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The main opposition CPN-UML said that controversy started in the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) just to remove the then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.

During a press conference organised to make public its opinion after the endorsement of the $500 million US grant compact from the Parliament, the party said that the controversy in the MCC was started with an objective to remove Oli from the then Nepali Communist Party.

UML Deputy General Secretary Pradeep Gyawali said that the interpretative declaration was issued just to lie to the people.

Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s second-largest city on Monday, rocking a residential neighborhood, and closed in on the capital, Kyiv, in a 40-mile convoy of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles, as talks aimed at stopping the fighting yielded only an agreement to keep talking, Associated Press reported.

The country’s embattled president said the stepped-up shelling was aimed at forcing him into concessions.

“I believe Russia is trying to put pressure (on Ukraine) with this simple method,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday in a video address. He did not offer details of the hourslong talks that took place earlier, but said that Kyiv was not prepared to make concessions “when one side is hitting each other with rocket artillery.”

Amid ever-growing international condemnation, Russia found itself increasingly isolated five days into its invasion, while also facing unexpectedly fierce resistance on the ground in Ukraine and economic havoc at home.

For the second day in a row, the Kremlin raised the specter of nuclear war, announcing that its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and long-range bombers had all been put on high alert, following President Vladimir Putin’s orders over the weekend.

Stepping up his rhetoric, Putin denounced the U.S. and its allies as an “empire of lies.”

Meanwhile, an embattled Ukraine moved to solidify its ties to the West by applying to join the European Union — a largely symbolic move for now, but one that is unlikely to sit well with Putin, who has long accused the U.S. of trying to pull Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit.

A top Putin aide and head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that the first talks held between the two sides since the invasion lasted nearly five hours and that the envoys “found certain points on which common positions could be foreseen.” He said they agreed to continue the discussions in the coming days.

Peeved over the Nepalese Parliament’s approval of the US-funded USD 500 million grant agreement despite its persistent opposition, a concerned China said on Monday that Washington should not undermine the sovereignty of other countries through “coercive diplomacy”, The Print reported.

Much to the surprise of Beijing, Nepal’s Parliament on Sunday ratified the contentious US-funded USD 500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact along with an Interpretive Declaration a day ahead of the February 28 deadline set by Washington, ending months of debates, protests and polarisation in the Himalayan nation.

“We noted the decision and the declaration by the Nepalese parliament,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing here in response to questions from the official media about the Interpretive Declaration, which was passed along with the US aid highlighting Nepal’s sovereignty.

Senior leader of the ruling Nepali Congress Ram Chandra Poudel has said that the declaration includes the statements that the MCC is not part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, Nepal’s constitution will be above any provisions of the MCC and the country will perceive it purely as economic assistance.

“China has stressed repeatedly that international formal cooperation should follow the principle of mutual respect, equal treatment and fully respect the sovereignty of the country concerned and the will of its people,” Wang said.

“It should not interfere in other country’s internal affairs to engage in coercive diplomacy, undermine other sovereignty and interest out of selfish interests,” he said, adding that Beijing always supported Nepal choosing an independent path of development.

The MCC is a bilateral United States foreign aid agency established by the US Congress in 2004. It is an independent agency separate from the State Department and USAID.

The government has expressed its commitment not to allow Nepali land to be used against any nation.

A Cabinet meeting held on Monday thanked all the parties and lawmakers among others who helped endorse the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and said that the government would not allow Nepali land to be used against neighbouring countries or any nation.

The Cabinet made such a decision at a time when doubts were harbouring about the use of Nepali land against neighboring India and China after the endorsement of the MCC.

"Nepal is committed to not allow Nepali land to be used against India and China among other countries in line with foreign policy of Nepal to maintain friendly relations with all the countries," government spokesperson and Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki said.