Biden announces new aid after Zelensky’s emotional plea to Congress

In a recent exchange between U.S. and Chinese experts, the Chinese side, citing minor shifts in language, insisted that Beijing was distancing itself from Vladimir Putin’s war.

For the American participants, according to Jude Blanchette of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who was there, the disbelieving response was: “Oh, really?”

“Their argument was that language had been moving, albeit subtly, to show displeasure with Russia,” Blanchette said about the discussion during the “track-two” nongovernmental exchange. “That struck us as pretty weak sauce.”

Three weeks into the largest military clash in Europe since World War II, China’s effort to displease neither Russia nor the international coalition imposing sanctions on Putin is looking increasingly untenable.

A disconnect is growing between the image of neutrality Beijing wants to project and President Xi Jinping’s long-term strategy of fostering ties with Russia as a critical partner in the standoff with the United States and its allies.

The mayor of Melitopol, reportedly abducted by Russian troops on Friday, was freed after Ukrainian authorities released nine Russian conscripted armed service members in a swap, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communication.

The center, which is affiliated with the country’s culture and information policy ministry, said Mayor Ivan Fedorov had been taken against his will from his southeastern city to Luhansk, one of the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin officially recognized as republics last month. He was held there for five days, the center added.

Ukrainian authorities said the nine Russian conscripts involved in the exchange were all born between 2002 and 2003, making them 19- and 20-year-olds. Moscow has said it was deploying conscripts to Ukraine, a claim it had denied in the early days of the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video posted early Thursday that he spoke with Fedorov after the mayor’s release. During his captivity, Fedorov declined Russia’s request to “collaborate,” Zelensky said, commending Fedorov’s loyalty.

Fedorov “did not give up, just as we all endure. You all,” Zelensky said. “Just as we all do not give up, because we are Ukrainians and we always protect our own.”

Zelensky described Russia’s capture of Fedorov as “a crime against democracy” when footage of the mayor being taken away by Russian soldiers with a hood over his head spread on social media last week. The incident quickly triggered public anger in Melitopol as residents gathered in support of their leader.

Russian troops destroyed a theater in the city of Mariupol where hundreds of people were sheltering, local Ukrainian officials said. The Kremlin’s forces also continued to shell civilian areas in Kharkiv but have been unsuccessful in encircling the city.

Russian warships shelled some areas in Odessa oblast, while several attacks northwest of Kyiv were unsuccessful.

The Pentagon will expand the size and scope of weaponry being rushed to Ukraine, the Biden administration said Wednesday, including for the first time armed drones capable of inflicting significant damage to Russian ground units while U.S. officials continue to search for sophisticated antiaircraft systems owned by European allies.

The disclosure coincided with President Biden’s pledge of an additional $800 million in security assistance for Ukraine, and after his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelensky, made an emotional appeal to Congress for the United States either to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine or to provide fighter jets and powerful surface-to-air weapons that would enable Zelensky’s military to shoot down Russian aircraft themselves.

“I need to protect our sky,” Zelensky said, calling on the United States “to do more” in “the darkest time for our country.” He asked for the “S-300 and other similar systems” that can take out aircraft flying at high altitudes.

Taxi drivers were driving a convoy of Ukrainian refugees through Spain this week after picking them up in Poland and dropping off aid to help the country that has been invaded by Russia for three weeks, Reuters reported. Several countries in the region have agreed to house Ukrainian refugees in recent weeks.

Satellite images show heavy damage to “residential and civilian infrastructure” in Ukrainian cities such as Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy, according Maxar Technologies, a space technology company.

The pictures of burning buildings and residential areas before and after Russia’s invasion document the war’s tremendous toll on Ukrainian civilians, whom the Kremlin claims it is not targeting. President Biden on Wednesday labeled Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” while Ukrainian leaders denounced an airstrike on a theater where hundreds sheltered — and where Maxar’s images showed the Russian word for “children” written on the ground, large enough to be seen from high above.

Northeast of Chernihiv, a city of more than a quarter-million people, Maxar said it photographed burning homes on Wednesday. The company also said it captured Russian artillery and rocket launchers aimed toward Chernihiv from the outskirts of the city.

To the south, in the city of Sumy, Maxar said a March satellite image captures damage to a train station and other buildings, a contrast with its older photos of the same area.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, images from Wednesday show fire and destruction in a residential area as well as “impact craters” from artillery fire near a residential zone, according to Maxar.

Overhead images also document an airfield in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, where Russia has claimed control and where Ukraine says its forces recently destroyed Russian helicopters.

BEIRUT — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is sending economic ripples across the Middle East as panic spreads about the availability and prices of essential goods such as wheat, sunflower oil and fuel, that are typically imported from the two warring countries.

Prices of bread and other foodstuffs in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon have been increasing as concern over their availability mounts.

Egyptians have started complaining about the rising cost of food, some posting videos on TikTok to air their grievances. “The government … says merchants can’t raise prices; [that] there is no reason for merchants to raise prices. But the bread has gone up 50 percent, and to’miyah has [doubled] in price,” said one user, Mahmoud Mosa, referring to the cheap, Egyptian falafel-like disc made of fava beans.

Merchants tell customers that other ingredients such as oil have gone up in price, Mosa said in his video. “So are we supposed to go down and fight these people? Or is the government going to have a role?”

Spanish authorities have impounded a third superyacht believed to belong to a Russian oligarch, a seizure that is part of a global crackdown on those seen to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The yacht — registered in the Cayman Islands and named the Crescent — had requested to depart the Spanish port of Tarragona on March 4, authorities said, but it did not set sail. The 443-foot yacht has an estimated value of about $600 million according to the SuperyachtFan website, which cited its owner as an “unknown billionaire.”

Governments all over the world are working to identify and freeze the assets of Russian elites and their family members, including luxury apartments, money and yachts. Online sleuths are watching their moves, tweeting names, locations, ownership and the latest status of yachts owned by Russian oligarchs.

Schadenfreude at sea: The Internet is watching with glee as Russian oligarchs’ yachts are seized

Spain’s Transportation Ministry said it was collecting information “to confirm the real ownership” of the vessel and whether control of the ship corresponds to a person included in the list of people and entities sanctioned by the European Council as a result of the war in Ukraine.

So far this week, Spanish authorities said they have seized the Valerie, in the Port of Barcelona, ​​and the Lady Anastasia in Majorca’s Port Adriano. The former is suspected of being owned by Sergey Chemezov, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a subject of Western sanctions. Chemezov is the head of Rostec, a Russian industrial and military conglomerate.