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(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces have since retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. The United States and many European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes after graphic images emerged of dead civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 21, 6:44 am
Putin claims ‘success’ in Mariupol siege

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on Thursday that his siege of Mariupol had been a success, congratulating his defense minister and thanking Russian troops.

“The completion of the combat work to liberate Mariupol is a success,” Putin said. “I congratulate you. Convey words of gratitude to the troops.”

Putin’s claim of victory came as he ordered troops to abandon their assault on the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant, the last holdout for Ukrainian troops in the port city.

A Ukrainian commander of the regiment at the site said Ukrainian troops there are ready to surrender, if their safety can be guaranteed by a third party and they are allowed to take the bodies of their dead with them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office called for negotiations inside Mariupol to get anyone left in the factory out of the area alive.

Apr 21, 5:13 am
Putin cancels Mariupol plant attack, orders site blocked off

Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled his military’s attack on a Mariupol steel plant, one of the last areas in the port city held by Ukrainian forces, ordering his troops to instead seal all exit routes from the sprawling plant.

“I consider the proposed assault on the industrial zone impractical,” Putin told Sergei Shoigu, his defense minister, during a meeting televised on Thursday by Russian state media, according to a translation of the Kremlin’s official transcript.

The Mariupol city council claimed Tuesday that there are at least 1,000 civilians, mostly women with children and the elderly, seeking shelter in the Azovstal Steel and Iron Works plant. It was unclear how many Ukrainian troops were defending the site.

Putin in the televised meeting ordered his troops to “block” the industrial zone. He repeated the claim that Moscow would let troops leave unharmed if they lay down their weapons and surrender.

“There is no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground on these industrial facilities,” Putin said. “Block this industrial area so that the fly does not fly.”

Apr 20, 4:37 pm
Delegations walk out on Russian official

During a G20 meeting of economic and finance ministers on Wednesday, delegations from several countries, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, walked out of the room while Russia’s delegate began his remarks, the White House confirmed.

Canada’s Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, tweeted a photo of several officials, including herself, Yellen, U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde, outside of the meeting room, standing in solidarity with Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko.

“It’s an indication of the fact that President Putin and Russia has become a pariah on the global stage,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.

The Treasury also unveiled new sanctions Wednesday against dozens of Russian and Belarusian people and institutions, including a key commercial bank and a virtual currency mining company.

“This is part of our stepped-up effort to crack down on those attempting to evade our unprecedented sanctions,” Psaki said.

The State Department has also imposed visa restrictions on over 600 Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainian separatists backed by the Kremlin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Apr 20, 3:59 pm
UN chief seeks peace talks with Putin, Zelenskyy

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres wrote separate letters to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday asking to meet “to discuss urgent steps to bring about peace in Ukraine,” a UN spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the head of the president’s office, tweeted that Ukraine is ready to hold a special round of negotiations in Mariupol.

Apr 20, 3:25 pm
Thousands more Russians enter Donbas: US official

Four more Russian battalions, each made up of roughly 800 to 1,000 troops, have crossed into Ukraine over the last 24 hours, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday. Three of those battalions — or up to 3,000 troops — moved to the disputed Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, the official said.

Four flights carrying military aid, including artillery, from the Biden administration’s most recent $800 million package arrived in Ukraine over the last 24 hours, the official said. More supplies are set to arrive over the next day, the official said.

When ABC News asked why the U.S. decided to send artillery, the official responded: “We’re mindful of the importance of artillery in the fight that they’re in right now and in the fighting in the days to come because of the terrain, and because of what we think they’re going to be up against with Russian forces.”

Another reason was “the fact that it wouldn’t require an onerous amount of training for the Ukrainians to know how to use them” and the ability to ship them quickly, according to the official.

Apr 20, 2:12 pm
Humanitarian corridor from Mariupol didn’t work as planned Wednesday

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Wednesday’s humanitarian corridor from Mariupol didn’t work as planned but evacuation efforts will continue Thursday morning.

“Due to the lack of control over their own military on the ground, the occupiers were unable to ensure a proper ceasefire,” Vereshchuk said in a statement.

