Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its seventh day on Wednesday as Russian military forces escalated attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine’s largest city, causing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to flee the country.
President Joe Biden, in his State of the Union address to Americans on Tuesday night, warned that if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not pay the price for the invasion, aggression will not be stopped by one country.
On Tuesday, there were attacks on the central square in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called “unmasked terrorism”.
Ukrainian authorities said that a deadly bombing of a television tower in the capital, Kyiv, on Tuesday, killed five people. Officials said a television control room and power substation were bombed and at least some Ukrainian channels stopped broadcasting for a while.
The humanitarian situation is getting worse in the region. The UN refugee agency said about 660,000 people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries since the invasion began. Shabiya Mantou, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the situation “looks like it will become the largest refugee crisis in Europe this century”.
The vast majority of those leaving Ukraine are women and children – an order from the Ukrainian government bans men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country.
Observers say Russian forces have killed hundreds of civilians, including more than a dozen children, and bombed apartment buildings and neighborhoods in their attack on Ukraine, facts that consider Putin a war criminal.
Latest updates:
► The United Nations General Assembly will vote Wednesday on a resolution calling on Russia to immediately stop using force against Ukraine and withdraw its army from the country, condemning Moscow’s decision to “increase the readiness of its nuclear forces.”
The Russian Central Bank said the Moscow Stock Exchange would remain closed for trading on Wednesday, as Western economic sanctions sent the Russian ruble crashing.
► Oil prices soared above $100, to their highest level since 2014, and investors shifted more money from stocks to ultra-safe US government bonds as Russia escalated its war on Ukraine.
A company that tracks cryptocurrency transactions says $33.8 million in digital currency has been donated to the Ukrainian government and NGOs there since the start of the Russian invasion, nearly a third of it on Tuesday.
► Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, He said in a statement It has stopped showing all ads in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and has stopped ad sales to all Russian and Belarusian entities.
Invasion Tracking:Satellite images, surveillance footage and social media posts show the latest news on the war in Ukraine
The Kremlin spokesman said the Russian delegation is ready to resume talks
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russian negotiators were ready to resume talks with Ukrainian officials but could not “predict whether or not Ukrainian negotiators will attend.”
“Let’s hope this happens,” Peskov said. “Our country will be there and ready.”
Peskov said Vladimir Medinsky, Putin’s cultural advisor, remains Russia’s chief negotiator. Sunday’s talks near the Belarusian-Ukrainian border yielded no progress, although the two sides agreed to meet again. It was clear when, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Kremlin of trying to force him to make concessions by ramping up the invasion.
“Fair negotiations can take place when one of the two parties does not hit the other with missile artillery at the same moment of negotiations,” he said.
Biden: Putin is ‘isolated from the world’ more than ever
President Joe Biden praised the united response of the United States and Western allies against Russian President Vladimir Putin during his tenure State of the Union address Tuesday night as Russia continues its war in Ukraine.
Biden called the attack “premeditated and totally unjustified,” adding that Putin believed it could divide the world. But Putin was wrong. we are ready. “We are united,” Biden said. Putin is now more isolated from the world than ever.
Biden said the United States and Western allies were imposing “strong economic sanctions,” including cutting off Russia’s largest banks from international financial systems, blocking the Russian Central Bank from supporting the Russian ruble and “making Putin’s $260 billion war fund worthless.”
He announced that the United States would close the airspace of all Russian flights, joining a growing number of countries around the world that have taken similar steps in recent days. Biden also said he is working with 30 countries to remove 60 million barrels of oil from reserves around the world to mitigate the impact of the war in Ukraine on energy markets.
– Joey Garrison
The news comes to you:Latest updates on the situation in Ukraine. Register here.
Is Putin committing war crimes? What do the experts say.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nightly attack on civilian areas in Kharkiv as an attack “A war crime.”
Meanwhile, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague said on Monday that he intends to open an investigation “as soon as possible” into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
“Is Vladimir Putin committing a war crime? Yes. That’s very clear,” said David Schwendemann, a former senior Justice Department attorney and international war crimes prosecutor.
But war crimes experts say post-World War II efforts to create an international framework to thwart brutal dictators like Adolf Hitler have been toothless, caught up in power politics and focused on war crimes already committed to make a difference when it comes to the Russian invasion. They say. Read more here.
– Josh Meyer
What are war crimes?Ukraine accuses Russia of it, but what exactly is a war crime?
US bans Russian planes from US airspace
President Joe Biden announced in his State of the Union address Tuesday night that the United States is closing its airspace to Russian aircraft in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The United States joins a growing list of countries that have announced plans to close their airspace to Russian aircraft in response to the invasion. The European Union took the step on Sunday after several European countries, including France, Italy and Denmark, announced the move.
Canada also joined the international move to cut off Russian planes.
– Michael Collins and Courtney Subramanian
Besieged Cities: A Look at Kyiv and Kharkiv in Numbers
The war shed global light on the two largest cities of Ukraine, Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Kyiv’s (KEE-ev) population of 2.7 million would make it the third largest in the United States, just ahead of Chicago. The city covers 330 square miles – larger than Chicago or New York, the size of San Diego.
Kyiv is in north-central Ukraine, not far from the borders with Russia and Belarus. Ukrainian and Russian are commonly spoken in the city, and are among the oldest in Eastern Europe.
Located 300 miles east of Kyiv and near the Russian border, the city of Kharkiv (Kar-Kyiv) has a population of about 1.4 million spread over about 135 square miles—about the size of Philadelphia, which has a population of about 1.5 million.
Ukraine has a population of about 45 million, a few million more than California, and an area of about 233,000 square miles—slightly smaller than Texas.
– John Bacon
US official warns Russian power may be regrouping
The official said the Russians were likely protecting the convoy, explaining why it did not appear to have come under attack. The official said the airspace over Ukraine was still disputed between Ukrainian and Russian forces.
The official said there were also signs of morale problems among Russian forces, many of whom were draftees, and declined to say how the Pentagon made that assessment. Many of the soldiers are young men who are not fully trained or even aware of the reasons for being sent to Ukraine.
The official said the Russians, however, had a significant presence in and around Ukraine.
The official said the Russians have systems capable of firing thermobaric weapons in Ukraine. These aerial fuel weapons are primarily used to kill people on the ground or in bunkers.
– Tom Vanden Brock
Review the facts in the USA today:What was right and what was wrong with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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