Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia suspended from U.N. Human Rights Council amid global outrage over Ukraine

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The U.N. General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council amid mounting concerns that Moscow’s troops are committing grave war crimes in Ukraine.

The vote came as global outrage over the killings of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha intensified. Bodies were found strewn in the streets — and in some cases showed signs of torture — after Russian troops retreated.

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Germany’s foreign intelligence service claims to have intercepted radio communications in which Russian soldiers discuss indiscriminate killings in Ukraine. In two communications, Russian troops described how they question soldiers as well as civilians, and proceed to shoot them, according to an intelligence official familiar with the findings who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

World leaders have responded with tougher sanctions and promises to send Ukraine more weapons — measures that Ukrainian officials have welcomed but say aren’t enough to help prevent future atrocities.

Thousands of people are fleeing eastern Ukraine, bracing for an intensified Russian assault in the eastern part of the country.

Here’s what to know

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of a looming onslaught in eastern Ukraine, where Russia refocused its troops after withdrawing from Kyiv’s suburbs and the northern Chernihiv region. He urged European countries to impose an embargo on Russian oil.The Biden administration announced new sanctions on Russia, including against two of its biggest banks. Here’s why the United States is sanctioning Putin’s daughters over his war in Ukraine.Ukraine’s foreign minister flew to Brussels to address a meeting of his counterparts from the NATO alliance. He said his agenda was: “weapons, weapons, weapons.”The Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel for updates.
UNDERSTANDING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT

The president’s top military adviser paid lip service Thursday to the power of land mines, lauding how useful they have been in Ukraine’s efforts to hold back the Russian invasion.

“Land mines are being effectively used by the Ukrainian forces to shape the approach by Russian armored forces,” said Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Antitank mines, he added, are “one of the reasons why you see column after column of Russian vehicles destroyed.”

Land mines have long been a controversial weapon, because few sown during hostilities are unearthed by the forces once the fighting stops. Left behind, land mines pose a risk to civilians and a challenge to the organizations who work to clear them.

More than 160 countries have signed on to an international treaty banning the use or stockpiling of anti-personnel mines, out of concern for such long-term dangers. The United States and Russia are among the countries that have not joined the treaty.

Milley said Thursday that the United States is trying to develop mines that will “time out” so that they don’t pose any harm to civilians after wars have ended.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Thursday that the United States is providing Ukraine with intelligence to help it fight Russia in the Donbas, in the eastern part of the country, as Moscow concentrates its forces there.

“We are providing them intelligence to conduct operations in the Donbas,” Austin noted during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

There has been some uncertainty as to what form of intelligence the United States has been providing Ukraine, and whether it is timely enough to aid its counteroffensive against Russia. Kyiv and others have criticized Washington for not doing more. Austin acknowledged that “the current guidance was not clear” regarding intelligence sharing, but new guidance going out Thursday would be updated.

Austin also told senators that the United States would continue to “give the Ukrainians everything that they need, as fast as we can get it to them … so that they can be successful” in pushing Russia out of the Donbas, an eastern region that has been a stronghold of pro-Russian separatists for several years.

The World Health Organization is bracing for possible “chemical assaults” in Ukraine as Western allies consider the growing threat of further escalation by Russian forces.

“Given the uncertainties of the current situation, there are no assurances that the war will not get worse,” Hans Kluge, the WHO’s European head, said during a Thursday briefing in the Ukrainian city of Lviv.

Kluge did not cite specific intelligence indicating an imminent chemical attack but said, “The short answer is that WHO is preparing for any eventuality within our mandate.”

He did not detail what the preparations may look like.

Heather Papowitz, the WHO’s incident director, noted the “chemical hazards” that could result from Russian attacks on industrial sites in Ukraine. In addition to chemical manufacturing plants, Ukraine has more than a dozen nuclear power reactors.

The White House warned a month ago that Russia could use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine.

NATO members have agreed to “further strengthen and sustain our support to Ukraine” and provide a “wide range of different weapons systems” as Russian attacks continue, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a briefing on Thursday after a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers.

