TORONTO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Kontrol Technologies Corp. (NEO:KNR) (OTCQB:KNRLF) (FSE:1K8) (“Kontrol”) a leader in smart buildings and cities through IoT, Cloud and SaaS technology, announces that today it has revised and refiled its business acquisition report (the “Revised BAR”) in connection with its previous acquisition of all of the issued and outstanding shares of Global HVAC & Automation Inc. (“Global”). The Revised BAR contains interim financial statements of Global for the period ended July 31, 2021, rather than for the period ended June 30, 2021, which was contained in the business acquisition report initially filed with respect to the acquisition of Global. The financial statements have also been revised to address certain deficiencies (such as not including a statement of retained earnings, cash flow statement or notes to the financial statements).
This filing is being made at the request of staff of the Ontario Securities Commission (the “OSC”) in connection with an OSC review being conducted in connection with the filing of a short form base shelf prospectus by Kontrol. The Revised BAR replaces and supersedes the business acquisition report filed by the Company on October 13, 2021, with respect to the acquisition of Global.
Kontrol also wishes to provide an update on its previously disclosed intention to seek a listing on a major US stock exchange, as set out in a previous press release on December 29, 2021. While Kontrol has had preliminary discussions with a US stock exchange in respect of this objective, due to market conditions no formal application to list on any US exchange has been made at this time.
About Kontrol Technologies Corp.
Kontrol Technologies Corp., a Canadian public company, is a leader in smart buildings and cities through IoT, Cloud and SaaS technology. Kontrol provides solutions and services to its customers to improve energy management, monitor continuous emissions and accelerate the sustainability of all buildings.
Additional information about Kontrol Technologies Corp. can be found on its website at www.kontrolcorp.comand by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com
Neither IIROC nor any stock exchange or other securities regulatory authority accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively referred to herein as “forward-looking statements“) within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. All statements other than statements of present or historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as “anticipate”, “achieve”, “could”, “believe”, “plan”, “intend”, “objective”, “continuous”, “ongoing”, “estimate”, “outlook”, “expect”, “may”, “will”, “project”, “should” or similar words, including negatives thereof, suggesting future outcomes. Forward looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Kontrol, that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Kontrol to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Although Kontrol has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, some of which are described herein. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause Kontrol’s actual performance and results to differ materially from any projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required by applicable law, Kontrol assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise such statements to reflect new information, subsequent or otherwise.
Investigators from almost a dozen countries combed bombed-out towns and freshly dug graves in Ukraine on Wednesday for evidence of war crimes, and a wide-ranging investigation by an international security organization detailed what it said were “clear patterns” of human rights violations by Russian forces.
Some of the atrocities may constitute war crimes, said investigators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who examined myriad reports of rapes, abductions and attacks on civilian targets, as well as the use of banned munitions.
On Wednesday, civilians were still bearing much of the brunt of the seven-week-old invasion as Russian forces, massing for an assault in the east, bombarded Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, striking an apartment building.
In an hourlong phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s leader, President Biden said the United States, already a major provider of defensive armaments to Ukraine, would send an additional $800 million in military and other security aid. The package will include “new capabilities tailored to the wider assault we expect Russia to launch in eastern Ukraine,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.
American officials said Wednesday that the United States, in helping Ukraine prepare for such an assault, had increased the flow of intelligence to Ukraine’s government about Russian forces in eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine eight years ago. The administration also is considering whether to send a high-level official to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in the days ahead as a sign of support for the country, according to a person familiar with the internal discussions.
War crimes claims are famously difficult to investigate, and still harder to prosecute. It’s rare for national leaders to be charged, and even rarer for them to end up in the defendant’s chair.
But the war in Ukraine may prove different, some experts say, and momentum has been building to hold the Kremlin leadership responsible.
An International Criminal Court investigation into possible war crimes has been underway since last month, and a number of countries have been looking at ways for the United Nations to help create a special court that could prosecute Russia for what is known as the crime of aggression. Other possibilities include trying Russians in the courts of other nations under the principle of universal jurisdiction, the legal concept that some crimes are so egregious they can be prosecutedanywhere.
Volunteer cemetery workers in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, loading a truck on Tuesday with 65 bodies being taken for forensic investigation.Credit…Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
Part of the motivation for accountability is the revulsion in Europe and much of the world over the behavior of President Vladimir V. Putin’s forces, including reported executions of bound civilians and other atrocities.
War crimes experts also point to technological advances in forensic tools like facial identification software not available to those looking into earlier conflicts, and the sheer number of investigators on the ground in Ukraine — crucially, with the government’s blessing. A dozen French investigators joined the inquiries this week.
“There will be prosecutions, and probably all over the world,” said Leila Sadat, an international law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and a longtime adviser to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on crimes against humanity. “Ukraine is actually crawling with war crimes investigators right now.”
Still, experts warned that the process would be slow, and that any early indictments would most likely be against lower-ranking Russian officials and armed-service members. Russia, which has described the accusations as fictional or unfounded, is not expected to cooperate in any prosecution.
The report released Wednesday by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 57-member organization based in Vienna that includes Russia, Ukraine and the United States, is one of the first in-depth studies of human rights abuses duringRussia’s offensive against Ukraine.
Investigators looked at some of the most notorious attacks and other violent acts of the war, including Russia’s bombings of a theater and a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol, both depicted in the report as apparent war crimes.
They also pored through accounts of other horrific, if less visible, acts of violence. “There are allegations of rapes, including gang rapes, committed by Russian soldiers in many other regions in Ukraine,” they wrote.
But often, they were stymied.
Russia declined to cooperate with the three-person team of investigators, making it “impossible for the mission to take account of the Russian position on all pertinent incidents,” the report said.
Firefighters trying to extinguish a fire after a missile hit a warehouse on the outskirts of Kharkiv on Wednesday.Credit…Sergey Bobok/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Investigators found that Ukrainian forces, too, had been guilty of some abuses, particularly in the treatment of prisoners of war. “The violations committed by the Russian Federation, however, are by far larger in nature and scale,” their report said.
Michael Carpenter, the American ambassador to the O.S.C.E., said the report “documents the catalog of inhumanity perpetrated by Russia’s forces in Ukraine.” The European Union issued a similarly positive appraisal.
“This war is not only fought on the ground,” the bloc said in a statement. “It is clear that the Kremlin is also waging a shameful disinformation campaign in order to hide the facts of Russia’s brutal attacks on civilians in Ukraine. Reliable information and collection of facts have therefore never been as important as today.”
The Kremlin’s own mission to the O.S.C.E. dismissed the findings as “unfounded propaganda.”
On Tuesday, even as the Ukrainian authorities were unearthing bodies in full view of international journalists and other observers, Mr. Putin called the atrocities a “fake” that had been elaborately staged by the West.
