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Center for Social Inclusion and Federalism organized a seminar on BRI and Nepal-China Relations at Everest Hotel in Baneshwar, Kathmandu on Thursday.

Around 80 participants including diplomats, bureaucrats, journalists and reporters, and scholars of various fields took part in the event.

The seminar comes at an opportune time of the impending visit of State Councilor and Minister for Foreign Affairs Wang Yi of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

Center for Social Inclusion and Federalism has been conducting numerous researches to understand Nepal-China cross-border relations, recent developments and its geopolitical implications.

In the course of the seminar, three major themes were discussed by three separate panels. 

The themes were BRI and Geopolitics: Risks and Opportunities, Nepal-China Cross-border Relations,

and Nepal-China Trade, Transit, and Transport, read a statement issued by the Centre for Social Inclusion and Federalism.

Ajaya Bhadra Khanal, Arpan Gelal, and Shraddha Ghimire presented their research findings on the topics respectively.

The first panel emphasized the impacts of ensuing great power rivalry on Nepal and viewed

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit from the same lens. Furthermore, the panel discussed

the contrasting models of diplomacy being practiced by Washington and Beijing and their averments towards one another regarding MCC and BRI, the statement read.

In the context of BRI, the panelist opined that the component of loan makes the BRI a complicated issue. Thus, the said issue may possibly reflect anxiety and caution in Nepal's negotiations with the Chinese side resulting in the delay in the implementation of the BRI project.

The panel particularly emphasized on the issue of Tibet as Nepal shares a border with Tibet, which is yet another contentious issue for China in its engagement with Nepal.

The second-panel discussion revolved around the topic of Nepal-China cross border relations. Panelists highlighted that there has been a lack of discussion on Nepal-China border issues, while most of the focus has been on the issues along the southern border.

The third session of the seminar dealt with the trade, transit and transportation relationship with

China. The presenter highlighted the TTA agreement between the two countries that was signed in

2016 which allowed Nepal for seaports and three land ports via China, the statement further read.

It has been more than five years since the agreement was signed but the pact has not been materialized yet.

Ukraine is "not alone" in its fight against Russia's invasion, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said, BBC reported.

He said the UK would not stand by while Vladimir Putin "vents his fury on Ukraine" and would work to ramp up defensive weaponry for the country.

Speaking in Brussels, he warned that, if the Russian president used chemical weapons, the consequences would be "catastrophic for him".

Earlier, the UK announced sanctions on 65 more Russian groups and individuals.

Johnson later told BBC Newsnight that Russia did not want peace, and instead wanted to intensify its attack on Ukraine, according to BBC.

Leaders from Nato, the EU, and the G7 have been holding emergency meetings in Brussels to discuss the conflict.

Speaking at a news conference following the Nato summit, Johnson defended the level of the UK's support for Ukraine, saying the government planned to send 6,000 more missiles to the country as well as an extra £25m in aid to help Ukraine pay the salaries of its armed forces.

The PM said kit would be provided to Ukraine to defend against "its bullying neighbour".

Johnson also promised a new deployment of UK troops to Bulgaria, on top of doubling troops both in Poland and in Estonia.

It follows Nato's earlier announcement that new battle groups would be created in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.

"The message Putin can take is: Ukraine is not alone. We stand with the people of Kyiv, Mariupol, Lviv and Donetsk," Mr Johnson said.

"As President Zelensky himself has said, the people of Ukraine must prevail and Putin must fail - and he will."

Johnson added that Western nations were looking to "steadily ratchet up" the amount of military gear they are sending Ukraine, but that it was proving "difficult" to meet the country's request for warplanes and tanks, BBC reported.

In a virtual appearance at the summit earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's asked Nato for "1% of all your planes, 1% of all your tanks".

Mr Johnson said: "What President Zelensky wants is to try to relieve Mariupol and to help the thousands of Ukrainian fighters in the city. To that end he does need armour, as he sees it."

"We are looking at what we can do to help. But logistically it looks very difficult both with armour and with jets." 

