What happened on the 20th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
LONDON – Three European leaders on Tuesday staged defiant support for Ukraine as they traveled to its besieged capital Kyiv, even though relentless Russian artillery bombardment burned residential towers in the city, causing frightened residents to flee the street with only clothes on their backs.
The dramatic visit of the Prime Ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, which took place in strict secrecy as they crossed the Ukrainian border by train at dawn, was a startlingly personal gesture. But other European leaders were caught unawares, some angered and exposed embarrassing divisions over how best to show Western solidarity with Ukraine.
It also came as Russian President Vladimir V. Putin belittled negotiations with Ukraine for the second day in a row, undermining the faint hints of hope that emerged from talks the day before that both sides were looking for a way to end the war.
The Kremlin has imposed retaliatory sanctions against President Biden and other senior U.S. officials. Mr Biden has announced his own plans to travel to Europe next week to show the unity of NATO before Russian aggression.
A spokesman for Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the three visitors “de facto” represent the European Union in Ukraine. In Brussels, however, officials said the trio did not have an EU blessing, and some European diplomats complained that the trip was too risky given Russian forces surrounding Kyiv.
Others said they admired the group’s audacity, which also included Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who portrayed it as a strong symbol of support for Ukraine among countries on Eastern Europe, where the spirit of Russian aggression is greater than in Paris. but London.
Despite all the symbolism of standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainian leaders under the threat of Russian missiles, Ukraine faced a devastating barrage mostly on its own. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko imposed a 35-hour curfew on Tuesday night, hinting that the capital was entering an even more difficult phase of its persistent struggle to hold back Russian troops and tanks.
“This is their attempt to destroy the Ukrainian people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an emotional video address to the Canadian parliament, reiterating his request for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone over the country. “It’s an attempt to destroy our future, our nation, our character.”
Mr Zelensky asked MEPs to imagine if the CN Tower in Toronto would be shelled like the towers in Kiev. His language became sharper, even more reprehensible, with each speech to Western audiences, revealing his disappointment with leaders who resisted direct military involvement for fear of complicating them in a wider conflict with Russia.
The Ukrainian leader, who has become a hero to many in the West, is expected to speak in a video to Congress on Wednesday, where he is expected to step up his requests for more aid and increase pressure on the US and its allies.
Biden plans to announce $ 800 million in new security aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, White House officials say. The administration announced $ 200 million in security aid to Ukraine last week and made a total of $ 2 billion in such funding available.
On Tuesday evening, Polish state television broadcast a video of a meeting between the Czech, Slovenian and Polish leaders with Mr Zelenski and other officials over a long table, followed by the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine.
“They are here to support us,” Mr Zelensky said at an information briefing after the meeting, which was also broadcast on Ukrainian television. “It’s a great, brave, right, friendly step. I am convinced that we can really win with such friends, such countries and neighbors and partners. “
Photography posted earlier on Twitter by Mr. Morawieckog showed three men rummaging through a map sitting in what looked like a wagon on its way to the Ukrainian capital.
“Here, in war-torn Kiev, history is being made,” Morawiecki said in a Twitter post. “Here, freedom is fighting the world of tyranny. This is where the future of us all hangs in the balance. “
The White House has announced that Mr Biden will fly to Brussels for an emergency meeting at the NATO summit on 24 March. This could lead to further economic and military assistance to Ukraine, but is unlikely to meet Mr Zelensky’s request for a no-fly zone. . Administration officials declined to say whether Mr Biden intended to meet with the Ukrainian president, who had named him a hero. However, they said Mr Biden might go somewhere in Eastern Europe to meet with refugees coming from Ukraine.
The river of people fleeing the war continued unchanged on Tuesday, as Russia claimed to have taken control of the strategic Kherson region in the south. Russian forces continued to break through civilian targets in Kiev, where Ukrainian troops fortified intersections with sandbags, rubber, and iron spikes.
Rocket rain before dawn in Kiev shattered windows, left craters in buildings and turned a 16-storey apartment building into hell. The fire spread quickly after the projectile hit the building, blowing up a jagged hole at its entrance. Firefighters rescued residents from the windows by a ladder through smoke billows. By mid-afternoon, they had taken out two corpses packed in black bags.
