(LONDON) — Trevor Reed, a former Marine from Texas who had been held in a Russian prison for nine years, has been released, according to a statement from Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.
Reed was exchanged for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, a convicted drug trafficker, the ministry said.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(LONDON) — The editor of the Mail on Sunday refused a request to meet with the U.K. House of Commons’ speaker over an article widely derided as misogynistic and sexist that accused the deputy leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Angela Rayner, of using Basic Instinct tactics to “distract” Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his weekly audience with lawmakers.
The speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, had summoned David Dillon, the newspaper’s editor, in response to the article, roundly criticized as “misogynistic,” but the Mail on Sunday has refused the request, citing free press concerns and evidence that Rayner may have joked about the comparison.
Rayner, one of the leading figures in the Labour Party, told ITV News that the article was “disgusting,” untrue and had left her “crestfallen,” saying that she felt compelled to wear trousers for her first TV appearance to discuss the story on Tuesday.
“I didn’t want people at home thinking, ‘Let’s have a look to see what her legs are like and how short her skirt is or not,'” she said. “Because I feel like I’m being judged for what I wear, rather than what I’m saying to you and how I come across.”
The article, which appeared in the Mail on Sunday last week, reported that anonymous lawmakers from Johnson’s ruling Conservative Party had claimed that Rayner put the prime minister “off his stride” by crossing and uncrossing her legs during prime minister’s questions, the weekly half-hour sessions in the House of Commons when the government is held to account.
The article was accompanied by a picture of Rayner in the House of Commons and a picture of actress Sharon Stone from the 1992 movie Basic Instinct, a reference to the infamous scene where she crosses and uncrosses her legs during a police interrogation. Despite widespread criticism, the original article on the newspaper’s Twitter account has not been deleted.
Rayner said she was “fearful” of the story coming out and asked the Mail on Sunday not to run with it.
“I was with my teenage sons … trying to prepare my children for seeing things online,” she told ITV. “They don’t want to see their mum portrayed that way and I felt really down about that.”
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the House of Commons, who presides over debates in the legislature, summoned the newspaper’s editor for a meeting about the article, which is due to take place on Wednesday. Hoyle described the article as “misogynistic and offensive.”
Both the Mail on Sunday and the Conservative Party have come under a barrage of criticism for the “misogynistic article.” The Mail on Sunday’s publisher, Associated Newspapers, has not commented on the article.
Johnson and a number of other MPs condemned the “misogyny directed anonymously” at Rayner. Though Rayner thanked the prime minister for his comments, she had earlier said that Johnson was “dragging the Conservative Party into the sewer.”
The scandal is the latest in a string of controversies that have dogged the prime minister, who was recently fined for breaking his own lockdown laws.
The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, said that the briefing to the Mail on Sunday was “a disgraceful new low from a party mired in scandal and chaos.”
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military earlier this month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 26, 10:53 am
‘People’s Friendship’ statue taken down in Kyiv
A Soviet-era statue that has stood in the capital of Ukraine since 1982 and once symbolized the friendship between Russia and Ukraine was taken down on Tuesday in response to the war between the two countries.
An ABC News crew was on-hand in Kyiv as a large crane removed the bronze “People’s Friendship” statue from its pedestal.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the statue, a gift from the former Soviet Union, is being dismantled because of the “brutal killing and a desire to destroy our state.”
The statue depicts two workers, a Russian and a Ukrainian, holding up a Soviet Order of Friendship of Peoples. The monument was dedicated in November 1982 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the USSR and the 1,500th anniversary of Kyiv.
Klitschko said a 164-foot-tall titanium rainbow-shaped arch the statue rested under will remain and be illuminated with the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
-ABC News’ Marcus Moore
Apr 26, 7:07 am
US gathers NATO allies in Germany for Ukraine aid talks
The U.S. will “keep moving heaven and earth” to supply aid to Ukraine, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday at a meeting of the Ukraine Security Consultive Group, which includes military representatives from about 40 countries.
“Ukraine clearly believes it can win. And so does everyone here,” Austin said in his opening remarks at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. “I know that we’re all determined to do everything we can to support Ukraine’s needs as the fight evolves.”
Austin said the group would seek to leave with a common understanding of “Ukraine’s near term security requirements, because we’re going to keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet them.”
