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Russia bombards Mariupol; hundreds of thousands trapped
Russia invades Ukraine
By Helen Regan, Travis Caldwell, Amy Woodyatt, George Ramsay and Hafsa Khalil, CNN
- All
- Catch Up
- Mariupol
- On The Ground
- Refugees
- Zelensky
Biden confirms Russia's use of hypersonic missiles in Ukraine
From CNN's DJ Judd
US President Joe Biden confirmed Monday that Russia has employed hypersonic missiles in its invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
“And if you’ll notice, [Russia has] just launched the hypersonic missile, because it's the only thing that they can get through without absolute certainty,” Biden said. “It's, as you all know, it's a consequential weapon, and, but with the same warhead on it as any other launch missile, it doesn't make that much difference, except it's almost impossible to stop it. There's a reason they’re using it.”
Biden, speaking to a group gathered at the Business Roundtable CEO Quarterly Meeting, said, “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s back against the wall, he wasn't anticipating the extent or strength of our unity, and the more his back is against the wall, the greater severity of the tactics he may employ.”
Biden outlined a series of resources the US has deployed to Ukraine and NATO allies in the region, detailing $2 billion in funding to NATO alone and significant military resources to Ukraine, which he said are “wreaking havoc on the Russian military, whether it's their tanks or their helicopters or their aircraft.”
“The idea that they don't have enough sophisticated equipment is just simply not accurate, and I'm not going to take the time to go into all the detail here, but the point is, they have every equipment, every piece of equipment that makes rational sense based on our military and NATO's military to be able to do what they're doing,” Biden told the CEOs.
The President repeated warnings that Russia was likely to conduct “false flag operations,” including the possibility of a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine.
“Whenever he starts talking about something he thinks NATO, Ukraine or the United States is about to do, it means he's getting ready to do it. Not a joke,” Biden said.
Zelensky: Mariupol is being "reduced to ashes," but the city will "survive"
From CNN's Olena Mankovska and Sugam Pokharel
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address released Monday that the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is being “reduced to ashes” by Russia's military aggression, but added that the city will “survive.”
Mariupol, which before the war was home to around 450,000 people, has been under near constant attack from Russian forces since early March with satellite images showing significant destruction to residential areas.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that “what's happening Mariupol is a massive war crime.”
Zelensky in his address went on to again urge the Ukrainians to “do everything you can to defend our country, to save our people.”
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started in late February, “we are seeing more and more [Ukrainian] heroes. Once ordinary Ukrainians, and now true fighters,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader also said that the ordinary citizens in Ukraine are “rising” to the point that Russia “doesn’t believe that this is the reality,” and added, "we will make Russia believe.”
“Fight, keep on fighting, and help,” he urged the Ukrainians.
Bipartisan senators call for more aid for Ukraine after trip to Germany and Poland
From CNN's Ellie Kaufman
A group of bipartisan senators called for more lethal and humanitarian aid to be sent to Ukraine as soon as possible after traveling to Germany and Poland over the weekend to meet with civil society organizations, American troops and Ukrainian refugees. The senators who went on the trip held a press conference Monday after returning.
The group of senators that traveled to Germany and Poland included Sens. Jacky Rosen, Joni Ernst, Shelley Moore Capito, Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Steve Daines, Kirsten Gillibrand, Angus King, Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran.
“Defending freedom in Ukraine is defending freedom everywhere. This is a critical time for all of us, not just the Ukrainian people that we encountered and visited, but certainly for all of Europe, all of our NATO allies, and it certainly means the freedom right here in our homeland as well,” Ernst said during the press conference about the trip.
Many of the senators described emotional experiences after meeting with Ukrainian refugees who had just fled the war-torn country. Collins recounted a conversation she had with a young Ukrainian mother who had just fled the country with her two children.
