BRUSSELS, 29 April 2022, (TON): Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said “NATO is ready to maintain its support for Ukraine in the war against Russia for years, including help for Kyiv to shift from Soviet-era weapons to modern Western arms and systems.”

He spoke after the Kremlin warned “Western arms supplies to Ukraine, including heavy weapons, posed a threat to the security of the European continent and provoke instability.”

"We need to be prepared for the long term" Stoltenberg told a youth summit in Brussels.

"There is absolutely the possibility that this war will drag on and last for months and years."

The NATO chief said “West would continue to put maximum pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a special military operation, through sanctions and economic as well as military aid to Kyiv.”

WARSAW, 29 April 2022, (TON): Poland and Romania announced military exercises against the backdrop of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.

According to the Polish Army “military equipment will move on the roads almost throughout the country for a month, in connection with which citizens were asked not to photograph it and not to publish information about the equipment itself and its movements.”

The movement of equipment will be carried out mainly in the north and east of the country.

SVR Director Sergei Naryshkin said earlier that Washington and Warsaw are working on plans to establish Poland ‘s military-political control over historical possessions in Ukraine.

The agency said in a statement “vehicles participating in the exercise will most often move at night, so that their movement creates as little disruption as possible. However, some trips will take place during the day and even during peak traffic hours.”

At the same time, the Romanian Ministry of Defense, commenting on the reports that appeared in social networks about the transfer of military equipment to the border with Ukraine and Moldova, announced the conduct of exercises with the participation of NATO countries.

PARIS, 29 April 2022, (TON): The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe demanded the creation of a special international criminal tribunal for Ukraine, while initially designating Russia as guilty even before the creation of such an instance, and also ignoring previous signals about Kyiv’s war crimes in the Donbass.

The organization said in a statement “shaken by the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe called on all member and observer states of the organization to urgently establish an ad hoc international criminal tribunal, which should be mandated to investigate and prosecute criminal aggression allegedly committed by the political and military leadership Russian Federation.”

As noted by PACE, such a tribunal should “have the power to issue international arrest warrants and not be limited to state immunity or immunity of heads of state and government and other public officials.”

The assembly did not explain the mechanism for creating the tribunal.

ISTANBUL, 29 April 2022, (TON): Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Saudi Arabia, marking the culmination of a months-long effort to repair ties with Riyadh that included Ankara dropping a legal case on the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

Erdogan's office said he will discuss Ankara's relations with the kingdom in meetings during the two-day trip, as well as ways to increase cooperation.

Analysts and officials say Saudi funding could help boost Turkey's ailing economy.

Ties between the two countries were strained after Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Erdogan had accused the highest levels of the Saudi government of giving the orders  but Ankara has since sharply softened its tone.

Opening the way to the visit, a Turkish court earlier this month halted the trial of Saudi suspects over the killing and transferred it to Saudi Arabia in a decision that was backed by the government and drew condemnation from rights groups.

ISTANBUL, 29 April 2022, (TON): European Union Member States, China and other countries paid Russia an estimated €63 billion for fossil fuels since the beginning of the war two months ago, new data finds.

According to a detailed tracker of Russian oil, gas and coal shipments and pipeline exports by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the combination of continued imports of oil and gas through pipelines and high fuel prices have meant that Russia’s export revenue is still far higher than in earlier years.

Germany was the biggest importer, paying an estimated €9.1 billion for Russian fossil fuels while Italy paid €6.9 billion.

Head of the Center for Climate and Foreign Policy at the German Council on Foreign Relation said that while trade regularly occurs across different governance models, it is unacceptable that Germany continues high fossil fuel imports from a country which has blatantly and repeatedly violated international law.

She advocated for scaling up renewables in answer to this challenge, rather than fostering dependencies on fossil fuels, like fracking gas or nuclear energy.

LONDON, 29 April 2022, (TON): British Prime Minister Boris John-son and Swiss President Ignazio Cassis, head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, called on all parties to the conflict in Ukraine to respect the norms of international humanitarian law.

A joint statement by the leaders was released by the British Prime Minister’s office following his meeting with Cassis in London.

The document says “we are outraged by reports of attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Ukraine and condemn all violations of international law, in particular international humanitarian law. We call on all parties to strictly comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”

 They added “in achieving this goal, we will continue to exchange experience and the most successful methods of applying the sanctions regimes of our countries.”

The statement also calls for an immediate establishment of a ceasefire regime that will allow the creation of safe corridors and access to humanitarian aid and medicines for the population of the regions where hostilities are taking place.

MOSCOW, 29 April 2022, (TON): As part of the exercises, a group of Russian missile boats and ships fired in the Baltic Sea, the press service of the Western Military District for the Baltic Fleet reported.

The message said “as part of a planned exercise in the Baltic Sea, the crews of the missile boats Chuvashia, Zarechny, small anti-submarine ships Alek-sin and Kabardino-Balkaria worked out the tasks of repelling attacks by air attack weapons of a mock enemy and launched artillery strikes on a sea target.”

The crews of the ships repelled enemy attacks from the air and fired at the small sea shield. Illumin-ation artillery shells were used as aerial targets.

RIYADH, 29 April 2022, (TON): The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center distributed 500 Ramadan food baskets in the Char Asiab district of the Afghan capital Kabul.

KSrelief distributed more than 72 tons of food baskets for the neediest families in Marib, Yemen, which benefited 4,080 people.

The center also distributed food baskets for needy households in Aden governorate, which benefited 1,920 people.

In Chad, KSrelief handed over 887 food baskets in Massenya city, which benefited 5,322 people.

The project aims to distribute 14,046 food baskets in various cities in Chad to benefit more than 84,000 individuals.

KABUL, 29 April 2022, (TON): The Interior Minister of Iran, Ahmad Wahidi, said “the border tension between Afghanistan and Iran was due to misunderstandings and that they contacted the Islamic Emirate’s officials to address the issue.”

This comes as video making the rounds on social media show that Iran has deployed more troops along the border with Afghanistan in the Islam Qala port in western Herat province.

Wahidi told reporters in Iran “Islamic Emirate forces came to the border. They were given instructions. The contact was made with their officials in Kabul and they asked them to return. They went back. Of course, this was repeated once again. We call on the officials in Kabul to it.”

But the people living along the Durand Line are worried about the rising tensions.

Ahmad Zubair, a resident of Herat said “there was a clash on the border between Iran and Afghanistan. We want this tension to be solved via negotiations.”

KABUL, 29 April 2022, (TON): Security officials said “at least nine people were killed and 13 others were wounded in two blasts in Mazar-e-Sharif of Balkh province.” 

Both blasts targeted public transportation. 

A spokesman for the Balk security department said that the blasts were due to explosives placed in vehicles. 

Provincial health officials confirmed hospitals had received bodies of the slain and were treating the wounded.