Date: 2025-08-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021841
RUSSIA'S INVASION OF UKRAINE
NEW YORK TIMES REPORTING
NYT reporting on March 10th 2022 ... Live stream text download
NEW YORK TIMES REPORTING
NYT reporting on March 10th 2022 ... Live stream text download
Original article:
Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
- Kyiv March 10, 11:34 p.m.
- Moscow March 11, 12:34 a.m.
- Washington March 10, 4:34 p.m.
Russian forces surrounded Chernihiv, north of the capital, and continued their siege of the port city of Mariupol, where three people died on Wednesday when a bombardment hit a maternity hospital.
ImageA Ukrainian refugee family waited by the train tracks in Zahony, a town in eastern Hungary, after fleeing the conflict in their country. A Ukrainian refugee family waited by the train tracks in Zahony, a town in eastern Hungary, after fleeing the conflict in their country.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Marc Santora, Anton Troianovski, Shashank Bengali and Josh Holder
Here are the latest developments in Ukraine.
Russian forces were making slow, bitterly-fought advances in Ukraine on Thursday as high-level talks failed to yield progress on ending the war or even a temporary cease-fire. Russian troops were laying siege to Chernihiv, near the Belarus border, where the mayor reported that the city was running out of burial space as the death toll rises.
Although Russia has failed to capture major cities in the past week, its forces have gradually pushed forward into smaller population centers. Outside of Kyiv, Russian forces gained control of the town of Bucha and moved southwest in an attempt to encircle the capital. They were also approaching Kyiv from the east, with heavy fighting involving a line of Russian tanks reported in the suburb of Brovary, according to videos posted on Thursday.
There had been some hope that a meeting in Turkey between Ukraine and Russia’s foreign ministers might yield some progress on a cease-fire or safe passage to civilians trying to escape more besieged cites. But by the end of the day the two sides were still far apart. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, indicated a cease-fire was not even on the table — and went so far as to deny Russia had attacked Ukraine at all.
Here are other major developments:
Russian forces continued their siege of the embattled port city of Mariupol on Thursday, the day after a maternity hospital bombing that a Ukrainian official said killed three people, including a 6-year-old child.
Vice President Kamala Harris visited Poland, a NATO ally worried about Russian aggression, pledging to “defend every inch of NATO territory.” She sidestepped questions about Poland’s offer to hand fighter jets over to the United States to transfer to Ukraine, a proposal the Pentagon has rejected.
The British government on Thursday imposed sanctions on seven Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea soccer club, and Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire aluminum magnate with ties to Mr. Putin.
The leaders of the European Union member states were arriving at Versailles on Thursday to discuss Ukraine’s appeal to join the bloc.
More companies pulled out of Russia, including the hotel chains Hyatt and Hilton. Hitachi said it was suspending exports to Russia and pausing manufacturing. The New York Times is tracking the pullouts. Goldman Sachs became the first big American bank to exit the country.
Russia, China and the United States continue to trade accusations of spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine. A day after the White House and State Department sharply criticized Russia and China for spreading “outright lies” about the United States secretly developing biological weapons in Ukraine, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday doubled down on the accusation.
Maps: Tracking the Russian Invasion of Ukraine New satellite imagery shows widespread damage in residential areas and shopping centers in Mariupol, where fighting has been intense. Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura March 10, 2022, 4:32 p.m. ET2 minutes ago 2 minutes ago Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura
Meet the U.S. fighters who are bound for Ukraine.
Image Yuriy Blazhkevych at his home in Brooklyn the day before he left for Ukraine. “I’m so angry,” he said. Yuriy Blazhkevych at his home in Brooklyn the day before he left for Ukraine. “I’m so angry,” he said.Credit...Sasha Maslov for The New York Times
Last week, Yuriy Blazhkevych, a taxi driver who lives in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, stood in his garage, scrolling through images of Ukraine on his phone that showed buildings with blasted-out windows, tanks rolling over cars and people fleeing for their lives.
Then there were the photos of dead children.
“I was crying,” he said from his home less than 24 hours before boarding a flight to Warsaw. “Every five minutes, there was something new. Then I told myself, ‘Either I watch the war on Facebook and write in comments and cry, or I go and help.’”
Mr. Blazhkevych, 63, is among a growing number of Ukrainians in New York and across the country, many of whom have never fired a weapon, who are heeding President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to join the front line against Russia.
There is Ana Bogdanova, 37, a data scientist who is trading in the coffee shops and boutiques of Manhattan’s East Village for weapons training in her hometown, Ternopil. There is Ivan Danyliuk, 18, from Ridgewood, Queens, who is a waiter at Veselka, the popular Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village, which has become a hub for New Yorkers to show solidarity. And there is Yuriy Nikolaevich, 55, a forest engineer who has lived in Somerset, N.J., for 20 years.
They are hoping to join other Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians from across the world, including from Canada, France, Britain, Sweden among other places, who have either traveled to Ukraine to help in the battlefield or traveled to bordering countries like Poland to help with a spiraling refugee crisis. Some have military training. Others do not. Many have been determined to show international solidarity with Ukraine amid a heightening Russian incursion.
Among those who have already left from New York are Bogdan Globa, 33, a gay rights activist who lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and is helping with humanitarian aid along the Polish border, and Andrey Liscovich, 37, a Harvard-educated tech entrepreneur who left his Silicon Valley job to fight in Zaporizhzhia, the site of Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which was recently taken over by Russian forces.
“I’m super scared but it doesn’t change anything,” said Ms. Bogdanova, who requested to replace her surname with the equivalent of a middle name for this article, because her parents, who are in Ukraine, are not aware of her decision.
“Let me put it this way: When I see ants in my kitchen, I collect them, I put them outside,” Ms. Bogdanova said. “I can’t stand to hurt another being that’s alive. But in this case, they’re destroying, bombing every single day. I’ll do what I’m supposed to do. I will take up arms — I will not hesitate.”
UKRAINE DIASPORA JOINS THE FIGHT
Read the full story about how Ukrainians across the U.S. have put their lives on hold to defend their homeland. Show more March 10, 2022, 4:03 p.m. ET31 minutes ago 31 minutes ago Brendan Hoffman While refugees continue to stream westward from Ukraine, men between the ages of 18 and 60 are forbidden to leave, and many, like Kyrylo Lysov, are joining the fight against Russia. Lysov, 22, and his girlfriend Yelyzaveta Sokolova, 20, shared a last moment together at the central train station in Lviv before parting ways. Image Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times Michael Roston March 10, 2022, 2:26 p.m. ET2 hours ago 2 hours ago Michael Roston Following meetings in Turkey on Thursday with the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine, Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, described “a very dire situation” relating to Ukraine’s nuclear sites at Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia and said that “we need to move fast.” Grossi said “both sides agree” to the I.A.E.A.’s proposals for pursuing an agreed framework to reinforce the safety and security of the nuclear installations. But, he added, “There’s a lot to be discussed.” March 10, 2022, 2:23 p.m. ET2 hours ago 2 hours ago Rick Gladstone Ukraine informed the United Nations on Thursday that the country was recalling all 308 military personnel it has deployed in a half-dozen U.N. peacekeeping missions around the world, along with equipment including eight helicopters, to join the Ukrainian defense against the Russian invasion. Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the United Nations, said the organization was in the process of deciding how to replace the departing Ukrainian forces, which were part of peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Cyprus, Kosovo, Mali and the Abyei region between Sudan and South Sudan. Lynsey Addario March 10, 2022, 2:16 p.m. ET2 hours ago 2 hours ago Lynsey AddarioReporting from Irpin, Ukraine As their civilian and military casualties keep rising, some Ukrainian families are holding funerals for their fallen relatives. In Kyiv, Yelena Lavinska, 22, was surrounded by her friends, relatives and the comrades of her fiancé, Mikhailo Pristupa, a Ukrainian soldier who was shot and killed in combat on Saturday in Irpin. Image Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times David Waldstein March 10, 2022, 1:46 p.m. ET3 hours ago 3 hours ago David Waldstein Ukrainian Paralympic athletes hold a protest in China. Image The Beijing Paralympic Games has been marked by references to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Beijing Paralympic Games has been marked by references to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Credit...Alex Davidson/Getty Images For International Paralympic Committee
YANQING, China — The Ukrainian delegation at the Winter Paralympic Games in China held a demonstration for peace at the athletes’ village on Thursday.
The group unfurled a banner appealing for peace and observed a minute of silence in response to Russia’s invasion of their country.
The vigil was led by Valerii Sushkevych, the Ukraine Paralympic committee president. The delegation, including coaches, staff and all 20 athletes, raised fists under a banner that said, “Peace For All.”
The demonstration was an unusual departure for the Paralympics, which attempts to invoke neutrality and not weigh in specifically on international politics. But before the Games even opened, the International Paralympic Committee banned Russian and Belarusian athletes because of Russia’s invasion and the support of Belarus.
Andrew Parsons, the head of the I.P.C., broke protocol at the opening ceremony and denounced the invasion during his speech with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, in attendance. The I.P.C. posted a photograph of Thursday’s demonstration on its website and included comments by Sushkevych and others at the event.
“Stop war,” Sushkevych said. “If you are civilized, you must stop war.”
Andriy Nesterenko, the head coach of the delegation, described some of the destruction in Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv, his hometown. “There are seven people from our team from Kharkiv,” Nesterenko said, “but some of them doesn’t have the possibility to come back. Their flats, their private houses are already destroyed. We kindly ask the people all over the world, we need your support immediately. We need your support today, not later.”
Ukraine has a history of success at the Paralympics and has done well at the Beijing Games, too, collecting 19 medals through six days of competition. That placed it second behind China and its six gold medals are third behind China and Canada. In an interview earlier in the week, Sushkevych appealed to Western countries to intervene by closing Ukraine air space to Russian war planes.
“Find, please, a way,” he said. “Find a possibility. Many peaceful people died from the bombs from the sky. Please find decision to stop Russian flights.”
