Economic pressure from companies is building, too. Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Starbucks on Tuesday joined the long list of corporations suspending their business in Russia amid mounting public pressure. About 9 percent of McDonald’s’ revenue comes from Russia and Ukraine, according to Bank of America.
Efforts to evacuate civilians from war zones had a breakthrough Tuesday when a Ukrainian official said thousands of residents and foreign students were safely bused out of the northeastern Sumy region. But Ukraine also accused Russia of firing on other civilian routes for the fourth day in a row.
Here’s what to know
- The United States all but declined an offer from Poland on Tuesday to deliver MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, after Poland seemed to propose that the United States deliver the aircraft.
- The national average price for a gallon of gasoline reached $4.17 on Tuesday, the highest since summer 2008.
- As many as 4,000 Russian troops may have died since Feb. 24, a senior U.S. military officer said, as Ukraine puts up a fierce fight.
- Some 2 million Ukrainians have already fled their country since the start of the invasion, according to the United Nations.
- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the cost of proposed Ukraine aid package has now risen to $14 billion, more than double what was initially floated by the chamber’s leaders.
Crypto supporters rally to tout how it can help in Ukraine
Return to menuSome of crypto’s biggest players, along with a few political veterans, joined in a Twitter Space session this week to make the case that the tech holds the key to the country’s fight for democracy.
High-profile personalities like tech entrepreneur and political adviser Tomicah Tillemann, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and veteran political and Silicon Valley strategist Chris Lehane joined with Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov and Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova to offer crypto’s grand, if at times skepticism-inducing, mission.
“Democracy is at its core an operating system. And every once in a generation if you’re lucky an innovation comes along that enables us to upgrade that operating system,” Tillemann said. Added Buterin, “This is … why people join the blockchain crypto space in the first place: to support freedom, support more democratic ways of organizing, generally support people’s ability to peacefully have their own personal and financial lives.”
The players ran through a host of ways web3 has been deployed to help Ukraine, from an NFT created by Tolokonnikova to generate donations to a plan hatched in web3 in which Americans and Western Europeans book places on Airbnb that they’ll never stay at in order to get money to everyday Ukrainians.
Ukraine’s Bornyakov said crypto donations have been spent on everything from rations to bulletproof vests, rebutting “the many opinions about crypto that it cannot be used” for noble causes." Though the total raised by all crypto entities, about $60 million so far, is small compared to the billions needed for the humanitarian and war effort, advocates touted the ease of transmitting the fund plus the lack of “leakage” as why crypto should become popular.
Tolokonnikova, who is not presently believed to be in Russia, said crypto has another great advantage: it’s a way for Russians to donate to Ukraine without having to go through a Russian bank that could punish them for it. “I believe that crypto provides tools for a greater democracy, and definitely these tools can be enjoyed by people living in authoritarian countries like Russia,” she said.
Ukraine’s first lady highlights child casualties in impassioned plea for international support
Return to menuWhen Moscow downplays its invasion and says that its attacks aren’t hitting civilians, Ukraine’s first lady has a ready reply: Alice, Polina, Arseniy.
They are the names of three of the more than two dozen children who have been killed since the Russian assault began nearly two weeks ago, according to Olena Zelenska, wife of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“When Russia says that it is ‘not waging war against civilians,’ I call out the names of these murdered children first,” Zelenska wrote in an impassioned open letter delivered to the media by her spokesperson on Tuesday.
She penned the letter, she said, in response to an overwhelming number of press inquiries, and said it should serve as her “testimony from Ukraine.” At two pages and nearly 1,000 words, it is a wrenching and direct statement from someone Zelensky has described as Russia’s “target No. 2″ — along with the couple’s two young children — after only the president himself.
‘Every inch of NATO’: Blinken seeks to deter any Russia thought of pushing beyond Ukraine
Return to menuTALLINN, Estonia — At nearly every stop on his whirlwind European tour over the last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had an identical message seemingly directed straight at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of our collective power,” he said during a visit to Tallinn, Estonia, on Tuesday, in what became a verbatim refrain throughout his six-day sprint from Brussels to the Baltics.
Blinken’s trip, capped by a brief stopover in Paris on Tuesday for talks with President Emmanuel Macron, was an attempt to illustrate Western unity and a warning to Putin to banish any thought of lashing out at NATO nations as he presses deeper into Ukraine. It unfolded as Putin’s invasion becomes more deadly and the West’s unprecedented economic reprisals sends tensions with Moscow to levels not seen in generations.
Thousands evacuated from Sumy, officials say
Return to menuSeveral thousand people were evacuated from the northeastern Sumy region Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said — a breakthrough after shelling thwarted attempts to shuttle civilians out of other areas.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s office of the president, said on Telegram that about 5,000 people were able to leave — some in buses, others in their cars. More than 1,000 private cars made it out safely, Tymoshenko said.
The evacuees went to Poltava nearly 100 miles southwest — the only route available, according to Dmytro Zhivitsky, a regional governor. Zhivitsky said buses arrived with supplies and gave priority to children, disabled people and pregnant women trying to flee.
