Ukraine Briefly

March 30, 2022

Ukraine, Briefly

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• The European Union is willing to establish special trade routes between Poland and Ukraine to ensure that food and live animals may be transported as smoothly as possible in both directions, Politico wrote. The proposed green corridors are aimed at securing and facilitating agri-food goods in Ukraine after the country’s vast food exports from Black Sea ports have been cut off by Russian attacks, dealing a blow to its economy and food supply. The World Food Program chief told the UN Security Council that Ukraine had been reduced “from the breadbasket of the world to bread lines.”

• Russian and Ukrainian representatives failed to reach a ceasefire agreement during a meeting in Turkey on Tuesday but they did provide a potential avenue to the first meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, since Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor, Bloomberg reported. At the same time, Russia’s defense ministry said it will reduce its attacks on the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv “to increase mutual trust” for the peace negotiations, according to Insider. Ukraine and its allies were skeptical of that promise, the Washington Post reported. While it looked as if Russian troops were pulling back from Kyiv, shelling continued to hit other cities. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces claimed to retake some territory outside of Kyiv.

• Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland expelled dozens of Russian diplomats suspected of spying on Tuesday, in coordinated action taken in the shadow of Moscow’s war in Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported.

• Russian developers introduced a local version of Instagram on Tuesday, just weeks after the government banned the popular photo-sharing app from the United States, according to Moscow Times. The new app, called Rossgram, duplicates several of Instagram’s distinctive features, including identical iconography, a dedicated bar for stories and even a pink-and-purple color scheme.

• The Kremlin denied Tuesday that Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich was poisoned while participating in Ukraine peace negotiations but admitted he is serving as a mediator, Agence France-Presse reported. Abramovich and Ukrainian negotiators were the targets of a suspected poison assault, which some believe was carried out by Moscow hardliners looking to derail peace negotiations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This story originally appeared in the March 30, 2022 newsletter, Between a Hammer and an Anvil.