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Japan and Australia on Friday slapped fresh sanctions on Russian entities as punishment for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, which the West says has been stalled by staunch resistance but continues to take a devastating toll on civilians, Reuters reported.

Western sources and Ukrainian officials said Russia’s assault has faltered since its troops invaded on Feb. 24, further dashing Moscow’s expectations of a swift victory and the removal of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government.

A U.S. Department of Defense official said there had been no shelling on Ukraine reported in the past 24 hours, and anecdotal indications morale in some Russian units was flagging.

“Some of that is, we believe, a function of poor leadership, lack of information that the troops are getting about their mission and objectives, and I think, disillusionment from being resisted as fiercely as they have been,” the official said.

Despite battleground setbacks and punitive sanctions by the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown little sign of relenting, according to Reuters.

His government says it is counting on China to help Russia withstand blows to its economy.

The United States, which this week announced $800 million in new military aid to Kyiv, is concerned Beijing is “considering directly assisting Russia with military equipment to use in Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

President Joe Biden, who described Putin as a “murderous dictator”, will make clear to China’s President Xi Jinping in a call Friday that Beijing “will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia’s aggression,” Blinken told reporters.

The pair are due to speak at 9 a.m. Eastern time (1300 GMT), the White House said.

China has refused to condemn Russia’s action in Ukraine or call it an invasion. It says it recognises Ukraine’s sovereignty but that Russia has legitimate security concerns that should be addressed.

A Chinese foreign ministry official met this week with Russia’s ambassador to China to exchange views on counter-terrorism and security cooperation, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was thankful to US President Joe Biden for the additional military aid but said he would not say specifically what the new package included because he didn’t want to tip off Russia, Associated Press reported.

“This is our defense,” he said in his nighttime video address to the nation. “When the enemy doesn’t know what to expect from us. As they didn’t know what awaited them after Feb. 24,” the day Russia invaded. “They didn’t know what we had for defense or how we prepared to meet the blow.”

Zelenskyy said Russia expected to find Ukraine much as it did in 2014, when it seized Crimea without a fight and backed separatists as they took control of the eastern Donbas region. But Ukraine is now a different country, with much stronger defenses, he said.

He said it also was not the time to reveal Ukraine’s tactics in the ongoing negotiations with Russia. “Working more in silence than on television, radio or on Facebook,” Zelenskyy said, according to the Associated Press. “I consider it the right way.”

Rescue workers searched for survivors Thursday in the ruins of a theater blown apart by a Russian airstrike in the besieged city of Mariupol, while scores of Ukrainians across the country were killed in ferocious urban attacks on a school, a hostel and other sites, Associated Press reported.

Hundreds of civilians had been taking shelter in the grand, columned theater in central Mariupol after their homes were destroyed in three weeks of fighting in the southern port city of 430,000. 

More than a day after the airstrike, there were no reports of deaths. With communications disrupted across the city and movement difficult because of shelling and other fighting, there were conflicting reports on whether anyone had emerged from the rubble. 

“We hope and we think that some people who stayed in the shelter under the theater could survive,” Petro Andrushchenko, an official with the mayor’s office, told The Associated Press. He said the building had a relatively modern basement bomb shelter designed to withstand airstrikes. Video and photos provided by the Ukrainian military showed that the at least three-story building had been reduced to a roofless shell, with some exterior walls collapsed.

Other officials had said earlier that some people had gotten out. Ukraine’s ombudswoman, Ludmyla Denisova, said on the Telegram messaging app that the shelter had held up, according to the Associated Press.

Satellite imagery on Monday from Maxar Technologies showed huge white letters on the pavement in front of and behind the theater spelling out “CHILDREN” in Russian — “DETI” — to alert warplanes to those inside.

Across the city, snow flurries fell around the skeletons of burned, windowless and shrapnel-scarred apartment buildings as smoke rose above the skyline.

“We are trying to survive somehow,” said one Mariupol resident, who gave only her first name, Elena. “My child is hungry. I don’t know what to give him to eat.”

She had been trying to call her mother, who was in a town 50 miles (80 kilometers) away. “I can’t tell her I am alive, you understand. There is no connection, just nothing,” she said.

Cars, some with the “Z” symbol of the Russian invasion force in their windows, drove past stacks of ammunition boxes and artillery shells in a neighborhood controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

Russia’s military denied bombing the theater or anyplace else in Mariupol on Wednesday, Associated Press reported.

The strike against the theater was part of a furious bombardment of civilian sites in multiple cities over the past few days.

In the northern city of Chernihiv, at least 53 people had been brought to morgues over the past 24 hours, killed amid heavy Russian air attacks and ground fire, the local governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told Ukrainian TV on Thursday.

Ukraine’s emergency services said a mother, father and three of their children, including 3-year-old twins, were killed when a Chernihiv hostel was shelled. Civilians were hiding in basements and shelters across the embattled city of 280,000.

“The city has never known such nightmarish, colossal losses and destruction,” Chaus said.

Ukrainian officials said 10 people were killed Wednesday while waiting in a bread line in Chernihiv. An American man was among them, his sister said on Facebook.

At least 21 people were killed when Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community center before dawn in Merefa, near the northeast city of Kharkiv, according to Mayor Veniamin Sitov. The region has seen heavy bombardment in a bid by stalled Russian forces to advance, according to the Associated Press.

In eastern Ukraine, a municipal pool complex where pregnant women and women with children were taking shelter was also hit Wednesday, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration. There was no word on casualties in that strike.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for more help for his country in a video address to German lawmakers, saying thousands of people have been killed, including 108 children. He also referred to the dire situation in Mariupol, saying: “Everything is a target for them.”

