Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia suspended from U.N. Human Rights Council; E.U. approves coal phaseout

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World leaders stepped up efforts to isolate Russia in response to mounting evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, with the United Nations voting Thursday to suspend the Russian delegation from the Human Rights Council and the European Union approving a plan to phase out imports of Russian coal.

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The coal ban, which will take full effect mid-August, is the fifth sanctions package against Russia to be adopted by the E.U. Though Ukrainian leaders have urged Western allies to do more to stem the flow of money to Russia, Thursday’s vote applies only to coal and does not ban other Russian energy imports, like natural gas and oil.

Global outrage has grown since the brutal slaying of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha was revealed after Russian forces withdrew. Ukrainians in the country’s east have been urged to flee as Russian forces shift and regroup. Late Thursday, airstrikes disrupted a railway evacuation route in the separatist-held Donetsk province.

Here’s what to know

In a rare admission, the Kremlin’s spokesperson acknowledged that Russia has suffered “significant losses of troops” in Ukraine.Congress sent two bills aimed at punishing Russia and aiding Ukraine to President Biden for his signature.Ukraine’s top diplomat made a pointed appeal to NATO leaders to expedite arms supplies to Ukrainian forces before Russia launches an expected offensive in the country’s east.Germany’s foreign intelligence service says it intercepted radio communications in which Russian troops discuss indiscriminately killing soldiers and civilians in Ukraine.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
Residents of Borodyanka, a city in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, surveyed the destruction after the withdrawal of Russian occupiers in early April. (Video: Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post)

When Ukrainian authorities returned to the newly-liberated community of Borodyanka, 30 miles northwest of Kyiv, they discovered decimated buildings, rattled survivors and an increasing number of bodies.

Cleanup in the town began Wednesday, and by Thursday, officials said more than 200 people had been reported missing — a number they expect to quickly rise, along with the death toll. Before Ukrainian troops retook it, Borodyanka was relentlessly pummeled by Russian airstrikes and occupied by Moscow’s forces, who dug a trench through a playground.

During a search of two apartment buildings, 26 bodies were found under the rubble, Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said. And there was still more debris and many other structures to search, she said, calling Borodyanka “the most destroyed city in the Kyiv region.”

“Evidence of Russian war crimes is here at every turn,” she said in a post to Twitter.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the death toll there may be even higher than that of Bucha, the suburb where Ukrainian officials say Russian troops killed more than 300 civilians.

Officials have so far confirmed 400 civilians killed in the Kyiv region, Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, said Thursday.

“But this figure will increase,” Herashchenko said.

Zachary Nelson and Paulina Firozi contributed to this report.

TORONTO — Canada will provide nearly $400 million in additional military aid to Ukraine and offer up to $790 million in new loan resources through the International Monetary Fund, according to the federal budget released Thursday.

“Because they are fighting our fight — a fight for democracy — it is in our urgent national interest to ensure that they have the missiles and the money they need to win,” Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s deputy prime minister and finance minister, said in prepared budget speech remarks. “And that is what this budget helps to provide.”

The budget also pledged a review of Canadian defense policy and an additional $6 billion in defense spending on top of already planned increases. The document does not outline how the new funding will be spent and is not enough for Canada to hit its NATO target.

A parliamentary budget watchdog told CTV News last month that the country would need to spend up to $20 billion each year to meet its NATO spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product. Canada currently contributes nearly 1.4 percent.

BRUSSELS — Ukraine’s top diplomat made a pointed appeal to NATO on Thursday to drop reservations about providing additional arms to Ukrainian forces that he said were urgently needed to prevent further Russian atrocities against civilians.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba traveled to Brussels to address a gathering of his counterparts from across the Western alliance, saying he had a threefold agenda: “weapons, weapons, weapons.”

“The more weapons we get, and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved,” Kuleba said ahead of the meeting. “The more cities and villages will not be destructed. And there will be no more Buchas,” he said, referencing the city outside Kyiv where the withdrawal of Russian troops revealed scenes of horrific human suffering, including apparently tortured and executed civilians.

