May 12, 2022: Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that "very difficult negotiations" are ongoing on the evacuation of seriously wounded fighters from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in exchange for Russian prisoners of war.

"To be clear: we are currently negotiating only about 38 severely wounded (bedridden) fighters. We work step by step. We will exchange 38, then we will move on. There are currently no talks on the exchange of 500 or 600 people, which is being reported by some media outlets," she said.

She asked others to stop speculating about the process.

"I beg you. It's about people's lives. Refrain from public comments about what you do not know," she said.

Beth Van Schaack, the US ambassador at large for global criminal justice, said one of the biggest challenges to ensuring accountability for those who are responsible for war crimes in Ukraine will be getting them into custody. But, she added, that “those of us in this business are playing a long game” to try to apprehend them.

She told lawmakers that the world has “never seen this type of international coordination around the imperative of accountability, frankly, since World War II and then in the 1990s when the two ad-hoc criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda were created.”

“There is a huge international effort to document crimes that's being done on multilaterally through partnerships and also individually at the civil society level and a huge effort with prosecutors from different systems, working together,” she said.

The Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova has alleged that the Russian army had committed more than 9,800 war crimes as of May 5.

Democratic US Sen. Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday that his committee is “already working to ensure swift consideration” of Finland’s and Sweden’s memberships in NATO should they choose to apply.

At least two-thirds of the US Senate must vote to approve new member states in the defensive alliance.

In a tweet, Republican ranking member of the committee Sen. Jim Risch said that Finland’s “announcement today marks a tremendous step forward in the future of transatlantic security.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday welcomed Finland's bid to join NATO and offered Berlin's “full support" after Finland's president and prime minister announced their support for joining NATO, moving the Nordic nation – which shares an 800-mile border with Russia – one step closer to membership of the US-led military alliance.

“In a phone call with President Sauli Niinistö, I assured Finland of the German government's full support,” Scholz added.   

The Finnish president on Twitter said that he discussed Finland's NATO membership bid with the German chancellor.   

''Finland is grateful for German support for our NATO membership,” he wrote, adding that they also discussed "the need to achieve peace in Ukraine."  

The European Union is proposing to establish “solidarity lanes” exclusively for exporting agricultural goods from Ukraine to help ease the blockade of produce, which is “threatening global food security,” the commission said in a news release Thursday.  

The plan aims to integrate Ukrainian and EU infrastructure to mobilize 20 million metric tons of grain that must leave Ukraine within three months, EU Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean said in the release. 

“Thousands” of trucks and wagons are stuck on the Ukrainian side of many EU borders, with an average waiting time of 16 days to pass through — rising to 30 days at some borders — the commission said.  

The commission is urging freight and infrastructure managers to take steps to streamline Ukrainian exports, such as making more vehicles available and prioritizing time slots.

National authorities are also being asked to apply “maximum flexibility” to “accelerate procedures at border crossing points” and work to secure more capacity for storing Ukrainian exports temporarily. 

The export blockade — resulting from the war with Russia — in addition to incidents of grain theft, reportedly at the hands of Russian forces, are causing a global supply crisis of grains such as wheat and corn.

Families of Azov regiment fighters holed up in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol sent an emotional appeal to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging him to "be a hero" and initiate an extraction procedure for all remaining fighters at the plant. 

At a news briefing in Kyiv, a father of an 18-year-old fighter urged the Turkish leader to seize “a historical opportunity to go down in history as a peacemaker, as a hero.”

“As a man to man, a father to a father, I implore you to save my son and his comrades,” Evheniy Suharnikov pleaded, referencing Turkey’s experience with military extraction operations in the Middle East.

Using examples of extractions in Syria and Dunkirk during World War II, Suharnikov asked for a civilian vessel to be sent for the fighter’s collection from Azovstal. The fighter’s father also suggested they are taken to a neutral country, away from the hostilities. 

Families of fighters have gathered 1.5 million signatures on a petition they started to secure a safe passage out of the plant for Azov fighters.

“The UN and the Red Cross are only interested in civilians,” one fighter’s wife said while standing next to her young son.

One girlfriend of an Azov fighter warned if the fighters are abandoned, “Ukraine will not have a bright future.”

Ukraine has offered to release Russian prisoners of war in exchange of the evacuation of injured Ukrainian soldiers from the besieged Azovstal steel plant. There are thought to be several hundred soldiers still at Mariupol’s last Ukrainian stronghold. Russia continues regular bombardments of the plant, according to both the Russian and the Ukrainian military.

Russian state energy giant Gazprom said it will stop sending Russian gas through the Yamal pipeline that runs through Poland, after the Kremlin imposed sanctions on a number of foreign companies.

Gazprom said the sanctions include EuRoPol Gaz, which owns the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline. 

It’s the latest tension over gas between Russian and Poland. Last month, Gazprom said it had fully halted supplies to Polish gas company PGNiG and Bulgaria's Bulgargaz after they refused to meet a demand by Moscow to pay in rubles rather than euros or dollars.

The Yamal pipeline runs from Russia through Belarus and onto Poland and Germany. According to energy analyst Bruegel, it accounts for a small part of Russian gas flows to Europe, and its use has been declining sharply since the war began. 

The German energy regulator played down the impact on its supplies. It told Reuters in a statement that stopping gas flows through Yamal will not endanger German supplies because “hardly any gas to Germany has been going through this pipeline for weeks.”

German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck accused Russia on Thursday of using energy "as a weapon," following an announcement by the Russian government on Wednesday to impose sanctions on 31 foreign energy companies in retaliation for Western penalties over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

"It has to be said that the situation is coming to a head, in such a way that the use of energy as a weapon is now being realized in several areas," Habeck told reporters at a news conference in Berlin. This is not the first time Habeck has said Russia is using energy as ''a weapon.''

Germany has been under pressure from Ukraine and other nations in Europe to make progress in weaning itself off Russian energy supplies since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24. 

On Thursday, Habeck said that Germany was focusing on building up gas reserves to prepare for winter.

Finland "must be aware of the responsibility and consequences" of joining NATO, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday, adding that Russia "will be forced" to take retaliatory steps if the country joins the alliance.  

“The statement by Finnish President S. Niinistö and Finnish Prime Minister S. Marin, who spoke today in favor of Finland joining NATO, is a radical change in the country's foreign policy," the Russian foreign ministry said, adding "Helsinki must be aware of the responsibility and consequences of such a move."

Finland's possible accession to NATO would cause serious damage to bilateral Russian-Finnish relations, which are maintaining stability and security in the Northern European region, the ministry said. 

"Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard," it said. 

"Joining NATO will also be a direct violation of Finland's international legal obligations, primarily the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 and the 1992 Treaty between Russia and Finland on the fundamentals of relations,” Russia's foreign ministry said. 

Finland shares an 800-mile border with Russia.