The Evening Wrap: Russia getting bogged down in Ukraine, western nations say

Russian forces in Ukraine are blasting cities and killing civilians but no longer making progress on the ground, Western countries said on Thursday, as a war Moscow was thought to have hoped to win within days entered its fourth week, Reuters reported. Local officials said rescuers in the besieged southern port of Mariupol were combing the rubble of a theatre where women and children had been sheltering, bombed by Russian forces the previous day. “The bomb shelter held. Now the rubble is being cleared. There are survivors. We don’t know about the (number of) victims yet,” mayoral adviser Petro Andrushchenko told Reuters by phone. Russia denied striking the theatre, which commercial satellite pictures showed had the word “children” marked out on the ground in front before it was blown up. Mariupol has suffered the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the war, with hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in basements with no food, water or power for weeks. Russian forces have begun letting some people out in private cars this week but have blocked aid convoys from reaching the city. Viacheslav Chaus, governor of the region centred on the frontline northern city of Chernihiv, said 53 civilians had been killed there in the past 24 hours. The toll could not be independently verified. In the capital Kyiv, a building in the Darnytsky district was extensively damaged by what the authorities said was debris from a missile shot down early in the morning. As residents cleared glass and carried bags of possessions away, a man knelt weeping by the body of a woman which lay close to a doorway, covered in a bloody sheet. Although both sides have pointed to limited progress in peace talks this week, President Vladimir Putin, who ordered Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, showed little sign of relenting. In a vituperative televised speech, he inveighed against “traitors and scum” at home who helped the West, and said the Russian people would spit them out like gnats. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Putin’s security council, said the United States had stoked “disgusting” Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia to its knees: “It will not work. Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place.” Kyiv and its Western allies believe Russia launched the unprovoked war to subjugate a neighbour Putin calls an artificial state. Moscow says it is carrying out a “special operation” to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine. Heavily outnumbered Ukrainian forces have prevented Moscow from capturing any of Ukraine’s biggest cities so far despite the largest assault on a European state since World War Two. More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled and thousands of civilians and combatants have died. British military intelligence said in an update on Thursday that the invasion had “largely stalled on all fronts”, and Russian forces were suffering heavy losses from a staunch and well-coordinated Ukrainian resistance. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed the German Bundestag by video link, pulling no punches in a speech that invoked the Holocaust and the Berlin Wall, and seemed intended to shame pro-Russian politicians in Moscow’s main energy buyer. “Every year politicians repeat ‘never again’,” said Zelenskiy, who is of Jewish heritage, citing a slogan used to mark the Holocaust. “And now we see that these words are simply worthless. In Europe a people is being destroyed, they are trying to destroy everything that is dear to us, what we live for.” He accused Germany of helping to build a new wall “in the middle of Europe between freedom and unfreedom”, by isolating Ukraine with its business ties to Russia and its earlier support for Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline it has since frozen. Russia has assaulted Ukraine from four directions, sending two massive columns towards Kyiv from the northwest and northeast, pushing in from the east near the second biggest city Kharkiv, and spreading in the south from Crimea. Northeastern and northwestern suburbs of Kyiv have been reduced to rubble by heavy fighting, but the capital itself has held firm, under a curfew and subjected to deadly nightly rocket attacks. Amid the unrelenting fighting, both sides have spoken of progress at talks. Ukrainian officials have said they think Russia is running out of troops to keep fighting and could soon come to terms with its failure to topple the Ukrainian government. Moscow has said it is close to agreeing a formula that would keep Ukraine neutral, long one of its demands. Moscow said peace talks resumed on Thursday by videolink for a fourth straight day, discussing military, political and humanitarian issues. A top aide to Zelenskiy said Ukraine still maintained its core demand, that it retain sovereignty over areas occupied since 2014 by Russian and pro-Russian forces. Kremlin rejects top U.N. court order to halt Ukraine offensive Kremlin, on Thursday, rejected the U.N.’s top court’s ruling that ordered Russia to immediately suspend military operations in Kyiv. The U.N.’s International Court of Justice had ruled on Wednesday that Moscow should “immediately suspend military operations that it commenced on February 24 on the territory of Ukraine. According to Ukranian authorities, Russian forces on March 16, 2022 carried out an airstrike on a theatre in Mariupol, in which more than a thousand people were taking shelter. Russia’s attacks continued as world leaders intensified their condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The International Court of Justice ordered Russia to suspend its invasion of Ukraine, saying it was “profoundly concerned” by Moscow’s use of force. Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal, announcing that he is sending more anti-aircraft, anti-armor weapons and drones to Ukraine. The U.N. Security Council will meet Thursday at the request of six Western nations that sought an open session on Ukraine ahead of an expected vote on a Russian humanitarian resolution. The conflict began escalating on February 21, 2022, after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised separatist regions in eastern Ukraine and deployed troops in a peacekeeping role. Meanwhile, the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) said on Thursday that the war in Ukraine is already resulting in rising food prices and a shortage of staple crops in parts of central Asia, the Middle East and north Africa. The Russian invasion of Ukraine last month has severely curtailed shipments from the two countries, which jointly account for around 25% of world wheat exports and 16% of world corn exports, leading to surging prices for the grains on international markets. These are now trickling down to retail food prices in some of the world’s poorest countries, according to IFAD. Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, warned that hikes are set to cause escalating hunger and poverty, with dire implications for global stability. Ukraine crisis: Moody’s scales down India growth hopes Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded India’s growth forecast for calendar year 2022 from 9.5% to 9.1% and marginally pared growth hopes for 2023 from 5.5% to 5.4%, citing the global impact on growth due to the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The global rating firm, which had raised India’s GDP growth number for 2022 from 7% to 9.5% less than a month ago, said it was now scaling down its global growth outlook and raising inflation projections in light of the spurt in commodities prices, supply shortages, business disruptions and the dented sentiment to geopolitical strife. India was particularly vulnerable to high oil prices as it was a large importer of crude oil, although as a surplus grain producer, its agricultural exports could gain in the short term from the global high prices, Moody’s said. “High fuel and potentially high fertiliser costs would weigh on government finances down the road, potentially limiting planned capital spending,” Moody’s said, citing these as the reasons for the lower growth forecast by 0.4 percentage points. India, however, stood to benefit on wheat exports, for instance, Moody’s pointed out. While the magnitude of damage to the global economy would depend on the duration and scope of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Moody’s said the recovery had been dented but not derailed yet. However, alternative downside scenarios envision a global economy tipping into recession, even as other risks such as new COVID-19 waves, monetary policy missteps, and social risks associated with high inflation could dampen the growth outlook. “We now expect the G-20 economies to expand 3.6% collectively in 2022, compared with 4.3% growth envisioned in our February outlook. Growth will further slow to 3% in 2023,” the rating firm said, adding that Russia was the only G-20 nation to see a contraction. “We forecast that Russia’s economy will shrink 7% this year and 3% in 2023, down from projected growth of 2.0% and 1.5%, respectively, before the invasion of Ukraine,” it noted. In its global macroeconomic outlook released on February 24, the day Russia began military operations in Ukraine, Moody’s had said India was on its way to normalcy but was less sanguine about the global economy’s prospects. “The first half of 2022 will be challenging. Elevated commodity prices, demand-supply imbalances, inflation pressures, volatile financial markets and geopolitical tensions will make for a challenging backdrop,” it had said. At the time, it had flagged that its ‘bear scenario’ was a more likely outcome due to the balance of risks tilting to the downside. As per that scenario, Moody’s had anticipated elevated inflation would accompany weakening growth, with sanctions on Russia resulting in substantial decline in energy supply, sending oil and gas prices surging. Defence personnel can move HCs against tribunals’ decisions: Delhi HC Members of the armed forces, including the Air Force, the Navy and the Army, can approach the High Courts to challenge the final decisions of the Armed Forces Tribunals (AFT) involving issues of pay, pension, promotion and discipline, the Delhi High Court has held. The Delhi HC’s ruling is likely to provide reprieve to a large section appellants whose only remedy until now was to petition the Supreme Court against the final order passed by an AFT. A Bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Navin Chawla said, “The remedy of appeal to apex court in a large number of cases may also prove to be ineffective for the members of the armed forces posted all over India as they may find it expensive and difficult to approach the apex court.” The Central government, on the other hand, argued that members of the armed forces need not approach the High Courts against decisions of the AFTs as they have an alternative effective remedy of filing an appeal before the Supreme Court under Armed Forces Tribunal Act. The Centre further argued that the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007 