There also wasn’t “timely transportation of people to the point where dozens of our buses and ambulances were waiting,” Vereshchuk said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces have since retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. The United States and many European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes after graphic images emerged of dead civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 21, 5:13 am
Putin cancels Mariupol plant attack, orders site blocked off

Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled his military’s attack on a Mariupol steel plant, one of the last areas in the port city held by Ukrainian forces, ordering his troops to instead seal all exit routes from the sprawling plant.

“I consider the proposed assault on the industrial zone impractical,” Putin told Sergei Shoigu, his defense minister, during a meeting televised on Thursday by Russian state media, according to a translation of the Kremlin’s official transcript.

The Mariupol city council claimed Tuesday that there are at least 1,000 civilians, mostly women with children and the elderly, seeking shelter in the Azovstal Steel and Iron Works plant. It was unclear how many Ukrainian troops were defending the site.

Putin in the televised meeting ordered his troops to “block” the industrial zone. He repeated the claim that Moscow would let troops leave unharmed if they lay down their weapons and surrender.

“There is no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground on these industrial facilities,” Putin said. “Block this industrial area so that the fly does not fly.”

Apr 20, 4:37 pm
Delegations walk out on Russian official

During a G20 meeting of economic and finance ministers on Wednesday, delegations from several countries, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, walked out of the room while Russia’s delegate began his remarks, the White House confirmed.

Canada’s Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, tweeted a photo of several officials, including herself, Yellen, U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde, outside of the meeting room, standing in solidarity with Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko.

“It’s an indication of the fact that President Putin and Russia has become a pariah on the global stage,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.

The Treasury also unveiled new sanctions Wednesday against dozens of Russian and Belarusian people and institutions, including a key commercial bank and a virtual currency mining company.

“This is part of our stepped-up effort to crack down on those attempting to evade our unprecedented sanctions,” Psaki said.

The State Department has also imposed visa restrictions on over 600 Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainian separatists backed by the Kremlin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Apr 20, 3:59 pm
UN chief seeks peace talks with Putin, Zelenskyy

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres wrote separate letters to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday asking to meet “to discuss urgent steps to bring about peace in Ukraine,” a UN spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the head of the president’s office, tweeted that Ukraine is ready to hold a special round of negotiations in Mariupol.

Apr 20, 3:25 pm
Thousands more Russians enter Donbas: US official

Four more Russian battalions, each made up of roughly 800 to 1,000 troops, have crossed into Ukraine over the last 24 hours, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday. Three of those battalions — or up to 3,000 troops — moved to the disputed Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, the official said.

Four flights carrying military aid, including artillery, from the Biden administration’s most recent $800 million package arrived in Ukraine over the last 24 hours, the official said. More supplies are set to arrive over the next day, the official said.

When ABC News asked why the U.S. decided to send artillery, the official responded: “We’re mindful of the importance of artillery in the fight that they’re in right now and in the fighting in the days to come because of the terrain, and because of what we think they’re going to be up against with Russian forces.”

Another reason was “the fact that it wouldn’t require an onerous amount of training for the Ukrainians to know how to use them” and the ability to ship them quickly, according to the official.

Apr 20, 2:12 pm
Humanitarian corridor from Mariupol didn’t work as planned Wednesday

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Wednesday’s humanitarian corridor from Mariupol didn’t work as planned but evacuation efforts will continue Thursday morning.

“Due to the lack of control over their own military on the ground, the occupiers were unable to ensure a proper ceasefire,” Vereshchuk said in a statement.

There also wasn’t “timely transportation of people to the point where dozens of our buses and ambulances were waiting,” Vereshchuk said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

It’s been a year since Eric Church dropped Heart & Soul, the massive, chart-topping triple album that produced hit singles like “Hell of a View.”

To celebrate, Eric just shared a new acoustic version of another single off the project, “Heart on Fire.” The original version of the song was the first track on the first disc of the three-disc album. It was also the first song Eric wrote for Heart & Soul.

Originally released as a high-octane rock song with a music video that tips its hat to big moments from Eric’s career to date, the new version of “Heart on Fire” is much simpler. Sitting alone on a stool in front of a microphone, Eric sings a stripped-down version of the song, accompanying himself only on acoustic guitar.

The acoustic version of the song premiered on Wednesday — exactly one year after the middle disc, &, dropped on April 20, 2021.

The one-year anniversary of Heart happened on April 16, and the one-year-anniversary of Soul will follow on April 23.

