Vladimir Putin hosts UN head at his “long table” in the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia, April 26, 2022

EA-Times Radio Special: Ukraine, NATO, and A “German Parallel” to End Russia’s Invasion?

Monday’s Coverage: Moldova Defies Russia’s Subversion to Vote for EU Membership

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1832 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spoken of the reported dispatch of thousands of North Korean troops to help Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

We expect a firm, concrete response from the world. Hopefully, not just in words.

UPDATE 1650 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that a majority of NATO countries have reached a consensus for an invitation for Ukraine to join.

“Today we see support from France. We understand that the British will support us, and we believe that the Italians will support us,” Zelenskiy told journalists on Monday.

However, Germany still “has skepticism” about Ukraine’s accession, and several other countries are uncommitted.

“The U.S. will have an impact on this….We believe that they are consolidating their thoughts on NATO and this has an impact on, for example, Hungary and Slovakia,” the President said.

He said “some partners” may think about Ukraine’s membership in NATO in exchange for acceptance of Russia’s occupation of some territory. However, he declared:

We are not discussing this. This invitation, I believe, does not depend on Russia’s opinion. When some other partners are convinced that they are stronger than Russia, then we will have a positive outcome in this sense.

UPDATE 1303 GMT:

Russian forces have executed two more Ukrainian POWs.

The soldiers were captured near Selydove in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Friday. They were forced to lie face down and shot at close range.

Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets has informed the UN and Red Cross about the incident.

Lubinets has documented the execution of 102 Ukrainian POWs by the invaders. He says the number is likely much higher, since it is difficult to document Russian war crimes without supporting evidence such as videos.

UPDATE 1205 GMT:

Eleven civilians have been killed and 42 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine in the past 24 hours.

Three people, including a child, were killed in Sumy city in northern Ukraine.

A Russian missile attack on Zaporizhzhia city in southern Ukraine killed three people and injured 19, including an 8-year-old girl.

Four people were slain in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and one in the Kherson region in the south.

Air defenses downed 46 of 60 Iran-type drones launched by Russia overnight. Ten more drones were lost to electronic counter-measurees, three flew back towards Russia, and one entered Belarusian airspace.

UPDATE 1126 GMT:

A Moscow court has sentenced Oscar-nominated film producer Alexander Rodnyansky to 8 1/2 years in prison in absentia.

Rodnyansky, 63, was convicted of “spreading knowingly false information about the use of the Russian armed forces””.

The producer was born in Kyiv but spent most of his career in Russia, producing dozens of TV series and movies including the Oscar-nominated crime drama Leviathan.

Rodnyansky has repeatedly criticized Russia’s 32-month invasion of Ukraine on social media. He left the country soon after the assault began, having received a tip that his criticism had made him a target of the Kremlin. Later in the year, Russia’s Ministry of Justice declared him a “foreign agent”, and in 2023 a Moscow court ordered his arrest.

The producer wrote about the sentence, “No…court can stop me from speaking loudly and doing what I have been doing all my life, making films.”

UPDATE 1011 GMT:

The UK is lending Ukraine £2.26 billion ($2.93 billion) as part of a $50 billion program to be confirmed by G7 members later this week.

The loans will be repaid with interest from the $300 billion of frozen Russian assets held in the west.

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves said, “The profits being made on those assets aren’t being kept for Russia to use in the future. They’re now being used to fund Ukraine.”

The funds are in addition to the UK’s £3 billion a year in military aid to Ukraine.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: The Kremlin says UN Secretary General António Guterres will meet Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

The meeting would take place on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan in central Russia.

The UN did not confirm the report. At a briefing in New York, a spokesperson said, “Announcements on [Guterres’] future travels will be later on down the line.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said that any meeting with Putin “does not advance the cause of peace” and “damages the UN’s reputation”. It noted, “The UN secretary general declined Ukraine’s invitation to the first Global Peace Summit in Switzerland [in June]. He did, however, accept the invitation to Kazan from war criminal Putin.”

Guterres last met Putin in April 2022, exactly two months after the Russian leader launched the full invasion. Putin declared that he still hoped for negotiations “to reach agreements on the diplomatic track”. But he said talks had been halted by false claims over Russia’s mass killing of civilians in Bucha near Kyiv, lying that “the Russian Army had nothing to do with” the “provocation”.

As Russia persisted with its assault, Guterres criticised Moscow. In February 2023, he said the invasion was an “affront to our collective conscience”, with its first anniversary “a grim milestone for the people of Ukraine and for the international community”.

A month later, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin for Russia’s “Children’s Rights” Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the deportation of almost 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.