Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — As many Americans resume some sense of normalcy in daily life, a large sector of the population hit hard by the pandemic requires more assistance than ever and nonprofit groups are working tirelessly to deliver essential help for the increasing number of seniors in need.
Hundreds of thousands of older adults across the country struggled with hunger and isolation before COVID-19, and Meals on Wheels said it has doubled down its efforts to meet growing demand even as compounding issues of inflation, food costs and gas prices rock its channels of support and funds.
The Older Americans Act (OAA) Nutrition Programs, which celebrated 50 years this month, provides grants to states to help support nutrition services for people over the age of 60 throughout the country. Meals on Wheels President and CEO Ellie Hollander called it “foundational financial federal support” for its more than 5,000 community programs, but told Good Morning America why especially in the wake of the pandemic and up against new hurdles, it’s not enough.
“What people may not know is that Meals on Wheels is a public-private partnership, so the federal government provides approximately 40% of the seed funding — but we need individuals, we need corporations and foundations to step up to the plate to help fill that gap,” Hollander said. “Quite frankly, the funding has never been adequate to meet the growing demand, the increase in the senior population, not to mention inflation and, most recently, the cost of food and gasoline. Being that we do deliver the price of gas really does impact our operations.”
Hollander noted that Congress stepped up in the short term and delivered emergency funding to ensure seniors were not left behind during the pandemic, but said “the last amount of funding we got was a year ago in March 2021.”
“Congress finally passed the appropriations bills for 2022 and we were expecting, given the huge surge in need and more meals being served to more seniors, that both the House and Senate would approve a large increase in spending,” she explained. “However, Congress only approved a 1.5% increase — which is completely inadequate and we’re very concerned about a services cliff nationwide.”
As of 2022, eight out of 10 of the organization’s more than 5,000 local programs serve more home-delivered meals than they did prior to March 2020, Meals on Wheels reported in a recent fact sheet.
“The pandemic, I think, really created a lot of hardships for seniors and threw a whole new pipeline of older adults into homebound status,” Hollander said. “Our programs at the local level have been stepping up building capacity on a regular basis, not really knowing where the funding is coming from, but wanting to be sure that no senior is left behind.”
Logistics amid pandemic, inflation, rising fuel costs and disruptions in food supply
Holly Hagler’s program in Orange County served 10,000 people a year prior to the pandemic — 90% of whom live below the senior poverty level — with a million home delivered meals and hot lunches for group settings in senior centers annually.
“We went from serving about 5,000 hot meals per week to serving 30,000 frozen meals, a week,” Hagler told GMA of the surge when the program converted to grab-and-go. “It’s a 600% increase so the cost of it all has just been huge. We were spending about $3 million annually on just the raw food costs and on packaging supplies for the food. And as a combination of both the increase in volume and inflation, we’re serving more than 5 million meals annually. For us, a 10% increase in food costs equals, an average impact of $400,000 or more a year. That equates to about 75,000 fewer meals that we can serve.”
“Older adults have been hit the hardest by COVID and now they are really getting hit extra hard,” she said, adding that “a lot of them can’t afford to come to the senior center everyday anymore to get a hot meal because they’re living on fixed income with health care costs, gasoline and food prices, and they’re concerned.”
She said her program’s fleet of trucks that hit the road daily have been slammed by the soaring gas prices in just the past few months.
“Our gasoline bill in January was $9,500 and now we’re expecting it to be $12,500 this month, maybe pushing $13,000,” Hagler said. “For us that annual impact is 9,000 meals. So everything boils down to how many fewer meals can we serve because of these rising prices.”
San Antonio Meals on Wheels CEO Vinsen Faris, who has been involved with the organization since 1988, told GMA that “optimism was growing coming into the spring after the very, very tough two years we’ve had. However, with rising gas prices suddenly everything is getting turned on its head again.”
“When you have an organization like this that relies on so many volunteers — to deliver meals using their own vehicles and their own fuel to see those prices going up at the pumps — we started hearing from volunteers and they’re concerned,” he said. “I had a lady this week in a Prius of all things, when I was greeting her in the pickup line and she said ‘I just don’t know about these prices.’ So it’s been tough. Now with the fuel costs rising we’re going to see additional cost pressure on the food products themselves, plus our cost of fuel here just in the delivery of meals that we undertake.”
Another large hurdle currently facing Hagler’s program is that “people working from home that volunteered have returned to the office.”
“A lot of cities stepped up huge in our area and put their recreation staff in vehicles delivering the meals that we provide. But they’re opening back up and called back into regular jobs, so we’re really at a critical point here because of inflation and challenges with staffing — I’ve never seen turnover like this in my entire career of 35 plus years.”
Another critical challenge Faris has faced in San Antonio amid the pandemic “has been the wonkiness of the food supply chain.”
“That has impacted the food products that we could get in here to prepare because sometimes it was just, ‘surprise that’s not coming in’ and we’re not going to get it,” he said. “The biggest problem has been the cost increase. Since the start of the pandemic our actual meal cost of increased about 20%,” he said of their program that operates its own kitchen and is in the process of completing a new 44,000 square foot facility slated to open in October. “We’re producing 50,000 meals a week — so it’s really high volume but the cost has put a strain on it.”
Bigger than food deliveries
One silver lining Faris has found from all of this is the spotlight the pandemic has put on isolation and the need to look out for seniors.
“We’ve actually increased the number of clients that we were serving pre pandemic by almost 80% and it’s that public support that has allowed us to do that,” he said of the now 4,500 meals served daily compared to 2,500 before the pandemic. “We are just now getting back to pre-pandemic levels of volunteers … we have more meals delivered here in San Antonio, Texas, by individual volunteers than we have ever had in our 40 plus year history.”
“With older adults it’s not just income, it’s isolation, which is probably the single greatest risk factor they have because they’re not connected to resources. It is lack of capacity, whether it’s their mobility, declining cognitive capacity or just losing interest in cooking,” Hagler explained. “We really need people to stand up for seniors.”
Faris echoed a similar sentiment adding that “the more we can shine the light on our older adults who are having challenges — I believe that the public is going to respond and do the right thing.”
“We have to pay it back, these are the people who made it possible for all of us to be here today. They were our teachers in school, they were our firemen. Whoever they were, doing whatever in the community, they made it all possible for us, so we need to be taking care of them,” he said.
How Americans can take action
Hollander said there are three main ways to support The Meals on Wheels America organization.
First, donations to a local program. “A little goes a long way. This is when individuals can truly be heroes too,” she said.
Second, offer to volunteer. “It doesn’t mean that you need to be delivering meals, it can be skilled volunteering. Making phone calls or writing cards to let seniors know that someone’s thinking of them. That made a big difference during the pandemic.”
Third, advocate. “Particularly with federal funding not keeping pace with need and the gap growing further between those in need and not being served it’s very important for people to step up and advocate for more funding for this critically important 50-year proven program.”
Hollander, who has been in her role for more than nine years shared what she calls “the best fact that says it all: we can provide a senior with Meals on Wheels for an entire year for the same cost as being in the hospital for one day or a nursing home for 10.”
(NEW YORK) — Political polarization in the U.S. was evident and intensifying long before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, two years ago.
Americans were already deeply divided about a multitude of issues, with differing opinions concerning healthcare, immigration, voting rights, gun reform and climate change, often leaving little room for collaboration across the aisle.
Polling shows that the emergence of the novel coronavirus in 2020 exacerbated the rift, pushing Americans further apart on key pandemic response efforts.
Surveys from Pew Research Center, last year, found that in the early months of the pandemic, about 6 in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents believed the virus was a major threat to the health of the U.S. population, compared to only a third of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents. That 26-point gap would ultimately grow to approximately 40 points by the fall, researchers found.
Over the last two years, few issues have been more divisive than the pandemic and related policies — from the raging debate over mask use, to the ongoing push to get Americans vaccinated.
Among all factors in the prevention of severe COVID-19 and death, vaccination has been key, experts say.
Unvaccinated Americans are several times more likely to be hospitalized and die and those living in rural areas, as well as conservatives and Republicans, were among the most hesitant to be vaccinated, according to a September 2021 ABC News/Washington Post poll. For unvaccinated Americans, the decision to not wear a mask or follow other restrictions, ultimately caused increased transmission, which in turn, resulted in more severe outcomes, experts suggest.
The end result is a gulf in COVID-19 death rates between red and blue states, one that is particularly amplified when examining the most and least vaccinated states.
“In the United States, COVID-19 has become a political issue, and people’s political beliefs strongly influence their behavior,” David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News. “Political divides in our thinking about COVID are much stronger than in many other countries.”
Though politicization of the virus likely played a significant role in the differing death rates, due to varying approaches to restrictions and vaccination efforts, experts say, a myriad of other issues also contributed, including access to adequate healthcare, and the disproportionate impact of the virus on communities of color.
Vaccination rates and receptivity to mitigation measures have also been influenced by factors including misinformation.
Cumulative death rates in red states 30% higher
It has been nearly a year since the COVID-19 vaccines became available to every American adult last April, after initially being offered to health workers and older populations, when supplies were still limited.
However, vaccination rates differ markedly between states that voted for former President Donald Trump, compared to those that voted for President Joe Biden, paralleling the partisan lines that have divided the country.
Data sourced from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the 10 states with the highest vaccination rates all voted for Biden in 2020, while nine of the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates voted for Trump. The lone exception was Georgia, which narrowly went for Biden by less than a quarter of a percentage point.
Further, cumulative death data from the C.D.C., from over the last 10 months, illustrates the implications of political polarization of the COVID-19 vaccines.
An ABC News analysis of federal data found that on average, the death rates in states that voted for Trump were more than 38% higher than in states that voted for Biden, post widespread vaccine availability.
In addition, in the 10 states with the lowest percentage of full vaccinations, death rates were almost twice as high as that of states with the highest vaccination rates, the analysis found.
Over the span of the last 10 months, in the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates, where between 50 and 54.5% of the total population had been fully vaccinated, there was an average of 153 COVID-19-related deaths per 100,000 residents.