clearly stipulates that the reason for the establishment of the tribunal was the large number of cases pending before the High Courts. It said if members of the armed forces are allowed to approach the High Court, “it would lead to the same situation [high pendency] once again”. Advocate Ankur Chhibber, who represented some of the armed forces personnel before the High Court, argued that an appeal to the Supreme Court lies only in such cases where the question of general public importance is involved. Chibber said an appeal lies with the leave of the AFT and such leave cannot be granted unless it’s certified by the tribunal that a point of law of general public importance is involved in the decision passed. He contended that matters concerning pay, pension, promotion and discipline are matters personal to the litigants and do not involve any substantial question of law of general public importance. Hence, no leave to appeal can be granted under Section 31 of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act. The High Court clarified: “The jurisdiction of High Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution cannot be bypassed merely by making a provision for direct appeal to the Supreme Court against an order of a tribunal.” It referred to the judgment of the Supreme Court in Rojer Mathew case, where the top court held that Article 226 of the Constitution does not restrict the jurisdiction of High Courts over the AFT, observing that the same can neither be tampered with nor diluted. “The Constitution confers on the Constitutional Court [Supreme Court and High Courts] the power of judicial review, which is exclusive in nature. Judicial review goes some way to answer the age old question ‘who guards the guards?’” the High Court said. The High Court’s decision came on a batch of petitions by various members of the armed forces challenging the orders of AFTs. In brief Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has resumed ratings for individual news channels, with the release of data for Week 10 of 2022. BARC India temporarily suspended the viewership ratings of the news channels in October 2020 amid allegations of a Television Rating Point (TRP) scam. Following an industry-wide consultative process, the BARC Team, along with BARC TechComm, developed the Augmented Data Reporting Standards for News and Special Interest genres, aligned with the industry’s needs, BARC India stated. “As per these revised approved standards, audience estimates for these genres will only be released based on a four-week rolling average, every week,” it said. Evening Wrap wishes you a Happy Holi. [logo] The Evening Wrap 17 MARCH 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Russia getting bogged down in Ukraine, western nations say  Russian forces in Ukraine are blasting cities and killing civilians but no longer making progress on the ground, Western countries said on Thursday, as a war Moscow was thought to have hoped to win within days [entered its fourth week]( Reuters reported. Local officials said rescuers in the besieged southern port of Mariupol were combing the rubble of [a theatre where women and children had been sheltering, bombed by Russian forces the previous day](. “The bomb shelter held. Now the rubble is being cleared. There are survivors. We don’t know about the (number of) victims yet,” mayoral adviser Petro Andrushchenko told Reuters by phone. [This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows the Mariupol Drama Theatre in Mariupol on March 14, 2022. Photo: Maxar Technologies via AP] Russia denied striking the theatre, which commercial satellite pictures showed had the word “children” marked out on the ground in front before it was blown up. Mariupol has suffered the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the war, with hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in basements with no food, water or power for weeks. Russian forces have begun letting some people out in private cars this week but have blocked aid convoys from reaching the city. Viacheslav Chaus, governor of the region centred on the frontline northern city of Chernihiv, said 53 civilians had been killed there in the past 24 hours. The toll could not be independently verified. In the capital Kyiv, a building in the Darnytsky district was extensively damaged by what the authorities said was debris from a missile shot down early in the morning. As residents cleared glass and carried bags of possessions away, a man knelt weeping by the body of a woman which lay close to a doorway, covered in a bloody sheet. Although both sides have pointed to limited progress in peace talks this week, President Vladimir Putin, who ordered Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, showed little sign of relenting. In a vituperative televised speech, he inveighed against “traitors and scum” at home who helped the West, and said the Russian people would spit them out like gnats. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Putin’s security council, said the United States had stoked “disgusting” Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia to its knees: “It will not work. Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place.” Kyiv and its Western allies believe Russia launched the unprovoked war to subjugate a neighbour Putin calls an artificial state. Moscow says it is carrying out a “special operation” to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine. Heavily outnumbered Ukrainian forces have prevented Moscow from capturing any of Ukraine’s biggest cities so far despite the largest assault on a European state since World War Two. More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled and thousands of civilians and combatants have died. British military intelligence said in an update on Thursday that the invasion had “largely stalled on all fronts”, and Russian forces were suffering heavy losses from a staunch and well-coordinated Ukrainian resistance. