Washington/Kyiv/New Delhi: The United States President Joe Biden will travel to Poland on March 25, 2022, following his meetings in Brussels, Belgium with NATO Allies, G7 Leaders, and European Union leaders to discuss international efforts to support Ukraine and impose severe and unprecedented costs on Russia for its invasion.
The White House said today that, Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda to discuss how the United States, alongside the US allies and partners, was responding to the humanitarian and human rights crisis that Russia’s “unjustified and unprovoked” war on Ukraine has created.
Meanwhile, Russia continued to attack Ukraine for the 26th consecutive day today, targeting civilians, hospitals and local community leaders as well.
Today 5 children were hospitalized in critical condition after Russian forces opened fire on families and refugees evacuating out of Mariupol in private vehicles, the head of Zaporizhia Regional Administration stated. Minister of Health of Ukraine said since the start of the war Russia shelled 135 hospitals, 9 of which were completely destroyed. The Russians also fired at 43 ambulances and killed 6 medical workers.
The destruction of Mariupol by Russian troops is a large-scale war crime, said Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign and security policy. He noted that Russian forces were indiscriminately bombing civilians, homes and civil infrastructure, killing and injuring residents of the city en masse.
Russian forces continued to kidnap local community leaders and heads of town/city councils. The Tsirkunivsk local media reported that on the morning of March 21, they kidnapped the head of the Tsirkunivsk town council in the Kharkiv region from his home. His current location and status are unknown. Earlier, Russian soldiers had kidnapped the mayor of Beryslav in the Kherson region and a local activist on Saturday, March 19. They were held in captivity for three days. Kherson Region Administration said the mayor was allowed to call his family yesterday but their exact location was unknown.
Radio Liberty stated claimed that a group of local media representatives was kidnapped by the Russian occupiers in Melitopol.
Russian forces shelled Avdiivka using aviation and artillery. At least one person was killed, two more were injured. – Head of Donetsk Region Administration
Moreover, Zhytomyr region was shelled for the first time from BM-21 “Grad” rocket artillery system. Four people were reported killed so far, the Zhytomyr Regional Military Administration stated.
Following the night-shelling of Kyiv shopping mall, 8 were dead while 1 person got injured. Kyiv city authorities had reported several explosions in houses and on the territory of one of the shopping centers. Rescuers extinguished a large fire in the shopping center in the Podil district of Kyiv, the State Emergency Service stated. Besides, two people were hospitalized, and 200 more were evacuated after a shell hit a high-rise building in the Sviatoshynskyi district of Kyiv on March 20, the Kyiv City State Administration reported.
In New Delhi, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation General (Dr) V. K. Singh (Retd) said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today that around 22,500 Indian nationals returned from Ukraine to India between February 1 and March 11, 2022. He said 90 evacuation flights were operated under Operation Ganga including 14 Indian Air Force flights.
The Government had coordinated with the Indian carriers for the operation of evacuation flights. Six private airlines, namely Air Asia, Air India, Air India Express, Go First, Indigo and Spicejet operated chartered services for evacuation of Indian nationals from countries adjoining Ukraine – Romania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia under ‘Operation Ganga’.
Air India and Air India Express together operated 23 evacuation flights under Operation Ganga. The airfare for all the flights operated under ‘Operation Ganga’ was borne entirely by the Government.
– global bihari bureau
