"The stuff that you simply're listening to about chemical weapons, that is straight out of their playbook," Johnson stated in an interview with British broadcaster Sky Information.
"They begin saying that there are chemical weapons which were saved by their opponents or by the Individuals. And so once they themselves deploy chemical weapons – as I concern they might – they've a kind of a maskirovka (Russian army deception) of a pretend story able to go," he added.
Johnson continued: "I simply observe that that's what they're already doing. It's a cynical, barbaric authorities, I am afraid."
A Russian airstrike on a Mariupol maternity hospital that killed three individuals introduced condemnation down on Moscow on Thursday, with Ukrainian and Western officers branding it a warfare crime, whereas the highest-level talks but yielded no progress in stopping the preventing.
Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov, talking after the talks held in Turkey, insisted that every one sufferers had been evacuated earlier than the air strike and that the hospital was being utilized by Ukrainian extremists.
Ukrainian authorities stated a toddler was among the many lifeless in Wednesday's airstrike within the very important southern port of Mariupol. Along with the lifeless, 17 individuals had been wounded, together with ladies ready to provide delivery, medical doctors, and youngsters buried within the rubble.
Photographs of pregnant ladies coated in mud and blood dominated information studies in lots of international locations and introduced a brand new wave of horror over the two-week-old warfare sparked by Russia's invasion, which has killed hundreds of troopers and civilians, shaken the foundations of European safety and pushed greater than two million individuals from Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy informed Russian leaders that the invasion will backfire on them as their economic system is strangled. Western sanctions have already dealt a extreme blow to the economic system, inflicting the rubble to plunge, overseas companies to flee and costs to rise sharply.
"You'll positively be prosecuted for complicity in warfare crimes," he stated in a video tackle.
"After which, it'll positively occur, you'll be hated by Russian residents — everybody whom you've been deceiving always, day by day, for a few years in a row, once they really feel the implications of your lies of their wallets, of their shrinking prospects, within the stolen way forward for Russian youngsters."
Hundreds of thousands extra have been displaced contained in the nation. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko stated Thursday that about two million individuals — half the inhabitants of the capital's metropolitan space — have left town, which has develop into just about a fortress.
"Each avenue, each home … is being fortified," he stated. "Even individuals who of their lives by no means meant to alter their garments, now they're in uniform with machine weapons of their palms."
Bombs fell on two hospitals in a metropolis west of Kyiv on Wednesday, its mayor stated. The World Well being Organisation stated it has confirmed 18 assaults on medical amenities because the invasion started.
Western officers stated Russian forces have made little progress on the bottom in current days. However they've intensified the bombardment of Mariupol and different cities, trapping a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals, with meals and water operating quick.
Momentary cease-fires to permit evacuations and humanitarian assist have repeatedly faltered, with Ukraine accusing Russia of continuous its bombardments. However Zelenskyy stated 35,000 individuals managed to get out on Wednesday from a number of besieged cities, and extra efforts had been underway on Thursday in jap and southern Ukraine — together with Mariupol — in addition to within the Kyiv suburbs.
The Mariupol metropolis council posted a video displaying buses driving down a freeway. It stated a convoy bringing meals and drugs was on the best way regardless of a number of days of thwarted efforts to succeed in town.
"Everyone seems to be working to get assist to the individuals of Mariupol. And it'll come," stated Mayor Vadym Boychenko.
Photographs from town, the place a whole bunch have died and employees hurried to bury our bodies in a mass grave, have drawn condemnation from all over the world. Residents have resorted to breaking into shops for meals and melting snow for water. The town has been with out warmth for days as nighttime temperatures fall beneath freezing and daytime ones hover simply above it.
"The one factor (I need) is for this to be completed," Volodymyr Bykovskyi stated as he stood by a freshly dug trench the place our bodies had been being buried. "I do not know who's responsible, who's proper, who began this. Rattling all of them, these individuals who began this!"
When the collection of blasts hit the kids's and maternity hospital in Mariupol, the bottom shook greater than a mile away. Explosions blew out home windows and ripped away a lot of the entrance of 1 constructing. Police and troopers rushed to the scene to evacuate victims, carrying a bleeding lady with a swollen stomach on a stretcher previous burning and mangled vehicles. One other lady wailed as she clutched her baby.
Regional Ukrainian police official Volodymir Nikulin, standing within the ruins, known as the assault "a warfare crime with none justification." Britain's Armed Forces minister, James Heappey, stated that whether or not the hospital was hit by indiscriminate hearth or intentionally focused, "it's a warfare crime."
US Vice President Kamala Harris, on a go to to Ukraine's neighbour Poland, backed requires a world war-crimes investigation into the invasion, saying, "The eyes of the world are on this warfare and what Russia has achieved by way of this aggression and these atrocities."
Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed issues about civilian casualties as "pathetic shrieks" from Russia's enemies. He claimed with out offering proof that the Mariupol hospital had been seized by far-right radical fighters who had been utilizing it as a base — even if images from the aftermath confirmed pregnant ladies and youngsters on the website.
A number of rounds of talks haven't stopped the preventing, and a gathering in a Turkish Mediterranean resort between Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, failed to search out a lot widespread floor.
Of their highest-level talks because the warfare started, the 2 sides mentioned a 24-hour cease-fire however didn't make progress, Kuleba stated.
He stated Russia was nonetheless searching for "give up from Ukraine."
READ MORE: The boys behind Russia's warfare in Ukraine
"This isn't what they will get," he stated, including that he was prepared to proceed the dialogue.
Lavrov stated Russia was prepared for extra negotiations however confirmed no signal of softening Moscow's calls for.
Russia has alleged that Western-looking, US-backed Ukraine poses a menace to its safety. Western officers suspect Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to put in a authorities pleasant to Moscow in Kyiv as a part of an effort to attract the previous Soviet state again into its orbit.
Russia's army is struggling, dealing with heavier losses and stronger Ukrainian resistance than it apparently anticipated. However Putin's forces have used airpower to pummel key cities, typically shelling populated areas.
What it seems like when 2.5 million individuals flee a rustic without delay
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest metropolis, 91-year-old Alevtina Shernina sat wrapped in a blanket, an electrical heater at her ft, as chilly air blew in via a broken window.
She survived the brutal World Battle II siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and is now underneath siege once more, her well being too fragile for her to be moved.
Her daughter-in-law Natalia stated she was offended that Shernina "started her life in Leningrad underneath the siege as a lady who was ravenous, who lived in chilly and starvation, and she or he's ending her life" in related circumstances.
"There have been fascists there and there are fascists right here who got here and bombed our buildings and home windows," she stated.