Eric is currently on tour, and he’s also planning a couple of stand-alone stadium dates this summer: One in Milwaukee over Memorial Day weekend, and another in June, featuring Morgan Wallen and Ernest as opening acts.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — A preliminary report released Wednesday found no abnormalities before last month’s China Eastern Airlines plane crash that killed all 132 people on board, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration said.

“There was no abnormality in the radio communication and control command between the crew and the air traffic control department before deviating from the cruise altitude,” the report said, before the Boeing 737-800 suddenly nosedived into the ground from 30,000 feet in the air.

At a briefing on the report Wednesday, Chinese aviation officials said that their investigation has not found a cause and the crash continues to be a mystery to investigators who will continue an in-depth investigation with the help of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and other international groups.

The report said that cabin crew and other maintenance personnel had met all requirements and the plane had certified airworthy and was up to date on inspections.

It also detailed that there was no dangerous weather forecast in the area of the crash and there were no declared dangerous goods on the aircraft.

The “black boxes” — the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder — that can tell exactly what was going on aboard the aircraft were badly damaged in the crash, authorities said, and investigators are still trying to recover data from them to determine what happened.

According to the report, the plane took off at 1:16 p.m. local time and cruised at an altitude of nearly 29,000 feet until around 2:20 p.m. when regional radar found that the aircraft began to “deviate” from that altitude. Radar then recorded the aircraft at around 11,000 feet traveling at 117 degrees.

Local air traffic control called the crew, but did not receive a reply. Shortly after, the radar signal of the plane disappeared.

The crash site in a mountainous area in Teng County, Wuzhou, Guangxi left a crater nearly 500 square feet large and 10 feet deep. Wreckage from the plane has been searched and collected by investigators.

ABC News’ Gio Benitez and Mark Osborne contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russia’s military issued another warning to Ukrainian forces in a Mariupol steel plant on Wednesday, telling them to lay down their arms and leave, according to Russian state media.

Russia claimed a ceasefire would begin at the Azovstal steel plant at 2 p.m. Moscow time to allow Ukrainian fighters to safely leave. Ukrainian forces rejected a similar offer on Tuesday.

The Mariupol city council claimed Tuesday that there are at least 1,000 civilians seeking shelter in the plant, mostly women with children and the elderly. Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed the number of Ukrainian marines and Azov fighters at site.

A Russian official, Dmitry Polyansky, accused Ukrainian troops of using civilians at the plant as human shields.

“One month into the siege of Azovstal plant, those same radicals and neo-Nazis suddenly declared that allegedly there had been civilians inside the plant all that time, even though until yesterday, they had never uttered a word about it,” Polyansky told the U.N. Security Council during a session on Ukraine on Tuesday.

In a video posted online, Serhiy Voyna, the commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade and commander for Ukraine’s marines in Mariupol, made an appeal to world leaders, asking for an extraction from the plant to the territory of a third-party state.

“This could be the last appeal of our lives. We are probably facing our last days, if not hours. The enemy is outnumbering us 10 to 1. They have advantage in the air, in artillery, in their forces on land, in equipment and in tanks,” Voyna said.

Voyna spoke to the Washington Post via satellite phone on Tuesday, and said his forces would not make the same mistake made by others and trust Russian guarantees of safe passage, only to see them open fire.

Voyna said more than 500 Mariupol military battalion soldiers are wounded.

“We are only defending one object, the Azovstal plant where, in addition to military personnel, there are also civilians who have fallen victim to this war. We appeal and plead to all world leaders to help us. We ask them to use the procedure of ‘extraction’ and take us to the territory of a third-party state,” Voyna said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(SAINT-DENIS, France) — French President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, his far-right rival in the presidential elections, will face off in the highly anticipated televised debate Wednesday, which could prove crucial in swaying voters ahead of the final round of voting this weekend.

Macron and Le Pen took the top two spots in the preliminary round of voting earlier this month, just as they did in 2017. The debate of that year proved disastrous for Le Pen, who struggled under questioning. Macron ultimately won a sweeping victory in 2017, winning 66% of the vote.

This campaign cycle has been notably different, however. The war in Ukraine has dominated the headlines, Le Pen has sought to soften her National Rally party’s image and ease voters’ concerns about a far-right president, while Macron has been a notably absent figure on the campaign trail.

Polling in France has shown an upswing in Le Pen’s popularity and decline in Macron’s, though the French president retains a narrow lead in most reported opinion polls.

