???? Live: Russian defence minister pays rare visit to troops in Ukraine front line

Issued on: 04/03/2023 – 09:27

9:10am: Russia’s defence minister Shoigu pays rare visit inspecting troops in Ukraine front line

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has paid a rare visit to Russia’s forces, carrying out an inspection of the front line in eastern Ukraine, the ministry said Saturday, as fighting rages around the eastern city of Bakhmut.

In a statement published on Telegram, the ministry said “the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the Eastern Military District in the South Donetsk direction,” without specifying the exact place or time.

In video published by the ministry, Shoigu is seen awarding medals to Russian military personnel and touring a ruined town with the Eastern Military District’s commander, Colonel-General Rustam Muradov.

Russia’s top military chiefs have visited the front line in Ukraine only sparingly since Russia invaded the country in what it calls a “special military operation” a year ago.

6am: US attorney general in surprise visit to Ukraine, vows to hold ‘Russian war criminals accountable’

US Attorney General Merrick Garland made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Friday and vowed to hold “Russian war criminals accountable” for their actions. The visit was not announced ahead of time for security reasons.

“We are here today in Ukraine to speak clearly, and with one voice: the perpetrators of those crimes will not get away with them,” Garland said. He went to Lviv in western Ukraine at the invitation of his Ukrainian counterpart to take part in the “United for Justice Conference.”

Garland told the conference the United States stood beside Ukraine’s war crimes investigators as they collect and catalogue evidence from blast sites that include hospitals, apartment buildings and schools, exhume mass graves and study human remains — “in order to tell the stories of those who no longer can,” according to a Justice Department transcript of his remarks.

Since the invasion began a year ago, Russia has been committing atrocities on the largest scale of any conflict since World War II, he said. The United States has signed an agreement with Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Romania “that will strengthen our efforts to hold Russian war criminals accountable,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)