He called Russia’s war with Ukraine “indefensible,” adding that Putin didn’t “imagine the world [would] rally behind Ukraine’s so swiftly and so surely.”
Apr 26, 6:08 am
Russia attempts to encircle Ukrainian positions in east, UK says
Russian forces appeared to be moving to encircle “heavily fortified” Ukrainian positions in the east, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.
“The city of Kreminna has reportedly fallen and heavy fighting is reported south of Izium, as Russian forces attempt to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east,” the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.
Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia were preparing for an attack from the south, the ministry said.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea is as of this month one of only two countries, along with Eritrea, that haven’t administered COVID-19 vaccines, despite continuous international efforts to supply the secretive country with vaccines.
Pyongyang last year turned down nearly two million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines and nearly three million doses of Sinovac vaccines offered by the international COVAX program. The country had requested that the Sinovac vaccines instead be re-allocated to severely affected nations.
Nearly 250,000 doses of Novavax vaccines allotted for North Korea by COVAX were canceled early this year, apparently due to a lack of response from Pyongyang. Experts say that Pyongyang’s dissatisfaction with the number and type of vaccines offered likely prompted them to turn down the shipments.
“The vaccines offered to North Korea so far are mostly those from AstraZeneca and Sinovac. What Pyongyang wants is U.S.-made vaccines, such as those from Pfizer,” Lee Wootae, director and research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told ABC News.
Another expert pointed out that North Korea turned down the vaccine offer because it didn’t fulfill the quantity the isolated regime wanted.
“It is not unreasonable for Pyongyang to decide that administering such a small amount of doses would have little effect,” Shin Young-jeon, professor at the Hanyang University College of Medicine, told ABC News.
Some believe Pyongyang’s reluctance is primarily affected by political judgment.
“The message that North Korea overcame a medical crisis with the help of U.S.-made vaccines will be difficult for the Kim Jong Un regime to justify, considering its critical stance towards the U.S.,” Lim Eul Chul, a professor at The Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, told ABC News.
The secretive regime may also have taken issue with the possibility of international supervision. The condition for receiving vaccines may not have been a comfortable prospect for Pyongyang, given the country’s state of total seclusion.
“For Pyongyang to accept vaccine offers, it must guarantee a transparent vaccine distribution plan. This means letting international monitors into the country and allowing them to interfere with how the vaccine is being distributed, and to whom,” Lim added.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 25, 6:34 pm
Fate of democracy in Europe being decided in Ukraine, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned European superpowers that the fate of the continent is being determined by the conflict currently unfolding in Ukraine.
The future of global security and democracy in Europe are currently being decided in Ukraine, Zelenskyy said during his nightly address on Monday.
“The lessons of history are well known,” he said. “If you are going to build a millennial Reich, you lose. If you are going to destroy the neighbors, you lose. If you want to restore the old empire, you lose. And if you go against the Ukrainians, you lose.”
Ukraine Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Monday that Russia is attempting to make it seem like the world is on the brink of World War III because it has lost its “last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine.”
“Thus the talks of ‘real danger’ of WWIII,” Kuleba wrote “This only means Moscow senses a defeat in Ukraine.”
-ABC News’ Max Uzol and Christine Theodorou
Apr 25, 4:59 pm
Russian foreign minister says NATO supplies essentially a proxy war against Russia
In an interview with Russia’s Channel One, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said NATO weapons supplied to Ukraine are essentially a proxy war and that Russian troops will consider the Ukrainian warehouses storing the weapons as legitimate targets.
“Of course, these weapons will be a legitimate target for the Russian armed forces, which operate as part of a special armed operation. And warehouses, including in western Ukraine, have become such targets more than once,” Lavrov said Monday. “If NATO, in fact, goes to war with Russia, through a proxy, and arms this proxy, then in war as in war.”
Lavrov also claimed that “the real position of Ukraine is determined in Washington, London and other Western capitals.”
“Therefore, our political analysts say, why talk with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy]’s team, we need to talk with the Americans, negotiate with them, reach some kind of agreement,” Lavrov said.
-ABC News’ Natalia Shumskaia
Apr 25, 3:01 pm
Russian forces target railways, killing at least 5
Russian forces have carried out five strikes targeting Ukraine railway stations, according to the head of the state-run Ukrainian railways, Oleksandr Kamyshin.