Show more
March 10, 2022, 1:38 p.m. ET3 hours ago 3 hours ago Gilberto Neto
Angola’s government sent a plane to bring home 277 citizens who fled Ukraine. Only 30 got on it.
Image Teófilo Muanda, an Angolan postgraduate student formerly residing in Kyiv, endured a frigid 46-mile walk, a crowded train and more hardships on his way to escape the conflict in Ukraine. Teófilo Muanda, an Angolan postgraduate student formerly residing in Kyiv, endured a frigid 46-mile walk, a crowded train and more hardships on his way to escape the conflict in Ukraine.Credit...Teófilo Muanda
Teófilo Muanda braved explosions and gunfire, suffered through frigid temperatures, and endured a crowded train and a 46-mile walk, before he finally made it out of Ukraine and into Poland last week. After finally crossing the border on Feb. 28, he was greeted by officials from Angola, who told him that a Boeing 777 was on the way to take him and others fleeing the war back to their home country.
It didn’t take long for Mr. Muanda, a 31-year-old postgraduate student in Kyiv, to decide what he would do once the plane landed in Warsaw: He was not going to get on it.
The last time he lived in Angola, he could barely make ends meet.
“Angola is my home, but I would rather stay than go through the same suffering,” he said in a phone interview from Paris, where is currently staying.
The Angolan government sent a jetliner to Warsaw to collect some 277 citizens and their families who had escaped Ukraine following the Russian military invasion. Only 30 of them got on the plane, which landed in the capital Luanda on Monday, according to the state-run news site Angop.
Interviews with four of those who stayed behind revealed their underlying concern about returning to their home country: the lack of opportunity from a crippled economy. They said they would rather take their chances to find a better life in Europe, or wait out the war, than return to an uncertain future in Angola.
Video
Mr. Muanda boarded a crowded train in Kyiv headed toward Lviv at the outset of the war.CreditCredit...Teófilo Muanda
Angola is an oil-rich nation of about 35 million people in southern Africa, but its economy has struggled in recent years after oil prices tumbled in 2014. The coronavirus pandemic added another layer of devastation to a country drowning in debt, much of it owed to China. Even as oil prices have rebounded over the past two years, about a third of the nation is unemployed, according to government statistics. In 2018, nearly 48 percent of the population lived on less than $1.90 per day, according to the World Bank.
A native of the coastal province of Cabinda, an outpost of Angola north of the Congo River, Mr. Muanda said he experienced significant challenges when he returned home to his country in 2018 after graduating from the Polytechnic Institute in Kharkiv. In three years, the best job he could find was at a cybercafe in Cabinda, where he made the equivalent of about $65 a month. Frustrated by that meager living, he returned to Ukraine last year.
Shortly after turning down his government’s free ride back to Angola, he fled to Paris.
“What would I return for?” he said through tears during a phone conversation.
For other Angolans, the roots they have already planted in Ukraine are too difficult to leave behind.
Felix Bote, 30, is completing degrees in oil and gas engineering and agriculture mechanics and is married to a Ukrainian woman who is still in the country. Angolan embassy officials in Poland told him that he could be arrested if he stayed in Poland, Mr. Bote said.
But if he were to return to Angola, he almost certainly would have to depend on relatives to survive, he said. So he and others said they would try to get new student visas or apply as refugees to stay in Europe.
“Make no mistake,” he said, “most in our group who stayed in Europe have the feeling that they would face a harsh reality at home.”
Ivan Nechepurenko March 10, 2022, 1:27 p.m. ET3 hours ago 3 hours ago Ivan Nechepurenko President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia sought to play down western sanctions against Russia on Thursday, telling members of his government at the Kremlin that the Russian economy would adapt. “In the end, it will enhance our independence, self-sufficiency, and sovereignty,” he said, adding that Russia would “overcome these difficulties.” (In an earlier version of this post, the word 'independence' was incorrectly rendered as 'interdependence.')
Sapna Maheshwari March 10, 2022, 1:04 p.m. ET3 hours ago 3 hours ago Sapna Maheshwari
In a reversal, Uniqlo’s owner pulls out of Russia.
Image The line at a Uniqlo in Moscow on Thursday. Uniqlo’s owner said it faced “operational challenges and the worsening of the conflict situation.” The line at a Uniqlo in Moscow on Thursday. Uniqlo’s owner said it faced “operational challenges and the worsening of the conflict situation.”Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
In an about-face, Fast Retailing, the clothing giant that owns Uniqlo, said on Thursday that the brand would stop operating in Russia. Just days earlier, the company’s founder had said it would continue to do business in the country, drawing backlash.
In the Thursday statement, Fast Retailing said it “recently faced a number of difficulties, including operational challenges and the worsening of the conflict situation.”
“Fast Retailing is strongly against any acts of hostility,” the statement continued. “We condemn all forms of aggression that violate human rights and threaten the peaceful existence of individuals.”
Tadashi Yanai, the company’s founder, previously told a Japanese newspaper: “Clothing is a necessity of life. The people of Russia have the same right to live as we do.”
Though many companies continue to operate in Russia, Mr. Yanai’s statement made Fast Retailing somewhat of an outlier among major brands and retailers. Over the last two weeks, a rising tide of businesses — which has come to include McDonald’s, Starbucks, Apple, H&M Group, Nike and Ikea — have announced plans to temporarily shutter locations or stop selling products in the country. Companies that have stayed quiet on what the mounting conflict in Ukraine means for their business have been met with criticism from both investors and consumers.
Fast Retailing first announced intentions to open stores in Russia in 2008 as part of the company’s goals to significantly boost sales by increasing the number of overseas locations.
Show more
March 10, 2022, 12:45 p.m. ET4 hours ago 4 hours ago Maciek Nabrdalik
Some hotels in Poland have doubled their prices, but at the Hotel Duet refugees stay for free.
Image Refugees from Kharkiv, Ukraine, resting at the Hotel Duet in Chelm, Poland, on Wednesday. Refugees from Kharkiv, Ukraine, resting at the Hotel Duet in Chelm, Poland, on Wednesday.Credit...Photographs by Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times
Volunteers organizing goods and donations for refugees in the hotel’s conference room. Volunteers organizing goods and donations for refugees in the hotel’s conference room.
With many of their competitors doubling prices because of high demand, the owners of the Hotel Duet in Chelm, Poland, are offering free shelter for refugees fleeing the Russian attack in Ukraine.
On the first night of the invasion, the owners, Alicja Brzozowska and Bartosz Tuszewski, decided to open their doors to Ukrainian refugees, while also collecting and providing goods donated by others in the area.
More than two million Ukrainians have fled since last month, according to the United Nations, and more are attempting to leave each day. Most have made their way to neighboring countries — Poland, Moldova and Hungary — seeking food and shelter once they get across the border to relative safety.
Image Alicja Brzozowska, center, co-owner of the Hotel Duet, working at the reception desk with some of her hotel staff. Alicja Brzozowska, center, co-owner of the Hotel Duet, working at the reception desk with some of her hotel staff.
Image Katya Derckach and her 15-month-old daughter, Nastya, left Krivio Rog, Ukraine, and are now staying at the Hotel Duet. Katya Derckach and her 15-month-old daughter, Nastya, left Krivio Rog, Ukraine, and are now staying at the Hotel Duet.
Aurelien Breeden March 10, 2022, 12:32 p.m. ET4 hours ago 4 hours ago
Aurelien BreedenReporting from Paris
President Emmanuel Macron of France called the bombing of a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian port town of Mariupol a “disgraceful and amoral act of war.” Speaking to reporters at the opening of a European summit in Versailles, Macron said that Russian forces were “indiscriminately” using lethal weapons on civilian targets and that he saw no diplomatic solution to the war in coming days. “I am worried, pessimistic,” the French leader said.
Valerie Hopkins March 10, 2022, 12:31 p.m. ET4 hours ago 4 hours ago
Valerie HopkinsReporting from Lviv, Ukraine.
‘Bombs are falling in Mariupol all the time’: Russia presses on with its siege of the beleaguered city.
Image The shelled maternity hospital in Mariupol where, Ukrainian officials say, three people died. The shelled maternity hospital in Mariupol where, Ukrainian officials say, three people died.Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
LVIV, Ukraine — Russian forces continued their siege of the embattled city of Mariupol on Thursday, the day after a maternity hospital bombing that a Ukrainian official said killed three people, including a 6-year-old child.
It was the eighth day that Russian forces have bombarded the city of 430,000, a key strategic target for them on the Sea of Azov that has quickly become the site of one of the most severe humanitarian crises of the war. Most communications are cut off, people are struggling to find food and water and the authorities have been burying the dead in mass graves.
“Bombs are falling in Mariupol all the time,” said Halyna Odnoroh, an activist who managed to leave the city but whose daughter remains inside it. “Buildings are falling to the ground as if they were made of matchsticks. We need help!”
She added, “Soon Mariupol will be one big mass grave with half a million bodies!”
Satellite imagery from the city has shown significant damage to some buildings, with shopping centers and homes destroyed. The bombing of the maternity hospital on Wednesday left three people dead, the city’s deputy mayor said on Thursday, and 17 others had been injured, including women who had been in labor.
The Kremlin denied the extent of the casualties and appeared to try to legitimize the targeting of the hospital.
“It is not the first time we see pathetic outcries concerning the so-called atrocities perpetrated by the Russian military,” Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov said on Thursday, after inconclusive talks with his Ukrainian counterpart in Turkey.
He said that several days ago the Russian delegation to the United Nations offered evidence that the maternity hospital had been taken over by a group of Ukrainian fighters known as the Azov battalion, “and other radicals,” and that “all the mothers about to give birth and nurses had been chased out” of the building. The Kremlin has claimed that its invasion means to achieve the “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine.
