The World Blog by humble servant.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereschuk announced on Saturday that all of the women, children and elderly civilians trapped in the Azovstal complex in Mariupol have been evacuated. Russian forces had paused their assault on the plant to allow the escape of civilians, some of whom say they were held hostage there by militants. “The President’s order has been carried out: all women, children and the elderly have been evacuated from Azovstal. This part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation has been completed,” read a Telegram post from Vereschuk on Saturday evening. Russia had held open a humanitarian corridor from the plant between 8am and 6pm Moscow time every day since Thursday. While Ukraine accused Russia of breaching its self-imposed ceasefire, civilians streamed out of the plant, where several hundred had been holed up for up to two months. Donetsk People’s Republic forces said on Saturday that 50 civilians had left the plant for their territory that day, while the UN...

Once lauded by the international media, a Canadian sniper known as ‘Wali’ has returned from Ukraine to Quebec, telling local media that his experience there was a “terrible disappointment.” He claimed there was inadequate weaponry, poor training and heavy losses, as well as profiteering and desertion in the ranks. When ‘Wali’ answered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call in March and volunteered to fight for Ukraine, he was given lavish coverage by the Western media. A former Canadian soldier who had also volunteered to fight with Kurdish militants in Iraq, Wali was described by Spanish media as “the best sniper in the world,” celebrated by American military bloggers for “hilariously troll[ing]” Russia and praised by the New York Post for “grabbing anti-tank missiles in a warehouse to kill real people.” However, he said that reality left him disillusioned. Back home in Quebec, Wali told La Presse on Friday that his Ukrainian commanders initially “didn’t know what to do” wit...

The Estonian consumer price index saw a dramatic surge of 18.8% year-over-year in April, with prices advancing faster than they have been in decades, according to the latest data revealed by Statistics Estonia. The agency reported that prices for goods and services were 14.4% and 27.8% more expensive respectively in April compared to the same period a year ago. The consumer price index was reportedly most affected by housing-related price changes, which was responsible for over 40% of the entire spike, according to Viktoria Trasanov, a leading analyst at Statistics Estonia. Prices for electricity reportedly saw an enormous surge of 119%, while heat energy became 57.7% more expensive than in April 2021. Meanwhile, pipeline gas soared 237.2%. Rents also surged by 34.4%. UK sees highest inflation in 30 yearsREAD MORE: UK sees highest inflation in 30 years “In April, the automatic compensation scheme for electricity, electricity transmission fees, district heating, pipeline gas and ga...

The European Union, this week, announced ambitious proposals to embargo the importation of Russian oil by the end of 2022. After teeth-pulling negotiations which have been met with strident objections from several member states, including Hungary and Slovakia, and public doubt over the impact of such measures, its Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyden declared that these measures would be gradually implemented throughout the course of the year. This didn’t reassure markets, with crude oil prices quickly rising above $114 per barrel as of Friday morning, and Moscow officials predicting that the bloc would still be buying Russian oil via third countries and intermediaries, a strategy that has allegedly been utilized by Iran under tough American sanctions. Despite marketing the measures as tough, for multiple reasons the EU is set to be the biggest loser of such an effort. The proposed embargo reveals a huge strategic vulnerability in its “energy security” – the ability of a state,...

Washington should be added to a “list of war criminals” as it is now directly participating in “hostilities” in Ukraine, Chairman of Russia’s State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin claimed on Saturday, citing media reports about alleged US intelligence-sharing with Ukraine. US President Joe Biden has told senior intelligence officials that “counterproductive” leaks about data sharing with Ukraine should stop, NBC reported on Friday. Though there was no official reaction to the report from the US authorities, Volodin took to Telegram to comment on it. “The United States is taking part in hostilities in Ukraine. US President Biden, demanding to stop leaks about the exchange of intelligence information with Ukraine, admitted that Washington had been exposed,” he wrote. Volodin said that the Ukrainian government, which he described as the “Kiev Nazi regime,” not only relies on weapons from the West, but also on the “assistance of American intelligence forces.” The Duma chairman wrote that Wash...

