(PHILADELPHIA) — Philadelphia Police on Tuesday said they arrested Gary Cabana, 60, the suspect in a stabbing inside New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, after he was found sleeping at a Greyhound bus station.
Surveillance video released by police Sunday shows the suspect who stabbed two employees inside New York City’s Museum of Modern Art leaping over a counter near the entrance with a knife in hand and proceeding to attack the workers.
The New York Police Department on Sunday identified Cabana as the suspect, saying he allegedly committed the double stabbing a day after his membership to the museum was revoked.
Security video from inside the museum shows a man wearing a dark-hooded jacket and a mask coming through the building’s glass revolving door, charging toward the reception desk with a knife in his right hand and hopping over the counter to attack the employees.
The episode unfolded around 4:15 p.m. when the suspect was denied entry to the world-renowned museum.
A female employee was stabbed in the lower back and neck and a male employee in the left collarbone, the New York Police Department said. The victims, both 24 years old, were taken to Bellevue Hospital and listed in stable condition, according to police.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller told reporters a letter was sent to the suspect revoking his membership on Friday.
“He’s known to employees here,” Miller told reporters at a news conference Saturday.
It is not believed to be a random attack, he said.
Miller said the suspect’s membership was revoked due to two recent incidents of disorderly conduct, but didn’t provide more information.
He also said the suspect was connected to two other incidents in the midtown area.
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams, said the mayor is monitoring the situation, adding that the incident is isolated.
“Neither victim is suffering from life-threatening injuries at this time,” he tweeted.
The museum was closed on Sunday.
MoMA, which opened in 1929, is one of the most popular museums in New York City. It is located on 53rd Street in the heart of midtown Manhattan.
(NEW YORK) — In the Ukraine conflict, reports of civilian casualties have dominated the headlines as Russian troops siege cities around the country.
Civilian buildings have been hit by Russian forces, with hospitals and residential buildings shelled, causing thousands of civilian casualties and massive human suffering.
Russia has denied they are deliberately targeting civilians and insisted in some cases that enemy fighters were hiding within the buildings.
Russia is also reported to have used unguided “dumb” bombs in Ukraine, which greatly increase the risk of missing targets and hitting civilian infrastructure.
Many countries, including the United States, along with independent monitors, like Amnesty International, have condemned Russia’s actions.
“We’ve all seen the devastating images coming out of Ukraine and are appalled by Russia’s brutal tactics,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said Friday. “Pregnant women on stretchers, apartment buildings — buildings shelled, families killed while seeking safety from this terrible violence. These are disgusting attacks; civilian casualties are increasing. If Russia is intentionally targeting civilians, that would be a war crime.”
But whether or not these attacks constitute war crimes has been debated. U.S. officials and the United Nations have been more reserved, saying legal assessments must be done, but Ukrainian officials have clearly condemned Russia’s attacks as violations of international humanitarian law.
Making matters murkier is the issue of civilians taking up arms to resist the Russian advance and the fact that the front lines often disappear in the realm of urban warfare.
Here’s what you need to know about the laws of war pertaining to civilians:
Civilians off limits, except when they take up arms
In an armed conflict, countries are not allowed to deliberately target or indiscriminately attack civilians, the civilian population or civilian properties, according to the rules of international humanitarian law, or IHL.
IHL covers the rules of war, specifying what parties can and can’t do during an armed conflict. The Geneva Conventions, four treaties adopted in 1949 and signed by 196 countries, are the core of IHL, according to the humanitarian organization International Committee of the Red Cross. Additional protocols were later adopted in 1977 and 2005. The conventions and protocols regulate the conduct of armed conflict and seek to minimize its effects.
Russia signed Protocol 1 in 1977, but Russian leader Vladimir Putin revoked Russia’s acceptance in October 2019, citing potential abuse of a commission set up to investigate war crimes.
But the protections for civilians who participate in an armed conflict by taking up arms are different, Allen Weiner, the director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law, told ABC News.
“The rule is that civilians can be targeted, but only for such time as they are directly taking part in hostilities. So while a civilian is shooting at you, they become a permissible target. When they go back home, they cease to be permissible target under the law of armed conflict,” Weiner said.