In contrast, during the same time period, the 10 states and jurisdictions with the highest vaccination rates, which all voted for Biden, there was an average of about 82.2 related deaths per 100,000 residents. In all 10 states, about 75% of residents had been fully vaccinated.
Vaccination and mitigation ‘have become heavily partisan’
“There are a few reasons why we’re seeing such differences in death and vaccination rates. The obvious one is that both vaccinations and other forms of COVID-19 mitigation have become heavily partisan,” Seth Masket, a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, told ABC News.
According to experts, political polarization has led to different responses and attitudes with respect to the pandemic.
While in the early months of the pandemic, many Democratic governors strongly promoted stay-at-home orders, masking initiatives and other mitigation measures, Trump, and some Republican governors, sought to deemphasize the seriousness of the threat of the virus, prioritizing instead the economy and the value of independence, Dowdy argued.
“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” Trump said in late February 2020. “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
Trump later admitted to veteran journalist Bob Woodward that he had indeed tried to downplay the severity of the virus because he did not want to create panic.
“From early in the pandemic, following the rhetoric of then-President Trump, Republicans have consistently not been as concerned about the dangers of COVID-19, and they have been more skeptical of medical advice about preventing its spread,” Masket said. “Democratic leaders have consistently expressed more concern about the disease and Democratic voters have largely followed suit.”
Last fall, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that the increase in infections caused by the delta variant surge resulted in a jump in perceived risk of catching the virus, from 29% in late June to 47% in September. However, only 39% expressed worries about the consequences of infection.
Political partisanship influenced pandemic-related health decisions, beliefs and behavior, including “one’s attitude towards public health measures — like masking — became a signifier of political and cultural identity,” Adrian Bardon, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University explained.
While most states imposed restrictions on gatherings and businesses, issuing stay-at-home orders and masking mandates, in an effort to curb the spread of infections, a number of states moved to ease restrictions and masking requirements soon after the first wave abated in 2020.
Eleven states — all of which are led by Republican governors — never issued a statewide masking mandate.
These restrictions, along with the masks and vaccine mandates, had made a significant difference in protecting people from infections, Peter Jacobson, professor emeritus of health law and policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, told ABC News.
“In easing these restrictions earlier, more people were going to be exposed,” Jacobson said. “The blue states took this entire outbreak more seriously… You can’t underestimate the messages that were being sent to the public.”
Tens of millions of Americans remain unvaccinated
A November 2021 study published in the National Institute of Medicine’s National Library of Medicine, found that “politicization has undoubtedly contributed to hesitancy toward uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.”
The red and blue gap in COVID-19 vaccination totals was preceded and predicted by a red and blue gap in belief in the seriousness of the incipient pandemic, Bardon said.
Since the introduction of the vaccine drive, over 250 million Americans have received a shot — representing about 76.8% of the total population, according to federal data. However, despite concerted efforts to convince those most hesitant, 57 million eligible Americans over the age of five remain completely unvaccinated.
Despite the fact that the former President Trump created Operation Warp Speed, which developed COVID-19 vaccines at a record pace, and endorsed the use of the vaccine, alongside Republican allies like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a large swath of Americans have still refused the shots.
“The irony of course, is that the Trump administration was responsible for fighting for this pandemic funding, in fast-tracking the vaccine process that has really saved a lot of lives,” Jacobson said.
However, while Trump and some of his allies have encouraged vaccination, many still decried mandates.
According to polling from KFF, as of February 2022, just 56% of Republicans are vaccinated, as compared to 70% of Independents, and 92% of Democrats. In addition, a third of Republicans reported that they definitely would not get vaccinated.
Experts have stressed repeatedly that the global and domestic vaccination drive ultimately saved the lives of millions of people.
In the absence of a vaccination program, an analysis from the Commonwealth Fund found that there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.
Federal data also shows that in January, unvaccinated adults were nine times more likely to die of COVID-19, compared to vaccinated individuals, and six times more likely to require hospitalization.
Additionally, unvaccinated adults were about 21 times more likely to die of COVID-19 in January, and 12 times more likely to require hospitalization, compared to fully vaccinated and boosted adults.
Access and disparities also a persistent issue
Experts stress the importance of other factors at play, besides politics, to also explain the higher COVID-19 death toll in red states as compared to blue states.
“Democrats and Republicans tend to live in different kinds of areas. Republicans are more likely to live in more sparsely populated areas, where diseases may not spread as easily, but health facilities also tend to be farther away,” Masket said.
Lack of access to transportation, proper to pharmacies, all have major consequences for public health, Jacobson added.
“All relevant problems begin with access: access to treatment, access to pharmaceuticals. These issues were exacerbated in the pandemic,” Jacobson said. “People in some communities don’t even have transportation to [healthcare] facilities.”
According to ABC News’ analysis last summer of pharmacy locations across the country, there are 150 counties where there is no pharmacy, and nearly 4.8 million people live in a county where there’s only one pharmacy for every 10,000 residents or more.
Based on Census data, there are far fewer pharmacies per person — especially chain pharmacies — in rural parts of the country compared to urban areas.
In addition, the inequities, with respect to access, underscore the racial gap prevalent throughout the country, in both rural and urban areas, with more pharmacies in whiter and wealthier neighborhoods per person than in poorer, predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods.
Persisting disparities throughout the pandemic have also resulted in a higher likelihood of death from COVID-19 for Black and brown Americans.
According to federal data, adjusted for age and population, the likelihood of death because of COVID-19, for Black, Asian, Latino and Native American people is about one to two times higher, compared to White Americans.
Although some minority communities initially lagged behind in the nation’s vaccination efforts, the rates of Black and Brown Americans have significantly caught up proportionally to their respective populations.
However, Black and brown Americans are still behind in the national booster drive, with only 40.3% of eligible Hispanic/Latino Americans boosted, and 43.6% of eligible Black Americans boosted.
Comparatively, about 54.4% of White Americans have received their booster, while Asian Americans lead every race/ethnicity group, with 60% of the eligible population boosted.
Misinformation and distrust of science and government exacerbated by the pandemic
The pandemic has exacerbated an already deteriorating public trust in the scientific community, experts say.
“Science has unfortunately, always been politicized in the United States,” Dowdy said. “Many view scientists as being alarmist rather than rational. When scientists in the U.S. push for things like COVID-19 vaccination, this has also become a political — rather than objective — statement.”
In addition, confusion over inconsistent and shifting messages from the federal government further eroded trust in the management of the pandemic by health agencies, intensifying the divide.
“It’s concerning that the pandemic seemed to deepen the pre-existing gaps in confidence between Republicans and Democrats in our national health agencies,” said Thomas Wood, assistant professor of political science at The Ohio State University.
The C.D.C. has repeatedly defended itself against accusations of flip-flopping, as they updated their public health guidelines, throughout the pandemic.
The reality has been that the science behind COVID-19 is not black and white, but more often, gray, C.D.C. Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” earlier this month.
“Since my getting here what I said is, ‘we’re gonna lead with the science.’ The implication was that science was black and white, and in fact, in an ever-evolving virus, and a two-year-long pandemic, the science isn’t always black and white. It’s — it’s oftentimes shades of gray,” Walensky said.
Further, the barrage of misinformation, particularly in the first few months of the pandemic, and of denialism, added Jacobson, played a big role in abetting this lack of trust in science, as well as in government, in public institutions, and ultimately costs lives.
“A clear problem was people’s unwillingness to take precautions — the feeling that COVID-19 doesn’t exist,” Jacobson said.
A key question for officials to address will be how to repair the damage that has been done to public health, to the sciences, given the politicization of the pandemic, Jacobson explained.
The long-term implications for public health are, if not dire, certainly troublesome, he added.
“We are not going to be prepared for [the next pandemic], because the public isn’t prepared,” Jacobson concluded.
(WASHINGTON) — As soon as Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could authorize COVID-19 booster shots for Americans over 50 years old, two officials familiar with the matter told ABC News, though the fourth shots are likely to be only offered and not formally recommended.
The officials stressed that the details are still under discussion and could change in the next few days.
After FDA’s expected authorization early this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will give guidance on how to implement it in pharmacies and doctors offices around the country, as the process has gone throughout the pandemic.
The language from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to be that people over 50 may get a second booster shot, rather than should get a second booster shot, officials said.
In other words, the shots would be available for people to make individual decisions based on their health, risk tolerance and age. In the past, the CDC has used similar language to open up booster shots first to the most vulnerable and then to the general population.
FDA’s panel of experts will convene on April 6 to discuss the broader population and what population will need booster shots next, as well as the need for a variant-specific booster.
Officials weighing the decision are also considering that anyone who gets a booster this spring would likely get boosted again when they are recommended for the broader public later this year, potentially in the fall, according to another person familiar with the matter.
Pfizer and Moderna asked the FDA last week to authorize another booster dose — especially for elderly Americans, a group that tends to have weaker immune protection.
Pfizer asked the FDA to authorize fourth doses for people older than 65, while Moderna asked for authorization for everyone 18 and older.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
(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. Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Kyiv, as well as major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol. Russia also bombed western cities for the first time last week, targeting Lviv and a military base near the Poland border.
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 28, 7:00 am
Russian forces attempt to seize key highways, settlements
Russian forces on Monday morning were attempting to breach defenses from the northwest and east of Ukraine to seize key highways and settlements, which are held by Ukrainian troops, according to Ukrainian officials.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said that hypersonic missiles for the Russian military’s Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile system were being delivered to the Belarusian town of Kalinkovichi. Two of the latest strikes to hit Lutsk, a city in northwestern Ukraine, were launched from neighboring Belarus, according to Ukrainian officials.
Mar 28, 6:20 am
New round of talks could start Monday in Turkey
Ukraine and Russia have both said that a new round of peace negotiations with be held in person in Turkey at the start of this week, but it remains unclear whether the talks begin Monday or Tuesday.
One of the Ukrainian negotiators, David Arakhamia, has said the talks would be held Monday through Wednesday.
Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, has said the talks would start Tuesday.