Johnson added that no Western power was looking to put "boots on the ground" or impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

He acknowledged that the Ukrainian president wanted more from Nato, saying allies felt "agony" about their "inability to do more given the constraints we face".

In a statement reported by Russia's Ria news agency, Russia's foreign ministry said Nato's decision to continue supporting Ukraine showed the military alliance wanted the conflict to continue, according to BBC.

The UK government has already given £400m in humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine and its neighbouring nations since Russia's invasion last month.

The PM said ministers had sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and entities so far in the toughest sanctions the UK had ever imposed.

The Wagner Group, a private military firm thought to function as an arms-length unit of the Russian military, was among the 65 entities hit by the latest sanctions announced by the UK earlier.

Also targeted were Gazprombank, the country's third-largest bank and one of the main channels for payments for Russian oil and gas, and the state-run shipping firm Sovcomflot. 

The stepdaughter of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, Polina Kovaleva, who is thought to own a London property worth an estimated £4m, was also targeted by the measures. 

Earlier, Johnson called on the West to consider measures to prevent Russia using its gold reserves to prop up its currency, the rouble.

He told the news conference the Kremlin was "trying to get around the sanctions on their gold" and the UK and others were trying to ensure there was "no leakage or no sale of bullion into markets around the world".

The prime minister said he was not "remotely anti-Russian" after the Kremlin labelled him the "most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian".

He said that, while one could be sympathetic to ordinary Russians, the way Mr Putin was leading Russia was "utterly catastrophic" and his invasion of Ukraine was "inhuman and barbaric", BBC reported.

Johnson dismissed talk about the use of nuclear weapons as a "distraction" from what was happening in Ukraine - where he said Russia's use of conventional weapons against "innocent people" had been "absolutely barbaric".

He warned that any use of chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine by Russia would be "disastrous for Putin".

"There is a visceral horror of the use of these weapons of mass destruction. I think that if Putin were to engage in anything like that the consequences would be very, very severe. 

"You have to have a bit of ambiguity about your response but I think it would be catastrophic for him if he were to do that. And I think that he understands that."

In an interview with the BBC Newsnight Johnson said Ukraine can win the war with Russia - not necessarily on the battlefield, but by making an occupation impossible, according to BBC.

"There's a sense in which Putin has already failed, or lost, because I think that he had literally no idea that the Ukrainians were going to mount the resistance that they are and he totally misunderstood what Ukraine is - and, far from extinguishing Ukraine as a nation, he's solidified it... He can't subjugate Ukraine."

The prime minister added that he was "not optimistic" the Russian president truly wanted peace, and that he had instead decided to "double down" in his assault on Ukraine which he said was a "tragic mistake."

US President Joe Biden warned any use of chemical weapons by Putin would be met with a "response", the nature of which "would depend on the nature of the use".

Biden said the Russian President had "miscalculated" in his decision to invade Ukraine, and had banked on "Nato being split".

"Nato has never, never been more united. Putin is getting exactly the opposite of (what) he intended to have as a consequence of going into Ukraine."

Ukraine accused Moscow on Thursday of forcibly taking hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to give up, Associated Press reported.

Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, had been taken to Russia.

The Kremlin gave nearly identical numbers for those who have been relocated, but said they wanted to go to Russia. Ukraine’s rebel-controlled eastern regions are predominantly Russian-speaking, and many people there have supported close ties to Moscow.

A month into the invasion, the two sides traded heavy blows in what has become a devastating war of attrition. Ukraine’s navy said it sank a large Russian landing ship near the port city of Berdyansk that had been used to bring in armored vehicles. Russia claimed to have taken the eastern town of Izyum after fierce fighting, according to the Associated Press.

At an emergency NATO summit in Brussels, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with the Western allies via video for planes, tanks, rockets, air defense systems and other weapons, saying his country is “defending our common values.”

US President Joe Biden, in Europe for the summit and other high-level meetings, gave assurances more aid is on its way, though it appeared unlikely the West would give Zelenskyy everything he wanted, for fear of triggering a much wider war.

