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The Election Commission (EC) has started distributing voter identity cards from the offices of election officers for the local level elections.

The EC said that it would distribute voter identity cards till Thursday.

Voter education has also been provided at the place where voter identity cards have been distributed.

The Commission said that the voters should carry voter identity cards or other identity cards specified by the poll body while going to cast votes.

Ever since Russia on Feb 24 started its invasion of Ukraine, Western countries, led by the US, have been on a mission to rally global support against the war. They are in fact out to shape a global alliance against Putin’s ‘aggression’ on Ukraine. 

On February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Nepal issued a statement saying it ‘opposes any use of force against a sovereign country in any circumstances and believes in the peaceful resolution of disputes through diplomacy and dialogue.’ On March 1, US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. The two leaders discussed ‘Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified, and premeditated attack’ on Ukraine and the importance of respecting the UN Charter’s principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

A day later, on March 2, Nepal voted in favor of a UN resolution on the Ukraine crisis ‘that deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation of Ukraine in violation of the Charter.’ Meanwhile, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan abstained from the UN vote condemning Russia’s invasion. 

Nepal’s criticism of the invasion raised the eyebrows of some foreign policy experts who interpreted it as a deviation from Nepal’s non-aligned foreign policy. But Nepal’s political parties had shown a unified front at the time.

The country’s position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict was also in sharp contrast to that of India and China, its two closest neighbors, both of which had abstained from the UN vote and refused to condemn Russia.  

But in a clear departure from its earlier position, Nepal on April 7 abstained from voting when the UN General Assembly endorsed a resolution suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council. The assembly adopted the draft resolution by a vote of 93 in favor to 24 against, with 58 abstentions. 

Besides Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives had also made a U-turn on their earlier position on Russia’s invasion. Pakistan and India, and Sri Lanka, meanwhile, continued with their position of neutrality. 

Hiranya Lal Shrestha, former Nepali ambassador to Russia, says Nepal initially toed the line of the US and the Western countries, but had a change of heart after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Kathmandu in late March and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba visited India in the first week of April. 

Shrestha argues that while Nepal can take a position against one country that is attacking another, it is not a good idea “to blindly support the agendas of America and its allies.” 

“We should figure out the root cause of the war. Neighboring countries should be sensitive to each other’s security,” he says. “In this case, Ukraine clearly overlooked Russia’s security concerns.” 

A senior Nepali foreign ministry official, however, tells ApEx that there hasn’t been any shift in Nepal’s stated policy. When a country launches an unprovoked war against another sovereign country, he says, Nepal will oppose the war. But that doesn’t mean we endorse all proposals of some countries while we reject those of others. 

“We condemned the attack but we maintained neutrality on the issue of removing Russia’s membership from the Human Rights Council,” he says, insisting that such balancing cannot be termed a policy deviation. 

Nepal supports mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, respect for mutual equality, and non-aggression and peaceful settlements of disputes. The foreign ministry official says Nepal abstained from kicking Russia out of the Human Rights Council based on the same policy. 

Sanjay Upadhya, a US-based foreign policy expert, says that when Nepal on March 2 voted in favor of the resolution demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, it did seem like the country was tilting towards the US. 

“This perception has been bolstered by the visits of several American political and diplomatic delegations to Nepal in the aftermath of the parliamentary ratification of the contentious MCC compact,” he says. 

By joining the ranks of nations that have deplored Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says Upadhya, Nepal was perhaps only articulating its anxieties as a small nation precariously sandwiched between two powerful neighbors. 

It’s not just Nepal. Other smaller countries are also being forced to pick sides on Ukraine. 

India and China, which have maintained a neutral position on the issue, have not openly urged small countries to take their side, but they nonetheless want their friends and allies to maintain neutrality. 

Shannon Tiezzi, the editor-in-chief of The Diplomat, wrote in her April 7 article titled ‘Asian Countries Voted to Suspend Russia’s UNHRC Membership?’ that many countries in Asia—and the developing world at large—are increasingly frustrated at being forced to take sides between the US and Russia.  “It’s also an important reminder that when countries are truly forced to pick sides—with a neutral position not an option—many countries will, in fact, choose Russia,” she wrote. 

Foreign policy analyst Dev Raj Dahal says Nepal’s position on Ukraine is influenced by western and particularly American perspectives. 

“The education, knowledge, and exposure of Kathmandu elites are western, so they see all international issues through the same lens,” he says. “The geopolitical implications of Nepal’s stand on Ukraine will depend on how the war progresses and who comes out on top.” 

Foreign policy expert Upadhya says if Nepal is uncomfortable with the increasing Indian and Chinese sway in the country, there are less brazen ways of expressing its doubts than abandoning its traditional non-alignment. 

“Nepal has vitiated its domestic and foreign policy by allowing the narrative that the ruling coalition is pro-American in its basic orientation to hold,” he says. “The countries that abstained from the UN vote did not, by any stretch of the imagination, imply that they were in favor of Moscow’s position.” The Deuba government has done little, he adds, to present its case “as one of conviction rather than of convenience.” 

