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UN General Assembly has suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council

EU will allocate another half a billion euros to Ukraine for weapons

Of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly, 93 voted in favour of removing Russia from the UN Human Rights Council
Photo: EPA/BGNES

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will visit Kyiv on April 8 to show what she says is Europe's "unwavering support" for Ukraine. The EU has imposed an embargo on coal imports from Russia and banned Russian ships from accessing the Union's ports. These are just the first two measures of the 5th package of sanctions against Moscow. 

European Council President Charles Michel has backed a proposal to allocate another 500 m euros to arm Ukraine. "Once approved quickly, this will lead to 1.5 billion euros with EU support for military equipment already provided to Ukraine," Michel wrote on Twitter.

The UN General Assembly has suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council as punishment for invading Ukraine. Of the 193 members of the assembly, 93 voted in favour of the removal, 24 voted against and 58 abstained, as this is the second time in history when a country has been removed from the council after the removal of Libya in 2011.

Leaders of the world's largest economies from G7 have agreed to impose new sanctions on key sectors of Russia's economy, including energy. The US Congress has approved the termination of normal trade relations with Moscow and Minsk. The White House has the right to impose special duties on all goods from Russia and Belarus.

The Financial Times reported that Rusal, the world's largest aluminum producer, is the first Russian company to call for an investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The company also called for a "speedy peaceful resolution of the conflict".

"We hope that in the foreseeable future, this operation will either achieve its goals or we will complete it through negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Britain's Sky News.



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