Russian and Ukrainian officials tentatively agreed to create “humanitarian corridors” to evacuate citizens from combat zones, but they failed to reach any major cease-fire Thursday as Russia’s military pushed deeper into Ukraine, battling to control a key electricity-producing hub in the south and gaining ground toward severing the country’s access to the Black Sea.
President Biden announced that the U.S. was widening the number of Russian oligarchs to target for economic sanctions springing from the Kremlin’s decision to invade. He said he was working with European and other allies around the world to freeze the assets of a growing circle of wealthy Russian elites with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Putin ignored the development. He said in a short speech to the nation that the week-old invasion was proceeding “according to schedule,” despite signs that Moscow’s ground advance on Ukraine’s capital in the north has apparently stalled. A huge armored column was at a standstill outside Kyiv, and Ukrainian forces were putting up an unexpectedly tough fight against a larger and better-armed Russian army.
The Russians, however, have brought their superior firepower to bear in recent days and launched hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks on cities across Ukraine. Kyiv confirmed that the southern city of Kherson had fallen, making the Black Sea port of 280,000 people the first major city fully seized by Russian forces.
Russian troops also made significant ground gains along Ukraine’s southern coastline toward a goal of cutting Kyiv’s access to the Black and Azov seas. Such a development would deal a major blow to Ukraine’s economy and allow Russia to build a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014.
A senior U.S. defense official said on the condition of anonymity that the Crimea annexation gave Russia a logistical advantage with shorter supply lines that smoothed the Russian military’s offensive in that part of Ukraine.
SEE ALSO: Biden under fire over reported intelligence sharing with China ahead of Russian invasion
Heavy fighting also continued on the outskirts of another strategic port, Mariupol, on the Azov Sea, plunging it into darkness, knocking out most phone service and raising the prospect of food and water shortages.
Russia has fired more than 480 missiles, the senior U.S. defense official said. Ukrainian officials said their missile defense systems have parried numerous attacks, and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said explosions overnight in the capital were Russian missiles being shot down.
Kyiv has stared down the Russian aggression by calling on Ukrainians to rise up and wage a guerrilla war against the invaders.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his countrymen are not afraid of anything and will continue to resist the Russian invaders. “Russia wants to crush us, to erase us, but we are still standing,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in televised remarks. “We are resisting. The whole world is helping us.”
Still, the Ukrainian president said he wants peace and appealed to the world to pressure Moscow to engage in talks toward ending what now amounts to the biggest attack by one nation against another in Europe since World War II. “The world has to talk with Putin,” Mr. Zelenskyy said. “There are no other ways to stop this war.”
Small-scale protests simmered in Russian cities, and high-profile artists, scholars, athletes and chess players publicly condemned the war. Still, Mr. Putin insisted the week-old invasion was unfolding according to plan.
SEE ALSO: Fire out at key Ukrainian nuclear plant that’s been seized; no radiation released
“The special military operation is going strictly according to schedule,” Mr. Putin said at the start of a meeting in Moscow with his security council. The Russian president said “we are at war with neo-Nazis.” At the start of the invasion, he falsely claimed that one goal was the “de-nazification” of Ukraine’s leadership under Mr. Zelenskyy.
Western analysts have criticized Mr. Putin for promoting deliberate disinformation about Mr. Zelenskyy, who is Jewish.
Mr. Putin separately praised Russian forces and announced that the Kremlin would pay compensation to families of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. Russia reported Wednesday that 498 of its troops had been killed. Although the actual number is not clear, Ukrainian officials reported it as far higher.
U.N. officials said Thursday that the number of Ukrainians who had fled to Poland, Moldova and other neighboring countries topped 1 million, with more possibly on the way.
‘Nothing to reassure us’
Mr. Putin held a lengthy phone call Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron. Afterward, a Macron aide told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the French president heard “nothing that could reassure us” from Mr. Putin and that “the worst is still to come” in Ukraine.
Ukrainian and Russian delegations met for a tense second round of talks in neighboring Belarus. The two sides had little common ground going into the meeting. The Kremlin warned Ukraine that it must quickly accept the Kremlin’s demand for “demilitarization,” declare itself neutral and renounce any bid to join NATO.