Arakhamia said the decision to hold the negotiations in person was reached during the latest round of talks via video link, which are taking place everyday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Russian journalists that his country is ready to compromise on Moscow’s demand for neutral status, but wants meaningful security guarantees from Western countries. He said any peace deal is only possible if Russia withdraws all of its troops to areas occupied before the war began.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 6:16 am
Ukraine intel chief says Russia plans a ‘Korean scenario’
Russian President Vladimir Putin may be seeking to split Ukraine in two after failing to seize the capital, Kyiv, according to the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency.
Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said in a statement Sunday that Putin may now be pursuing a “Korean scenario” that would see Russian forces try to occupy the east and south of Ukraine since they no longer have the strength to “swallow the whole state.”
“After the failures near Kyiv and the impossibility to overthrow the central government in Ukraine, Putin is already changing his main direction of operations — to the south and east,” Budanov said. “There are grounds to suggest that he is considering the Korean scenario for Ukraine. That is to attempt to lay down a new line of contact between the non-occupied and occupied regions of our country. In fact, it’s an attempt to create in Ukraine a North and South Korea. Indeed, he definitely doesn’t have the strength to swallow the whole state.”
Budanov said he believes Putin still wants to open a land corridor between the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula and the other Russian-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine, which would mean the occupation of besieged Mariupol, a strategic port city in the southeast that has been under heavy Russian bombardment. But he said Ukraine’s continued counterattacks as well as resistance by local people in the occupied areas were disrupting Putin’s plans.
Budanov also predicted the start of guerrilla warfare that would make it impossible for Russia to hold territory.
“Soon the season of the total Ukrainian partisan safari will start,” he said. “Then for the Russians will remain only one relevant scenario — how to survive.”
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 5:07 am
Ukraine says no humanitarian corridors for Monday
Ukraine’s government announced for the first time in nearly three weeks that no humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians will be open on Monday due to concerns about possible “provocations” from Russian forces.
“Our intelligence has informed us of possible provocations from the side of the occupiers on the routes of the humanitarian corridors,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a statement on her official Telegram channel. “And so in interest of citizens’ safety today we are not opening humanitarian corridors.”
The Ukrainian government has been evacuating hundreds of thousands of civilians from cities and towns in the north, east and south of the country through established corridors. Officials have previously accused Russian forces of shelling some of the evacuation routes, despite agreeing to cease-fires.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 27, 5:17 pm
Zelenskyy outlines goals for peace agreement to Russian journalists
In his first interview with Russian journalists since his country was invaded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described some of Ukraine’s positions for ending the war.
During an interview with popular Russian independent news sites TV Rain and Meduza, Zelenskyy said any peace deal is only possible if Russia withdraws its troops to the territory occupied before the start of the invasion, meaning Crimea and the separatist-held areas of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said his main goals are “to maximally reduce the number of casualties (and) to shorten the length of this war.”
“The withdrawal of Russia to compromise territories — but that is everything (that) was before 24 February, before the assault. Let them return there,” Zelenskyy said. “I understand that to force Russia to completely liberate territory is impossible. That will lead to a third world war. I totally understand all that. And I say it: compromise. Return to where all this started and there we will try to resolve the question of Donbas, the difficult question of Donbas.”
Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is ready to discuss taking a position of “neutrality” and “non-nuclear status” with Russia, but wants security guarantees for his country in return.
He again said he would put the issue to a referendum in Ukraine and that any treaty would need to be ratified by “guarantor countries” — which other officials have suggested must include the United States.
Zelenskyy reiterated that no guarantor countries, such as the United Kingdom and Turkey, will sign any agreement while Russian troops remain on Ukrainian soil.
(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. Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Kyiv, as well as major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol. Russia also bombed western cities for the first time last week, targeting Lviv and a military base near the Poland border.
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 28, 7:33 am
Nightly curfew in Kyiv shifts back, shortens an hour
The nightly citywide curfew in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, has been shifted back and shortened by an hour.
Starting Monday night, the curfew will be from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time.
There has been a curfew in Kyiv every day since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24. The previous time frame was from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. local time.
-ABC News’ Julia Drozd and Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 7:00 am
Russian forces attempt to seize key highways, settlements
Russian forces on Monday morning were attempting to breach defenses from the northwest and east of Ukraine to seize key highways and settlements, which are held by Ukrainian troops, according to Ukrainian officials.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said that hypersonic missiles for the Russian military’s Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile system were being delivered to the Belarusian town of Kalinkovichi. Two of the latest strikes to hit Lutsk, a city in northwestern Ukraine, were launched from neighboring Belarus, according to Ukrainian officials.
Mar 28, 6:20 am
New round of talks could start Monday in Turkey
Ukraine and Russia have both said that a new round of peace negotiations with be held in person in Turkey at the start of this week, but it remains unclear whether the talks begin Monday or Tuesday.
One of the Ukrainian negotiators, David Arakhamia, has said the talks would be held Monday through Wednesday.
Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, has said the talks would start Tuesday.
Arakhamia said the decision to hold the negotiations in person was reached during the latest round of talks via video link, which are taking place everyday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Russian journalists that his country is ready to compromise on Moscow’s demand for neutral status, but wants meaningful security guarantees from Western countries. He said any peace deal is only possible if Russia withdraws all of its troops to areas occupied before the war began.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 6:16 am
Ukraine intel chief says Russia plans a ‘Korean scenario’
Russian President Vladimir Putin may be seeking to split Ukraine in two after failing to seize the capital, Kyiv, according to the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency.
Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said in a statement Sunday that Putin may now be pursuing a “Korean scenario” that would see Russian forces try to occupy the east and south of Ukraine since they no longer have the strength to “swallow the whole state.”
“After the failures near Kyiv and the impossibility to overthrow the central government in Ukraine, Putin is already changing his main direction of operations — to the south and east,” Budanov said. “There are grounds to suggest that he is considering the Korean scenario for Ukraine. That is to attempt to lay down a new line of contact between the non-occupied and occupied regions of our country. In fact, it’s an attempt to create in Ukraine a North and South Korea. Indeed, he definitely doesn’t have the strength to swallow the whole state.”
Budanov said he believes Putin still wants to open a land corridor between the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula and the other Russian-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine, which would mean the occupation of besieged Mariupol, a strategic port city in the southeast that has been under heavy Russian bombardment. But he said Ukraine’s continued counterattacks as well as resistance by local people in the occupied areas were disrupting Putin’s plans.
Budanov also predicted the start of guerrilla warfare that would make it impossible for Russia to hold territory.
“Soon the season of the total Ukrainian partisan safari will start,” he said. “Then for the Russians will remain only one relevant scenario — how to survive.”
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 5:07 am
Ukraine says no humanitarian corridors for Monday
Ukraine’s government announced for the first time in nearly three weeks that no humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians will be open on Monday due to concerns about possible “provocations” from Russian forces.
“Our intelligence has informed us of possible provocations from the side of the occupiers on the routes of the humanitarian corridors,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a statement on her official Telegram channel. “And so in interest of citizens’ safety today we are not opening humanitarian corridors.”
The Ukrainian government has been evacuating hundreds of thousands of civilians from cities and towns in the north, east and south of the country through established corridors. Officials have previously accused Russian forces of shelling some of the evacuation routes, despite agreeing to cease-fires.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 27, 5:17 pm
Zelenskyy outlines goals for peace agreement to Russian journalists
In his first interview with Russian journalists since his country was invaded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described some of Ukraine’s positions for ending the war.
During an interview with popular Russian independent news sites TV Rain and Meduza, Zelenskyy said any peace deal is only possible if Russia withdraws its troops to the territory occupied before the start of the invasion, meaning Crimea and the separatist-held areas of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said his main goals are “to maximally reduce the number of casualties (and) to shorten the length of this war.”
“The withdrawal of Russia to compromise territories — but that is everything (that) was before 24 February, before the assault. Let them return there,” Zelenskyy said. “I understand that to force Russia to completely liberate territory is impossible. That will lead to a third world war. I totally understand all that. And I say it: compromise. Return to where all this started and there we will try to resolve the question of Donbas, the difficult question of Donbas.”
Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is ready to discuss taking a position of “neutrality” and “non-nuclear status” with Russia, but wants security guarantees for his country in return.
He again said he would put the issue to a referendum in Ukraine and that any treaty would need to be ratified by “guarantor countries” — which other officials have suggested must include the United States.
Zelenskyy reiterated that no guarantor countries, such as the United Kingdom and Turkey, will sign any agreement while Russian troops remain on Ukrainian soil.
(INDIANAPOLIS) — For the first time in his life, 15-month-old Kendall Jurnakins is home.
The baby boy spent the first year of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit at Ascension St. Vincent Women’s Hospital in Indianapolis before being cleared for discharge on March 16.
Hospital staff gave the boy a joyous send-off, lining up for a cheer parade and applauding Kendall as he made his way home with his parents, Sparkle and Keith Jurnakins.
It was a long time coming for the boy and his mother, who were both so sick at one point that doctors worried they both might not make it.
Sparkle Jurnakins, 41, a mom of three, had to get an emergency cesarean section due to high blood pressure complicated by the fact that she also has diabetes and only one kidney.
So, on Dec. 11, 2020, Kendall Jurnakins was born at 25 weeks. He weighed just 15 ounces. His doctor estimated his chance of surviving at the time was close to 50-50.
“When he was born at 25 weeks and based on his weight, national data and international [data], his chance to survive was around like 50 to 60% … this is only survival, not survival with complication or long-term problems, but he actually beat some odds,” neonatologist Dr. Taha Ben Saad, who cared for Kendall, explained to Good Morning America.
Jurnakins told GMA she feared for her baby’s life at the time. “I just was scared my baby wasn’t gonna make it because they said at that small, he probably wasn’t gonna make it,” she recalled.
At 25 weeks, Kendall had various complications from his prematurity. He had respiratory distress syndrome and chronic lung disease and later had problems eating, too.
