Russia-Ukraine war live updates U.S. urges end to grain export blockade as Russian shelling continues

NUSA DUA, Indonesia — Secretary of State Antony Blinken called out Russia for blocking Ukrainian grain exports amid rising global food prices in a contentious closed-door session at a meeting of the top diplomats of the world’s largest economies on Friday.

The Group of 20 meeting hosted by Indonesia on its resort island of Bali is the first time top U.S. and Russian diplomats have been in the same room since the invasion of Ukraine. The deep divisions between East and West — as well as North and South — at the conference hampered discussions on an array of pressing concerns, including rising energy and food costs, climate change, poverty and pandemic responses.

The United States will send Ukraine an additional $400 million in military assistance heavily focused on high-precision long-range weapons, the Pentagon said Friday.

The package consists of four high-mobility artillery rocket systems, also known as HIMARS, adding to the eight that Washington already has delivered to Kyiv. It also includes 1,000 rounds of what a senior U.S. defense official called a “new type” of 155 mm ammunition to use in the howitzer cannons that were part of previous transfers. Those rounds — which officials declined to identify by name, citing security concerns — are intended to enhance Ukraine’s ability to target Russian military assets.

More than four months into the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged Thursday that the conflict had only just begun. And he challenged Western countries supporting Ukraine to “try” to fight Russia on the battlefield.

In televised remarks to parliamentary leaders, Putin pushed back on the idea that Russia has let the invasion drag on for too long, saying it hadn’t “even really started anything yet.” He said negotiating peace is getting more and more difficult, then focused his ire on Western countries that have imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Russia while offering support and resources to Ukraine.

Moscow has established at least 18 “filtration” locations on its border with Ukraine to forcibly relocate Ukrainian civilians to Russia or Russian-held territory inside Ukraine, a U.S. official said Thursday.

“The vast majority of forcibly transferred Ukrainian civilians remain trapped in Russia, without the documents, knowledge, or financial resources to escape, while Russian officials pressure them to give up their Ukrainian citizenship and hopes of ever returning home,” said Courtney Austrian, the deputy chief at the U.S. mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said further sanctions on Russia would harm the countries imposing them more than Russia, warning of the potential for “catastrophic consequences on the global energy market.”

“Yes, we know that the Europeans are trying to replace Russian energy resources,” Putin said at a televised meeting with senior officials on Friday, according to Reuters. “However, we expect the result of such actions to be an increase in gas prices on the spot market and an increase in the cost of energy resources for end consumers.”

BASHTANKA, Ukraine — The morning Russian tanks and troops stormed across Ukraine’s borders, Volodymyr Onishchuk’s grain got stuck. He had delivered about $100,000 worth to a storage site at Ukraine’s Black Sea port in Mykolaiv on Feb. 23, but by Feb. 24 — when the ship with his harvest was to set sail — Russian troops were on the ground and warships lingered menacingly off the Ukrainian coast.

On that day, Onishchuk wasn’t overly concerned that he hadn’t been paid yet. Fending off Russia was foremost on his mind. But then one week passed — and then a month and then four months — with Ukraine’s main ports still blockaded by Russia’s fleet. Not only was he missing the money from his last yield but a new crop was nearly ready to send to market, with no way to profitably move it. And future crops were uncertain.

Germany’s parliament voted overwhelmingly Friday in support of Sweden’s and Finland’s bids to join the NATO military alliance.

The bloc’s 30 members signed accession protocols for the two Nordic countries on Tuesday, but the decision needs to be ratified by each state.

Germany becomes the fifth country to do so, after Canada, Estonia, Denmark and Norway gave their approval.

Finland and Sweden have traditionally been nonaligned militarily but voiced their intention to join NATO following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Initial opposition by Turkey was overcome through an agreement in which Sweden and Finland said they would address Ankara’s concerns over what it viewed as their support for Kurdish militant groups.

Last week at the NATO summit in Madrid, President Biden extolled the unity of the moment. Russian President Vladimir Putin “thought he could break the transatlantic alliance,” Biden told reporters, before pointing to how the Russian invasion of Ukraine had only galvanized the West and led to NATO’s imminent expansion with two new Nordic entrants.

“We are going to stick with Ukraine,” he added, “and all of the alliance is going to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes to, in fact, make sure that they are not defeated.”