Russia’s audacious invasion of Ukraine is proceeding as planned and peace talks have reached a “dead end,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.
Putin, speaking at a joint press conference with ally Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, accused Ukraine of violating agreements made during talks in Istanbul. He once again dismissed images of bodies strewn in Bucha and other cities as staged by Ukraine and said Russia’s total focus is on supporting separatists in the eastern Donbas region.
The war will “continue until its full completion and the fulfillment of the tasks that have been set,” Putin said. He said Russia was forced to invade Ukraine to protect ethnic Russians in the separatists territories of the Donbas region.
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, took issue with Putin’s claims on Twitter: “Russia claimed their goal in is to ‘protect people in Donbas.’ Right now mobile crematoria are burning people’s bodies in #Mariupol, the second largest city of the region. Those who survived are dying from starvation. What are you ‘protecting’ them from? From life?”
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Latest developments
►The British Defense Ministry says Russia will likely be ramping up attacks on eastern Ukraine over the next 2-3 weeks. Retired British Gen. Sir Richard Barrons estimated the Russians have probably lost about 25% of the forces they brought to Ukraine. “They’ve had a beating, and they will have only a few weeks to get better,” Barrons said.
►Germany’s president says he wanted to visit Ukraine but “apparently wasn’t wanted in Kyiv.” The German newspaper Bild quoted an unidentified Ukrainian diplomat as saying President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is not welcome because of his close relations with Russia in the past.
►A planned cyberattack by Russian military hackers on the power grid has been foiled, Ukrainian authorities said.
►The World Trade Organization revised its 2022 trade forecast downward to 3% growth from 4.7%, saying the war and continued COVID-19 lockdowns are weighing on world trade.
US calls reports of chemical weapons use ‘deeply concerning’
Global concerns that Russia will resort to chemical weapons in Ukraine were rising Tuesday after a spokesman for a separatist group suggested to a Russian TV audience that separatists may use chemicals against Ukrainian soldiers holed up at a giant steel factory in Mariupol “to smoke them out of there.”
Eduard Basurin, who said 80% of the port city had been “liberated” by Russian-backed separatists, was later quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying those forces “haven’t used any chemical weapons in Mariupol.” The comment came after a Ukrainian unit defending Mariupol claimed without providing evidence that a drone had dropped a poisonous substance on its positions.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said officials were working to “urgently” investigate what she called “a callous escalation” of the war. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called the reports of chemical weapons use “deeply concerning” but could not confirm whether they’re accurate.
A Pentagon official said efforts to determine whether a chemical weapon was used are hindered by access to the area and the difficulty of speaking with medical personnel or survivors. There was no evidence of a large plume of chemicals or widespread injuries from chemicals, the official said. However, the Russians have a history of using chemical weapons, and they have disguised more serious chemicals attacks by adding them to riot-control agents like tear gas, the official said.
Russian convoy rolls toward strategic Ukraine city
A massive Russian resupply convoy in eastern Ukraine that could be crucial to the invasion effort continues to make slow progress toward the strategic town of Izyum, a senior Defense official said…