Mariupol pounded by Russians; massive convoy breaks up

MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Civilians trapped inside Mariupol desperately scrounged for food and fuel as Russian forces kept up their bombardment of the port city Thursday, while satellite photos showed that a massive Kremlin convoy that had been mired outside the Ukrainian capital split up and fanned out into towns and forests near Kyiv.

International condemnation escalated over an airstrike in Mariupol a day earlier that killed three people at a maternity hospital, with Western and Ukrainian officials calling the attack a war crime. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russian refusal to permit evacuations from the port city amounted to “outright terror.”

Meanwhile, the highest-level talks held since the invasion began two weeks ago yielded no progress, the number of refugees fleeing the country topped 2.3 million, and Kyiv braced for an onslaught, its mayor boasting that the capital had become practically a fortress protected by armed civilians.

Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed that 40-mile (64-kilometer) convoy of vehicles, tanks and artillery has broken up and been redeployed, with armored units seen in towns near the Antonov Airport north of the city. Some of the vehicles have moved into forests, Maxar reported, with artillery pieces in firing positions nearby.

The convoy had massed outside the city early last week, but its advance appeared to have stalled amid reports of food and fuel shortages. U.S. officials said Ukrainian troops also targeted the convoy with anti-tank missiles.

New direction?

Local authorities say Russian strikes on Friday hit near airports in the western Ukrainian cities of Ivano-Frankiivsk and Lutsk, far from Russia’s main attack targets elsewhere in Ukraine.

The mayor of Ivano-Frankiivsk, Ruslan Martsinkiv, ordered residents in the neighboring areas to head to shelters after an air raid alert. The mayor of Lutsk also announced an airstrike near the airport.

The strikes were far to the west from the main Russian offensive and could indicate a new direction of the war.

Mariupol situation worsens

In Mariupol, a southern seaport of 430,000, the situation was increasingly dire. More than 1,300 people have died in the 10-day siege of the frigid city, according to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Residents of the southern seaport of 430,000 have no heat or phone service, and many have no electricity. Nighttime temperatures are regularly below freezing, and daytime ones normally hover just above it. Bodies are being buried in mass graves. The streets are littered with burned-out cars, broken glass and splintered trees.

“They have a clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, to mock it, to constantly bomb and shell it,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. He said the Russians began a tank attack right where there was supposed to be a humanitarian corridor.

On Thursday, firefighters tried to free a boy trapped in the rubble. One grasped the boy’s hand. His eyes blinked, but he was otherwise still. It was not clear if he survived. Nearby, at a mangled truck, a woman wrapped in a blue blanket shuddered at the sound of an explosion.

Grocery stores and pharmacies were emptied days ago by people breaking in to get supplies, according to a local official with the Red Cross, Sacha Volkov. A black market is operating for vegetables, meat is unavailable, and people are stealing gasoline from cars, Volkov said.

Places protected from bombings are hard to find, with basements reserved for women and children, he said. Residents, Volkov said, are turning on one another: “People started to attack each other for food.”

The local fire department and the city’s State Technical University were bombed.

An exhausted-looking Aleksander Ivanov pulled a cart loaded with bags down an empty street flanked by damaged buildings.

“I don’t have a home anymore. That’s why I’m moving,” he said. “It doesn’t exist anymore. It was hit, by a mortar.”

Repeated attempts to send in food and medicine and evacuate civilians have been thwarted by Russian shelling, Ukrainian authorities said.

‘They want to make them starve’

“They want to destroy the people of Mariupol. They want to make them starve,” Vereshchuk said. “It’s a war crime.”

All told, some 100,000 people have been evacuated during the past two days from seven cities under Russian blockade in the north and center of the country, including the Kyiv suburbs, Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy told Russian leaders that the invasion will backfire on them as their economy is strangled. Western sanctions have already dealt a severe blow, causing the ruble to plunge, foreign businesses to flee and prices to rise sharply.