Photographs and videos taken after the bomb went off and testimony from eyewitnesses showed heavily pregnant women being evacuated, including one on a stretcher. Footage from inside and outside the hospital shows windows completely blown out and cars burned beyond recognition. The Russian Embassy in London tried to dismiss the photos as fake.
“Children’s hospital. Maternity hospital. What did they threaten the Russian Federation with?” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine asked in an address late Wednesday night. “What kind of country is this — the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals and maternity hospitals and destroys them?”
For days, the city has tried to organize the evacuation of women and children, but gathering places for evacuees have come under Russian fire, according to residents and people who have managed to escape.
“It’s very hard now and it’s simply unrealistic to leave,” said Anastasia Pikuz, who was able to get out several days ago but left behind her mother and disabled grandmother. She has not been able to reach them since she left on Saturday, but she has been in daily touch with her husband, who has been informing her about the situation.
“There is no way for humanitarian assistance to get in and there is no way out,” said Ms. Pikuz, 26. “They are already near the end. Some people are able to procure water from melting snow but there is no food left.”
Speaking about the destruction of her hometown, whose beaches used to draw tourists, she said, “There is almost no city left either.”
Maria Varenikova contributed reporting.
Show more Matina Stevis-Gridneff March 10, 2022, 12:30 p.m. ET4 hours ago 4 hours ago
Matina Stevis-GridneffReporting from Brussels
European Union leaders have started arriving at the Versailles Palace in Paris for a summit where they will discuss the war in Ukraine, the country’s E.U. membership application and the bloc’s response to the growing refugee crisis.
March 10, 2022, 10:59 a.m. ET6 hours ago 6 hours ago Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Matthew Mpoke Bigg
Poland’s president tries to smooth tensions with the U.S. over fighter jets.
Image President Andrzej Duda of Poland speaking at a joint press conference with Vice President Kamala Harris in Warsaw, on Thursday. President Andrzej Duda of Poland speaking at a joint press conference with Vice President Kamala Harris in Warsaw, on Thursday.Credit...Pool photo by Saul Loeb
WARSAW — In an apparent attempt to smooth tensions with the United States over a jet fighter deal, President Andrzej Duda of Poland said on Thursday that his government was responding to a request from Ukraine when it proposed transferring of Soviet-era planes to Ukraine to use against Russia.
Poland this week offered to turn over its aging, Russian-made MiG fighters to the United States, saying they could then be transferred to Ukraine. The Polish government said it wanted the United States and NATO to carry out the transfer, then replace its own fleet with American-made fighter jets.
U.S. officials said they were blindsided by the proposal, and the Pentagon all but rejected the idea on Wednesday.
“That situation is extremely complicated,” Mr. Duda said in response to a question about whether he consulted with the United States before floating the idea. He spoke during a joint news conference with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We have to be a responsible member of the North Atlantic alliance — that’s why there were requests addressed to us,” Mr. Duda said, referring to NATO, of which it is a member. “Those requests were addressed to us by the Ukrainian side, as well as to some extent the media.”
“We behaved as a reliable member of NATO should behave,” Mr. Duda said.
Poland’s proposal threatened to test NATO’s posture of unanimity in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Washington says it wants to avoid taking any steps that could be viewed by Moscow as escalation that could potentially draw NATO into the war.
It also complicated a trip by the vice president, whose visit to Poland and Romania this week is intended to reassure NATO allies of American support against possible Russian aggression, and in managing the region’s growing refugee crisis.
Ms. Harris sidestepped questions over Poland’s fighter jets proposal, instead emphasizing the humanitarian and security assistance the United States has provided Ukraine and Poland. She announced that the United States would send nearly $53 million in additional funds through the U.S. Agency for International Development to support Ukrainian refugees.
Ms. Harris also said that Russia should “absolutely” be investigated for war crimes in Ukraine.
Poland has received more than 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees, and Mr. Duda called on the Biden administration to accelerate the processing of refugees with relatives in the United States. He said that without help from the United Nations and other allies, “this will end up in a refugee disaster.”
Steven Lee Myers March 10, 2022, 10:37 a.m. ET6 hours ago 6 hours ago Steven Lee Myers
Accusations fly over Russian disinformation about biological weapons.
Russia, China and the United States continue to trade accusations of spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine. A series of statements the last three days over allegations of chemical weapon use has become particularly testy.
A day after the White House and State Department sharply criticized Russia and China for spreading “outright lies” about the United States secretly developing biological weapons in Ukraine, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday doubled down on the accusation.
The exchange of statements underscored the intensity of the information war underway among the world’s powers.
“Russia is inventing false pretexts in an attempt to justify its own horrific actions in Ukraine,” the State Department said in a statement, a stance that was reiterated in posts by the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, on Twitter, calling the accusations “preposterous.’’
The exchange showed the extent to which China has joined Russia as a proxy in trying to blame the United States for the conflict, even as the government in Beijing has sought to distance itself diplomatically from the carnage unfolding on the ground.
The accusation first emerged on Sunday when a spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Igor Y. Konashenkov, claimed that Russian special operations forces had discovered documents detailing Pentagon-funded “secret biological experiments” at laboratories in two Ukrainian cities, Kharkiv and Poltava.
The ministry provided copies of documents, in Ukrainian, but their veracity could not be determined.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, used a question about the Russian accusations to accuse the United States of obfuscating about its work with biological and chemical weapons. Mr. Zhao has previously circulated conspiracy theories to deflect attention from China’s own policies, including one that linked the coronavirus pandemic not to Wuhan, where it began, but to research by the United States military at Fort Detrick, Md.
“Russia has a track record of accusing the West of the very crimes that Russia itself is perpetrating,” the State Department statement said, suggesting it could be laying the groundwork for its own attacks using prohibited weapons. “These tactics are an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify further premeditated, unprovoked and unjustified attacks on Ukraine.”
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank that tracks the conflict, issued its own warning on Wednesday that the Russian statements could be part of an effort to lay the groundwork for its own chemical or biological attack. “Russia may conduct or fabricate such an attack and blame Ukraine and NATO to justify additional aggression against Ukraine,” it said.
Asked on Wednesday about the American statements, Mr. Zhao did not address them. Instead, he again cited Fort Detrick and insinuated that the United States was hiding secret work with biological weapons. The day before, he called the spread of disinformation “despicable and malicious.”
On Thursday, Global Times, the Communist Party newspaper, picked up another statement from General Konashenkov, this time saying, without evidence, that the American-funded labs in Ukraine were conducting experiments with coronaviruses in bats, the presumed source of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Show more Lananh Nguyen March 10, 2022, 10:30 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Lananh Nguyen
Goldman Sachs is pulling out of Russia, becoming the first big U.S. bank to leave. Image The Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan. The Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
Goldman Sachs is leaving Russia, becoming the first big American bank to exit the country after Western governments imposed a raft of sanctions intended to cripple the Russian economy.
“Goldman Sachs is winding down its business in Russia in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements,” Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for the bank, said in an email. “We are focused on supporting our clients across the globe in managing or closing out pre-existing obligations in the market and ensuring the well-being of our people.”
The investment banking giant has about 80 employees in Russia and is arranging for the departures of those who have asked to leave, Ms. Williams said, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News. Some employees in Goldman’s legal and compliance divisions will remain in the country.
At the end of 2021, the New York bank had more than $700 million in exposure to Russia, linked to loans and financial products like stocks and bonds, according to a filing. Although Goldman has had a presence in Russia, its business there is a small slice of the bank’s global operations.
“None of us can fail to see this for what it is: the invasion of a sovereign state,” David M. Solomon, Goldman’s chief executive, said in a memo to the staff on Thursday. “Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes, Ukrainian cities have suffered massive destruction and already there has been tragic loss of life. I know that this remains an extremely daunting and difficult time for many of our people.”
American and Western banks have pulled back from direct dealings in Russia since 2014, when the United States imposed penalties after President Vladimir V. Putin’s annexation of Crimea.
Citigroup, which has about 3,000 employees in Russia, said on Wednesday that it would “assess our operations in the country.” Citi’s consumer division in Russia is running limited operations; the bank put the business up for sale as part of a broader exit from overseas markets announced last year. The bank had $9.8 billion of exposure to Russia at the end of 2021, including corporate and consumer loans and local government debt securities, according to a filing. It is working to reduce that exposure, finance chief Mark Mason told investors last week.
The latest economic punishments on Russia could have far-reaching indirect consequences because of the size of its economy and its international linkages. The country is a major exporter of raw materials like oil, natural gas and wheat.
Citigroup, the only U.S. bank with operations in Ukraine, had more than 200 workers in the country and was helping those who wanted to leave to cross the border into Poland, Jane Fraser, Citigroup’s chief executive, said last week.
Marc Santora March 10, 2022, 9:59 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Marc Santora
Russian forces are laying siege to the northern Ukraine city of Chernihiv, the mayor says.
Image After days of shelling, the city of Chernihiv has become mostly surrounded by Russian forces. After days of shelling, the city of Chernihiv has become mostly surrounded by Russian forces.Credit...Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
LVIV, Ukraine — Russian forces have encircled and are laying siege to the ancient city of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, the mayor said, adding that critical infrastructure for its 300,000 residents was rapidly failing as it came under repeated bombardment.
“We are surrounded,” the mayor, Vladyslav Atroshenko, said in an online statement. While Ukrainian forces are battling to keep some roads in and out open, the mayor said, Russian forces are trying to tighten a cordon around the city.
The mayor, in a message posted online on Wednesday, said the rising death toll from the fighting meant his city has run out of room to bury its dead. “This is the first time in my life when I have to excavate the graves to bury five coffins together,” the mayor said.
The entire city is without gas for cooking and heating, the mayor reported, after Russian shelling destroyed the pipes. Some neighborhoods have no clean water, he said, and the city has been disconnected from the national power grid, forcing residents to use their remaining gas supplies to keep the lights on. That gas supply is expected to run out in 24 hours, the mayor said.