On Wednesday, standing near the site of two mass graves, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said there was an obligation both to uncover the facts and to do so in a transparent way to combat Russian disinformation.
“When you see dead bodies here, from the other side, from the Russian Federation, they say it is all fake, all this is our theater,” Ms. Venediktova said.
Ukrainian prosecutors and the newly arrived team of French experts exhumed bodies this week from mass graves in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, where hundreds of civilians were killed during the brief Russian occupation of the area. The French government said that its team included ballistics and explosives experts and that it had the ability to do rapid DNA tests.
The Drama Theater in Mariupol after it was bombed, in a picture taken during a visit set up by the Russian military. The attack is covered in a new report on human rights abuses in the war.Credit…Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA, via Shutterstock
Evidence from the French investigation and others involving several different countries will be channeled to the International Criminal Court, which started looking into possible war crimes a week after the Feb. 24 invasion. Although Ukraine is not part of the agreement that created the court two decades ago, it has granted the court authority to investigate and prosecute in this conflict.
Investigators say they are intent on showing the world the reality of the war.
“They can see everything. They can see the situation here: real graves, real dead bodies, real bomb attacks,” Ms. Venediktova said. “That’s why for us this moment is very important.”
The O.S.C.E. report described a range of subterfuge by Russian forces, including the use of Red Cross emblems, white flags, Ukrainian flags and civilian clothes. And the organization’s investigators expressed concern that both sides might be holding more prisoners than disclosed.
On Wednesday, President Zelensky spoke directly about one of them: Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian politician and ally of Mr. Putin’s who was detained this week. Mr. Zelensky proposed exchanging him for Ukrainians held captive by Russian forces.
Even as agreement grew among many world leaders that war crimes charges were warranted, there was some disagreement over how to characterize Russia’s actions. Some leaders, among them Mr. Biden, have begun to use the term “genocide” — an escalation of his rhetoric. On Wednesday, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, dissented.
“What is happening is madness, it’s a brutality that’s unheard-of,” Mr. Macron said. But, he said, “Genocide has a meaning. The Ukrainian people and the Russian people are brethren people.”
“I’m not sure that an escalation of words serves the cause,” he said.
The war crimes report came amid signs that Russia’s invasion may have backfired in at least one respect. Mr. Putin has long objected to NATO’s expansion eastward into the onetime domains of the Soviet Union, describing it as a fundamental threat to Russia. But on Wednesday, two militarily nonaligned nations, Finland and Sweden, said they were seriously considering joining the alliance.
Legal experts did not rule out the possibility, some day, of an indictment of Mr. Putin, who has already been castigated as a war criminal by some Western leaders. And were Mr. Putin to be criminally charged by a court outside Russia, it would likely mean he would have to restrict his international travel in order to minimize the risk of possible arrest were he to venture beyond Russia’s borders.
An entrance to a bunker in Sievierodonetsk, in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, on Wednesday.Credit…Ronaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
David Crane, a legal scholar at Syracuse University who was the chief prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, an international war crimes tribunal that convicted the former president of Liberia, Charles G. Taylor, said he was confident that the International Criminal Court or some other judicial body would find legal grounds to charge the Russian president.
And even if Mr. Putin is never arrested and remains the leader of Russia, he said, the legal and diplomatic consequences of a war crimes indictment would severely undermine his credibility.
It would be as if “there’s like an ash mark on his forehead,” Mr. Crane said. “There’s no good options for him.”
Marc Santora reported from Warsaw, Erika Solomon from Berlin and Carlotta Gall from Bucha, Ukraine. Reporting was contributed by Jane Arraf from Lviv, Ukraine; Aurelien Breeden from Paris; Cora Engelbrecht from Krakow, Poland; Farnaz Fassihi from New York; Eric Nagourney from Los Angeles; and Rick Gladstone from Eastham, Mass.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Tuesday that peace talks with Ukraine had reached a “dead end” and he falsely called the evidence of Russian atrocities in a Kyiv suburb “fake,” using his first extended remarks about the war in nearly a month to insist that Russia would persist in its invasion.
Speaking at a news conference at a newly built spaceport in Russia’s Far East, Mr. Putin said that Ukraine’s negotiating position at the talks, last held in Istanbul two weeks ago, was unacceptable. He pledged that Russia’s “military operation will continue until its full completion.”
But the operation’s goals, he said, centered on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russia separatists have been fighting since 2014. It was the first time that Mr. Putin himself had effectively defined a more limited aim for the war, focusing on control of the Donbas — and not all of Ukraine, which Mr. Putin and his subordinates have said should not even be an independent country.
“We will act rhythmically and calmly, according to the plan that was initially proposed by the general staff,” Mr. Putin said. “Our goal is to help the people who live in the Donbas, who feel their unbreakable bond with Russia.”
Women leaving by train at the Sloviansk central station in the Donbas region of Ukraine on Tuesday. The Ukrainian leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Donbas have asked civilians to evacuate west ahead of an anticipated Russian offensive there.Credit…Ronaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Just over a month ago, by contrast, Mr. Putin warned that Ukraine’s leaders risked “the future of Ukrainian statehood” by resisting the Russian invasion, which Kremlin military planners appeared to have mistakenly thought could be achieved with relative ease.
Still, Mr. Putin’s assertion of Russia’s more limited war aims in Ukraine cannot necessarily be taken at face value, and he may yet harbor an ultimate goal of taking control of the former Soviet republic. For months leading up to the Feb. 24 invasion, as Russian forces massed on Ukraine’s border, Russian officials insisted there were no plans to invade and that the buildup was merely a military exercise.
Ukrainian and Western officials have said they expect that Russia, having failed to seize the capital Kyiv and most other key cities in an invasion hampered by poor logistics, would soon mount an intense offensive in the Donbas, where the Russian military has been pouring in troops.
But almost seven weeks into the war, the Russians have yet to conquer Mariupol, the strategically important southern Donbas port that has come to symbolize the death and destruction wrought by the invaders so far. Western officials said they were evaluating unverified accounts that Russian forces may have dropped chemical weapons on a Mariupol steel mill that has become a bastion of Ukrainian army resistance. The use of chemical weapons is a war crime.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, referring to the unverified accounts from Mariupol, said he took them “as seriously as possible.”
“Even during the Second World War, the Donbas did not see such cruelty in such a short period of time,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video released early Wednesday. “And from who? From Russian troops.”
Russian forces also have repeatedly fired missiles and artillery indiscriminately at civilian targets they have little or no hope of taking, including those in and around the eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest. On Tuesday, New York Times journalists witnessed the aftermath of a Russian cluster munitions attack on a Kharkiv suburb that left a trail of casualties, craters and punctured roofs.
