Mass grave seen near Mariupol as Biden announces more aid for ‘critical window’ of war

Russia declared victory in Mariupol on Thursday, even though a bastion of Ukrainian resistance remains in the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant, where hundreds of Ukrainian fighters and civilians are holed up. These three maps help explain why Mariupol became such a target — and why the capturing the city is so important to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Even as a convoy of Mariupol residents completed a successful evacuation on Thursday — the first in weeks — many more desperate civilians remained trapped in the port city, their escape foiled once again by Russian shelling, Ukrainian officials say.

“There is no good news from Mariupol,” Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, said in a Telegram message Thursday evening. “Everything is very hard. On the Russian side, all is very complicated, chaotic, slow and, of course, dishonest.”

Earlier in the day, roughly 90 people arrived in Zaporizhzhia from Mariupol, representing a tiny fraction of the more than 100,000 who remain stuck there, according to Ukrainian leaders. But the situation in the city has been so dire that even the smallest mark of progress is a welcome sign.

“The fact that yesterday, for the first time, people went from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia directly gives hope,” Vereshchuk said.

Humanitarian evacuations have been a persistent struggle during the nearly two months of war, with Ukrainians repeatedly accusing Moscow of violating cease-fire agreements and hampering movement along agreed-upon routes. Vereshchuk said evacuation efforts also came under fire near the southern city of Kherson on Thursday.

Speaking directly to marooned civilians, Vereshchuk concluded her message: “As long as we have at least some opportunities, we will not give up trying to get you out of there! Hold on!”

Irynka Hromotska contributed to this report.

Donbas region: Russian forces have made “minor gains” in eastern Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War assessed Wednesday. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his troops in Mariupol, saying they “sacrificed their lives so that our people in Donbas live in peace and to enable Russia, our country, to live in peace.”

Kharkiv region: Ukrainian forces continued to halt Russian attacks around Izyum. Local officials have raised concerns this gateway city to the Donbas region will suffer a similar fate to Bucha — where hundreds of civilians were killed and buried in mass graves or left in the streets. At a Thursday World Bank ministerial meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “It is equally dangerous both in the center of Kharkiv and on the outskirts. You can die from Russian shelling everywhere.”

Mariupol: Putin declared victory in the shattered Ukrainian port city — even as his advisers acknowledged that thousands of Ukrainian fighters remain holed up in a steel plant there and Zelensky denied that Russia had made new advances. An ISW assessment predicts that Russian forces will attempt to “starve out” the Ukrainian defenders in the plant rather than “clear it through likely costly assaults.” Also, newly surfaced images of a mass grave near Mariupol underscored the scope of the devastation.

Kyiv region: Zelensky said that Ukraine will “immediately do everything to restore normal life” in the northern areas that his country “managed to liberate from the occupiers,” naming Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy. He said Wednesday that the biggest threats to liberated communities are explosive devices left there as Russian forces retreated.

Kherson region: In a Thursday address, Zelensky warned residents of Ukraine’s southern regions — Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — to be “very careful” about any information they provide to Russian forces. Naming questionnaires and passport data, Zelensky said the attempts are “aimed to falsify the so-called referendum on your land, if an order comes from Moscow to stage such a show.”

Rachel Pannett contributed to this report.

The war in Ukraine is having a huge impact on the cost of food in the United States — particularly the price of corn. The Chicago Board of Trade corn futures topped $8 a bushel earlier this week, reaching its highest price in nearly a decade.

The reasons are complex. Earlier this month, in hopes of limiting the spike in gas prices since Russia’s invasion, the Biden administration announced it would allow high-ethanol gasoline to be sold this summer. High-ethanol gas is usually not allowed in summer months because of air pollution. But while the decision may ease some of the pain at the pump, it also contributes to rising food prices.

