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Ukraine war: Biden announces $500 million aid, Russia bombards Kyiv’s outskirts
Russia, which began invasion of its smaller neighbour on February 24, has, thus far, failed to capture any major city.
US President Joe Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed “additional capabilities” to help the Ukrainian military, during a telephone call on Wednesday, the White House said in a statement. Biden also told Zelensky that the United States would provide the Ukrainian government with $500 million in direct aid, as Kyiv battles against invading Russian forces.
“The leaders discussed... continued efforts by the United States with allies and partners to identify additional capabilities to help the Ukrainian military defend its country,” the White House said.
Russia bombards Kyiv’s outskirts, Chernihiv
Russian forces bombarded the outskirts of Kyiv and a besieged city in northern Ukraine on Wednesday, a day after promising to scale down operations there in what the West dismissed as a ploy to regroup by invaders suffering heavy losses.
Nearly five weeks into an invasion in which it has failed to capture any major cities, Russia had said on Tuesday it would curtail operations near Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv “to increase mutual trust” for peace talks.
“It’s not true,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a video address to EU regional officials. “The whole night we listened to sirens, to rocket attacks and we listened to huge explosions east of Kyiv and north of Kyiv. There are immense battles there, people died, still die.”
Intensified bombardment could be heard in Kyiv on Wednesday morning from suburbs where Ukrainian forces have regained territory in recent days. The capital itself was not hit, but windows rattled from the relentless artillery on its outskirts.
Chernihiv’s mayor Vladyslav Astroshenko said Russian bombardment of that city had intensified over the past 24 hours, with more than 100,000 people trapped inside with just enough food and medical supplies to last about another week. “This is yet another confirmation that Russia always lies,” he told CNN, adding that 25 civilians had been injured in a “colossal mortar attack” in the city centre.
Earlier, Zelensky made clear he took nothing Moscow said at face value. “Ukrainians are not naive people,” he said in an overnight address. “The only thing they can trust is a concrete result.”
Ukrainian defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said Ukraine’s armed forces had observed some movements of Russian forces away from the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions but did not consider this to be a mass withdrawal by Moscow.
The United Nations said on Wednesday that the number who have fled the country had risen above 4 million. More than half of those refugees are children and the rest mostly women.
Over the past week, Ukrainian forces have recaptured towns and villages on the outskirts of Kyiv, broken the siege of the eastern city of Sumy and pushed back Russian forces in the southwest.
The Donbas region, where Russia says it will now focus its efforts, includes Mariupol, where heavy fighting was again reported on Wednesday. The port city, which had a pre-war population of 400,000 people, has been laid waste after a month of Russian siege and the United Nations says thousands of people may have died.
Russian forces were shelling nearly all cities along the region’s frontline on Wednesday, said the governor of Donetsk, which is part of the Donbas.
Britain’s defence ministry said Moscow’s announcement about focusing on the Donbas was likely “a tacit admission that it is struggling to sustain more than one significant axis of advance”