And the outside pressure on Mr. Putin continued to rise. On Tuesday evening, Ukraine’s security service said it had detained Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian oligarch and politician who is Mr. Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine, releasing a photo of him handcuffed and disheveled. President Biden took a new swipe at Mr. Putin, calling him a “dictator” who has committed “genocide,” and a U.S. official said the White House would soon announce new military assistance for Ukraine worth $750 million.
An armored vehicle belonging to pro-Russian separatist forces moving along a street during fighting near the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Tuesday.Credit…Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
Mr. Putin’s appearance on Tuesday — coming after several weeks in which the public glimpsed the Russian leader mainly in Kremlin footage showing him holding meetings by videoconference — appeared intended to shore up domestic support for a war with no clear end in sight.
Marking Cosmonauts’ Day — the anniversary of the Soviet Cold War triumph in which Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space — Mr. Putin used the new spaceport, the Vostochny Cosmodrome, as his stage.
He was accompanied to the spaceport by President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, Mr. Putin’s closest ally, an apparent reminder to Russians that they were not completely isolated in the war.
Mr. Putin parried a question from a Russian journalist about the atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha by retreating into his familiar arguments about Western “double standards.” He claimed that the world had been silent when the United States bombed Syria in the campaign against the Islamic State, and that Mr. Lukashenko had provided evidence that the scenes in Bucha were an orchestrated, British “provocation.”
“We discussed in detail this psychological special operation that the English carried out,” Mr. Lukashenko said in a news conference alongside Mr. Putin, referring to Bucha.
This photo released by Russian state media shows Mr. Putin, right, meeting with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus on Tuesday.Credit…Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik
In fact, independent investigators, including journalists for The New York Times, have documented evidence of numerous execution-style killings, rapes and acts of torture against civilians in Bucha that had been carried out by Russian occupation troops before they retreated last month.
But inside Russia, Mr. Putin’s pronouncements are going increasingly unchallenged, with access to Facebook and Instagram and many independent news websites blocked, and a draconian wartime censorship law punishing any deviation from the Kremlin line with as much as 15 years in prison. While prices are rising and layoffs loom as Western companies pull out of Russia, there has been no sign yet of widespread public discontent, and pollsters see significant public support for the war.
It was the alliance of Western countries, Mr. Putin insisted, that would soon feel the political backlash from the economic pain wrought by the sanctions, as evidenced by rising prices for food and fuel. European countries, in particular, had shown yet again that they were collectively acting as a “poodle” of the United States, he said.
“They always miscalculate, not understanding that in difficult conditions, the Russian people always unite,” Mr. Putin said.
Ever since he appeared before tens of thousands at a Moscow stadium on March 18, Mr. Putin’s public appearances have been limited to brief clips showing him meeting with government officials, mostly by video link, in which he does not comment on the peace talks or the war. Instead, he lets his Defense Ministry and other officials do the talking.
Mr. Putin emerged from his cocoon on Monday for an off-camera meeting at his residence outside Moscow with Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria, the first Western leader to visit with him since the Feb. 24 invasion. Mr. Nehammer said the session left him convinced that Mr. Putin was planning a large and violent military assault on the Donbas.
On Tuesday, Mr. Putin arrived in the Amur Region of Russia’s Far East and was shown in video released by the Kremlin chatting informally with workers at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a sprawling facility that has been plagued by construction delays and remains unfinished.
While a key initial thrust of Russia’s invasion ended in a retreat, Mr. Putin insisted on Tuesday — as he did in the first weeks of the war — that the plan for what he calls the “special military operation” had not been altered. And he argued that what he called the West’s economic “blitzkrieg” to humble Russia had failed, pointing back to Soviet achievements in the space race as evidence that Russians could thrive despite sanctions.
Mr. Putin said Russia would move ahead with its lunar program, which includes a moon lander scheduled to be launched this year. And in a nod to Belarus’s status as Russia’s key ally in the war, Mr. Putin promised to send a Belarusian cosmonaut into space as early as next year.
“We are not going to isolate ourselves, and it is generally impossible to isolate anyone in the modern world, and most certainly not as huge a country as Russia,” Mr. Putin said.
Western countries have promised to continue to strengthen sanctions against Russia, with Europe increasingly discussing limits on Russian energy imports and more international businesses quitting Russia entirely. On Tuesday, Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications giant, joined its Swedish rival Ericsson in leaving Russia, portending new problems for the country’s internal communications.
Mr. Putin offered no hint on Tuesday that he was prepared to make peace before assaulting Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which Western officials fear could be the most violent phase of the war so far. He insisted, as he has before, that Russia had no choice but to invade, alleging that the West was turning the country into an “anti-Russian bridgehead.”
“What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy,” Mr. Putin said. “They just didn’t leave us a choice. There was no choice.”
Reporting was contributed by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Natalia Yermak from Babai, Ukraine; Ivan Nechepurenko from Istanbul; Marc Santora from Warsaw; and Shashank Bengali and Megan Specia from London.
SAN FRANCISCO — Bright and early on Monday, Elon Musk sent the government a surprising new document.
In it, the world’s wealthiest man laid out his possible intentions toward Twitter, in which he has amassed a 9.2 percent stake, underlining how drastically his position had changed from a week ago.
Mr. Musk could, if he chose, buy more shares of Twitter and increase his ownership of the company, according to the document, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He could freely express his views about Twitter on social media or other channels, the document noted. And he reserved the right to “change his plans at any time, as he deems appropriate.”
It was a promise — or perhaps it was a threat. Either way, the filing encapsulated the treacherous situation that Twitter now finds itself in. Mr. Musk, 50, Twitter’s largest shareholder and one of its highest-profile users, could very well use the social media platform against itself and even buy enough shares to take over the company.
“Twitter has always suffered more than its fair share of dysfunction,” said Jason Goldman, who was on Twitter’s founding team and served on its board of directors in the past. “But at least we weren’t being actively trolled by prospective board members using the product we created.”
Twitter’s 11-person board and agreed to not own more than 14.9 percent of the company or take it over. Then on Sunday, Twitter abruptly said all of those bets were off and that Mr. Musk would not become a director.
What exactly went on between Mr. Musk, who has more than 81 million followers on Twitter, and the company’s executives and board members is unclear. But it leaves Twitter — which has survived founder infighting, boardroom revolts and outside shareholder ire — with an activist investor unlike any other.
Mr. Musk, who also leads the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX, is known for being unpredictable and outspoken, often using Twitter to criticize, insult and troll others. By no longer joining the board, he liberated himself from corporate governance rules that would have required him to act in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.
Mr. Musk leaned into that freedom after his decision was communicated to the company on Saturday morning. He proclaimed on Twitter that he was in “goblin mode” and suggested changes such as removing the “w” from the company’s name to make it more vulgar and opening its San Francisco headquarters to shelter the homeless. He later deleted some of the posts.