The deputy prime minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, said during a telethon that 1,700 foreign students were among those evacuated from the Sumy area, according to Ukrainian National News. The students went to Poltava and then toward Lviv and the rest of Europe, she said, adding that Tuesday’s operation “succeeded” with the help of the Red Cross.
Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Tuesday on Twitter that “all Indian students” in Sumy were part of the evacuation and safely out of the city. From Poltava, he said, the students would take trains to western Ukraine, where efforts would continue to repatriate them to India.
While the governor said the corridor stemmed from an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, he warned that there was still a “very high risk of provocation,” and he urged people to evaluate the risks for themselves.
Russia said Tuesday it was opening humanitarian corridors from a number of besieged cities, as Ukraine accused Moscow’s forces of violating cease-fires that would allow civilians to evacuate.
A planned evacuation from the southern city of Mariupol could not start Tuesday morning, according to Vereshchuk. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said a fleet of vehicles was ready to deliver aid to the port city and carry civilians northwest but accused Russian forces of shelling the route.
Zina Pozen contributed to this report.
Oil bans ‘a powerful signal to the whole world,’ Zelensky says
Return to menuUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the decision by the United States and Britain to ban Russian oil imports Tuesday, calling the moves “a powerful signal to the whole world.”
“Either Russia will respect international law and not wage wars or it will have no money,” Zelensky said in his latest video shared on Telegram.
He called for negotiations to end the war and referenced his earlier video address to the British Parliament, in which he detailed the toll of Russia’s 13-day invasion.
The “scariest figure” was the 50 children killed over that period, Zelensky said in his Telegram video.
“But then in an hour, it became 52 children,” he said. “We will never forgive this. And I know that you will never forgive the occupiers.”
Moscow proposes new cease-fire to evacuate cities, after Ukraine accuses Russian forces of targeting civilians
Return to menuRussia on Tuesday proposed a new cease-fire in some Ukrainian cities to establish “humanitarian corridors” for civilians seeking to evacuate, Russian media reported.
Ukraine has accused Russia of violating limited cease-fire agreements aimed at helping civilians flee the bombardment.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that the new cease-fire would begin at 10 a.m. Moscow time on Wednesday, according to the state-run news agency, Tass. It would apply to five cities in Ukraine, authorities said, including Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol.
Moscow said that Ukraine should respond to begin coordination by 3 a.m. Wednesday — a deadline that has already passed.
On Sunday, Russian forces shelled residents in Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv as they prepared to evacuate, killing at least eight people, local officials said.
“The shell hit, and in front of my own eyes died two small children and two adults,” said Irpin Mayor Alexandar Markushin in a video. “I want to emphasize these were peaceful residents.”
Ukraine has also rejected the Kremlin’s proposals of evacuation routes leading to Russia or its ally, Belarus.
Lumen becomes the second provider of Internet service to unplug from Russia
Return to menuLumen, a leading American Internet provider to Russia, announced Tuesday that it was severing business relations in the country, a move likely to increase Russia’s isolation as its citizens slip behind what some analysts are calling a new digital Iron Curtain.
Lumen is the second top U.S.-based carrier to make such a move in recent days, following Friday’s announcement by Cogent Communications. Taken together, these moves are likely to make it harder for Russians to gain access to international services, such as news sites and social media based in the West, telecommunications experts said.
American technology and telecommunications companies have been cutting services in Russia since it invaded Ukraine last month. In the same period, Russia’s government has throttled or blocked popular U.S.-based services such as Twitter and Facebook while imposing new criminal penalties for news coverage that doesn’t follow the Kremlin’s strict censorship policies.
Russia’s Central Bank prohibits dollar exchange for six months in sign of hard currency pinch
Return to menuShortly after midnight in Moscow, the Central Bank announced Russian citizens would no longer be allowed to use rubles to buy dollars and other hard currencies.
“Banks will not sell hard currency to citizens during the period of the temporary order,” the Central Bank said in a statement posted to its website. The order was to expire Sept. 9.
The Central Bank said it also will limit to $10,000 the amount of U.S. dollars that clients can withdraw from hard-currency accounts at Russian banks. Anyone wanting to withdraw more than that from a hard-currency account will have to take the balance in rubles, the Central Bank said.
The measures will prevent Russians from seeking security in the dollar as the ruble plummets to fresh lows in the wake of Western economic sanctions, which have blocked Russia’s access to its foreign currency reserves.
Spiking gas prices sting drivers nationwide, tapping pocketbooks and patience
Return to menuThe trajectory of gas prices at the Mobil station four miles north of the White House has been brutal, clocking in at $3.85 a week ago, $4.17 on Friday, then $4.43 Tuesday, leaving Elizabeth Lopez, a mother of three and employer of six, feeling trapped.
“I don’t know how we can do it,” Lopez said, filling up a Chrysler minivan across from a shuttered tire shop in Northwest Washington.
Geopolitical and market forces have squeezed the owner of a housekeeping business between her employees, who successfully pushed her to double their weekly fuel allowance to $40, and her customers, who face higher prices across the economy and have cut back on her services.