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed the German Bundestag by video link, pulling no punches in a speech that invoked the Holocaust and the Berlin Wall, and seemed intended to shame pro-Russian politicians in Moscow’s main energy buyer. “Every year politicians repeat ‘never again’,” said Zelenskiy, who is of Jewish heritage, citing a slogan used to mark the Holocaust. “And now we see that these words are simply worthless. In Europe a people is being destroyed, they are trying to destroy everything that is dear to us, what we live for.” He accused Germany of helping to build a new wall “in the middle of Europe between freedom and unfreedom”, by isolating Ukraine with its business ties to Russia and its earlier support for Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline it has since frozen. Russia has assaulted Ukraine from four directions, sending two massive columns towards Kyiv from the northwest and northeast, pushing in from the east near the second biggest city Kharkiv, and spreading in the south from Crimea. Northeastern and northwestern suburbs of Kyiv have been reduced to rubble by heavy fighting, but the capital itself has held firm, under a curfew and subjected to deadly nightly rocket attacks. Amid the unrelenting fighting, both sides have spoken of progress at talks. Ukrainian officials have said they think Russia is running out of troops to keep fighting and could soon come to terms with its failure to topple the Ukrainian government. Moscow has said it is close to agreeing a formula that would keep Ukraine neutral, long one of its demands. Moscow said peace talks resumed on Thursday by videolink for a fourth straight day, discussing military, political and humanitarian issues. A top aide to Zelenskiy said Ukraine still maintained its core demand, that it retain sovereignty over areas occupied since 2014 by Russian and pro-Russian forces. Kremlin rejects top U.N. court order to halt Ukraine offensive  Kremlin, on Thursday, [rejected the U.N.’s top court’s ruling]( that ordered Russia to immediately suspend military operations in Kyiv. The U.N.’s International Court of Justice had ruled on Wednesday that Moscow should “immediately suspend military operations that it commenced on February 24 on the territory of Ukraine. According to Ukranian authorities, Russian forces on March 16, 2022 carried out an airstrike on a theatre in Mariupol, in which more than a thousand people were taking shelter. Russia’s attacks continued as world leaders intensified their condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The International Court of Justice ordered Russia to suspend its invasion of Ukraine, saying it was “profoundly concerned” by Moscow’s use of force. Meanwhile, U.S. President [Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal]( announcing that he is sending more anti-aircraft, anti-armor weapons and drones to Ukraine. The U.N. Security Council will meet Thursday at the request of six Western nations that sought an open session on Ukraine ahead of an expected vote on a Russian humanitarian resolution. The conflict began escalating on February 21, 2022, after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised separatist regions in eastern Ukraine and deployed troops in a peacekeeping role. Meanwhile, the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) said on Thursday that the war in Ukraine is already resulting in rising food prices and a shortage of staple crops in parts of central Asia, the Middle East and north Africa. The Russian invasion of Ukraine last month has severely curtailed shipments from the two countries, which jointly account for around 25% of world wheat exports and 16% of world corn exports, leading to surging prices for the grains on international markets. These are now trickling down to retail food prices in some of the world’s poorest countries, according to IFAD. Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, warned that hikes are set to cause escalating hunger and poverty, with dire implications for global stability. Ukraine crisis: Moody’s scales down India growth hopes   Moody’s Investors Service has [downgraded India’s growth forecast]( for calendar year 2022 from 9.5% to 9.1% and marginally pared growth hopes for 2023 from 5.5% to 5.4%, citing the global impact on growth due to the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The global rating firm, which had raised India’s GDP growth number for 2022 from 7% to 9.5% less than a month ago, said it was now scaling down its global growth outlook and raising inflation projections in light of the spurt in commodities prices, supply shortages, business disruptions and the dented sentiment to geopolitical strife. [A Moody's sign on the 7 World Trade Center tower is photographed in New York. File ] India was particularly vulnerable to high oil prices as it was a large importer of crude oil, although as a surplus grain producer, its agricultural exports could gain in the short term from the global high prices, Moody’s said. “High fuel and potentially high fertiliser costs would weigh on government finances down the road, potentially limiting planned capital spending,” Moody’s said, citing these as the reasons for the lower growth forecast