World

KYIV/ MOSCOW — The Kremlin on Saturday accused Ukraine of prolonging the military conflict by refusing to negotiate as Russia pressed on with its invasion of the pro-Western country.

"In connection with the expected negotiations, the Russian president yesterday afternoon ordered the suspension of the advance of the main forces of the Russian Federation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a conference call.

"Since the Ukrainian side refused to negotiate, the advance of the Russian forces resumed this afternoon."

On Friday, as Moscow's forces approached Kyiv, the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin was ready to send a delegation for talks to Belarus, where Russia has stationed thousands of troops.

A few hours later, Putin called on the Ukrainian army to overthrow the country's leadership whom he described as "terrorists" and "a gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces repulsed a Russian attack on Kyiv but “sabotage groups” infiltrated the capital, officials said on Saturday, as Ukraine reported 198 civilians deaths, including children, following Russia’s invasion.

A defiant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed his pro-Western country would never give in to the Kremlin even as Russia said it had fired cruise missiles at military targets.

With explosions echoing around Kyiv on the third day of Russia’s assault, Zelensky spoke in a video message, wearing olive green military-style clothing and looking tired but determined.

“I am here. We will not lay down any weapons. We will defend our state, because our weapons are our truth,” he said.

“Our truth is that this is our land, our country, our children and we will protect all of this.”

Ignoring warnings from the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed a full-scale invasion that the UN refugee agency said has forced almost 116,000 people to flee to neighbouring countries.

Tens of thousands more are estimated to be displaced within Ukraine, with many on the move to less affected western areas of the country.

In Kyiv, residents took shelter in the subway system and in cellars and basements.

“We thought something like this might happen but we were hoping until the end that it wouldn’t,” Irina Butyak told AFP in one shelter.

“We were hoping that common sense and common decency would prevail. Well, it didn’t,” said the 38-year-old teacher, who hoped she would be able to escape soon to western Ukraine.

Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Lyashko said 198 civilians, including three children, had been killed in the conflict and 1,115 wounded.

In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the world must brace for a long war.

“This crisis will last, this war will last and all the crises that come with it will have lasting consequences,” Macron said.

“We must be prepared”.

After speaking to Macron, Zelensky tweeted to thank “partners” for sending weapons and equipment.

Several NATO members have sent weapons and ammunition to Ukraine in recent weeks, including Britain, the United States and ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe.

In another video address, the 44-year-old leader also said that his country had “derailed” the Russian plan of overthrowing him and establishing a puppet state in Ukraine.

Air raid sirens and birdsong 

In the early hours of Saturday, AFP reporters in Kyiv heard occasional blasts of what soldiers said were artillery and Grad missiles being fired in an area northwest of the city centre.

There were also loud explosions in the centre.

Emergency services said a high-rise apartment block was hit by shelling overnight, posting a picture that showed a hole covering at least five floors blasted into the side of the building.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the building had been hit by a missile.

“The night was difficult, but there are no Russian troops in the capital,” he said.

“The enemy is trying to break into the city, in particular from Gostomel, Zhytomyr, where the aggressors are neutralised,” he said, referring to two settlements to the northwest and west of the city.

“Now in Kyiv there are, unfortunately, sabotage groups, there were several clashes,” he said.

Hours later, AFP saw a destroyed Ukrainian military truck in the city centre and a civilian volunteer digging a trench for soldiers.

Ukrainian army tanks were also seen manoeuvring all over the centre but the streets were mostly empty and the centre silent except for the sound of air raid sirens and birdsong.

The city said it was toughening a curfew in place and anyone on the streets after 5:00 pm would be considered “members of the enemy’s sabotage and reconnaissance groups”.

Russian plan ‘derailed’ 

Zelensky on Saturday said that Ukraine had “derailed” Russia’s attack plan and urged Russians to pressure Putin into ending the war.

When he announced the assault in a pre-dawn television statement on Thursday, Putin called it a “special military operation” aimed at defending Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The separatists have been fighting Ukrainian government forces in the east for eight years in a conflict in which more than 14,000 people have been killed.

Russia’s communications regulator on Saturday told independent media to remove reports describing it as an “assault, invasion, or declaration of war”.

In a statement, the regulator accused the media outlets of spreading “untrue information” about the shelling of Ukrainian cities by the Russian army and civilian deaths.

