The Hague, Mar 2 (AP) The United Nations' top court has scheduled hearings next week into a request by Ukraine for the court to order Moscow to halt its invasion.

Kyiv filed a case with the International Court of Justice on Saturday accusing Russia of planning genocide in Ukraine and asking for urgent “provisional measures” instructing Moscow to halt hostilities.

Also Read | Instagram, YouTube Block Russian News Outlets RT and Sputnik Across Europe.

Lawyers for Ukraine will present arguments March 7 supporting its request. Russia's lawyers will be given time to respond on March 8.

Ahead of the hearings, the court's president, US Judge Joan E. Donoghue, sent an urgent message Tuesday to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underscoring the necessity for Russia to “act in such a way as will enable any order the Court may make on the request for provisional measures to have its appropriate effects.”

Also Read | Pakistan Sees Major Surge in Offences Against Women in 2021, Says Report.

The International Court of Justice rules in disputes between states. It often takes years to reach decisions, but orders on provisional measures are often delivered quickly.

___

United Nations: The United States says it is expelling a Russian “intelligence operative” working for the United Nations, in addition to the 12 members of the Russian Mission to the United Nations whose expulsions were ordered Monday for engaging in espionage.

The UN was informed Monday that the US was taking action to expel a staff member working for the UN Secretariat, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric confirmed.

“We regret that we find ourselves in this situation but are engaging with the host country,” he said Tuesday.

Dujarric refused to comment further on grounds of privacy and the sensitivity of the issue but did say “what makes this decision a little difficult to understand is that the staff member was scheduled to end his assignment on March 14.”

The US Mission to the United Nations said in a statement Monday that the 12 Russian diplomats had “abused their privileges of residency in the United States by engaging in espionage activities that are adverse to our national security.”

A spokesperson for the US Mission said Tuesday: “On Feb. 28, the United States also initiated the process to require the departure of one Russian intelligence operative working at the United Nations who has abused their privileges of residence in the United States.”

The spokesperson was not authorized to speak publicly and commented on condition of anonymity.

___

Geneva: Canada's top diplomat said Tuesday her country will refer Russia to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes over its invasion of Ukraine, a move that will speed up an investigation by the court's top prosecutor.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly made the comments after helping lead a walkout of scores of diplomats from the Human Rights Council just as her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, addressed the UN human rights body in recorded video remarks.

“Minister Lavrov was being broadcasted and giving his version, which is false about what is happening in Ukraine. And so that's why we wanted to show a very strong stance together today,” said Joly, flanked by Ukraine's ambassador and standing behind that country's blue-and-yellow flag.

On Monday, the ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced that he plans to open an investigation “as rapidly as possible” into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

Khan told his team to explore how to preserve evidence of crimes and said the next step is to seek authorization from the court's judges to open an investigation.

However, he added that the process would be speeded up if a member nation of the court were to ask for an investigation in what is known as a referral.

Canada's announcement will set that acceleration in motion.

___

Jerusalem: Holocaust remembrance organisations in Israel are condemning a Russian attack that inflicted damage to the Babi Yar Holocaust memorial.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid issued a statement denouncing the incident, and said Israel would help repair any damage. “We are calling for the preservation and respect for this sacred site,” he said in a tweet that did not mention Russia by name.

The memorial is the site of a massacre of more than 33,000 Jews by Nazi Germany in 1941.

It is located on the outskirts of Kyiv and adjacent to the city's TV tower, where Ukrainian authorities said a Russian attack killed five people.

A spokesman for the memorial said that damage was caused to the Jewish cemetery at the site, but that assessing the full extent of the damage would have to wait until daylight.

The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial's chairman, Natan Sharansky, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “seeks to distort and manipulate the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic country is utterly abhorrent.

It is symbolic that he starts attacking Kyiv by bombing the site of the Babyn Yar, the biggest of Nazi massacres.”

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, expressed “vehement condemnation” and called on the international community to take action “to safeguard civilian lives as well as these historical sites.”

“Rather than being subjected to blatant violence, sacred sites like Babi Yar must be protected,” it said.

___

Moscow: A top radio station critical of the Kremlin was taken off the airwaves on Tuesday, its chief editor said and the Associated Press confirmed, after the authorities threatened to shut it down over the coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The move against Echo Moskvy, one of Russia's oldest radio stations that is critical of the authorities, comes amid growing pressure on Russia's independent media to cover the attack on Ukraine in accordance to the official line.

Officials on Tuesday have also threatened to block Dozhd, Russia's top independent TV channel.

The Prosecutor General's office claimed the two outlets spread content inciting extremist activities, as well as “false information regarding the actions of Russian military personnel as part of a special operation” in Ukraine.

Shortly after Moscow invaded Ukraine, Russian officials threatened independent media with closure if their coverage of the attack deviates from the official narrative, including describing the assualt as an “invasion” or “a war”.

The website of the Current Time, a Russian TV channel launched by the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that has been critical of the Kremlin, became unavailable Sunday after the channel reported receiving a notification from the authorities. (AP) VM

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)