That’s because corn is used to manufacture the ethanol. That corn would ordinarily be used for consumer goods and, crucially, animal feed. Because feed accounts for 60 percent of the costs associated with raising livestock, experts expect prices to rise for beef, pork and poultry, and even for some farmed fish.

Skyrocketing fertilizer prices linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine are likely to contribute to higher meat prices in another way. Fertilizer is a significant, and sometimes the sole, source of the carbon dioxide used in the pre-slaughter stunning of animals, said Grady Ferguson, a research analyst for Gro Intelligence. Take that away and slaughter facilities need to find a different mechanism to humanely prepare animals.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will host a summit in Germany next week to build support for Ukraine’s defense and security needs, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, John Kirby, said Thursday.

The “Ukraine Defense Consultative Group,” which will meet at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Tuesday, has the markings of a donors conference. But Kirby said its ambitions are broader, and that the group will focus not just on Ukraine’s short-term military assistance needs and the latest battlefield assessments, but also take “a longer, larger view of Ukraine’s defense needs, going forward beyond the war that they’re facing right now.”

“We think it’s time to have that discussion,” Kirby said.

It is not yet clear exactly which nations have been invited to take part in the discussion or have accepted the invitation. Kirby said the developing list of invitees includes both NATO allies and other countries outside NATO.

The planned summit comes as the United States is ramping up its military assistance to Ukraine. On Thursday, the Biden administration announced it would send another $800 million in defense equipment to Ukraine, starting in coming days, including 72 Howitzers and 144,000 artillery rounds — the sort of firepower that Kirby said Ukraine “critically” needs.

The package also includes a new unmanned aerial system called the Phoenix Ghost, which Kirby said has capabilities similar to Switchblade drones.

“Its principal focus is attack,” Kirby added, saying that the drone system would “lend itself well to this particular kind of terrain” in the Donbas region, currently the focal point of the Russian invasion.

The new $800 million military assistance package for Ukraine represents a marked increase in U.S. shipments of artillery, as well as weapons that specifically meet Kyiv’s needs on the battlefield.

The package includes 72 155mm howitzers and the tactical vehicles to tow them, and 144,000 additional artillery rounds. That is a significant increase over the 18 howitzers that were in the previous assistance package, announced earlier this month, and is enough to equip five battalions, said John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.

It also includes more than 120 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems — a drone that the U.S. Air Force developed “in response, specifically, to Ukrainian requirements,” Kirby added. Later in the day, he said the drones had actually been “developed for a set of requirements that very closely match” the Ukrainians’ needs for current operations in the eastern region of the country known as Donbas.

The Phoenix Ghost drones, designed by AEVEX Aerospace, “provide similar capabilities” to Switchblade drones, which were part of a previous U.S. military assistance package to Ukraine.

Pentagon officials would not say whether the new drones were intended to strike vehicles or personnel. According to a senior defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the Pentagon, the Phoenix Ghost is a “tactical” weapon “that is designed to deliver a punch, and you could expect that it would be useful against a number of different targets.”

“This is a great example of adapting to their [the Ukrainians'] needs in real time,” the official added.

The system “will require some minimal training” for “knowledgeable” drone operators, Kirby said. “We’re going to be working through those training requirements directly with the Ukrainian armed forces.”

Senior defense officials estimated that the first tranche of weapons from the newly announced package will be dispatched in the next 24 to 48 hours, and that Ukraine will begin to take possession of them by the end of the weekend. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity under terms established by the Pentagon.

The decision to send the materiel “was made in complete consultation and coordination with the Ukrainians about their needs and very much in keeping with their needs specifically in Donbas,” Kirby said. But it is not clear how long it will take Ukraine to transfer the weapons to battlefronts in the eastern part of the country.

Senior Pentagon officials declined to weigh in on reports of weapons shipments being stockpiled in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, with one noting that “we track the deliveries to the border of Ukraine and when the handoff happens … it’s up to them how they move that equipment.”

The new assistance package also includes field equipment and spare parts for unspecified weapons systems.