Facts about Russia-Ukraine conflict: Lavrov says Russia begins second phase of special military operation in Ukraine

Beijing [China], April 20: The Russia-Ukraine conflict continued Wednesday as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Tuesday that the second phase of the special military operation in Ukraine has begun. The following are the latest developments:
The operation in eastern Ukraine is aimed at "completely liberating" the populations of Donetsk and Lugansk, Lavrov said during an interview with India Today.
According to a report from Russia Today, Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, said Tuesday that Russian forces once again offer militants and foreign mercenaries at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol to "cease hostilities and lay down their arms."
Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday conducted their fifth prisoner exchange since the start of the conflict, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
As a result of the swap, 76 Ukrainian prisoners-of-war, including 16 civilians, returned home following their release by Russian forces, Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.
Of the 60 Ukrainian military personnel released, 10 were officers, she said, giving no information about the number of Russian captives exchanged during the swap.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday slashed global growth forecast for 2022 to 3.6 percent amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, 0.8 percentage points lower than the January projection, according to its newly released World Economic Outlook report.
The Ukraine crisis unfolds while the global economy is "on a mending path" but has not yet fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, the report said, noting that global economic prospects have worsened "significantly" since the forecast in January.
Leaders from the Group of Seven countries, the European Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed in a video conference on Tuesday to increase pressure on Russia and reduce imports of Russian oil and gas, the Italian government said in a statement.
A "broad consensus" was expressed over "the need to increase pressure on the Kremlin, including through the adoption of further sanctions, and to increase Moscow's international isolation," the statement said, adding that the leaders also reaffirmed the "common commitment to diversify energy sources thus reducing dependence on Russian supplies."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday submitted to the parliament a bill to further extend martial law in the country, the parliament press service said in a statement.
If lawmakers pass the bill, according to a report released by The Kyiv Independent, the martial law will be extended for two months, until June 24.
Russia has declared 15 diplomats from the Netherlands, an unspecified number of diplomats from Belgium, and four diplomats from Austria "personae non gratae" in a tit-for-tat response, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
The ambassadors of the three countries were summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry in protest over their decisions to declare dozens of Russian diplomats working in these countries "personae non gratae," the ministry said in separate statements.
The Dutch diplomats will need to leave Russia within two weeks, the Belgian diplomats were ordered to leave before the end of the day on May 3, while the Austrian diplomats must leave Russia before the end of the day on April 24.
Source: Xinhua