“This is not typical activism or, frankly, anything like activism that we’ve seen before,” said Ele Klein, co-chair of the global Shareholder Activism Group at the law firm Schulte Roth & Zabel. “Elon Musk doesn’t do things that people have seen before.”
a post on Sunday. Twitter, which published a biography of Mr. Musk as a member of its board that was still visible late Sunday, declined to comment on Monday.
Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal, tweeted on Sunday that the company would remain open to Mr. Musk’s input.Credit…via Twitter
Mr. Musk has long shown significant disrespect for corporate governance rules. In 2018, he faced securities fraud charges after inaccurately tweeting that he had secured funding to take Tesla private. Mr. Musk later agreed to pay a $20 million fine to the S.E.C. and step aside as Tesla chairman for three years.
He also agreed to allow Tesla to review his public statements about the company. But in 2019, the S.E.C. asked a judge to hold him in contempt for violating the settlement terms by continuing to errantly tweet about Tesla.
Inside Twitter on Monday, employees were dismayed and concerned by Mr. Musk’s antics, according to half a dozen current and former workers, who were not authorized to speak publicly. After the billionaire suggested over the weekend that Twitter convert its headquarters into a homeless shelter because “no one shows up anyway,” employees questioned how Mr. Musk would know that given that he hadn’t visited the building in some time. They also pointed out that Mr. Musk, whose net worth has been pegged at more than $270 billion, could easily afford to help San Francisco’s homeless himself.
Elliott Management accumulated a 4 percent stake and used its position to press for changes, including an ouster of Jack Dorsey as chief executive and more aggressive financial growth. Mr. Dorsey stepped down in November.
Elliott’s approach followed the typical formula for activist investors: Acquire a significant stake in a company and then press for governance and strategy changes to drive up the stock price.
“Normally an activist is very clear in their intentions,” said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed Ventures, a venture capital investment fund. But “we don’t know what Elon Musk’s true motivation is. Is this Elon having fun? Is this Elon trying to effect change? Is this Elon trying to drive the stock higher?”
Twitter is particularly susceptible to activists, analysts said, because its founders did not structure the company’s shares in a way that gave themselves more control. The founders of Google and Facebook have maintained voting power over the shares, providing them with an outsize grip over the direction of their companies.
Natasha Lamb, a managing partner at Arjuna Capital, an activist investment firm that owns some Twitter stock, said Mr. Musk was taking a more casual approach than other activist investors.
“Musk is using Twitter to have his opinions heard, but it’s not a core activity,” she said. “It appears to be what he does for fun.”
What is fun for Mr. Musk may turn out to be less so for Twitter. The relief among Twitter employees that he was no longer joining the board was short-lived, the current and former employees said, when they realized that he was no longer bound by an agreement to not buy more stock or take over the company.
Mr. Musk could continue toying with Twitter, the current and former employees said they had realized. Several added that they were afraid of what might come next.
One moment, they were packed onto the platforms at the Kramatorsk train station, hundreds of women, children and old people, heeding the pleas of Ukrainian officials imploring them to flee ahead of a feared Russian onslaught.
The next moment, death rained from the air.
At least 50 people were killed and many more wounded in a missile assault on Friday morning that left bodies and luggage scattered on the ground and turned the Kramatorsk station into the site of another atrocity in the six-week-old war.
“There are just children!” one woman cried in a video from the aftermath.
The missile struck as officials in Kramatorsk and other cities in eastern Ukraine had been warning civilians to leave before Russian forces mount what is expected to be a major push into the region, where their troops have been regrouping after withdrawing from areas around Kyiv, the capital.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Russia had hit the station with what he identified as a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile as “thousands of peaceful Ukrainians were waiting to be evacuated.”
Clearing out bodies after the rocket attack in Kramatorsk.Credit…Fadel Senna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Lacking the strength and courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, they are cynically destroying the civilian population,” Mr. Zelensky said. “This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop.”
Russian officials, denying responsibility, said a Ukrainian battalion had fired the missile in what they called a “provocation.” The Russian Defense Ministry said that Tochka-U missiles are only used by the Ukrainian armed forces and that Russian troops had not made any strikes against Kramatorsk on Friday.
A senior Pentagon official said the United States believed Russian forces had fired the missile. “They originally claimed a successful strike and then only retracted it when there were reports of civilian casualties,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential intelligence assessment.
The train station was hit as a top European Union delegation was visiting Mr. Zelensky’s government, and the images of yet another mass killing provoked new Western outrage.
Whether one or more missiles struck the station was not immediately clear, and there was no way to independently verify the origin of the attack. Several parked cars were also hit, catching fire and turning into charred hulks. The waiting area was strewn with bodies and belongings.
After the strike, the Ukrainian police inspected the remains of a large rocket next to the train station with the words “for our children” written on it in Russian. It was unclear who had written the message and where the rocket had come from.
The mayor of Kramatorsk, Oleksandr Honcharenko, said 4,000 people had been at the station when it was attacked, the vast majority of them women, children and elderly people. At least two children were among the dead, he said.
The head of the military administration in the region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said 50 people had been killed, including 12 who died in the hospital. Another 98 were wounded, including 16 children, he said.
After the attack, Kramatorsk officials said they were trying to find cars and buses to evacuate civilians to western areas presumed to be less vulnerable to Russian attacks.
A fragment of what Ukraine’s president described as a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile following an attack at the railway station in Kramatorsk.Credit…Andriy Andriyenko/Associated Press
Ukraine’s railway service said that evacuations would proceed from nearby Sloviansk, where shelters and hospitals have been stocked with food and medicine in anticipation of an imminent Russian offensive.
Western countries, which have been shipping arms to Ukraine and tightening sanctions on Russia to punish President Vladimir V. Putin for the invasion, saw the Kramatorsk slaughter as new justification to intensify their efforts.
“The attack on a Ukrainian train station is yet another horrific atrocity committed by Russia, striking civilians who were trying to evacuate and reach safety,” President Biden said on Twitter. He vowed to send more weapons to Ukraine and to work with allies to investigate the attack “as we document Russia’s actions and hold them accountable.”
President Emmanuel Macron of France called the strike “abominable.”
“Ukrainian civilians are fleeing to escape the worst,” he wrote on Twitter. “Their weapons? Strollers, stuffed animals, luggage.”
The station was hit as the Slovak president, Eduard Heger, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, were traveling to Kyiv in a show of support for Mr. Zelensky and his country’s bid for European Union membership.
Mr. Heger announced that Slovakia had given Ukraine an S-300 air defense system to help defend against Russian missiles and airstrikes.