The hardest hit were the towns of Zhmerynka and Kozyatyn, where five people were killed and 18 were injured, according to Serhii Borzov, the head of the Vinnytsia regional military administration.
No casualties were reported in the other railway strikes, which were in the Lviv, Rivne and Zhytomyr regions, officials said.
-ABC News’ Natalya Kushnir, Fidel Pavlenko and Christine Theodorou
Apr 25, 2:14 pm
UN secretary-general heading to Moscow for Lavrov, Putin meetings
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is traveling on Monday to Moscow, where on Tuesday he will have a working meeting and lunch with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov followed by a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a deputy spokesperson for the secretary-general said.
On Thursday, Guterres will visit Ukraine where he’ll meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Apr 25, 1:25 pm
About 15,000 Russian troops killed in Ukraine war
About 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since the Ukraine invasion began, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Members of Parliament on Monday, according to the British Press Association.
Russia has lost more than 60 helicopters and fighter jets, and over 2,000 of Russia’s armored vehicles have been destroyed or captured, Wallace added.
Apr 25, 9:25 am
Biden announces nominee for ambassador to Ukraine
President Joe Biden is nominating Bridget Brink to serve as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, he announced Monday.
Brink is currently the U.S. ambassador to the Slovak Republic and previously served as senior adviser and deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
“Brink spent her twenty-five-year career in the Foreign Service focused on advancing U.S. policy in Europe and Eurasia,” Biden’s statement said.
Apr 25, 6:13 am
Blinken says Russia ‘already failed’ to achieve war goals
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said Russian had “already failed” to achieve its stated goals in Ukraine.
“In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed,” Blinken told reporters in Poland, near the Ukrainian border. “And Ukraine has already succeeded because the principal aim that President Putin brought to this, in his own words, was to fully subsume Ukraine, back into Russia to take away its sovereignty and independence. And that has not happened and clearly will not happen.”
Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met on Sunday with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, the capital, becoming the highest-level U.S. officials to visit the war-torn country since Russia invaded in February.
Topics discussed during their three-hour meeting included defense assistance, further sanctions on Russia and financial support for Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy’s office.
“We appreciate the unprecedented assistance of the United States to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said, according to his office. “I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position.”
He added, “To thank all the American people, as well as the Congress for their bicameral and bipartisan support. We see it. We feel it.”
Apr 25, 1:03 am
US to provide $322M in additional aid, diplomats to return to Ukraine, officials tell Zelenskyy
The United States will provide Ukraine with $322 million in new aid and some diplomats will return to the war-torn country, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday.
Blinken told Zelenskyy the U.S. would begin returning its diplomats to Ukraine this week, according to the senior State Dept. official. The U.S. will reopen offices in Lviv in western Ukraine, with diplomats traveling there from Poland each day, with the goal to “have our diplomats return to our embassy in Kyiv as soon as possible.”
President Joe Biden will also formally nominate Bridget Brink, currently serving as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, according to the senior State Dept. official.
Among the new assistance announced last week, the first of the new Howitzers have arrived in Ukraine, Austin told Zelenskyy, a senior defense official told ABC News.
-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan
Apr 24, 5:23 pm
US secretary of state, defense chief meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv
An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Chief Lloyd Austin are meeting with Ukraine’s leader on Sunday in Kyiv.
The adviser, Oleksii Arestovich, said in an interview on Ukrainian TV late Sunday that the talks are going on “right now.”
-ABC News’ Jason Volack
Apr 24, 5:08 pm
More than 2.9M people have fled Ukraine to Poland
More than 2.9 million people have fled Ukraine and sought refuge in Poland since the Russian invasion began in February, the Polish Border Guard said on Sunday.
In recent days, however, the number of people crossing the border into Poland has fallen, while the number of refugees going back into Ukraine has risen, according to the border guard.
On Saturday, about 21,100 people entered Ukraine from Poland, while 15,100 fled to Poland from Ukraine, the agency said on Twitter.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 26, 6:08 am
Russia attempts to encircle Ukrainian positions in east, UK says
Russian forces appeared to be moving to encircle “heavily fortified” Ukrainian positions in the east, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.
