Vladimir Putin Russia Ukraine war

Putin orders forces not to storm last stronghold in Mariupol as west warns of Russian cyber-attacks.

Oleg Synegubov, the head of the regional state administration, said Russian forces shelled areas of Kharkiv with multiple systems. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, said his government supports talks to resolve international disputes but reiterated China’s opposition to unilateral sanctions. The mayor of Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, has said it is under intense bombardment.

Vladimir Putin said it was “impractical” to attack the Mariupol factory where Ukrainian forces were holding out, seeking to claim a victory and avoid more ...

The only bridge to Chernihiv had been destroyed by bombing, so they drove the vans to the banks of the Dnipro River, transferred the cargo to a boat and unloaded it on the other side. “Flights continue to arrive into the region from the presidential drawdown authorities that we are executing,” the official said. It is hardly surprising that Mr. Putin has not backed down in the face of economic sanctions and measures to cut off his country from technology needed for new weapons and now some consumer goods. While Russian casualties have been high and Mr. Putin’s ambitions have narrowed in Ukraine, American intelligence assessments have concluded that the Russian president believes that the West’s efforts to punish him and contain Russia’s power will crack over time. He said that his younger brother, who trained as an auto mechanic in a vocational school, had been reluctant to go into the military and had not supported the war. President Emmanuel Macron of France and the far-right leader Marine Le Pen had a heated exchange over Ukraine during a televised presidential debate, after Le Pen expressed her solidarity with the Ukrainian people in an apparent attempt to distance herself from Putin. “You are, in fact, in Russia’s grip,” Macron shot back. It released a video on Saturday that purported to show Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, the commander of the Russian Navy, meeting with men described as the crew of the Moskva lined up in formation and wearing uniforms. On the second call, he said that there had been no rescue involved, but that Leonid had been caught at the site of an explosion. Mr. Putin has blocked access to Facebook and many foreign news outlets, and enacted a law to imprison anyone spreading “false information” about the war. Modifying Theodore Roosevelt’s famous line, he said the U.S. would “speak softly and carry a large Javelin,” a reference to the anti-tank weapon that has been effective against Russian armor. Mr. Putin, in the tightly choreographed meeting, responded by calling the storming of the plant “impractical.” It also allowed Mr. Putin to present himself as a leader mindful of the lives of his own forces at a time when some Russian families are clamoring for information about apparently missing servicemen and women.

The Ukrainian soldiers previously rejected several Russian calls to surrender. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy said around 120,000 civilians remain ...

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Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the biggest battle of the war in Ukraine on Thursday, declaring the port of Mariupol "liberated" after ...

US says Ukrainian forces still hold ground in Mariupol, despite Vladimir Putin saying Russia 'liberated' besieged city.

“It is only sensible that they get requisite training to make best use of it,” the spokesperson said. Maxar Technologies said a review of images from mid-March through mid-April indicates the expansion began between March 23 and 26. “This is aimed to falsely the so-called referendum on your land, if an order comes from Moscow to stage such a show.” Ukraine is also a major corn supplier and the biggest exporter of sunflower oil. The World Bank has estimated that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused $60bn in damage to buildings and infrastructure across Ukraine so far. “This is not to help you,” he said. “They are accumulating forces, driving new battalion tactical groups to our land. Ukraine suggests Russia may be preparing for a referendum in Kherson, similar to its Crimean referendum in 2014, to allege the Russian speaking population is in favour of leaving Ukraine to be a part of Russia. “The goal is to bring together stakeholders from all around the world for a series of meetings on the latest [Ukrainian] defence needs and … ensuring that Ukraine’s enduring security and sovereignty over the long-term is respected and developed,” Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby said. “It’s important to understand that the lives that are still there, they are in the hands of just one person – Vladimir Putin. And all the deaths that will happen after now will be on his hands too,” Boychenko said. As the human and financial cost of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine mounts, United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said looking to Russia for the funds needed to rebuild the country “is something we ought to be pursuing,” the Associated Press reports They are even trying to start the so-called mobilisation in the occupied regions of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime address.