A man hugs a woman in Kramatorsk after the strike.Credit…Andriy Andriyenko/Associated Press
To make the transfer possible, the Pentagon said it would reposition one Patriot missile system, operated by U.S. service members, to Slovakia. It was the latest buildup in arms and troops along NATO’s eastern flank, as the alliance seeks to deter any Russian incursion.
“Now is no time for complacency,” Mr. Biden said in a statement announcing the Patriot repositioning. “As the Russian military repositions for the next phase of this war, I have directed my administration to continue to spare no effort to identify and provide to the Ukrainian military the advanced weapons capabilities it needs to defend its country.”
The attack on the railway station came after Russian forces had spent weeks shelling schools, hospitals and apartment buildings in an apparent attempt to pound Ukraine into submission by indiscriminately targeting civilian infrastructure, ignoring Geneva Convention protections that can make such actions war crimes.
Last month, an estimated 300 people were killed in an attack on a theater where hundreds had been sheltering in the battered port of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said. In recent days, growing evidence has pointed to atrocities in the devastated suburbs of Kyiv, where Ukrainian troops found bodies bound and shot in the head after Russian forces had retreated.
Ms. von der Leyen visited one of those suburbs, Bucha, on Friday before meeting with Mr. Zelensky.
“It was important to start my visit in Bucha,” she wrote on Twitter. “Because in Bucha our humanity was shattered.”
Russia has said its troops have been falsely accused and that the evidence against them is fake.
The repercussions of the fighting are spreading far beyond Europe. The United Nations reported on Friday that world food prices rose sharply last month to their highest levels ever, as the invasion sent shock waves through global grain and vegetable oil markets. Russia and Ukraine are important suppliers of the world’s wheat and other grains.
Damaged cars outside the railway station in Kramatorsk.Credit…Andriy Andriyenko/Associated Press
The report of rising prices came as the British government said Russia was heading for its “deepest recession since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” estimating that the economy could shrink by as much as 15 percent this year.
On Friday, the European Union formally approved its fifth round of sanctions against Moscow, which included a ban on Russian coal and restrictions on Russian banks, oligarchs and Kremlin officials. The coal ban, which will cost Russia about $8.7 billion in annual revenue, takes effect immediately for new contracts. At Germany’s insistence, however, existing contracts were given four months to wind down, softening the blow to Russia and Germany alike.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in London on Friday, applauded what Mr. Johnson called the “seismic decision” by Germany to turn away from Russian fuel. Britain has pushed for a total ban on Russian energy, a move that Germany, which heats half its homes with Russian gas, has resisted.
Mr. Johnson acknowledged the obstacles to transforming Germany’s energy system “overnight,” but said “we know that Russia’s war in Ukraine will not end overnight.” Mr. Scholz said Mr. Putin had tried to divide European powers, but “he will continue to experience our unity.”
On Friday, Russia retaliated for some of the punishments from the West, declaring 45 Polish Embassy and Consulate staff “persona non grata,” and ordering them to leave Russia. Poland had expelled the same number of Russian diplomats.
Russia’s Justice Ministry also said it had revoked the registration of several prominent human rights groups in the country, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which have accused Russian troops of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The ministry accused the groups of violating an unspecified Russian law. The decision means the organizations are no longer allowed to operate in Russia.
Human Rights Watch said that forcing its office to close would not change its determination to call out Russia’s turn to authoritarianism. The group said it had been monitoring abuses in Russia since the Soviet era.
“We found ways of documenting human rights abuses then, and we will do so in the future,” it said.
An unattended casualty at the Kramatorsk train station.Credit…Anatolii Stepanov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Megan Specia reported from Krakow, Poland, and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Jane Arraf from Lviv, Ukraine, Aurelien Breeden from Paris, Ivan Nechepurenko from Istanbul, Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels, Michael D. Shear and Eric Schmitt from Washington, and Mark Landler and Chris Stanford from London.
HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Camden Property Trust (NYSE:CPT) today announced it has priced a public offering of 2,900,000 common shares for gross proceeds of approximately $493 million. The offering is expected to close on April 12, 2022, subject to customary closing conditions. BofA Securities and Wells Fargo Securities, the joint book-running managers for the offering, have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 435,000 common shares. The underwriters may offer the common shares from time to time for sale in one or more transactions on the New York Stock Exchange, in the over-the-counter market, through negotiated transactions or otherwise at market prices prevailing at the time of sale, at prices related to prevailing market prices or at negotiated prices. Camden intends to use the net proceeds to reduce borrowings under its $900 million unsecured line of credit incurred to fund the acquisition from Teacher Retirement System of Texas of its 68.7% interest in two of Camden’s investment funds and for general corporate purposes, which may include financing for acquisitions and funding for development activities.
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any Camden common shares, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The offering may be made only by means of a prospectus and a related prospectus supplement, copies of which may be obtained when available from:
BofA Securities, NC1-004-03-43, 200 North College Street, 3rd floor, Charlotte, NC 28255-0001,
Attn: Prospectus Department, or by email at dg.prospectus_requests@bofa.com.
Wells Fargo Securities, Attention: Equity Syndicate Department, 500 West 33rd Street, New York, New York, 10001, or by email at cmclientsupport@wellsfargo.com or by telephone at (800) 326-5897.
Camden Property Trust, an S&P 500 Company, is a real estate company primarily engaged in the ownership, management, development, redevelopment, acquisition, and construction of multifamily apartment communities. Camden owns interests in and operates 170 properties containing 58,055 apartment homes across the United States. Upon completion of 5 properties currently under development, the Company’s portfolio will increase to 59,828 apartment homes in 175 properties. Camden has been recognized as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For® by FORTUNE magazine for 14 consecutive years, most recently ranking #8.
In addition to historical information, this press release contains forward-looking statements under the federal securities law. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, and projections about the industry and markets in which Camden operates, management’s beliefs, and assumptions made by management. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties which are difficult to predict. Factors which may cause Camden’s actual results or performance to differ materially from those contemplated by forward-looking statements are described under the heading “Risk Factors” in Camden’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and in other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements made in today’s press release represent management’s current opinions at the time of this publication, and Camden assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements because of subsequent events.
For additional information, please contact Camden’s Investor Relations Department at (713) 354-2787.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2022. Eric Lee/Pool via REUTERS
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BEIJING, April 7 (Reuters) – China warned on Thursday it would take strong measures if U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan and said such a visit would severely impact Chinese-U.S. relations, following media reports she would go next week.
China considers democratically ruled Taiwan its own territory and the subject is a constant source of friction between Beijing and Washington, especially given strong U.S. military and political support for the island.
The possible visit has not been confirmed by Pelosi’s office or Taiwan’s government, but some Japanese and Taiwanese media reported it would take place after she visits Japan this weekend.
