April 22, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has called on NATO to send more troops to eastern Europe including to his own country.

Nausėda dicsussed the issue on Friday with Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who was visiting the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

The pair also discussed military assistance to Ukraine, Ukraine's status as an EU candidate country, and sanctions against Russia and Belarus, according to a statement from the President’s office.

Germany leads NATO’s battle group in Lithuania. At least 28,000 allied troops were stationed there as of March 22, according to the latest figures from NATO.

Nausėda said he wants to see an upgrade of air policing to air and missile defense, and a switch from forward presence to forward defense, according to the statement. He said:

Nausėda also says he wants to strengthen NATO’s presence on the Suwałki Corridor, which sits on Lithuanian-Polish border and links Belarus to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in the Baltics.

The West should also impose more sanctions on Russia and Belarus, Nausėd said. 

Some background: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has prompted NATO to deploy more troops to the Eastern Flank.

As of March 21, 40,000 allied troops were stationed in the Baltics as well as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, according to NATO’s most recent information.

Battle groups are military forces from different NATO countries that train and are stationed together so that, if a conflict arises, they are prepared as a united NATO force.

Since the beginning of Russia's invasion, NATO has agreed to establish four more battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Those forces add to the battle groups that were established by NATO in 2017 in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, meaning NATO now has forces deployed all along its Eastern European flank.

Pope Francis said Thursday that his planned June meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has been cancelled because at this time it "could lead to much confusion.”

Kirill has previously backed Russia's war in Ukraine, alleging last month that gay pride parades were part of the reason for the invasion.

A long-time ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kirill is a major religious figure in Russia, where the Russian Orthodox religion is considered an integral part of the country's identity.

Speaking to the Argentinean newspaper La Nacion, Pope Francis said his relationship with Kirill was "very good."

"I regret that the Vatican has had to suspend a second meeting with Patriarch Kirill, which we had scheduled for June in Jerusalem. But our diplomacy understood that a meeting of the two at this time could lead to much confusion.”

Asked about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Francis answered:

Asked why he never publicly mentioned Russia or Putin, Francis said "a pope never speaks about a head of state, and even less about a country, who is superior to [its] head of state.

The pope also said the Vatican could play a role in negotiations. "There are always procedures. The Vatican never rests. I cannot tell you the details because they would cease to be diplomatic efforts. But the attempts will never stop," he told the newspaper.

On Friday, the Vatican’s press office director Matteo Bruni said Francis is slowing down his agenda due to medical checks. Due to pain in his right knee, he needed to sit while reading his Easter message and celebrating the Easter vigil mass.

Germany will provide a further 37 million euros ($40.12 million) aid to Ukraine for reconstruction, the country's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development said Friday.

The announcement came as the country’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said that an early end to the war is unlikely. 

There cannot be a ceasefire at any price," Baerbock said at a joint press conference in Vilnius with her Lithuanian counterpart Gabrielius Landsbergis.

Baerbock went on to say that a "dictatorial peace" with the Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be accepted.

Stephanie von Ehrlich, a spokeswoman of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development told CNN the 37 million euros would go towards different initiatives:

"My ministry has reallocated funds for this via an emergency program," German Development Minister Svenja Schulze said in a written statement obtained by CNN.

Schulze said the reconstruction of Ukraine will require the solidarity of the international community. "The World Bank was once founded to rebuild Europe after World War II. In the future, it can play an important role in helping Ukraine rebuild," she added.

As relations between Russia and Japan deteriorate over the war in Ukraine, Japan has, for the first time in almost 20 years, described four disputed islands as “illegally occupied” by Russia.

Relations between Russia and Japan have soured since the invasion of Ukraine was launched back in February, and this appears to be the first time Japan has invoked such language in almost two decades.

Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also referred to the islands, which Russia calls the Southern Kurils, as “Northern Territories” in its annual diplomatic report released Friday.

According to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, Japan has not referred to the islands as being “illegally occupied” since 2003.

Located off the coast of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, the disputed territories were captured by Soviet forces following Japan's surrender to Allied Forces in 1945.

The disagreement over who has rightful ownership of these islands has resulted in one of the world's longest-running unresolved territorial disputes, causing friction between Japan and Russia for decades. 

Some background: Back in 2019 the leaders of Russia and Japan said at a meeting in Moscow that they remain committed to eventually signing a peace treaty, decades after the end of World War II, but that serious differences remain over the fate of a small group of islands off the coast of Japan.

The disputed territory, located off the coast of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, consists of four separate islands: Iturup, known in Japanese as Etorofu, Kunashir, or Kunashiri, Shikotan and the islet group of Habomai.

The islands were occupied by Soviet forces at the end of WWII, when as many as 17,000 Japanese citizens were expelled. Around 19,000 settlers currently live on the islands, according to intelligence firm Stratfor.