“The city of Kreminna has reportedly fallen and heavy fighting is reported south of Izium, as Russian forces attempt to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east,” the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.
Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia were preparing for an attack from the south, the ministry said.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(PARIS) — French President Emmanuel Macron comfortably won a second term in office on Sunday, defeating far-right challenger Marine Le Pen in a closely watched runoff election.
Final results released by the French Ministry of the Interior on Monday show the centrist incumbent secured a decisive 58.54% of the vote, while Le Pen garnered 41.46%. Macron, 44, is the first sitting French president to be reelected in 20 years. He and Le Pen, 53, emerged as the top candidates in the 2022 French presidential election after a first-round vote on April 10. Sunday’s runoff was a rematch of the 2017 presidential election, in which Macron beat Le Pen by a landslide.
This year, however, Macron’s victory was marred by low voter turnout and Le Pen’s ever-rising popularity. According to official figures, approximately 28% of registered voters in France did not vote in Sunday’s presidential election, the highest amount in the past two decades. French voters can also show their dissatisfaction with both candidates by voting “blanc.” Blank ballots represented 6.35% of the votes on Sunday.
While Le Pen conceded defeat on Sunday night, she told her supporters that the “result represents in itself a dazzling victory” because the amount of votes she won was the highest by a far-right candidate in France’s modern history.
Henri Wallard, the chairman of French polling institute Ipsos in Paris and its global deputy CEO, said the outcome of the 2022 presidential election showed that Le Pen’s “‘de-demonization’ has partially worked.”
“A Le Pen vote is increasingly seen as a credible alternative and not just a protest vote,” Wallard told ABC News on Monday.
Douglas Yates, a professor of international relations and diplomacy at the American Graduate School in Paris, said Macron was triumphant “less because the French support his programs and more because they did not support Le Pen’s.”
“He must keep this in mind,” Yates told ABC News on Monday. “She promised domestic programs that would be popular, things that help them fight the cost of living. He should take out his checkbook and write them some checks if he wants to keep his majority in the upcoming legislative elections.”
Macron was all but absent from the campaign trail as he moderated talks between Putin and Western countries, which ultimately failed to prevent the war in Ukraine. Many French citizens were feeling disenfranchised by Macron’s stringent COVID-19 policies and unpopular plans to raise the legal retirement age amid widespread inflation and soaring gas prices.
Nevertheless, the election outcome proved that “there still was an anti-Le Pen front in large urban constituencies,” according to Wallard.
During his victory speech in front of Paris’ Eiffel Tower on Sunday night, Macron vowed to unite his divided country.
“An answer must be found to the anger and disagreements that led many of our compatriots to vote for the extreme right,” Macron told his supporters. “It will be my responsibility and that of those around me.”
Although Le Pen’s far-right French political party National Rally has performed poorly in previous legislative elections, Yates said the party’s strongholds in the south, east and north of France “might give them seats” when voters return to the polls in June.
Le Pen, known for her vociferous rhetoric, sought to soften her image as the leader of the National Rally during this year’s election. The former lawyer was no longer directly calling for France to leave the European Union and abandon the euro currency.
However, she was likened to former U.S. President Donald Trump with her hard-line policies on Islam and immigration. If elected, she vowed to ban Muslim headscarves in public and give French citizens priority over foreigners for housing and job benefits.
Le Pen was also criticized for her history of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. She called Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine “unacceptable” and said she’s in favor of sanctions, but she publicly opposed restrictions on Russian energy imports, citing concerns about the rising cost of living in France. She also pledged to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated military command, which could undermine support for Ukraine’s fight. Le Pen previously spoke out in favor of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Ahead of the vote, French street artist Jaeraymie created distorted versions of Le Pen’s campaign posters in an effort to call out extremism. In one of his posters seen in Paris, Le Pen is depicted wearing a hijab, a Muslim headscarf, with the words: “Don’t submit to a thinly veiled extreme right.”
“She wants to ban the hijab in public spaces in France,” Jaeraymie told ABC News earlier this month. “So I found it interesting to tell her: ‘Why not imagine what it’s like to be a hijabi woman in France?'”
A passerby at the time was amused by the large poster, telling ABC News: “It’s quite funny to put into question their ideas.”