“She said this to me: 'I want to live in peace. I want to be back in Ukraine, but I have to keep my children safe.' So this young mother with her two children was leaving the only country she has ever known. Leaving her husband behind. Not knowing if she would ever see him again in order to keep her children safe,” Collins said. “The only way that we can end this humanitarian crisis is to provide the Ukrainians with the lethal aid and the humanitarian support they need to end this unprovoked, unjustified war.”
Collins called for the Biden administration to allow Ukrainian refugees with family in the US to be allowed to come to the US.
“I believe that the administration should look at means to allow Ukrainians who have family members in this country to join them and give them temporary protective status. Just this morning, I heard from someone from the state of Maine who offered to take three Ukrainian families in for the next year, so we need that kind of reform as well,” Collins said.
Sen. King said he wants to better understand how long it takes to get aid to Ukraine after it's approved in Congress after the trip.
“One of the things that I’m coming back with is wanting to determine just how long does it take, from the time Congress votes the money, as we did ten days ago, to when it crosses the border into Ukraine both for humanitarian aid and for lethal aid. We need to know exactly how that works, and how fast it occurs, because we don’t have weeks and months, we have hours and days,” King said.
Sen. King said the senators saw trucks loaded with aid ready to cross the border into Ukraine during the trip.
Sen. Ernst said she, as well as other senators were writing lists of what needs to get done to get aid to Ukraine even faster on the flight back from Germany.
The senators spent Friday in Germany, Saturday in Poland and Sunday in Germany before flying back to the US overnight Sunday night to Monday, King said.
UN has set up safe spaces along Ukrainian border and has reached more than 330,000 people with food assistance
From CNN's Richard Roth and Laura Ly
Two United Nations agencies, UNICEF and UNHCR, have set up “Blue Dots��� centers, which are “one-stop safe spaces for children and women,” at various places along Ukraine’s border in neighboring countries, Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, said during a press briefing Monday.
"Blue Dots" centers are set up in coordination with local governments and civil society organizations and “help to identify unaccompanied and separated children and ensure their protection, as well as provide a hub for essential services and information for traveling families,” Dujarric said.
Furthermore, the UN World Food Programme said it has reached more than 330,000 people inside Ukraine with food assistance since the Russian invasion, according to Dujarric. He added that food delivery to cooperating partners is also being scaled up.
“In Kharkiv, the World Food Programme doubled its bread distribution through partners, reaching nearly 78 metric tonnes for about 260,000 people. In Kyiv — following the delivery of 26 metric tonnes of high-energy biscuits – WFP’s partners have delivered about 325 metric tonnes of vegetable oil and 478 metric tonnes of wheat flour to nearly 70,000 vulnerable people. In Dnipro, some 2.2 metric tonnes of mixed canned food was also distributed to the most vulnerable,” Dujarric said.
It's 11 p.m. on Monday in Kyiv. Here's what you need to know
From CNN Staff
The head of the Ukrainian government's Donetsk regional military administration said Monday the city of Avdiivka and its surrounding areas had been hit by Russian aircraft and artillery fire.
In a statement on his Telegram account, Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least one civilian was killed and at least two were injured in the recent strikes and that shelling damage and fires had been recorded at 15 local addresses.
Kyrylenko also published photos of what he said were the results of Russian shelling, including damage to World War II monuments and collective graves for Red Army soldiers who fought Nazi Germany in World War II near the town of Toretsk.
Here are more of Monday's headlines from the Russia-Ukraine conflict:
- President Biden warns of "evolving intelligence" suggesting potential Russian cyberattacks against the US: US President Joe Biden on Monday urged private sector partners “to harden your cyber defenses immediately,” pointing to “evolving intelligence” indicating “the potential that Russia could conduct malicious cyber activity against the United States.” While pledging his administration would “continue to use every tool to deter, disrupt, and if necessary, respond to cyberattacks against critical infrastructure,” the President in a statement acknowledged, “the Federal Government can’t defend against this threat alone.”
