Chernobyl: A Ukrainian soldier stands near a state-run nuclear waste department near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine, Saturday, April 16, 2022. AP/PTI
Moscow, April 17 (AP) The Russian military has warned that Ukrainian troops refusing to surrender in the besieged port of Mariupol will be destroyed.
The Russian Defence Ministry gave the Ukrainians at Mariupol's giant Azovstal steel mill until 1 pm Sunday (1000 GMT) to surrender, saying that those who put down their weapons will be guaranteed to keep their lives.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov said the Ukrainian military command had banned its troops from surrendering. He said the Russian military received the information from intercepted communications.
Konashenkov warned that all those who will continue resistance will be destroyed .
He claimed that along with Ukrainian troops, there are about 400 foreign mercenaries encircled at Azovstal, most of them from European countries and Canada, communicating in six languages, according to intercepts. Konashenkov's claim couldn't be independently verified.
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Vatican City: In an Easter Sunday message aimed at the world but heavily focused on Ukraine, Pope Francis raised two worries - the risk of nuclear warfare and that other armed conflicts on the globe will go unnoticed.
In a speech from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica, the pope quoted a declaration from scientists in the 1950s in which they posed the question: Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war?
The pope has repeatedly made anguished pleas for a cease-fire and negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. In his Easter message, Francis lamented that so many of our brothers and sisters have had to lock themselves away in order to be safe from bombing .
He expressed hope that the war in Europe will also make us more concerned about other situations of conflict, suffering and sorrow in situations that we cannot overlook and do not want to forget. Among the places he cited were Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. He singled out Yemen, suffering from a conflict forgotten by all, with continuous victims.
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Milan: Italian Premier Mario Draghi is calling Ukraine's resistance to Russia's invasion heroic, depriving Russia of what it expected to be a rapid victory and setting the stage for a prolonged war.
Draghi told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published Sunday that what awaits us is a war of resistance, prolonged violence with destruction that will continue. There is no sign that the Ukraine population can accept a Russian occupation.
Draghi noted that Italy remained close to the Ukrainian people, with the reopening of its embassy in Kyiv. The ambassador returned to the capital on Friday, and the embassy is expected to be fully operational on Monday.
Draghi, who spoke to Putin before the war broke out and again at the end of March, said he has come to believe that speaking with the Russian leader is just a waste of time.
Draghi said: I have the impression that the horror of the war, with its carnage, with what they have done to children and women, is completely independent of the words and the phone calls.