The US State Department says it understands Ukrainian forces still hold ground in Mariupol.

Russian President Vladimir Putin orders blockade of Mariupol steel plant "so a fly cannot get through" as Ukrainian forces continue to resist.

On the Russian side, everything is very complicated, chaotic, slow and, of course, dishonest,” she said in a post on Telegram messaging app. At the end of the day I am Russian, and I was born in Russia and I’ve lived all my life in Russia, and I just want to show that we are good people.” The incumbent legal machinery is not capable of bringing to justice Putin and these criminals. So it is important to realize that we need urgently to facilitate a real legal mechanism," he said, adding that sending a message to Moscow is not enough. He also said Russian forces have already “deported” at least 500,000 Ukrainians from the territory they have occupied. And it will show that the England government is standing for the peace and they really want to help.” These have consisted of murders, enforced disappearances, deportations, imprisonment, torture, rape, and desecration of corpses,” the statement said. If someone wants a new annexation, it can only lead to new powerful sanctions strikes on Russia. You will make your country as poor as Russia hasn’t been since the 1917 civil war. This village, on the outskirts of Popasna in Luhansk, has been hit hard by artillery over the past days. “At the end of the day we want to compete,” Rublev said. Rublev is ranked No. 8 in the world in men’s singles. He later added, “The things that happen now is complete discrimination.”

President Vladimir Putin said Russia has “liberated” Ukraine's Mariupol, apart from the massive Azovstal steel plant, which he ordered blockaded.

Eastern Orthodox and Catholic leaders in the U.S. weigh in on the Russian invasion—and the Russian Orthodox Church.

“What we’re seeing on full display” in the R.O.C.’s support for Putin “is a kind of rejection” of that ethos, “a kind of religious nationalism that in many ways is cancelling out the other,” Aristotle Papanikolaou, an Orthodox theologian at Fordham, who helped draft the document, said at the Georgetown conference. “Regardless of how the other Orthodox churches see it, it’s out there, and thank God it’s out there, because it’s at least a prophetic witness for a different way of thinking and living the Orthodox faith.” Finally, in December, 2018, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was established at the St. Sophia Cathedral, in Kyiv. The next month, Bartholomew recognized it. The conversion of St. Vladimir—also known as St. Volodymyr—is claimed as the foundational act of Christianity in the region, to which both Russian Orthodoxy and Orthodoxy in Ukraine trace their roots, and Ukraine has been religiously controverted territory ever since. Capping two decades of negotiations between Rome and Moscow, he met with Francis—the first such meeting in a thousand years—in Havana, and saw to it that their joint declaration referred to plans for a more independent Ukrainian church as a “schism” violating “canonical norms”—a clear rebuke of Bartholomew. And Kirill deepened long-standing relationships with Christian fundamentalists from the United States, making common cause with them on issues of gender and sexuality, especially. Last week, on Fox News, George Demacopoulos, a theologian at Fordham who has been honored as an archon—a distinguished Christian—by Bartholomew I, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, declared that “Putin is an instrumentalizer of religion.” Demacopoulos meant that, rather than looking to religion as a guide to action, Putin (who is Russian Orthodox) attacked Ukraine and then invoked Christianity to justify the invasion as an act of holy war. After the council, several dozen Eastern Orthodox leaders who had attended drafted a hundred-and-ten-page document framing a common “social ethos” in terms associated with the West—denouncing nationalism and racism, and affirming liberal democratic ideals of freedom and equality. As Russia’s 2014 occupation of parts of the Donbas and annexation of Crimea—regions where Russian ethnicity and Orthodoxy are robust—escalated the Russia-Ukraine fight, the conflict in Ukraine between Russian and Eastern Orthodoxy was also growing. At a conference at Georgetown University, Metropolitan Borys Gudziak, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic archbishop based in Philadelphia, who also serves as the president of the Ukrainian Catholic University, in Lviv, said, “There are so many precedents, and there are so many trends, that were under way for such a long time.” He listed several long-term developments that he saw as having enabled an eventual Russian invasion, from the lack of any Nuremberg-like reckoning with the evils of Soviet Communism to the personal friendships that Western politicians of all stripes have cultivated with Putin. “There are so many explicit expressions of intention that our surprise is actually a result of us not wanting to hear—not hearing,” he said. The R.O.C. wound up as the Orthodox church with the most property but the fewest adherents; Ukraine, a country with thirty-five million Orthodox Christians, was still without an autocephalous church. The historic center of Orthodoxy is Constantinople—present-day Istanbul—and the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople is recognized by other patriarchs (there are nine in all) as primus inter pares, or first among equals. Through his full-throated support for the war for a greater Russia, these leaders say, Kirill is militating against their own transnational Orthodox project, which has been under way since the fall of Communism. Is his vision of “Russky Mir” (“Russian World”) the basis for Putin’s war or just a rhetorical glaze applied to it?

