???? Live: EU’s Borrell vows to guard against ‘abuses’ during Russia’s Security Council presidency

Issued on: 02/04/2023 – 11:25

10:38am: Brittney Griner urges Biden to bring home reporter Gershkovich, accused of spying in Russia

US basketball star Brittney Griner, who was freed from a Russian penal colony in a prisoner exchange last year, has urged the Biden administration to keep using “every tool possible” to win the release of a US reporter accused of spying in Russia.

Griner and her wife Cherelle said on Instagram that “our hearts are filled with great concern” for Evan Gershkovich, the journalist arrested by Russia’s FSB security service last week in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

The Kremlin says Gershkovich was using journalism as a cover for spying activity – something his newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, has vehemently denied.

Russia has not made public any evidence to support the charges, under which Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in jail. The White House has described the accusations as “ridiculous” and President Joe Biden has called on Moscow to release him.

10:38am: Ukraine will fight on, army chief vows year after bodies found in Bucha

Ukraine will continue to fight for its independence, the chief of the army said on Sunday, a year after bodies of civilians were found in Bucha after Russian troops retreated.

“We will continue to fight for the independence of our nation,” Valery Zaluzhny wrote on Telegram. His comments came exactly a year after AFP journalists who entered the town of Bucha after the Russian retreat saw bodies of people in civilian clothes lying on the street, including one with hands tied behind their back.

10:18am: EU to guard against any Russia abuse of UN presidency, Borrell says

The European Union will guard against any abuse during Russia’s presidency of the United Nations Security Council during the month of April, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said.

Russia, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, on Saturday assumed its presidency as part of the monthly rotation between its 15 members.

“Despite being a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia continuously violates the very essence of the UN legal framework”, EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell tweeted late on Saturday.

“The EU will stand against any abuse by (the) Russian presidency”, he said. Russia’s ties with the West have sunk to their lowest point since the Cold War over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv has branded the presidency as “a slap in the face”.

Moscow last chaired the council in February 2022, the same month it invaded Ukraine – prompting Kyiv to call for Russia’s removal from the council. Russia will hold little influence on decisions but will be in charge of the agenda.

5:52am: War has killed 262 Ukrainian athletes, sports minister says

Russia’s war against Ukraine has claimed the lives of 262 Ukrainian athletes and destroyed 363 sports facilities, the country’s sports minister, Vadym Huttsait, said on Saturday. Meeting the visiting president of the International Federation of Gymnastics, Morinari Watanabe, Huttsait said no athletes from Russia should be allowed at the Olympics or other sports competitions.

“They all support this war and attend events held in support of this war,” Huttsait said, according to a transcript on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s website.

The International Olympic Committee has recommended the gradual return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international competition as neutrals. It has not decided on their participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

1:12am: Ukraine cleric accused of glorifying Russia invasion given house arrest

A top Ukrainian cleric from a church with alleged Moscow ties was sentenced to house arrest on Saturday after a hearing into whether he glorified invading Russian forces and stoked religious divisions, the church said.

Kyiv is cracking down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on the grounds it is pro-Russian and collaborating with Moscow, a charge the church denies. In a statement, the UOC said a Kyiv court also ordered Metropolitan Pavlo to wear an electronic bracelet. The Interfax Ukraine and Ukrinform news agencies said Pavlo had been given 60 days of house arrest.

12:41am: Ukraine furious over Russian UN Security Council presidency, says it is a ‘slap in the face’

Russia, whose leader is accused of war crimes, assumed charge of the United Nations Security Council on Saturday causing fury in Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky calling it an absurd and destructive move.

The last time Russia held the rotating presidency of the body responsible for maintaining peace and combating acts of international aggression was in February 2022 when Moscow troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, we … have some obviously absurd and destructive news,” Zelensky said in his daily video address, adding that Russian shelling had killed a five-month-old boy on Friday.”

And at the same time Russia is chairing the UN Security Council. It’s hard to imagine anything that proves more the total bankruptcy of such institutions,” he said. The presidency rotates alphabetically each month among the 15 members. Although it is largely procedural, the Kremlin and other Russian officials vowed to “exercise all its rights” in the role.

Kyiv branded Russia’s presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of April “a slap in the face”, joining a chorus of outrage from Western countries.

>> Read our live blog for all of yesterday’s developments as they unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)