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters that Beijing firmly opposed all forms of official interactions between the United States and Taiwan, and Washington should cancel the trip.
“If the United States insists on having its own way, China will take strong measures in response to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity. All possible consequences that arise from this will completely be borne by the U.S. side,” he added, without giving details.
In Taipei, Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou would only say that inviting U.S. officials and dignitaries had always been “an important part” of the ministry’s work, and that it would announce any official visits at an appropriate time.
Sunday marks the 43rd anniversary of the United States signing into law the Taiwan Relations Act, which guides ties in the absence of formal diplomatic relations and enshrines a U.S. commitment to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.
The last time a House speaker visited Taiwan was in 1997, when Newt Gingrich met then-President Lee Teng-hui.
Pelosi, a long time critic of China, particularly on human rights issues, held a virtual meeting with Taiwan Vice President William Lai in January as he wrapped up a visit to the United States and Honduras. read more
Pelosi is one of the ruling Democratic Party’s most high-profile politicians, and second in the U.S. presidential line of succession after the vice president.
Taiwan has been heartened by continued U.S. support offered by the Biden administration, which has repeatedly talked of its “rock-solid” commitment to the island.
That has strained already poor Sino-U.S. relations.
In March, a delegation of former senior U.S. defence and security officials sent by President Joe Biden visited Taiwan, a strong show of support coming soon after Russia invaded Ukraine. read more
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Reporting by Martin Pollard; Writing and additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei;
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Nick Macfie
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–INDUS Realty Trust, Inc. (Nasdaq: INDT) (“INDUS” or the “Company”), a U.S. based industrial/logistics REIT, announced the following updates on leasing, its acquisition pipeline, development pipeline and dispositions for the three months ended March 31, 2022 (the “2022 first quarter”)1:
Highlights
Completed the acquisition of an approximately 217,000 square foot building in the Charlotte, North Carolina market for a purchase price of $23.6 million, before transaction costs
Entered into an agreement to acquire a to-be-constructed approximately 280,000 square foot building in the Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina market
Completed three leases totaling approximately 133,000 square feet, including a new lease of first generation space at INDUS’ recently-acquired property in the Charleston, South Carolina market
Stabilized2 and total portfolio were both 100.0% leased as of March 31, 2022
Commenced the sale process to dispose of the Company’s remaining legacy office/flex portfolio along with a small storage facility that is located in the same park
Leasing Activity3
INDUS reported the following second generation leasing metrics for the 2022 first quarter:
Number of
Leases
Square Feet
Weighted Avg.
Lease Term
in Years
Weighted Avg.
Lease Costs
PSF per Year4
Weighted Avg. Rent Growth5
Straight-line
Basis
Cash Basis
New Leases
1
10,000
5.0
$0.49
46.3%
28.6%
Renewals
1
38,846
2.1
$0.13
12.6%
12.1%
Total / Avg.
2
48,846
2.7
$0.62
18.5%
15.0%
In addition to the above leases signed during the period, INDUS also executed a first generation lease with the existing tenant to expand into the balance of the Charleston, South Carolina property acquired in November 2021. This lease totaled approximately 84,000 square feet and is expected to commence in June 2022.
As of March 31, 2022, INDUS’ 36 buildings aggregated approximately 5.4 million square feet. INDUS’ portfolio percentage leased and percentage leased of stabilized properties were as follows:
Mar. 31,
2022
Dec. 31,
2021
Sept. 30,
2021
June 30,
2021
Percentage Leased
100.0%
98.4%
95.4%
95.3%
Percentage Leased – Stabilized Properties
100.0%
100.0%
99.4%
99.4%
Acquisition Pipeline
During the 2022 first quarter, INDUS completed the acquisition of a recently constructed, 217,000 square foot building in the Charlotte, North Carolina market (“782 Paragon Way”). 782 Paragon Way is fully leased on a short-term basis through July 2022 with in-place rents that we believe are below current market rates. The Company expects that 782 Paragon Way will be re-leased to stabilize at an approximate 4.7% cash capitalization rate. The Company used cash on hand to pay the $23.6 million purchase price, before transaction costs.
Also during the 2022 first quarter, the Company announced that it entered into a purchase agreement to acquire a to-be-constructed, approximately 280,000 square foot building in the Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina market (the “Greenville/Spartanburg Acquisition”), which is being developed on speculation by the seller. The Greenville/Spartanburg Acquisition is expected to be delivered upon completion in the 2023 first quarter and would be the Company’s first entry into this market.
The following is a summary of INDUS’ acquisition pipeline as of March 31, 2022:
Acquisition
Market
Building Size (SF)
Type
Purchase Price
(in millions)
Expected Closing
Acquisitions Under Contract
Nashville Acquisition (two buildings)
Nashville, TN
184,000
Forward (42.9%
pre-leased)
$31.5
Q2 2022
Charleston Forward Acquisition (one building)
Charleston, SC
263,000
Forward
$28.0
Q4 2022
Greenville-Spartanburg Acquisition
(one building)
Greenville-Spartanburg, SC
280,000
Forward
$28.5
Q1 2023
Charlotte Forward Acquisition (one building)
Charlotte, NC
231,000
Forward
$21.2
Q2 2023
Subtotal – Acquisitions Under Contract
958,000
$109.2
The acquisitions in INDUS’ pipeline are each subject to certain remaining contingencies. There can be no guarantee that these transactions will be completed under their current terms, anticipated timelines, or at all.
Development Pipeline
The following is a summary of INDUS’ development pipeline as of March 31, 2022:
Name
Market
Building Size (SF)
Type
Expected Delivery
Owned Land
Chapmans Road (one building)
Lehigh Valley, PA
103,000
66% Pre-leased
Q2 2022
110 Tradeport Drive (one building)
Hartford, CT
234,000
67% Pre-leased
Q3 2022
Landstar Logistics (two buildings)
Orlando, FL
195,000
Speculative
Q3 2022
American Parkway (one building)
Lehigh Valley, PA
206,000
Speculative
Q2 2023
Land Under Purchase & Sale Agreement
Lehigh Valley Land parcel (one building)
Lehigh Valley, PA
90,000
Speculative
Q3 2023
Total Development Pipeline
828,000
INDUS expects that the total development and stabilization costs of developments in its pipeline will total approximately $96.0 million (including all amounts previously spent). The Company estimates that the underwritten weighted average stabilized Cash NOI yield on its development pipeline is between 6.0% – 6.5%.6 Actual initial full year stabilized Cash NOI yields may vary from INDUS’ estimated underwritten stabilized Cash NOI yield range based on the actual total cost to complete a project or acquire a property and its actual initial full year stabilized Cash NOI.