Ukraine’s accession to the European Union will not happen “in the next five to ten years,” Austrian EU Affairs Minister Karoline Edtstadler has predicted. Austria’s foreign minister has expressed a similar view, despite European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s insistence that Ukraine will be swiftly ushered into the bloc. EU accession for Ukraine would be “a long process to adjust to, which certainly cannot be achieved in the next five to ten years,” Edtstadler told Austria’s APA news agency on Wednesday. The minister added that as some Balkan states have been waiting “for decades” to join the union, there could be no fast track for Ukraine. Prior to Edtstadler’s comments, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg angered Kiev by suggesting that Ukraine instead pursue an association agreement with the EU, or integration into the European Economic Area. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko called this advice “strategically short-si “What the foreign ...

Russia’s state-run oil giant Rosneft has reportedly sold a large shipment of crude to India as the South Asian nation keeps boosting energy imports from the sanctions-hit country. Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country’s top refiner, purchased 700,000 tons of Russian Urals crude, two traders familiar with the matter told Reuters, adding that Rosneft had allocated seven cargoes loading from the Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga between May 15 and 31 to India. Shipments of Urals crude to India have risen since the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Refinitiv Eikon data shows, as Ukraine-related sanctions push Russian exports toward Asia. In December, IOC and Rosneft signed a term contract for supply of up to two million tons of Urals oil until the end of the current year. Under the deal, the Indian firm bought several Urals cargoes from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. India buys more Russian oil despite US threatsREAD MORE: India buys more Russian oil despite US th...

The United States currently sees no way of stripping Russia of its status as a UN Security Council permanent member over the conflict in Ukraine, the US ambassador to the UN has said. In an interview with PBS on May 6, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Russia’s actions are “particularly galling” given its status as a permanent member, which can’t easily be revoked, despite calls from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “The Russians have the permanent seat, and I don't see at the moment that there will be any changes in that, but we will continue in our efforts to isolate them,” she said. Earlier Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia of abusing its veto power and supported a resolution, tabled by Liechtenstein, requiring permanent members of the Security Council to justify their use of the veto. The resolution was adopted on April 26 but how it will work in practice remains to be seen. According to the resolution, the UN General Assembly must meet within 10 days if a veto is applied ...

Washington has authorized yet another tranche of weapons for Ukraine’s armed forces, agreeing to send tens of millions of dollars in munitions and military hardware following a flurry of similar transfers in recent weeks. The White House announced the move in a Friday press release, touting the “historical amount of security assistance” provided to Kiev since Russia launched its attack on February 24. “I am announcing another package of security assistance that will provide additional artillery munitions, radars, and other equipment to Ukraine,” President Joe Biden said, arguing the American arms shipments have been “critical” to the country’s war effort. A US official cited by Reuters offered a more detailed breakdown of the aid package, saying it comes with a $150 million price tag and will include “25,000 155mm artillery rounds, counter-artillery radar, jamming equipment, field equipment and spare parts.” The new assistance will be financed with funds freed up under the Presid...

After losing nearly half of its value in March due to Western sanctions, the Russian currency has staged an extraordinary recovery, strengthening to levels not seen in over two years.Sergey Kopylov, a junior partner at consulting company BSC and a lead researcher at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, to find out what’s behind the ruble’s resilience. According to the researcher, the West had defaulted on its obligations to Russia when it froze the assets of the country’s central bank. “This is the abolition (something like cancel culture) of the rules of international financial relations based on global total return swaps, redistribution of risk, guarantees of property rights and distribution of seigniorage.” It was these rules that determined the old ruble exchange rate and the approaches to its establishment that we are accustomed to, the expert said, adding that those rules “no longer apply.” Kopylov explained that the strengthening of the ruble is due to the fact that it...

Russia’s envoy to the US has warned that NATO powers are not treating the risk of nuclear war with due gravity, claiming that the West, and not Moscow, is driving brinkmanship amid tension rivaling the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Speaking to Newsweek for an interview on Thursday, Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, condemned Western officials for “a flurry of blatant misrepresentation” of Moscow’s nuclear doctrine and an apparent lack of concern about the potential for a civilization-ending thermonuclear exchange. “The current generation of NATO politicians clearly does not take the nuclear threat seriously,” Antonov said, adding that because leaders in the military bloc continue to misread the risk of nuclear war, Russian officials “have never stopped our efforts to reach agreements that will guarantee that a catastrophic confrontation will not be unleashed.” It is our country that in recent years has persistently proposed to American colleagues to affirm that ther...