“Everything’s raised up,” said Lopez, 36. “It’s crazy. It’s impact for me. It’s impact for them. It’s impact for everybody.”
The reverberations of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are being felt at pumps across the United States, where the national average price for a gallon of gasoline reached $4.17 on Tuesday, the highest since summer 2008, according to AAA. President Biden’s decision to ban the import of Russian oil, backed by key Republicans and Democrats in Congress, could send costs higher.
Gunfire is audible in new video as civilians evacuate Sumy
Return to menuBursts of gunfire punctuate an otherwise calm scene of Romens’ka Street in Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine, according to a video verified by The Washington Post. The video, which was posted to Twitter on Tuesday, confirms shelling continued in the region as civilians tried to evacuate.
One humanitarian corridor, several miles from where this video was filmed, managed to open on Tuesday morning, said Dmytro Zhivitsky, the regional governor. In an update on the messaging app Telegram, Zhivitsky described a similar incident near a checkpoint along city’s outskirts in the “green corridor.”
He assured his followers the situation is calm, but cautioned that these examples prove “there is no hundred percent safety when it comes to moving out.”
Filmed from several stories above ground level, the footage reviewed by The Post shows a column of cars slowly moving down the street. Less than a second in, the first shots are clearly audible. Rapid gunfire continues as the person filming pans the camera, apparently searching for the sound’s origin.
“People are about to evacuate and he starts the fire!” the person filming says. Then the camera zooms in to show several large vehicles beyond the tree line that are surrounded by a cloud of smoke. The person says a tank is shooting and “driving into town!” It is not immediately clear from the video if the vehicles in the distance were tanks.
U.S. all-but declines Poland’s offer to give Ukraine its old warplanes
Return to menuThe United States all-but declined an offer from Poland on Tuesday to deliver an unspecified number of MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine so that the warplanes could be used against invading Russian forces.
“We do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
The unusual public offer, posted on the website of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, blindsided U.S. officials who said they were not consulted by the Polish government ahead of the proposal.
Poland has sought to equip Ukraine with aircraft to fight Russia even as Moscow has warned that any country hosting Ukraine’s military aircraft would be considered a party to the ongoing armed conflict there.
In its statement, Poland said it is “ready to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all their MiG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America.” Ramstein is an American military facility located in eastern Germany.
As thousands flee Irpin, allegations emerge of Russian forces looting, deploying snipers, cutting power
Return to menuIRPIN, Ukraine — As thousands flee the besieged Kyiv suburb Irpin, allegations are emerging of Russian forces looting, hiding military equipment in residential areas, deploying snipers and cutting water and power as they seek to use the area as a potential launchpad to invade the capital.
In more than 20 interviews conducted over two days, residents who fled Irpin described a dire and volatile environment where the line between combatants and noncombatants is increasingly blurred. Their accounts were likely to be closely examined by Ukrainian officials compiling details for potential war crimes claims.
The Russians have cut off electricity, gas and water to the city, the residents claim, which could violate international humanitarian laws that ban destroying objects during wartime that are vital to the survival of civilians.
Russian military also are parking their tanks in residential areas, apparently using civilians as human shields, witnesses said.
While the reports cannot be independently confirmed, the testimonies of the residents fleeing Irpin are consistent in their accounts and reflect wider concerns across Ukraine that Russian forces are committing potential war crimes as civilian casualties mount.
McDonald’s, Starbucks and Coca-Cola halt business in Russia
Return to menuSeveral major American food and beverage companies announced Tuesday that they would suspend their operations in Russia, a step that comes after days of mounting public pressure on the corporate world to sever ties with the country over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The group included McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, some of which had operated in Russia for decades and had faced heightened scrutiny in recent days as other companies elected to halt their business dealings there. A veritable naughty-or-nice list, compiled by a Yale University professor, generated headlines by highlighting the companies maintaining normal operations.
McDonald’s Chief Executive Chris Kempczinski said that the global fast food chain would temporarily close its 850 restaurants in the country.
“Our values mean we cannot ignore the needless human suffering unfolding in Ukraine,” he said.
Biden says gas prices are ‘gonna go up’ and that Russia’s to blame
Return to menuIn an exchange with reporters in Fort Worth, Biden acknowledged that gas prices in the United States are rising and said that the blame lies with Russia for invading Ukraine.
Biden made the remarks shortly before an event on veterans’ health.
Pres. Biden responded to a question on gas prices as he arrived in Fort Worth, Texas, saying, "they're gonna go up."
— ABC News (@ABC) March 8, 2022
"Can't do much right now. Russia's responsible." https://t.co/b8ZftlCLB6 pic.twitter.com/TH5d6jETr0
Asked whether he had a message for Americans on gas prices, Biden told reporters that prices are “gonna go up.”
“Can’t do much right now,” he said. “Russia’s responsible.”
The average price of gasoline in the United States reached a record-breaking $4.17 per gallon Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, the Biden administration announced that it will ban imports of oil and natural gas from Russia. Britain and the European Commission also announced moves to curtail imports of Russian gas and oil.