Putin announces victory in Mariupol

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol “liberated” after nearly two months of fighting, despite the fact that Russian forces have been unable to penetrate the city’s largest austere steel plant, which remains in the hands of Ukrainian militants and civilians. .

Instead of besieging the plant, Putin ordered the facility to be locked, sealing it “so that not even a fly can fly,” which visitors believe would save the lives of Russian soldiers and starve those inside the plant. .

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say evidence has emerged that there were mass graves outside Mariupol. Photographs by Maxar Technologies, an American satellite imaging company, show images of at least 200 new cemeteries in Manhush.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the World Bank on Thursday that his country needed up to $ 7 billion a month in support and would need hundreds of billions to recover from the Russian invasion.

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden approved an additional $ 800 million in US military aid to Ukraine, announcing the need to assist forces in Kiev in defeating Russian fighters in key battles in the eastern part of the country.

“The package includes heavy artillery, dozens of howitzers and 144,000 rounds of ammunition,” Biden said in a brief statement at the White House. He said the new warship was aimed specifically at helping Ukrainian forces fight in the flat Donbass region. The western part is more open land than the place where the fighting took place earlier.

Biden said the new aid, in addition to another $ 800 million package announced last week, had “almost” exhausted congressional approval for US military aid to Ukraine. But the president said he would soon ask Congress for more money for Ukrainian forces.

Biden said the United States and its Western allies were committed to helping Ukraine fight the eight-week invasion of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Biden said that “keeping the world united is the most important thing” against Russia. “Very good so far.”

Biden vowed that Putin would “never succeed in occupying the whole of Ukraine.” Putin did not achieve his ambitions on the battlefield. kyiv still stands, ”the president said.

New aid for refugees

Among other war-related activities, Biden said, was sending $ 500 million in new economic aid to Ukraine, streamlining the humanitarian effort for refugees, and allowing Ukrainians to move quickly to the United States if they wished to escape the ravages of war at home. It banned all Russian ships from stopping at US ports.

Earlier on Thursday, Putin ordered his forces not to attack a steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where the last remaining Ukrainian troops are concentrated in a port on the north coast of the Sea of ​​Azov.

In a televised meeting, Putin told Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that Russian forces should besiege the plant “to prevent a fly from moving” and that furthering the plan to attack the site would unnecessarily endanger the plant. Russian troops.

Shoiku told Putin that there were 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers at the Azovstale plant, but that the rest of the main port city of Mariupol had been “liberated”.

“There is no evidence that Mariupol fell,” Biden said, but for several weeks the Russian bombing leveled much of the city.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vareshchuk has called on Russia to allow the evacuation of wounded civilians and soldiers from the plant by humanitarian means.

“There are about 1,000 civilians and 500 wounded soldiers. All of them must be evacuated from Azovstal today,” Vareshchuk said in an online post on Thursday.

Vareshchuk said four buses were able to evacuate civilians from Mariupol on Wednesday.

More than 100,000 Ukrainians are believed to be trapped in Mariupol, where 400,000 people lived before Russia invaded the country on February 24.

At a diplomatic conference in Panama on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blingen said, “The situation there is really dire.” He stressed that efforts by humanitarian corridors to allow Mariupol residents to escape had “collapsed too quickly”.

The fight for Mariupol was part of a broader Russian offensive in the Donbass region, where Moscow is increasing its military presence.

“Moscow’s current goal is to expand its control in the east and south. Ideally, they want to capture Kharkiv and Odessa, ”John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine, told VOA. “But those are tough orders. They may have to settle like Mario.

On March 25, following the losses in northern Ukraine, Moscow announced a major shift in strategy and withdrew troops from the north, including the suburbs of the capital, to consolidate military gains in the Donbass and establish a ground bridge to the Crimean peninsula. He captured in 2014.

Analysts say that if Russian forces gain full control of the Donbass, their diplomats will have a stronger hand in peace talks and be in a better position to demand autonomy for the region.

“But just because (Putin) made great strides in the East and South and agreed to a deal that would limit his new gains does not mean he will be satisfied,” Herbst said.

U.S. Defense Department analysts say the war in the Donbass region, which has been fighting since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, will continue for months.

The United States on Wednesday imposed new sanctions on dozens of individuals and companies accused of evading sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

“The Treasury Department has banned more than 40 individuals and companies that are part of the Russian embargo evasion network run by Transkapitalbank, a leading Russian commercial bank that has provided services to banks around the world to avoid international sanctions, and the Russian oligarchy Constantin Malofiev. .

Zaki said Washington had also imposed sanctions on companies in Russia’s virtual currency mining sector and imposed visa restrictions on more than 600 people in response to human rights abuses in Russia and Belarus.

[Parte de la información para este informe proviene de The Associated Press y Reuters.]

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