President Xi Jinping will visit Russia from Monday to Wednesday in an apparent show of support for Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin on Friday also announced the visit, saying it will take place “at the invitation of Vladimir Putin.” Xi and Putin will discuss “issues of further development of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction between Russia and China,” as well as exchange views “in the context of deepening Russian-Chinese cooperation in the international arena,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

The two leaders will also sign “important bilateral documents,” the statement read.

Daria Herasymchuk, advisor-commissioner of the President of Ukraine’s Office for Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation, described in an interview with Reuters on 17 March five main ways she said Russia has used to illegally transfer Ukrainian children.

• offering families living in occupied areas to take children for holidays in Russian children’s camps and not returning them during an agreed timeframe;
• taking Ukrainian children away from care institutions in occupied areas;
• separating children from parents at filtration checkpoints – the places where Ukrainian citizens from regions under Russian occupation are checked and processed before being allowed to enter Russia;
• taking away parental rights through laws enforced on occupied territories;
• taking children away in cases where they were staying with other adults after their parents were killed in the war
• Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said on March 17 the prosecutors were investigating cases of deportation of over 16,000 children from Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions. “But the real figure can be much higher,” Kostin said on his Facebook page.
• Ukraine has so far managed to return 308 children, officials said.
• Iryna Vereshchuk, minister for reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, issued a public appeal on Saturday to Russian officials asking for lists of all Ukrainian orphans and all Ukrainian children whose parents were stripped of parental rights who are currently in occupied Ukrainian areas or were illegally transferred to Russia.
• A report published in February by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health as part of the Conflict Observatory said Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children – likely many more – in sites in Russian-held Crimea and Russia whose primary purpose appears to be political re-education. The report said Yale University researchers had identified at least 43 camps and other facilities where Ukrainian children have been held that were part of a “large-scale systematic network” operated by Moscow.

Issuing an international arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin will have negative consequences and will only prolong the war in Ukraine, Serbia’s president has said.

“I think issuing an arrest warrant for Putin, not to go into legal matters, will have bad political consequences and it says that there is a great reluctance to talk about peace (and) about truce” in Ukraine, Alexsandar Vucic told reporters in Belgrade.

“My question is now that you have accused him of the biggest war crimes, who are you going to talk to now?” Mr Vucic said.

“Do you really think that it is possible to defeat Russia in a month, three months or a year?” he asked, adding: “There is no doubt that the goal of those who did this is to make it difficult for Putin to communicate, so that everyone who talks to him is aware that he is accused of war crimes.”

Asked if Mr Putin would be arrested if he comes to Serbia, Mr Vucic said that it is “a pointless question, because it is clear that as long as the conflict (in Ukraine) continues, Putin has nowhere to go.”

Widespread Russian attacks continued in Ukraine following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk‘s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.

US drone flights over the Baltic Sea are a sign of direct US involvement in conflict with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Last week, a US  drone crashed into the sea after being intercepted by Russian Su-27 fighter planes in the first known direct military encounter between the two sides since Russia launched its war in Ukraine last year.

“It is quite obvious what these drones are doing, and their mission is not at all a peaceful mission to ensure the safety of shipping in international waters,” Interfax news agency quoted Mr Peskov as saying in a TV interview.

“And in fact, we are talking about the direct involvement of the operators of these drones in the conflict, and against us.”

US said the Russian planes harassed the drone in Tuesday’s incident and sprayed fuel on it before one of them clipped its propeller and caused it to crash while on a reconnaissance mission in international airspace.

South Africa is aware of its legal obligation, a spokesperson for President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday, referring to a proposed visit by Vladimir Putin after an international court issued an arrest warrant against the Russian leader.

Russian President Putin was expected to visit South Africa in August to attend a BRICS summit.

“We are, as the government, cognisant of our legal obligation. However, between now and the summit we will remain engaged with various relevant stakeholders,” spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said.

While there has been no official confirmation of Putin’s visit, he has been expected to attend the 15th BRICS summit, as he did in 2013.

But such a visit would place Ramaphosa’s government, which has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a precarious position after the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday.

“We note the report on the warrant of arrest that the ICC has issued,” Magwenya said.

“It remains South Africa’s commitment and very strong desire that the conflict in Ukraine is resolved peacefully through negotiations.”

The war has handed Beijing opportunities that it might once have considered to be quite a lot further down the line, writes Mary Dejevsky.

Read Mary’s full piece here:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian officials say an unprecedented wartime deal that allows grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat and high food prices are pushing more people into poverty has been extended.

* Xi Jinping walks a diplomatic tightrope as he heads to Moscow on Monday, seeking to present China as a global peacemaker while strengthening ties with Putin, his closest ally, who is increasingly isolated by the West.

* Russia, China and Iran have completed three-way naval exercises in the Arabian Sea that included artillery fire at targets on the sea and in the air, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday.

* Three senior U.S. security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss military aid to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said.

* Ukrainian forces outside the battered eastern city of Bakhmut are managing to keep Russian units at bay so ammunition, food, equipment and medicines can be delivered to defenders, the army said on Saturday.

* Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to recruit approximately 30,000 new fighters by the middle of May, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday.

* Reuters could not verify battleground reports.