April 21, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

In his nightly address on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Russia that any attempts at annexation will lead to sanctions that will leave it as poor as it was after its civil war in 1917.

He urged the residents of the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to be very careful about the information they provide to Russian troops.

“If they ask you to fill out some questionnaires, leave your passport data somewhere, you should know - this is not to help you … This is aimed to falsify the so-called referendum on your land, if an order comes from Moscow to stage such a show,” he said.

Zelensky thanked the prime ministers of Spain and Denmark for their support as they arrived in Kyiv and thanked the Danish prime minister for showing readiness to support post-war reconstruction in Ukraine, particularly in Mykolaiv.

The Ukrainian president also thanked the US for additional support, saying, “The United States has announced a new package of support for our state. We are grateful for that. This package contains very powerful defense tools for our military. In particular, it is artillery, shells, drones. This is what we expected.”

Earlier on Thursday, Zelensky addressed the Parliament of Portugal and said as of Thursday, Russian forces have killed at least 1,126 Ukrainians in the Kyiv region alone, of which 40 are children. He also said Russian forces have already “deported” at least 500,000 Ukrainians from the territory they have occupied.

World leaders need to "facilitate a real legal mechanism" to hold Russian President accountable for committing "crimes against humanity," former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said in an interview with CNN Thursday.

"Unpunished evil always returns. Putin and his military committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The incumbent legal machinery is not capable of bringing to justice Putin and these criminals. So it is important to realize that we need urgently to facilitate a real legal mechanism," he said, adding that sending a message to Moscow is not enough.

"We need to send a legal team to every single spot where Putin committed these crimes and actually orchestrate a legal case against Putin."

Several ministers walked out during the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) meeting in Washington, DC, Thursday as Russia’s financial minster spoke, the Danish financial minster told CNN.

“I saw colleagues from all over the world sending a very clear message to President Putin and to Russia that we will under no circumstances accept the war on Ukraine and we stand firmly behind the Ukrainian people,” Wammen said.

Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister and head of the IMFC Nadia Calvino told Quest that the meeting was “not business as usual” and that “different countries different members expressed their views in a different manner, but overall this has been a very productive meeting.”

Following a meeting of the IMFC, a joint communique is normally issued, however, for the first time in history it was not as Russia refused to approve it.

Despite this, Calvino said that the outcome of the meeting was still positive and “when a consensus based organization sees one country walk away, that makes it impossible to have a unanimously agreed communique but that doesn’t mean there is no agreement on the substantive issues.”

The United States welcomed Russia’s suspension from its permanent observer status at the Organization of American States, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Thursday.

There were 25 votes in favor, zero against, eight abstentions and one absence on the resolution titled “Suspension of the Status of the Russian Federation as a Permanent Observer of the Organization of American States.” 

Blinken said they “commend the governments of Antigua and Barbuda and Guatemala for leading the adoption of the resolution, and all the governments that supported it.”

The evacuation of civilians is going “very slowly” in the besieged eastern city of Mariupol, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Thursday.

“There is nothing to delight about Mariupol. Everything is going very slowly. On the Russian side, everything is very complicated, chaotic, slow and, of course, dishonest,” she said in a post on Telegram messaging app. 

She apologized to those who did not get evacuated on Thursday. “The shelling started near the collection point, which forced the corridor to be closed," the official said.

“Dear citizens of Mariupol: as long as we have at least some opportunities, we will not give up trying to get you out of there! Hold on!" she concluded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine needs $7 billion per month in financial assistance to make up for the economic losses from the war. 

In a virtual address to a World Bank forum, Zelenksy also said that it would take “hundreds of billions of dollars” to rebuild his country later. 

He said every country must be prepared to break all relations with Russia and that Moscow should “immediately” be excluded from all international financial institutions including the IMF and the World Bank.

Zelensky went on to say that Russia was “using aggressive methods in world markets while fighting this war” and these institutions were no place for them. 

Zelensky ended his address by saying he hoped the next meeting would take place in one of the cities in Ukraine that had been rebuilt with the support of the IMF and World Bank.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Thursday “it is nothing less than an accolade to earn the ire” of the Russian government by being sanctioned.

It is “a great honor to share that enmity with other truth tellers, my colleagues John Kirby and Jen Psaki, as well as a number of journalists who have done incredible work, sharing the jarring, bloody truth of Russia's actions in Ukraine,” he added.

Russia has banned a slew of US figures including US Vice President Kamala Harris from entering the country, Reuters quoted the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying.

Russia on Thursday expanded its “stop list” banning a further 29 American officials and figures from entering Russia on an indefinite basis, including US Vice President Kamala Harris and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that the list was published “in response to the ever-expanding anti-Russian sanctions” and includes US individuals of “the top leaders, businessmen, experts and journalists who form the Russophobic agenda.” 

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky, ABC TV host George Stephanopoulos, and Bank of America head Brian Moynihan have also been added to the list. 

 “In the near future, a new announcement will follow about the next replenishment of the Russian ‘stop list," the statement said.  

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Donetsk regional military administrator, said 79 residents of the besieged city of Mariupol were safely evacuated to Zaproizhzhia on Thursday. 

In a Telegram post, Kyrylenko said that after several delays and failed attempts to open an evacuation corridor from the besieged city, "this is the first time since the beginning of the blockade of Mariupol by the Russian occupation forces, we managed to evacuate local residents in an organized manner and take them to safety."

Kyrylenko said almost 100,000 residents of Mariupol have already arrived in Zaporizhzhia, promising that Ukrainian authorities will continue to work hard so that everyone who wants to escape the besieged city can do so.

Kyrylenko said during previous attempts to pull civilians out, the Russian forces broke their agreements, forcing those escaping to rely on private transport.

"This time, four buses managed to leave the besieged city in an organized manner. It is much less than agreed, but we still rejoice for every life saved," Kyrylenko said before congratulating all the evacuees who had managed to escape.