Le Pen has faced criticism in France for a softer approach to Russia and past support for President Vladimir Putin. While she has said she is in favor of the broad package of sanctions announced by the French government, she has publicly opposed restrictions on oil and gas imports from Russia, citing concerns about the rising cost of living in France that has become a critical issue in the campaign.

Le Pen was previously banned from entering Ukraine in 2017, when she spoke out in favor of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

While Le Pen has pledged if elected to take France out of NATO’s integrated command, she said she would not intend to leave the organization altogether, nor renounce Article 5, which refers to the “mutual protection between members of the Atlantic Alliance.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an interview with French television channel BFMTV aired Wednesday, went as far as to urge Le Pen to reconsider her position on Russia.

“If the candidate were to understand that she was wrong, our relationship could change,” Zelenskyy said. While ensuring not “to have the right to influence” the French electoral campaign, Zelenskyy recognized that “obviously, I have relations with Emmanuel Macron and I would not want to lose them.”

The final outcome of the election may well be decided by matters closer to home, however, with Macron’s team touting his experience in power at a time of stability, while Le Pen’s campaign has targeted the incumbent for, they say, being out of touch with ordinary people.

The far-right candidate focused her campaign on purchasing power, a topic expected to be one of the main factors in deciding the outcome of the election. Le Pen’s project, however, still centers on the fight against immigration. The National Rally candidate has presented several flagship proposals, including a bill to drastically limit immigration, the abolition of the right of soil, and restricting the routes for people to claim asylum in France.

“Fear is the only argument that the current president has to try and stay in power at all cost,” Le Pen said in a new clip posted by her campaign Tuesday.

Much will depend on which candidate the supporters of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon turn to in the final round. Mélenchon secured 22% of the first round of voting in third place, and while he publicly told his supporters not to vote for Le Pen, her populist vision may prove more enticing to a base dissatisfied with Macron, a centrist with a background in the financial sector.

The debate, airing at 8 p.m. local time (3 p.m. EST), is the first and only time voters will have a chance to see the candidates face off.

ABC News’ Ibtissem Guenfoud contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Prince Harry is a self-described “proud papa” speaking out about a new milestone hit by Lilibet, the 10-month-old daughter he shares with his wife, Duchess Meghan.

While attending the Invictus Games in the Netherlands, Harry revealed that Lili, as she is known, is learning how to walk.

“Her current priorities are trying to keep up with her brother; she took her first step just a few days ago!” Prince Harry, 37, told People magazine. “Proud papa, here.”

Lili’s brother is Archie, who will turn 3 next month.

While Lili and Archie did not attend this year’s Invictus Games with their parents, Harry said he “can’t wait” for them to attend in the years ahead. The Invictus Games are a Paralympic-style competition for wounded service members that Harry, a military veteran, launched eight years ago.

“I showed Archie a video of wheelchair basketball and rugby from the Invictus Games in Sydney, and he absolutely loved it,” Harry told People.

“I showed him how some were missing legs and explained that some had invisible injuries, too,” he said. “Not because he asked, but because I wanted to tell him. Kids understand so much, and to see it through his eyes was amazing because it’s so unfiltered and honest.”

Harry and Meghan’s attendance at the Invictus Games in the Netherlands marked the couple’s first public appearance together in Europe since they stepped down from their senior royal role two years ago.

Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, arrived in the Netherlands after making a quick stop in the United Kingdom to visit Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth.

The visit was the first time the couple saw the queen together in-person since moving in 2020 to California, where they now live with Archie and Lili, who is named after the queen.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces have since retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. The United States and many European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes after graphic images emerged of dead civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 20, 7:55 am
Russia again calls for surrender at Mariupol steel plant

Russia’s military issued another ultimatum on Wednesday, calling for Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms and leave a Mariupol steel plant, according to Russian state media.

Moscow claimed that Ukrainian troops and civilians would be allowed to leave the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant without harm during a cease-fire beginning at 2 p.m. local time.

Ukrainian forces at the besieged plant rejected a similar offer on Tuesday.

More than 1,000 civilians are sheltering on the grounds of the sprawling industrial plant, the Mariupol City Council said on Monday.

A Russian official, Dmitry Polyansky, on Tuesday accused Ukrainian troops of using civilians at the plant as human shields.