Closing on the purchase of the Lehigh Valley Land parcel and the completion and stabilization of the projects in the development pipeline are each subject to a number of contingencies. There can be no guarantee that these transactions and developments will be completed under their current terms, anticipated timelines, at the Company’s estimated underwritten yields, or at all.
Disposition Pipeline
During the 2022 first quarter, INDUS commenced the sale process to fully exit its legacy investment in its remaining office/flex properties (“Office/Flex Portfolio”). The Office/Flex Portfolio is comprised of seven buildings totaling approximately 175,000 square feet located in Windsor and Bloomfield, Connecticut. Additionally, INDUS intends to sell an approximate 18,000 square foot storage building that is located within the same business park. Following the sale of the Office/Flex Portfolio, INDUS is expected to be a pure-play industrial/logistics REIT.
About INDUS
INDUS is a real estate business principally engaged in developing, acquiring, managing, and leasing industrial/logistics properties. INDUS owns 36 buildings aggregating approximately 5.4 million square feet in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
Forward-Looking Statements:
This Press Release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements include INDUS’ beliefs and expectations regarding future events or conditions including, without limitation, statements regarding the completion of acquisitions under agreements, pre-leasing agreements, construction and development plans and timelines, expected total development and stabilization costs of developments in INDUS’ pipeline, the estimated underwritten stabilized Cash NOI yield of the Company’s development pipeline, the Company’s intention to exit its office/flex portfolio, and expected capital availability and liquidity. Although INDUS believes that its plans, intentions and expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such plans, intentions or expectations will be achieved. The projected information disclosed herein is based on assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by INDUS as of the date hereof, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and regulatory uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of INDUS, and which could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Other important factors that could affect the outcome of the events set forth in these statements are described in INDUS’ Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including the “Business,” “Risk Factors” and “Forward-Looking Statements” sections in INDUS’ Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, filed with the SEC on March 11, 2022, as updated by other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. INDUS disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release except as required by law.
1 Portfolio information and statistics are comprised solely of the Company’s industrial/logistics buildings and excludes the Company’s office/flex portfolio and other properties held for sale.
2 Stabilized properties reflect buildings that have reached 90% leased or have been in service for at least one year since development completion or acquisition date, whichever is earlier.
3 Leasing metrics exclude new and renewal leases which have an initial term of twelve months or less, as well as leases for first generation space on properties acquired or developed by INDUS. Leasing metrics also exclude leases tied to properties undergoing redevelopment or repositioning. During the 2022 first quarter, INDUS commenced the repositioning of 52,000 square feet in Connecticut from principally office use to an industrial/logistics use. During the 2022 first quarter, the Company entered into a 7-year lease with a new industrial/logistics tenant to occupy that space upon the completion of its repositioning. The existing tenant in that space will pay an early termination fee of approximately $7.40 per square foot upon completion of the work related to the repositioning.
4 Lease cost per square foot per year reflects total lease costs (tenant improvements, leasing commissions and legal costs) per square foot per year of the lease term.
5 Weighted average rent growth reflects the percentage change of annualized rental rates between the previous leases and the current leases. The rental rate change on a straight-line basis represents average annual base rental payments on a straight-line basis for the term of each lease including free rent periods. Cash basis rent growth represents the change in starting rental rates per the lease agreement on new and renewed leases signed during the period, as compared to the previous ending rental rates for that same space. The cash rent growth calculation excludes free rent periods.
6 As a part of INDUS’ standard development and acquisition underwriting process, INDUS analyzes the targeted initial full year stabilized Cash NOI yield for each development project and acquisition target and establishes a range of initial full year stabilized Cash NOI yields, which it refers to as “underwritten stabilized Cash NOI yields.” Underwritten stabilized Cash NOI yields are calculated as a development project’s or acquisition’s initial full year stabilized Cash NOI as a percentage of its estimated total investment, including costs to stabilize the buildings to 95% occupancy (other than in connection with build-to-suit development projects and single tenant properties). INDUS calculates initial full year stabilized Cash NOI for a development project or acquisition by subtracting its estimate of the development project’s or acquisition’s initial full year stabilized operating expenses, real estate taxes and non-cash rental revenue, including straight-line rents (before interest, income taxes, if any, and depreciation and amortization), from its estimate of its initial full year stabilized rental revenue.
With evidence mounting of atrocities in the Kyiv suburbs, and Russian forces preparing for a new offensive farther east, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine delivered a scathing speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, accusing Russia of a litany of horrors and questioning whether a world body that takes no action to stop a war serves any purpose.
Speaking via video link to the U.N. Security Council, he compared Russian forces to the Islamic State, called for a Nuremberg-like war crimes tribunal and vented his bitter frustration, knowing that the council — where Russia is one of five permanent members with veto power — would do nothing but talk.
“Where is the security that the Security Council needs to guarantee?” Mr. Zelensky said, raising the question of whether Russia deserved to keep its seat on the council. “Are you ready to close the U.N.? Do you think that the time of international law is gone? If your answer is no, then you need to act immediately.”
The chamber fell silent as a short video provided by Mr. Zelensky’s government played, showing some of the hundreds of corpses found strewn around the city of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, after Russian forces retreated last week — bloated, charred bodies of civilians, including children. Some victims, their hands bound, had been shot in the head.
Mr. Zelensky said that in Bucha, “they killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies.” Civilians “were crushed by tanks while sitting in their cars in the middle of the road,” he added, asserting that “women were raped and killed in front of their children; their tongues were pulled out.”
China refrained from criticizing Russia in Tuesday’s session, saying that the Security Council should wait until investigations establish the facts in Ukraine. A rising global power, China has drawn closer to Russia in recent years, united by a shared antipathy to the United States. The divisions on the war appeared essentially unchanged since Feb. 26, when 11 of 15 Security Council members voted for a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion, Russia vetoed the measure, and three others abstained — China, India and the United Arab Emirates.
Residents look at the body of a civilian in Bucha, Ukraine, on Monday.Credit…Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, reiterated his government’s claims — rebutted by ample evidence — that atrocities in Bucha had been faked, or had not occurred when Russians held the city. He made a number of other unsupported claims, including stating falsely that in Ukraine — where the freely elected president is a Jew who lost family members in the Holocaust — Nazis are “running the show.”
After President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia launched the war on Ukraine on Feb. 24, his military became bogged down on several fronts in the face of logistical failures and unexpectedly fierce Ukrainian resistance. Russian forces spent weeks shelling and occupying cities and towns in northern Ukraine, where they took heavy losses as they failed to capture Kyiv, the capital. Last week they pulled back from that part of the country, preparing for what Russian officials and foreign analysts said would be a shift in focus toward eastern Ukraine.
“The next pivotal battle of the war” is likely to be for the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Institute for the Study of War, based in Washington.
Revulsion over the apparent executions discovered in Bucha deepened Russia’s economic isolation, despite its denials of responsibility.
