Germany takes Italy to UN court

ROME — Two Ukrainian women whose husbands are defending a besieged steel plant in the southern city of Mariupol are calling for any evacuation of civilians to also include soldiers, saying they fear the troops will be tortured and killed if left behind and captured by Russian forces.

“The lives of soldiers matter too. We can’t only talk about civilians,” said Yuliia Fedusiuk, 29, the wife of Arseniy Fedusiuk, a member of the Azov Regiment in Mariupol.

She and Kateryna Prokopenko, whose husband, Denys Prokopenko, is the Azov commander, made their appeal in Rome on Friday for international assistance to evacuate the Azovstal plant, the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic and now bombed-out port city.

An estimated 2000 Ukrainian defenders and 1000 civilians are holed up in the plant’s vast underground network of bunkers, which are able to withstand airstrikes.

But conditions there have grown more dire, with food, water and medicine running out, after Russian forces dropped “bunker busters” and other munitions in recent days.

GERMANY has filed a case against Italy at the UN’s highest court over attempts within Italy to claim compensation for Nazi-era war crimes.

In a submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Germany says Italy continues to allow cases in its domestic courts despite a 2012 ruling that such claims were inadmissible.

It says that, since that ruling, over 25 new cases have been filed in Italy.

In some of those, the courts have ruled that Germany should pay compensation.

Berlin says it is bringing the complaint now because of two ongoing cases that could see properties in Rome owned by the German state seized to finance compensation payments.

A court in Italy says it will decide by 25 May whether to force the sale of certain buildings, some of which house German cultural, historical, and educational institutions.

The dispute dates back to 2008, when Italy’s highest court ruled that Germany should pay around 1 million euro ($F2.2 million) to relatives of nine people who were among 203 killed by German forces in Tuscany in 1944.

Germany argues it has already paid out billions of euros to countries impacted by WWII since the conflict ended in 1945.

Picture: AP Picture: AP Inset: Yulia Fedosiuk, left, wife of Arseny Fedosiuk of the Azov regiment, breaks into tears as she listens to Kateryna Prokopenko, wife of Denys Prokopenko, Azov regiment commander, during an interview with the Associated Press, in Rome, Friday, April 29, 2022. A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a basement used as a bomb shelter during Russian attacks in a village recently retaken by Ukrainian forces near Kharkiv, Ukraine on Saturday, April 30, 2022. Press The Associated