‘Point of no return’ 

But Russia has brushed off international condemnation and increasingly stringent sanctions adopted by the United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union, including against Putin himself and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Russia said sanctioning the pair was “a demonstration of the complete impotence of the foreign policy” of the West.

“We have reached the line after which the point of no return begins,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

The impact of sanctions has been far-reaching.

French naval forces on Saturday said they had intercepted in the Channel a cargo vessel loaded with cars bound for Russia.

The Russian-flagged Baltic Leader ship is suspected of belonging to a sanctioned company.

Zelensky has called on Western allies to expel Moscow from the SWIFT banking transfer system.

But a number of EU countries, including Germany, Hungary and Italy, have been reluctant over fears Russia could cut off gas supplies.

While sanctions have focused on Russia-linked finances, travel and trade, there have also been repercussions in the worlds of culture and sports.

In the latest development, Poland on Saturday said it was refusing to play its 2022 World Cup play-off against Russia on March 24.

KABUL — Afghanistan’s main universities reopened on Saturday six months after the Taliban returned to power, but only a trickle of women went back to now-segregated classes.

Most secondary schools for girls and all public universities were shuttered following the Taliban’s August 15 takeover, sparking fears women would be barred from education — as happened during the first rule of the hardline Islamists, from 1996-2001.

The Taliban insist they will allow girls and women to be educated this time around — but only in segregated classes and according to an Islamic curriculum.

Some public tertiary institutions in the south of the country resumed last month, but on Saturday Kabul University, the oldest and biggest with a student body of around 25,000 last year, reopened without fanfare — and few students in attendance.

Taliban guards refused journalists access to the sprawling campus and chased away media teams lingering near the entrance.

AFP, however, spoke to some students away from the gates, who expressed mixed feelings after their first day back.

“I am happy that the university resumed... we want to continue our studies,” said an English major who asked to be identified only as Basira.

But she said there were “some difficulties” — including students being scolded by Taliban guards for bringing their mobile phones to class.

“They did not behave well with us... they were rude,” she said.

Another English student, Maryam, said only seven women attended her class.

“Before we were 56 students, boys and girls,” she said.

No students in Panjshir 

There was also a shortage of lecturers, she said, adding: “Maybe because some have left the country.”

A similar picture emerged from campuses across the country, although no students returned to class at Panjshir University, in the heartland of a nascent resistance to the Taliban’s rule.

“I do not know if they will come tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or not,” said Professor Noor-ur-Rehman Afzali.

Panjshir was the last province to fall to the Taliban last year, and Jaber Jibran, a faculty head, said several classrooms destroyed in that fighting had still not been repaired.

Some students said they thought many stayed away out of fear of the new authorities, or because they could not afford the fees.

Long dependent on foreign aid for survival, Afghanistan has plunged into economic crisis and the country’s overseas assets have been seized by the United States.

“Most of the students might not be able to afford it,” said one named Haseenat, while another said her friends had asked her to “report back” on what conditions were like before they decided on attending.

The Taliban have said previously that women students must wear a black abaya over their bodies and hijab on their heads, but stopped short of insisting on the all-covering burqa that was compulsory during their previous rule.

Several students, however, appeared dressed no differently Saturday than they would have before the Taliban takeover, with a simple shawl covering their heads.

“I have never worn any hijab before... it’s new for me,” said Sohaila Rostami, a biology student in her last semester at Bamiyam University.

“I used to wear jeans and other normal clothes. It will be difficult for me to observe hijab,” she told AFP.

In Herat, the ancient Silk Road city near the Iranian border and once one of the Islamic world’s most important intellectual centres, students also complained about a lack of tutors.

“Some of our professors have also left the country, but we are happy that the university gates are open,” said Parisa Narwan, studying arts.

Tens of thousands of Afghans fled the country as the Taliban stormed back to power — among them teachers and lecturers who had been vociferously critical of the hardline Islamist group.

No country has yet recognised the new regime, which has imposed several restrictions on women — including banning them from many government jobs.

In Kabul, student Haseenat said campus life for women was now very different to before.

“We are told not to go out of our classes,” she told AFP.

“There is no cafeteria anymore... we are not allowed to go to the university’s courtyard.”