The address began with a delay because of a technical problem caused by an attack close to where Zelenskyy was speaking, Bundestag deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt said.

Zelenskyy’s office said Russian airstrikes hit the Kalynivka and Brovary suburbs of the capital, Kyiv. Emergency authorities in Kyiv said a fire broke out in a 16-story apartment building hit by remnants of a downed Russian rocket, and one person was killed.

Zelenskyy said he was thankful to U.S. President Joe Biden for additional military aid, but he would not get into specifics about the new package, saying he did not want Russia to know what to expect. He said when the invasion began on Feb. 24, Russia expected to find Ukraine much as it did in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea without a fight and backed separatists as they took control of the eastern Donbas region, Associated Press.

The US-China geopolitical tango in Nepal continues to provide all kinds of novel twists. Most recently, the two countries openly clashed during the recent MCC Nepal Compact ratification process. 

Even as these foreign powers jostled, Nepali political parties were busy slinging mud at each other.   

Nepal’s federal parliament did ratify the compact, as the Americans wished, but in the run-up to ratification Beijing tried mighty hard to stop it. It sees the $500 million development grant to Nepal as a part of America’s strategy to encircle China. But Chinese officials are themselves evasive when explaining why the compact is ‘anti-China’. 

What is beyond doubt is China’s anger at the compact’s parliamentary endorsement. 

“Nepali leaders are yet to realize the consequences of [the ratification of] the MCC compact,” a Beijing-based Chinese foreign ministry official who was not authorized to speak on the matter told ApEx on the condition of anonymity. “When they do realize, I am afraid it will be too late”. He chose not to elaborate on what he meant by “consequences”. 

The official, however, did say that the Chinese foreign ministry has reviewed its Nepal strategy post-compact ratification. 

The foreign ministry in Beijing has apparently concluded in its review that China’s presence in Nepal is weakening. President Xi Jinping is sending Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Kathmandu to explore ways to turn things around, says the Chinese official. 

He adds that the Chinese government is also unhappy with its Kathmandu-based diplomats for their supposed failure in curbing anti-Chinese activities.   

Hou in a spot 

The Chinese foreign ministry believes its Nepal representative, Ambassador Hou Yanqi, has failed to stop anti-Chinese activities and to effectively coordinate with Nepali political parties. 

A Chinese official associated with China’s diplomatic corps in Kathmandu told ApEx that in the lead up to the compact’s endorsement, there was lack of coordination among the Chinese agencies handling Nepal. Also speaking anonymously, he said the communication gap between Beijing and the Chinese Embassy was also growing. 

“The presence of the Chinese Embassy was weak,” says the official. “There are many things that went on here that our foreign ministry wasn’t aware of. She [Hou] could not coordinate and there was a communication gap with Beijing.”  

The official also blames ineffective coordination between Beijing and the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu for the MCC compact’s endorsement.  

“Ambassador Hou should be answerable for the anti-Chinese activities that might erupt in Nepal following the compact’s passage,” he says. 

Even as Ambassador Hou appears not to be in the good books of the Chinese foreign ministry, Chinese officials in Kathmandu hold their foreign ministry as responsible for China’s waning influence in Nepal. 

“As Nepal is a strategically important country for China, Beijing should have appointed a strong diplomat in Kathmandu, someone with a good political background or even a high-level foreign ministry official,” he told ApEx. “Beijing instead picked a junior official and she could not handle her responsibilities effectively.” 

The official hinted that Beijing could be looking for Hou’s replacement to lead its Kathmandu mission. 

Ambassador Hou’s leadership had started coming into question at the start of 2021 when she failed in her brief to keep the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) united. 

Wang’s meaningful visit  

China decided to send its foreign minister to Kathmandu while the Chinese Communist Party was holding its Annual National People’s Congress, suggesting an unusual level of urgency at the unfolding events in Nepal. 

Unlike what has been reported in sections of Nepali media, Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the Chinese officials ApEx spoke to say Wang’s upcoming visit is both unplanned and unprecedented. 

Chinese officials say Wang’s main agenda in Kathmandu is to reassess Beijing’s geopolitical and security challenges, as China no longer feels secure in Nepal. 

“Implementation of the BRI projects in Nepal is important for Beijing,” says a second Kathmandu-based Chinese official who has long liaised between Kathmandu and Beijing. He was also speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But this time Beijing is more worried about the security challenges emanating from the compact’s approval,” 

During his visit, Foreign Minister Wang will also take stock of the political climate in Kathmandu. 

Beijing sees the current Nepali Congress-led government as pro-Western and anti-China. But its favorable perception of CPN (Maoist Center) led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) led by Madhav Kumar Nepal has also changed after the compact’s ratification. 

The Chinese official says the CCP is unhappy with Dahal’s double standards on the MCC compact. 

“China wants the communist parties of Nepal to go into elections as a united force, and it is willing to play the role of an intermediary,” says the liaising Chinese official. This will also be the message Foreign Minister Wang will convey leaders of communist parties. 

Until six months ago, Beijing was confident that Nepal would not approve the US development grant. It had rested its trust on Dahal and other communist leaders like Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal. That trust has since been shattered.   

“We tried hard to stop the MCC compact’s parliamentary approval, but we were left with no option when even the leaders who had earlier assured us of the compact’s failure started shaking under US pressure,” says the Chinese official in Kathmandu. 

The MCC saga has been a sobering experience for China. Beijing is reportedly reassessing its relations with Nepali leaders, particularly those it had trusted before. 

China is angling for new ways to engage Nepal post-MCC compact ratification. This exploration starts with Wang’s visit.