The United States has started blocking Russia from making debt payments using dollars held in American banks, a move designed to deplete its international currency reserves and potentially push Russia toward its first foreign currency debt default in a century.
And the European Union took a significant step toward overcoming resistance to curbing fuel imports from Russia, on which its member nations rely heavily. The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, proposed cutting off imports of Russian coal — oil and natural gas remain hotly debated — and barring Russian vessels from E.U. ports as part of a new round of sanctions.
The measures, which require unanimous approval, are expected to go to a vote of E.U. ambassadors on Wednesday. Diplomats said the sanctions package would target, among others, two daughters of Mr. Putin. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the chief E.U. diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, announced plans to visit Kyiv this week and meet with Mr. Zelensky.
Lining up to receive food on Monday in the recently liberated village of Nova Basan, Ukraine. Russian forces controlled the town for nearly one month.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said that it, along with the Kyiv police, had discovered what it called a Bucha “torture chamber,” where Russian forces had left behind the bodies of five men, their hands tied, who had been tortured and killed.
Mr. Zelensky reinforced a point that U.N. officials have made repeatedly: The true extent of Ukraine’s destruction and casualties is unknown but far greater than what has been documented, because outside observers have been unable to reach some of the most devastated areas. “Now the world can see what Russia did in Bucha, but the world has yet to see what it has done in other parts of our country,” Mr. Zelensky said.
New York Times journalists on Tuesday were able for the first time to reach the town of Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv, battered by Russian rockets and airstrikes, where the mayor estimated 200 dead lay beneath the rubble. In the besieged port of Mariupol, local officials have put the death toll in the thousands.
Fierce fighting continues along Ukraine’s southern coast, where Mariupol, largely reduced to ruins by Russian bombardment, is “the center of hell,” said Martin Griffiths, the U.N. chief of humanitarian relief.
More than 250 miles west of Mariupol, explosions shuddered through the port of Mykolaiv, a day after the mayor said Russian strikes had killed 10 people and wounded 46. He said that Russians had hit residential buildings, schools, a hospital and an orphanage in his city since the war began, and had used cluster munitions. Soldiers defending the city said that increasingly, Russian forces were hitting civilian targets.
In Borodyanka, Ukraine, on Tuesday.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
After four consecutive days of trying and failing to send an aid convoy into Mariupol, where people are desperately short of food, water, power, heat and medicines, the International Committee of the Red Cross decided against another attempt on Tuesday.
Ukrainian officials say the Russians have prevented crucial supplies from reaching the city. Mr. Nebenzya, the Russian U.N. ambassador, said the Ukrainians had blocked the convoy, and he claimed that Russian forces had evacuated 123,500 people from Mariupol.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that in fact, tens of thousands of Ukrainians, including from Mariupol, had been taken to “filtration camps” in Russia, where family members were separated and people were stripped of passports and cellphones. “I do not need to spell out what these so-called filtration camps are reminiscent of,” she said. “It’s chilling, and we cannot look away.”
Rosemary A. DiCarlo, a U.N. under secretary general, said there was credible evidence that Russia had used cluster munitions — shells that burst open to spew many smaller bomblets over a wide area — at least 24 times in populated areas of Ukraine. Most countries have signed a treaty banning cluster munitions as indiscriminate weapons with a high risk of civilian casualties, but Russia, like the United States, has not.
More than 11 million Ukrainians — about one in four — have fled their homes because of the war, including more than 4 million who have left the country, according to the United Nations, creating Europe’s largest and fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II.
A residential area in Kharkiv on Tuesday that has been under continued bombing.Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Russian forces recently captured the eastern city of Izyum, and Western analysts say they are preparing for a drive to the south and southeast, to bolster efforts to seize more of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting for eight years. Many of Ukraine’s best-equipped and most experienced military units have been concentrated in that area, known as Donbas.
“Russian forces continue to make little to no progress in frontal assaults” on the portions of Donbas still held by Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War reported.
Whether the Russians aim simply to reinforce their units in Donbas, or are planning a more ambitious effort to encircle the Ukrainian forces, capturing Sloviansk is crucial, the institute said.
In the Luhansk region on Tuesday, an attack that Ukrainians blamed on Russian forces hit a storage tank containing nitric acid, releasing a toxic cloud and prompting the regional administrator to urge people to stay inside and close their windows.
The Russian units that withdrew from the region around Kyiv, having suffered heavy casualties, extensive equipment losses and poor morale, the institute said, “are highly unlikely to be effectively deployed elsewhere in Ukraine and are likely a spent force.”
An intelligence assessment released by the British defense ministry was less definitive, but said that any Russian forces redeploying from the north would first need considerable time to repair and replace equipment, and to make up for casualties.
A vigil in Lviv, Ukraine, on Tuesday for civilians killed in Bucha and in the surrounding areas when occupied by Russian forces.Credit…Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Reporting was contributed by Carlotta Gall in Borodyanka, Ukraine; Andrew E. Kramer in Kyiv, Ukraine; Rick Gladstone, Michael Schwirtz and Farnaz Fassihi in New York; Dan Bilefsky in Montreal; Steven Erlanger and Matina Stevis-Gridneff in Brussels; Megan Specia and Cora Engelbrecht in Krakow, Poland; Anton Troianovski in Istanbul; and Lara Jakes in Washington.
Once they have earned the license, drivers haul actual loads for their new employers. For typically four to 12 weeks, they are accompanied by a trainer. They earn a set weekly rate, varying by company but often $500 to $800, according to company websites. Mr. England said his company’s pay was $560 a week in 2019 and about $784 today.
Trainers may be barely trained themselves, often needing only six months’ experience, and they are allowed to sleep in the back while the new driver is alone in the cab, according to industry experts and many companies.
Ms. Jeschke said she finished her training without being able to back up, a crucial skill for truckers. She said she once spent a week at a truck stop, unpaid, waiting for another driver because she didn’t yet have the expertise to pick up a load on her own.
Frustrated with the working conditions and the low pay, she and Ms. Skamser left C.R. England before their contracts were up and went to work for another trucking company, Werner Enterprises, where they say they were more fully trained.
“I do not have words for how bad it was,” Ms. Jeschke said. “They do not care about drivers, only the loads.”
Ms. Skamser said a debt collection agency was pursuing her for $6,000 that C.R. England says she owes for her training.
It’s reasonable for companies to want to recoup the cost of training an individual, said Stewart J. Schwab, a professor at Cornell Law School. Still, he noted, like noncompete clauses, these contracts can significantly restrict worker mobility and hinder competition. In 2021, Mr. Schwab worked on a proposed law about restrictive employment agreements, such as the ones trucking companies use, with the Uniform Law Commission, a nonpartisan organization that drafts laws for states.
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