March 21 2022
PM Jacinda Ardern has announced a further $5 million in assistance to Ukraine to help it during the invasion from Russia. Ardern confirmed that Cabinet has signed off on decisions on vaccine mandates, certificates and the traffic light system.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed a "compromise" that could end the war with Russia, which has now been dragging on for almost a month.
Speaking to his nation's public broadcaster Suspilne today, Zelenskyy suggested Ukraine could live with not seeking Nato membership.
"Nato should either say now that they are accepting us, or openly say they are not accepting us because they are afraid of Russia. Which is true," he argued.
"And then we need to calm down and say OK, there are Nato member countries that can provide us security guarantees without membership in Nato.
"That is where the compromise exists. That's where the end of the war is."
Zelenskyy also drew a couple of red lines, however, saying Ukraine could not accept handing over any of its cities, and would not sign any peace agreement that includes the word "de-Nazification".
A woman (background) cleans up her kitchen from debris in an apartment block damaged by a bombing in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
"We cannot accept an ultimatum from Russia. How can we, after our people were killed?" Zelenskyy said.
"It is impossible. Simply impossible ... let's say they demand to get Kharkiv, or Mariupol, or Kyiv. People in these cities won't let them do it. The only way they can seize the cities is to kill everyone and take the empty city.
"There can't be any 'de-Nazification' in the agreement. When a country that is treading in the footsteps of the Nazis is accusing us of being Nazis, we can't accept that."
Almost a thousand civilians confirmed dead
The United Nations' Human Rights Office has confirmed that at least 925 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion, though it said the true figure was likely to be "considerably higher".
"The receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed, and many reports are still pending corroboration."
The Human Rights Office has also counted 1496 injured civilians, bringing the total number of casualties to 2421.
'Hunting us down': Terror inside hospital
Associated Press correspondent Mstyslav Chernov was part of the last team of international journalists left in the besieged city Mariupol. AP has published a powerful account of the day he and colleague Evgeniy Maloletka were told to flee the city, because Russian soldiers were hunting them.
"The Russians were hunting us down. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in," the first-person account begins.
"We were reporting inside the hospital when gunmen began stalking the corridors. Surgeons gave us white gloves to wear as camouflage.
"Suddenly, at dawn, a dozen soldiers burst in: 'Where are the journalists, for f***'s sake?' I looked at their armbands, blue for Ukraine, and tried to calculate the odds that they were Russians in disguise.
"I stepped forward to identify myself. 'We're here to get you out,' they said."
Ukrainian troops extracted two AP journalists from Mariupol, because their work was so powerful Russia was hunting them.
“They want to get you on camera & make you say everything you filmed is a lie,” he said.
"If they catch you, they will get you on camera and they will make you say that everything you filmed is a lie," the officer told them.
"All your efforts and everything you have done in Mariupol will be in vain."
The officer had previously begged the reporters to show the world what was happening in Mariupol. Now he was begging them to run.
Putin accused of 'kidnapping' children
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo / AP
The Ukrainian government has issued a statement calling on the international community to act over Russia's removal of thousands of civilians from the country.
Thousands of Ukrainians from the east of the country, and from the besieged city Mariupol, have allegedly been forcibly taken to Russia.
"Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents have been taken to Russian territory," the Mariupol City Council said.
"The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing."
It said the people in question were taken across the border, where their documents were checked. Some were then redirected to remote Russian cities, while the "fate of the others is unknown".
Russian state media's version of events is that thousands of Mariupol residents "found themselves in Russia in complete safety". It now reports more than 62,000 people have been "evacuated" across the border to Russia.
"The Russian occupation forces illegally deported to the territory of the Russian Federation 2389 children who were in the occupied districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said today.
"Forced displacement of civilians into the territory of the aggressor state, including children, shows signs of abduction. Such actions are a gross violation of international law, in particular international humanitarian law.
"By destroying homes and killing the parents, Russia deprives Ukrainian children of parental care and puts their lives in further jeopardy in Russia.
A woman measures a window before covering it with plastic sheets in a building damaged by a bombing the previous day in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
"We call on the international community to respond to the illegal removal of children, to increase pressure on Russia to make it stop the barbaric war.
"The facts of the abduction of children, as well as other facts of crimes of the Russian occupiers against civilians in Ukraine, are being investigated by law enforcement agencies. The perpetrators of these crimes will be brought to justice."
Speaking to CNN a short time ago, the former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch described the forced deportations as "Stalin tactics".
Mariupol continues to suffer the worst of Russia's attacks. Today the city council accused Russia of targeting two families who were trying to evacuate, leaving two children in critical condition.
Cars carrying the two families were reportedly hit by artillery fire.
Aleksander presses his palms against the window as he says goodbye to his daughter Anna on a train to Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine. Photo / AP
'Inept': Key flaw in Russia's invasion
A month into the war, the United States has been unable to determine whether Russia has an overarching military commander responsible for leading the invasion, CNN reports.
"Without a top, theatre-wide commander on the ground in or near Ukraine, units from different Russian military districts operating in different parts of Ukraine appear to be competing for resources rather than co-ordinating their efforts," it says, citing information from two US defence officials.
"Units participating in different Russian offensives across Ukraine have failed to connect, these sources say, and in fact appear to be acting independently with no overarching operational design.
"Russian forces also appear to be having significant communication issues. Soldiers and commanders have at times used commercial cell phones and other unsecured channels to talk to each other."
A short time ago, CNN host Pamela Brown interviewed former Nato Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis, who said it was "bad generalship" to conduct a "huge nationwide operation without a single unitary commander".
Military failure is rarely due to soldiers on the ground. It starts at the top of a government or military. If there is a senior Russian Ukraine commander, he has performed terribly. If there isn't, the Russians may be even more inept than we thought.https://t.co/6FQJd35CVL
— Major General (just retired!) Mick Ryan (@WarintheFuture) March 21, 2022
"It creates real confusion. It is part of why they're stalled," he said.
Retired Australian General Mick Ryan puts it succinctly here: "If there is a senior Russian Ukraine commander, he has performed terribly. If there isn't, the Russians may be even more inept than we thought."
A satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows a burning apartment building in northeastern Mariupol, Ukraine, during the Russian invasion. Photo / AP
Maxar Technologies, a US-based space technology company, has released fresh satellite photos showing the damage on the ground in Ukraine.
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows burning buildings in Irpin, Ukraine, during the Russian invasion. Photo / AP
The first one shows an industrial area of Chernihiv, a city very near the country's northern border with Belarus. The other two show Mariupol, the southern port city that has endured the brunt of Russian bombardment in recent weeks.
Yesterday Ukraine rejected a Russian ultimatum to surrender the city.