Around the capital, Kyiv, and other areas, Ukrainian defenders have fought Moscow’s ground troops to a near-stalemate, raising fears that a frustrated Russian President Vladimir Putin will resort to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, Associated Press reported.

In other developments Thursday:

—Ukraine and Russia exchanged a total of 50 military and civilian prisoners, the largest swap reported yet, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

—The pro-Moscow leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, warned that Poland’s proposal to deploy a Western peacekeeping force in Ukraine “will mean World War III.”

In Chernihiv, where an airstrike this week destroyed a crucial bridge, a city official, Olexander Lomako, said a “humanitarian catastrophe” is unfolding as Russian forces target food storage places. He said about 130,000 people are left in the besieged city, about half its prewar population.

—Russia said it will offer safe passage starting Friday to 67 ships from 15 foreign countries that are stranded in Ukrainian ports because of the danger of shelling and mines.

Kyiv and Moscow gave conflicting accounts, meanwhile, about the people being relocated to Russia and whether they were going willingly — as Russia claimed — or were being coerced or lied to.

Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said the roughly 400,000 people evacuated to Russia since the start of the military action were from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have been fighting for control for nearly eight years.

Russian authorities said they are providing accommodations and dispensing payments to the evacuees.

But Donetsk Region Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said that “people are being forcibly moved into the territory of the aggressor state.” Denisova said those removed by Russian troops included a 92-year-old woman in Mariupol who was forced to go to Taganrog in southern Russia, according to the Associated Press.

Ukrainian officials said that the Russians are taking people’s passports and moving them to “filtration camps” in Ukraine’s separatist-controlled east before sending them to various distant, economically depressed areas in Russia. 

Among those taken, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry charged, were 6,000 residents of Mariupol, the devastated port city in the country’s east. Moscow’s troops are confiscating identity documents from an additional 15,000 people in a section of Mariupol under Russian control, the ministry said.

Some could be sent as far as the Pacific island of Sakhalin, Ukrainian intelligence said, and are being offered jobs on condition they don’t leave for two years. The ministry said the Russians intend to “use them as hostages and put more political pressure on Ukraine.”

Kyrylenko said that Mariupol’s residents have been long deprived of information and that the Russians feed them false claims about Ukraine’s defeats to persuade them to move to Russia, Associated Press reported.

“Russian lies may influence those who have been under the siege,” he said.

As for the naval attack in Berdyansk, Ukraine claimed two more ships were damaged and a 3,000-ton fuel tank was destroyed when the Russian ship Orsk was sunk, causing a fire that spread to ammunition supplies.

Zelenskyy rallied the country to keep up its military defense in hopes it would lead to peace.

“With every day of our defense, we are getting closer to the peace that we need so much. We are getting closer to victory. … We can’t stop even for a minute, for every minute determines our fate, our future, whether we will live,” he said late Thursday in his nightly video address to the nation.

Zelenskyy said thousands of people, including 128 children, have died in the first month of the war. Across the country, 230 schools and 155 kindergartens have been destroyed. Cities and villages “lie in ashes,” he said, according To The Associated Press.

President Joe Biden and Western allies pledged new sanctions and humanitarian aid on Thursday in response to Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, but their offers fell short of the more robust military assistance that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for in a pair of live-video appearances, Associated Press.

Biden also announced the US would welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees — though he said many probably prefer to stay closer to home — and provide an additional $1 billion in food, medicine, water and other supplies.

The Western leaders spent Thursday crafting next steps to counter Russia’s month-old invasion — and huddling over how they might respond should Putin deploy chemical, biological or even a nuclear weapon. They met in a trio of emergency summits that had them shuttling across Brussels for back-to-back-to-back meetings of NATO, the Group of Seven industrialized nations and the 27-member European Council.

Biden, in an early evening news conference after the meetings, warned that a chemical attack by Russia “would trigger a response in kind.” 

“You’re asking whether NATO would cross. We’d make that decision at the time,” Biden said, according to the Associated Press.

However, a White House official said later that did not imply any shift in the US positionagainst direct military action in Ukraine. Biden and NATO allies have stressed that the US and NATO would not put troops on the ground in Ukraine. 

