Ukraine’s President Voldymyr Zelenskyy says his government is prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status as part of a peace deal with Russia.
Here are the latest updates:
China’s state-run Sinopec Group has suspended talks for a major petrochemical investment and a gas marketing venture in Russia, according to the Reuters news agency.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Reuters said the suspension was a response to the Chinese government’s calls for caution as western sanctions on Russia mount.
One of the sources told Reuters that Sinopec had been planning to team up with Sibur, Russia’s largest petrochemical producer, to build a new gas chemical plant in Siberia.
But it hit pause on the project after realising that Sibur minority shareholder and board member Gennady Timchenko had been sanctioned by the West, the source said.
Zachary Paikin, a researcher at the Center for European Policy Studies, says Moscow and Kyiv likely hold differing views on what it means for Ukraine to be a neutral state.
“There’s the question of whether or not neutrality means being able to join NATO or not, versus being able to join the EU or not,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The central theme in the lead up to this invasion was Ukraine’s status in NATO, and that’s how Russia more or less explicitly chose to frame neutrality during those talks over previous months. But membership in the EU is just as much of a sticking point,” he said.
“Ukraine joining the EU poses certain problems for Russia, because the EU is more of a Western political construct and Russia insists that Ukraine forms part of the Russian world, and EU nominally has a common foreign and security policy as well. This would very much run up against the concept of neutrality from Moscow’s perspective.”
Ukraine’s president has signed a law restricting the reporting on troop and military equipment movement unless such information has been announced or approved by the military general staff.
The state news agency Ukrinform reported on Sunday that the law calls for potential prison terms of three to eight years for violations.
The law bans “unauthorised dissemination of information about the direction, movement of international military assistance to Ukraine, the movement, movement or deployment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine or other military formations of Ukraine, committed in a state of martial law or a state of emergency,” Ukrinform said.
People in Hungary’s capital have placed 300 pairs of shoes on the banks of the Danube River to commemorate those who died in a Russian attack on a theatre in Ukraine’s Mariupol.
The worn shoes were left near the ‘Shoes on the Danube Bank’ memorial, which honours the Hungarian Jews who died during World War II.
⚡️Budapest Hungary. Action in memory of those killed in Mariupol
In memory of at least 300 women, children and the elderly who were killed by a Russian air bomb. Soldiers of the Russian occupying army dropped a bomb on a bomb shelter in the Drama Theater in the center of Mariupol pic.twitter.com/xMwdgASkyg
— UA FreeSky (@uafreesky) March 27, 2022
Russian forces have left the Ukrainian town of Slavutych, home to workers at the defunct nuclear plant of Chernobyl, after completing their task of surveying it, according to the town’s mayor.
“They completed the work they had set out to do,” Yuri Fomichev, the mayor of the northern town, said in an online video post. “They surveyed the town, today they finished doing it and left the town. There aren’t any in the town right now.”
On Saturday, authorities in Kyiv said Russian forces had taken control of the town just outside the safety exclusion zone around Chernobyl.
Hollywood has shared a little bit of its big night with the people of Ukraine, using text on a screen to ask the world for financial contributions for those suffering from the Russian assault.
“We’d like to have a moment of silence to show our support for the people of Ukraine currently facing invasion, conflict and prejudice within their own borders,” read the message displayed on a large video screen hovering over the stage.
#Oscars holds moment of silence in support of Ukraine. https://t.co/1H1Y9jC9bl#oscars pic.twitter.com/eIdWgcGAom
— ABC News (@ABC) March 28, 2022
“While film is an important avenue for us to express our humanity in times of conflict, the reality is millions of families in Ukraine need food, medical care, clean water and emergency services. Resources are scarce and we – collectively as a global community – can do more,” it said.
“We ask you to support Ukraine in any way you are able. #StandWithUkraine.”
The governor of Volyn in northwestern Ukraine has reported a missile attack on an oil depot in the city of Lutsk.
Yuriy Pohuliayko said on Telegram that the missile was fired from the territory of Belarus.
He said rescuers were at the site of the attack and that there were no victims according to preliminary data.
Authorities in Ukraine have reported 31 fires covering 10,111 hectares (24,985 acres) near the Russian-occupied Chernobyl nuclear plant.
Lyudmyla Denisova, a Ukrainian official, said the fires were “causing increased levels of radioactive particle pollution in the air” and said it was not possible to extinguish the blazes due to the presence of Russian troops.
Several celebrities have walked the Oscars’ red carpet wearing blue ribbons to show support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion.
Oscar-nominated songwriter Diane Warren, last year’s Oscar winner for best supporting actress Youn Yuh-jung and “Halloween” star Jamie Lee Curtis were among those sporting the ribbons.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Jason Momoa wore a button and pocket square in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, respectively.
“It’s really, really strange to be here in tuxedos, knowing what’s going on in Ukraine,” said Emile Sherman, producer of the film “Power of the Dog”.
“It’s not an easy time trying to absorb what’s happening in that part of the world, while still celebrating the achievements of everyone who made this movie and all the movies here tonight.”