Biden said a new $800 million military aid package was tailored for Donbas, and Washington would 'speak softly and carry a large Javelin.'

The weapons: Ukraine is making use of weapons such as Javelin antitank missiles and Switchblade “kamikaze” drones, provided by the United States and other allies. Dabrowska never expected war to break out, so Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine stunned her into inaction for three or four days. He said Russian attempts to collect personal data are “aimed to falsify the so-called referendum on your land, if an order comes from Moscow to stage such a show.” Mariupol: Putin declared victory in the shattered Ukrainian port city — even as his advisers acknowledged that thousands of Ukrainian fighters remain holed up in a steel plant and Zelensky denied that Russia had made new advances. The war has so far caused about $60 billion in damage to Ukrainian infrastructure, World Bank President David Malpass said at the event. At a Thursday World Bank ministerial meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “it is equally dangerous both in the center of Kharkiv and on the outskirts. “Any ‘Kherson People’s Republics’ are not going to fly. As it was, only four buses arrived in the southeastern town of Zaporizhzhia, 140 miles north of Mariupol, the rest held up as night fell by Russian checkpoints along the route, officials said. The images, provided Thursday to The Washington Post by Maxar Technologies, show several rows of graves in four distinct sections, each measuring nearly 280 feet. Late Thursday, Vereshchuk accused Russian forces of disrupting humanitarian corridors in the southern Kherson region by breaking a cease-fire. Zelensky told a virtual World Bank forum on Friday that his country would need $7 billion in monthly financial support and hundreds of billions of dollars more to rebuild after the conflict. Mariupol’s mayor made a renewed appeal Friday for a “full evacuation” and said more than 100,000 people remained trapped in the city.

"Russian forces will attempt to starve out remaining Ukrainian defenders in the Azovstal steel plant rather than clear it through likely costly assaults," an ...

Block off this industrial area so that not even a fly can escape," the Russian leader said. ISW researchers did concede that Russian forces may be able to wear down Ukrainian forces in the east with a "heavy concentration of firepower and sheer weight of numbers". "Our unity at home with our allies and partners, and our unity with the Ukrainian people, is sending an unmistakable message to Putin – he will never succeed in dominating and occupying all of Ukraine," he said. Some portion of the Russian forces will need to stay in Mariupol to maintain the siege on the Azovstal plant and secure the rest of the city against any remaining pockets of Ukrainian defenders. "Russian forces will certainly be able to redeploy some units from Mariupol to offensive operations elsewhere – but Ukrainian forces have succeeded in tying down and degrading a substantial Russian force, and the Kremlin's declaration of victory has not inherently freed up 12 BTGs worth of combat power for other operations." The ISW assessment suggested the slowing down of operations in Mariupol is likely to allow for "significant combat power" to be deployed to other offensive operations in the coming days and weeks.