“I was going to visit him every day. He was really sick in the beginning,” Jurnakins said. “We couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t get his lungs together. So we had to, they told me that his lungs wasn’t really fully developed like they should. They was gonna have to trach it. So we ended up having to have that big surgery, a trach put in for him to be healthy.”
Kendall received a tracheostomy and was placed on a ventilator to help him breathe. He later had to get a gastrostomy tube as well for feeding.
Eight months into Kendall’s treatment, a major complication occurred — Jurnakins contracted COVID-19 and checked herself into the same hospital.
“I remember going into the hospital saying I couldn’t breathe. That was the only thing I remember,” Jurnakins recalled.
Like her son, Jurnakins had to be placed on a ventilator and get a tracheostomy. She spent two months in the intensive care unit.
“COVID almost took me out. … From August to October, I was in a coma. And then in the hospital till almost December,” Jurnakins said.
“It was very emotional when his mom got sick in the hospital,” Ben Saad said. “We thought she’s not gonna survive and then all his nurses were really worried.”
Along with her doctors and nurses, Jurnakins also credits her husband for her own survival. “Him being by my side through everything, I mean, it was so scary. Everything was scary,” she said. “From me almost dying, to my son going through what he was going through, where they were just like, ‘Oh, he’s not gaining weight. He’s not doing this.’ It was just all these ups and downs, where we were just very worried that Kendall wasn’t gonna come out of the hospital as a regular child.”
Against the odds, Jurnakins recovered and she was able to reunite with her baby boy in early December 2021.
“I thought he was not gonna remember me because he was so tiny when I went in the hospital,” Jurnakins said. “Soon as I got there, he just laid on me and looked at me the whole time. It was the best feeling in the world.”
Throughout his 460-day stay in the NICU, Kendall reached a lot of firsts — everything from his very first tooth to learning how to sit and crawl.
Today, Jurnakins said her youngest son is “a bundle of fun” and has a delightful and strong personality. “He’s Mr. Personality. If you ever meet him, you will always remember him. He’s funny, he likes attention,” she said.
When he was discharged, Jurnakins said it “was the best day of my life.”
“I couldn’t believe it. I was just like, ‘Oh, my baby really made it. Oh, we’re coming home. Oh, Lord. Thank you,” she said. “I prayed. I cried. I was happy. I was sad. I was everything but I was ready for my baby to come home.”
As she reflected on their extraordinary journey over the last 15 months, Jurnakins said she had a message for her little boy.
“I want to say, his mother fought for him like he’s a fighter,” she said. “He was a fighter forever and I fought for him.”
(SDE BOKER, Israel) — Out here in the Negev desert, the Israeli government says, history is being made.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is hosting for the first time on Israeli soil the foreign ministers of four Arab countries that now have close ties with the Jewish state — a new reality for a region realigned in recent years, especially by the threat from Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will join them for what Israel calls the Negev summit, but only after an evening of meetings with Palestinian leadership, including President Mahmoud Abbas, and civil society Sunday. While these new Arab-Israeli ties have been heralded for bringing peace and stability, they have left the Palestinians behind and done little to address the decades-old tensions there.
The Biden administration is trying to patch up ties with the Palestinians after frosty Trump years — especially with the specter of violence hanging over next month. Passover and Ramadan coincide, setting the stage for potential sparks like last spring’s deadly fighting.
Even so, Biden’s team has also embraced Trump’s Abraham Accords, the deals that established ties between Israel and several Arab neighbors — a rare piece of continuity between the two administration’s foreign policies.
Monday’s meeting brings together Israel and the U.S. with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco — all members of the new accords. Egypt, which established ties with Israel over 40 years ago in a U.S.-brokered deal, will also attend, although Jordan, which established ties in a 1994 U.S. deal, is not attending. Sudan, which was part of the accords, will not either, after a military coup last fall derailed its transition to a civilian-led democracy.
“The Middle East is changing, and it’s changing for the better. We’re cultivating old ties and building new bridges. We’re rejuvenating old peace and charging it with the new energy of the Abraham Accords,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said alongside Blinken Sunday in Jerusalem.
Blinken sang from the same sheet music Sunday, with he and other U.S. officials saying they believe deepening ties will help anchor peace across the region.
“What we’re seeing is normalization become the new normal for this region,” he said during a photo op with Israeli President Isaac Herzog — a line he deployed repeatedly during his visit. “The United States is very proud to be a part of that — to support the efforts to deepen the partnerships with countries that have already normalized with Israel and to help seek new partners.”
So far, Biden has had no luck with that effort — with Saudi Arabia in particular remaining the key holdout — and it’s unclear what, if any, announcements will come from the meeting Monday.
But still, the symbolism of Israel hosting these Arab countries, with their U.S. backer, is a powerful one – a “dramatic signal of American alignment with Israel and moderate Arab states in the double shadow of the Ukraine crisis … and the likely return to the JCPOA Iranian nuclear agreement,” according to Jim Jeffrey, a veteran U.S. diplomat and now the chair of the middle east program at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank.
Those two security challenges are where ties have frayed between the U.S. and its Mideast allies and partners under Biden. In recent weeks, the U.S. has urged Israel, the UAE, and others to do more to punish Russia and support Ukraine — although in Jerusalem Sunday, Blinken praised Israeli commitments to enforce sanctions and provide humanitarian support, including a field hospital deployed to western Ukraine.
In addition, as the State Department’s team nears a renewed nuclear deal with Iran, Israel and Arab neighbors worry it will leave Iran flush with cash from sanctions relief — ready to boost arms and funds to its proxies and expand its ballistic missile program. Several of these countries face near daily threats from Tehran and those proxies — Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria for Israel, and the Houthis for UAE and Saudi Arabia, which are particularly adamant that Biden’s administration has not done enough to support them.
That make Monday’s meetings a delicate dance for Blinken — seeking to embrace the peaceful face of the Abraham Accords, while tempering the growing anti-Iran alliance as his team tries to complete a renewed Iran nuclear deal. In Jerusalem, Blinken papered over any differences, particularly with Israel, saying the two countries “are united in addressing the challenges posed by Iran, including its nuclear program.”
But what the burgeoning Arab-Israeli ties don’t address is the decades-old tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Biden administration was seized in one of its first foreign policy challenges by some of the worst violence in years between the Israeli military and Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group that runs the Gaza Strip. Fighting lasted 11 days last May and killed over 250 people, the vast majority Palestinians.
But the risk of violence looms large again next month, with Judaism, Islam and Christianity’s holy days virtually overlapping in April — Passover, Ramadan, and Easter. The violence last spring erupted after Israeli restrictions on the Temple Mount during Ramadan and prospective evictions of Palestinians from their homes in east Jerusalem.
During meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah, Blinken reiterated a constant U.S. message — that both sides refrain from steps that could provoke the other.
Beyond that low bar, it seems Biden and Blinken have little interest in deep engagement on the issue. This is only Blinken’s second trip to Israel and the West Bank in over a year in office, as the administration tries to focus attention on China and is consumed by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve to live with equal measures of freedom, of opportunity, security, of dignity, and we believe that the most effective way, ultimately, to give expression to that basic principle is through two states,” Blinken said Sunday with President Abbas.
But he added, “Of course, the two sides are very far apart, so we’ll continue our work, step by step, to try to bring them closer.”
One key question in that work is whether the U.S. will reopen its consulate general in East Jerusalem, which traditionally served as a consular operation for Palestinians. As part of its tense ties with Palestinian leaders, the Trump administration shuttered the facility when it moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
Blinken has promised to reopen the consulate, but Israeli officials are fiercely opposed to doing so, saying a U.S. consulate for Palestinians should be in what they consider Palestinian territory, not Jerusalem — which both sides claim as their capital.
During remarks after their meeting, Abbas again welcomed the U.S. reopening the consulate — which earned a head nod from Blinken.
But Blinken made no mention of it throughout his trip in Israel, including when Lapid was asked about it during a joint press conference Sunday.
“It’s not even our place to say anything,” Lapid said. “We just don’t think Jerusalem is the right place for this because Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and Israel alone.”
With that, Blinken and Lapid exited the room with a “thank you” to the press.
(NEW YORK) — As gas prices continue to soar across the country, three states have opted to temporarily waive their gas tax to provide relief for motorists. Other states are mulling similar plans.
Last week, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed legislation that suspended their states’ gas taxes for a limited period. On Thursday, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signed a legislative package that included a tax holiday on the state’s gas tax during the spring.
While the move may save drivers around 30 cents per gallon at the pump, economic and policy experts warn that it is only a stop-gap solution.
“They may not lower [gas] consumption and they might increase it,” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at gas price app GasBuddy, told ABC News of the tax holidays. “I would love to pay less at the pump too, but this is a Band-Aid solution.”
The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $4.24 as of March 25, according to AAA. Some states, particularly those on the West Coast, are seeing average prices of over $5 a gallon, AAA’s data shows.
Last month, the national average price was $3.57 a gallon and a year ago, it was $2.87, according to the association.
Georgia’s effort suspends its tax of 29 cents a gallon until the end of May, Maryland’s rule suspends its tax of 36.1 cents per gallon until mid-April and Connecticut’s rule suspends the state’s tax of 25 cents per gallon until June 30.
The governors of the three states said drivers were feeling the pinch every week at the pump and they needed to take immediate action.
“We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to provide relief for Marylanders,” Hogan said in a statement last week after signing his state’s legislation.
The leaders also said their state budgets have the money from surpluses and the federal relief package to offset the lost tax revenue.
“Connecticut is in a stronger fiscal position than ever before, and I am determined to use every tool available to provide relief for our residents,” Lamont said in a statement.
Other state leaders have said they are considering similar gas tax holidays, including ones in Michigan and California.
Giacomo Santangelo, senior lecturer of economics at Fordham University, told ABC News the nation’s rising gas prices are caused by a number of factors outside of the control of the states, including the global supply chain problems and the ongoing Ukraine-Russian conflict.
Political pressure and desperation from commuters, businesses and other motorists have forced state leaders to think outside of the box, he said.
“The bottom line is gas prices aren’t going to go down anytime soon and people do need help,” Santangelo told ABC News.
