2/18/23

By Aditi Jha

There has very recently been a "disturbing" rise in China's support for Russia in the Russia-Ukraine war, US officials informed CNN. On Saturday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the issue in a meeting with Wang Yi, China's highest-ranked diplomat and Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission. A State Department official told reporters that "The Secretary was quite blunt in warning about the implications and consequences of China providing material support to Russia or assisting Russia with systematic sanctions evasion." Blinken said that there has been evidence of Chinese companies providing "non-lethal support to ... Russia for use in the Ukraine." He continued to say that the concern about whether China would help Russia in the war stemmed from information that China is "considering providing lethal support." Additionally, Wang is going to visit Russia later in February, and China and Russia announced a "no-limits" friendship right before the Ukraine invasion. During Vice President Kamala Harris' speech in Munich, she said that "We are also troubled that Beijing has deepened its relationship with Moscow since the war began. Looking ahead, any steps by China to provide lethal support to Russia would only reward aggression, continue the killing, and further undermine a rules-based order." There have been other new findings in the Russia-Ukraine war, including the forceful deportation of at least 6000 Ukrainian children. American and European governments and a new report by Yale investigators have discovered that the Russian government has created camps where they've held thousands of Ukrainian children since the beginning of the war. The children's ages ranged from just a few months old to 17 years. Russia has tried to relocate, re-educate, and even militarily train Ukrainian children, as the report from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab states. Nathaniel Raymond, who works in the lab, said that "All levels of Russia's government are involved ... Consider this report a gigantic Amber Alert that we are issuing on Ukraine's children." He said that the main goal of the camps seems to be political re-education, saying that at least 32 of the 43 facilities identified are "engaged in systematic re-education efforts that expose children from Ukraine to Russia-centric academic, cultural, patriotic, and in two cases, specifically military education." A camp in Chechnya and another in Crimea "appear to be specifically involved in training children in the use of firearms and military vehicles." The United Nations sees it as a war crime to forcibly transfer another country's population within or beyond its borders. The spokesperson of the State Department, Ned Price, said at a briefing on Tuesday that "Russia's system of forced relocation, reeducation and adoption of Ukraine's children is a key element of the Kremlin's systematic efforts to deny and suppress Ukraine's identity, its history and its culture," while the Russian Embassy replied saying the statements were "absurd" and that the "Russia accepted children [were] forced to flee with their families from the shelling and atrocities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine." 

It's almost been two weeks since one of the worst earthquakes to hit Turkey and Syria took place. It was the deadliest earthquake in Turkey since 1939. The death toll rose to 40,642 people in Turkey and over 5,800 in Syria. There have been reports of diminished security in Turkey, with many collapsed businesses and homes being robbed. The people in northwest Syria have yet again been made homeless by the earthquake, after the region was already suffering from a civil war. The aid chief for the United Nations, Martin Griffiths, tweeted from the Turkey-Syria border that they "failed the people in north-west Syria" and that "they rightly feel abandoned."  Emergency workers are still finding people in critical conditions among the wreckage of buildings, almost six days after the quake. Around 264,000 apartments in Turkey have been destroyed. 

That's the news for today! Stay safe!