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(HONG KONG) — A new COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing is raising fears that China’s capital could be sent into a hard lockdown, like the one in Shanghai that’s entering a fifth week.
Beijing residents are stocking up and clearing shelves, despite authorities telling residents there are enough supplies to go around.
About 3.5 million residents in Beijing’s affluent Chaoyang district, which includes the central business district, will have to undergo mandatory mass testing three times this week to contain a spike in cases, with 70 infections reported citywide there since Friday.
China’s daily cases rose 4% to 20,194 on Monday, most of them in Shanghai. The city has now recorded 506,000 infections since the start of March.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has put his personal stamp on China’s “Zero Covid” strategy, defended his government’s approach as recently as last Thursday, when he delivered a keynote speech via video to the Boao Forum for Asia, China’s answer to the Davos forum.
“Safety and health are the prerequisite for human development and progress. For humanity to clinch the final victory against the Covid-19 pandemic, more hard efforts are needed,” he said.
The Chinese leader has made it clear before that he wants to keep the capital city COVID-free. A lockdown in Beijing would add political strain to a strategy of which the economic and social costs are growing by the day.
Chinese stocks dropped to the lowest levels in two years Monday over fears of more curbs to the nation’s capital.
Beijing’s Communist Party Secretary Cai Qi was quoted in Beijing Daily newspaper on Sunday as saying, “Important pandemic measures cannot be left waiting till the next day … all at-risk sites and individuals involved in these cases must be checked that day.”
Chinese health official Pang Xinghuo said on Sunday that cases have been spreading undetected in the city for about a week.
Health workers in Shanghai put up green metal barriers this weekend in some areas where cases are detected. In a notice circulated on Chinese social media, the epidemic control office for the Pudong New Area in Shanghai Authorities referred to this method as “hard isolation,” which is meant to provide a physical barrier between areas with different risk factors and keep the roads clear.
Shanghai reported 51 more deaths on Monday, prompting another round of mass testing for residents in the next few days.
Authorities had hoped to ease restrictions once social transmission was significantly reduced, but the measures have remained strict for most residents in the financial hub.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 25, 9:25 am
Biden announces nominee for ambassador to Ukraine
President Joe Biden is nominating Bridget Brink to serve as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, he announced Monday.
Brink is currently the U.S. ambassador to the Slovak Republic and previously served as senior adviser and deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
“Brink spent her twenty-five-year career in the Foreign Service focused on advancing U.S. policy in Europe and Eurasia,” Biden’s statement said.
Apr 25, 6:13 am
Blinken says Russia ‘already failed’ to achieve war goals
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said Russian had “already failed” to achieve its stated goals in Ukraine.
“In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed,” Blinken told reporters in Poland, near the Ukrainian border. “And Ukraine has already succeeded because the principal aim that President Putin brought to this, in his own words, was to fully subsume Ukraine, back into Russia to take away its sovereignty and independence. And that has not happened and clearly will not happen.”
Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met on Sunday with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, the capital, becoming the highest-level U.S. officials to visit the war-torn country since Russia invaded in February.
Topics discussed during their three-hour meeting included defense assistance, further sanctions on Russia and financial support for Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy’s office.
“We appreciate the unprecedented assistance of the United States to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said, according to his office. “I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position.”
He added, “To thank all the American people, as well as the Congress for their bicameral and bipartisan support. We see it. We feel it.”
Apr 25, 1:03 am
US to provide $322M in additional aid, diplomats to return to Ukraine, officials tell Zelenskyy
The United States will provide Ukraine with $322 million in new aid and some diplomats will return to the war-torn country, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday.
Blinken told Zelenskyy the U.S. would begin returning its diplomats to Ukraine this week, according to the senior State Dept. official. The U.S. will reopen offices in Lviv in western Ukraine, with diplomats traveling there from Poland each day, with the goal to “have our diplomats return to our embassy in Kyiv as soon as possible.”
President Joe Biden will also formally nominate Bridget Brink, currently serving as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, according to the senior State Dept. official.
Among the new assistance announced last week, the first of the new Howitzers have arrived in Ukraine, Austin told Zelenskyy, a senior defense official told ABC News.
-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan
Apr 24, 5:23 pm
US secretary of state, defense chief meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv
An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Chief Lloyd Austin are meeting with Ukraine’s leader on Sunday in Kyiv.