Santangelo, however, said that those leaders are taking a big risk by implementing a temporary gas tax holiday. There is no indication that gas prices will return to under $4 a gallon in the coming weeks, he noted.
“If what they are doing is they are giving a 25-cent break on their gas, then what happens when gas goes up 25 cents in a few weeks anyway? You’re now back in the same situation and the government is in a worse place. There are a lot of unknowns,” Santangelo said.
De Haan said there is a potential longer-term problem by creating a gas tax holiday — increased demand for gas when supply is still low. He said temporary tax suspension will spur some drivers to take trips that may not have been necessary, and they will gas up when they won’t need to.
“The right way to handle this situation is not to reduce the price, it’s to tell motorists to reduce consumption,” he said.
Santangelo said that lowering the price through a gas tax suspension does set up expected demand from motorists. He noted that this isn’t the first time the country has experienced surging gas prices and it won’t be the last time and a gas tax holiday may not work, especially if supply doesn’t change.
“Demand was going to go up anyway, because we’re heading into the summer season. The question we have to ask is, ‘Do we want to have demand so high and risk shortages?'” he said.
Santangelo cautioned that solutions involving rebates or cash incentives could also create this demand.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a program last week that would provide $400 per vehicle to offset rising gas prices, for up to two vehicles per resident. The money would be funded with the state’s budget surplus.
“It could turn into is something that the government keeps getting sucked into,” Santangelo said. “You’re able to give $400 now but would you be able to sustain that if prices don’t go down?”
Representatives for Kemp, Hogan and Lamont told ABC News that their gas tax suspension proposals were planned out with the intention of helping their state’s motorists while at the same time avoiding any long-term economic problems.
They also stated their individual state surpluses would cover the lost revenue generated from the taxes, which generally pay for road repairs and other transportation costs.
“At this point, we have seen no issues related to supply and demand,” Michael Ricci, a spokesman for Hogan’s office, said in a statement to ABC News on Friday.
A spokeswoman for Kemp’s office also said Georgia isn’t seeing any increases in gas demand since the gas tax holiday went into effect. Kemp tweeted Friday that the state’s average gas price dropped by 24 cents a gallon.
“We’re going to keep working to get Georgians relief from sky-high prices & inflation!” he tweeted.
Max Reiss, a spokesman for Lamont, told ABC News that the state’s gas tax suspension is part of an overall $100 million package to help residents, and included a one-week clothing sales tax suspension and free bus rides for a month.
“What our residents are looking for is that their government is listening to their concerns. We are trying to do something in our power to do something,” Reiss told ABC News.
Reiss added that the state continues to push residents to lower their demand for gasoline with programs such as tax incentives for electric car purchases.
The economic experts warned that there is no way to determine when gas prices will come down, especially if the Ukraine-Russia conflict continues into the summer. More importantly, they warned that gas prices will likely decrease at a far slower rate compared to the rate they have jumped in recent weeks.
De Haan said it is imperative that states not rely on the gas tax holidays as their only solution during the gas crisis and that they need to encourage motorists to curb their driving plans as best they can.
“There’s not going to be a quick shift to lower prices and we all need to be ready for that,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Senate Judiciary Committee member Amy Klobuchar said Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from certain cases after it emerged that his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, sent text messages to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows urging him to help overturn the 2020 election results, calling it “a textbook case for” recusal.
Meadows voluntarily turned over the messages to the committee last year before deciding not to cooperate with the inquiry. In January, the court declined to block the Jan. 6 committee from obtaining Trump White House records over the objection of only one justice: Thomas.
“The facts are clear here. This is unbelievable,” Klobuchar, D-Minn., told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl in an exclusive interview on Sunday. “You have the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice … advocating for overturning a legal election to the sitting president’s chief of staff.”
“She also knows this election — these cases are going to come before her husband,” she added. “This is a textbook case for removing him, recusing him from these decisions.”
Karl followed up, and “if he doesn’t recuse himself?”
Klobuchar said “the entire integrity of the court is on the line here” and that she’s looking to leadership from Chief Justice John Roberts and the rest of the bench to speak out on the issue.
“They had better speak out on this because you cannot have a justice hearing cases related to this election and, in fact, the ethics rules that apply to all the other federal judges say that if it involves a family member, appearance of impartiality, they have to recuse themselves,” she said.
“So not only should he recuse himself, but this Supreme Court badly needs ethics rules,” Klobuchar added.
Following a week of contentious hearings to consider President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Karl pressed Klobuchar, who was present for those hearings, on whether any Republicans would vote for Jackson, the first Black woman to be nominated to the high Court. With West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin making clear his intention to vote for Jackson, she is on track for confirmation with or without GOP support.
“I think she (will). She has in every other nomination that she’s had for very levels of the court… I can’t tell you who. I can’t tell you how much. But I think that will be very important to this process,” Klobuchar said, applauding Jackson as “the pillar of strength” for how she handled Republicans’ “attacks” during the hearings.
In a defining moment of his presidency, Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to not “even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory,” during a Saturday speech from the grounds of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland.
He also surprised many when he said Putin “cannot stay in power,” leading White House officials to clarify that the United States is not calling for regime change in Russia.
But Karl noted “that was the headline around the world,” and “that was the message heard in Moscow.”
Klobuchar responded by saying she’s been on the Polish-Ukrainian border and seen and heard firsthand the horrors from refugees escaping Ukraine “leaving everything they have behind, everything, their little stuffed animals and their backpacks, moms with suitcases leaving their husbands behind to fight.”
“Vladimir Putin is a monster,” she said. “But the position of the United States government is not to send troops there. It is to give all the aid we can to Ukraine…it’s the humanitarian aid, over $1 billion pledged, taking in over 100,000 refugees, that is what we are doing.”
Karl pressed: “And it’s not regime change in Moscow?”
“That has been made very clear,” she said.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel, Katherine Faulders, Jonathan Karl and Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.
(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. Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Kyiv, as well as major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol. Russia also bombed western cities for the first time last week, targeting Lviv and a military base near the Poland border.
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 27, 1:51 pm
Ukrainian forces purportedly take back towns, villages
Ukrainian forces appear to have had several successes Sunday, retaking several villages and towns in the northern and eastern parts of the country as they continue to wage fierce counterattacks against Russian troops, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian authorities claimed their troops have retaken control of some villages around Malaya Rogan near Kharkiv in the east, close to the Russian border.
Ukrainian forces also drove Russian troops from the town of Trostyanets in northern Ukraine between Kharkiv and the strategic city of Sumy, according to the mayor of Trostyanets. Video posted online appeared to show Ukrainian troops in Trostytanets.
There is also a report from Ukrainian officials that two villages were retaken near Mykolaiv in the south, where Ukrainian forces have launched a counterattack near the Russian-occupied city of Kherson.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 27, 1:09 pm
3.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine
At least 3.8 million people have fled Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country on Feb. 24, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Sunday.
Most of the refugees, about 2.26 million, have gone to Poland, while more than 586,000 have ended up in Romania, according to the UNHCR.
Moldova and Hungary have taken in more than 350,000 refugees each. More than 272,000 refugees have also gone to Slovakia, the UNHCR reported.
The UNHCR said 271,254 refugees have also fled to Russia and 6,341 to Belarus.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Mar 27, 11:58 am
Agreement reached on new round of in-person peace talks
Ukraine and Russia have agreed to hold a new round of in-person peace talks, in Turkey this week, in a sign of some possible progress.
A member of Ukraine’s delegation said the talks would take place March 28-30, while Russia’s lead negotiator said they wouldn’t start until March 29.
The two sides have been talking every day by video conference, officials said.
David Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and part of the country’s delegation negotiating with Russia, wrote on Facebook that in the last video discussions with his Russian counterparts, the parties agreed to meet in-person.
Previous in-person peace talks were held in Belarus.
Ukraine is insisting on security guarantees from western countries in any deal, with its lead negotiator telling a German newspaper over the weekend that such guarantees “don’t make sense” without the involvement of the United States.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 27, 10:22 am
Humanitarian aid arrives in Kharkiv
Sixty tons of food and relief items have arrived in the bombed-out city of Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The badly needed humanitarian aid arrived on Saturday and includes food, water and essential hygiene items, ICRC officials said. The Ukrainian Red Cross will distribute the supplies to residents in the war-torn area, many taking shelter in the city’s metro station.
Maxime Zabaloueff of the ICRC said the aid will go to help “the people who have suffered the terrible consequences of the shelling on this city.”
The ICRC is boosting its humanitarian response in Kharkiv, Kyiv, Poltava, Dnipro, Odessa and other areas across the country to address a growing humanitarian crisis, Zabaloueff said.
The ICRC has also dispatched more than 140 additional staff to the region, including surgeons and other medical workers, psychologists, weapon contamination specialists and engineers.
Mar 27, 7:09 am
139 children killed in invasion, Ukraine says
At least 139 children have been killed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said.
Another 205 children have been injured, the office said on Sunday.
Mar 27, 6:46 am
Battlefield ‘static’ in northern Ukraine, UK says
Russian forces in northern Ukraine have been “largely static,” as Ukrainian resistance and counterattacks have been “hampering” their attempts to reorganize, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Sunday.
“Russian forces appear to be concentrating their effort to attempt the encirclement of Ukrainian forces directly facing the separatist regions in the east of the country, advancing from the direction of Kharkiv in the north and Mariupol in the south,” the Ministry’s update said.
Mar 26, 7:17 pm
Zelenskyy calls for 1% of NATO’s arsenal
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his call for 1% of NATO’s arsenal during his latest national address.
“One percent! We did not ask for more. And we do not ask for more. And we have already been waiting for 31 days!” he said.
Zelenskyy, who similarly pleaded for more military aid during an address at this week’s NATO summit, said Ukraine is especially in need of more planes and tanks.
“Ukraine cannot shoot down Russian missiles using shotguns, machine guns, which are too much in supplies,” he said. “And it is impossible to unblock Mariupol without a sufficient number of tanks, other armored vehicles and, of course, aircraft.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs and the minister of defense met with U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, in Poland Saturday to address these “vital interests.”
