Violent explosions rocked Ukraine’s two largest cities Tuesday as Russia dramatically escalated its invasion in the face of hardening global resolve against the war and calls by the Biden administration for Moscow to be held accountable for the “crimes” its military forces are carrying out in the nearly week-old invasion of its neighbor.
The area around the television broadcasting tower dominating the Kyiv skyline burst into flames after Russia announced it would target transmission facilities used by Ukraine’s intelligence agency, while rockets pounded the central square in the city of Kharkiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the strikes as a campaign of terror that “nobody will forgive.”
Mr. Zelenskyy, whose office reported that the Kyiv missile salvo also hit near the site of the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial, called for a war crimes investigation into Russia’s conduct in the war.
The Ukrainian president spoke by phone for a half hour with President Biden.
Mr. Biden made resistance to the attack by the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin a leading theme of his State of the Union speech. He said the U.S. and NATO are determined to continue helping Kyiv, despite it not being an official member of the alliance.
In his phone call with Mr. Zelenskyy, Mr. Biden “underscored the United States’ sustained help for Ukraine, including ongoing deliveries of security assistance, economic support, and humanitarian aid,” according to the White House. Officials said the two leaders also discussed international efforts “to hold Russia accountable, including by imposing sanctions that are already having an impact.”
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Mr. Biden separately authorized the Department of Energy to release 30 million barrels from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a coordinated effort by more than 30 countries to mitigate supply shocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia appeared increasingly isolated throughout the day, beset by tough sanctions that have thrown its economy into turmoil and left Moscow practically friendless, apart from a few nations including Belarus and North Korea. Even Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was talking by phone with Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Kuleba to support diplomacy and a quick end to the fighting.
The U.N. General Assembly, after a two-day debate that Russia tried to stop, is set to vote Wednesday afternoon on a resolution demanding that Russia immediately stop using force against Ukraine and withdraw all military forces. The resolution also would condemn Moscow’s decision “to increase the readiness of its nuclear forces.”
Nearly 100 countries have signed on as co-sponsors for the measure.
International support for sanctions targeting Moscow was on dramatic display when more than 100 diplomats walked out of a prerecorded speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that was shown via teleconference to a United Nations human rights forum in Geneva.
Yevheniia Filipenko, Ukrainian ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council, led the revolt. She called it a “remarkable show of support for Ukrainians who are fighting for their independence.”
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The council is slated to hold a debate Thursday on a resolution to set up a formal investigation into suspected human rights violations by Russian forces.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the council that the Biden administration would support such an investigation. “We must take steps to hold the perpetrators accountable,” said Mr. Blinken, invoking the need to act out of respect for “every victim of those crimes.”
The world’s two most prominent international financial bodies condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and announced a multibillion-dollar emergency financing package for the beleaguered Ukrainian government. The heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund issued a joint statement Tuesday afternoon announcing the measures.
“We are deeply shocked and saddened by the devastating human and economic toll brought by the war in Ukraine,” World Bank President David Malpass and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in the statement. “People are being killed, injured and forced to flee, and massive damage is caused to the country’s physical infrastructure. We stand with the Ukrainian people through these horrifying developments,” they said.
Walking out
Members of the European Parliament offered a separate show of support for Ukraine after Mr. Zelenskyy made an emotional appeal for assistance, saying his country is suffering but would not buckle in the face of Russian bombardments.
The Ukrainian president said Russian forces had killed 16 children. He lamented that two cruise missiles had slammed into urban areas of Kharkiv, a large city near the Russian border that is home to many universities.
“This morning was a very tragic one for us,” Mr. Zelenskyy said of the strikes that rocked administrative buildings along central Kharkiv’s Freedom Square. “Can you imagine? Two missiles hit Freedom Square this morning. This is the price of freedom.”
“Nobody is going to break us,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in the remarks, which drew a standing ovation from European parliamentarians.
Countries in Europe have committed weapons to Ukraine and imposed punishing sanctions on Russia’s economy in an attempt to thwart Mr. Putin as his forces threaten the capital of Kyiv. U.S. military officials and private analysts say the early days of the invasion have not gone well for the Russian forces, with Ukrainians putting up fierce resistance and no major cities having fallen yet to Russian forces.