“You will definitely be prosecuted for complicity in war crimes,” Zelenskyy said in a video address. “And then, it will definitely happen, you will be hated by Russian citizens — everyone whom you have been deceiving constantly, daily, for many years in a row, when they feel the consequences of your lies in their wallets, in their shrinking possibilities, in the stolen future of Russian children.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed such talk, saying the country has endured sanctions before.

″We will overcome them,” he said at a televised meeting of government officials. He did, however, acknowledge the sanctions create “certain challenges.”

Biden to revoke Russia’s trading status

President Joe Biden will announce Friday that, along with the European Union and the Group of Seven countries, the U.S. will move to revoke “most favored nation” trade status for Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

That’s according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement. The person said each country would have to follow its own national processes. Stripping most favored nation status from Russia would allow the U.S. and allies to impose tariffs on Russian imports, increasing the isolation of the Russian economy in retaliation for the invasion.

Biden’s move comes as bipartisan pressure has been building in Washington to revoke what is formally known as “permanent normal trade relations” with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pressed the U.S. and allies to take the action against Russia in remarks to Congress over the weekend. It follows days after the Biden moved to ban imports of Russian oil and gas products.

Biden, after initially slow-walking congressional efforts to take the trade action against Russia, was set to embrace lawmaker efforts to do just that on Friday.

GOP implores getting jets to Ukraine

Republican U.S. senators are imploring the Biden administration to reverse course and allow the transfer of Poland’s MiG fighter jets to the Ukrainians to fight the Russian invasion, a sign the Defense Department’s rejection of the offer may be running into steep resistance on Capitol Hill.

Forty GOP senators signed onto a letter from Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Mitt Romney of Utah urging President Joe Biden to answer the plea from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who told lawmakers over the weekend that if the U.S. could not help with a no-fly zone over his skies, it could at least send more planes for his people to defend against the attack from Russia.

“Enough talk. People are dying,” Romney said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “Send them the planes they need.”

The groundswell of Republican opposition to the Pentagon’s rejection of Poland’s offer has apparently caught the attention of the highest ranks of the administration — senators said Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was reaching out in calls to Capitol Hill.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it’s hard to see the destruction — especially the Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital — and be opposed to providing the Ukrainians “with these essential aircraft.”

The Biden administration had initially indicated that the Soviet-era planes now in NATO ally Poland could be transferred to help provide air support as Ukraine battles Russia’s assault. But the Pentagon on Wednesday slammed the door on a surprise offer from Poland to instead transfer the planes to NATO by handing them off at a U.S. base in Germany. The Pentagon said the planes are not the most effective weaponry and the Polish plan could run a “high risk” of escalating the war.

UN Security Council to meet on Russia claims

The U.N. Security Council will meet Friday at Russia’s request to discuss what Moscow claims are “the military biological activities of the U.S. on the territory of Ukraine.”

The Russian request, announced in a tweet Thursday afternoon from its first deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, follows the Biden administration’s rejection of Russian accusations that Ukraine is running chemical and biological labs with U.S. support.

Council diplomats confirmed the meeting would convene at 10 a.m. EST, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.

In response to this week’s accusations by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova — without evidence — White House press secretary Jen Psaki issued a public warning Wednesday that Russia might use chemical or biological weapons against Ukraine, the neighbor it has invaded.

Psaki called Russia’s claim “preposterous” and tweeted: “This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine.”

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Wednesday called the Russian claim “a bunch of malarkey.”

Dmitry Chumakov, another Russian deputy U.N. ambassador, repeated the accusation Wednesday, urging Western media to cover “the news about secret biological laboratories in Ukraine.”

China calls situation ‘grave’

China’s Premier Li Keqiang on Friday called the situation in Ukraine “grave” and offered Beijing’s help in playing a “positive role” for peace while continuing to refuse to criticize Russia.