US President Joe Biden has told senior intelligence officials that leaks about alleged intelligence sharing with Ukraine should stop as they “distract” from Washington's objective in the crisis, NBC News reported on Friday. During the phone conversation with CIA Director William Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Biden hailed the intelligence services’ work but stressed that disclosures are counterproductive and ought to cease, the outlet claimed, citing two unnamed administration officials. The NBC report came a day after several American outlets claimed that US-provided data had allegedly allowed Ukrainian forces to strike Russia’s Black Sea flagship ‘Moskva’ off the coast of Odessa last month. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby denied these reports, saying “the Ukrainians have their own intelligence capabilities to track and target Russian naval vessels, as they did in this case.” Russia insists that its missile cruiser wasn’t...

A German museum dedicated to World War II, and to the ending of that conflict in Europe, has decided to drop the reference to Russia in its name, in response to Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine. The German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst is housed in the building where Hitler’s forces signed Germany’s unconditional surrender on the night of May 8-9, 1945, ending the war in Europe. The document was signed in the presence of representatives of the Soviet Union, the US, Britain and France. The museum dedicated to German-Soviet relations, was first opened to the public in 1995 and is sponsored by Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Jorg Morre, the museum’s director, told German media earlier this week that the institution has decided to drop the reference to Russia from its name, in protest at Russia’s actions in Ukraine. The new name is just Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. “Already on the first day of the invasion we said this is such a profound turning point that we had to do this...

In an effort to reduce its reliance on natural gas from sanctions-hit Russia, France wants to ramp up biomethane production from agricultural waste. It’s hoped the biogas can replace Russian fuel in less than 10 years. French farmers have expressed support for Europe’s bid to wean itself off Russian gas, and are planning to launch new biofuel production facilities, the Associated Press reports, adding that small biofuel stations are already supplying hundreds or thousands of households. However, the biogas solution is unlikely to provide a quick replacement for supplies from Russia, AP noted. French authorities have reportedly taken several steps to accelerate bio-methane development since the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Bio-methane met some 1% of French energy needs in 2021, and is expected to increase to at least 2% this year, AP quotes industry representatives as saying. Gas obtained from agriculture could reportedly make up 20% of French gas consumption ...

The need to write down assets as well as setting aside cash to shield against the expected economic ramifications of anti-Russia sanctions has resulted in billions of euro in losses for European banks. The lenders have so far taken a hit of about $9.6 billion, led by Societe Generale and UniCredit. ING and Intesa Sanpaolo reported that Russian exposure had slashed their combined first-quarter net income by nearly $2 billion. Several lenders have said their outlooks for the year would be scrapped if the drag of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the global economy worsens. Intesa has reportedly cut its 2022 profit target, warning that a “very conservative” scenario envisions an even harder blow. Faced with this extreme uncertainty, the chief risk officers of several European banking majors are holding meetings with regulators and among themselves to assess the reliability of their models and provisioning, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Russians may be banned from buyin...

TRT spoke to Vjekoslav Prebek, a Croatian national who fought in the ranks of the Ukrainian military. Prebek says he was a serviceman in a Ukrainian marine brigade that was holed up in the city of Mariupol. He claims to have been taken prisoner during an attempt to flee the besieged city alongside a handful of other fighters. “We were leaving Mariupol and we were walking on foot for 260 kilometers hiding, walking only during night, avoiding all contact possible,” he said. The plan flopped when the group ran into an artillery unit and surrendered to it. Prebek’s unit has had multiple foreigners in its ranks, including three British nationals. Several other foreigners went AWOL from the brigade shortly after the ongoing conflict broke out late in February. The fighter says he joined the ranks of the Ukrainian military back in 2020, seeking to get the country’s citizenship after serving a three-year contract. Back then, it seemed like a good idea, as the frontline in the Donbass was “...