Mr. Atroshenko has posted urgent pleas for help on the local government website over the past couple of days. “Dozens of people have died,” he said in one message. “Dozens of multistory buildings have been ruined. Thousands of people have no place to live.”
Chernihiv lies directly along the Russian invasion route from Belarus to Kyiv. It has come under attack since the first days of the war and managed to repulse an earlier attempt to capture it. But the Russian bombardment has intensified in recent days, according to local officials, eyewitness accounts and video evidence.
Russian forces also have besieged the southern port city of Mariupol for more than a week, and the situation there has grown increasingly dire. People are being buried in communal graves.
The Chernihiv Regional Military Administration issued a report on Thursday documenting an attack on Wednesday night, in which it accused Russian forces of opening fire in a residential community on the outskirts of the city. At least 10 houses were burned.
“During the last few days Chernihiv is being under violent severe bombings of Russian fighting aircrafts,” the mayor said. “Up to 17 bombings per day.”
Still, he said the city had no plans to surrender. “Everyone is looking at us,” he said. “We have to be strong.”
Show more Stuart A. Thompson March 10, 2022, 9:58 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022
Stuart A. ThompsonStuart Thompson is a technology reporter covering online information flows.
Russia’s disinformation machine is hard at work in its home territory.
Russia’s international disinformation campaign seemed to flounder in the early days of the invasion, as narratives about Ukrainian bravery dominated the internet. But in Russia, the country’s propaganda machine was busy churning out a deluge of misinformation aimed at its own citizens.
The narrative disseminated online through state-run and unofficial channels has helped create an alternate reality where the invasion is justified and Ukrainians are to blame for violence. To control the narrative at home, Russia also shut down access to several websites and threatened the news media with long prison sentences for criticizing the war. There’s some evidence that the effort has mollified at least some Russians.
Here is what the war looks like to Russians, based on a review of state news articles, channels on the popular chat app Telegram, and input from several disinformation watchdogs who are monitoring Russia’s propaganda machine.
After Russian shellings killed Ukrainian civilians, Russia blamed ‘neo-Nazis.’
A headline from the Russian state news website Tass. Translated into English. Hover for the original.
Some of the most disturbing images from the war have come from Mariupol, a port city in the southeastern coast. Shelling battered the region, killing several civilians who were trying to flee the area, during what was supposed to be a cease-fire.
But Russians got a different explanation online: Ukrainians had fired on Russian forces during the cease-fire, and neo-Nazis were “hiding behind civilians as a human shield,” according to the Russian state news website Tass.
Neo-Nazis have been a recurring character in Russian propaganda campaigns for years, used to falsely justify military action against Ukraine in what Russian officials have called “denazification.” Those claims have only continued during the conflict. To explain away attacks on other Ukrainian apartment buildings, the same article by Tass claimed that neo-Nazis had placed “heavy weapons in apartment buildings, while some residents are forcibly kept in their homes,” providing no evidence.
Russian social media accounts have used a mix of fake and unconfirmed photos showing Ukrainian soldiers holding Nazi flags or photos of Hitler. An analysis by the Center for Information Resilience, a nonprofit focused on identifying disinformation, showed that the number of tweets connecting Ukrainians to Nazis soared after the invasion began.
“Propaganda works when it coincides with your existing assumptions,” said Pierre Vaux, a senior investigator at the Center for Information Resilience. “The stuff that chimes into the Nazi stuff is really effective.”
After a nuclear facility caught fire, Russians claimed they were protecting it.
A headline from the Russian state news website Tass. Translated into English. Hover for the original.
After Russia attacked an area near the nuclear complex in Zaporizhzhia, leading to a fire, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called it “nuclear terrorism.”
But according to a Kremlin statement reported in Tass, the military seized the facility to prevent Ukrainians and neo-Nazis from “organizing provocations fraught with catastrophic consequences.” Even though Ukrainians heavily fortified the region against an attack, Russian officials claimed they already had control of the compound before Ukrainians opened fire. They added that Ukrainians set fire to an adjacent building before fleeing, providing no evidence. Western experts said controlling the Zaporizhzhia complex would allow Russia to trigger blackouts or shut down the entire power grid.
The image of Russia as a world protector surfaced again after the country’s officials claimed they discovered evidence that Ukraine was working on a nuclear bomb. According to Russian officials, plans for the bomb were uncovered at the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
“It doesn’t even make sense, because if you’re going to develop a nuclear weapon, you don’t do your secret development in a nuclear power plant,” Mr. Vaux said. “But that kind of thing is just being beamed out on Russian state TV.”
After Russia shelled a residential neighborhood, Russians claimed Ukrainians did it.
An attack on Kharkiv, a northeast Ukraine city bordering Russia, provided additional evidence that Russia had indiscriminately bombed residential neighborhoods and killed civilians, according to the Atlantic Council, an American research group. The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into war crimes after the assault.
In one attack that included heavy shelling, 34 civilians were killed and 285 were injured, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service.
A post from the Telegram channel for the Russian news site Readovka.
Translated into English. Hover for the original.
But Russians listening to state media or browsing channels on Telegram heard another story: The missiles, those sources claimed, came from Ukrainian territory.
On a Telegram channel for the Russian news site Readovka, one post described how “Ukrainian missiles” had “arrived from the northwest” — an area controlled by the Ukrainian military.
Russia’s defense department said that it never attacked cities, instead targeting “military infrastructure” with “high-precision weapons,” according to an article in the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.
After attacks bloodied civilians, Russians called injured Ukrainians crisis actors.
A woman who survived a blast at her apartment building became the focus of disinformation efforts after her bloodied and bandaged photograph spread widely through newspapers and Western media.
The woman was a resident of an apartment complex in Chuhuiv, near Kharkiv. The photojournalist Alex Lourie captured her portrait after the attack, and the image was soon featured on the front pages of newspapers around the world.
A post from the Telegram channel War on Fakes. Translated into English. Hover for the original.
But Russian social media channels falsely described her as a member of Ukraine’s psychological operations unit, according to an analysis by the Ukrainian fact-checking website StopFake.
A post by “War on Fakes,” a pro-Russian website and Telegram channel that appeared at the start of the invasion, suggested that the blood could be grape juice and that the woman could be “part of the territorial defense.” As evidence, the post included a shot of another woman bearing some resemblance. That image came from a New York Times photograph, which was taken in Kyiv — a seven-hour drive west of Chuhuiv.
Alan Rappeport March 10, 2022, 9:43 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Alan Rappeport
Russia has destroyed $100 billion worth of Ukrainian assets, a top economic official says.
Image Weeks of shelling across Ukraine have decimated Ukrainian infrastructure and business. Weeks of shelling across Ukraine have decimated Ukrainian infrastructure and business.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
The top economic adviser to the Ukrainian government called on Thursday for a full, global embargo on Russian oil and gas, describing the payments for Russia’s energy products as “blood money.”
The adviser, Oleg Ustenko, made the plea as he outlined the steep economic costs that Russia’s invasion is having on Ukraine’s economy as the country faces relentless bombardment. He estimated that $100 billion worth of Ukrainian assets have been lost and destroyed so far.
“The situation is a disaster that is really much deeper than somebody can imagine,” Mr. Ustenko said at a Peterson Institute for International Economics virtual event. “What is really needed to be done is to introduce a full embargo worldwide on Russian oil and gas. This is blood money.”
The country’s business sector has been crippled, Mr. Ustenko said, with 50 percent of businesses not operating and those that are running at less than full capacity. He added that Ukraine’s financial system and currency remained stable, given the circumstances.
The cost of building that Ukraine will face when it emerges from the war will be vast, Mr. Ustenko said.
The International Monetary Fund’s executive board approved $1.4 billion of emergency financing for Ukraine on Wednesday. The World Bank is also working to deploy a $500 million supplemental loan to help support Ukraine’s economy. And in the United States, the House approved $13.6 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine on Wednesday.
Mr. Ustenko said that beyond military support, Ukrainians will need aid for food, clothing and other basic needs.
As he called for a full embargo on Russian oil and gas, Mr. Ustenko said that he believed that the sanctions that were in place were working to cripple Russia’s economy.
“We are destroying them economically,” Mr. Ustenko said. “And destroying Russia economically maybe even has the same importance as the ground operation now.”
Show more Isabel Kershner March 10, 2022, 9:41 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Isabel Kershner
Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, announced on Thursday that “in light of recent developments,” it has decided to suspend its strategic partnership with Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch, hours after the British government seized his assets as part of a wider set of sanctions against a group of wealthy Russian businessmen. Abramovich’s partnership with Yad Vashem was announced on Feb. 22, two days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine and involved an eight-figure charitable pledge to bolster Holocaust research, according to a spokesman for Yad Vashem.
March 10, 2022, 9:13 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Niki KitsantonisReporting from Athens
Greece’s migration minister, Notis Mitarachi, said that Greece will send aircraft to Poland to collect Ukrainian refugees, a striking announcement for a nation that has been accused of harsh treatment of refugees from the Middle East and Africa. Mitarachi gave no details about when Greece would send the aircraft, nor how many refugees the country would take in. Some 7,000 Ukrainians have reached Greece so far, he said.
Megan Specia March 10, 2022, 8:58 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Megan Specia
Britain plans to streamline its visa process for Ukrainians with family in the U.K. Video
0:40 Britain Announces New Visa Process for Some Ukrainian Refugees
The streamlined visa application process will allow Ukrainian refugees with passports to skip submitting biometric data in person and submit their visa applications online.CreditCredit...Yui Mok/Press Association, via Associated Press
LONDON — Britain on Thursday announced a streamlined visa process for Ukrainian refugees hoping to join family in the United Kingdom. The changes are set to take effect next week, the British home secretary, Priti Patel, said in an address to Parliament.
Ukrainians fleeing war-torn cities have overwhelmed U.K. visa application centers in Europe because they had been instructed to submit part of their applications online and submit biometric data in person before they could get visas. The shift, which will begin on Tuesday, means that Ukrainian family members can apply for visas online, but, once approved, travel to Britain and have their biometric data taken there.