- White House says it never explored Biden visiting Ukraine as part of his trip this week: Biden will seek to underscore unity on his trip to Europe this week, and there will be a set of "deliverables" afterward, the White House says. But Biden's aides never considered a stop in Ukraine, and the President still opposes sending American troops into the country. Speaking two days before Biden departs for high-stakes summits in Brussels, followed by a stop in Poland, press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden hoped to underscore western cooperation on his trip.
- 2 children in critical condition as families fleeing Mariupol come under artillery fire: Two children are in a critical condition after cars carrying families came under artillery fire on the road between Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia, a regional official in eastern Ukraine said. Oleksander Starukh reported heavy shelling around the frontline separating Russian and Ukrainian forces Monday, in a statement on his Telegram channel. Three children from Mariupol who had escaped the besieged city with their family came under fire as they were traveling through Polohivsky district, Starukh said, leaving one child in a critical condition. A second child traveling with their family is also in a critical condition after their car came under fire in the village of Kamianske.
- Shelling in Ukraine kills 21 rescue workers and injures 47: Twenty-one Ukrainian rescue workers have been killed and 47 have been injured so far due to shelling by Russian troops, said the deputy head of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Roman Prymush, during a news briefing with Ukrinform on Monday. "According to the Geneva Convention, shelling or other threats to rescuers at the time of rescue operations are considered a war crime. We record all these cases, the materials on each of them are transferred to the relevant bodies, which will provide a legal assessment of such actions, will identify the perpetrators involved," Prymush said. He noted that the detention of rescuers by Russian forces is also a violation of the Geneva Convention.
- Who is Russia's top field commander in Ukraine? The US isn't sure: The US has been unable to determine if Russia has designated a military commander responsible for leading the country's war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter — something that current and former defense officials say is likely a key contributor to the apparent clumsiness and disorganization of the Russian assault. Without a top, theater-wide commander on the ground in or near Ukraine, units from different Russian military districts operating in different parts of Ukraine appear to be competing for resources rather than coordinating their efforts, according to two US defense officials.
- Russians beginning to have "inventory issues" with precision missiles, senior US defense official says: Russian forces are beginning to have “inventory issues with precision-guided munitions,” a senior US defense official told reporters on Monday. Precision-guided munitions refer to missiles that target a specific location, as opposed to “dumb bombs,” which do not have the technology to focus on a specific target. The inventory issues around their precision-guided munitions supply are why “you’re seeing the increasing use of what we would call dumb bombs,” the official added. Some of their precision-guided munitions are “failing to launch, or they’re failing to hit the target, or they’re failing to explode on contact,” the official said.
- Neither side is backing down in the conflict, senior NATO official says: A senior NATO intelligence official said on Monday that signs are pointing to a stalemate emerging in Russia’s war on Ukraine, with Russian ground forces remaining stalled and Russian combat aircraft unable to achieve air superiority over Ukraine. “If we are not in a stalemate already, we are rapidly approaching one,” the official told reporters during a briefing at NATO headquarters. “And it's quite a thing to say when you consider the disparity in strength when this fight began.”
US officials: Shipments of new security assistance have started, but not yet arrived in Ukraine
From CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Ellie Kaufman:
Shipments of the $800 million in new security assistance that the US is sending to Ukraine have started, but have not yet arrived in Ukraine, according to multiple officials.
US President Joe Biden announced the new aid package last week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an impassioned plea to Congress for more help.
“We’re still fleshing all of that out, but it will arrive, we believe it will arrive very, very soon, or at least the initial shipments will start to arrive soon, but nothing has been actualized on that yet,” a senior defense official told reporters Monday.
Another administration official told CNN the plan was for equipment to begin being shipped this weekend so deliveries should begin in the next few days.
“Shipments have certainly begun,” the official noted, just not the actual arrival of the aid.
These shipments will be critical to the Ukrainian defense against the Russian onslaught and will include 100 armed drones for the first time.
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