Mar 26, 6:13 pm
Biden speaks with Belarusian opposition leader
President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya from Air Force One, the White House said Saturday.
Biden “underscored the continued support of the United States for the Belarusian people in defending and advancing human rights, including freedom of expression, and free and fair elections,” the readout of the call stated.
Tsikhanouskaya attended Biden’s address in Warsaw on Saturday, according to the readout.
Belarus has served as a staging area for Russian attacks on Ukraine during the war. Its president, Alexander Lukashenko, is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
-ABC News’ Armando Garcia
Mar 26, 4:03 pm
Blinken announces $100 million in ‘civilian security’ aid to Ukraine
The U.S. will be providing Ukraine with $100 million in “civilian security” assistance, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Saturday, hours after he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with their Ukrainian counterparts.
The aid will provide equipment including armored vehicles, medical supplies, personal protective equipment and communications equipment, according to the Department of State.
The aid will go to Ukraine’s border guard, law enforcement and government infrastructure protection, Blinken said in a statement.
“With the U.S. government’s vital assistance, Ukrainian law enforcement officers are playing a key role in rescuing victims of the Russian government’s brutal assault, leading and protecting convoys of those displaced by attacks, and providing security to civilian areas torn apart by ruthless and devastating bombing,” Blinken continued in the statement
Mar 26, 3:39 pm
Missile strikes hit oil depot, defense facility, Lviv officials confirm
Two Russian missile strikes in Lviv hit an oil depot and a defense facility, Maksym Kozytskyi, Lviv’s regional governor, confirmed in a press briefing Saturday.
Kozytskyi confirmed five people were injured at the site of the first strike and said firefighters are still putting out fires at the facility.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi told reporters a school near the oil depot was damaged in the strike.
Both officials asked the media not to film the sites of the strikes.
Mar 26, 3:17 pm
Biden tells Ukrainian people: ‘We stand with you’ in Warsaw address
President Joe Biden told the Ukrainian people, “We stand with you” in an address he gave at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday.
“We’ll not cease the efforts to get humanitarian relief wherever it is needed in Ukraine and for the people who’ve made it out of Ukraine. Notwithstanding the brutality of Vladimir Putin, let there be no doubt that this war [has] already been a strategic failure for Russia,” Biden said.
“Putin thought Ukrainians would roll over and not fight, not much of a student of history,” Biden said.
Biden also addressed the Russian people, telling them: “You, the Russian people, are not our enemy.”
“The American people stand with you and the brave people of Ukraine for peace,” Biden said.
Mar 26, 2:59 pm
‘This man cannot remain in power’ Biden says in Warsaw speech
In an address from Warsaw Saturday, President Joe Biden made remarks seemingly directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. “For god’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said.
After the speech, the White House released a statement saying the president wasn’t calling for a regime change.
“The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change,” a White House official said.
“These are not the actions of a great nation,” Biden said, addressing the Russian people during his speech.
“Vladimir Putin’s aggression have cut you, the Russian people, off from the rest of the world, and it’s taking Russia back to the 19th century. This is not who you are,” Biden said.
Biden praised Ukrainian resistance, saying the U.S. stands with the people of Ukraine and will continue to support them.
“A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase a people’s love for liberty. Brutality will never grind down their will to be free. Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness,” Biden said.
Mar 26, 2:00 pm
‘Don’t even think’ about moving in NATO territory: Biden warns in Warsaw speech
President Joe Biden warned: “Don’t even think about moving onto one single inch of NATO territory,” Saturday in an address that just ended.
Biden spoke to an audience of between 750 and 1,000 attendees in Warsaw, Poland, including Polish President Andrzej Duda, members of parliament, local officials, students from local universities and U.S. embassy staff, according to the White House.
Mar 26, 1:01 pm
There are ‘continuous battles’ for Mariupol’s territory that continue daily: Ukrainian official
“Continuous battles” for Mariupol’s territory continue daily, the city’s deputy mayor, Serhiy Orlov, told ABC News Saturday.
The deputy mayor estimated that 150,000 people remain in the city.
He was unable to give an update on the hundreds of of civilians believed to have been killed in Russian strikes that hit a theater that was being used as a shelter. A sign indicated that children were sheltering inside satellite imagery shows.
“The situation becomes worse, so people still have a lack of everything,” he told ABC News in a remote interview.
The mayor added: “The lack of water, electricity, heat and sanitary system, lack of medicine, food. So they’re just surviving … it’s not a secret that from 50 to 100 airstrikes, the Russian aircraft do each day and the one-third or one-half of all the bombing of airstrikes in Ukraine goes on Mariupol.”
Mar 26, 12:24 pm
Missile strikes in Lviv leave 5 injured, Ukrainian official says
Two missile strikes in Lviv left five people injured on Saturday, according to preliminary data, the governor of Lviv, Maksym Kozytskyi, said in a statement.
The official said there is still a threat of a missile strike and told people to stay in shelters, not to walk down the street or take pictures of anything.
The Governor of Lviv has asked people not to share footage of the blast site, in a statement.
“Everything that can be reported for security reasons, I will report,” Kozytskyi said.
The official could not confirm reports that there was an impact on a residential building or other infrastructure facilities.
Home to many refugees passing through on their way out of the country, Lviv has been spared some of the worst shelling seen so far.
Mar 26, 12:03 pm
Biden meets with refugees in Warsaw, calls Putin a ‘butcher’
President Joe Biden met with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday. When asked by reporters what he thought of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin after meeting with refugees, Biden said, “He’s a butcher.”
Biden was greeted by Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki outside the PGE Narodowy Stadium and he met several volunteers and refugees.
After meeting with refugees, Biden briefly spoke with reporters and said he’s always in awe of the depth and strength of the human spirit of refugees.
“I’ve been to an awful lot of places like this, a lot of refugee camps, in my life, and what I’m always surprised by, is the depth and strength of the human spirit. I mean it sincerely. They’re — it’s incredible. It’s incredible. See all those little children? Just want to hug, they just want to say thanks. I mean — I mean, it just makes you so damn proud,” Biden said.
“Each one of those children said something to the effect, say a prayer for my dad, or my grandfather or my brother, who’s back there fighting. And I remember what it’s like when you have someone in a war zone. Every morning you get up and you wonder. You just wonder, you pray you don’t get that phone call,” Biden said.
Mar 26, 11:39 am
Zelenskyy calls for increased energy production to prevent Russian ‘blackmail’ of the world
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise video appearance at the Doha Forum in Qatar, addressing the energy-rich nation directly, calling on it and other energy-producing countries to increase energy production.
“The responsible states, in particular the State of Qatar, are reliable and reputable suppliers of energy resources. And they can contribute to stabilizing the situation in Europe. They can do much to restore justice,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy added, “The future of Europe depends on your efforts! I urge you to increase energy production! So that Russia understands that no state should use energy as a weapon to blackmail the world.”
Zelenskyy also warned that a food crisis will come after the migration crisis.
“Wheat, oil, corn and other agricultural products from our country are the basis of stability and internal security of many countries in different parts of the world… Russian troops mine fields in Ukraine, blow up agricultural machinery, destroy fuel reserves needed for sowing. They blocked our seaports,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy added: “Our state will have enough food. But the lack of exports from Ukraine will hit many nations in the Islamic world, Latin America and other parts of the world. Where some invaders still dream of going to strengthen their old privileges.”
Zelenskyy also drew direct comparisons between the destruction of Mariupol and the Russian bombing of Aleppo.
He criticized Russia for threatening the world with nuclear weapons, and called on countries to boost their production to counteract the global dependence on Russian oil.
Mar 26, 10:47 am
Biden, Duda give joint remarks ahead of meeting
President Joe Biden and Polish President Andrjez Duda delivered brief remarks ahead of their expanded bilateral meeting, with both sides stressing their strong relationship, and the importance of unity in the midst of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Biden is set to give a speech in Warsaw later Saturday.
Biden recalled a previous trip he made to Warsaw 25 years ago, after advocating for Poland to Join Nato, and said his message then is the same as today: “For your freedom and for ours.”
Biden also reiterated the U.S.’s commitment to NATO’s Article 5.
“The single most important criterion in this time-changing world — so much has changed, not just here, but in other parts of the world — is that NATO’s stay absolutely, completely, thoroughly united. [There needs] to be no separation, and our points of view, and whatever we do, we do in unison, and everyone, everyone comes along,” Biden said.
Biden added: “I’m confident that Vladimir Putin was counting on being able to divide NATO, and being able to separate the Eastern flank from the West. To be able to separate nations based on past histories. But he hasn’t been able to do it. We’ve all stayed together. And so I just think it’s so important that we, Poland and the United States, keep in lockstep the power pursuit.”
Biden also spoke about Poland’s work on the humanitarian side of the crisis, praising the country for taking in so many refugees, but acknowledging that it should not be just on Poland to handle the brunt of the load.
“We do acknowledge that Poland is taking on a significant responsibility that I don’t think should just be Poland, It should be the whole world — all of NATO’s responsibility. The fact that you have so many, so many Ukrainians seeking refuge and this country of Poland,” Biden said.
He added: “We understand that because we have on our southern border thousands of people a day –literally, not figuratively –trying to get into the United States. But we believe that we the United States, should do our part relative to Ukraine as well by opening our borders to another 100,000 people. And with that, and in addition to that, I think it’s important that we are in constant contact, about how we each wish to proceed, relative to what Russia is doing, and how to proceed.
Mar 26, 9:46 am
Biden, Poland’s president hold bilateral meeting
President Joe Biden arrived at the Polish presidential palace Saturday for a bilateral meeting with Polish President Andrjez Duda, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues.
Biden and Duda shook hands and stood shoulder to shoulder as both countries’ national anthems played.
Biden was met by three branches of the Polish military, as the two leaders reviewed the troops. They then headed inside for the meeting.
Biden was joined by a delegation of seven U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who participated in the meeting, according to the White House.
The Polish delegation consisted of six officials, including the ministers of foreign affairs and national defense, according to the White House.