The adviser, Oleksii Arestovich, said in an interview on Ukrainian TV late Sunday that the talks are going on “right now.”
-ABC News’ Jason Volack
Apr 24, 5:08 pm
More than 2.9M people have fled Ukraine to Poland
More than 2.9 million people have fled Ukraine and sought refuge in Poland since the Russian invasion began in February, the Polish Border Guard said on Sunday.
In recent days, however, the number of people crossing the border into Poland has fallen, while the number of refugees going back into Ukraine has risen, according to the border guard.
On Saturday, about 21,100 people entered Ukraine from Poland, while 15,100 fled to Poland from Ukraine, the agency said on Twitter.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NEW YORK) — The United Nations Security Council’s lack of action to intervene in the war in Ukraine, with more than one resolution being vetoed by Russia, has resurfaced criticism of the body.
The Ukrainian government has heavily criticized the body for not taking action to stop the war, with strong criticism coming from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who, in an address to its Security Council, challenged the body to act or “dissolve” itself.
The U.N. General Assembly passed resolutions condemning the war in Ukraine, including a resolution to remove Russia from the Human Rights Council, exposing what little support Russia has for its war and international condemnation for its alleged war crimes.
Historically, when the Council has been unable to take action, the U.N. General Assembly has intervened, experts told ABC News.
The Security Council, a body consisting of 15 members, five of which are permanent with veto power dubbed the P-5, is responsible for peace and security. The remaining 10 non-permanent seats rotate by election of other U.N. members for two year periods. The permanent members are China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.
This story explores the shortcomings of the Security Council and ways it can be reformed.
Can Russia be removed or its veto power taken away?
Removing a member from the Security Council or the General Assembly requires a recommendation from the Security Council.
Because Russia is one of the P-5 and has veto power, it can block any resolution from being passed, keeping its seat safe. It would be impossible to remove Russia from the council unless it agrees to its own expulsion or suspension.
While there has been wide international condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it could still use its position in the U.N. to serve its domestic interests. Whenever Russia is represented in the U.N. Security Council, it uses the opportunity to sell the war at home, even if the international community does not believe what they are saying, Paul Poast, an associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago, told ABC News in an interview.
“A lot of times, there’s value in being there, even if you’re not getting anything done, just because it’s useful for this domestic political purpose,” Poast said.
Experts agree that is unlikely Russia will be removed, but one expert said it is not impossible.
The U.N. Charter lists the Republic of China as one of the P-5. Experts said this is actually Taiwan, as the charter itself was drafted before the communist revolution in China, Kim Lane Scheppele, an international affairs professor at Princeton who focuses on international law, told ABC News.
The civil war, sparked by the Chinese Revolution in 1948, led to “what had been the government of China [fleeing] to Taiwan. And Security Council membership fled with the government,” Scheppele said.
Taiwan remained a permanent member until 1971 when a General Assembly resolution, pushed for by China, transferred the seat.
“The language of the Republic of China, in the in the U.N. Charter, was reinterpreted to mean that the membership moved from Taiwan to the mainland,” Scheppele said.
This could be applied to Russia as well, given that the U.N. charter lists the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” as a permanent member of the Council, not Russia. This could leave room for any of the other former Soviet states to replace Russia, possibly even Ukraine, Scheppele said.
“This is kind of the only option that I can see, legally speaking, for how you could do it,” Scheppele said.
Another expert disagrees, and said that there is no way the seat could be taken away from Russia.
“There’s no direct challenger to take that seat and under the current structure of the U.N., and even the current politics of the U.N. General Assembly, there’s no way that I can envision a scenario where there would be a change of the Security Council to either remove Russia completely or even remove the veto power,” Poast said.
Poast later said, “Removing them from the Human Rights Council, in many ways, is probably about as significant of a change as you can make.”
Limitations of the UN
While experts said the U.N. facilitates diplomacy and keeps the lines of communication open between major powers, the Security Council’s actions are tied to major powers’ interests.
The inequity of the Security Council is that nothing can be done if it opposes what the major powers want, Poast said.