Ukraine’s president has criticised Russia’s media watchdog after it tried to stop the publication of an interview in which he said Kyiv was prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status as part of a peace deal with Moscow.
The interview was conducted by Russian journalists from the Meduza news website, the Dozhd television station, and the liberal business paper Kommersant.
Roskomnadzor, the Russian media watchdog, has urged Russian media not to publish the interview and has launched an investigation into the circumstances under which it had been organised.
“Imagine, they were frightened there in Moscow because of my interview to Russian journalists, to those who can afford to tell the truth,” Zelenskyy said.
“It would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so funny. They destroyed the freedom of speech in their state and they are trying to destroy it in the neighbouring state. They portray themselves as global players and they themselves are afraid of a relatively short conversation with several journalists.”
A senior Ukrainian official has accused Russia of “irresponsible” acts around the occupied Chernobyl power station that could send radiation across much of Europe, and urged the United Nations to dispatch a mission to assess the risks.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Russian forces were “militarising” the exclusion zone around the station, site of the world’s worst civil nuclear accident in 1986.
Russian forces, she said, were transporting large amounts of old and poorly maintained weapons, creating a risk of damaging the containment vessel constructed around the station’s wrecked fourth reactor.
Russian forces were also preventing firefighters from bringing large numbers of fires in the zone under control, she said.
“In the context of nuclear safety, the irresponsible and unprofessional actions of Russian servicemen present a very serious threat not just to Ukraine but to hundreds of millions of Europeans,” Vereshchuk said on her Telegram account.
“We therefore demand that the UN Security Council adopt immediate measures to demilitarise the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl station as well as dispatching a special mission to eliminate the risks of any repeat of the Chernobyl accident resulting from the actions of Russian occupying forces,” she said.
United States President Joe Biden has said he was not calling for regime change in Russia when he said that President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”.
When asked by a reporter in Washington, DC, whether he was calling for regime change in Moscow, Biden said: “No”.
Biden made the initial remarks last week during a speech in Poland, in which he also called Putin a “butcher” and said the world must prepare for a “long fight ahead”. Several US officials have since stressed that Biden was not calling for regime change in Moscow.
The NATO military alliance is not aiming to remove Vladimir Putin from power, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said, a day after US President Joe Biden branded Putin a “butcher” and said he “cannot remain in power”.
It “is not the objective of NATO, nor that of the US president”, Scholz told German public broadcaster ARD.
“I’ve had the chance to talk at length with him at the White House and we have also discussed these questions,” he added.
Ukraine will insist on sovereignty and territorial integrity at the next round of negotiations with Russia, President Zelenskyy has said.
“Our priorities in the negotiations are known: sovereignty, territorial integrity of Ukraine are beyond doubt,” he said in a video address. “Effective guarantees of security are a must. Obviously, our goal is peace and return to normal life in our country as soon as possible.”
Germany is considering purchasing a missile defence system to shield against a potential attack from Russia, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.
“This is certainly one of the issues we are discussing, and for good reason,” he told public broadcaster ARD when asked whether Germany might buy a defence system.
“We need to be aware that we have a neighbour who is prepared to use violence to enforce their interests,” he added.
In the same interview, the chancellor also addressed Germany’s decision to become more energy independent and said it would have to accept higher energy costs.
Scholz said it would not help to keep Germany’s nuclear power plants running longer, but he noted that the timing of the country’s plan to exit from coal was dependent on how quickly it made progress in expanding renewable energy.
Russia is maintaining a distant blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast which is effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade, the British Ministry of Defence has said.
Russian naval forces are also continuing to conduct sporadic missile raids against targets throughout Ukraine, the ministry added.
Ukraine’s president says his government is “carefully” considering a Russian demand of Ukrainian neutrality, a key point of contention as negotiators for both sides prepare for a fresh round of talks aimed at ending the brutal month-long war.
“This point of the negotiations is understandable to me and it is being discussed, it is being carefully studied,” Zelenskyy said during an interview with several independent Russian news organisations.
Read more here.
Russia is considering “a Korean scenario” for Ukraine and splitting the country in two after failing to seize the capital Kyiv and overthrow its government, the Ukrainian military intelligence chief has said.
Russia’s president “will try to impose a dividing line between the unoccupied and occupied regions of our country”, General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Ministry of Defence’s Intelligence Directorate, said on Sunday as reported by the ministry’s Telegram account.
Read more here.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiating teams will meet for talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul, the Turkish and Russian presidents have agreed.
No dates were given for the meeting.
Ukrainian negotiator Davyd Arakhamia said talks would resume on Monday, while Russian delegation leader Vladimir Medinsky said they would kick off on Tuesday.
Welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Read all the updates from Sunday, March 27 here.
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief says Russia will try to divide Ukraine into two separate regions.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s remarks come ahead of a new round of in-person Russia-Ukraine talks.
As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 32nd day, we take a look at the main developments.
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