Four months into the invasion, there is no end in sight to the fighting. As war drags on, its geopolitical implications are being felt everywhere including in South Asia. Past few months have shown that Nepal is not immune.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s military has made small gains in the east, pushing Russian forces out of four villages near Kharkiv, as his country’s foreign minister suggested Ukraine could go beyond just forcing Russia back to areas it held before the invasion began 11 weeks ago, Associated Press reported.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba voiced what appeared to be increasing confidence — and expanded goals — amid Russia’s stalled offensive in the east, telling the Financial Times that Ukraine initially believed victory would be the withdrawal of Russian troops to positions they occupied before the Feb. 24 invasion. But that’s no longer the case.

“Now if we are strong enough on the military front, and we win the battle for Donbas, which will be crucial for the following dynamics of the war, of course the victory for us in this war will be the liberation of the rest of our territories,” Kuleba said.

Russian forces have made advances in the Donbas and control more of it than they did before the war began. But Kuleba’s statement — which seemed to reflect political ambitions more than battlefield realities — highlighted how Ukraine has stymied a larger, better-armed Russian military, surprising many who had anticipated a much quicker end to the conflict.

One of the most dramatic examples of Ukraine’s ability to prevent easy victories is in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters holed up at a steel plant have denied Russia full control of the city. The regiment defending the plant said Russian warplanes continued bombarding it, striking 34 times in 24 hours, according to the Associated Press.

In recent days, the United Nations and the Red Cross organized a rescue of what some officials said were the last civilians trapped at the plant. But two officials said Tuesday that about 100 were believed to still be in the complex’s underground tunnels. Donetsk regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said those who remain are people “that the Russians have not selected” for evacuation.

Kyrylenko and Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, did not say how they knew civilians were still in the complex — a warren of tunnels and bunkers spread over 11 square kilometers (4 square miles). Others said their statements were impossible to confirm.

Fighters with the Azov regiment released photos of their wounded comrades inside the plant, including some with amputated limbs. They said the wounded were living in unsanitary conditions “with open wounds bandaged with non-sterile remnants of bandages, without the necessary medication and even food.”

In its statement on Telegram, the regiment appealed to the UN and Red Cross to evacuate the wounded servicemen to Ukrainian-controlled territories.

The photos could not be independently verified.

Ukraine said Tuesday that Russian forces fired seven missiles at Odesa a day earlier, hitting a shopping center and a warehouse in the country’s largest port. One person was killed and five wounded, the military said, Associated Press reported.

Images showed a burning building and debris — including a tennis shoe — in a heap of destruction in the city on the Black Sea. Mayor Gennady Trukhanov later visited the warehouse and said it “had nothing in common with military infrastructure or military objects.”

Since President Vladimir Putin’s forces failed to take Kyiv early in the war, his focus has shifted to the eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas. But one general has suggested Moscow’s aims also include cutting Ukraine’s maritime access to both the Black and Azov seas.

That would also give Russia a swath of territory linking it to both the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014, and Transnistria, a pro-Moscow region of Moldova.

Even if Russia falls short of severing Ukraine from the coast — and it appears to lack the forces to do so — continuing missile strikes on Odesa reflect the city’s strategic importance. The Russian military has repeatedly targeted its airport and claimed it destroyed several batches of Western weapons.

Odesa is also a major gateway for grain shipments, and its blockade by Russia already threatens global food supplies. Beyond that, the city is a cultural jewel, dear to Ukrainians and Russians alike, and targeting it carries symbolic significance.

With Russian forces struggling to gain ground in the Donbas, military analysts suggest that hitting Odesa might serve to stoke concern about southwestern Ukraine, thus forcing Kyiv to put more forces there. That would pull Ukrainian units away from the eastern front as Ukraine’s military stages counteroffensives near the northeastern city of Kharkiv in an attempt to push the Russians back across the border there, according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Kharkiv and the surrounding area have been under sustained Russian attack since the early in the war. In recent weeks, grisly pictures testified to the horrors of those battles, with charred and mangled bodies strewn in one street.

The bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a five-story building that collapsed in March in Izyum, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Kharkiv, said Oleh Synehubov, the head of the regional administration, said Tuesday.

Sri Lankan security forces have been ordered to shoot law-breakers on sight in a bid to quell anti-government protests on the island, BBC reported.

Demonstrators are calling for the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over the island's worst economic crisis in history.

On Monday, his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, stepped down as prime minister amid violent street clashes.

But the resignation failed to bring calm and violence continued overnight.

On Tuesday, the government ordered troops to open fire on anyone looting public property or causing "harm to life". 

It also deployed tens of thousands of army, navy and air force personnel to patrol the streets of the capital Colombo, according to BBC.

Despite their presence, the city's top police officer was assaulted on Tuesday afternoon by a mob accusing him of not doing enough to protect peaceful protesters.

At Colombo's Galle Face Green, on the sea front, crowds also continued to gather.

Police say eight people have died and the capital's main hospital says more than 200 people have been wounded since Monday.

Some were injured by pro-government mobs, others when police fired tear gas into crowds. Lawyers acting for the protesters told the BBC they were filing cases against supporters of the prime minister.

An island-wide curfew has been extended to Thursday morning as authorities seek to end the violence. 

Evidence of last night's rioting is everywhere across Colombo - buses thrown into the lake, others with windows smashed out and tyres still burning, BBC reported.

In the north-east, protesters gathered in front of Trincomalee Naval Base after unconfirmed reports that Mahinda Rajapaksa had gone there with family members after escaping from his Colombo residence.

More than 50 houses of politicians were burned overnight, reports say. Crowds remain outside the office of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of Mahinda, calling on him to quit, according to BBC.