Principles of distinction, proportionality, precautions
Under the Geneva Conventions, signatory states must abide by the IHL principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions during an armed conflict.
Distinction requires all sides to distinguish between civilian populations and combatants at all times, including distinguishing between civilian and military infrastructures, according to the ICRC.
This distinction is important, as the rules of war forbid countries from launching attacks on civilians and civilian objects or even launching indiscriminate attacks that hit military targets and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
“Essential infrastructure must be spared, including water, gas and electrical systems that, for instance, provide civilian homes, schools and medical facilities with vital water and electricity supplies,” the ICRC told ABC News.
Russia, for instance, has captured the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants and attacked at least 26 health care facilities, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, said last week. Russia has also hit other gas and electric infrastructure.
“There’s not really different tiers of immunity; civilian objects are immune, period. So a civilian house is immune, a school is immune and a hospital is immune. And there’s really only one degree of immunity, which is, it can’t be targeted,” Weiner said.
The ICRC said that the use of “weapons with wide area effects must be avoided in populated areas” and that “attacks carried out with new technologies and cyber means must also respect international humanitarian law.”
The Russian army has been accused of using cluster bombs by Ukraine, including at Central City Hospital in Vuhledar on Feb. 24, reports the Office of the OHCHR called “credible.”
Proportionality prohibits states from launching attacks against military targets if the attack is expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects. Attacks may only be launched against a military objective if the potential civilian losses are not expected to outweigh the foreseen military advantage, according to the ICRC.
Parties to a conflict must “at all times take action to minimize civilian harm,” Cordula Droege, the chief legal officer for the ICRC, told ABC News in an interview.
In a conflict, countries are required to take constant precautions to spare civilians and their objects, which includes doing everything possible to verify that targets are military objects and giving advance warning of attacks that may affect the civilian population when possible, according to the ICRC.
“Civilians should be spared,” Droege said.
Consequences
There are consequences for breaking the rules of war. War crimes are documented and investigated by governments and international courts, such as the International Criminal Court. Individuals can also be prosecuted for war crimes, according to the ICRC.
Russia has been accused of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructures during its invasion of Ukraine, which is considered illegal under international law. Russia has denied the accusations and in some cases claimed enemy fighters were hiding behind civilians and in civilian buildings.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of hitting civilian targets in Ukraine, killing innocent people and destroying hospitals, schools and critical infrastructure such as running water, electricity and gas, all of which is protected under international law.
But while the U.S. has said it is documenting the incidents, officials have stopped short of saying Russia is guilty of war crimes.
“States are obligated to prosecute people who commit these crimes. … If the Russians are doing it, they have a legal obligation to prosecute their own,” Weiner said. “A lot of militaries do actually prosecute their own people if they violate the rules.”
The ICRC is “extremely worried about the protection of civilians” in Ukraine, Droege said.
“We are engaging all parties to the conflict on a bilateral and confidential dialogue to ensure they abide by their [IHL] obligations, including the respect of civilian objects, such as essential infrastructure, and, more broadly, all other IHL rules on the conduct of hostilities,” the ICRC said.
Even though Ukraine did not sign on to be a party to the International Criminal Court, it issued a declaration recognizing the jurisdiction of the court in 2015 — a year and a half after Russian forces first invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula and launching a separatist war in the eastern provinces Donetsk and Luhansk.
That declaration gives the ICC the ability to prosecute criminal cases in the country, while the Ukrainian government has also said it is collecting evidence to be able to prosecute Russian service members they capture who have violated IHL.
Theoretically, Weiner said, there could be a prosecution of Russian soldiers or even Russia civilians in command of the army, such as the head of state or minister of defense, in the case of “ordering or directing these violations of international humanitarian law.”
While Weiner said the evidence gathered will show what, if any, violations of international humanitarian law have occurred, one thing is clear to him.
“This is really unusual in terms of being one of the most flagrant violations that I have seen of the basic idea that one country can’t simply invade another and try to take its territory by force, or to replace its government,” Weiner said.
(NEW YORK) — The mayors of New York City and Washington, D.C., are offering a $70,000 reward in connection to deadly shootings involving people experiencing homelessness between the two cities.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the news in a rare joint press conference on Monday.