Russian forces showed no sign of backing off from their offensive, fueling fears of a renewed attack on populous cities as the Kremlin revises its tactics.
A 40-mile convoy of hundreds of Russian tanks and other vehicles advanced slowly on Kyiv in what the West feared was a bid by Mr. Putin to topple Mr. Zelenskyy’s government and install a Kremlin-friendly regime.
Russian forces pressed their assault on other towns and cities across the country, including the strategic ports of Odessa and Mariupol in the south. Military experts worry that Russia may be shifting tactics. Moscow’s strategy in Chechnya and Syria was to use artillery and air bombardments to pulverize cities and crush fighters’ resolve.
Without providing details, a Ukrainian military official said Belarusian troops joined the war in the Chernihiv region in the north. But just before that, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his country had no plans to join the fight, and U.S. officials said later that they had seen no evidence on the ground of Belarusian involvement in the fighting.
A five-hour round of talks Monday between Ukrainian and Russian officials on the Belarus border failed to make major progress, but the official news agency Tass, citing Russian government sources, reported that another round of direct talks is set for an undisclosed location Wednesday.
Counting the losses
Overall death tolls from the past week of violence were unclear Tuesday, but a senior Western intelligence official estimated that more than 5,000 Russian soldiers had been captured or killed.
The U.N. human rights office said it recorded 136 civilian deaths. The real toll is believed to be far higher.
Ukrainian authorities said five people were killed in the attack on the TV tower in Kyiv, which is a couple of miles from city’s center and a short walk from numerous apartment buildings. Officials said a TV control room and power substation were hit, and at least some Ukrainian channels briefly stopped broadcasting.
The British Defense Ministry said it had seen an increase in Russian air and artillery strikes on populated urban areas over the past two days. It also said three cities — Kharkiv, Kherson and Mariupol — were encircled by Russian forces.
In Kharkiv, with a population of about 1.5 million, at least six people were killed when the region’s Soviet-era administrative building on Freedom Square was hit with what was believed to be a missile.
The attack on Freedom Square — Ukraine’s largest plaza and the nucleus of public life in the city — was seen by many Ukrainians as brazen evidence that the Russian invasion wasn’t just about hitting military targets but also about targeting civilians to break the spirit of the Ukrainian defenders.
The bombardment blew out windows and walls of buildings that ring the massive square, piled high with debris and dust. Inside one building, chunks of plaster were scattered, and doors ripped from their hinges lay across hallways.
“People are under the ruins. We have pulled out bodies,” Yevhen Vasylenko, an emergency official, told The Associated Press.
More than a half-million people have fled the country for Poland, Slovakia and other neighboring countries, and countless others have taken shelter underground. Bomb damage to water pipes and other basic services have left hundreds of thousands of families without drinking water, U.N. humanitarian coordinator Martin Griffiths said.
“It is a nightmare, and it seizes you from the inside very strongly. This cannot be explained with words,” said Kharkiv resident Ekaterina Babenko, taking shelter in a basement with neighbors for a fifth straight day. “We have small children, elderly people, and frankly speaking it is very frightening.”
Speculation has continued to swirl, meanwhile, over the prospect of a widening conflict that could draw NATO forces into a direct clash with Russia, particularly since Mr. Putin’s order over the weekend placing Russian nuclear forces on a higher level of alert.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the Western military alliance for now sees no need to change its nuclear weapons alert level in response to Mr. Putin’s posturing, but some Russian officials appeared eager to stoke fears of a widening conflict.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a longtime political ally of Mr. Putin, warned that tough U.S. and European sanctions on Moscow could spark a full-scale war.
Mr. Medvedev, currently deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, responded on Twitter to comments from French officials who said their country had essentially declared economic war on Russia.
“Today, some French minister has said that they declared an economic war on Russia,” Mr. Medvedev wrote. “Watch your tongue, gentlemen! And don’t forget that in human history, economic wars quite often turned into real ones.”
• Ben Wolfgang and David R. Sands contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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