McConnell and the Senate delegation meet with Zelenskyy in kyiv
A Senate delegation led by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in kyiv on Saturday.
Describing the senators as “true friends of Ukraine,” Andrii Sybiha, Zelenskyy’s deputy bureau chief, posted photos of the meeting on his Facebook page.
“Today, our state has strong bipartisan and bipartisan support from American friends,” he wrote. “And of the American people.”
The West has launched a ‘total hybrid war’ against Russia, says Lavrov
The West has announced a “total hybrid war” against Russia and it was difficult to predict how long it would last, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday.
Everyone would feel the consequences of this war, he said, adding that the West’s efforts to isolate Russia were doomed to fail, referring to the sanctions against Ukraine.
“We have done everything possible to avoid a direct confrontation, but the challenge has been thrown at us, so we accept it,” he said. “We have always been under sanctions, so we are used to them.”
Ukraine is “an instrument or tool to limit the peaceful development of Russia,” he added.
Russia’s media propaganda uses ‘chilling rhetoric’ to intimidate the West
How many seconds does it take for a ballistic missile to reach London, Paris or Berlin?
That is the question pundits on Russian state television were asking themselves as the war in Ukraine entered its third month.
The grisly estimates were accompanied by a graph showing the paths Moscow’s ICBMs would take to reach the capitals of the European nations that supply kyiv with the most military aid.
Meanwhile, pro-Kremlin presenter Olga Skabeyeva and the pundits of her “60 Minutes” show on Russia-1 TV channel nonchalantly joked about how the West should tune in.
With Russia’s military fighting, its rivals emboldened, and the neighbor it invaded responding in defiance, NBC News watched dozens of hours of state media coverage to find that the Kremlin and its mouthpieces were increasingly looking for new and more outlandish claims to make. justify the invasion of Ukraine.
Read the full story here.
Ukraine trains with Western weapons
Ukraine’s ground forces said on Saturday that their forces were already training with weapons shipped from Western countries.
“Ukrainian soldiers are already actively using the technique and weapons provided by our partners,” the group wrote in a Facebook post.
Finland’s NATO push will require ‘retaliatory measures’, says Russian foreign minister
Moscow will be “forced to take retaliatory measures” if Finland joins NATO, Russia’s foreign minister said on Saturday.
“Finland’s accession to NATO will seriously damage Russian-Finnish bilateral relations, which are maintained thanks to stability and security in the Northern European region,” Alexander Grushko said in a statement posted on the Ministry of Defense website. Russian Foreign Relations which was translated by NBC News.
“Russia will be forced to take retaliatory measures (both military-technical and otherwise) to prevent threats to its national security from arising in this regard,” he added.
Russian officials have stepped up their rhetoric in recent days after Finnish leaders backed a bid to join NATO.
Mariupol officials warn of humanitarian crisis
Mariupol officials are warning that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the city, which is now almost entirely occupied by Russian forces.
“Drinking water remains inaccessible. For most Mariupol residents, it is a long way to go to water supply points (barrels or water carriers),” Petro Andryushchenko, adviser to the city’s mayor, Vadym Boychenko, said in a Telegram post on Saturday. which was translated by NBC News. .
“Food. The situation has not changed. The flow of merchants from the surrounding area is increasing. But the problem is the money to buy this food,” he said.
Andryushchenko added that as many as 170,000 Mariupol residents have no electricity and no way to flee the area.
The city council and Boychenko also renewed calls for international help to save Ukrainian soldiers holding out at the Azovstal steel plant.
“We need the involvement of the UN and the Red Cross, the leaders of the world’s leading countries,” Boychenko said in a separate statement posted on the Telegram page of the Mariupol City Council.
“Therefore, we call on the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to use all international instruments to save Ukrainian defenders and carry out an extraction operation. We will fight for the lives of our military, just as they are defending our city.”
Zelenskyy Says Azovstal Evacuation Talks Continue
Ukraine’s president said very difficult talks were taking place on the evacuation of “a large number” of wounded soldiers from a besieged steel mill in the strategic southeastern port of Mariupol in exchange for the release of prisoners from Russian war.
Mariupol, which has seen the heaviest fighting in nearly three months of war, is now in Russian hands, but hundreds of Ukrainian defenders are still holding out at the Azovstal steel mill despite weeks of heavy Russian bombardment.
Fierce Ukrainian resistance, which military analysts say President Vladimir Putin and his generals could not have anticipated when they launched the invasion on February 24, has also slowed and in some places reversed Russian gains around Ukraine.
“Right now, very complex negotiations are taking place on the next phase of the evacuation mission – the removal of seriously injured doctors,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late-night address.
Bodies of Russian soldiers stored in refrigerator cars
Officials store bodies of Russian soldiers in refrigerator cars in kyiv on Friday.
Turkey’s leader opposes Finland and Sweden joining NATO
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that his country is “not favorable” towards Finland and Sweden join NATOindicating that Turkey could use its membership in the Western military alliance to veto moves to admit the two countries.
“We are following the developments related to Sweden and Finland, but we do not have a favorable opinion,” Erdogan told reporters.
The Turkish leader explained his opposition by citing alleged support from Sweden and other Scandinavian countries for Kurdish militants and others whom Turkey regards as terrorists.
Zelenskyy warns that the end of the war could be far away
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that while the Ukrainians are doing their best to drive out the Russians, “today no one can predict how long this war will last.”
“This will depend, unfortunately, not only on our people, who are already giving their best,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation. “This will depend on our partners, on European countries, on the entire free world.”
He said that he was grateful to all those who are working to strengthen sanctions against Russia and increase military and financial support to Ukraine. “This is the only recipe to protect freedom against the Russian invasion. And for Western countries, this is not simply an expense. It’s not about accounting, it’s about the future.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine shot down the 200th Russian plane of the war on Friday, pointing to Russia’s heavy losses in tanks, armored vehicles, helicopters and drones.
Reference-www.nbcnews.com