“Homelessness should not be a homicide,” Adams said. “This was a cold-blooded attack.”
Police are jointly investigating the shootings of five homeless people across both cities that they said may have been committed by the same suspect.
Because of similarities in “the modus operandi of the perpetrator, common circumstances involved in each shooting, circumstances of the victims and recovered evidence,” both police departments in New York City and Washington D.C., will jointly investigate the shootings with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, they said in a Sunday news release.
The first shootings occurred in Washington on March 3, 8 and 9. The victim found on March 9 was discovered by police when they were responding to a tent fire in the city’s northeast. He succumbed to stab and gunshot wounds, according to an autopsy.
The two shootings in New York occurred on March 12. One victim was injured and another was killed, according to the joint news release.
NYPD Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and MPD Chief Robert J. Contee III said in the news release that they are committed to safety for homeless individuals and to finding the suspect in the shootings.
“Our homeless population is one of our most vulnerable and an individual praying on them as they sleep is an exceptionally heinous crime,” Sewell said in a statement.
“We are committed to sharing every investigative path, clue and piece of evidence with our law enforcement partners to bring this investigation to a swift conclusion and the individual behind these vicious crimes to justice,” Contee said.
Both communities “are heartbroken and disturbed by these heinous crimes in which an individual has been targeting some of our most vulnerable residents,” Adams and Bowser said in a statement on Sunday.
“It is heartbreaking and tragic to know that in addition to all the dangers that unsheltered residents face, we now have a cold-blooded killer on the loose, but we are certain that we will get the suspect off the street and into police custody,” they said.
The mayors said they spoke on Sunday about their cities working together on the investigation.
(NEW YORK) — Against all the odds, Meighen Lovelace pulled off a feat sure to impress any parent: convincing her adolescent girls to adore broccoli.
For Lovelace, a single mother of two in Eagle County, Colorado, it was a hard-fought, decades-long battle. Through mornings of at-home gardening, afternoons of hands-on chopping and evenings of homemade pizza baking, her girls came to love fresh vegetables. And even as budgets tightened during the pandemic — Lovelace said she was fired from her job waiting black-tie banquet tables at a Vail ski resort when the lifts shut down — she relied on school meals to ensure her daughters remained nourished and full.
But with universal free meal programs set to expire in June, Lovelace fears what the future holds. If that happens, she expects her grocery budget to double — something her current gig in a barbeque food truck will be hard-pressed to support. She anticipates relying on food banks to ensure there’s enough to go around.
“This isn’t forever but it is right now,” Lovelace said, “without school [meals], I don’t really know what right now is going to look like.”
Lovelace and her family are not alone.
In a move that took advocates by surprise, universal free school meal programs, initially introduced in March 2020 as the pandemic began, were not included in the $1.5 trillion spending bill passed by the Senate on Thursday night.
Should the programs be left to expire in June, an estimated 10 million children will lose access to free school lunches, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) told ABC News. And for families like Lovelace’s, losing school meals isn’t easy to replace. They’re often the healthiest and most consistent source of sustenance for children of families under financial pressure.
That’s why having school meals as a buffer against food insecurity is so important, Robert Harvey, president of FoodCorps — a nonprofit supporting healthy meals for over 150,000 students every year — told ABC News.
Food insecurity — which the USDA defines as “limited or uncertain access to adequate food” — plagued more than 11 million American children before the pandemic. “Adequate food” refers to the difference between a lunch with fruits, vegetables and milk to one with chips and a soda, Harvey said. Those numbers have only worsened during the pandemic: recent studies indicate that millions more children may go hungry every day.
The numbers only reinforce the importance of schools as sanctuaries for consistent and healthy eating habits, Harvey said.
Especially for families near the poverty line, not having “to think about providing five breakfast meals, five lunch meals, a snack, and a drink,” he said, that makes school meals “one of the stress-reducing, anxiety-reducing, financially-liberating benefits of public education in this country.”
Another issue with the expiration of universal meals? Stigma.