“I came out with nothing,” said Mykola Fedkiv, 85, a retired geologist. “I left everything, the phone, the medicine, everything.”
When the projectile struck, Mr. Fedkiv fled his apartment on the 12th floor and went downstairs. He climbed through the blown hallway and found himself in the crater of the bomb. People pulled him by the arms. He stood outside for hours and hoped to re-enter his apartment to pick up personal documents. Asked where he intended to spend the night, he replied, “God knows.”
The situation was even more desperate in the coastal city of Mariupol, which was hit by Russian forces in a two-week siege that crushed some residents in ruins and many others died in the winter frosts without heating, food or clean. water. Officials can no longer calculate the number of dead and missing.
2,400 civilians killed in Mariupol have been officially identified, but city government adviser Pyotr Andryushchenko said he believes the death toll was much higher, perhaps as high as 20,000. According to Ukrainian estimates, the number of people trapped ranges from 200,000 to 400,000.
Mr Andryushchenko said 2,000 vehicles had managed to escape Mariupol on Tuesday and another 2,000 had been packed and ready to leave. Officials told civilians to “delete all messages and photos from phones” if Russian soldiers were looking for them as signs of support for Ukrainian forces.
The danger of reporting accurate information from Ukrainian battlefields was further highlighted on Tuesday by news that a Fox News cameraman and a Ukrainian counterpart were killed in Monday’s attack in front of Kiev, raising the number of journalists killed in Ukraine to at least three. the last few days.
In Kherson, a southern city under Russian occupation, the mayor said members of the Russian National Guard were gathering activists who opposed the Russian presence and were probably trying to gain them by force.
“Everyone is in the city, in prison,” Mayor Igor Kolykhaev wrote in several text messages, referring to activists. Russian troops, he said, “collect, detain, process and release them.”
Kherson was the first major city to fall under Russian forces since the invasion began on 24 February. Although Kremlin officials announced that the Ukrainian people would welcome their “liberation” by Russian troops, Kherson residents were defiant and regularly gathered in the central square to protest the Russian presence, even when Russian troops fired into the air to dispersed them.
Russia has claimed to have covered the entire Kherson region, which could strengthen its ability to push westward towards the strategic port cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa. A senior Ukrainian military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Russian forces control much of the Kherson region, but said Ukrainian forces were attacking their positions and causing casualties.
Negotiations via video link between Russia and Ukraine resumed on the second day on Tuesday, although Mr Putin cut short the prospects for an imminent breakthrough. In a telephone conversation with European Council President Charles Michel, Putin complained that “Kyiv is not showing a serious attitude towards finding mutually acceptable solutions,” the Kremlin said.
Mr Putin also continued to fight in the information battle with Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that his country could offer diplomatic “protection” to a Russian state television employee who was detained and punished for an anti-war protest on Monday.
Employee Marina Ovsyannikova broke into a live broadcast of Russia’s most-watched news program on Monday night and shouted, “Stop the war!” and holds an inscription with the inscription: “Here they lie to you.”
Russia has also faced further isolation from Britain, which has imposed sanctions on more than 370 people, branding them as oligarchs, political allies or Mr Putin’s propagandists. Among those on the blacklist: Dmitry A. Medvedev, former president of Russia; Mikhail Mishustin, current Prime Minister; and Mikhail Fridman, a billionaire, founder of Alfa Bank, one of the largest private banks in the country.
Russia, however, said it had sanctioned 13 Americans, including Mr Biden, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, in response to US sanctions against Mr Putin and other officials. Also on her list was Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former secretary of state, and Mr Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Biden’s spokeswoman Jen Psaki shook off the news and jokingly hinted that the Kremlin’s announcement may have missed the mark. The president, Psaki said, is “younger, so they may have mistakenly sanctioned his father.”
Mark Landler reported from London and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels. Reporting contributed Carlotta Gall in Lynsey Addario from Kiev, Ukraine; Michael Schwirtz from Odessa, Ukraine; Anton Trojanovski from Istanbul; Andrew Higgins from Warsaw; Ian Austen from Ottawa; Steven Erlanger from Brussels; David E. Sanger, Zolan Kanno-Youngs in Glenn Thrush from Washington; in Michael M. Grynbaum from New York.