Mar 26, 9:40 am
Biden drops by meeting between US and Ukrainian officials
President Joe Biden dropped by a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and their Ukrainian counterparts Saturday morning.
The meeting between the secretaries lasted for an hour and 46 minutes, according to the State Department.
The two secretaries pledged continued U.S. economic, military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine and provided the Ukrainians updates after Thursday’s NATO, EU and G-7 summits.
“The Secretaries and Ministers discussed outcomes of the March 24 extraordinary NATO Summit in Brussels, and the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of the Russian Federation’s increasingly brutal assault on Ukrainian cities and civilian population,” said Ned Price, a spokesperson for the Department of State, in a statement.
In a statement from the White House, Biden reaffirmed the U.S.’s commitment to Ukraine, saying the officials discussed further efforts to help Ukraine defend its territory.
“The President updated the Ministers on U.S. efforts to rally the world in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression, including through the President’s meetings this week in Belgium, and the significant military and humanitarian assistance the United States is providing to Ukraine,” the White House said in a statement.
The White House added: “They also discussed the United States’ ongoing actions to hold President Putin accountable for Russia’s brutal aggression, in coordination with our allies and partners, including through the new sanctions actions announced by the President in Brussels on March 24.
Mar 26, 9:24 am
Unexploded missile near nuclear site in Kharkiv cause for concern, IAEA says
There is an unexploded missile in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear research facility in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s regulatory authority told the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The IAEA said it is continuing to monitor the situation.
“The regulator confirmed reports of an unexploded rocket of the multiple launch rocket system 9K58 Smerch ‘detected in the immediate vicinity’ of a nuclear research facility that has previously been damaged by shelling,” the IAEA said in a statement.
It added: “the regulator said ‘constant shelling’ of the area meant that no measures had yet been taken to dispose of the rocket.”
The facility is used for research and development and radioisotope production for medical and industrial applications. The site’s nuclear material cannot sustain a fission chain reaction and the radioactive inventory is low, according to the IAEA.
Eight of Ukraine’s 15 operational reactors, at four sites, are continuing to operate, including two at the Zaporizhzhya power plant. The other reactors are shut down for regular maintenance, the IAEA said.
Mar 26, 8:38 am
136 children have been killed, 199 injured, Ukraine officials say
Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office said that 136 children have been killed in the war and 199 have been injured, as of Saturday morning local time.
The grim update comes on Day 31 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mar 26, 8:34 am
Russia using artillery to ‘demoralize’ Ukraine’s forces, British Ministry of Defense says
The Russian army is reluctant to engage in large-scale infantry operations, the British Ministry of Defense said Saturday.
“Russia continues to besiege a number of major Ukrainian cities including Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol. Russian forces are proving reluctant to engage in large scale urban infantry operations, rather preferring to rely on the indiscriminate use of air and artillery bombardments in an attempt to demoralize defending forces,” the Ministry of Defense said in a statement posted online.
It added: “It is likely Russia will continue to use its heavy firepower on urban areas as it looks to limit its own already considerable losses, at the cost of further civilian casualties.”
Mar 25, 6:24 pm
Jill Biden meets with Ukrainian pediatric cancer patients
During a visit to Memphis, Tenn., on Friday, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden privately met with two Ukrainian families who have loved ones being treated at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Four Ukrainian children, ages 20 months to 8 years, as well as 10 of their family members, were airlifted from Poland to St. Jude on Monday to continue treatment, according to Michael LaRosa, the First Lady’s press secretary.
Biden said in remarks during her visit that her “heart has ached watching the videos” of devastation in Ukraine.
“Parents weeping over their child’s broken bones … bodies in the streets. The senselessness of it all is just staggering,” she said.
She added, “When I learned that St. Jude was working with hospitals in Europe to bring some of the Ukrainian children with cancer and their families here, I felt so proud and I wanted to join you in welcoming them. We stand with Ukraine and we’re praying for their families.”
Mar 25, 4:44 pm
Fox News correspondent injured in Ukraine is back in U.S.
Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall is back in the U.S. after suffering serious injuries while reporting in Ukraine, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said in a statement.
Hall was hurt in Horenka, outside of Kyiv, on March 14 when his vehicle was hit by incoming fire, Scott said at the time. Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian producer and fixer Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova were killed in the incident.
Scott said Hall has been transferred from the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany to the Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas.
Hall has undergone multiple surgeries, Scott said.
“He remains in good spirits despite everything he has endured,” Scott wrote. “His strength and resiliency in the face of this crisis has been nothing short of extraordinary.”
Mar 25, 3:03 pm
U.S. official: Russians on defensive around Kyiv, now focusing on Donbas
Russian forces around Kyiv have fallen into defensive positions and have stopped offensive ground movements toward the capital city, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday.
“We’re still seeing airstrikes, but not nothing from the ground,” the official said.
The U.S. official said — as Russians also noted Friday — that Russian troops are currently focusing on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, where there’s been heavy fighting.
The Russians “are putting their priorities and their effort in the east of Ukraine, and that’s where still there remains a lot of heavy fighting,” the official said. “And we think they are trying to not only secure some sort of, more substantial gains there as a potential negotiating tactic at the table, but also to cut off Ukrainian forces in the eastern part of the country.”
Also, the official noted that Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine that’s north of Crimea, doesn’t seem to be “as solidly in Russian control as it was before.”
“That would be significant if the Ukrainians were able to take Kerson back,” the official said. “It’s a significant port city. It would also put it much greater risk the Russian positions around Mykolaiv [in southern Ukraine], and again if they have ground desires on Odessa [in southern Ukraine], losing Kherson and therefore putting their troops between Ukrainians, you’ll be sandwiched between Ukrainian forces in Kherson and those in Mykolaiv. … That would put them smack in the middle and that would make it very, very difficult for them to make any kind of ground movement on Odessa. If in fact, that was their plan.”
The U.S. is also seeing indications that the Russians are trying to send in some reinforcements from the breakaway regions of Georgia, the official said.
Mar 25, 2:09 pm
Russian military claims ‘main goal’ of invasion is ‘liberation’ of eastern Ukraine
In a Friday briefing, Russian military officials tried to reshape the narrative of the war, claiming the “main goal” of the invasion — what Russia calls a “military operation” — is to “liberate” Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and not to seize other parts of Ukraine.
General Sergey Rudskoy, the head of the main operational directorate of Russia’s General Staff, said the main objectives of the “first phase” of the operation have been achieved, meaning Ukraine’s “combat capabilities have been significantly reduced.” Rudskoy said that allows Russia to now focus “on achieving the main goal the liberation of Donbas.”
The Donbas region contains the two Russian-controlled separatist statelets, the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, the defense of which Russia used as a pretext for invading. Rudskoy claimed Russia has “liberated” 93% of the Luhansk region and 54% of Donetsk.
The Ukrainian city of Mariupol is also within the Donbas region. Russian forces have been relentlessly bombarding Mariupol since the invasion began, destroying homes and leaving thousands of residents trapped.
Rudskoy claimed Russia’s “military operation” had two courses of action: the first being limiting operations to Donbas, but he said that would have allowed Ukraine to constantly reinforce its troops, so he said Russia took a second course of action, attacking cities across the whole country. Rudskoy claimed the course of the war “confirmed the validity” of that decision.
“These actions are carried out with the aim of causing such damage to military infrastructure, equipment, personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the results of which allow not only to shackle their forces and do not give them the opportunity to strengthen their grouping in the Donbas, but also will not allow them to do so until the Russian army completely liberates the territories of the DPR and LPR,” he said.
Rudskoy claimed Russia has successfully blocked Ukrainian cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv and Chernihiv, and that the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are under full Russian control.
He claimed Russia “initially” never had any intention of storming those cities, although he said they “did not rule out such a possibility” now.
“Initially, we did not plan to storm them in order to prevent destruction and minimize losses among personnel and civilians. And although we do not rule out such a possibility, however, as individual groups complete their tasks, and they are being solved successfully, our forces and means will concentrate on the main thing — the complete liberation of Donbas,” he said.
Rudskoy also made the dubious claim that Russia has sought to minimize civilian casualties. The U.N. reports that over 1,000 civilians have died since the invasion began.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 25, 12:50 pm
Biden says he’s in Poland to see humanitarian crisis firsthand
President Joe Biden, flanked by Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and Samantha Powers of the U.S. Agency for International Development, spoke at a briefing on humanitarian efforts Friday, again calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”
“The single-most important thing that we can do on the outset, is keep the democracies united in our opposition, and our effort to curtail the devastation that is occurring at the hands of a man, who quite frankly, I think is a war criminal. And I think we’ll meet the legal definition of that, as well,” Biden said.
Biden said he’s in Poland to see the “humanitarian crisis” “firsthand,” but said he’s disappointed he “can’t see it firsthand like I have in other places.”
“They will not let me … cross the border and take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine,” Biden said. “But, you know, I’m eager to hear from you, the humanitarian community, about what you see, what you’re doing, and where you think we go from here.”
Since the invasion began on Feb. 24, over 3.6 million people have fled Ukraine, with more than 2.2 million of those refugees going to Poland, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“Whether it’s food, or a blanket, or cash, or the care for medical teams that we send in, or child welfare specialists, they need it now. They need it as rapidly as we can get it there,” Biden said.
Mar 25, 12:12 pm
Biden tells troops ‘what’s at stake’ is beyond Ukraine
President Joe Biden spoke to members of the 82nd Airborne Division in Jasionka, Poland, Friday, telling them, “What you’re doing is consequential — really consequential.”
“What’s at stake” is beyond Ukraine, Biden said.
“What are your kids and grandkids gonna look like in terms of their freedom?” Biden said. “The last 10 years there have been fewer democracies that have been formed than we’ve lost in the world.”
“What you’re engaged in is much more than just whether or not you can alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Ukraine,” Biden said.
Biden commended the troops, saying “the rest of the world looks to us, because, you know, we not only lead by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. And your generation combines both. The rest of the world looks at you and sees who you are. They see you are a multiethnic group of Americans that are in fact together and united in one resolve, to defend your country, and to help those who need help.”
