Biden will go to Europe next week for NATO summit; European leaders travel to Kyiv

The Russian military is likely unable to completely encircle Ukraine’s capital Kyiv in the near future. There were no major offensive operations toward northeastern Kyiv reported for 24 hours. The Russian forces are also attempting to encircle Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, but are affected by supply and ammunition shortages.

Continuous Russian attacks on Mariupol from the east and west have been reported, while no major operations were conducted toward Zaporizhzhia or Mykolaiv.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin intensifies his war in Ukraine, the 69-year-old leader has become increasingly isolated, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials, including from some of his closest advisers.

Most people, including business leaders and politicians, who were once part of Putin’s inner circle now appear unwilling or unable to pressure him to reverse course, even as global sanctions send Russia’s economy into a tailspin.

Several prominent Russian businessmen, including industrialist Oleg Deripaska and billionaire banker Mikhail Fridman, have called publicly for peace. But, as the economic noose tightens around Putin and his associates, Western policymakers say they hope that more aides and former confidants will step up and challenge the president.

The Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution condemning alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine and calling for an international investigation into the matter.

The resolution, which was introduced by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), states that the Senate “strongly condemns the ongoing violence, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and systematic human rights abuses being carried out by the Russian Armed Forces and their proxies and President Putin’s military commanders, at the direction of President Vladimir Putin.”

President Biden has repeatedly rejected the idea of more air cover for Ukraine in its war with Russia, warning that sending Polish fighter jets to Ukraine — or enforcing a no-fly zone above it — could lead to a global conflagration with a nuclear-armed foe.

“That’s called ‘World War Three,'” Biden told Democratic lawmakers Friday.

Biden’s reluctance to provide Ukraine with some kinds of military assistance that the Eastern European country has requested will face its biggest and most emotional test Wednesday morning, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Congress as part of a virtual tour of Western capitals this month.

Nearly three weeks into their invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are fighting to press forward in a number of cities across the country. Here are updates on some Ukrainian cities:

• Kyiv: A suspected Russian missile attack hit an apartment building in the Sviatoshynskyi district of the Ukrainian capital early Tuesday, killing at least two people and sparking a frenzied effort to rescue residents from the top floors. An immediate night curfew will also be imposed on the city, the mayor said Tuesday.
• Kharkiv: Ukraine’s second-largest city, home to 1.4 million people, has been devastated by Russian shelling. The strikes have destroyed residences, art museums, libraries and government buildings in a city known for its architecture.
• Mariupol: Hundreds of people, including doctors and medical personnel, are being held hostage inside a regional hospital in the besieged city, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday. Conditions in the city are dire amid a Russian blockade, with food and water dwindling and bodies going into mass graves. City officials said more than 2,000 people have been killed. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said about 20,000 have been evacuated.
• Sumy: Officials in Sumy province said Tuesday that evacuation routes would be opened from several cities in the region, in northeastern Ukraine near the Russian border. Evacuation buses would prioritize pregnant women, women with children, elderly people and those with disabilities, the regional governor said.
• Kherson: A Russian military briefing on Tuesday said its forces had taken full control of the Kherson region in the country’s south. Videos shared Tuesday and verified by The Washington Post show Russian trucks driving through the city; some appeared to be equipped with multiple rocket launcher systems. Moscow may look to stage a “referendum” in the area, British defense intelligence officials said Tuesday, in a bid to create another “breakaway republic.”
• Mykolaiv: This city of about 500,000 people on Ukraine’s Black Sea shoreline is all that’s standing in Russia’s way of an assault on the major port city of Odessa. Despite more than a week of heavy bombardment, Ukraine’s forces have remarkably thwarted Russian advances.

After nearly two weeks spent in a city surrounded by Russian forces and cut off from water and electricity, Mariupol residents have at last begun to be evacuated in greater numbers, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday.

Of the 29,000 people rescued through humanitarian corridors from cities across the country, about 20,000 came from the besieged port of Mariupol on the southeast coast, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a video address.

The Washington Post could not independently verify those numbers, and many thousands more remain trapped — before the invasion, roughly 400,000 people lived there — but the figure Vereshchuk cited would represent a significant increase over prior days, when there were few, if any, safe routes in and out of the city. She said residents were spirited out in more than 4,000 private cars. On Monday, Vereshchuk said 160 vehicles had managed to make it out.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will continue Wednesday, and officials on both sides have projected optimism in recent days that a compromise may emerge.

But a news release from the Kremlin on Tuesday suggested any breakthrough is far off, with Russia President Vladimir Putin declaring Kyiv “is not showing a serious commitment to finding mutually acceptable solutions.”

The Kremlin said Putin made the comment in a call with European Council President Charles Michel in which the two leaders also discussed “humanitarian issues, including measures to evacuate civilians.” Evacuations have proceeded unevenly around Ukraine as officials repeatedly accuse Russia of violating cease-fires meant to allow safe passage.