Luhansk Hospitals Destroyed

Serhiy Haidai, Luhansk Oblast's governor, reports all hospitals in and around the province have been destroyed. Russian forces, despite Moscow denying such allegations, are responsible for the destruction. Russian officials point the figure to Ukrainians destroying their own medical facilities.

"Since the beginning of the full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, every medical institution in our region has been shelled," Sergey Gaidai said.

Moscow has shifted its military focus to the east. Reports of major fighting have come out of eastern Ukraine. Mayor Borys Filatov. speaking about Dnipro, has requested all women, children, and elderly persons leave the city for their own safety.

“We have significant losses of troops and it’s a huge tragedy for us,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “an act of goodwill during the negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations.”

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President Joe Biden, believing his Russian counterpart has committed "major war crimes", recently spoke about horrifying images coming out of Ukraine. Russian forces retreat from areas around Kyiv. The aftermath is terrifying. There are scenes of brutally cold-blooded executions. The rationale for ratcheting up sanctions is readily apparent.

"We will keep raising the economic cost and ratchet up the pain for Putin and further increase Russia's economic isolation," Biden said, "decrying the intentional targeting of civilians by Russia and heralding a united Western response, even as he acknowledged the battle was ongoing."

Biden isn't the only person seeking the Russian president be held accountable. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Gerhart Baum file a complaint with federal prosecutors accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes in Ukraine.

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Baum, Germany's former Justice Minister and former Interior Minister, respectively, also referenced the Security Council of Russia and the Russian Armed Forces in their complaint.

The United States House of Representatives, with the law now having been sent to the United States Senate, voted 420-3 to pass legislation suspending all trade relations with Russia and Belarus. Shortly thereafter, sending it to President Joe Biden, the United States Senate unanimously votes to pass trade relations legislation.

Elsewhere, at the United Nations, a special emergency session was called to address concerns relating to Russia violating human rights.

The United Nations General Assembly suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council over reports of 'gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights' by invading Russian troops in Ukraine.

The General Assembly, suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council, saw 93 votes favouring the suspension. The time has come to remove Russia from the United Nations Security Council. Not everyone was on board with the suspension.

“Dealing with the membership of the Human Rights Council in such a way will set new dangerous precedent,” said China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun, “and produce serious consequences."

There were curiously 24 votes against the suspension and a further 58 abstentions.

"The age of engagement with Russia is over," said the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. "For NATO to remain at the vanguard of global security, it must be bold. As President Eisenhower, the alliance’s first supreme commander said, 'History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.'”

Russia isn't the first country suspended from the Human Rights Council. The first country suspended from the Human Rights Council, Libya, came in 2011. It was during Muammar Gaddafi's final year of rule.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, referencing negotiations, wants Minsk included in the talks aimed at ending the war. Minsk, the Belarus capital, is the country's largest city.

Minsk possesses a special administrative status in Belarus. The city, situated on the Svislach and the subterranean Niamiha rivers, is the administrative centre for both the Minsk Region and the Minsk District.