by 0.4 percentage points. India, however, stood to benefit on wheat exports, for instance, Moody’s pointed out. While the magnitude of damage to the global economy would depend on the duration and scope of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Moody’s said the recovery had been dented but not derailed yet. However, alternative downside scenarios envision a global economy tipping into recession, even as other risks such as new COVID-19 waves, monetary policy missteps, and social risks associated with high inflation could dampen the growth outlook. “We now expect the G-20 economies to expand 3.6% collectively in 2022, compared with 4.3% growth envisioned in our February outlook. Growth will further slow to 3% in 2023,” the rating firm said, adding that Russia was the only G-20 nation to see a contraction. “We forecast that Russia’s economy will shrink 7% this year and 3% in 2023, down from projected growth of 2.0% and 1.5%, respectively, before the invasion of Ukraine,” it noted. In its global macroeconomic outlook released on February 24, the day Russia began military operations in Ukraine, Moody’s had said India was on its way to normalcy but was less sanguine about the global economy’s prospects. “The first half of 2022 will be challenging. Elevated commodity prices, demand-supply imbalances, inflation pressures, volatile financial markets and geopolitical tensions will make for a challenging backdrop,” it had said. At the time, it had flagged that its ‘bear scenario’ was a more likely outcome due to the balance of risks tilting to the downside. As per that scenario, Moody’s had anticipated elevated inflation would accompany weakening growth, with sanctions on Russia resulting in substantial decline in energy supply, sending oil and gas prices surging. Defence personnel can move HCs against tribunals’ decisions: Delhi HC  Members of the armed forces, including the Air Force, the Navy and the Army, can approach the High Courts to challenge the final decisions of the Armed Forces Tribunals (AFT) involving issues of pay, pension, promotion and discipline, [the Delhi High Court has held](. The Delhi HC’s ruling is likely to provide reprieve to a large section appellants whose only remedy until now was to petition the Supreme Court against the final order passed by an AFT. A Bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Navin Chawla said, “The remedy of appeal to apex court in a large number of cases may also prove to be ineffective for the members of the armed forces posted all over India as they may find it expensive and difficult to approach the apex court.” The Central government, on the other hand, argued that members of the armed forces need not approach the High Courts against decisions of the AFTs as they have an alternative effective remedy of filing an appeal before the Supreme Court under Armed Forces Tribunal Act. The Centre further argued that the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007 clearly stipulates that the reason for the establishment of the tribunal was the large number of cases pending before the High Courts. It said if members of the armed forces are allowed to approach the High Court, “it would lead to the same situation [high pendency] once again”. Advocate Ankur Chhibber, who represented some of the armed forces personnel before the High Court, argued that an appeal to the Supreme Court lies only in such cases where the question of general public importance is involved. Chibber said an appeal lies with the leave of the AFT and such leave cannot be granted unless it’s certified by the tribunal that a point of law of general public importance is involved in the decision passed. He contended that matters concerning pay, pension, promotion and discipline are matters personal to the litigants and do not involve any substantial question of law of general public importance. Hence, no leave to appeal can be granted under Section 31 of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act. The High Court clarified: “The jurisdiction of High Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution cannot be bypassed merely by making a provision for direct appeal to the Supreme Court against an order of a tribunal.” It referred to the judgment of the Supreme Court in Rojer Mathew case, where the top court held that Article 226 of the Constitution does not restrict the jurisdiction of High Courts over the AFT, observing that the same can neither be tampered with nor diluted. “The Constitution confers on the Constitutional Court [Supreme Court and High Courts] the power of judicial review, which is exclusive in nature. Judicial review goes some way to answer the age old question ‘who guards the guards?’” the High Court said. The High Court’s decision came on a batch of petitions by various members of the armed forces challenging the orders of AFTs. In brief Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has [resumed ratings for individual news channels]( with the release of data for Week 10 of 2022. BARC India temporarily suspended the viewership ratings of the news channels in October 2020 amid allegations of a Television Rating Point (TRP) scam. Following an industry-wide consultative process, the BARC Team, along with BARC TechComm, developed the Augmented Data Reporting Standards for News and Special Interest genres, aligned with the industry’s needs, BARC India stated. “As per these revised approved standards, audience estimates for these genres will only be released based on a four-week rolling average, every week,” it said. 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