Ukraine has agreed to meet with a Russian delegation in Belarus, and Russians are heading to the place where the talks will be held, the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said on Sunday. Media reports said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office has confirmed that the Ukrainian side would be participating in the talks and that a delegation would be visiting the Belarus-Ukraine border in the Gomel region. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the Russian delegation is ready for the talks and waiting for their Ukrainian counterparts to arrive. “As you know, President [of Belarus Alexander] Lukashenko had a phone call with President [of Ukraine Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. After that, President Lukashenko turned to the Russian side, to President [Vladimir] Putin, asking him not to recall the Russian delegation, as Ukraine signalled its willingness to come to the talks in the Gomel region,” Peskov said. Earlier, President Zelenskyy had said in a video address released on his Telegram channel that he was ready for talks with Russia in any other country but Belarus, citing the involvement of Belarus with Russia in the ongoing conflict. “At the moment, we’re saying no to Minsk. Other cities can be a place to meet. Of course, we want peace, we want to meet, we want for the war to end. Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Baku, we have suggested all that to Russia. And any other city will do… in a country, from whose territory the rockets are not flying. This is the only way that the talks can be honest and can really put an end to the war,” Zelenskyy said. Responding to this Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger said on Sunday, “Ukraine
named Bratislava as one of the places where Russian-Ukrainian talks could take place. Slovakia is ready to do everything possible to organize such talks if there is an actual proposal.”
Meanwhile, in a move that is likely to have far-reaching consequences, the United States and allies removed Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. “We commit to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system. This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally,” the leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, said in a joint statement. “We commit to imposing restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions,” read the statement.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said the allies would stop Russia from “using its war chest,” by paralysing the assets of its central bank. They also agreed to freeze its transactions and prevent the central bank from liquidating its assets. She added there would be a crackdown on so-called “golden passports” that “let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial systems”. “We commit to ensuring that a certain number of Russian banks are removed from SWIFT. We will paralyze the assets of Russia’s central bank. This will freeze its transactions,” said the president of the European Commission.
SWIFT is the acronym for the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The Belgian-based co-operative is used by thousands of financial institutions in over 200 countries, including Russia, and provides a secure messaging system to facilitate cross-border money transfers.
The leaders, in the statement, said that they are committed to launching a transatlantic task force this week that will ensure the effective implementation of their financial sanctions by identifying and freezing the assets of sanctioned individuals and companies that exist within their jurisdictions.
“As a part of this effort, we are committed to employing sanctions and other financial and enforcement measures on additional Russian officials and elites close to the Russian government, as well as their families, and their enablers to identify and freeze the assets they hold in our jurisdictions. We will also engage other governments and work to detect and disrupt the movement of ill-gotten gains, and to deny these individuals the ability to hide their assets in jurisdictions across the world,” the statement said. The leaders further reiterated their support for the Ukrainian people in this “dark hour”.
The Biden administration has already sanctioned five Russian banks, including Sberbank and VTB Group, which collectively account for about half of the country’s banking assets. Russia had over 360 licensed banks at the start of the year. By targeting the central bank, the US could complicate the enactment of monetary policy while removing a potential source of cash for the government.
Also on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin placed the country’s nuclear deterrent forces on a “special” alert amid rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Putin announced the move during a meeting with Russia’s Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, reported RT News. “Western countries are not only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic area. I’m speaking about the illegitimate sanctions that everyone is well aware of. However, the top officials of the leading NATO countries also make aggressive statements against our country as well,” Putin stated.
Russian troops were reported to have entered Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv, after Kiev, amid fierce fighting. A viral video on social media appears to show a number of Russian light military vehicles on the streets of the city, with some footage showing vehicles on fire. However, later in the day on Sunday, the Ukrainians claimed that Kharkiv was back in Ukrainian control. Ukrainian MP, Lesia Vasylenkog tweeted, “Kharkiv back under full Ukrainian control. Glory to the soldiers who bravely stood through all these never-ending hours”.
Ukraine also moved the International Court of Justice in The Hague over the Russian military operation that started in Ukraine on Thursday and urged the top court to order Russia to cease “hostilities”. Taking to Twitter, Zelenskyy said, “Ukraine has submitted its application against Russia to the ICJ. Russia must be held accountable for manipulating the notion of genocide to justify aggression. We request an urgent decision ordering Russia to cease military activity now and expect trials to start next week.” “Ukraine has officially filed a lawsuit against Russia in the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague. We demand that Russia be held accountable for distorting the concept of genocide to justify aggression. We ask the court to immediately order Russia to cease hostilities and schedule a hearing next week,” he added.
The United States said that it was providing additional humanitarian assistance to Ukraine of US$54 million. “The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of State, is providing nearly USD 54 million in additional humanitarian assistance to Ukraine following Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified further invasion of Ukraine, which is expected to trigger increased needs,” said the US State Department in a press release on Sunday. This funding includes nearly US$26 million from the Department of State and US$28 million from the US Agency for International Development.
The State Department added that this additional assistance will support US partners to provide critically needed health care, safe drinking water, sanitation, hygiene supplies, and protection for vulnerable children.
Amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the United Nations Security Council will convene Sunday at 3 pm (local time) to vote on a resolution calling for a special session of the General Assembly on the issue. Notably, the US and Albania requested a meeting of the UN Security Council on Sunday for a procedural vote to appoint a special session of the General Assembly over the events in Ukraine. In the case of a procedural vote, the right of veto is not valid and 9 votes out of 15 members of the Security Council are required to make the decision, as per a source. The emergency special session of the UN General Assembly will be requested for Monday. As many as 50 countries have issued a joint statement saying that Russia “abused” its veto power by blocking a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution condemning the Russian military action in Ukraine. This comes after Russia on Friday vetoed a draft UN resolution on Ukraine.