Britain’s visa approach is out of line with that of the European Union, which it exited in early 2020. The bloc has allowed all Ukrainians, regardless of family connections, to enter immediately, visa free, while fleeing the war.
Britain’s plans will not take effect until nearly three weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, so far driving more than two million people from their homes in the swiftest and largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
The shift in Britain is likely to ease the burden on U.K. visa application centers in Europe, where hundreds had been lining up for hours in the cold. But it does not address criticism from European leaders, opposition lawmakers and family members that visas are required at all.
During a question-and-answer session on Wednesday in Parliament, Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested that Britain would offer another humanitarian route to Ukrainian refugees, regardless of family connections. But no details on that process or when it would begin have been released.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 8:33 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
During a joint press conference with President Duda of Poland, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked whether Russia should be investigated for war crimes. “Absolutely there should be an investigation and we should all be watching and I have no question the eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of the aggression and these atrocities. No doubt,” she said.
Video CreditCredit...Associated Press Stephen Castle March 10, 2022, 8:25 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Stephen Castle
Britain’s move against oligarchs aims to answer criticism that it has ignored Russian influence.
Image Britain’s government said that it would add Roman Abramovich to its list of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, but would grant legal permission for the club “to continue playing matches and other football related activity.” Britain’s government said that it would add Roman Abramovich to its list of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, but would grant legal permission for the club “to continue playing matches and other football related activity.”Credit...Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
LONDON — For almost two decades Roman Abramovich has been Britain’s best known Russian oligarch, the billionaire owner of an elite soccer club who retained his wealth and influence no matter how much politicians in London and Moscow traded insults.
That ended on Thursday when Mr. Abramovich and six other oligarchs became the latest to have their assets frozen by a British government that has been criticized for being slow to target rich Russians.
The decision by Prime Minister Boris Johnson is striking because Mr. Abramovich is widely known to the British public through his ownership of Chelsea, a premier league soccer club, making him the most visible symbol of Russia’s influence in mainstream British life.
And this time Mr. Johnson is not playing catch up when targeting wealthy Russians, instead becoming the first western leader to put Mr. Abramovich on a sanctions list.
Perhaps anticipating a move by the government, Mr. Abramovich, 55, had been trying to sell Chelsea, but he has now lost control of the club and is unable to visit Britain. For ownership to change hands, special permission would be needed, and no proceeds would be allowed to flow back to its current owner, British officials say.
As a result of the sanctions, Mr. Abramovich, whose assets reportedly include a house in an exclusive street in west London bought in 2011 for £90 million, is now banned from even paying for electricity at properties in Britain, let alone renting them out or selling them.
Since he bought Chelsea in 2003, Mr. Abramovich has been a major figure in the world of English soccer, where he has been famously impatient for success and for replacing coaches who failed to win trophies.
His stature in Britain appeared unaffected by the country’s strained relations with Moscow following the poisoning in 2006 of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent and foe of the Kremlin.
The same was true in 2018 after the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian agent, which Britain claimed was the work of the Kremlin. He withdrew an application for an investor visa but, as a holder of both Portuguese and Israeli passports, was still able to visit London.
More recently there was speculation that he might emerge as a peace envoy in the Ukraine war, a suggestion that implied he had contacts to the Kremlin, even if Mr. Abramovich has denied having strong links to the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.
In its sanctions statement on Thursday, the British government argued, bluntly, that this is untrue. It said Mr. Abramovich has had a “close relationship” with Mr. Putin for decades, adding: “This association has included obtaining a financial benefit or other material benefit from Putin and the Government of Russia.”
It added: “This included tax breaks received by companies linked to Abramovich, buying and selling shares from and to the state at favorable rates, and the contracts received in the run up to the FIFA 2018 World Cup.”
The statement also says that one company in which Mr. Abramovich is a stakeholder, Evraz PLC, could be “potentially supplying steel to the Russian military which may have been used in the production of tanks.”
Also sanctioned on Thursday was Oleg Deripaska, who the government said has stakes in the Russian energy and aluminum company En+ Group.
Others on the sanctions list were Igor Sechin, the chief executive of Rosneft; Andrey Kostin, the chairman of VTB; Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom; Nikolai Tokarev, the president of Transneft; and Dmitri Lebedev, the chairman of Bank Rossiya.
That brings Britain’s list of oligarchs who have been sanctioned since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to 18.
The move against high profile oligarchs is likely to defuse some of the criticism of Mr. Johnson who has been accused of moving too slowly to tackle Russian influence in London.
Since he became prime minister in 2019, Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party, or its individual constituency associations, have received 1.93 million pounds ($2.5 million) from donors who are either Russian or who made money from Russia, according to calculations by the opposition Labour Party, based on disclosures to the Electoral Commission. Mr. Johnson has also been accused of ignoring the warnings of security officials when he nominated Evgeny Lebedev, a newspaper proprietor, to the House of Lords.
Show more
March 10, 2022, 8:05 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Ainara Tiefenthäler, David Botti and Evan Hill
People in the besieged city of Mariupol are buried in a large communal grave. Video
This video contains graphic images.
Some 70 people in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol have been buried in a communal grave since Tuesday, according to footage published by The Associated Press.
The grave is a simple trench, about 25 yards long, located in one of the city’s cemeteries. Video filmed on Wednesday showed that some bodies were wrapped in blankets or bags.
It is unclear how many of these people died as a result of Russian attacks, but an A.P. journalist visiting the graves estimated that about half of them were killed during Russian shelling of the city.
On Wednesday, an apparent Russian airstrike damaged and destroyed buildings at a hospital complex in Mariupol, including a maternity ward. At least three people were killed, according to a statement from the local government, including a child, whose age was not immediately known.
March 10, 2022, 7:47 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Maciek Nabrdalik
Volunteers, including local architecture students, set up a paper partition system for rooms in a former Tesco supermarket in Chelm, Poland, on Thursday. The city plans to open one of the biggest reception centers in Poland, which could host up to 2,000 refugees.
Image Credit...Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 7:46 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
President Duda, whose country has received over 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees during the war, calls on the Biden administration to accelerate the processing of refugees with relatives in the United States. He said that without help from the United Nations and other allies, “this will end up in a refugee disaster.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 7:37 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
Vice President Harris was asked twice what alternative means the United States would pursue to assist Poland and Ukraine if not facilitating the transfer of fighter jets. She repeats that the United States recently sent $240 million in security assistance for Ukraine, among other humanitarian aid.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 7:36 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
President Duda avoids answering directly whether Poland consulted with the United States before making the proposal to move Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine. 'That situation is extremely complicated,' he says during the joint news conference. Image
Credit...Pool photo by Saul Loeb Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 7:33 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
President Duda is asked whether Poland moved unilaterally when proposing a transfer of Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine, with the requirement that the United States facilitate the transfer. “We have to be a responsible member of the North Atlantic alliance — that’s why there were requests addressed to us,” he says through an interpreter. “Those requests were addressed to us by the Ukrainian side as well as to some extent the media. We behaved as a reliable member of NATO should behave.”
March 10, 2022, 7:30 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Anton Troianovski and Marc Santora
Talks fail to stop the fighting, with Russia’s foreign minister saying a cease-fire was never up for discussion. Video
1:27 Ukraine and Russia Fail to Reach Cease-Fire Agreement
The high-level talks arranged by Turkey failed to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, with the Russian foreign minister falsely claiming that his nation did not attack Ukraine.CreditCredit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Reuters
ISTANBUL — The highest-level talks between Russia and Ukraine since the start of the war failed to stop the fighting, with Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia declaring on Thursday that a cease-fire was not even on the table at his meeting in Turkey with his Ukrainian counterpart.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba of Ukraine said Mr. Lavrov indicated he did not have the authority to negotiate even a 24-hour cease-fire, showing that the highly anticipated talks, arranged by Turkey, had failed to alleviate the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians under Russian fire.
“The broad narrative he conveyed to me is that they will continue their aggression until Ukraine meets their demands, and the least of these demands is surrender,” Mr. Kuleba told reporters after he met for more than an hour around a U-shaped table in the seaside resort city of Antalya with Mr. Lavrov and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu of Turkey.
There had been some hope that the meeting on Thursday could yield a breakthrough because Russia appeared to narrow its diplomatic demands in recent days. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, whose top diplomat has held a total of 10 calls with his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts since the start of the war, said on Wednesday that the meeting could “crack the door open to a permanent cease-fire.”
But the separate remarks by Mr. Kuleba and Mr. Lavrov after their meeting dashed those hopes. And if the Kremlin really was prepared to step back from its maximalist demands, Mr. Lavrov appeared not to be authorized to make them.
“I have the impression that Minister Lavrov came to talk but not to decide,” Mr. Kuleba told Turkish television.
Mr. Lavrov stuck to President Vladimir V. Putin’s original demands from the start of the war, describing the goals of Russia’s invasion as the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine. The Kremlin falsely describes the Ukrainian government as controlled by Nazis, indicating that the stated aim of denazification means replacing President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government with a Russia-friendly one.
In a news conference that lasted nearly an hour, Mr. Lavrov took questions from Ukrainian, Russian and Western journalists and stuck to a narrative detached from reality. He harangued a Ukrainian reporter for peddling “fakes” about Russian actions in Ukraine. Asked whether the war could threaten countries beyond Ukraine, he said: “We do not plan to attack other countries. We didn’t attack Ukraine, either.”
Mr. Lavrov said Russia remained open to talks, leaving the door open to a meeting between Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Putin and pointing to Mr. Zelensky’s recent comments that he was prepared to make concessions over things like Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO to stop the war. Mr. Zelensky told Germany’s Bild newspaper in an interview published Wednesday that he was “ready to take certain steps” to end the war — but that he needed to speak directly to Mr. Putin in order to carry them out.