China has largely sided with Russia, refusing to refer to its actions in Ukraine as a war or invasion. Chinese officials and state media have parroted Russian claims while Beijing calls itself neutral and defending national sovereignty above all else.

“We support and encourage all efforts that are conducive to a peaceful settlement of the crisis,” Li told reporters at an annual news conference.

“The pressing task now is to prevent tension from escalating or even getting out of control,” Li said. “China calls for exercising utmost restraint and preventing a massive humanitarian crisis.”

Li, who is primarily responsible for overseeing the world’s second-largest economy, spoke following the close of the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp legislature. At the weeklong gathering, Li set an ambitious goal of 5.5% economic growth for the year, while the defense budget received a 7.1% boost.

Millions driven from homes

In addition to those who have fled the country, millions have been driven from their homes inside Ukraine. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said about 2 million people — half the population of the metropolitan area — have left the capital.

“Every street, every house … is being fortified,” he said. “Even people who in their lives never intended to change their clothes, now they are in uniform with machine guns in their hands.”

On Thursday, a 14-year-old girl named Katya was recovering at the Brovary Central District Hospital on the outskirts of Kyiv after her family was ambushed as they tried to flee the area. She was shot in the hand when their car was raked with gunfire from a roadside forest, said her mother, who identified herself only as Nina.

The girl’s father, who drove frantically from the ambush on blown-out tires, underwent surgery. His wife said he had been shot in the head and had two fingers blown off.

Western officials said Russian forces have made little progress on the ground in recent days and are seeing heavier losses and stiffer Ukrainian resistance than Moscow apparently anticipated. But Putin’s forces have used air power and artillery to pummel Ukraine’s cities.

Early in the day, the Mariupol city council posted a video showing a convoy it said was bringing in food and medicine. But as night fell, it was unclear if those buses had reached the city.

A child was among those killed in the hospital airstrike Wednesday. Seventeen people were also wounded, including women waiting to give birth, doctors, and children buried in the rubble. Images of the attack, with pregnant women covered in dust and blood, dominated news reports in many countries.

‘Shameful and immoral act of war’

French President Emmanuel Macron called the attack “a shameful and immoral act of war.” Britain’s Armed Forces minister, James Heappey, said that whether the hospital was hit by indiscriminate fire or deliberately targeted, “it is a war crime.”

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, on a visit to Ukraine’s neighbor Poland, backed calls for an international war-crimes investigation into the invasion, saying, “The eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed concerns about civilian casualties as “pathetic shrieks” from Russia’s enemies, and denied Ukraine had even been invaded.

Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, held talks in a Turkish resort in their first meeting since the invasion.

No progress on cease-fire

The two sides discussed a 24-hour cease-fire but made no progress, Kuleba said. He said Russia still wanted Ukraine to surrender but insisted that will not happen.

Lavrov said Russia is ready for more negotiations, but he showed no sign of softening Moscow’s demands.

Russia has alleged that Western-looking, U.S.-backed Ukraine poses a threat to its security. Western officials suspect Putin wants to install a government friendly to Moscow in Kyiv as part of an effort to draw the former Soviet state back into its orbit.

Nuclear inspections planned

In Vienna, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had scheduled inspections of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities. Rafael Grossi would give no details on how or when the inspections would take place.

Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors at four power plants across the country, plus the closed plant in Chernobyl, scene of a 1986 nuclear disaster. Fighting around Chernobyl and another plant have raised global fears of another disaster.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, 91-year-old Alevtina Shernina sat wrapped in a blanket, an electric heater at her feet, as cold air blew in through a damaged window. She survived the brutal World War II siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg.

Her daughter-in-law Natalia said she was angry that Shernina “began her life in Leningrad under the siege as a girl who was starving, who lived in cold and hunger, and she’s ending her life” in similar circumstances.

“There were fascists there and there are fascists here who came and bombed our buildings and windows,” she said.