Mar 25, 11:12 am
Biden thanks troops in Poland
In Jasionka, Poland, on Friday, President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited American troops, thanking them for working alongside Polish allies.
Biden and Austin first greeted members of the 82nd Airborne Division in a makeshift barbershop.
Biden and Austin then stopped by a mess hall and ended up staying for a slice of pizza.
Biden also shared a story about searching for his son, Beau, in a mess hall in Baghdad, only to find him using his mother’s maiden name — Hunter — on his fatigues.
“I said, ‘Beau, what the hell’s going on?’ His name was Beau Biden, and he was a colonel, I mean, a major, excuse me,” Biden said.
“And I said, ‘What happened?’ And he said, ‘Dad, with the name Biden, everybody thinks something’s going on. So I’m Hunter.’ That was his mother’s maiden name,” Biden said.
Mar 25, 10:29 am
Ukrainian troops have retaken towns, UK intelligence says
Ukrainian troops have been able to retake towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) east of Kyiv due to counter-attacks and Russian forces falling back on overextended supply lines, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Friday in an intelligence update on the situation.
Ukrainian troops are likely to continue to attempt to push Russian forces back along the northwestern axis from the Ukrainian capital toward Antonov Airport in Hostomel, a suburb of Kyiv, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
In southern Ukraine, Russian forces are still attempting to circumvent the densely populated city of Mykolaiv as they look to drive west toward Odesa, with their progress being slowed by logistic issues and Ukrainian resistance, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said.
Mar 25, 10:25 am
Biden arrives in Poland
U.S. President Joe Biden arrived at Poland’s Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport Friday afternoon, where he will get a firsthand look at the international efforts to help some of the millions of people fleeing Ukraine.
Biden was greeted on the tarmac by four U.S. commanding generals. While in Rzeszow on Friday, Biden will receive a briefing on the humanitarian situation and meet with humanitarian aid groups as well as service members of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.
He will later travel to Warsaw, where he will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda as well as refugees from Ukraine on Saturday.
Mar 25, 10:07 am
US says Russian attacks have capacity to put NATO at risk
U.S. President Joe Biden’s support of NATO battle groups on the eastern flank stems from the belief that Russia’s attacks in Ukraine have the capacity to put the alliance’s territories at risk, according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
“We do believe Russian aggression in Ukraine shows a willingness by the Russians to disregard international borders and to disregard the basic rules of the road of the international community that have been built in sustained over the course of seven decades,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.
“It is important in this moment to send a clear message to Russia that the United States and NATO will defend every inch of NATO territory and to deter any thinking that Putin might have about further Russian aggression into NATO,” he said.
Sullivan noted that Belarus’ willingness to station Russian troops on its soil, in particular, has a “significant impact particularly on our NATO allies in the Baltics and Poland.”
Sullivan said Biden has made clear that any diplomatic agreement reached is one that Ukraine will have to determine for itself, meaning Washington is not going to push or pressure Kyiv into any outcome.
Currently, Washington’s priority is to ensure Ukraine has the capabilities to defend itself as Russian forces continue pushing forward, Sullivan told reporters.
Mar 25, 10:02 am
Pope Francis to consecrate Russia, Ukraine
Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on Friday, inviting people around the world to join him in the prayer.
“This Act of Consecration is meant to be a gesture of the universal Church, which in this dramatic moment lifts up to God, through His Mother and ours, the cry of pain of all those who suffer and implore an end to the violence, and to entrust the future of our human family to the Queen of Peace,” Francis said in a statement.
He also called for an end to the violence.
Consecration is an act of surrender in which the pope recognizes both Russians and Ukrainians as children of god, and entrusts them to Mary’s care, Father Alexandre Mello, the secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life, told Crux.
Mello also said consecration aims to build bridges as the prayer’s goal is to have a healing effect and remind Russians and Ukrainians of their shared roots and identities as children of the same God.
The ceremony is tied to the Marian apparitions in Fatima, Portugal in 1917, in which many Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to three children, asking that the pope consecrate Russia to her immaculate heart.
The Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary will be prayed during the Lenten penitential service in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome which begins at 5 p.m. local time. The pope will start the prayer at around 6:30 p.m. local time and has asked all Catholic Bishops and priests to join him spiritually.
U.S. bishops, including Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, announced they will be holding consecration ceremonies on Friday.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said he will join in the prayer from his converted monastery in Vatican City, where he has lived since he resigned.
Mar 25, 9:27 am
Biden to meet with Polish president, refugees from Ukraine in Warsaw
U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda as well as refugees from Ukraine in Warsaw on Saturday, according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Poland on Friday, Sullivan noted that Biden will also deliver a “major address” before departing Saturday.
“He will give a major address tomorrow that will speak to the stakes of this moment, the urgency of the challenge that lies ahead, what the conflict in Ukraine means for the world, and why it is so important that the free world sustain unity and resolve in the face of Russian aggression,” Sullivan said. “He’ll also talk about the context and history of this conflict and where he sees it going from here.”
Upon arrival in Rzeszow, Poland, on Friday, Biden will meet with humanitarian aid groups as well as service members of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, according to Sullivan.
“He will be able to talk through with a range of different humanitarian leaders and experts, both from the region and from the international community as well as the US government experts who are playing a key role in this, on how the efforts are going so far and what further steps need to be taken to make sure that we’re investing those dollars as wisely as possible,” Sullivan said. “He will also have the chance to visit with troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, who have been deployed to Poland to reassure our NATO ally and to deter further aggression on the eastern flank. And he will also get a briefing from the commanders of those units who will have the chance to lay out for him the various tasks and missions that the American troops stationed at the airfield here have been undertaking and continue to undertake.”
-ABC News’ Molly Nagle
Mar 25, 8:03 am
Ukrainian rescuers work to remove unexploded devices from homes
Video has emerged showing Ukrainian rescuers working to remove unexploded devices from civilian homes amid the Russian invasion.
The video, released Friday by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and verified by ABC News, shows pyrotechnic units in the northern city of Chernihiv using special equipment to carefully search for and remove unexploded shells, missiles and mines that landed in houses.
The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said it was called in to seize ammunition 18 times over the past day. The agency warned people not to approach the objects because they could explode “at any time” and to immediately report such findings to rescuers or police.
-ABC News’ Victoria Beaule
Mar 25, 7:34 am
Biden departs Brussels for Poland
U.S. President Joe Biden departed Belgium on Friday morning and was en route to Poland for the final leg of his four-day trip aimed at maintaining unity among allies and supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
Biden was seen boarding Air Force One in the European Union’s de facto capital, Brussels, at 6:42 a.m. ET. He is expected to land in Rzeszow, Poland, at around 9:15 a.m. ET, where he will receive a briefing on the humanitarian response to the millions of people fleeing Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion. He will also meet with service members from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.
-ABC News’ Molly Nagle
Mar 25, 6:36 am
300 dead in airstrike on Mariupol theater, officials say
About 300 people were killed last week in a Russian airstrike on a drama theater-turned-bomb shelter in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city’s government said Friday, citing eyewitnesses.
“We didn’t want to believe in this horror,” the Mariupol City Council. said in a statement. “But the words of those who were inside the building at the moment of this terrorist act say the opposite.”
As many as 1,500 civilians had been taking refuge in the grand, columned Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama in central Mariupol when it was struck on March 16, according to the Ukrainian government. Satellite images showed huge white letters on the pavement in front of and behind the building spelling out “CHILDREN” in Russian — “DETI” — to alert warplanes to those inside.
Video circulating online and verified by ABC News shows the immediate aftermath of the strike on the theater. People covered in dust are seen trying to make their way out of the theater, walking down from the first floor staircase in an area of the building that was still standing at the time.
Since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian forces have been relentlessly bombarding Mariupol, destroying homes and leaving thousands of residents trapped. Ukraine has defied Russia’s ultimatum for its troops to lay down arms and surrender the strategic southeastern port city of 430,000.
-ABC News Patrick Reevell
Mar 25, 5:20 am
Russia claims to have seized 5 more localities in Ukraine
Russia claimed Friday that its forces had captured five more localities in Ukraine.
“The grouping of troops of the Russian Armed Forces advanced another 4 kilometers overnight and captured Batmanka, Mikhailovka, Krasny Partizan, Stavki and Troitskoe,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
Ukraine did not immediately comment on the claim.
Mar 25, 5:10 am
US, EU announce plan to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian gas
U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced Friday a joint task force to “reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and strengthen European energy security,” amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Named the “Task Force for energy security,” the group will be chaired by one representative from the White House and one representative from the European Commission. They will work to ensure energy security for Ukraine and the European Union ahead of the next two winters by focusing on two main goals — diversifying liquefied natural gas supplies and reducing demand for natural gas, according to a fact sheet from the White House.
As part of the agreement, the United States will work with international partners to put more liquefied natural gas on the EU market, pledging to make at least 15 billion cubic meters available in 2022, with increases expected going forward.
The White House stressed that the task force would also work with an eye towards clean energy, looking to reduce greenhouse gas intensity of all new liquefied natural gas infrastructure as well as demand for liquefied natural gas by “accelerating market deployment of clean energy measures.” Those measures include expediting planning of clean energy projects, like wind and solar power, and using smart thermostats and heat pumps in homes.
-ABC News’ Molly Nagle
Mar 24, 5:44 pm
Biden meets with European Council
U.S. President Joe Biden’s final meeting in Brussels on Thursday was with the European Council.
“They reviewed their ongoing efforts to impose economic costs on Russia and Belarus, as well as their readiness to adopt additional measures and to stop any attempts to circumvent sanctions,” the White House said in a statement.
The leaders said they willl continue “providing humanitarian assistance, including to neighboring countries hosting refugees, and underscored the need for Russia to guarantee humanitarian access to those affected by or fleeing the violence,” according to the White House.
They also “discussed EU-U.S. cooperation to reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels, accelerate the transition to clean energy, as well as the need to respond to evolving food security needs worldwide,” the White House said.