“We are ready to discuss security guarantees for the Ukrainian state along with security guarantees for European countries and, of course, for the security of Russia,” Mr. Lavrov said. “And the fact that now, judging by the public statements of President Zelensky, an understanding of just such an approach is beginning to take shape, inspires a certain optimism.”
But Mr. Lavrov said that for now, the main negotiating track was the one between Russian and Ukrainian officials who had been meeting in Belarus. Negotiators have met there for three rounds of talks, clashing over issues like limited cease-fires and civilian evacuations. One member of the Russian delegation said on Thursday that the date for a fourth round of those talks had yet to be set, the Interfax news agency reported.
Mr. Cavusoglu, who sat between Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Kuleba on Thursday, described the meeting as “extremely civilized,” without raised voices. Turkey, which has close ties both to Russia and Ukraine, has tried to play the role of a mediator in the conflict.
“No miracles should be expected in just one meeting,” Mr. Cavusoglu said. “This political-level meeting is an important beginning.”
Anton Troianovski reported from Istanbul, Marc Santora from Lviv, Ukraine. Safak Timur contributed reporting from Istanbul.
Show more Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 7:15 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
Vice President Harris now turns to efforts to support Poland and other NATO allies. “The United States is prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory,” Ms. Harris says during the joint news conference. “The United States takes seriously that an attack against one is an attack against all.” She notes that the Biden administration recently sent an additional 4,700 troops and Patriot missiles to Poland, and says the United States will send an additional $50 million through a United Nations food program to assist with refugees in the region.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 7:15 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
Vice President Harris begins her remarks with a direct message to the people of Poland, which has taken in more than a million refugees from Ukraine. “We’ve witnessed extraordinary acts of generosity and kindness,” she says of the assistance for refugees. “It really does represent the best of who we are.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 7:07 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
In their joint press conference in Warsaw, President Andrzej Duda of Poland says Vice President Kamala Harris “is demonstrating decisive engagement and the commitment of the United States to the eastern flank and NATO as a whole.” He says “we stand with Ukraine and we will try to do our best to make sure Ukraine can be defended.”
Marc Santora March 10, 2022, 6:48 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Marc Santora
Russia’s advance has slowed in the Ukraine invasion’s third week, but the destruction is growing.
Image An apartment building damaged by shelling on Wednesday in Mariupol, Ukraine. An apartment building damaged by shelling on Wednesday in Mariupol, Ukraine.Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
As the war in Ukraine enters its third week, the Russian advance has slowed for the past several days, according to military analysts and public statements from the Ukrainian government.
At the same time, destruction is growing, as Russia increases its targeting of residential areas and civilian infrastructure with long-range missiles. Analysts say that Russian forces are preparing to renew assaults against Kyiv, the capital, and other major cities in the south and east.
The Ukrainian defense forces’ main efforts are focused on preventing Russia from advancing on Kyiv, the military said.
In each of the areas where the Russians are trying to advance, there have been reports of fierce fighting. But information was limited, and with most details coming from the Ukrainians, it was difficult to assess their accuracy.
Still, it is clear that Ukrainian forces have so far been successful in defending the advance on Kyiv from the east. The Ukrainian defensive positions around the city of Chernihiv, a key city on Russia’s path toward the capital, are holding, the military said. Ukrainian forces also appear to have kept Russian forces from encircling Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, for the moment.
Maps: Tracking the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
New satellite imagery shows widespread damage in residential areas and shopping centers in Mariupol, where fighting has been intense.
“Russian forces have likely begun renewed offensive operations into Kyiv and to continue its encirclement on the west, but have not made much progress,” the latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War said.
In the south, Ukrainian defensive positions slowing the Russian advance on the key port city of Odessa are also largely holding for the moment.
The Ukrainian military said it would continue to defend besieged Mariupol even as the humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal city of a half-million residents grows by the day.
“The circular defense of the city of Mariupol continues,” the military command said.
Russia has launched more than 700 rockets and missiles at Ukrainian targets since the start of the war, according to the Pentagon and Ukrainian officials.
“Almost all of the missiles that have been fired from either inside Ukraine or from outside Ukraine have been targeted at sites in the eastern part of the country,” John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said at a briefing on Wednesday. “If you were to draw a line from Kyiv, down into Odessa, straight line, almost all those strikes are occurring to the east of that line.”
So it was notable that in recent days there have been strikes reported in two towns west of that line: Zhytomyr and Vinnystya.
This week, the mayor of Zhytomyr, Serhiy Sukhomlyn, reported that a bus carrying refugees came under attack in the area. There have also been reports of missile strikes in the area, and the airport in Vinnystya has come under rocket attack.
Military analysts speculated that Russian forces might be targeting these areas to slow the flow of arms from western Ukraine to the front lines.
Aurelien Breeden March 10, 2022, 6:36 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Aurelien BreedenReporting from Paris
France and Germany urged Russia on Thursday to “immediately cease fire” in Ukraine, according to a statement from the French presidency released after a phone call between the countries’ leaders. The statement said that President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany had insisted on the call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that “any solution to the crisis must be negotiated between Russia and Ukraine.” The leaders agreed to remain in “close contact,” the statement added.
March 10, 2022, 6:17 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 The New York Times
Here’s a look at Thursday’s front page. Image
Russian forces bombarded Ukrainian cities, prevented hundreds of thousands of civilians from escaping and destroyed a maternity hospital on Wednesday, while the Kremlin accused the United States of waging “an economic war” against Russia.
Other articles on Thursday’s front page:
Under a relentless Russian barrage on Mariupol, there is no heat or electricity, and people are boiling snow for water. The city is planning mass graves, including for a 6-year-old who died of dehydration, the authorities said.
Four people were killed as they dashed across the concrete remnants of a damaged bridge in the town of Irpin, trying to evacuate to Kyiv. Their deaths resonated far beyond their Ukrainian suburb.
Allies of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, arriving on private jets and yachts, are still welcome in the United Arab Emirates, which has not condemned the Ukraine invasion or enforced sanctions.
Show more Eshe Nelson March 10, 2022, 5:33 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Eshe Nelson
Goldman Sachs sharply downgraded its forecasts for the eurozone economy, saying the region will grow 2.5 percent this year, because of the war in Ukraine. Rising energy prices and supply disruptions would constrain some of the region’s largest economies, especially Germany and Italy. The previous forecast was for an economic expansion of 3.9 percent.
Anton Troianovski March 10, 2022, 5:30 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Anton Troianovski
Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia leaves open the door to a meeting between President Vladimir V. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky. “I hope that this will become necessary at some point,” he said. “But preparatory work needs to take place for this.” Zelensky has said that the war can only be ended through a meeting with Putin, which the Kremlin has not yet agreed to.
Tariq Panja March 10, 2022, 5:16 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Tariq Panja
The U.K. freezes the assets of Roman Abramovich, owner of the Chelsea soccer club.
Image Roman Abramovich, center, watched Chelsea win the Champions League final in Portugal last year. Roman Abramovich, center, watched Chelsea win the Champions League final in Portugal last year.Credit...Nick Potts/Press Association, via Associated Press
LONDON — For Chelsea F.C.’s players and coaches, the first snippets of information arrived in the text messages and news alerts that pinged their cellphones as they made their way to a private terminal at London’s Gatwick Airport on Thursday morning.
The British government had frozen the assets of their team’s Russian owner, Roman Abramovich, as part of a wider set of sanctions announced against a group of Russian oligarchs. The action, part of the government’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was designed to punish a handful of individuals whose businesses, wealth and connections are closely associated with the Kremlin. Abramovich, the British government said, has enjoyed a “close relationship” with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, for decades.
The order applied to all of Abramovich’s businesses, properties and holdings, but its most consequential — and most high-profile — effect hit Chelsea, the reigning European soccer champion, which was at that very moment beginning its journey to a Thursday night Premier League match at Norwich City.
News reports and government statements slowly filled in some of the gaps: Abramovich’s plans to sell the team were now untenable, and on hold; the club was forbidden from selling tickets or merchandise, lest any of the money feed back to its owner; and the team was prohibited — for the moment — from acquiring or selling players in soccer’s multibillion-dollar trading market.
And hour by nervous hour, one more thing became clear: Chelsea, one of Europe’s leading teams and a contender for another Champions League title this season, was suddenly facing a worrisome future marked by austerity, uncertainty and decay.
Even as it announced its actions against Abramovich and six other Russian oligarchs, the government said it had taken steps to ensure Chelsea would be able to continue its operations and complete its season. To protect the club’s interests, the government said, it had issued Chelsea a license allowing it to continue its soccer-related activities.
The license, which the government said would be under “constant review,” will ensure that the team’s players and staff will continue to be paid; that fans holding season tickets can continue to attend games; and that the integrity of the Premier League, which is considered an important cultural asset and one of Britain’s most high-profile exports, will not be affected.
But the sanctions will put a stranglehold on Chelsea’s spending and seriously undermine its ability to operate at the levels it has for the past two decades.
By Thursday, the effort to ensure that no money flows to Abramovich was playing out in ways large and small. The telecommunications company Three suspended its jersey sponsorship — a lucrative revenue stream — and asked that its logo be removed from Chelsea’s uniforms and its stadium.
At a club-owned hotel near the team’s Stamford Bridge stadium, the front desk stopped booking rooms and the restaurant shut down food and beverage service. Around the corner, at the official Chelsea team store, business continued as usual until security officials abruptly closed the shop. Shoppers, who had been filling baskets with club merchandise, were told to put everything back and leave.
Moments later, signs were taped to the locked entrances. “Due to the latest government announcement this store will be closed today until further notice,” they read.
Image Security guards closed Chelsea's team store and blocked entrances to its stadium on Thursday. Security guards closed Chelsea's team store and blocked entrances to its stadium on Thursday.Credit...Hannah Mckay/Reuters
An uncertain future awaits, with the sanctions affecting everything from the money Chelsea spends on travel to how it dispenses the tens of millions of dollars it receives from television broadcasters.