The U.N. Security Council will meet on Friday to discuss what Russia claims are “the military biological activities of the U.S. on the territory of Ukraine.”

Council diplomats confirmed the meeting scheduled for 7 a.m. PST, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.

Russia requested the meeting in a tweet Thursday afternoon from its first deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky.

The request came after the Biden administration rejected the accusation, made without evidence by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, that Ukraine was running chemical and biological labs with U.S. support.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki Psaki called Russia’s claim “preposterous.” On Wednesday, warned that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons against Ukraine, the neighbor it has invaded.

“This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine,” Psaki tweeted.

But Dmitry Chumakov, another Russian deputy U.N. ambassador, repeated the accusation Wednesday, urging Western media to cover “the news about secret biological laboratories in Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy denies chemial weapons charge

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied Russia’s accusation that Ukraine is preparing to attack with chemical or biological weapons, and he said the accusation itself was a bad sign.

“That worries me very much because we have often been convinced that if you want to know Russia’s plans, they are what Russia accuses others of,” he said in his nightly address to the nation.

Russia said it uncovered plans to create secret laboratories in Ukraine to produce biological weapons.

“I am a reasonable person. The president of a reasonable country and reasonable people. I am the father of two children,” he said. “And no chemical or any other weapon of mass destruction has been developed on my land. The whole world knows this.”

Mariupol hospital strike draws outrage

A Russian airstrike on a Mariupol maternity hospital that killed three people brought condemnation down on Moscow on Thursday, with Ukrainian and Western officials branding it a war crime, while the highest-level talks yet yielded no progress toward stopping the fighting.

Emergency workers renewed efforts to get food and medical supplies into besieged cities and get traumatized civilians out.

Ukrainian authorities said a child was among the dead in Wednesday’s airstrike in the vital southern port of Mariupol. Seventeen people were also wounded, including women waiting to give birth, doctors, and children buried in the rubble.

Images of pregnant women covered in dust and blood dominated news reports in many countries and brought a new wave of horror over the 2-week-old war sparked by Russia’s invasion, which has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians, shaken the foundations of European security and driven more than 2.3 million people from Ukraine.

Putin: Russia will overcome sanctions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Russian leaders that the invasion will backfire on them as their economy is strangled. Western sanctions have already dealt a severe blow to the economy, causing the ruble to plunge, foreign businesses to flee — including, on Thursday, investment bank Goldman Sachs — and prices to rise sharply.

“You will definitely be prosecuted for complicity in war crimes,” Zelenskyy said in a video address. “And then, it will definitely happen, you will be hated by Russian citizens — everyone whom you have been deceiving constantly, daily, for many years in a row, when they feel the consequences of your lies in their wallets, in their shrinking possibilities, in the stolen future of Russian children.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed such talk, saying the country has endured sanctions before.

“Just as we overcame these difficulties in the previous years, we will overcome them now,” he said at a televised meeting of government officials. He did, however, acknowledge the sanctions create “certain challenges.”

Millions displaced in country

Millions more have been displaced inside Ukraine. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said about 2 million people — half the population of the metropolitan area — have left the capital, which has become practically a fortress.

“Every street, every house … is being fortified,” he said. “Even people who in their lives never intended to change their clothes, now they are in uniform with machine guns in their hands.”

Bombs hit 2 Kyiv hospitals

Bombs fell on two hospitals in a city west of Kyiv on Wednesday, its mayor said. The World Health Organization said it has confirmed 18 attacks on medical facilities since the invasion began.

Western officials said Russian forces have made little progress on the ground in recent days. But they have intensified the bombardment of Mariupol and other cities, trapping hundreds of thousands of people, with food and water running short.

Staff at one hospital on the outskirts of Kyiv say they’ve never seen anything like the flood of often-badly injured patients streaming through their doors. Many are civilians.