By Stuart Williams
Agence France-Presse

PARIS — As Russia presses ahead with its invasion of Ukraine, concerns are growing that neighbouring Belarus is also at risk of gradually losing its sovereignty without being the direct target of a military operation by Moscow.

President Alexander Lukashenko, in power for almost three decades, allowed Russian troops to use Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine from the north.

Russia had grouped some 30,000 troops in Belarus ostensibly for exercises in the last weeks. They had been due to leave earlier this month but their presence was then extended indefinitely.

Furthermore, Belarus will on Sunday hold a referendum, denounced as illegitimate by the opposition and seen as a bid for Lukashenko to further extend his stay in power and arrange an eventual transition.

The amendments proposed by the regime include a change to the post-Soviet status of neutrality of Belarus which would allow the country to host Russian nuclear weapons and Russian forces on a permanent basis.

This has come amid an already suffocating political atmosphere in the country after the August 2020 elections that the West believes were rigged to ensure Lukashenko’s reelection.

Over 1,000 opponents of his regime languish in jail, according to activists, while the candidate seen by the West as the true winner of the elections, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, now lives in exile.

‘Accomplices and vassals’ 

The Kremlin backed Lukashenko after the elections, leaving him “dependent” on Putin to stay in power, said Olga Dryndova, editor of Belarus-Analysen at the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen.

“Moscow does not need to make Belarus officially part of Russia, which would cause public discontent and resistance,” she told AFP.

“With Russian tanks in Belarus, Lukashenko could remain the face of the regime with the real power lying elsewhere.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday that Belarus and its people deserve better than to become the “accomplices and vassals” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to wage war.

“The complicity of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia — in the most total disregard of international law and signed agreements — marks a new and very serious stage in the process of the submission of Mr Lukashenko to Russia,” he added.

Le Drian said NATO would have to “draw the consequences” of the referendum in the Alliance’s defence stance. Belarus shares a border with NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland as well as Ukraine and Russia.

‘Can’t say no to Putin’ 

In an interview with AFP this week, Tikhanovskaya said Lukashenko was prepared to sacrifice the country’s sovereignty because he was “grateful” for the Kremlin’s support in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

“We want to be friends with our neighbours but we do not want to be the appendix of another country,” she said during the visit to Paris where she held talks with Le Drian.

Lukashenko, once accused by the United States of running Europe’s last dictatorship, has long projected a maverick image — often appearing in uniform and peppering his comments with earthy and sometimes vulgar expressions.

As tensions flared ahead of the Russian invasion he declared: “If needed, those of us with ranking stripes on our uniform will be first to defend the fatherland.”

But this belies how beholden he is to Moscow, which analysts believe could have easily replaced him with a different figure in the fallout after the 2020 elections.

Tikhanovskaya said Lukashenko was likely aware that the presence of the Russian troops represented a threat to his own rule.

“He is weak and he may also think that one day when the Kremlin does not need him, they can get rid of him,” she told AFP.

Dryndova said it was likely the Belarusian authorities had not initially imagined the Russian soldiers would stay so long and use the country as a launch pad against Ukraine.

“I do not have the feeling Lukashenko was in favour of this option. But he is not strong enough any more to say no to Putin,” she said.

Gostomel, Ukraine — The Russian forces came in shooting as they dropped from the open doors of helicopters to gain control of a strategic airport on the edge of Kyiv.

Their advance was the closest Russian forces had managed to get to the capital on the first day of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin's shock invasion of Ukraine.

They now represent an ominous presence at Kyiv's doorstep as Western-backed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky tries to hold on to power in the face of the Russian onslaught.

Zelensky vowed that the Russian forces would be encircled and "destroyed". 

But witnesses told AFP that the Russian paratroopers had managed to establish control of the airstrip after swooping in with helicopters and jets from the direction of Belarus.

"There were people sitting in the helicopters with their doors open, flying right over our houses," resident Sergiy Storozhuk said.

"The helicopters came in and then the battles started. They were firing machine guns, grenade launchers," he said.

"First the choppers were bombing, then maybe an hour ago, to Sukhoi jets flew by and dropped bombs."

‘They were shooting at me' 

The Gostomel airfield could provide a strategic base for Russian forces to ferry in troops who could then launch an assault on government buildings and the presidential administration in the heart of Kyiv.

Black plumes of smoke loomed over the airstrip on Thursday afternoon.

The main road leading from the base to Kyiv was deserted and almost completely void of any Ukrainian military presence.

