The Philippines has imposed a total ban on the deployment of its workers to Ukraine as the country battles Russian invaders, a government official said on Monday.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) also said that evacuating seafarers in war-stricken Ukraine remains to be a challenge for them.
“Because the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) has raised the alert level in Ukraine, this is Alert Level 4 and because Ukraine is Alert Level 4, the POEA governing board issued on Wednesday saying that no one will be allowed to leave and work in Ukraine,” POEA chief Bernard Olalia said at the Laging Handa briefing.
He said only a few OFWs are working in the European nation.
“In 2014, we no longer deployed OFWs to Ukraine, because of COVID Alert Level 2. The only OFWs who are allowed there are what we call returning workers,” Olalia said.
“In 2021, there were no returning workers but last 2020 there were four; in 2019 there were 12. They are our domestic workers and also skilled and professional workers,” he added.
He said the deployment ban will remain “as long as there is conflict. So, if the uncertainly will continue, our alert level will also remain and so as deployment ban.”
Olalia said almost all of the land-based workers have been evacuated while those remaining are the ones married to Ukrainians.
“Our challenge right now is the seafarers numbering to over 200 who are still onboard, but we are currently arranging their repatriation using humanitarian corridor, as what we call it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the full United States Congress on Wednesday, according to Democratic Party leadership.
Zelensky said Monday that ongoing talks to halt two weeks of fighting with Russia were progressing with difficulty but raised hopes a breakthrough could be announced later in the day.
The Ukrainian leader confirmed that “difficult negotiations” were underway with the Russian side, aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to Moscow’s invasion of his pro-Western country.
“A video meeting between the delegations has already started today. It continues,” Zelensky said in a video statement Monday. “Everyone is waiting for news. We will definitely report in the evening.”
A fourth round of talks between Moscow and Kyiv began earlier Monday, a senior Ukrainian negotiator said, amid mutual claims of shelling and civilian deaths.
However, Moscow accused Ukraine’s army of firing a Tochka-U missile at a residential area in Donetsk, in one of the most serious attacks on the city since Russia sent troops into Ukraine over two weeks ago.
Rebels, who have controlled the city since 2014, had earlier said fragments from a rocket they shot down had left 16 civilians dead.
“Twenty peaceful residents have died,” Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. “Another 28 people including children were seriously injured and hospitalised.”
“The use of such weapons in a city where there are no firing positions of the armed forces,” Konashenkov added, “is a war crime.”
Also, more than 160 civilian cars have been able to drive out of the besieged southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol along a humanitarian evacuation route, the city authorities said Monday.
“As of 13:00 pm (1100 GMT), more than 160 private cars have managed to leave Mariupol on the road to Berdyansk,” the city council said on Telegram, in a significant evacuation since Russian forces surrounded the city early this month.
An air strike on a residential building in Ukraine’s capital killed at least two people Monday, the country’s emergency service said, as Moscow maintained its devastating assault ahead of a fresh round of talks.
The strike, which injured at least a dozen people, came as Russian troops edged closer to the city and kept up their siege of the southern port city of Mariupol, where officials said nearly 2,200 people have been killed.
“As of 07:40, the bodies of two people were found in a nine-storey apartment building, three people were hospitalised and nine people were treated on the spot,” the country’s emergency service said on Facebook, adding that the building was in Kyiv’s Obolon district.
Ukrainian and Russian representatives were set to meet via videoconference Monday, a Ukrainian presidential adviser and a Kremlin spokesman both said before the latest strike.
According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, the talks were to begin at 0820 GMT.
“And our goal is that in this struggle, in this difficult negotiating work, Ukraine will get the necessary result… for peace and for
security,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday, adding that both sides speak every day.
He said the aim was “to do everything to ensure a meeting of presidents. A meeting that I am sure people are waiting for.”
“We see significant progress,” Leonid Slutsky, a senior member of Russia’s negotiating team, told state-run television network RT Sunday.
Talks between Kyiv and Moscow have yet to yield a ceasefire and Russian forces have shown no sign of easing their onslaught.
In an attack dangerously close to NATO member Poland, Russian air strikes Sunday on a Ukrainian military training ground near the border killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 130.
Zelensky on Monday renewed his call for NATO to impose a no-fly zone following the attack near the western city of Lviv.
“If you do not close our sky, it is only a matter of time before Russian missiles fall on your territory, on NATO territory, on the homes of NATO citizens,” Zelensky said in a video address.
Washington and its EU allies have sent funds and military aid to Ukraine and imposed unprecedented economic sanctions on Russia. But the United States has ruled out any direct intervention, with President Joe Biden warning that NATO fighting Russia “is World War III”.
Biden spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron Sunday and the two leaders “underscored their commitment to hold Russia accountable for its actions and support the government and people of Ukraine,” the White House said. With AFP