“One month into the siege of Azovstal plant, those same radicals and neo-Nazis suddenly declared that allegedly there had been civilians inside the plant all that time, even though until yesterday, they had never uttered a word about it,” Polyansky told the U.N. Security Council during a session on Ukraine on Tuesday.

Apr 19, 11:40 pm
Russia could be making probing attacks ahead of larger assault in Donbas: US official

As Ukrainian forces brace for a full-scale assault in the eastern part of the country, a U.S. official said the increased pace of operations from Russian forces in the past 24 hours could be probing attacks or the beginning of the main battle for the Donbas.

The defense official said the Russian offensive to seize southeastern Ukraine will likely involve a frontal assault from inside Russia and a double envelopment, or encircling, of Ukrainian forces in the Donbas. Russian forces will come south from Izyum and troops in the Berdyansk area will move north to encircle Ukrainian forces in the Joint Forces Operations area in the Donbas.

But the U.S. defense official said Ukraine has the advantage in the region since they have prepared a defense for years, including digging trenches, preparing anti-armor traps and ambush locations and more.

The U.S. and other countries have now provided close to 70,000 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine as well as 30,000 anti-aircraft missiles and 7,000 launchers to fire them, according to the defense official.

As for stopping the shipments of those weapons, the U.S. believes Russia will target the paths and roads in western Ukraine being used to ship Western military aid into Ukraine even though it has not done so yet. Still, it’s believed with the amount of weaponry being delivered to Ukrainian forces, it will be impossible to stop it all.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, environmental experts and activists are warning of a ripple effect of problems, including long-lasting damage to the war-ravaged country’s urban, agricultural and industrial areas.

Nearly two months into its invasion, Russia has begun its long-feared offensive in eastern Ukraine along the 300-mile front near Donbas, a region with a 200-year history of coal mining and heavy industry.

The past seven weeks have been mired by death, displacement and the demolition of a country’s landscape that will take years to repair, experts told ABC News. In addition to the direct impact on Ukrainians, consequences of the war will be felt socially, economically and environmentally.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises a host of unique and potentially profound environmental concerns for not only the people of Ukraine, but the wider region, including much of Europe,” Carroll Muffett, president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law, told ABC News. “Those human impacts of the war take on a lot of forms and a lot of dimensions, and many of them last long after long after the hostilities have ceased.”

While there were catastrophic environmental consequences during World War I and II, conflicts during recent history provide a more detailed blueprint for the sheer amount of greenhouse gases emitted during modern wars.

As a result of the global War on Terror that began in 2001, 1.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gases were released, the equivalent to the annual emissions of 257 million passenger cars — more than twice the current number of cars on the road in the U.S., according to a 2019 report released by Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs.

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and sulfur dioxide emitted from military vehicles, and other heavy machinery, heavy deforestation occurred in Afghanistan as a result of illegal logging, especially by warlords, which then destroyed wildlife habitat, according to the report.

“We now understand the environmental dimensions of war in ways that we didn’t decades ago,” Muffett said. “This is a particularly egregious situation, because the entire world is calling for Russia to end its its invasion right now.”

Once the conflict is over, the environment in Ukraine is going to be the local government’s “No. 1 priority,” Doug Weir, research and policy director of The Conflict and Environment Observatory, told ABC News.

These are the areas of most environmental concern, according to experts:

Industrial regions

Ukraine is a heavily industrialized country, especially in its eastern regions. It contains a large number of mines and refineries of chemical plants that produce substances such as ammonia and urea, Muffett said.

Assessing the damage from attacks on industrial sites and new nuclear facilities will be among the Ukrainian government’s priorities, Weir said.

In addition, there are “serious concerns” about the forced closure of several coal mines, which are now flooding with acid mine drainage without the proper methods to pump out the water, Weir said. Those toxins are then seeping into the groundwater aquifers

“We’ve already seen hints at how those could play out,” she said, adding that multiple refineries in Ukraine have already been hit. “One of the things that the lessons of the the invasion of Kuwait and the Iraq war is teach us is that strikes against facilities of these kinds pose profound risks for massive releases and really long-term damage.”

Agricultural fields

Researchers are estimating that millions of people could suffer from malnutrition in the years following the invasion as a result of lack of arable land.