After the program expires, families will still be able to apply for reduced-price meals for their children, Robin Cogan, a school nurse in Camden, New Jersey, told ABC News. But lots of parents may be reluctant to apply. For example, for those with unsettled citizenship status — like many of the Honduran and Guatemalan families in her majority-minority district — “there’s distrust of any government system,” Cogan said.
“They really don’t want to leave a trail of who they are because they’re afraid they’ll be picked up,” she said.
Children may also fear using reduced-price meals that often constitute a scarlet letter, Ben Atkinson, nutrition services coordinator for the Auburn school district in Washington, told ABC News.
“Kids aren’t stupid,” he said. “They know who’s getting free lunch, who is paying cash, [and] who can afford to get an extra bag of chips from the vending machine.”
All of this matters because at the end of the day, Cogan said, hunger isn’t just about feeling full. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “multiple adverse health outcomes [are] strongly correlated with food insecurity” including brain function — which can lead to poorer academic achievement, mental illness and/or behavioral problems — and chronic illnesses like diabetes that already afflict hundreds of thousands of American kids.
Lovelace fears these challenges for her daughters if Congress doesn’t renew universal school meals.
Democrats said they are still pushing to extend the program, at least through the 2022-23 school year. But the degree to which the Biden administration is on board for the estimated $11 billion program remains unclear.
According to one congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the administration requested an extension of the USDA program last January. But the department has declined to answer questions about that request. Now that the spending bill has come and gone, advocates are holding out hope that extensions to school meals will be tacked on to another bill in the pipeline, like one expected to pay for more COVID testing and vaccines.
In the meantime, parents like Lovelace are watching nervously from the sidelines.
“Access to food is sacred,” she said, “let’s not fight about it — let’s just feed our kids.”
“It’s the one thing Congress shouldn’t be squabbling over,” she added.
(NEW YORK) — Yurii Panchenko, who fled Ukraine with his wife and only daughter hours after the first Russian missile exploded near his house, has begun raising funds through his Ukrainian mountain bike business, offering tours in and around Kyiv via Airbnb.
There are no actual tours taking place, as Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, continues to face indiscriminate missile strikes and shelling by the Russian military. But money, which will be used to support the Ukrainian defense, keeps flowing into Panchenko’s account.
“People from all over the world have booked tours for several months ahead just to support us,” Panchenko said, adding, “Except for Russians. We haven’t had bookings from there yet.”
Before the war, Panchenko’s tours were called “Mountain Biking In Kyiv” and the business had about one request per week. He renamed them “Support Ukrainian Army Mountain Bike Tours in Kyiv” and demand flew off the charts. The idea came a few days ago, with a booking request for a bike tour on a day when bombs were falling on the Ukrainian capital.
“First, I didn’t understand. Then I read a note from the customer, where they said they didn’t want to take the tour and they just wanted to support us,” Panchenko, who’s now living with his family in Vienna, Austria, said.
Since then, he’s had more than 500 tours booked, raising more than $15,000, despite dropping his prices to make the symbolic adventure more affordable.
Panchenko is one of many Airbnb hosts in Ukraine using the platform to raise money. More than 14,300 Airbnb Experiences were booked in Ukraine in the week prior to March 9, the company told ABC News.
Hosts received about $360,000 in the same time period, the company said. Airbnb earlier this month announced it was temporarily waiving guest and host fees for bookings in Ukraine.
“We are so humbled by the inspiring generosity of our community during this moment of crisis,” said Haven Thorn, a company spokesperson.
While there’s no way to know how recipients use the donations, Airbnb said it’s “actively evaluating” the listings in Ukraine to “detect and deter fraudulent activity.”
“The vast majority or most of our hosts are everyday people sharing the home in which they live,” Thorn said. “People considering booking to donate can also look at a Host’s profile to see how many listings they have and check the history of reviews on the listing to see how long the listing has been active.”
The bike mechanic from Kyiv said he has used the money to buy fuel and medicine in support of evacuation efforts in Ukraine. He said he also purchased a special thermal camera worth about $1,700 for one of Ukraine’s elite military units.
“We are also planning to send the troops other special devices, body armours and helmets,” Panchenko added.