Long queues formed outside petrol stations. A few members of a civil defence protection unit walked down the side of the road with guns and shovels.

A tank flying a Ukrainian flag rolled past one of the main intersections and some soldiers manned a checkpoint leading into the city.

But witnesses said the airstrip itself had been filled by what one witness estimated were at least a few hundred Russian soldiers.

"They were shooting at me. I don't know, perhaps they were trying to scare me. Two helicopters were flying behind me and shooting at the side of the road," said taxi driver Mykola Shymko.

"Then I came back and see around 100 people. And I see that their uniforms are not ours."

Witnesses told AFP that the paratroopers wore white wristbands and orange-and-black ribbons -- the nationalist Russian colours of Saint George worn by some servicemen.

One witness said a three-hour battle ensued after the first offensive. Then more jets swooped in -- including Ukrainian ones.

The chaotic battle left many locals in tears.

Shock and anguish 

Lyudmila Klimova wavered between shock and anguish while recalling how her little town on the edge of the airstrip had been teeming with life just a day ago.

"The base is smoking over there, it was bombed, our houses are nearby. We don't know where to run, my parents are here, my sister," she said as she walked away from the smouldering fields with a few lifelong friends.

"Russian troops are there, a friend of mine lives there, and the Russians have already approached his mother with a machine gun," the 58-year-old said.

Ukrainian border guards had earlier confirmed that Russian ground forces had also crossed south over the Belarus-Ukraine border into the Kyiv administrative region.

More battles were raging across Ukraine's eastern front with Russian-backed insurgents that first rebelled against Kyiv's rule in 2014.

But Klimova's thoughts mostly focused on her friends and the battles raging around her home.

"Our little town is there, smouldering," she said. "It was bombed. Our home is next to it. 

"We do not know where to run."

THE HAGUE — Police hailed a hostage held by a gunman in an Apple store in Amsterdam as a hero on Wednesday after he helped end the tense, hours-long ordeal that gripped the Dutch city.

A 27-year-old man carrying a handgun and a semi-automatic weapon entered the store late Tuesday, taking a Bulgarian man hostage and demanding 200 million euros ($230 million) in cryptocurrency.

Police were called to the building at 5:30 pm after the camouflage-wearing suspect entered the store in the popular Leidseplein neighbourhood, prompting a chaotic exodus from the building.

Around 70 people fled the building and four people hid in a closet, apparently unknown to the suspect.

Five hours later, the suspect asked for water.

Footage showed the hostage bending down as the water was delivered, before running out of the building followed closely by the suspect.

The suspect was then hit by a police car before a robot checked him for explosives as he lay on the road, lit up with lasers from police snipers.

"A car from the special forces reacted very adequately and alertly," police chief Frank Paauw said in an overnight press conference, hailing the hostage's bravery.

"The hostage has played a hero role. In a few split seconds he escaped this hostage situation, otherwise it would have been an even longer night and nasty night."

'Seriously injured' 

Police later confirmed that the suspect was wearing an explosive device, but "that it was not primed" during the incident.

He was taken to hospital "seriously injured", police said, adding that a "wide-ranging" investigation had been launched.

"All options are open over a possible motive," they added, saying at least two homes around the Dutch capital had been searched.

The suspect aimed an automatic weapon at police, Paauw said, as special police units arrived at the scene Tuesday and cordoned off the area around the shop.

All Apple stores across The Netherlands were closed on Wednesday, and the site of Tuesday's hostage taking will remain closed on Thursday, the company said.

Leidseplein is popular with tourists and known for its lively bars and cafes. The area was quickly closed and the restaurants, bars and theatres were shut after the hostage taking.

The incident happened close to where well-known Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries was gunned down in broad daylight last year.

"Just when the city was about to reopen and return to normal life, violence is again emerging in the heart of Amsterdam," deputy mayor Rutger Groot Wassink said late on Tuesday.

Dutch Justice Minister Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius praised the quick action by the police.

"Their controlled and decisive action deserves nothing but compliments," she said in a tweet.

"It prevented worse," the minister added.

KYIV — Ukraine mobilised its military reserves and Russia evacuated its Kyiv embassy on Wednesday as fears reached fever pitch of a full-scale conflict breaking out in eastern Europe.

