But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the colonel is there for diplomatic work, and no other U.S. The Pentagon said one American military officer has gone back to Ukraine as the U.S. Authorities in Kyiv have expressed concern that Belarus, which has not taken part in ground military operations but allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine from its soil, may agree to wider participation in the war. Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Russian ally Belarus, said he was sending troops to the border with Ukraine. The separatist leader, Denis Pushilin, said more may have been hiding, lost or lagged behind, adding “there are already those that have been found” and captured. The Russian military says 2,439 fighters surrendered from the plant last week.
A leader of Russia-backed separatists suggested there might be more Ukrainian fighters hiding in Mariupol’s sprawling Azovstal steelworks, which for weeks stood as the city’s last bastion of resistance. In the ravaged port city of Mariupol, Russia began broadcasting state television news, about a week after the Russian military declared it had “completely liberated” the city. military assessment, said those smaller artillery duels could be prolonged. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. defense official said Russia is making incremental progress in the Donbas, with fighting centered on towns and villages as Russian and Ukrainian forces trade control over scraps of land. Military officials said Russian forces continued to try to gain a foothold in the area of Sievierodonetsk, the only part of the Luhansk region in the Donbas under Ukrainian government control.Ī senior U.S. Ukrainian authorities said at least eight people were killed - including a 5-month-old child - and 17 were injured in shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, while three were killed in and around the eastern city of Lysychansk, which is a key focus of fighting. “We have an extremely difficult and long stage of fighting ahead of us.” “The enemy is storming the position of our troops simultaneously in several directions,” said Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar. Speaking via video to members of the Eurasian Economic Forum, which is comprised of several ex-Soviet nations, he said those who try would “primarily hurt themselves,” citing broken food supply chains. Putin said “it’s impossible, utterly unrealistic in the modern world” to isolate Russia. “What we cannot have is any lifting of sanctions, any appeasement, which will simply make Putin stronger in the longer term.” “He’s essentially weaponized hunger and lack of food among the poorest people around the world,” Truss said on a visit to Sarajevo.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country was ready to agree on safe corridors in principle - but that it was not sure it could trust that Russia “will not violate the agreement on the safe passage and its military vessels will not sneak into the harbor and attack Odesa.”īritish Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Putin was “trying to hold the world to ransom” by demanding some sanctions be lifted before allowing Ukrainian grain shipments to resume. Many of those ports are now also heavily mined. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but the war and a Russian blockade of its ports has halted much of that flow, endangering world food supplies. Russian President Vladimir Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi that Moscow “is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis through the export of grain and fertilizer on the condition that politically motivated restrictions imposed by the West are lifted,” according to a Kremlin readout of the call. diplomat blasted the “sheer barbarity, sadistic cruelty and lawlessness” of the invasion. KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - Moscow pressed the West on Thursday to lift sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, seeking to shift the blame for a growing food crisis that has been worsened by Kyiv’s inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products due to the conflict.īritain immediately accused Russia of “trying to hold the world to ransom,” insisting there would be no sanctions relief, and a top U.S.