Nato memberships: Russian prez warns Finland, Sweden
KYIV: Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Finland and Sweden on Monday to expect a “response” for applying to join Nato as Ukraine braced for a new push by Moscow’s forces in its eastern Donbas region.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Monday confirmed her country would apply to join the military alliance, the day after Finland which shares a 1,300-kilometre border with Russia - said the same. The two Nordic countries are giving up decades of military non-alignment over fears they could be next in line following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Russia, whose war has sparked global outrage, killed thousands and created millions of refugees, warned that Nato’s expansion would have consequences.
The move poses “no direct threat for us... but the expansion of military infrastructure to these territories will certainly provoke our response”, Putin told a meeting of a Moscow-led security alliance.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich told local television on Sunday that Russian troops were being redeployed towards Donbas after withdrawing from Kharkiv, the second-largest city near the Russian border.
The defence ministry later announced Ukrainian troops had regained control of territory near Kharkiv, which has been under constant attack since the invasion.
At least ten people were killed in the latest shelling in Severodonetsk in the east of Ukraine, as the city is almost surrounded by Russian troops, the Lugansk region governor Sergiy Gaiday said on Monday.
The fall of Severodonetsk would grant the Kremlin de facto control of Lugansk, one of two regions - along with Donetsk - that comprise Donbas.
Russia said on Monday that it had agreed to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers from the bunkers below the besieged Azovstal steel works in Mariupol to a medical facility in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba ruled out potential concessions to Russia that could lead to a ceasefire in the war with Russia and said the European Union faces “moral failure” if it doesn’t approve the nation’s candidacy for membership by June.
Kuleba declined to comment on whether French President Emmanuel Macron urged his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to accept Kremlin demands if it meant achieving peace. But he dismissed any push to make an offer to Vladimir Putin in exchange for ending his invasion of Ukraine.
The exodus of Western businesses from Russia deepened on Monday as French automaker Renault’s local assets were effectively nationalised and fast food giant Mcdonald’s said it would exit the market. sion of the steps taken by the local administration for the security of the sealed place, the court said. “The petitioners said the Shivling was found during the survey and hence, it is necessary to preserve it,” it said.
The Muslim petitioners said they were not heard before the order was passed and condemned Hindu parties for making disclosures before the survey’s results were officially declared. “We strictly followed the order by the court and fully cooperated in the survey...people associated with petitioners are making claims which suit them and leaking details of proceedings of the survey,” said SM Yasin, joint secretary of the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee (AIMC), which manages the Gyanvapi Masjid.
District magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma said the survey was completed peacefully but refused to confirm if a ‘Shivling’ was found from the premises. “The court commissioner said that the report will be presented
GYANVAPI MOSQUE
in the court on May 17, and till then no one should disclose the findings. However, if anyone is disclosing it on his own, then its authenticity cannot be proved. Only the court is the custodian of this information. If someone disclosed the information, then the court commission has nothing to do with it,” he said. The survey – which was ordered by the court last month on a petition by five Hindu women who wanted the right to pray to deities installed within the mosque – was completed on Monday. Its results will be presented in the court in a hearing on Tuesday, unless the Supreme Court – which is set to hear a plea by the Muslim petitioners against the survey– suspends the process.
Many experts said the court’s orders marked an erosion of the mandate of the 1991 Places of Worship Act, which clamped status quo on the character of places of worship as existing on August 15, 1947. Only the Ram Janmabhoomi-babri Masjid site in Ayodhya was kept out of the purview of the law, in order to forestall attempts to alter the religious nature of a place of worship and people taking the law into their own hands to remedy “historical wrongs”.
The Hindu petitioners asked the court to ban the entry of any person, permit only 20 Muslims to continue offering prayers from the spot and bar anyone from using the pond – a circular structure with a fountain in the middle for Muslims to perform a ceremonial cleanse before offering namaz inside the mosque. “Baba has been found…the day we were all waiting for is here,” said Hindu petitioner Sohan Lal Arya shortly after the survey was completed, claiming that the “Shivling” was found after the pond was dredged. The petition was filed in the civil court within the hour. Rais Ahmad Ansari, who represents the AIMC, said the Hindu petitioners made a “misleading claim”. “There is no Shivling in the wuzukhana (ceremonial ablution area, or the pond). There is only a fountain…the structure, which the petitioners are claiming to be Shivling, is a fountain”, he said. “We are not satisfied with the order passed on the petition... We will challenge it soon,” he added.
The court’s order and the claimed discovery of the “Shivling” marks a crucial turn in the dispute over the Kashi Vishwanath Temple-gyanvapi Masjid complex, which has simmered on for decades with some Hindu groups saying the Hindu temple was partially razed to build the 17th-century mosque and Muslims refuting this charge.
In the summer of 2021, five women sought worshipping rights at the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal, a shrine for Hindu goddess Parvati located behind the western wall of the mosque complex. They argued that a number of Hindu deities were installed within the mosque complex and therefore Hindu devotees had a right to access them for worship. On April 26, a Varanasi court ordered a survey of the mosque complex but when the survey began on May 6, Muslim groups objected to the surveyors entering the mosque. The court and later the SC, however, refused to stop the exercise.
The survey was done by advocate commissioner Ajai Kumar Mishra, special advocate commissioner Vishal Singh and assistant advocate Ajai Pratap Singh in the presence of all plaintiffs and respondents.
Special advocate commissioner Vishal Singh said, “A detailed report of the survey proceedings is being prepared. We are trying to submit it to the Court on May 17.” The development also triggered political reactions. “The truth is out now and now whatever the court orders will be followed by all”, said deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya. All India Majlis-e-ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi said Muslims were not ready to lose another mosque after the Babri Masjid, referring to the demolition of the 16th century structure by a mob in 1992. “When I was 19-20 years old, the Babri Masjid was snatched from us...we will not allow this...again,” he said.