The official was not authorized to comment publicly by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Zelenskyy, while thankful for the newly promised help, made clear to the Western allies he needed far more than they’re currently willing to give.

“One percent of all your planes, one percent of all your tanks,” Zelenskyy asked members of the NATO alliance. “We can’t just buy those. When we will have all this, it will give us, just like you, 100% security.”

Biden said more aid was on its way. But the Western leaders were treading carefully so as not to further escalate the conflict beyond the borders of Ukraine, Associated Press.

“NATO has made a choice to support Ukraine in this war without going to war with Russia,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “Therefore we have decided to intensify our ongoing work to prevent any escalation and to get organized in case there is an escalation.”

Poland and other eastern flank NATO countries are seeking clarity on how the US and European nations can assist in dealing with their growing concerns about Russian aggression as well as the refugee crisis. More than 3.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in recent weeks, including more than 2 million to Poland.

Biden is to visit Rzeszów, Poland, on Friday, where energy and refugee issues are expected to be at the center of talks with President Andrzej Duda. He’ll get a briefing on humanitarian aid efforts to assist fleeing refugees and he’ll meet with US troops from the 82nd Airborne Division who have been deployed in recent weeks to bolster NATO’s eastern flank.

Billions of dollars of military hardware have already been provided to Ukraine. A US official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Western nations were discussing the possibility of providing anti-ship weapons amid concerns that Russia will launch amphibious assaults along the Black Sea coast.

Biden said his top priority at Thursday’s meetings was to make certain that the West stayed on the same page in its response to Russian aggression against Ukraine, according to the Associated Press.

“The single most important thing is for us to stay unified,” he said.

Finland announced Thursday it would send more military equipment to Ukraine, its second shipment in about three weeks. And Belgium announced it will add one billion euros to its defense budget in response to Russia’s invasion..

At the same time, Washington will expand its sanctions on Russia, targeting members of the country’s parliament along with defense contractors. The US said it will also work with other Western nations to ensure gold reserves held by Russia’s central bank are subject to existing sanctions. 

With Russia facing increasing international isolation, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also warned China against coming to Moscow’s rescue. He called on Beijing “to join the rest of the world and clearly condemn the brutal war against Ukraine and not support Russia.”

But Stoltenberg, too, made clear that the West had a “responsibility to prevent this conflict from becoming a full-fledged war in Europe.”

The possibility that Russia will use chemical or even nuclear weapons has been a grim topic of conversation in Brussels.

Stoltenberg said that NATO leaders agreed Thursday to send equipment to Ukraine to help protect it against a chemical weapons attack.

White House officials said that both the US and NATO have been working on contingency planning should Russia deploy nonconventional weaponry. NATO has specially trained and equipped forces if there should be such an attack against a member nation’s population, territory or forces. Ukraine is not a member, Associated Press.

Stoltenberg said in an NBC News interview that if Russia deployed chemical weapons, that would make “an unpredictable, dangerous situation even more dangerous and even more unpredictable.” He declined to comment about how the alliance might respond.

The White House National Security Council launched efforts days after the invasion through its “Tiger Team,” which is tasked with planning three months out, and a second strategy group working on a longer term review of any geopolitical shift that may come, according to a senior administration official. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Both teams are conducting contingency planning for scenarios including Russia’s potential use of chemical or biological weapons, targeting of US security convoys in the region, disruptions to global food supply chains and the growing refugee crisis.

Biden before departing for Europe on Wednesday said that the possibility of a chemical attack was a “real threat.” In addition, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN this week that Russia could consider using its nuclear weapons if it felt there were “an existential threat for our country.” 

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin on Thursday warned, “Russia is capable of anything.” 

“They don’t respect any rules,” Marin told reporters. “They don’t respect any international laws that they are actually committed to.”

The Russian invasion has spurred European nations to reconsider their military spending, and Stoltenberg opened the NATO summit by saying the alliance must “respond to a new security reality in Europe.”

The bolstering of forces along NATO’s eastern flank will put pressure on national budgets, Associated Press.