As civilian and military deaths mount in Ukraine, the United States is set on Friday to escalate its flood of economic blows against Moscow and Russia plans to advance its talking points at the U.N. Security Council.
The U.S. is expected to move forward on revoking Russia’s permanent normal trade relations status, which would allow new tariffs on Russian imports. President Joe Biden is set to make the announcement Friday, according to a source familiar with the decision. The move will require congressional action.
A diplomatic confrontation is also expected in the U.N. Security Council on Friday. Russia requested the meeting to discuss its claims of “the military biological activities of the U.S. on the territory of Ukraine.”
The Biden administration has forcefully denied that assertion, saying Moscow could be laying the groundwork for its own attack.
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“This is exactly the kind of false flag effort we have warned Russia might initiate to justify a biological or chemical weapons attack,” Olivia Dalton, spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations said late Thursday.
Friday, Russian airstrikes hit near airports in western Ukraine, including one at Lutsk airfield that left two Ukrainian servicemen dead and six people wounded, according to the head of the surrounding Volyn region, Yuriy Pohulyayko. Air raid alerts were also sent residents in Ivano-Frankivsk seeking shelters, Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv said. The eastern city of Dnipro was also targeted for the first time. One person was killed as three strikes hit early Friday, Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Heraschenko said.
The strikes came after Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian city Mariupol as civilians face increasingly dire conditions with scarce food, fuel, and electricity. Bodies are being buried in mass graves.
Meanwhile, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday and informed Putin that Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelensky, with whom Niinistö also spoke Friday, was ready for direct talks with Putin.
Latest developments:
►The World Health Organization said Friday it verified 29 attacks on health care facilities, workers and ambulances in Ukraine, which have killed 12 people and injured 34.
►The U.K. on Friday expanded its economic sanctions against Russia, targeting the 386 Russian lawmakers who recognized two regions of eastern Ukraine as independent.
►Congress passed $13.6 billion in humanitarian aid money for Ukraine and allies as part of a larger spending package that received bipartisan support in the Senate on Thursday.
►The Kremlin displayed harried confusion in its response to international outrage over the bombing of a children’s hospital. One official said the hospital had been emptied of patients and was being used as an extremist base. Later, Russia denied responsibility entirely and claimed the attack was staged.
►The U.N. refugee agency says more than 2.5 million Ukrainians have fled the country, over 1.4 million of them through Poland. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Thursday that about 100,000 people have fled over the last two days through evacuation corridors.
►The Ukrainian nuclear regulator said Friday the electricity supply at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has yet to be restored, Reuters reported. The news comes after the International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday Ukrainian nuclear regulators informed the agency they had lost all contact with the Chernobyl plant. A Russian shelling also targeted a nuclear research facility in Kharkiv.
Ukrainian maternity hospital hit by airstrike, at least three dead
At least three people have died and 17 are injured after a Russian airstrike hit a maternity hospital in Mariupol.
Staff Video, USA TODAY
The 40-mile Russian military convoy that had been stalled outside Kyiv amid reports of food and fuel shortages moved into the forest and towns, new satellite images showed.
The line of vehicles, tanks and artillery was outside the Ukrainian capital but had been stalled for days before the new movement. The images from Maxar Technologies showed armored units near the Antonov Airport and vehicles in forests with towed howitzers in position to open fire, Maxar reported.
Jack Watling, a research fellow at a British defense think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute, said it appeared the convoy was moving west around the city toward the south as Russian forces likely aim for a “siege rather than assault” in Kyiv. The British defense ministry said Russian troops were likely trying to “reset and re-posture” with new operations in Kyiv probable.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied Russia’s accusation that Ukraine is preparing to attack with chemical or biological weapons, and he said the accusation itself was a bad sign.
“That worries me very much because we have often been convinced that if you want to know Russia’s plans, they are what Russia accuses others of,” he said in his nightly address to the nation.
Russia said it uncovered plans to create secret laboratories in Ukraine to produce biological weapons.
“I am a reasonable person. The president of a reasonable country and reasonable people. I am the father of two children,” Zelenskyy said. “And no chemical or any other weapon of mass destruction has been developed on my land. The whole world knows this.”
His comments came as the U.S. and other Western leaders expressed similar concerns that Russia was hinting as its possible next move in using such weapons in the war in Ukraine.
On a night two weeks ago in southwest Ukraine, children inside a Jewish orphanage felt the ground shake and watched lights eerily flicker. Bombs were falling just a mile from their home, shattering their safe world and sending them fleeing into the darkness.
The children, most in their pajamas and without shoes, rushed out of the orphanage and squeezed onto buses to make their way to the Moldova border as the Russian military launched its invasion of Ukraine.
The journey, which eventually took the children to Romania, left them in tears and confusion: Where would they call home now? Read more.
— Gabriela Miranda
The United States has seen “very credible reports” of deliberate attacks by Russians on Ukrainian civilians that would qualify as a war crime under international law, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday.
That could include the recent assault on the maternity and children’s hospital complex that killed 3 people as well as strikes on schools, residential buildings, public buses and ambulances, he said.
Price said the U.S. will do everything possible to hold accountable every Russian political leader, military commander, and service member who participates in a war crime. “Criminal prosecutions are one possibility,” he added.
The U.S. has the ability to conduct its own in-depth investigations and will support the appropriate international investigations, Price said.
— Maureen Groppe
News broke last week that WNBA star Brittney Griner had been detained by Russian authorities and was facing drug-smuggling charges.
Like many WNBA stars, Griner has played overseas in the offseason to earn as much as four times the salary she gets playing for the Phoenix Mercury. She was returning to her team in Russia, UMMC Ekaterinburg, when she was allegedly found with vape cartridges in her carry-on luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. The Russian Customs Service said the cartridges contained oil derived from cannabis, which could lead to a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Friends, family and U.S. officials are trying to get Griner out of Russia, but diplomatic relations between the countries are said to be nearly non-existent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is unknown if Griner’s stature as a well-known international sports figure from the U.S. will help or hurt her situation. Read more.
— Jenna Ortiz, Dana Scott, and Emily Horos, Arizona Republic
Contributing: The Associated Press
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