INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Ukraine's leader on Thursday said Russia was building a new Cold War wall across Europe "between freedom and bondage," after his government
accused invading forces of bombing a theatre sheltering many civilians and marked with the word "children."Kyiv emerged from a 35-hour
curfew to new destruction, as Russian troops try to encircle the Ukrainian capital as part of their slow-moving offensive.A distraught man
crouched over a body draped in a bloodstained cloth beneath a Kyiv apartment block damaged by a downed rocket, AFP journalists saw, in the
latest in a series of early morning attacks.President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed the German parliament a day after a speech to the U.S
Congress, when he secured $1 billion in new U.S
military aid, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles used against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.Zelenskiy reached back to the Cold War era
as he drew on a 1987 speech in Berlin by U.S
Wall in central Europe between freedom and bondage and this Wall is growing bigger with every bomb."In an overnight video message, Zelenskiy
also urged Russians to lay down their arms, three weeks into an invasion that has seen the West impose swingeing sanctions against President
Vladimir Putin's regime."If your war, the war against the Ukrainian people, continues, Russia's mothers will lose more children than in the
Afghan and Chechen wars combined," he said, referencing the thousands lost in those conflict.Putin lashes 'traitors'U.S
President Joe Biden called Putin a "war criminal," triggering fury in the Kremlin, as the Russian leader also lashed out at "traitors" at
home who he said were undermining the war effort.Russia's Defense Ministry denied it had targeted the Drama Theatre in the besieged port
city of Mariupol, where local officials say more than 2,000 people have died so far in indiscriminate Chechnya-style shelling.The ministry
said the building had been mined and blown up by members of Ukraine's far-right Azov Battalion, a claim dismissed in the West as Russian
state."Ukrainian officials said more than 1,000 civilians had been taking shelter in the theatre
Human Rights Watch said it was at least 500.Satellite images of the theatre on March 14 shared by private satellite company Maxar showed the
words "children" clearly etched out in the ground in Russian on either side of the building.Officials posted a photo of the building, whose
middle part was completely destroyed, with thick white smoke rising from the rubble after they said a bomb was dropped from an airplane."The
only word to describe what has happened today is genocide, genocide of our nation, our Ukrainian people," Mariupol mayor Vadim Boychenko
he showed lawmakers a video of the devastating effect of Russian attacks.He wore the same military green T-shirt in addressing the
economy, economy, economy but that was the mortar for the new Wall."But NATO members have resisted Zelenskiy's pleas for direct involvement
through a no-fly zone over Ukraine, warning it could lead to World War III against nuclear-armed Russia.They have stepped up military aid
instead, with Biden announcing the United States would also help Ukraine acquire longer-range anti-aircraft weapons.Britain's diplomatic
mission to the UN tweeted that Russia was committing "war crimes and targeting civilians" in Ukraine, after the UK requested an emergency UN
Security Council meeting."Russia's illegal war on Ukraine is a threat to us all," it said, saying the request was made with the US, France,
Albania, Norway and Ireland.But Putin, at a televised government meeting Wednesday, insisted the invasion was "developing successfully,"
adding "we will not allow Ukraine to serve as a springboard for aggressive actions against Russia."He also condemned the Western sanctions
as "economic blitzkrieg," after Russia was frozen out of much of the Western financial system.The Kremlin also rejected an order by the top
UN court to halt its Ukraine invasion.However, the Russian Finance Ministry said Thursday it had carried out interest payments worth $117.2
million on two foreign bonds, avoiding default for now on Russia's foreign debts.From rackets to riflesAs the civilian toll in Ukraine
climbed, the World Health Organization said that healthcare facilities and personnel were being attacked at an unprecedented rate.WHO
emergencies director Michael Ryan told reporters "this crisis is reaching a point where the health system in Ukraine is teetering on the
brink."The UN health agency has verified 43 attacks on health facilities, ambulances and health personnel in Ukraine since the Russian
24.More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled across the border, mostly women and children, with 103 children killed in the war, authorities
have said.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a "compromise" outcome would center on Ukraine becoming a neutral state comparable to Sweden
Stakhovsky, who knocked Roger Federer out of Wimbledon in 2013, traded his racquet for a Kalashnikov and returned home to defend Kyiv."I
knew I had to go there," he told AFP as he patrolled the city in khaki camouflage, toting a rifle.
