Page 29 - bon-dia-aruba-20220407

A29
world news Diahuebs 7 aPRiL 2022

EU council head suggests giving asylum to Russian deserters

(AP) — European Council started by Moscow against its
president Charles Michel neighbor on Feb. 24. “The new package includes a
said on Wednesday that ban on coal imports,” Michel
European Union coun- “If you want no part in kill- said. “I think that measures
tries should think about ing your Ukrainian brothers on oil, and even gas, will also
ways to offer asylum to and sisters, if you don’t want be needed, sooner or later.”
Russian soldiers willing to be a criminal, drop your
to desert Ukraine battle- arms, stop fighting, leave the The European Commission
fields. battlefield,” said Michel, who said the proposed ban on coal
represents the bloc’s govern- imports is worth 4 billion
During an address to the the ments. euros ($4.4 billion) per year,
European Parliament, Mi- and that the EU has already
chel expressed his “outrage Endorsing an idea previously started working on additional
at crimes against humanity, circulated by some EU law- sanctions, including on oil
against innocent civilians in makers, Michel added that imports.
Bucha and in many other cit- granting asylum to Russian
ies,” then called on Russian deserters is “a valuable idea A consensus among the 27
soldiers to disobey orders. that should be pursued.” EU countries on targeting proposed by the commission 10 billion euros, in sectors
gas, the fuel used to generate also includes sanctions on covering quantum comput-
Michel referred to the town A day after the European electricity and heat homes, more individuals and four key ers, advanced semiconduc-
outside of Kyiv where graphic Commission — the EU’s would be difficult to secure Russian banks, among them tors, sensitive machinery and
evidence of killings and tor- executive arm — proposed amid opposition from gas- VTB, the second-largest transportation equipment
ture has emerged following a ban on coal imports from dependent members like Russian bank. The bloc also also were proposed.
the withdrawal of Russian Russia as part of a fifth round Germany, the bloc’s largest would ban Russian vessels
forces. He said he wanted of sanctions, Michel said the economy. and Russian-operated ves- The package must be adopt-
to deliver a message to Rus- bloc should keep up the pres- sels from EU ports. Further ed unanimously by all 27 EU
sian soldiers waging the war sure on the Kremlin. The new package of measures targeted export bans, worth countries.

Russian media campaign falsely claims Bucha deaths are fakes

(AP) — As gruesome vid- “Among the first to appear Western media had similar around the globe. Telegram accounts, as well
eos and photos of bod- were these Ukrainian shots, reports. as state-backed media Face-
ies emerge from the Kyiv which show how a soul- “This is simply what Russia book pages, repeated the
suburb of Bucha, Krem- less body suddenly moves AP journalists have seen the does every time it recognizes Kremlin line that images and
lin-backed media are de- its hand,” a report Monday bodies of dozens of people, that it has suffered a PR set- video of the dead were staged
nouncing them as an elab- on Russia-1’s evening news many of them shot at close back through committing or a hoax. The claims were
orate hoax — a narrative broadcast declared. “And in range and some with their atrocities,” said Keir Giles, made in English, Spanish
that journalists in Ukraine the rearview mirror it is no- hands tied behind them, left senior consulting fellow with and Arabic in accounts run
have shown to be false. ticeable that the dead seem to on the streets of Bucha since the Russia and Eurasia pro- by Russian officials or from
be starting to rise even.” Russian troops retreated gram at the Chatham House Russian-backed news outlets
Denouncing news as fake or last week. On Tuesday, AP think tank. “So the system Sputnik and RT. The Span-
spreading false reports to sow But high-resolution satel- journalists saw a pile of six works almost on autopilot.” ish-language RT en Español
confusion and undermine lite images show some of the burned bodies, with a child’s has sent more than a dozen
its adversaries are tactics that dead bodies have been ly- blackened foot amid the tan- Before the war, Russia denied posts to its 18 million follow-
Moscow has used for years ing on the residential streets gled corpses. U.S. intelligence reports that ers.
and refined with the advent of Bucha since early March, detailed its plans to attack
of social media in places like days after the Russian occu- Yet Russian officials and Ukraine. Last month, Rus- “Russia rejects allegations
Syria. pation began. On April 2, a state-media have continued sian officials tried to discredit over the murder of civilians
video taken from a moving to promote their own narra- AP photos and reporting of in Bucha, near Kiev,” an RT
In detailed broadcasts to car was posted online by a tive, parroting it in newspa- the aftermath of the bombing en Español post said Sunday.
millions of viewers, corre- Ukrainian lawyer showing pers and on radio and televi- of a maternity hospital in the
spondents and hosts of Rus- those same bodies still scat- sion. A top story on the web- Ukrainian port city of Mari- Several of the same accounts
sian state TV channels said tered along Yablonska Street site of a popular pro-Kremlin upol, which left a pregnant sought to discredit claims
Tuesday that some photo and in Bucha. The Associated newspaper, Komsomolskaya woman and her unborn child that Russian troops carried
video evidence of the kill- Press independently matched Pravda, pinned the mass kill- dead. out the killings by pointing to
ings were fake while others the location bodies in the sat- ings on Ukraine, with a story a video of Bucha Mayor Ana-
showed that Ukrainians were ellite images of Bucha from that claimed “one more irre- The photos and video from toliy Fedoruk, taken March
responsible for the blood- commercial provider Maxar futable proof that ‘the geno- Bucha have set off a new 31, in which he talked about
shed. Technology to separate vid- cide in Bucha’ was carried wave of global condemnation the suburb being freed from
eos from the scene. Other out by Ukrainian forces.” and revulsion. Russian occupation.
An opinion column pub- After his video appearance “He confirms that Russian
lished Tuesday by the state- Tuesday at the U.N. Security troops have left Bucha. No
run news agency RIA No- Council, Ukrainian Presi- mentioning of dead bodies in
vosti surmised that the Bucha dent Volodymyr Zelenskyy the streets,” top Russian offi-
slayings were a ploy for the enumerated the killings in cial Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted
West to impose tougher sanc- Bucha by Russian troops Monday.
tions on Russia. and showed graphic video
of charred and decompos- But Fedoruk had publicly
Analysts note it isn’t the first ing bodies there and in other commented on the violence
time in its six-week-old in- towns. Russian U.N. Ambas- before the Russian troops left
vasion of Ukraine that the sador Vassily Nebenzia dis- in an interview with Italian
Kremlin has employed such missed them as staged. news agency Adnkronos on
an information warfare strat- March 28, where he accused
egy to deny any wrongdoing Across social media, a cho- them of killings and rapes in
and spread disinformation rus of more than a dozen Bucha.
in a coordinated campaign official Russian Twitter and