Both delegations emerged saying they had agreed to establish tentative cease-fires in areas designated as “humanitarian corridors” inside Ukraine to evacuate civilians from combat zones. The apparent goal is to establish pathways for civilians to escape and facilitate the delivery of food and medicine to areas hit by the heaviest fighting.
Those in the embattled capital faced another grim day. In Kyiv, snow gave way to a cold, gray drizzle as long lines formed outside the few pharmacies and bakeries that remained open.
Russian forces battled for control of the southern city of Enerhodar, a crucial energy-producing hub on the Dnieper River that accounts for about one-quarter of Ukraine’s power generation. The mayor of Enerhodar, the site of the biggest nuclear plant in Europe, said Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city’s outskirts. Video showed flames and clouds of black smoke rising above the city of more than 50,000. People streamed away from the inferno past wrecked cars as sirens wailed.
Despite a profusion of evidence of civilian casualties and destruction of property by the Russian military, some of it documented by journalists and human rights groups, Mr. Putin decried an “anti-Russian disinformation campaign” and insisted that Moscow uses “only precision weapons to exclusively destroy military infrastructure.”
The U.S. and its allies have avoided a direct military confrontation with Russia. Instead, it has responded to the invasion by channeling more weaponry to Ukrainian forces while implementing a massive economic sanctions campaign against the Russian state and political elites who back the autocratic Putin government.
Targeting oligarchs
Mr. Biden announced that the U.S. had leveled a fresh slate of sanctions directly targeting Russian oligarchs with ties to Mr. Putin. Notable targets of the sanctions included Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, a wealthy Russian whose yacht was just seized by German authorities, and Dmitry Peskov, Mr. Putin’s high-profile spokesman at the Kremlin.
“We continue to impose very severe economic sanctions on Putin and all those folks around him,” Mr. Biden said at the start of a Cabinet meeting.
Administration officials said 19 Russian oligarchs and 47 of their family members will face visa restrictions from the State Department. A White House fact sheet said “the United States and governments all over the world will work to identify and freeze the assets Russian elites and their family members hold in our respective jurisdictions – their yachts, luxury apartments, money and other ill-gotten gains.”
“These individuals have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people, and some have elevated their family members into high-ranking positions. Others sit atop Russia’s largest companies and are responsible for providing the resources necessary to support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” the fact sheet said.
“We want [Mr. Putin] to feel the squeeze,” White House spokesman Jen Psaki told reporters. “We want the people around him to feel the squeeze. I don’t believe this is going to be the last set of oligarchs” to be sanctioned.
The U.S. and allies also issued sanctions on 26 Russia and Ukraine-based people who play central roles in spreading disinformation about the invasion.
“These entities have spread false narratives that advance Russian strategic objectives and falsely justify the Kremlin’s activities,” the White House fact sheet said.
Some Russian oligarchs have come out in opposition to the war, including billionaire tycoon Oleg Deripaska, who had been sanctioned by Western nations.
On Thursday, Mr. Deripaska said on the Telegram social media site, “Peace is very important! It is insane to prolong negotiations!” He warned that potential damage to Ukraine’s nuclear power facilities as a result of the combat could endanger lives not only in Ukraine but also Europe as a whole.
“Any incident involving those objects will be remembered by our successors in Russia, Ukraine and Europe for some 200 years to come,” Mr. Deripaska wrote, according to an account by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S. government-backed news outlet.
Mr. Deripaska is the latest in a number of Russian oligarchs, now targets of sanctions from the West, who are calling for an end to the invasion of Ukraine. Others on the list include billionaires Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven, Oleg Tinkov and Aleksei Mordashov, the outlet reported.
Mr. Zelenskyy appealed in a press conference for face-to-face talks with Mr. Putin. He joked that they should not be separated by a 30-foot table as other Western leaders have been on recent Kremlin visits. He excoriated NATO nations for refusing to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine to challenge Russian air superiority.
“If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes,” Mr. Zleneskyy said at one point.
• This article 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.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.