British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss arrives at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 21, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn HocksteinBritish Foreign Minister Elizabeth Truss on Sunday condemned the “kidnapping and deportation” of Ukrainians from the besieged city of Mariupol, to a measure that has been compared by Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky to Nazi Germany.Mariupol City Council assured Saturday that Russian troops would be evacuating residents of the city into Russian territory and taken to concentration camps against their will.Truss was “horrified” by these reports and promised that Russian President Vladimir Putin will “be held accountable” for the treatment he is “giving” to civilians during the invasion of Ukraine, as he explained on his Twitter account.“I am appalled by the Russian atrocities in Mariupol, including the attacks on schools housing civilians and the abduction and deportation of Ukrainians (…) Putin and his regime will be held accountable,” said the UK Foreign Minister.Mariupol has been under constant heavy fire since the beginning of the Russian invasion on 24 February. The city has become one of the hardest hit by Russian forces in recent days, to the point that on March 14 the Ukrainian authorities reported that more than 2,500 people had died in the area.Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden will travel to Poland on Friday to talk to his partner Andrzej Duda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the White House said Sunday.“The president will discuss how the United States responds together with our allies and partners to the humanitarian and human rights crisis that Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war against Ukraine has created,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.The visit to Poland will follow a stopover in Belgium to meet with the leaders of NATO, the G7 and the European Union (EU).Rescue teams evacuating wounded in the city of Mariupol“The trip will focus on continuing to bring the world together to support the Ukrainian people and against President (Vladimir) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” Psaki added.“But there are no plans to travel to Ukraine,” he clarified.Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki traveled last week with his Czech and Slovenian counterparts to Kiev, the besieged Ukrainian capital, to reaffirm the EU’s “unequivocal support”.US Vice President Kamala Harris also met with Duda in Warsaw earlier this month and both condemned Russia’s military action, especially against civilians.That meeting came shortly after Washington rejected a Polish offer to send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via a US airbase, claiming that this raised “serious concerns” for the whole of NATO.(With information from Europa Press)KEEP READING:Germany closed an energy deal with Qatar to reduce its dependence on Russian gasThe US questioned the Russian regime’s willingness to reach an agreement with Ukraine: “Negotiations seem to be unilateral”A former advisor to Boris Yeltsin accused Vladimir Putin of having turned Russia into North Korea after the invasion of Ukraine