While the Security Council has not been able to pass any resolutions regarding the war in Ukraine or act to stop or prevent it, Poast said taking action is not part of its role. That is why NATO was created; to have a separate union, without China and Russia, allowing Western states to take action.
“One of the big things that drove the process of creating NATO was the recognition sitting around late 1947 [to] 1948, that, from the British and the American perspective, they weren’t going to be able to work with the Soviet Union,” Poast said, adding that the powers needed a separate entity that would enable them to take action. Even in the early days of the U.N., Poast said there were concerns over whether the British, French and Americans would be able to work with the Soviets and Chinese.
This was proven in 1999 when NATO took action in Kosovo, after the Security Council did not act, and again in 2011 when NATO intervened in Libya.
“It’s also a key reason why we’re seeing NATO be very active in this war, because of exactly the fact that the U.N. Security Council has been ineffective in doing anything about this. But in contrast, NATO has been highly effective in trying to do something to support Ukraine,” Poast said.
But, Poast said the U.N. is keeping lines of diplomacy open between the U.S. and Russia, even though their respective Secretary of State and Foreign minister have not been communicating.
“That is still important to be able to have the major powers talking to each other, especially if you go back to the ultimate purpose of the UN, which … is to prevent the major powers from fighting one another, not to keep them from fighting any war,” Poast said.
Another expert said the U.N. has been remarkably effective in preventing wars.
“Before 1945, there were a lot of wars between states and since 1945, there have been very, very few. And the Security Council was designed to regulate war between states and in that sense, it’s been, historically, tremendously effective,” said Lise Morjé Howard, a professor at Georgetown University and president of the Academic Council on the United Nations System.
She added, “there have been a lot of militarized disputes between states that came close to war, or where the war maybe even started. And then the controversy went to the U.N. Security Council, they see a resolution, or decision or some kind of mediation process. Sometimes it’s peacekeeping. And then the war didn’t escalate.”
Howard also said the Council has been able to prevent a great power war from breaking out since its inception after World War II.
Proposed reforms to the Security Council
While Poast thinks a separate entity would be needed to take action, there are several proposals to reform both the UN and the Security Council, including limiting veto power and increasing the number of non-permanent members, both of which would need the consent of the P-5.
As for expanding the number of members, one proposal, known as the G-4, is to give India, Germany, Brazil and Japan permanent seats in the Council, while another proposal is for African countries to be given two permanent seats in the body, according to Howard.
Howard said the G-4 proposal has been popular for the last 10 years, but it could hurt the legitimacy of the Council, which stems from its ability to make decisions.
But, “I, and many other scholars, have argued that if you expand the number of decision makers, you will have fewer decisions on the Security Council,” Howard said.
She added, “That means that they that the council will be less effective at decision making.”
Another proposal, dubbed Uniting for Consensus, is to expand the number of non-permanent members in the Council from 10 to 20, to have more representation in the body. This proposal also suggests that states should be allowed to reapply to be on the Council after their two-year election ends.
Howard said more representation and diversity in the Council could increase its legitimacy.
Alternatively, Liechtenstein, a small country in Europe, has teamed up with more than 50 other countries, including the U.S., on a proposal that would require the P-5 to justify their veto to the UNGA and would trigger public debates in the body.
Scheppele said another way to reform the Council is to subject its decision to approval by the International Court of Justice. The ICJ could rule on whether its decisions are in line with international law, as a way to put some checks on the body.
“If the Security Council does something that the General Assembly believes is contrary to international law, for example, the General Assembly can already, under the charter, refer that question decided by the Security Council to the ICJ,” Scheppele said.
But, enforcement of ICJ decisions would still be a problem and this would not resolve the Council’s inaction, Scheppele said.
While a lot of focus has been placed on the Security Council, Scheppele said the U.N. is a large organization with several bodies heavily involved in Ukraine.
“There’s everything from UNICEF, which is in there, into Ukraine, trying to save kids to UNESCO, which has actually been working with all the museum directors across Ukraine to try to preserve Ukraine’s cultural heritage,” Scheppele said.
She added, “the U.N. is more than the general assembly and the Security Council. And there are probably other pieces of the U.N. that are very actively involved in trying to mitigate the damage from this…the U.N. is a big beast has lots of different wings, and arms and legs, and a bunch of them are involved in the war. It’s just not the Security Council.”
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