Before Stoltenberg made his remarks, Ukraine’s foreign minister again pushed for NATO to more quickly provide more weaponry as the country continues to defend against Russian forces. Asked about those requests, Stoltenberg said NATO members agreed that “allies should do more and are ready to do more to provide more equipment, and they realize and recognize the urgency.”

Stoltenberg would not specify the kinds of systems NATO allies are providing but said they “are providing a wide range of different weapons systems, both Soviet-era systems but also modern equipment.”

He noted that NATO is preparing for a “long haul” and that it is working to “manage the risk of escalation, and also to send a clear message that we are there to defend and protect all allies — not to provoke a conflict but to prevent a conflict.”

Stoltenberg added: “This war may last for weeks but also months and possibly also for years, and, therefore, we need to prepare for a long haul.”

BERLIN — Two former German officials said Thursday they have filed a 140-page criminal complaint with German prosecutors in the hope of opening a war-crimes case against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At a news conference, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Gerhart Baum, both former federal government ministers and members of the liberal Free Democratic Party, announced their intent to use every judicial instrument available to hold those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine to account.

“Like so many in our country, we asked ourselves, ‘What can we do?'” said Baum, 89.

The office of the German federal prosecutor had previously announced last month that it was initiating an investigation into possible Russian war crimes. The move is significant since grave acts such as war crimes or crimes against humanity committed in other countries can be prosecuted in Germany under the principle of “universal jurisdiction” enshrined in German law.

At the beginning of this year, a Syrian intelligence officer was convicted of crimes against humanity by a German court in the world’s first trial related to state-sponsored torture under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, 70, who was first appointed as justice minister in the 1990s and again in former chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, said at Thursday’s news conference, “Germany is a beacon in relation to international law.”

An attorney for the complainants said it may be possible to prosecute Putin for disturbing peace, since his orders not only endanger Ukrainians but also Russian soldiers. He noted that it was a Soviet prosecutor who “introduced crimes against the peace” into the proceedings of the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

The U.S. Commerce Department is bringing new enforcement actions against three Russian airlines — Aeroflot, Azur Air and Utair — designed to cut them off from spare parts and degrade their ability to fly over time, officials said Thursday.

The new orders, which the Commerce Department called “unprecedented,” represent the first export control enforcement action in response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The Commerce Department has already banned U.S.-made jets from flying into Russia or Belarusian airspace, but several Russian airlines have been taking passengers anyway. On March 18 the Commerce Department took the extraordinary step of publicly identifying the specific jets it says are flying in violation of U.S. law.

The measures announced Thursday morning extend to the myriad businesses that supply spare parts and maintenance to U.S.-made aircraft. They apply for 180 days and can be extended beyond that.

These airlines “will over time largely be unable to continue flying either internationally or domestically,” said Matthew Axelrod, assistant secretary for export enforcement with the Commerce Department.

The goal is to slowly starve Russia’s aviation sectors, preventing them from buying parts from U.S.-made companies, or U.S.-origin items held in inventory by other countries, U.S. officials said.

“We are cutting off not only their ability to access items from the United States but also re-exports of U.S.-origin items from abroad,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a news release.

Ukraine’s foreign minister had strong words for NATO leaders Thursday, asking “how many Buchas” have to take place before they impose stronger sanctions.

“How many children, women, men have to die — innocent lives have to be lost?” Dmytro Kuleba asked.

He criticized Western leaders for stepping up sanctions “only after seeing images of Bucha,” the Kyiv suburb where the bodies of civilians were left in the streets or in mass graves — in some cases, showing signs of torture — after Russian troops retreated.

Several nations, including the United States, have stepped up sanctions in recent days after images of the Bucha killings surfaced, sparking global outrage. The European Commission is weighing a ban on Russian coal — but not oil or natural gas — as part of a new package of sanctions.

“The damage that is being inflicted on Russia by sanctions now has mid- and long-term implications,” Kuleba said. “But people are dying today.”

He added that as long as the West continues buying Russian gas and oil, that means “supporting Ukraine with one hand” and the “Russian oil machine” with the other.

“[The] Bucha massacre is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Mariupol is much, much worse on all accounts.” The southern port city has been besieged for weeks by Russian forces, its remaining inhabitants — estimated to number more than 100,000 — largely cut off from supplies of food, water and electricity.