Ukrainian fighters cling to their last redoubt in Mariupol after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the port city “liberated”. Ukraine President ...

- Zelenskyy told the leaders of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank that Ukraine needs $7bn a month to function amid the devastating “economic losses” inflicted by Russia. - Biden pledged $800m in more weaponry for Ukraine and said he would ask Congress for more money to help the Ukrainian military. - Russia plans to take full control of Donbas and Southern Ukraine as part of the second phase of the military operation, the deputy commander of Russia’s central military district said, the Interfax news agency reported.

Russian military official says invading force intends to control whole of south; UK PM says Russia close to securing land bridge via Mariupol.

The goals of the special military operation to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine set by the Russian authorities will definitely be achieved. Speaking in Delhi at the end of a two-day visit, the UK prime ministerconceded the war in Ukraine could go on until the end of next year,and Russia could win. He pointed to the ban on exporting technology products to Russia, saying: “We want to ensure we keep that tight. We hope that the Icelandic authorities are aware of responsibility for the negative consequences of such actions. A power line on the edge of the field had been broken. Speaking in Delhi at the end of a two-day visit, the UK prime ministerconceded the war in Ukraine could go on until the end of next year,and Russia could win. - The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, held a call with Vladimir Putin this morning. Ivan Ariefiev, the military press secretary for the region, said investigators were working to establish the cause.The Guardian’s correspondents at the scene saw one dead man among the wreckage. But according to Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, Russian forces are continuing to drop bombs on the plant. “In addition, the inflation rate would be significantly higher for a longer period of time.” - The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, held a call with Vladimir Putin this morning. But according to Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, Russian forces are continuing to drop bombs on the plant.

New evidence of a potential mass grave emerged from Mariupol, as Russian forces sealed off the last Ukrainian stronghold at the Azovstal steel plant.

Rylov stood on stage with medalists from other Olympic sports at the event last month and wore a jacket with a “Z” on the chest. “Despite Russia’s renewed focus they are still suffering from losses sustained earlier in the conflict. Hope that life will overcome death.” The last pocket of Ukrainian resistance continues to hold out in the strategically vital port city despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to declare a victory there. “Hope for peace. Sparks now fly as the third-generation metalworker’s laser machines slice plates for bulletproof vests from Swedish or German steel, make dog tags to dangle from young soldiers’ necks and build metal braces for limbs broken in battle. We here in Ukraine don’t need de-Nazification,” he said. Ukrainian authorities have estimated that 1,000 civilians are inside the plant along with the fighters. “Because we are here in a free country, free religion.” "The enemy is trying to advance in the area of Rubizhne, and defensive battles with the enemy continue in the direction of the settlements of Novtoshkivske and Popasna,” he said in a Telegram post. LVIV, Ukraine — He once sold pots, cookie cutters and pizza pans. Major Gen. Rustam Minnekayev said the aim was to create a land bridge from Russia to Crimea and another exit to the unrecognized breakaway republic of Transnistria in Moldova to Ukraine's southwest.

Russian president plays down prospect of a meeting with Ukraine's Zelenskyy during talks with top European official.

During the pair’s talks Putin also accused Kyiv of refusing to allow Ukrainian troops holed up in Mariupol’s sprawling Azovstal steel plant to surrender, the Kremlin said. Michel said he had stressed the EU’s “condemnation” of Russia’s invasion during his talks with Putin and laid out the sanctions the bloc is imposing on Moscow in response. Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Kyiv of being “inconsistent” in talks with Moscow over ending the war in Ukraine and played down the prospect of any immediate meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

A senior Russian military officer said Moscow aimed to seize control of eastern and southern Ukraine, including critical Black Sea ports, while German ...

A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed his troops were victorious in the battle for Mariupol, a Russian military official laid out wider aims ...