“I call on all allies to put aside their hesitations, their reluctance to provide Ukraine with everything it needs,” Kuleba continued. “Because, as weird as it may sound, but today weapons serve the purpose of peace.”

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Ukrainian officials have called for evacuations in three provinces near the Russian border as signs emerge that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops are escalating their assault on eastern and southern cities, The Post reported.

These photos show people attempting to leave the Kharkiv region, with some heading to the relative safety of western Ukraine.

European Union countries on Thursday approved a new package of sanctions that includes a phaseout of Russian coal, amid growing outrage over possible war crimes in Ukraine.

The latest E.U. sanctions package — the fifth since Russia invaded Ukraine — was proposed by the European Commission on Tuesday. The measures are expected to go into force Friday.

What was first pitched as a ban on Russian coal will in fact be a four-month phaseout. The new measures impose sanctions on the daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, block most Russian ships from E.U. ports, and ban the export of certain technologies to Russia. Russian banks are also targeted.

The phaseout of Russian coal comes amid growing calls for a full-scale ban on Russian energy.

Ukrainian officials and some E.U. countries have urged the 27-member bloc to stop importing Russian energy immediately. However, many countries, including Germany and Hungary, have resisted, worried about the impact on energy prices at home.

As photographs of atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha circulated this week, the idea of additional energy sanctions, particularly on oil, gained traction. Several countries, including France, have hinted that a ban on oil imports is now in the works.

On Wednesday, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, said sanctions on oil and gas “will also be needed sooner or later.”

European lawmakers on Thursday endorsed a nonbinding resolution calling the E.U. to ban oil, coal, gas, and nuclear fuel imports from Russia — a mostly symbolic gesture.

In 2020, the bloc imported 20 percent of its coal from Russia, compared to 35 percent of its oil and 40 percent of its natural gas, according to the E.U. statistics office.

In a stark acknowledgment, the Kremlin’s spokesman said Russia had suffered “significant losses of troops” in Ukraine, despite past proclamations of success in its invasion.

“We have significant losses of troops,” Dmitry Peskov said in a half-hour interview with Sky News on Thursday, “and it’s a huge tragedy for us.”

While Moscow has not publicly recognized the scope of its losses, a senior NATO military official estimated last month that roughly 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in the first four weeks of fighting in Ukraine.

During his first interview with a British broadcaster since the war began, Peskov pushed back when journalist Mark Austin said the Russian invasion has not gone as planned, pointing to the retreat from Kyiv, the loss of thousands of Russian troops and six Russian generals, and the continued reign of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Peskov disputed that the effort had become “a humiliation,” retorting that “it’s the wrong understanding of what’s going on.”

Peskov said the withdrawal of troops was an act of goodwill and claimed without evidence that the verified graphic photos and videos of damage and death apparently inflicted by Russian forces were “fake.”

Russian newspaper editor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov was attacked on a train Thursday, doused with a paint-and-acetone mixture that left his eyes burning, his publication said.

The attack occurred just days after Muratov was forced to suspend Novaya Gazata’s operations until the end of Russia’s war with Ukraine, after receiving a second warning from Russian authorities.

“They poured oil paint with acetone in the compartment. My eyes are burning terribly,” Muratov said in a brief report issued by the independent newspaper.

The editor, who was en route from Moscow to Samara, said the assailant shouted “Muratov, here’s one for our boys” as he threw the paint.

“Oil smell all over the carriage,” Muratov said in the report, which included photos of the mess.

The 60-year-old dean of Russian journalism has spent decades leading Novaya Gazeta, which became known for its pathbreaking investigative coverage.

In recent weeks, punitive new censorship laws in Russia have prompted many journalists to flee the country out of concern they could be arrested for reporting basic facts about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Muratov stayed and continued publishing Novaya Gazeta until March 28, when the paper said it was suspending operations because it had received a second warning from the Russian media regulator.

“Two warnings from Roskomnadzor in a year risks a revocation of our media license,” the paper said.