Chelsea acknowledged its new reality in a statement, but suggested it intended to immediately enter into discussions with the government about the scope of the license the team had been granted. “This will include,” the team said, “seeking permission for the license to be amended in order to allow the club to operate as normal as possible.”
At the club on Thursday morning, staff members were struggling to come to terms with what the government’s actions would mean for them, their jobs and the team. Many club officials, including Chelsea’s coach, Thomas Tuchel, a German, and Abramovich’s chief lieutenant, the club director Marina Granovskaia, were still trying to understand what they could and could not do.
One major deal is off the table: The freezing of Abramovich’s assets makes it impossible — at least in the short term — for him to follow through on his announced plans to sell Chelsea. Under the new arrangement, the British government will have oversight of that process. And while it said it would not necessarily block a sale, the effect would be to heavily diminish any proposed sale price, and the proceeds “could not go to the sanctioned individual while he is subject to sanctions” — leaving Abramovich little incentive to move forward.
Whatever happens next, nothing will be the same at Chelsea. Since Abramovich arrived as a little-known Russian businessman in 2003, he has lavished more money on buying talent than almost any other club owner in soccer history, with Chelsea’s constant flow of players and coaches in and out of the club being a hallmark of his years in charge. In the minutes after the sanctions were announced, though, it quickly became apparent that Chelsea would cease to be a player in the multibillion-dollar player trading market, unable to acquire new talent, to sell any of its current players and, without Abramovich’s regular infusions of his personal fortune, to continue to pay the huge salaries of the players it currently employs.
Image The American Christian Pulisic and other Chelsea players now face an uncertain future. The American Christian Pulisic and other Chelsea players now face an uncertain future.Credit...Toby Melville/Reuters
For Chelsea fans, too, there was confusion about how and when they could attend games. While season tickets will remain valid, any new sales are prohibited, including to away matches and, crucially, any future Champions League games should the team advance to the later rounds of the competition. Chelsea’s next Champions League game, at the French champion Lille, is set for Wednesday; a berth in the quarterfinals is at stake.
That trip and any future travel outside London will now be carefully scrutinized after the government announced a per-game limit of 20,000 pounds (about $26,000) in travel expenses. Those penalties might have been among the discussion points as Chelsea’s players and staff members traveled to the private terminal at Gatwick Airport, south of London, to board a chartered jet for the short flight to Norwich.
By then, Tuchel’s phone was buzzing. Tuchel, the coach who last week responded angrily to a stream of questions about Abramovich and Ukraine at a news conference, probably knew little more than those who were peppering him with questions.
On Thursday, he would have been trying to focus on the trip to Norwich City, and on the one that will follow on Sunday, Chelsea’s first home game since its world turned upside down.
At that game, perhaps for the final time in months, Chelsea will be able to play in front of a full house. A sign attached to the entrance of Stamford Bridge said as much on Thursday: The home game against Newcastle United is sold out.
Anton Troianovski March 10, 2022, 5:10 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Anton Troianovski
Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, tells a Turkish reporter: “We are not planning to attack other countries. We didn’t attack Ukraine, either.” He was repeating Russian claims that the country was forced to conduct a “special military operation” in Ukraine to assure its own security.
Marc Santora March 10, 2022, 5:03 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Marc SantoraReporting from Lviv, Ukraine
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said he pressed his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, to arrange a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol. Kuleba said that Lavrov told him he did not have the authority to agree to a specific measure but would take the proposal back to Moscow.
Video a diplomatic solution to the humanitarian tragedy
CreditCredit...Associated Press Anton Troianovski March 10, 2022, 5:03 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Anton Troianovski
Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkey, after his meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba. Unlike Kuleba, who spoke in English, Lavrov is speaking in Russian.
Image Credit...Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Anton Troianovski March 10, 2022, 5:01 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Anton Troianovski
The Kremlin said it would look into the strike on a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Wednesday. “We will definitely ask our military because, of course, we don’t have clear information on what happened there,” the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said on Thursday, according to the Interfax news agency.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs March 10, 2022, 4:59 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Zolan Kanno-YoungsReporting from Warsaw
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland started his meeting on Thursday with Vice President Kamala Harris by commending the Biden administration for its “brave decision of being independent of Russian oil.” He described the Russian profits as “money for their war machine, so to say.” Ms. Harris is in Poland for a series of top-level meetings on aiding Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees.
Marc Santora March 10, 2022, 4:58 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Marc SantoraReporting from Lviv, Ukraine
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said that he was not able to reach a deal with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, for a cease-fire but was willing to meet again to discuss ways to bring the war to an end.
Image Credit...Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry, via Shutterstock Safak Timur March 10, 2022, 4:56 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Safak TimurReporting from Istanbul
The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine finished their meeting at the Turkish resort of Antalya. Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba is talking to reporters in English.
March 10, 2022, 4:48 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Tariq Panja
Britain’s sanctions against Roman Abramovich will prevent him from selling Chelsea F.C., the Premier League soccer team he owns, and will complicate the club’s business. The team was issued a special license to continue operating, but it cannot sell tickets or merchandise until further notice.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff March 10, 2022, 4:44 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Thomas Gibbons-Neff
The Ukraine war is ‘potentially apocalyptic’ for Afghanistan’s hungry.
Image Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this year. Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this year.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — The fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means that Afghanistan’s dire humanitarian and economic situation could worsen as food prices soar and foreign aiand Ukraine finished their meeting at the Turkish resort of Antalya. Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba is talking to reporters in English.
March 10, 2022, 4:48 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Tariq Panja
Britain’s sanctions against Roman Abramovich will prevent him from selling Chelsea F.C., the Premier League soccer team he owns, and will complicate the club’s business. The team was issued a special license to continue operating, but it cannot sell tickets or merchandise until further notice.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff March 10, 2022, 4:44 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Thomas Gibbons-Neff
The Ukraine war is ‘potentially apocalyptic’ for Afghanistan’s hungry.
Image Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this year. Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this year.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — The fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means that Afghanistan’s dire humanitarian and economic situation could worsen as food prices soar and foreign aid is diverted to help refugees in Europe.
U.S. sanctions on Russian companies, growing supply chain issues and shifting global interest to Ukraine could compound the hunger crisis in Afghanistan, which has deepened to the brink of famine since the Taliban toppled the U.S.-backed government last year.
“It’s potentially apocalyptic,” said Graeme Smith, a senior consultant for the International Crisis Group. “A huge surge in food prices could really tip Afghanistan over the edge.”
More than half of Afghanistan’s population is currently not eating enough, according to the World Food Program, a United Nations agency. And one of the worst droughts in years has exacerbated Afghanistan’s hunger crisis. But the problem is not so much a lack of food as it is the ability to pay for it.
Fluctuating border restrictions, ever-rising import costs and a cash shortage spurred by U.S. sanctions on the new Taliban government, have, in some cases, doubled or tripled the price of basic necessities in Afghanistan in the past year.
Aqa Gul, an international trader based in Kabul, said that following Russia’s invasion, the prices of certain imported items such as milk biscuits and soap have climbed 10 percent. Nooruddin Zaker Ahmadi, the director of Bashir Nawid complex, a large import company in Afghanistan, said cooking oil prices have gone up 40 percent because of the war in Ukraine. Fuel prices have also climbed.
The price hike on basic commodities has been especially alarming at the World Food Program, which hopes to deliver cash, wheat and other necessities to the approximately 23 million Afghans in need of some kind of food assistance.
But with the increasing cost of essentials such as wheat and cooking oil, the W.F.P. will likely need an additional several million dollars on top of its $1.6 billion funding shortfall, from donors, said Hsiaowei Lee, the U.N. agency’s deputy country director for Afghanistan.
Safiullah Padshah and Najim Rahim contributed reporting.
Show more Stephen Castle March 10, 2022, 4:35 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Stephen CastleReporting from London
The British government also added to the sanctions list Igor Sechin, the chief executive of Rosneft; Andrey Kostin, the chairman of VTB; Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom; Nikolai Tokarev, the president of Transneft; and Dmitri Lebedev, the chairman of Bank Rossiya.
Stephen Castle March 10, 2022, 4:23 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Stephen CastleReporting from London
Britain has added seven more Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, owner of the Chelsea soccer club, and Oleg Deripaska, to its sanctions list.
Marc Santora March 10, 2022, 4:09 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Marc SantoraReporting from Lviv, Ukraine
At least three people were killed after a Russian missile struck a maternity ward in Mariupol on Wednesday, according to a statement from the local government posted on Telegram. One of those killed was a child, whose age was not immediately known.
Image Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
Safak Timur March 10, 2022, 3:28 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Safak TimurReporting from Istanbul
The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine are now meeting in the southern Turkish resort of Antalya. It's the highest level talks between the two nations since the war started two weeks ago.
Monika Pronczuk March 10, 2022, 3:00 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Monika PronczukReporting from Brussels
As the number of Ukrainian refugees in Poland passes 1.3 million, Poland has proposed paying citizens and organizations that host them about 250 euros per month for up to 60 days. Aid organizations have criticized the government’s coordination and support for refugees.
Image Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times Anton Troianovski March 10, 2022, 2:54 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Anton Troianovski
The meeting between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine is expected to take about 90 minutes, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported. The two diplomats are scheduled to hold separate news conferences after the meeting.
Safak Timur March 10, 2022, 2:53 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Safak TimurReporting from Istanbul
Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, met with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov in the Turkish resort town of Antalya, ahead of Lavrov’s meeting with his Ukrainain counterpart.
Marc Santora March 10, 2022, 2:46 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Marc Santora
Zelensky accuses Russia of ‘genocide’ as he presses for humanitarian corridors.
Image President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine speaking in Kyiv on Wednesday. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine speaking in Kyiv on Wednesday.Credit...Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, via Associated Press
LVIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine accused Russia of carrying out a genocide, saying in a speech released overnight that the bombing of a maternity hospital in the coastal city of Mariupol was all the evidence the world should need to understand Russia’s objectives.