The drones have abilities to the Switchblade kamikaze drones, which are single-use, armed drones that fit in a backpack. The howitzers will outfit five Ukrainian artillery battalions specifically for fighting in the Donbas, Kirby said. Biden said not all the U.S. assistance is being advertised. Russia has ceaselessly bombarded the city for almost two months and appears to control most of the city. Capturing Mariupol is seen as central to the new phase, but thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians remain in the giant Azovstal steel mill complex. Also included are 121 Phoenix Ghost drones developed by the U.S. Air Force specifically for the Ukrainians, Kirby said. More than 92% of those were recorded in Ukrainian government-controlled territory, it added. The Russian-controlled news source said the Ukrainian service members aimed to "sabotage in the territories liberated by the Russian army." So they continue to fight for that city," Kirby told CNN on Friday. “There’s no evidence yet that Mariupol has completely fallen.” Ukrainian officials also said about 1,000 civilians are also trapped there. NEW PHASE OF WAR: What a new phase of war means for Ukrainians in the east

Russia: A senior Russian military official said Russia's territorial goals extend well beyond the eastern Donbas region, saying Moscow seeks to control all of ...

Romania’s cybersecurity agency has noticed a significant increase in scanning for cybersecurity flaws on the infrastructure it monitors, which includes critical infrastructure and other types of organizations, said Dan Cimpean, the agency’s director. The type of malware, known as HermeticWiper, can delete data on a machine. The Polish prime minister’s office introduced an elevated alert level for cyberattacks that is still in place.

As Friday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day: A top Russian military commander said Russia wants to take "full ...

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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to meet him in Moscow ...

"And now Putin is destroying Ukrainians. He has already killed tens of thousands of civilians in Mariupol. And this requires a strong reaction from the entire civilized world. The site in the village of Mangush could hold 3,000 to 9,000 — and 70 bodies have been found so far, the city council. It has been the site of the heaviest shelling since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, cut off from electricity, water and food for nearly two months. Russian forces have been stationed in Transnistria since the 1990s, and Kyiv has warned that Moscow could stage false flag operations there to justify an invasion. In early April he was photographed holding a Ukrainian flag from the town of Bucha, which he said had been "martyred" after evidence emerged of Russian atrocities committed against civilians there. More than a dozen House members wrote Friday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking for the U.S. to fill gaps in Ukraine's medical infrastructure. They called on the Kremlin to "release Vladimir and all those detained for fighting on behalf of a better future for their country." A corridor had initially been agreed to evacuate 6,000 civilians on 90 buses from the heavily bombarded city of Mariupol, where an estimated 120,000 civilians are still trapped. And to do it in a way that's smart," he said. He was detained on April 12, shortly after CNN published a video in which the dissident described Putin's power apparatus as "a regime of murderers." "It may have peaked, but look: Inflation has been high and I think the shocks emanating from this unjustified attack on Ukraine will prolong inflationary pressure," Yellen said. Human Rights Watch leader Hugh Williamson decried the "fake news" law as being "part of Russia's ruthless effort to suppress all dissent."

Zelenskiy warns Russia's invasion of Ukraine just the 'beginning' as the Kremlin will push to capture other countries.

The MoD said it would take Russia some time to change tactics and improve operations and therefore in the interim there is “likely to be continued reliance on bombardment as a means of trying to suppress Ukrainian opposition”. The United Nations chief, António Guterres, will meet Putin in Moscow next week, seeking an end to the bloodshed. Another mass grave has been found outside of Mariupol, the Associated Press has reported, citing the city council and an adviser to the mayor. Fears continue to grow for hundreds of civilians holed up in the Azovstal steel factory in the besieged port city of Mariupol, with the last remaining, outgunned contingent of Ukrainian fighters. But according to Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, Russian forces are continuing to drop bombs on the plant. And who will come next?” Zelenskiy said in a video address late on Friday.