Panchenko said his family has barely anything to spare, yet they’re not planning to keep any of the Airbnb proceeds for their personal use. They fled to Vienna through Romania on a four-day ride, having packed a single bag of clothes and essentials while carrying less than a thousand dollars. They managed to find free temporary accommodation and support in the Austrian capital, where Panchenko now works as a bike mechanic in a repair shop.
“We’ll be here for at least three weeks. We’re faring much better than other families who are still stuck in Ukraine. We’re trying to help those in need as much as we can,” Panchenko said.
Panchenko’s family home is near the city airport in Kyiv, but when the first Russian cruise missiles hit dangerously close, they were gone in 15 minutes, he said. They hopped into their car and headed off early in the morning.
“We were actually ready for something like this to happen and had some essentials pre-packed. But we never expected ballistic missiles to be raining down on us,” Panchenko said.
He managed to escape with his family before Ukraine banned all men aged 18-60 from leaving the country and started conscripting them into the military.
“I am not a military man and I knew I could be useful from elsewhere, like sending help from abroad,” Panchenko said.
Panchenko said his family has no discernible plan for the future.
“We’re currently living in the moment. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us next week,” Panchenko said.
He wants to return to Ukraine with his family once the war is over and rebuild his life, he said.
“But if they’ll need me to go back and fight, I’ll be ready,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.”
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance, coming within about 9 miles as of Friday.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 15, 5:51 am
Residents protest in Russian-occupied cities: UK military
Residents of Kherson, Melitopol and Berdyansk, cities occupied by Russian forces, have held “multiple” demonstrations protesting the occupation, the U.K. Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.
Protests in Kherson came as Russia may be making plans for a “referendum” to legitimize the region as a Russian-backed “breakaway republic,” similar to Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea, the Ministry said.
“Further protests were reported in the city yesterday with Russian forces reportedly firing warning shots in an attempt to disperse peaceful protesters,” the Ministry said.
Russia is likely to “make further attempts to subvert Ukrainian democracy,” the update said.
“Russia has reportedly installed its own mayor in Melitopol following the alleged abduction of his predecessor on Friday 11 March,” the update said. “Subsequently, the Mayor of Dniprorudne has also reportedly been abducted by Russian forces.”
Mar 14, 9:56 pm
Latest talks with Russia went ‘pretty good,’ will continue tomorrow, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy updated the status of negotiations with Russia in his latest address Monday, saying the latest talks went “pretty good” and will continue tomorrow.
Zelenskyy also addressed Russian troops, telling them they would be treated “decently” should they surrender.
“On behalf of the Ukrainian people, I give you a chance — chance to survive,” Zelenskyy said. “You surrender to our forces, we will treat you the way people are supposed to be treated. As people, decently.”
Zelenskyy also thanked the producer at a Russian state news channel who appeared on camera behind an anchor and held up an anti-war sign. She was later arrested.
“I am grateful to those Russians who do not stop trying to convey the truth,” he said. “To those who fight disinformation and tell the truth, real facts to their friends and loved ones. And personally to the woman who entered the studio of Channel One with a poster against the war.”
(NEW YORK) — Nearly three million refugees have fled Ukraine since war erupted on Feb. 24. Among them is Hassan Al-Khalaf, an 11-year-old boy from Zaporizhzhia, a southern Ukrainian city along the Dnipro River where Russia has taken control of a nuclear power plant.
Hassan is one of the estimated one million children who have made the dangerous journey out of the war-torn country.
“Reports from the border suggest that some children are arriving unaccompanied after being sent by family members who were unable to leave Ukraine but wanted their children to be safe from ground attack and aerial explosions,” the charity Save the Children said in a release. “Others have been separated from their families in the chaos of fleeing their homes. Many of the solo arrivals are under 14 and showing signs of psychological distress.”
The boy arrived in Slovakia by train and foot, traveling over 620 miles west. The 11-year-old brought with him only a plastic bag with his belongings, including his passport. A phone number was written on his hand.
Border guards in Slovakia and volunteers banded together to help Hassan during his harrowing trek, using the phone number to help reunite the boy with his older siblings including his brother, who has been studying in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava.
Hassan’s mother, Pisecka Yulia Volodymyrivna, a widow, made the heartbreaking decision to send her 11-year-old out of Ukraine for his safety and stayed behind to care for her 84-year-old mother, who is unable to walk.
