Kyiv : A man stands on top of a destroyed car amid the destruction caused after shelling of a shopping center, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. AP/PTI
Brussels, March 21 (AP) EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is accusing Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine, most notably in the besieged port city of Mariupol where hundreds of civilians have been killed.
Borrell says that what's happening in Mariupol is a massive war crime. Destroying everything, bombarding and killing everybody in an indiscriminate manner. This is something awful.
He says Russia has lost any moral high ground and he underlined that war also has law.
Borrell's remarks Monday came as he arrived to chair a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands is gathering evidence about any possible war crimes in Ukraine, but Russia, like the United States, does not recognise the tribunal's jurisdiction.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney says his country is certainly open to other mechanisms for accountability in terms of the atrocities that are taking place in Ukraine right now.
Coveney says social media images of the war are driving a fury across the European Union for those responsible to be held to account.
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Jerusalem: Israel's prime minister says that while there have been advances in cease-fire talks between Russia and Ukraine, very large gaps remain between the two sides.
Naftali Bennett, who has acted as intermediary between the two warring countries in recent weeks, said at a conference on Monday that Israel will continue together with other friends in the world to try and bridge the gap and bring an end to the war.
Israel has good relations with both Ukraine and Russia and has acted as a broker between the two sides since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.
Bennett has held multiple phone calls with both leaders in recent weeks and flew to Moscow earlier this month to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Bennett has offered to host a summit in Jerusalem.
There's still a long way to go, because as I stated, there are a number of controversial issues, some of them fundamental, the prime minister said at the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper's conference.
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Ljubljana: Slovenia says it plans to send the country's diplomatic representatives back to Ukraine later this week.
Prime Minister Janez Jansa has urged other European Union nations to do the same. He said on Twitter late on Sunday that Ukraine needs diplomatic support.
Slovenia's diplomats left Ukraine with the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24 as other countries withdrew their representatives as well.
Jansa visited Kyiv last week along with the prime ministers of Poland and the Czech Republic.
He has said after the visit that Ukraine was feeling abandoned and urged the EU to send a bloc's representative there.
Jansa said the return of Slovenia's diplomats will be organised on voluntary basis.
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London: Britain's defense ministry says heavy fighting iscontinuing north of Kyiv as Russian forces press on with a stalled effort to encircle Ukraine's capital city.
In an update Monday on social media, the ministry said Russian forces advancing on the city from the northeast have stalled, and troops advancing from the direction of Hostomel to the northwest have been pushed back by fierce Ukrainian resistance.
It said the bulk of Russian forces were more than 25 kilometers from the city centre.
UK officials said that despite the continued lack of progress, Kyiv remains Russia's primary military objective and they are likely to prioritise attempting to encircle the city over the coming weeks.