His appeal, coming just hours before Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia was expected to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Turkey, underscored the chasm that must be bridged to reach a lasting agreement to end the increasingly bloody war.
“Destroyed hospitals. Destroyed schools, churches, houses. And all the people killed. All the children killed,” Mr. Zelensky said.
“The air bomb on the maternity hospital is the final proof. Proof that the genocide of Ukrainians is taking place.”
In the hours after the attack, videos of the aftermath have spread around the world. They showed rescue workers attending to pregnant women caught in the blast as others searched frantically for children feared buried in the rubble.
“Europeans. You won’t be able to say that you didn’t see what happened to Ukrainians, what happened to Mariupol residents,” Mr. Zelensky said. “You saw. You know.”
Repeated efforts to bring relief to the city have failed and evacuation efforts collapsed under the fire of what Ukrainians say is Russian artillery. Mr. Zelensky said they would try again on Thursday.
“We are preparing six corridors,” he said. “We pray that people will be taken out of Mariupol” and other cities, he said.
About 35,000 people were evacuated on Wednesday through only three of six agreed upon corridors.
Safak Timur March 10, 2022, 2:41 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Safak TimurReporting from Istanbul
Ahead of a meeting between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine in Turkey, Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba met with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, in the southern resort of Antalya.
Mike Ives March 10, 2022, 1:12 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Mike Ives
Turkey hopes to broker a cease-fire as it hosts foreign ministers from Russia and Ukraine.
Image Turkish and Russian diplomats meet in Antalya, Turkey, on Thursday. Turkish and Russian diplomats meet in Antalya, Turkey, on Thursday.Credit.../EPA, via Shutterstock
The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine are expected to meet in Turkey on Thursday, the highest-level talks between the two countries since the Russian invasion began two weeks ago. They will discuss the war at a moment when Russia is escalating its airstrikes against civilian targets, and the humanitarian situation in several Ukrainian cities has worsened.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said on Wednesday that he hoped the meeting between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia and his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, would “crack the door open to a permanent cease-fire.”
Both Russia and Ukraine appear to have softened their stance in recent days, raising hopes that a cease-fire might just be possible.
The Kremlin has narrowed its demands to focus on Ukrainian “neutrality” and the status of its occupied regions, and signaled that President Vladimir V. Putin is no longer set on regime change in Kyiv.
On the Ukrainian side, President Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested that he is open to revising his country’s constitutionally enshrined aspiration to join NATO, and even to a compromise over the status of Ukrainian territory now controlled by Russia.
Mr. Zelensky said on Wednesday that he expected Mr. Putin to eventually cease hostilities and enter negotiations after watching his forces encounter fierce resistance in Ukraine. An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Russian troops have been killed during the two-week invasion, a U.S. official said on Wednesday, up sharply from an estimate of 3,000 just days ago.
“I think he sees that we are strong,” Mr. Zelensky told Vice News during an interview in Kyiv. “He will. We need some time.”
The talks on Thursday will be held in the Turkish city of Antalya, in a coastal region that has for years been a popular destination for Russian tourists.
Turkey is a more neutral location than Belarus, where the first three rounds of talks have been held. Mr. Erdogan has stopped short of imposing sanctions against Russia over the invasion, but his country is a NATO member that has provided Ukraine with lethal armed drones.
Yet the Russian and Ukrainian demands are still far apart.
The Kremlin said this week that it would halt military operations if Kyiv were to enshrine a status of neutrality in its constitution and recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea and the independence of two Russia-backed separatist territories eastern Ukraine. That is still far from what Mr. Zelensky has said he would be willing to accept. Russia’s position could also puncture Mr. Putin’s image at home, opening him up to criticism that he waged a costly war for limited gain.
Even if Russia and Ukraine were to agree on a cease-fire, it would not necessarily mean the end of the war. Analysts caution that both sides could use it to build up strength ahead of a further escalation.
Mr. Kuleba said on Wednesday that his expectations for the talks in Turkey were low.
As Mr. Kuleba meets Mr. Lavrov, Vice President Kamala Harris will meet in Warsaw on Thursday with President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland, a NATO ally on Ukraine’s western border. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who is visiting Poland this week, will also attend.
The United States and its NATO allies are trying to find ways to help Ukraine defend itself without getting pulled into a wider war against Russia. In a sign of how difficult that is proving, the United States and Poland publicly disagreed this week over proposals for sending Soviet-era fighter jets into the country.
Gen. Tod D. Wolters, the head of U.S. European Command, said in a statement early Thursday that the United States had “no plans to facilitate an indirect or third party transfer of Polish aircraft” to Ukraine.
Providing more air-defense systems and anti-tank weapons to Ukraine is the most effective way to support the country’s military, General Wolters said, and Ukrainian air defenses have been limiting the effectiveness of Russia’s significant air capabilities.
Transferring fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine would “not appreciably increase the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Air Force,” he added. It could also be “mistaken as escalatory and could result in Russian escalation with NATO.”
Show more Mike Ives March 10, 2022, 12:50 a.m. ETMarch 10, 2022 March 10, 2022 Mike IvesReporting from Seoul
Hitachi, Philip Morris and Mars — the maker of M&M’s and Snickers — became the latest companies to say they will unwind investments or shut operations in Russia. Hitachi, a Japanese industrial company, said it was suspending exports to Russia and pausing manufacturing. Philip Morris, the cigarette maker, said it suspended planned investments and will reduce manufacturing. Mars said it had suspended new investments.
March 9, 2022, 10:48 p.m. ETMarch 9, 2022 March 9, 2022 The New York Times
The U.S. House approved a $1.5 trillion spending bill, which includes about $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine. The money is almost evenly split between military and humanitarian aid and is more than twice what was originally proposed.
Eric Schmitt March 9, 2022, 9:47 p.m. ETMarch 9, 2022 March 9, 2022 Eric SchmittReporting from Washington
An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Russian troops have been killed during the two-week invasion of Ukraine, a U.S. official said. The number was up sharply from an estimate of 3,000 just days ago, reflecting fierce fighting and updated U.S. intelligence estimates. Experts caution that casualty numbers are difficult to assess, and numbers on both sides have varied widely.
Azi Paybarah March 9, 2022, 9:31 p.m. ETMarch 9, 2022 March 9, 2022 Azi Paybarah
A major internet provider in Ukraine, Triolan, said it was under attack and was suspending service.
March 9, 2022, 9:25 p.m. ETMarch 9, 2022 March 9, 2022 The New York Times
In photos: Frustrated by Ukraine’s resistance, Russia’s forces focus on civilian targets.
Credit...Photos by Evgeniy Maloletka/AP, Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times, Lynsey Addario for The New York Times and Oleksandr Ratushniak/AP
Two weeks into an invasion that Russia had projected would rapidly take Kyiv, the capital, Russian forces have been focusing on civilian targets. Russian shelling hit a maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine, injuring at least 17 people. Refugees continued to flow into Lviv, in the west of the country, camping out in the central train station. And residents fled from the town of Irpin into the nearby Kyiv, the capital, as Russian forces sought to press forward. Here is what photographers with The New York Times and other news organizations saw on Wednesday.
On the Ground: Ukraine Under Attack Explore Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War Understand What Is Going On
What does Russia want in Ukraine? Explore the causes of the conflict and the history of the relationship between the two countries.
The fate of Ukraine could have enormous implications for the world. Learn more about what’s at stake and how the energy sector could be affected by the war.
Several countries have adopted sanctions against Russia. Here are some of the measures that have been taken so far.
To receive the latest updates and expert insight on the Russia-Ukraine war straight to your inbox, sign up here.
In Ukraine
Photographers around the country are documenting the effects of the invasion on the ground.
Tetiana Perebyinis and her two children were among the many who tried to escape fighting in Kyiv. But their deaths resonated far beyond their Ukrainian suburb.
As Russian bombings have grown more indiscriminate, hospitals in Ukraine have become perilous places to work.
In Russia
As Western sanctions put pressure on Russia’s economy, the Kremlin is accusing the United States of declaring “an economic war.”
Russian news outlets are helping the government sanitize its war at home. Here are four falsehoods being disseminated.
In the U.S.
The House passed a $1.5 trillion federal spending bill that includes a huge infusion of aid for war-torn Ukraine.
Republicans used to portray Ukraine as a Wild West run by nefarious oligarchs and unlawful politicians. Now, they are pivoting to strong support for the nation.
Around the World
As Russian embassies attract anti-war protests, city officials in Europe are renaming streets in front of the buildings to show support for Ukraine.
For years, Russian oligarchs have built their wealth abroad thanks to the help of the world’s largest law firms. That is now changing.
More in Europe A wounded man was placed on a stretcher after being shot on Sunday. Lynsey Addario for The New York Times Ukrainian Family’s Dash for Safety Ends in Death March 6 This photograph made available by Russian state media shows President Vladimir V. Putin meeting with female crew members from Aeroflot on Saturday. Mikhael Klimentyev/Sputnik Two Days of Russian News Coverage: An Alternate Reality of War March 8 Continue reading the main story
The burned husk of a Russian military vehicle near Mykolaiv, Ukraine, a critical port where Ukrainian forces have stymied a Russian advance. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Proud Band of Ukrainian Troops Holds Russian Assault at Bay — for Now March 6
Gen. Evgeny Maslin in an undated photo. On his watch, Russia, Ukraine and the United States worked together to reduce the looming threat to global security posed by nuclear arms. National Security Archive Evgeny Maslin, Russian General Who Secured Nuclear Arsenal, Dies at 84 3h ago
Editors’ Picks
Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals has been a vocal supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Michelle Farsi for The New York Times Alex Ovechkin Skates Into Canada’s Ukrainian Enclave as a Scorned Star 4h ago
© 2022 The New York Times Company