russian stance and attempts to guide public opinion over the war.
China has called for talks while refusing to criticize Russia over its invasion. It opposes economic sanctions on Moscow and blames Washington and NATO for provoking the war and fueling the conflict by sending arms to Ukraine.
Zhao’s remarks echo those the previous day of China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, who called for an investigation, describing the reports and images of civilian deaths in Bucha as “deeply disturbing.”
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has kissed a battered Ukrainian flag that was brought to him from the Ukrainian city of Bucha and called again for an end to the war.
Francis welcomed a half-dozen Ukrainian children up to the stage of the Vatican audience hall at the end of his Wednesday general audience and gave them each a giant chocolate Easter egg. He urged prayers for them and for all Ukrainians.
“The recent news from the war in Ukraine, instead of bringing relief and hope, brought testimony of new atrocities, like the massacre in Bucha, even more horrendous cruelty carried out against civilians, defenseless women and children,” the pope said.
He told the crowd: “These children had to flee to arrive in a safe place. This is the fruit of war.”
The pontiff held up a grimy Ukrainian flag that he said had arrived at the Vatican on Tuesday from Bucha, where evidence has emerged of what appears to be intentional killings of civilians during the city’s occupation by Russian troops.
Kissing it, he said: “This flag comes from the war, from that martyred city Bucha …. Let us not forget them. Let us not forget the people of Ukraine.”
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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador on Wednesday after days of the two countries’ officials trading barbs over Hungary’s position on the war.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote in a social media post on Wednesday that “we condemn military aggression, we stand by Ukraine’s sovereignty,” but that “this is not our war, so we want to and will stay out of it.”
Hungary’s government has refused to supply weapons to Ukraine or allow their transfer across the Hungarian-Ukrainian border, and has fought against applying sanctions on Russian energy imports.
That position has prompted criticism of Hungary’s government by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy. He said in an address on Ukrainian television that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban would need to choose between Moscow and “the other world” of the West.
Orban, who won a landslide victory in Hungarian elections on Sunday, in a victory speech depicted Zelenskyy as one of the opponents he and his right-wing party had defeated.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Norway is beefing up its police and intelligence work, chiefly in the northern part of the country, which has a nearly 200-kilometer (124-mile) land border with Russia, and wants to spend 100 million kroner ($11.5 million) on it.
Norway’s domestic intelligence service considers the intelligence threat from Russia in the Scandinavian country to have increased, Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said Wednesday.
The money would be spent on staff and equipment. The government also wants to exert more control over Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic with a Russian settlement. Under a 1920 treaty, Norway has sovereignty over Svalbard, but other signatory countries have rights to exploit its natural resources — coal.
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The governor of Russia’s Kursk region on the border with Ukraine said Wednesday that Russian border guards were fired at with mortars on Tuesday.
Governor Roman Starovoit said on the messaging app Telegram that the border guards returned fire and that there were “no casualties or destruction” on the Russian side as a result of the incident.
The Ukrainian military has not yet commented on the allegation, and it could not be independently verified.
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LONDON — British defense officials say 160,000 people remain trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol, where Russian airstrikes and heavy fighting are continuing.
The Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update Wednesday that those in the city have “no light, communication, medicine, heat or water.” It accused Russian forces of deliberately preventing humanitarian access, “likely to pressure defenders to surrender.”
Repeated attempts by the International Committee of the Red Cross to get a humanitarian convoy into the southern port city have failed. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Russian forces stopped buses accompanied by Red Cross workers from traveling to Mariupol, which had a pre-war population of about 400,000. She said Russian troops allowed 1,496 civilians to leave the Sea of Azov port on Tuesday.
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey says it shares the pain of the Ukrainian people over the “horrifying” images that emerged from towns near Kyiv and is calling for an independent investigation.
A statement from Turkey’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday stopped short, however, of blaming Russia or describing the atrocities as a war crime.
Turkey has been measured in its criticism of Russia as it tries to balance its close relations with both Moscow and Kyiv. The country has hosted officials from the two countries for talks in a bid to end the war.
“The targeting of innocent civilians is unacceptable. It is our basic expectation that the issue is subjected to an independent investigation, that those responsible are identified and are held accountable,” the statement read.
Scenes that have emerged from Bucha, Irpin and other Ukrainian towns liberated by Ukrainian forces have led to accusations of war crimes and demands for tougher sanctions against Russia.
The ministry statement said Turkey would continue its efforts to end such “shameful scenes for humanity and to ensure peace as soon as possible.”
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LVIV, Ukraine – Russian forces overnight struck a fuel depot and a factory in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, and the number of casualties remains unclear, the region’s governor said Wednesday on the Telegram messaging app.
“The night was alarming and difficult. The enemy attacked our area from the air and hit the oil depot and one of the plants,” Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko wrote. “The oil depot with fuel was destroyed. Rescuers are still putting out the flames at the plant. There is a strong fire.”
In the eastern Luhansk region, shelling of the city of Rubizhne on Tuesday killed one and injured five more, Gov. Serhiy Haidai said Wednesday on Telegram.
The Russian military continues to focus its efforts on preparing for an offensive in Ukraine’s east, according to a Wednesday morning update by Ukraine’s General Staff, with the aim “to establish complete control over the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”
Parts of the two regions have been under control of Russia-backed rebels since 2014 and are recognized by Moscow as independent states.
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