Live Updates | Erdogan: Sweden must strengthen Turkish security

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country opposes the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, called on Stockholm on Monday to take “concrete steps” to ease Turkey’s security concerns.

Turkey has said it opposes the two northern countries ‘membership in the alliance, citing their alleged support for the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party or the PKK and other groups that Turkey views as terrorists. The country also demands the lifting of the ban on the export of military products from Ankara.

“We can in no way ignore the fact that Sweden is imposing sanctions on us,” Erdogan said Monday during a ceremony to dock the submarine. “Turkey’s fair expectations regarding (cessation) support for terrorism and sanctions must be justified.”

In his speech, Erdogan did not mention Finland amid reports that most of Turkey’s complaints were directed to Sweden, home to a large community of Kurdish exiles.

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KEY DIVISIONS OF THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR:

– Russian sentenced to life in the first trial in Ukraine for war crimes

– “Everything is ruined”: Escape from the devastation in Ukraine

– The Russian offensive is moving to the key city of Donbass, heavy shelling

– The Long Road: Volunteers from Belarus are fighting for Ukraine

– After three months of war, life in Russia has changed profoundly

– Russia’s statement about the capture of Mariupol is of concern to prisoners of war

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Follow the coverage of the war in Ukraine in the AP at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

The governor of the southern Kherson region of Ukraine, appointed by Russia, said that from Monday the region will officially become a zone with a double currency – the Russian ruble and the Ukrainian hryvnia.

Vladimir Saldo also said that a representative office of a Russian bank would open in the region, RIA Novosti reported.

Russian troops took control of the Kherson region, which borders the Donetsk region in the east and Crimea in the south, at the beginning of the war and established a pro-Kremlin administration there. One of the officials of this administration announced plans to appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin to include the region in Russia.

Putin has previously said that Russia has no plans to occupy Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that residents of Ukrainian regions should “decide how and with whom they want to live.”

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KIV, Ukraine – A Ukrainian court on Monday sentenced a 21-year-old Russian soldier to life in prison for killing a civilian in Ukraine as part of the first war crimes trial since Russia’s invasion.

Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin was accused of shooting a civilian in the head in the first days of the war in a village in the northeast of Sumy region.

He pleaded guilty and testified that he shot the man after receiving the order. In court, he said the officer insisted that a Ukrainian man who spoke on a mobile phone could pinpoint their whereabouts to Ukrainian forces.

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KIU, Ukraine – On Monday, an official in Mariupol sounded the alarm over the growing threat of an epidemic in a Russian-occupied port city, pointing to unsanitary conditions deteriorating.

Adviser to the mayor Peter Andryushchenko told the Telegram that rain sewers and sewers are forcing rainwater to spread through the city “along with rotting garbage and deadly poison.”

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“The threat of an epidemic is becoming a reality with every storm,” Andryushchenko wrote, adding that Russian troops in the city “continue to ignore sanitation problems and are only engaged in drawing up ‘good photos’ depicting fictional ‘improvements in life.’

The official said that Mariupol “desperately needs a new wave of evacuation.”

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The head of the Russian-backed separatist region in eastern Ukraine says Ukrainian fighters captured by the Russian military in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol are being held in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and will face an “international tribunal”.

“The international tribunal is planned to be located in the country,” Interfax quoted Denis Pushilin as saying. Pushylin added that “the statute of the tribunal is currently being developed.”

Earlier, Pushylin said that 2,439 people from Azovstal were in custody, including some foreign nationals, but he did not provide details.

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Members of the families of the metallurgical plant’s fighters, who came from various military and law enforcement units, petitioned for their rights as prisoners of war and eventually returned to Ukraine.

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MOSCOW – The Russian military on Monday released footage of demining specialists working at the recently covered Azastal steel plant in the captured port city of Mariupol.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, quoted by the state news agency RIA Novosti, said more than 100 explosives had been destroyed in the past two days.

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Kyiv, Ukraine – Russian forces fired on the Dnipropetrovsk region in southeastern Ukraine at night, its governor Valentin Reznichenko said on Monday morning.

The Dnipropetrovsk region borders the Donetsk region, which remains the center of Russia’s offensive in the east.

According to Reznichenko, the Russians used “Hurricane” or “Hurricane” multiple rocket launchers, and the shelling hit “between two settlements.” No one was hurt, he added.

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LONDON – The British military says Russian troops in Ukraine have experienced a death rate similar to that suffered by the Soviet Union during the nine-year war in Afghanistan.

The UK Department of Defense in a briefing released Monday morning said the high casualties during the first three months of the war were due to poor tactics, limited air cover, lack of flexibility and a team approach that reinforces failures and repeats mistakes. .

The ministry says the death toll could weaken support for the war among the Russian public, which has suffered losses in past wars.

“As the losses suffered in Ukraine continue to grow, they will become more apparent, and dissatisfaction with the war and a willingness to voice it may increase,” the ministry said.