At a hospital on the outskirts of Kyiv, a 14-year-old girl named Katya was recovering Thursday after her family was ambushed as they tried to flee the area. She was shot in the hand when their car was raked with gunfire from a roadside forest, said her mother, who identified herself only as Nina.

The girl’s father, who drove frantically from the ambush on blown-out tires, was in surgery at the Brovary Central District Hospital. His wife said he had been shot in the head and had two fingers blown off.

Cease-fires continue to fail

Temporary cease-fires to allow evacuations and humanitarian aid have repeatedly faltered, with Ukraine accusing Russia of continuing its bombardments. But Zelenskyy said 35,000 people managed to get out on Wednesday from several besieged towns, and more efforts were underway on Thursday in eastern and southern Ukraine — including Mariupol — as well as in the Kyiv suburbs.

The Mariupol city council posted a video showing buses driving down a highway. It said a convoy bringing food and medicine was on the way despite several days of thwarted efforts to reach the city.

“Everyone is working to get help to the people of Mariupol. And it will come,” said Mayor Vadym Boychenko.

Images from the city, where hundreds have died and workers hurried to bury bodies in a mass grave, have drawn condemnation from around the world. Residents have resorted to breaking into stores for food and melting snow for water. The city has been without heat for days as nighttime temperatures fall below freezing and daytime ones hover just above it.

“The only thing (I want) is for this to be finished,” Volodymyr Bykovskyi said as he stood by a freshly dug trench where bodies were being buried. “I don’t know who’s guilty, who’s right, who started this. Damn them all, those people who started this!”

When the series of blasts hit the children’s and maternity hospital in Mariupol, the ground shook more than a mile away. Explosions blew out windows and ripped away much of the front of one building. Police and soldiers rushed to the scene to evacuate victims, carrying a bleeding woman with a swollen belly on a stretcher past burning and mangled cars. Another woman wailed as she clutched her child.

Calls strike a war crime

Britain’s Armed Forces minister, James Heappey, said that whether the hospital was hit by indiscriminate fire or deliberately targeted, “it is a war crime.” French President Emmanuel Macron called it “a shameful and immoral act of war.”

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, on a visit to Ukraine’s neighbor Poland, backed calls for an international war-crimes investigation into the invasion, saying, “The eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed concerns about civilian casualties as “pathetic shrieks” from Russia’s enemies, and denied Moscow had even invaded.

He also claimed without providing evidence that the Mariupol hospital had been seized by far-right radical fighters who were using it as a base — despite the fact that photographs from the aftermath showed pregnant women and children at the site.

“We have not invaded Ukraine,” he insisted.

Several rounds of talks have not stopped the fighting, and a meeting in a Turkish Mediterranean resort between Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, failed to find much common ground.

In their highest-level talks since the war began, the two sides discussed a 24-hour cease-fire but did not make progress, Kuleba said. He said Russia was still seeking “surrender from Ukraine.”

“This is not what they are going to get,” he said, adding that he was willing to continue the dialogue.

Lavrov said Russia was ready for more negotiations but showed no sign of softening Moscow’s demands.

Russia has alleged that Western-looking, U.S.-backed Ukraine poses a threat to its security. Western officials suspect Putin wants to install a government friendly to Moscow in Kyiv as part of an effort to draw the former Soviet state back into its orbit.

Russian troops struggle

Russia’s military is struggling, facing heavier losses and stronger Ukrainian resistance than it apparently anticipated. But Putin’s forces have used airpower to pummel key cities, often shelling populated areas.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, 91-year-old Alevtina Shernina sat wrapped in a blanket, an electric heater at her feet, as cold air blew in through a damaged window. She survived the brutal World War II siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and is now under siege again, her health too fragile to be moved.

Her daughter-in-law Natalia said she was angry that Shernina “began her life in Leningrad under the siege as a girl who was starving, who lived in cold and hunger, and she’s ending her life” in similar circumstances.

“There were fascists there and there are fascists here who came and bombed our buildings and windows,” she said.