In a video statement, Volodymyrivna thanked the border guards and volunteers in Slovakia, saying in part, “Border guards met him, they guided him holding his hand. They helped him to cross the border and let him to the other side of Slovakia. Then Slovakian volunteers met him. They fed my child. They took him to Bratislava. I thank you very much for saving my son’s life.”
“I can’t leave my mother, who is 84 years old and who can’t walk on her own. That is why I put my son on a train to the Slovakia border where he was met by people with big hearts,” she continued. “There are people with big hearts in your small country. Please, save our children. Please protect our Ukrainian children.”
(NEW YORK) — After a weekend of cold temperatures, snowstorms and heavy winds on the East Coast, a new storm is making its way to the South.
Southern states such as Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana should be on alert for severe thunderstorms where damaging winds, hail and a few tornadoes will be possible. This storm will move across the South in the next few days with heavy rain causing a threat for more severe weather.
Meanwhile in the West, several storms will continue to move through the area with heavy rains ranging from Washington to Northern California. The San Francisco bay area may get much-needed rain Monday night into Tuesday morning.
In the Pacific Northwest, heavy snow is expected in parts of the Washington area and a few inches coming to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Ahead of the western storms, wildfires are being fueled by the wind and dry weather from Southern California to Texas.
More than 100 firefighters were battling a brush fire Sunday night from the air and the ground in the Hansen Dam Recreation Area, near Pacoima, California.. The fire escalated to “Major Emergency” status within the 10 p.m. hour.
Just after 11 p.m., crews appeared to get the upper hand with “a well coordinated air attack combined with a relentless ground-based offense with firefighting hand lines and hand tools,” according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Firefighters contained the Hansen Fire to four acres, according to officials. Crews will continue working the fire’s perimeter with hose lines, hand tools, and heavy equipment throughout the night to extinguish hot spots.
There are no structures threatened at this time, and no injuries have been reported. Officials said there are currently no evacuations.
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s efforts to resist.
Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Monday:
Fallout from deadly airstrike near Polish border
On Sunday, Russian long-range bombers launched “more than a couple dozen” cruise missiles at a western Ukrainian training facility near Yavoriv, about 10 miles from the Polish border. All of the missiles were launched from Russian airspace, damaging at least seven buildings, according to the official.
The attack left at least 35 dead and 134 wounded, according to Ukrainian officials.
Russia also hit two airfields in western Ukraine on Friday in the towns of Lutsk and Ivano-Frankovsk.
During a Monday press briefing at the Pentagon, press secretary John Kirby said the strikes in western Ukraine are part of a broadening Russian assault across Ukraine.
“I wouldn’t think that that we would consider this or the other strikes in western Ukraine as some sort of turning point,” Kirby said, but adding, “The Russians clearly are expanding some of their targets sets.”
“If Mr. Putin was trying to signal his displeasure about a strong, united NATO with this war of his then he’s failed, because he’s getting exactly what he says he doesn’t want — a strong, united NATO on his Western flank,” Kirby said.
While there were 150 Florida National Guardsmen training Ukrainians on part of the base as recently as February, all U.S. troops and contractors were pulled from the country before the beginning of the invasion.
The strike occurred after the Kremlin claimed arms shipments to Ukraine are “legitimate targets,” but the U.S. official said no security assistance sites were hit in this case.
Kirby confirmed the training center was not being used to funnel U.S. weapons to Ukrainian forces.
“I would just tell you that we have multiple routes to get security assistance into the hands of the Ukrainians,” Kirby said.
In total, Russia has now launched more than 900 missiles against Ukraine, according to the senior U.S. defense official. This estimate is up from 810 on Friday.
Reports of Russia seeking military supplies from China
“I would just say that we’re going to watch that very, very closely. And as others in the administration have said, if China does choose to materially support Russia in this war, there will likely be consequences for China,” the official said.
Cease-fire talks
“We want to see the violence stop,” the official said. “All I can do is tell you what we’re seeing on the ground, and what we’re seeing on the ground is a continued military effort to subdue these population centers and to do it now with ever more violence using more and more long-range fires, which are increasingly indiscriminate in terms of what they’re hitting.”
