{"id":250434,"date":"2022-03-04T08:29:39","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T08:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=250434"},"modified":"2022-03-05T07:42:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T07:42:13","slug":"ukraine-war-french-warn-worst-is-to-come-after-macron-call-with-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=250434","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war: French warn \u2018worst is to come\u2019 after Macron call with Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Beaumont in Lviv, Kim Willshire, Jon Henley and Martin Farrer \u2013 The Guardian March 3, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Vladimir Putin has told Emmanuel Macron that Kyiv\u2019s \u201crefusal to accept Russia\u2019s conditions\u201d means he will continue to pursue his war in Ukraine<\/a>, the \u00c9lys\u00e9e palace has said, adding: \u201cWe expect the worst is yet to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the number of refugees fleeing the conflict passed a million and Russian forces, backed by heavy shelling, advanced on cities and key ports in the south and east, Russia\u2019s president said in a 90-minute call to his French counterpart he was \u201cprepared to go all the way\u201d, the French official said.<\/p>\n

Putin said Moscow aimed to take \u201cfull control\u201d of the country by diplomatic or military means and repeated his objective was the \u201cneutralisation, demilitarisation and de-nazification\u201d of Ukraine, the official said<\/p>\n

Macron had responded that Putin was making a \u201cmajor mistake\u201d that would cost Russia dearly over the long term. \u201cThere was nothing in what President Putin said to reassure us,\u201d the official said, adding that Macron had him he was \u201clying to himself\u201d.<\/p>\n

As talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators got underway, the Russian leader said separately that the invasion \u2013 which Russia calls a \u201cspecial military operation\u201d \u2013 was going according to plan and praised Russia\u2019s soldiers as heroes. \u201cAll the tasks that have been set are being successfully resolved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Putin claimed, without evidence, in a live TV address that Ukrainian forces had tortured and killed Russian prisoners of war and were using human shields. He said Russia\u2019s troops were fighting \u201cso we can\u2019t be threatened by an anti-Russia right on our borders that the West has been creating for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Moscow, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, dismissed rumours that the government, faced with international condemnation and deepening economic isolation, was about to introduce martial law, which would include border controls and military censorship. The reports, which have sparked a small-scale exodus, were \u201choaxes\u201d, Peskov said.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s forces, meanwhile, were battling to control several southern cities including Enerhodara, the site of Europe\u2019s largest nuclear plant, as part of what appears to be a plan to cut Ukraine off from the sea, stifling its economy but also creating a land corridor stretching from Russia westwards to Romania.<\/p>\n

The regional governor in Kherson, on the Black Sea, said on Thursday that Russian soldiers had occupied the regional administration building, after the city\u2019s mayor said Russian soldiers were in de facto control of the local council building.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t make any promises to them \u2026 I just asked them not to shoot people,\u201d said Ihor Kolykhaiev. The apparent capture of Kherson, strategically located at the mouth of the Dnipro River, marks the first significant urban centre to fall since Moscow launched its invasion on 24 February.<\/p>\n

Mariupol, another large port city on the Azov Sea, was also reportedly encircled and without light, water or heat. The city council said the shelling had been relentless and Russian troops were creating a \u201chumanitarian catastrophe\u201d by trying to prevent civilians leaving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are breaking food supplies, setting us up in a blockade,\u201d the council said. \u201cDeliberately, for seven days, they have been destroying critical life-support infrastructure. This is genocide of Ukrainian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Residents of Odesa, Ukraine\u2019s biggest port city and a vital link in Ukraine\u2019s economy, were also preparing to defend it amid warnings of an imminent Russian seaborne landing. Airstrikes on the city have multiplied and a Russian naval convoy of at least eight ships was seen off the coast.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian negotiators who met a Russian delegation for talks on Thursday with the objective of securing an immediate ceasefire said the two sides had agreed to hold a third round of talks soon and \u201creached an understanding\u201d on the joint provision of humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, warned that if the west did not increase military aid, Russia would advance on the rest of Europe. \u201cIf you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes!\u201d he said. \u201cIf we are no more, then, God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zelenskiy called for direct talks with Putin, saying it was \u201cthe only way to stop this war\u201d. Ukraine was \u201cnot attacking Russia \u2026 What do you want from us? Leave our land.\u201d The Ukrainian president said in an earlier video<\/a> his country\u2019s defensive lines were holding and praised the nation\u2019s resistance.<\/p>\n

Heavy shelling was again reported in Ukraine\u2019s second city, Kharkiv, a city of 1.5 million people where emergency services said 34 civilians had been killed in the past 24 hours. A university and a hospital were hit, and TV footage showed a city-centre wasteland of ruined buildings and debris.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s advance on the capital, however, had made little progress, the UK\u2019s defence ministry said. \u201cThe main body of the large Russian column advancing on Kyiv remains over 30km (19 miles) from the centre, having been delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Kyiv\u2019s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the situation in the capital was \u201cdifficult but under control\u201d, adding that there had been no casualties overnight and that explosions heard overnight were Ukrainian air defences striking down incoming Russian missiles.<\/p>\n

The UN human rights office has confirmed the deaths of 227 civilians and 525 injuries during the fighting, but said the actual toll would already be much higher. Ukraine has said at least 350 civilians have died and more than 2,000 have been injured.<\/p>\n

The UN refugee agency said the number of people fleeing the country had surpassed 1 million by early Thursday morning \u2013 about 2% of Ukraine\u2019s population of 44 million \u2013 adding that \u201cat this rate\u201d the exodus could make the country the source of \u201cthe biggest refugee crisis this century\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Russian attack has led to a barrage of international sanctions that have plunged Russia\u2019s economy into chaos and ever deepening isolation. The rouble again hit record lows on Thursday after the ratings agencies Fitch and Moody\u2019s downgraded Russia\u2019s sovereign debt to \u201cjunk\u201d status, while an estimated 80% of Russian banks\u2019 assets \u2013 and half its central bank\u2019s reserves \u2013 had been immobilised.<\/p>\n

French authorities on Thursday seized the Amore Vero, a superyacht owned by a company linked to Igor Sechin, chief executive of the Russian energy giant Rosneft, at La Ciotat, near Marseille, after reports that German authorities had seized the superyacht Dilbar belonging to the billionaire Alisher Usmanov on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The international criminal court has opened an investigation into possible war crimes after an unprecedented number of countries backed the move. Karim Khan, the ICC\u2019s chief prosecutor, said he would begin work \u201cas rapidly as possible\u201d to look for possible crimes against humanity or genocide committed in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During a recent telephone conservation Putin told President Macron that he intends to take over all of Ukraine to complete a process of \u201cde-nazification\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=250434"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250504,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250434\/revisions\/250504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=250434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=250434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=250434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}