Violent gun and artillery battles raged anew across several parts of Ukraine on Monday as Russian and Ukrainian delegations prepared to meet in Turkey for their first attempt at cease-fire talks in more than two weeks and the Biden administration announced yet another boost in military support for Kyiv and NATO nations on the front lines of the clash with the Kremlin.
The Pentagon announced the deployment of six Navy Growler aircraft that specialize in communications jamming operations to bolster NATO’s eastern flank. The White House called for $1.6 billion to support Ukraine and assist other countries facing insecurity across Europe and Central Asia because of the war.
The U.S. is sending more robust U.S. aid as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds through its fifth horrific week
Ukrainian forces said they had retaken a key Kyiv suburb while Russia continued to pound the southern port city of Mariupol with ongoing resistance from fighters there.
The situation in several cities could best be described as a volatile back-and-forth stalemate. Negotiators are heading guardedly into talks Tuesday in Istanbul in an effort to reach a cease-fire or a wider agreement to halt the fighting entirely.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the weekend signaled that his government is prepared to discuss several sensitive concessions, including a declaration of neutrality that Moscow has demanded and a readiness to compromise on the fate of the Donbas — the sharply contested region in Ukraine’s east — if Russia withdraws its military from Ukraine.
SEE ALSO: Ukraine intel chief: Putin seeks ‘Korean scenario’ to divide neighbor permanently
Talks by video and in person have failed to make progress on ending the war, which has killed thousands and driven more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes. Officials at the United Nations said nearly 4 million Ukrainians have fled the country, mainly to neighboring nations such as Poland and Romania.
President Biden, meanwhile, was engaged in further cleanup duty after his weekend remarks on a trip to Poland, where he said Russian President Vladimir Putin must step down as a consequence of invading Ukraine. Allied leaders and private analysts said Mr. Biden’s words personalizing the struggle were likely to make a diplomatic deal more difficult and provide fodder for Russian propaganda that Washington is seeking a “regime change” in the Kremlin.
“I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man,” Mr. Biden told reporters at a White House budget event. “I wasn’t articulating a policy change.”
“Nobody believes … I was talking about taking down Putin,” Mr. Biden said, and “the last thing I want to do is engage in a land war or a nuclear war with Russia.”
Oil and rubles
The prospect of widening regional instability hung in the backdrop as the U.S. and the other Group of Seven leading industrial nations rejected a Kremlin demand that some countries pay in rubles for Russia’s natural gas.
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Mr. Putin announced last week that Russia would require “unfriendly” countries to pay in Russian currency. The ruble has come under searing pressure as a result of Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in retaliation for the Ukraine invasion launched on Feb. 24.
Mr. Putin instructed the Russian central bank to work out a procedure for buyers to acquire rubles. The move sent elevated regional fuel prices even higher amid fears of a prelude to a natural gas shutoff.
Mr. Zelenskyy’s comments Sunday coincided with a sobering statement from the Ukrainian military’s top intelligence official, who said Russia is shifting tactics away from a wholesale takeover of its smaller neighbor toward trying to split Ukraine the same way North and South Korea were divided when the Korean War was frozen by an armistice nearly 70 years ago.
With Russia’s military failing to capture Kyiv or other major cities, Mr. Putin is recalibrating his focus, said Ukrainian Gen. Kyrylo Budanov. He was among the first to publicly predict Russia’s invasion plan months before it began.
“There are reasons to believe that he may try to impose a separation line between the occupied and unoccupied regions of our country,” Gen. Budanov said Sunday, according to a translation by the U.S. government-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
“It will be an attempt to set up South and North Koreas in Ukraine,” Gen. Budanov said.
Late last week, with its forces bogged down in parts of the country, Mr. Putin’s government said its main goal was gaining control of the Donbas. Although that suggested a possible face-saving exit strategy for the Russian president, it also raised fears that the Kremlin will try to force Ukraine to cede some of its territory.
Mr. Budanov predicted that Moscow will try to consolidate its gains in eastern Ukraine — a largely Russian-speaking area with stronger economic and cultural ties to Russia — and cordon off the region with a demilitarized zone because Mr. Putin “is definitely not able to swallow the entire country.”
Russian ground forces have become bogged down because of stronger-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, combined with what Western officials say are tactical missteps, poor morale, shortages of food, fuel and cold weather gear, and other problems. Moscow has resorted to pummeling Ukrainian cities with artillery and airstrikes.
U.S. officials say Russian forces have largely remained in defensive positions near Kyiv and are making little forward progress elsewhere in Ukraine. Mr. Zelenskyy’s government said the outnumbered Ukrainian defenders were starting to reclaim territory that the Russians seized in the early days of the fighting.
The mayor of Irpin, a northwestern Kyiv suburb that has been the site of some of the heaviest fighting near the capital, said the city had been “liberated” from Russian troops. Irpin gained wide attention after photos circulated of a mother and her two children who were killed by shelling as they tried to flee, their bodies lying on the pavement with luggage and a pet carrier nearby.
Ukrainian troops have reportedly also pushed Russia back in other sectors, including in the southern city of Kherson. The Putin government denied losing control of Kherson, the first major city to fall to Russian forces.
The Biden administration’s just-unveiled fiscal year 2023 budget reflects how the Russia-Ukraine war has upended the U.S. strategic horizon. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the budget aims to “support Ukraine against Russia’s premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified invasion and assist other countries across Europe and Central Asia threatened by regional insecurity.”
It also aims to provide “significant assistance to our allies and partners while building their capacity to counter actions from malign actors,” he said in a statement after the Pentagon announced the deployment of special aircraft to the region.
Officials said the six Navy Growler aircraft will be stationed in Germany and are not intended for use in Ukraine. Some 240 U.S. troops will be deployed with the aircraft.
Resisting requests
The United States and NATO continue to resist Ukraine’s request that the West provide Kyiv with fighter jets to battle Russian forces. Concerns remain high in Washington that the delivery of such weaponry could trigger a dramatic escalation and direct NATO combat with Russia.
Mr. Zelenskyy, who pleaded with NATO to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, appeared to be softening his rhetorical posture.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine drop any hope of joining NATO, which Moscow sees as a threat. Mr. Zelenskyy signaled over the weekend that he is ready to discuss a declaration of neutrality to satisfy the Kremlin’s concerns.
Still, the Ukrainian president said his country’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt” and suggested that compromise might be possible over “the complex issue of Donbas.”
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Zelenskyy’s comments will trigger momentum for the talks opening Tuesday.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is pushing for a humanitarian cease-fire to allow aid to be brought into besieged areas of Ukraine and for people to move safely around the country.
In a separate development Monday, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed Russia’s invasion has most Americans at least somewhat worried that the U.S. will be drawn directly into the conflict and could be targeted with nuclear weapons.
With results reflecting a level of anxiety that has echoes of the Cold War era, close to half of Americans surveyed said they were very concerned that Russia would directly target the U.S. with nuclear weapons, and 3 in 10 were somewhat concerned about that prospect.
Mr. Putin placed his country’s nuclear forces on a vague higher alert status shortly after the Feb. 24 invasion. Roughly 9 in 10 Americans are at least somewhat concerned that the Russian president might use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine, including about 6 in 10 who are very concerned.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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