UN human rights officers have documented the "unlawful killing, including by summary execution, of some 50 civilians" in Bucha, a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, the UN Human Rights Office said Friday.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has documented and verified at least 5,264 civilian casualties -- 2,345 killed and 2,919 injured, the UN said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said:

“The scale of summary executions of civilians in areas previously occupied by Russian forces are also emerging. The preservation of evidence and decent treatment of mortal remains must be ensured, as well as psychological and other relief for victims and their relatives,” Bachelet went on to say.

Some background: Earlier this month, accounts of summary executions, brutality and indiscriminate shelling emerged in the wake of Russia's hasty retreat from central Ukraine. CNN teams saw dozens of bodies buried or strewn across the ground in the devastated suburb of Bucha, after a brutal occupation that lasted over a month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has blamed Russia for the killings and called on Moscow to stop committing "war crimes."

The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, while reiterating baseless claims that the images of civilian bodies on the streets of Bucha are fake.

Anheuser-Busch InBev said on Friday it would sell its stake in Russian joint-venture AB InBev Efes which will result in a $1.1 billion impairment charge in its first quarter results.

The announcement by the world's largest brewer, based in Belgium, comes after similar moves from its rivals Carlsberg and Heineken.

In March, AB InBev (BUD) suspended sales of its Budweiser brand in Russia and forfeited financial benefit from its Russian joint venture, following the lead of other major brewers in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow dubs a "special operation."

"AB InBev today announced that it will sell its non-controlling interest in the AB InBev Efes joint venture and is in active discussions with its partner, Turkish brewer Anadolu Efes, to acquire this interest," AB InBev said in a statement.

RELATED

Budweiser brewer AB InBev is selling its stake in 11 Russian breweries

Russia has revealed that the goal of its invasion of Ukraine is to take "full control" over southern Ukraine as well as the eastern Donbas region.

The announcement by a top military official marks the first time Russia admitted it was fighting to establish a land corridor through Ukrainian territory connecting Russia to Crimea, the peninsula it annexed in 2014.

"Since the beginning of the second phase of the special operation, which began literally two days ago, one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over Donbas and southern Ukraine. This will provide a land corridor to Crimea," Maj. Gen. Rustam Minnekaev, the acting commander of Russia's Central Military District, said according to TASS, a Russian state news agency.

Minnekaev, speaking at the annual general meeting of the Union of Defense Industry Enterprises of the Sverdlovsk region, was quoted by TASS as saying the aim was to create a land corridor between Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and Crimea.

He added that control over Ukraine's south would give Russian forces access to Transnistria, a separatist statelet in Moldova, where a contingent of Russian forces has been stationed since the early 1990s.

Russian forces at present have only partial control of southern Ukraine, with the Ukrainian government still in control of the key cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa and some Ukrainian forces holding out in a steel plant in the encircled port of Mariupol.

Russia in recent weeks withdrew its forces in northern Ukraine after a failure to take Kyiv, with Russian military officials claiming that their strategic goals had shifted to taking all of the eastern Donbas region.

Asked by reporters Friday to elaborate on what territories were meant by southern Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment and referred questions to the Ministry of Defense.

Ukrainian authorities have warned in recent days that Russian forces occupying the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson were planning to stage a sham referendum declaring a so-called "Kherson People's Republic" in the coming days, mirroring the Russian-backed creation of separatist republics in Donbas in 2014 that set the stage for Russia's invasion on February 24.

Two of India's biggest businesses are moving away from Russia, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi refrains from taking a tough stance against Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

Tata Steel, one of the largest steelmakers in India, said on Wednesday that it has "taken a conscious decision to stop doing business with Russia."

The company, which is also one of the biggest steel producers in Europe, said it has a plan in place to ensure minimal disruption to its business.

Tata Steel is part of Tata Group, one of India's biggest multinational conglomerate.

Its announcement comes just days after Infosys, one of India's largest tech companies, said that it has started moving its operations out of Russia.

RELATED

Some big Indian businesses are joining the exodus from Russia | CNN Business

At least one person died and two were injured when an Antonov plane crashed Friday morning in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, local authorities said.

"Today at 09:00 [7am Eastern Time] near Mykhailivka in Zaporizhzhia district, an AN-26 plane -- which, according to preliminary information, belonged to Ukraine -- crashed. The airplane was performing a technical flight," the Zaporizhzhia Region Military Administration said Friday on its official Telegram channel.

The number of crew members on board the plane and the reasons for the crash are still being clarified, the regional administration said, adding that according to preliminary -- and so far unconfirmed information -- the plane hit an electric pole which caused the engine to set on fire.

"The State Emergency Service units and relevant services are working at the scene," the regional administration said.