Initial assessments show large swaths of agriculture areas affected by heavy shelling and unexploded ordinances, Weir said.

Olha Boiko, a Ukrainian climate activist and coordinator for the Climate Action Network for Eastern Europe and East Asia, said she and her fellow activists still in Ukraine are worried about the state of the agricultural fields and their suitability to grow wheat after the war, which is one of the country’s largest exports, she said.

Wildlife and natural ecosystems

The plethora of military vehicles trampling over the Ukrainian border are creating an unforgiving landscape, experts said.

In an effort to defend their country, Ukrainian military laid landmines over at least one beach near Odesa, according to the Conflict and Environment Observatory.

Boiko also alleged that Russian forces have blown up oil exporting equipment, polluted the Black Sea and filled fields with landmines, which were found as Russian forces retreated the regions surrounding Kyiv.

Fighting close to Kherson, near the southern coast of Ukraine, resulted in fires in the Black Sea Biosphere Reserve that were so large they were detectable from space and likely destroyed trees and unique habitats for birds, according to the observatory.

“There have been risks to wildlife and biodiversity we’ve seen that play out in Ukraine, with active battles in in insignificant wetlands,” Muffett said.

Urban areas

One of Russia’s military strategies has been to besieging cities by firing weapons indiscriminately into them, Weir said.

When Russian troops retreated the areas on the outskirts Kyiv after failing to take the capital, the devastation left in cities such as Bucha, Borodyanka and Irpin was immediately apparent.

Buildings were burned or completely destroyed. Burned-out cars littered the roadways. Entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble.

The rebuilding phase is going to be a “huge task,” Weir said.

“From an environmental point of view, there’s going to be a huge amount of work needed to properly assess these sites, locate potentially hazardous sites,” Weir said, adding that environmental remediation process for the potentially hazardous sites can be complex and expensive.

Nuclear facilities

Soon after the conflict began, Russian troops took hold of the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl power plant, raising concerns that an errant explosive could create another radioactive event at the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.

The destroyed reactor was sealed in 2019 under a $2 billion stadium-sized metal structure, but the other three untouched reactors remain fully exposed. Within them sits a pool of 5 million pounds of spent nuclear fuel, as well as dangerous isotopes, such as uranium and plutonium. If hit, the storage facility has the potential to cause an even larger disaster than in 1986 and could prompt widespread evacuations all over Europe, Muffett said.

“The conduct of active military operations in a country with four nuclear facilities and 15 active nuclear reactors poses extraordinary risks,” Muffett said, admonishing Russia for immediately targeting Chernobyl despite “no legitimate military objectives associated with that site.”

Russian troops have cut off power to Chernobyl in ways the site was not “sustained for,” and untrained Russian servicemen disturbed radioactive soil and raised dust as they moved through the area, Muffett said.

“We’ve seen missile strikes actually put a nuclear facility on fire,” she said. “And, in the immediate hours after the fire began, firefighters were unable to reach the blaze, because they were in a live fire situation. These are these are really extraordinary risks.”

The role Russian oil plays in the conflict

The conflict in Ukraine is the latest demonstration of the “deep linkages between fossil fuels and conflict,” Muffett said. Boiko, who left Kyiv on Feb. 24, said the connection that fossil fuels play in the current war are “obvious,” because Russia is using the funds from its oil industry to fund the conflict.

“We’ve seen Putin’s regime look to weaponize its own natural gas and oil resources as a way to intimidate countries in Europe and beyond from coming to Ukraine to aid,” Muffett said. “And so, this is a fossil fueled conflict in every conceivable way.”

The environmental activists who remain in Ukraine, those who aren’t helping with the immediate humanitarian relief, are bringing attention to the fact that the E.U. and U.S. have been “very dependent” on Russia’s fossil fuels for years, Boiko said.

While the U.S. has imposed sanctions on all Russian oil and other energy sources, the European Union’s embargo only extends to coal, and not to oil and gas. About 40% of the E.U.’s gas comes from Russia, according to the observatory.

“This is exactly the leverage that has been used by Russia that is pressuring, basically, other countries to not impose sanctions to not do anything about this war to not help Ukraine,” Boiko said.

But Boiko said the conflict and the aftermath could eventually lead to positive steps in the fight against climate change, because the sanctions imposed on Russia lead to less fossil fuel consumption. She said the phasing out of fossil fuels could happen more quickly, now that a major world player in oil exports has essentially been eliminated.