Russian advance mostly stalled
“Almost all of Russia’s advances remain stalled,” the official said.
Kyiv: The Russians closest to Kyiv are still near Hostomel Airport to the northwest, about 9 miles (15km) from city center. Some troops are moving in behind those advance forces, “but not at a great pace,” the official said.
The forces approaching from the east are still about 12-19 miles from the heart of Kyiv, according to the official. This was the same estimate given by the official on Friday.
“No real progress to speak to,” the official said of these forces.
They’re facing heavy resistance from the Ukrainians. The U.S. assesses the defenders still have control of Brovary, just east of the capital, where in videos published last week we saw a column of Russian tanks hit.
Kharkiv: Significant fighting continues over Kharkiv, with Russians relying more and more on long-range missile attacks.
The U.S. sees a new line of advance with 50 to 60 vehicles moving from the southwest of Kharkiv down toward the town of Izyum.
“The assessment is that they are trying to block off the Donbass area and to prevent the flow westward of any Ukrainian armed forces that would be in the in the eastern part of the country, prevent them from coming to the assistance of other Ukrainian defenders near Kyiv,” the official said.
Mariupol: The city remains isolated and under heavy bombardment, with Russian forces to the north and east. Ukrainians continue to fight back, the official said.
Mykolayiv: Russian forces remain roughly where they were Friday, about six to nine miles northeast of the city. Ukrainians continue to resist.
It is unclear what the Russian plan is for Mykolayiv.
“It could be a left turn to move on Odessa from the ground or it could be they go north up towards Kiev,” the official said.
Odessa: The Pentagon still sees no sign of any looming amphibious assault on Odessa, according to the official.
Ukrainians going after Russian supplies
“The Ukrainians, as we’ve said all along, they’ve been quite creative here. They’re not simply going after combat capability — tanks and armored vehicles and shooting down aircraft — although they’re doing all that. They are also deliberately trying to impede and prevent the Russians’ ability to sustain themselves,” the official said, citing the long Russian convoy as one example.
(NEW YORK) — A Fox News correspondent was injured in Ukraine, a day after the death of a freelance journalist also covering the Russia invasion.
Fox News State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured while newsgathering near Kyiv on Monday, according to Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media.
The circumstances were not immediately clear but Hall was hospitalized, according to Scott, who asked to “please keep Ben and his family in your prayers.” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby also confirmed he was injured.
Shaun Tandon, president of the State Department Correspondents’ Association, said in a statement, “We know Ben for his warmth, good humor and utmost professionalism. We wish Ben a quick recovery and call for utmost efforts to protect journalists who are providing an invaluable service through their coverage in Ukraine.”
Hall’s injury follows the Sunday death of freelance journalist Brent Renaud, which was confirmed by the U.S. State Department. Renaud was in Ukraine to cover the global refugee crisis for a documentary with Sugar23, Time Studios and Day Zero Productions, according to Sugar23.
“As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Brent tackled the toughest stories around the world often alongside his brother Craig Renaud,” Time editor-in-chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal and president and COO of Time and Time Studios Ian Orefice said in a statement. “In recent weeks, Brent was in the region working on a TIME Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis. Our hearts are with all of Brent’s loved ones.”
Photojournalist Juan Arredondo said he was with Renaud when he was killed.
In a video from a hospital bed, Arredondo said, “We crossed the first bridge in Irpin; we were going to film other refugees leaving and we got to a car, somebody offered to take us to the other bridge and we crossed a checkpoint and they started shooting at us. So, the driver turned around and they kept shooting. It’s two of us, my friend is Brent Renaud, and he’s been shot and left behind.”
“This kind of attack is totally unacceptable, and is a violation of international law,” Carlos Martínez de la Serna, program director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement. “Russian forces in Ukraine must stop all violence against journalists and other civilians at once.”
“Two examples of the dangers in covering war,” Kirby, of the Pentagon, said of Hall and Renaud during a Monday press briefing. “This is a war that didn’t need to be fought, to be sure. But just as to be sure, there are journalists from around the world on the ground trying to discover the truth and to show that truth and to tell these important stories.”
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