Kremlin chief President Vladimir Putin has defied an avalanche of international sanctions to put his forces on stand-by to occupy and defend two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine.

In response, Kyiv's President Volodymyr Zelensky has put Ukraine's more than 200,000 reservists on notice that they will receive summons to return to their units.

Ukraine also urged its approximately three million citizens living in Russia to leave and prepared to declare a national state of emergency.

"We are united in believing that the future of European security is being decided right now, here in our home, in Ukraine," Zelensky said during a joint media appearance with the visiting leaders of Poland and Lithuania.

"Ukraine needs security guarantees. Clear, specific, and immediate," Zelensky said, adding: "I believe that Russia must be among those countries giving clear security guarantees."

Western capitals say Russia has amassed 150,000 troops in combat formations on Ukraine's borders with Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied Crimea and on warships in the Black Sea.

Ukraine has around 200,000 military personnel and Wednesday's call up could see up to 250,000 reservists aged between 18 and 60 receive their mobilisation papers.

Moscow's total forces are much larger, around a million active duty personnel, and have been modernised and re-armed in recent years.

High cost of war 

But Ukraine has received advanced anti-tank weapons and some drones from NATO members. More have been promised as the allies try to deter a Russian attack or at least make it costly.

Shelling has intensified in recent days between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists, and civilians living near the front are fearful.

Dmitry Maksimenko, a 27-year-old coal miner from government-held Krasnogorivka, told AFP that he was shocked when his wife came to tell him that Putin had recognised two Russian-backed separatist enclaves.

“She said: ‘Have you heard the news?’ How could I have known? There’s no electricity never mind Internet. I don’t know what is going to happen next, but to be honest, I’m afraid,” he said.

In a Russian village around 50 kilometres from the border, AFP reporters saw military equipment including rocket launchers, howitzers and fuel tanks mounted on trains stretching for hundreds of metres.

Washington and Britain say Russia’s force is poised to strike Ukraine and trigger the most serious war in Europe for decades, but Putin says he is open to negotiation — within limits.

Russia has demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining the NATO alliance and that US troops pull out from Eastern Europe.

“The interests of Russia, the security of our citizens, are non-negotiable for us,” Putin declared, in a video address to mark the Defender of the Fatherland Day, a public holiday.

On Tuesday, the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house, gave him unanimous approval to deploy troops to two breakaway Ukrainian regions now recognised by Moscow as independent, Donetsk and Lugansk.

Russia said it had established diplomatic relations “at the level of embassies” with the separatist statelets, which broke away from Kyiv in 2014 in a conflict that has cost more than 14,000 lives.

Moscow also said it would evacuate diplomatic personnel from Ukraine to “protect their lives”.

The Russian flag was lovered over the embassy building in Kyiv on Wednesday, eyewitnesses said. An AFP reporter saw several families leaving the embassy with suitcases.

Speaking to journalists, Putin on Tuesday set out a number of stringent conditions if the West wanted to de-escalate the crisis, saying Ukraine should drop its NATO ambition and become neutral.

US President Joe Biden later announced tough new sanctions targeting financial institutions and Russia’s “elites” for “beginning” an invasion of Ukraine, but said there was still time to avoid war.

The Russian foreign ministry on Wednesday said it was preparing a “strong response” to Biden.

It said this would be “well-calibrated and sensitive for the American side”.

Australia, Britain, Japan and the European Union have all also announced sanctions.

Germany has said it is halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.

‘Full-scale invasion’ 

Kremlin officials have responded scornfully to the sanctions, and observers point out that energy-rich Russia has huge reserves of $639 billion and an $182-billion sovereign wealth fund to see it through a crisis.

Putin’s plans remain unclear, but Western officials have been warning for weeks he has been preparing an all-out invasion of Ukraine, a move that could spark a catastrophic war in Europe.

The White House signalled it no longer believes Russia is serious about avoiding conflict, Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelling a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov scheduled for Thursday.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Putin said Moscow had recognised the independence of Ukraine’s separatist regions within their administrative borders, including territory still controlled by Kyiv, raising the spectre of a clash.

He added that Western-brokered peace agreements on Ukraine’s conflict no longer existed and stressed that the deployment of Russian troops would “depend on the specific situation... on the ground”.

On a visit to Berlin, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: “When or how should we believe what President Putin says? I don’t know if anyone knows.”