Antonio Guterres calls for four-day ceasefire as Moscow presses to seize eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
UN chief calls for four-day truce in Ukraine
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has denounced Russia’s new offensive and called for a four-day truce to coincide with the onset of Orthodox Holy Week.
“Instead of a celebration of new life, this Easter coincides with a Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine,” Guterres told reporters at the UN’s headquarters in New York.
“The intense concentration of forces and firepower makes this battle inevitably more violent, bloody and destructive,” he added, before calling for a “humanitarian pause” in fighting from Holy Thursday until Sunday, the date of Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated by most Ukrainians and Russians.
Guterres said the UN was submitting detailed plans to all parties in the conflict and was ready to send humanitarian aid convoys to Mariupol, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk.
IMF slashes global growth forecasts amid Ukraine war
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has sharply downgraded its forecast for global growth in 2022 to 3.6 percent due to the “seismic” economic impact of the war in Ukraine.
The fallout from the conflict has been felt most acutely in the world’s poorest nations and threatens to erase recent gains as the global economy had begun to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook.
Lavrov says Russia not seeking ‘regime change’ in Ukraine
Russia’s foreign minister says Moscow is not seeking “regime change” in Ukraine despite earlier calls from the Kremlin for Ukrainian forces to topple the government in Kyiv.
“We have said it repeatedly … We want the Ukrainians themselves [to] decide how they want to live … We want the people to be free,” Sergey Lavrov told Indian television news channel India Today.
He also confirmed Russia’s offensive in Ukraine had entered a new stage aimed at the “full liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics” and ruled out any use of nuclear weapons, stating that Moscow would only use “conventional” munitions as part of what it calls its “special military operation” in the country.
Canada rolls out new Russia sanctions, targets Putin’s daughters
Canada has announced new sanctions on 14 individuals it says are closely associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “regime”.
Putin’s two adult daughters are among those targeted by the new measures announced by Canada’s foreign ministry.
Ottowa’s move comes after the United States and United Kingdom both announced sanctions against Putin’s daughters – Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova and Maria Vladimirovna Vorontsova – earlier this month.