“The fact that this conflict is accelerating conversations within Europe about how they free themselves from reliance on fossil oil and fossil gas is also a big step forward,” Muffett said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces have since retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. The United States and many European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes after graphic images emerged of dead civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Latest headlines:
-Biden again blames COVID, Putin for rising prices hitting US consumers
-White House says new sanctions against Russia could be announced soon
-UN chief asks for cease-fire during Orthodox Easter holy week
-US officials see ‘limited’ activity from Russia as prelude to larger offensive operations
-Polish prime minister opens temporary housing community in Ukraine

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.

Apr 19, 6:54 pm
Biden administration plans to announce new military aid package for Ukraine: Sources

Capitol Hill sources and a Biden administration official confirmed to ABC News that the White House has briefed them on plans to announce another weapons delivery to Ukraine as soon as this week.

The aid could range in the hundreds of millions of dollars and be similar in size to the $800 million package President Joe Biden announced last week, sources familiar with the details said.

Details of the weapons package are still being discussed and could change, a source said.

When asked earlier Tuesday if he plans to send more artillery to Ukraine, Biden told reporters, “Yes.”

ABC News’ Mariam Khan and Katherine Faulders

Apr 19, 6:28 pm
Ukrainians have more planes flying than they did 2 weeks ago: Pentagon

Ukraine currently has more operable military planes currently than it did two weeks ago,
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday.

Ukraine has received additional aircraft, as well as parts to fix damaged planes, he told reporters during his latest briefing.

Kirby was reticent in providing any details on where the parts and planes came from but stressed that they did not come from the U.S.

“We certainly have helped with the trans-shipment of some additional spare parts that have helped with their aircraft needs, but we have not transported whole aircraft,” he said.

ABC News’ Luis Martinez

Apr 19, 6:15 pm
Zelenskyy addresses urgent need for military aid: ‘Every day matters’

In his latest national address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued to call on allies for military aid in the fight against Russia in eastern Ukraine, as the situation in Mariupol remains “severe.”

“If we had access to all the weapons we need, which our partners have and which are comparable to the weapons used by the Russian Federation, we would have already ended this war,” he said. “We would have already restored peace and liberated our territory from the occupiers. Because the superiority of the Ukrainian military in tactics and wisdom is quite obvious.”

Zelenskyy addressed Ukraine’s partners directly, saying that “every day matters.”

“Any delay in helping Ukraine gives the occupiers an opportunity to kill more Ukrainians,” he said.

Zelenskyy said Russian fire has “increased significantly” in the direction of Kharkiv and in the Donbas and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The situation in Mariupol in particular is “as severe as possible,” he said, while claiming that the Russian Army is blocking efforts to organize humanitarian corridors.

“The occupiers are trying to carry out deportation or even mobilization of the local residents who have fallen into their hands,” the president said. “The fate of at least tens of thousands of Mariupol residents who were previously relocated to Russian-controlled territory is unknown.”

ABC News’ Alexandra Faul

Apr 19, 5:00 pm
Biden again blames COVID, Putin for rising prices hitting US consumers

President Joe Biden, speaking at the New Hampshire Port Authority on Tuesday, sought to distance his administration from the rising prices and inflation U.S. consumers are facing — once again pointing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and Russian President Vladimir Putin as the main culprits.

“So, let’s be absolutely clear about why we have such high prices now, there are two reasons. First was COVID,” Biden said. “And the second big reason for the inflation is Vladimir Putin — not a joke. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has up driven gas and food prices all over the world.”

Biden said the major breadbaskets for wheat in the world are Ukraine and Russia with the United States and Canada right behind.

“What we saw in the most recent inflation data last month, about 70% of the increase in inflation was a consequence of Putin’s price hike because of the impact on gas and energy prices,” Biden said.

Biden said he is doing “everything” he can to lower prices and that savings are already starting to come through for consumers.

“I’m doing everything I can to bring down the price to address Putin’s price hike. That’s why I authorized the release of $1 million barrels per day for the next six months from our strategic petroleum reserve,” Biden said.

Biden said he is calling on Congress to pass his “human infrastructure” bill that has long stalled on Capitol Hill over policy disputes and the price tag.

ABC News’ Mariam Khan

 

 

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